posed to congress a great remuneration of them, had not Mr. Paine positively objected to it, as a bad precedent, and an improper mode.

In August 1782, he published his spirited letter to the Abbé Raynal; of this letter a very sensible writer observes, "that it dis

plays an accuracy of judgment and strength "of penetration that would do honour to the

most enlightened philosopher. philosopher. It exhibits

proofs of knowledge so comprehensive, and "discrimination so acute, as must in the "opinion of the best judges place the author "in the highest ranks of literature."

We shall here make a few extracts from this work, which will fully refute the malignant insinuations of his enemies, who represent him as totally destitute of the benefits resulting from a liberal education. The impartial reader need only attend to the ensuing extracts, which will abundantly convince him of the futility of such assertions, and prove our author's judgment as a critic, and his acquaintance with polite learning.

In the introduction to this letter are the following expressions: "There are few men "in any country who can at once, and without "the aid of reflection and revisal, combine "warm passions with a cool temper, and the "full expansion of imagination with the na"tural and necessary gravity of judgment, so

as to be rightly balanced within themselves, "and to make a reader feel, fancy, and under"stand justly at the same time. To call these

powers of the mind into action at once, in a

manner that neither shall interrupt, and that "each shall aid and invigorate the other, is a talent very rarely possessed."

"It often happens that the weight of an argument is lost by the wit of setting it off,

or the judgment disordered by an intem"perate irritation of the passions; yet a certain

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degree of animation must be felt by the writer, and raised in the reader, in order to interest the attention, and a sufficient

scope given to the imagination to enable "it to create in the mind a sight of the per

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sons, characters, and circumstances of the

subject; for without these, the judgment

"will feel little or no excitement to office, "and its determination will be cold, sluggish, " and imperfect. But if either or both of the "two former are raised too high, or heated "too much, the judgment will be jostled from "its seat, and the whole matter, however

perfect in itself, will diminish into a pan"tomime of the mind, in which we create images that promote no other purpose than 66 amusement."

"The abbé's writings bear evident marks "of that extension and rapidity of thinking, " and quickness of sensation, which above all "others require revisal."

In the course of the letter we find the following admirable remarks on the Abbé Raynal's writings:

"In this paragraph the conception is lofty "and the expressions elegant; but the colouring is too high for the original, and the "likeness fails through an excess of graces.

"To fit the powers of thinking and -the

"turn of language to the subject, so as to

bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the

point in question and nothing else, is the true "criterion of writing. But the greater part of "the abbe's writings, if he will pardon me the "remark, appear to me uncentral, and burthened "with variety. They represent a beautiful wil"derness without paths, in which the eye is "diverted by every thing, without being par"ticularly directed to any thing, in which it is "agreeable to be lost and difficult to find the way out."

The following luminous passage on prejudice, and the comparison drawn to illustrate it, exhibit at once the eloquence of the orator and the judgment of the philosopher.

"There is something exceedingly curious in "the constitution and operation of prejudice: "it has the singular ability of accommodating "itself to all the possible varieties of the human "mind. Some passions and vices are but thinly "scattered among mankind, and find only here "and there a fitness of reception. But prejudice, "like the spider, makes every where its home.

"It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all "that it requires is room. There is scarcely a "situation except fire and water, in which a

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spider will not live; so let the mind be as "naked as the walls of an empty and forsaken tenement, gloomy as a dungeon, or ornamented "with the richest abilities of thinking, let it be "hot, cold, dark, or light, lonely or inhabited, "still prejudice, if undisturbed, will fill it "with cobwebs, and live like the spider "where there seems nothing to live on. If "the one prepares her poisoning to her palate, and her use, the other does the same, " and as several of our passions are strongly "characterized by the animal world, prejudice

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On the 29th of October he brought out his excellent letter to the Earl of Shelburne on his speech in the House of Lords, July the 10th, 1782.

To get an idea of the speech of this earl, it may not be necessary to quote more than the following sentence. "When Great