lodged for five months, deny the stories of excessive drinking altogether; and Rickman, who was with him, says that he had given up drinking and objected to laying in spirits for his last voyage. The probability is that the stories, which in any case refer only to the last part of his career, were greatly exaggerated. Various stories circulated to show that Paine repented of his opinions on his deathbed were obviously pious fictions meant to ‘serve the cause of religion.’
Paine was buried at New Rochelle on 10 June 1809. His bones were dishumed by Cobbett in 1819, and taken to Liverpool. They were left there till after Cobbett's death, and were seized in 1836 as part of the property of his son, who became bankrupt in 1836. They were last heard of in possession of a Mr. Tilly in 1844. A monument was erected at New Rochelle in 1839.
Paine was about five feet nine inches in height, with a lofty forehead and prominent nose, and a ruddy complexion, clean shaven till late in life, well made and active, a good rider, walker, and skater. Mr. Conway states that there are eleven original portraits. The best known is that by Romney (1792), engraved by W. Sharp in 1793 and 1794. Another, considered by Mr. Conway as the best likeness, was painted by John Wesley Jarvis in 1803, and now belongs to Mr. J. H. Johnston of New York. A bust by Clark Mills, in the National Museum at Washington, was taken from this picture. Jarvis made a cast of Paine's face after death. A bust, founded upon his, is in the rooms of the New York Historical Society.
Paine is the only English writer who expresses with uncompromising sharpness the abstract doctrine of political rights held by the French revolutionists. His relation to the American struggle, and afterwards to the revolution of 1789, gave him a unique position, and his writings became the sacred books of the extreme radical party in England. Attempts to suppress them only raised their influence, and the writings of the first quarter of the century are full of proofs of the importance attached to them by friends and foes. Paine deserves whatever credit is due to absolute devotion to a creed believed by himself to be demonstrably true and beneficial. He showed undeniable courage, and is free from any suspicion of mercenary motives. He attached an excessive importance to his own work, and was ready to accept the commonplace that his pen had been as efficient as Washington's sword. He attributed to the power of his reasoning all that may more fitly be ascribed to the singular fitness of his formulæ to express the political passions of the time. Though unable to see that his opponents could be anything but fools and knaves, he has the merit of sincerely wishing that the triumph should be won by reason without violence. With a little more ‘human nature,’ he would have shrunk from insulting Washington or encouraging a Napoleonic invasion of his native country. But Paine's bigotry was of the logical kind which can see only one side of a question, and imagines that all political and religious questions are as simple as the first propositions of Euclid. This singular power of clear, vigorous exposition made him unequalled as a pamphleteer in revolutionary times, when compromise was an absurdity. He also showed great shrewdness and independence of thought in his criticisms of the Bible. He said, indeed, little that had not been anticipated by the English deists and their French disciples; but he writes freshly and independently, if sometimes coarsely. Mr. Conway lays much stress upon his theism; and in the preface to the ‘Age of Reason’ (pt. ii.) he claims to be warring against the excesses of the revolutionary spirit in religious as well as political matters. The critical remarks, however, are more effective than a deism which is neither original nor resting upon any distinct philosophical ground. His substantial merits will be differently judged according to his readers' estimate of the value of the doctrines of abstract rights and a priori deism with which he sympathised. There can be only one opinion as to his power of expressing his doctrines in a form suitable ‘for the use of the poor.’
Paine's works are: 1. ‘Case of Officers of Excise’ (printed 1772, published in 1793). 2. ‘Common Sense,’ 10 Jan. 1776. 3. ‘Epistle to the People called Quakers,’ 1776. 4. ‘Dialogue between General Montgomery and an American Delegate,’ 1776. 5. ‘The Crises’ (16, including ‘supernumerary’ numbers from 19 Dec. 1776 to 29 April 1783). 6. ‘Public Good,’ 1780. 7. ‘Letter to the Abbé Raynal,’ 1782 (also in French). 8. ‘Thoughts on the Peace,’ &c., 1783. 9. ‘Dissertations on Government, the Affairs of the Bank and Paper Money,’ 1786. 10. ‘Prospects on the Rubicon,’ 1787 (reprinted in 1793 as ‘Prospects on the War and the Paper Currency’). 11. ‘Letter to Sir G. Stanton’ (on iron bridges), 1788. 12. ‘Address and Declaration of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty,’ 20 Aug. 1791. 13. ‘The Rights of Man; being an Answer to Mr. Burke's attack on the French Revolution,’ 1791 (The second part, ‘combining principles and practice,’ appeared in
