gious
offal to the dregs of orthodoxy, were better employed thus than in a
reverse way, since their praise is so very much more dishonorable and
appalling than their blame. But when other literary workmen of loftier
repute descend to the level of these, and help them in their villainous
task, it becomes advisable that some one who honors the memory of the
man thus aspersed should interpose, and attempt that vindication which
he can no longer make for himself.

In reviewing Mr. Edward Smith's "Life of Cobbett," our principal
literary paper, the Athenaeum, in its number for January 11th, went out
of its way to defame Paine's character. This is what it said:--

"A more despicable man than Tom Paine cannot easily be found among the
ready writers of the eighteenth century. He sold himself to the highest
bidder, and he could be bought at a very low price. He wrote well;
sometimes he wrote as pointedly as Junius or Cobbett. Neither excelled
him in coining telling and mischievous phrases; neither surpassed him in
popularity-hunting. He had the art, which was almost equal to genius, of
giving happy titles to his productions. When he denounced the British
Government in the name of 'Common Sense' he found willing readers in the
rebellious American colonists, and a rich reward from their grateful
representatives. When he wrote on behalf of the 'Rights of Man,' and in
furtherance of the 'Age of Reason,' he convinced thousands by his
title-pages who were incapable of perceiving the inconclusiveness of his
arguments. His speculations have long since gone the way of all shams;
and his charlatanism as a writer was not redeemed by his character as a
man. Nothing could be worse than his private life; he was addicted to
the most degrading of vices. He was no hypocrite, however, and he cannot
be charged with showing that regard for appearances which constitutes
the homage paid by vice to virtue. Such a man was well qualified for
earning notoriety by insulting Washington. Only a thorough-paced rascal
could have had the assurance to charge Washington with being
unprincipled and unpatriotic. Certainly Mr. Smith has either much to
learn, or else he has forgotten much, otherwise he could not venture to
suggest the erection of a monument 'recording the wisdom and political
virtues of Thomas Paine.'"

Now we have in this tirade all the old charges, with a new one which
the critic has either furnished himself or derived from an obscure
source--n