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distance to go for an answer to his wisdom. But I have since seen it written, or heard it said, that it is a disputed point, which of the above-mentioned men, and most certainly distinguished characters, have contributed most to the benefit of society.

Candidly speaking, I do not know how it came to be a controverted point. They seem not to have any thing congenial or analogous between them. No coincidence of thought, action, or manners is visible in their deeds or writings. They appear separate in every thing. But I allow, without exhibiting any signs of ill-will or contradictions, and I will suppose this to proceed from the equal forbearance and prudence of both; although I am authorized to think, if not to say, otherwise, and I could add, that the Doctor was a Citizen of America when Paine came there as a stranger,'

The transactions, life, history, writings, and their consequence, are in part before the public. Those great men are no more. They have left their character in deeds and writings as a valuable legacy to posterity. And that mankind may reap a profitable harvest from the example of their worth and industry is my wish. But as 1, among the rest of mankind, have something to say of both, I hope to find a place for my remarks and observations in the pages of "The Republican." According to my information and understanding, I shall draw a parallel or comparison, after the manner of Plutarch; origin purposely omitted.

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Was bold, open, and candid, and wrote for the benefit of mankind. Labouring for the benefit of the poor and needy; he was hated by the rich and powerful, who sought to destroy him, sought neither wealth nor

power.

Was reasonable, affable, free, easy, and familiar; studied mankind; considered their wants; explained liberty; shewed what it was, and where it was wanting; displayed freedom on the clearest and most comprehen

FRANKLIN

Was cautious, close, and rather mysterious; and wrote for the amusement of a few. Colleaguing with men of wealth, power, and abstruse learning; submissively endeavouring to gain fame, riches, and influence; sanctioned by the great whom he courted, and regardless of the poor, to whom he thought proper to communicate great saving knowledge.

Was dogmatic and seemingly morose and distant. Studied art and trifles. Self was always preassainant. His undertakings andhedertions were impelled by sordid motives. He displayed neither boldness nor sagacity,

To which may be added, that the Doctor sent Paine there.-R. C.

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sive scale; detected abuses in Church and State; conceived their defeat; pointed to the means of their extirpation, and laid the foundation of human happiness.

His writings abound with genuine wit, novelty, sense, penetration, and judgment. Clear and perspicuous, they display a thorough knowledge of the subject-matter in question, are always strong and decisive, and rise into wisdom. Was the friend of truth, the advocate of freedom, and champion and "Holy Apostle of liberty." He was wise for the benefit of others. In Franklin's school, he was far below mediocrity. We do not find one sage advice or hacknied maxim (to my recollection) in all his various writings on laws, morals, men, and manners. To obtain for mankind freedom and general happiness,his aim and unceasing labour.

His private character seems to partake of the nature of Sadoc and Zeno, or of that of Epictetus; or to speak plainer, with respect to personals, rather stoical, though not of the surly school of Diogenes.

He was an original author. His works were his own. His thoughts always original, new, and interesting, and always just. His language clear, often nervous. No old sayings: but noble observations, plain, ob vious, and satisfactory, though simple, strong, forcible, and de

FRANKLIN.

in detecting falsehoods. His shield was prudence. To preserve himself, his first and last duty.

His writings are dull and dry. No spark of genius appears.

He flounders at vain endeavours to be witty; aims often at humour without success; deals more in theory than practical knowledge; pretending to wisdom, he sinks into puerility and vulgar buffoonery.

His truth was confined to a narrow circle; his notions of liberty were situated between patriarchal despotism and aristocratical pride. If avarice constitutes wisdom, and thirst of gain makes a wise man, he was a sage. His works contain nothing new. Old methods newly revived of making and saving money. He lived as if he had come into the world for no other purpose than to accumulate wealth, and to instruct others to do so.

His private character seems to be between the latitude of the Epicurean and Puritan. How to live cheap and well, may be learned from his works, first obtaining the means,

He was a barefaced plagiarist; witness his celebrated epitaph. His volume of old sayings is Sancho Panza's proverbs without one new article in the lot to evince thought or to display observation. The whole drivelling collection requiring nothing more than the

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cisive; requiring genius, judgment, penetration, and depth of thinking to produce them.

His was writing for the benefit of posterity, labouring without thanks for the present and future welfare of man, exposing fraud; decrying injustice; combating oppression, and offering his life on the altar of freedom; investigating the nature of truth; the cause of human misery, and divulging to the thoughtless world the iniquities of Church and State government, for the emancipation of the human race and the direct benefit of the poor and oppressed. He was a man of undoubted veracity,the declared enemy of superstition. His belief in the being of a deity, seems real, and his sentiments on that incomprehensible subject are the most noble, pure, and just that were ever delivered on that head. A multiplicity of far more serious and interesting matter prevented him from investigating the imposing doctrine of deism with his usual judgment and critical acumen.

If we cast our eye back to 1790-1-2, or 3, we shall find that he did much more than could be expected, and it required no common degree of resolution, courage, and intrepid devotedness, to produce that ablest, best of criticisms, the Age of Reason, which will be held in higher estimation as

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miserable labour of compiling and tacking them together, and this too done in such a weak, slovenly manner, as to deprive them of weight or interest.

Was, with a boyish curiosity, playing at flying paper kites in a thunder storm, for the great edification and amusement of the virtuosi, and the vanity of writing useless and unprofitable. papers for the Philosophical Transactions, for the benefit of nobody, impelled by the miserable and vain propensity of being deemed a philosopher and adding to the worthless lumber of the Royal Society.

