This rough energy added to his popularity with the
middle and the lower classes, and made him doubly distasteful to his
opponents. Paine, who thought all revolutions alike, and all good,
could not understand why Burke, who had upheld the Americans, should
exert his whole strength against the French, unless he were "a traitor
to human nature." Burke did Paine equal injustice. He thought him
unworthy of any refutation but the pillory. In public, he never
mentioned his name. But his opinion, and, perhaps, a little soreness of
feeling, may be seen in this extract from a letter to Sir William
Smith:--
"He [Paine] is utterly incapable of comprehending his subject. He has
not even a moderate portion of learning of any kind. He has learned the
instrumental part of literature, without having ever made a previous
preparation of study for the use of it. Paine has nothing more than
what a man, whose audacity makes him careless of logical consequences
and his total want of honor makes indifferent to political
consequences, can very easily write.
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