needle has lost its polarity; or rather France may be likened to the seaman, in the Arabian Tale, who sailed so near the Pole, that all the nails were attracted out of the ship, which tumbled to pieces, and the crew was lost. This Indian allegory, and the Grecian story of Icarus with his wings, have much the appearance of alluding to the adventures and the tale of some bold men of antiquity who quitted the coast-who despising the lights of experience brought on themselves destruction.

Mr. Mackintosh wrote with the genius and enthusiasm of a young mind in a good cause; he was misinformed and must therefore draw wrong conclusions. The attractions of his style, and the felicity of his reasoning powers, were subjects of general admiration when his work made its appearance; and although subsequent events produced an extraordinary change of public opinion, yet an increase of years served as an increase of fame to a writer whose first efforts excited the highest expectations. It is no small praise that Mr. Burke himself became his warmest panegyrist, generously acknowledging that Mr. Mackintosh was not only the most eloquent, but the most liberal and most ingenious of his opponents, never forgetting the characteristics of a scholar and a gentleman.

MR. PAINE.

Or this gentleman so much is known and so much has been said, that a bare analysis of him. self and of his work will be sufficient; for of him. self we must speak as he was from the beginning, an adventurer in the Revolution, who became the English Agent of the Jacobin Club of Paris.

With respect to the historical part of the Work, Paine seems to be better informed than most of the others, and certainly he does not see the leaders of the Revolution quite so favourably as Mr. Mackintosh. Paine had a scheme for erecting an Iron Bridge, and was trying to get the French Government to support his plan, when the Revolution broke out. La Fayette, the patron of the people from America in France received him at his table, and, when the Propagand was established, the republican principles of Paine, his necessities, his speaking English, but, above all, the reputation he had fairly obtained for his publication of Common Sense, during the Revolution in America, made him be chosen as a fit agent. Paine was taciturn and plausible, and at that time his conduct tolerably correct. He wrote his Rights of Man as an Explanatory Commentary on the motion made by La Fayette, to whom it was dedicated, His abuse of General Washington af

terwards

terwards, when matters went worse in France, evince that he never was moderate or even candid; but he was subtle, and took advantage very naturally of Mr. Burke, where he laid himself open; his great forte lay, not in supporting new establishments with ability, but in a coarse, popular sort of ridicule, with which he attacked those that already existed.

Any man who was made Agent in Chief for disseminating Jacobin principles at that time must have made a noise in the world, and must have had friends and enemies, though his friends are all wise enough to conceal that his principles were not new, but that Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, and other democratic heroes, had proclaimed the same principles long before, though not under such propitious circumstances, or with such support.

The opinions of Paine being, as it were,. embodied with the democratic principles of the first leaders of the French Revolution, and haying made many proselytes, it is important to state as a positive fact, that Paine did not owe his reputation to the merit of his Work, but to the circumstance of that Work being a sort of Manifesto of the French Nation at the moment when the lustre of the philanthropic plans was not tarnished by the experience of their imprac ticability. It was resolved in Paris to send over Paine to England, to publish his Book, first on good paper, and then on inferior, and sell the

copies as cheap as possible. This was the very plan by which the philosophers had for many years been undermining the Christian religion by the distribution of sceptical books amongst the lower orders, and therefore, when converts were wanted in England, the same method was adopted, and Paine was chosen on account of his reputation for the publication of Common Sense, his connection with La Fayette, and his known hatred to monarchy. This plan was publicly mentioned in Paris before it was executed, and therefore the noise made by the Work, and the propagation of the opinions, are not to be attributed to their wisdom or solidity, but to the uncommon and powerful means employed to disseminate them.

Mr. Paine's work is too well known to require extracts. As to a review, Mr. Burke and Mr. Arthur Young have done much towards that, but time and experience have done still moreThey have proved that Mr. Paine was nothing more than a political charlatan, selling his Orvietan to every passenger at the best price that he could obtain.

MR. CHRISTIE,

MR. CHRISTIE.

THIS Gentleman in historical matters seems to be intitled to as little credit as it is possible to give to any writer. "To sum it up," he asks, "When did mankind gain so much at so small a price?" It would indeed be difficulty to answer this question; but it ought to be asked, How any man in his senses conceived at that time either that the thing was got or the price paid?

Mr. Christie was one of the enthusiasts of his day, who mistook figures in the clouds for solid substances; and he would not have been named, had it not been that even he had his admirers, to shew that nothing was too mad or extravagant at one period.

ANONYMOUS.