"
The radicals thought otherwise. They drank Mr. Burke's health with
"thanks to him for the discussion he had provoked." And the student of
history, who may read Paine's opening sketch of the French Revolution,
written to refute Burke's narrative of the same events, will not deny
Paine's complete success. He will even meet with sentences that Burke
might have composed. For instance: Paine ridicules, as Quixotic, the
fine passage in the "Reflections on the Decay of Chivalry"; and adds,
"Mr. Burke's mind is above the homely sorrows of the vulgar. He can
only feel for a king or for a queen. The countless victims of tyranny
have no place in his sympathies. He is not affected by the reality of
distress touching upon his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it.
He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird."
The French constitution,--"a fabric of government which time could not
destroy and the latest posterity would admire." This was the boast of
the National Assembly, echoed by the English clubs. Even Mr. Fox, as
late as April, 1791, misled by his own magniloquence, spoke of it as
"the most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty which had been
erected on the foundation of human integrity in any time or country.
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