His character is here very doubtful. He was no enemy to superstition; and if a friend to truth, certainly a very weak one. At best, he was but a sceptic, and whether from mental or personal cowardice, he abstained from religious controversy. It appears that he laboured under a supernatural horror of offending the church spiritual Idols, and the natural one of losing his credit with the public and the old women of the Royal Society; and whatever else he had, he had not fortitude to oppose the wide fraud of established falsehood. Selfishness and fear are every where visible in his life, conduct, and writings; yet the man was worldlybwise and worshipped Plutus and the Great God of man,' prudence. I must observe, that the books of the sage Franklin are rather on the decline. Few

I pity the spite that could pen such a perversion of utility.-R. C.

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it and the world grows older, being a complete antidote for the pernicious poison of the holy scriptures.

His philosophy was truly rational, consisted of the elements of the first class of useful sciences, and was every moment ready for practice and the advantage of the public, exhibited directly for the benefit of the poor man and the country, for the support of freedom, the extension of liberty; in aid of the forlorn and the distressed; proudly used in direct opposition and open defiance of powerful tyranny, insatiable oppressors, long established injustice, and hereditary arrogance and slavery.

Was dreadless of undeserved calumny; carelesss of offending where to offend was a virtue, and fearless to declare open opposition and express indignation, although doing so might lead to ruin and death. Nor was this the case in one solitary instance; but the repeated lesson and practice of his life.

With unostentatious virtue, he persevered in dignified retirement to promote human happiness, while vile, lying scandal vilified him, atrocious infamy sought his life, and evil report and vile reproach were his wages and reward. He nor courted nor coveted the fame which has pursued his worth. His whole long life was a continued series of public good, good surrounded with danger. Adorned and supported with truth and integrity,he persevered in right to the last moment of

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buy them; in a word, his doctrines tend to narrow the mind, and the human mind will not be confined.

His philosophy was trivial, vain, and metaphysical, fit for nothing but to speak about, useless to man; unserviceable to society; incapable of practice, and fit only to amuse the drones of uncommunicable learning. The only thing he inculcated was the way to wealth, the science of individual gain, and the virtues of avarice. Whatever he studied, vanity, self, and money, were the motives; these were the base and apex of all his labours.

Was cautious and sly; his wisdom was only cunning, with an ostentatious regard for independence, and a secret thirst for celebrity and place. He was careful careful not to 'expose himself to danger, calumny, reproach, or censure, from bigotry, grandeur, wealth, titles, or power. He paid the same kind of adulation, or rather adoration, to wealth, which Dr. Johnson did to an Archbishop. He coveted and courted with unceasing solicitude the vapoury fame of unmeaning epithets and bandied praise of literary fops. He sought by chicane to gain the honours of sagacious wisdom and wished to be called a sage, and to be enrolled in the inane list of virtuosi. He affected to despise what he inwardly dreaded, and to shun danger; only acted openly when covered with a diplomatic shield, sanc

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his existence. Were we endued with the common cant, hypocrisy and superstition of the day, we should, at least, insinuate the hand of a guardian. providence, protecting and miraculously preserving his valuable life from the snares of his enemies, to exalt its own glory. A Plutarch alone could do justice to the 'solid virtues and universal benevolence of this great, firm, unassuming good man, and cosmopolite.

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tioned by courts, which insured him impunity.

A Churchill alone could blazon his pomposity, exhibit to the life his true character, and give it to the world in striking and durable colouring.

What I have here written is without any dread of censure or hope of reward; perhaps it deserves neither. Let those who chuse to censure Paine do so, I find, fault where there is much to approve. Let those who please write the thunder Doctor's eulogy. It never offends me to hear a man praised. But let those who do either, examine the life and writings of these two celebrated men. They must then be compelled by truth and experience to give an unqualified preference to Paine, and leave Franklin as he stands; at least, a dubious character. I must beg leave to revert, though not by way of answer, nor wishing, nor expecting any reply from Mr. R. T. C, E. S., to his insulting letter to 66 Shebago" and his friends. The gentleman spoke to me with the hauteur and air of a French aristocratical emigrant of the old school, silencing a poor miserable sansculotte in the streets-" Don't be in a passion, Shebago."-No, pride and arrogance only raise my contempt; injury and injustice only can move me to anger or resentment; and I hope Mr. R. T. C. E. S. is incapable of either of these, even if provoked.

My sentiments of the two men, I have here compared, it is impossible for time or argument to alter. I have long thought as I have here written. People may differ from me in opinion, whom I esteem and would be sorry to offend: but I must observe, that it was in America, in the State of Massachusetts, that I was first taught these sentiments and learned to estimate the worth of these two extraordinary men. More than two-thirds of that province entertain the opinions which I have here freely given. Among those indepeudent republicans, Washington was not quite deified, Franklin was understood to be more of a Jew than a philosopher; and would you believe it? Thomas Paine was considered and acknowledged as the first agent and instrument of American freedom and independence:

They tritely observe, that Franklin was a plodder, Washington at the commencement of the war was a poor soldier, and the richest man in America at the peace; John Hancock, the richest when the war began, the poorest when it was over. And of Thomas Paine, to whom they owe their freedom, he raised their drooping spirits by the matchless power of his pen; extracted from the earth the means of their defence; saw their freedom established, and experienced their ingratitude.

SHEBAGO.

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