Page:Modern Literature Volume 3 (1804).djvu/179

 vanity, pride, love of idleness, and luxury, and the hope of plunder, concurred with the active and incessant endeavours of democratic underlings, in rendering so extravagant, impudent, absurd, and mischievous, a publication palatable among numbers of the lower ranks. Discontent, malignant hatred of a government in which they themselves were not promoted according to their fancied merits, made others encourage the writings and principles of Paine, however much they might have despised his illiterature and sophistry. But not the ignorant only, writers of respectable talents and erudition declared the ravings and vagaries of Paine to be the invincible energy of truth and sense, to combine history and philosophy. Such especially was the opinion of the Analytical reviewers, who had great influence among numerous classes of British subjects; and the fol