reach of their
emulation. And should such characters be those of men who champion
unpopular causes, there is no lie too black for belief concerning them,
no accusation of secret theft or hateful meanness or loathsome lust,
that will not readily gain credence. Mr. Tennyson speaks of--

That fierce light which beats upon a throne,
And blackens every blot

but what is that to the far fiercer and keener light which beats upon
the lives of the great heroes of progress? With all due deference to
the Poet Laureate, we conceive that kings and their kind have usually
extended to them a charity which covers a multitude of their sins. The
late king of Italy, for instance, was said to have had "the language of
a guardroom, the manners of a trooper, and the morals of a he-goat," yet
at his death how tenderly his faults were dealt with by the loyal press,
and how strongly were all his merits brought into relief. Our own royal
Sardanapalus, George the Fourth, although Leigh Hunt had the courage
to describe him aright and went to the gaol for so doing, was styled by
Society "the first gentleman in Europe." Yet Mazzini, Vittor Emmanuel's
great contemporary, whose aims were high and noble as his life was pure,
got little else than abuse from this same loyal press; and the Society
which adored George the Fourth charged Shelley himself with unspeakable
vices equalled only by the native turpitude of his soul.

Perhaps no man has suffered more from calumny than Thomas Paine. During
his lifetime, indeed, his traducers scarcely ever dared to vent their
malice in public, doubtless through fear of receiving a castigation
from his vigorous and trenchant pen. But after his death they rioted
in safety, and gave free play to the ingenuity of their malevolence.
Gradually their libels became current; thousands of people who knew
almost nothing of his life and less of his writings were persuaded that
Thomas Paine, "the Infidel," was a monster of iniquity, in comparison
with whom Judas appeared a saint, and the Devil himself nearly white;
and this estimate finally became a tradition, which the editors of
illustrated religious papers and the writers of fraudulent "Death-Bed
Scenes" did their best to perpetuate. In such hands the labor of
posthumous vilification might have remained without greatly troubling
those who feel an interest in Thomas Paine's honor through gratitude
for his work. The lowest scavengers of literature, who purvey reli