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speaking; and therefore, instead of expressing the origi nal in its proper purity, he defaces and robs it of its ornaments." Father Simon, nevertheless, allows the great abilities and learning of Pagninus; and all the later commentators and translators of the Scriptures have agreed in giving him his just commendation. Huetius, though he seems to think father Simon's criticism of him well grounded, yet makes no scruple to propose his manner as a model for all translators of the sacred books: "Scripturæ interpretandæ rationibus utile nobis exemplar propo❤ suit Sanctus Pagninus."

He afterwards translated the "New Testament" from the Greek, and dedicated it to pope Clement VII. It was printed with the former at Lyons in 1528. He was also the author of an "Hebrew Lexicon and an Hebrew Grammar; which Buxtorf, who calls him "Vir linguarum Orientalium peritissimus," made great use of in compiling his. He died in 1536, aged seventy. Saxius places his birth in 1471, and his death in 1541. Though he appears to have lived and died a bigoted Catholic, Luther spoke of him, and his translations, in terms of the highest applause.

PAJON (CLAUDE), a French Protestant divine, was born in 1626, and studied, with great success and approbation, at Saumur; after which he became minister of a place. called Marchenoir in the province of Dunois. He was an able advocate against the popish party, as appears by his best work, against father Nicole, entitled "Examen du Livre qui porte pour titre, Prejugez legitimes contre les Calvinistes," 2 vols. 1673, 12mo. Mosheim therefore very improperly places him in the class of those who explained the doctrines of Christianity in such a manner as to diminish the difference between the doctrines of the reformed and papal churches; since this work shews that few men wrote at that time with more learning, zeal, and judgment against popery. Pajon, however, created some disturbance in the church, and became very unpopular, by explaining certain doctrines, concerning the influence of the Holy Spirit, in the Arminian way, and had a controversy with Jurieu on this subject. The consequence was, that Pajon, who had been elected professor of divinity at Saumur, found it necessary to resign that office; after which he

? Moreri in Sanctes.-Le Long Bibl. Sacra.

resided at Orleans, as pastor, and died there Sept. 27, 1685, in the sixtieth year of his age. He left a great many works in manuscript; none of which have been printed, owing partly to his unpopularity, but, perhaps, principally to his two sons becoming Roman Catholics. A full account of his opinions may be seen in Mosheim, or in the first of our authorities.

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PAJOT (LEWIS-LEO), Count d'Ansembray, a French nobleman, was born at Paris in 1678. During his education he discovered an inclination for mathematical pursuits, and was instructed in the philosophy of Des Cartes. After this he increased his knowledge by an acquaintance with Huygens, Ruysh, Boerhaave, and other eminent men of the time. On his return from his travels he was appointed director-general of the posts in France; but, coming into possession of a country-seat at Bercy, by the death of his father, he collected a museum there furnished with philosophical and mechanical instruments, and machines of every description, which attracted the attention of the learned, and was visited by Peter the Great, the emperor of Germany, and other princes. In the Transactions of the Academy of Sciences, of which he was a member, there are several of his papers; among which is a description of an "Instrument for the Measurement of Liquids ;"-of" An Areometer, or Wind Gage ;" and of a "Machine for beating regular Time in Music." He died in 1753, bequeathing his valuable museum to the academy."

PAINE (THOMAS), a political and infidel writer of great notoriety, was born in 1737, at Thetford, in Norfolk. His father was a staymaker, a business which he himself carried on during his early years at London, Dover, and Sandwich. He afterwards became an exciseman and grocer, at Lewes in Sussex; and, upon the occasion of an election at Shoreham, in 1771, is said to have written an election song. In the following year he wrote a pamphlet, recommending an application to parliament for the increase of the salaries of excisemen; but, for some misdemeanours, was himself dismissed from his office in 1774. In the mean time, the ability displayed in his pamphlet attracted the notice of one of the commissioners of excise,

'Chaufepie.-Moreri.-Blount's Censura.-Saxii Onomast.

2 Dict. Hist.

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who sent him to America, with a strong recommendation to Dr. Franklin, as a person who could be serviceable at that time in America. What services were expected from him, we know not, but he arrived at a time when the Americans were prepared for the revolution which followed, and which he is supposed to bave promoted, by scattering among the discontented his memorable pamphlet, entitled "Common Sense."

His first engagement in Philadelphia was with a bookseller, who employed him as editor of the Philadelphia Magazine, for which he had an annual salary of fifty pounds currency. When Dr. Rush of that city suggested to Paine the propriety of preparing the Americans for a separation from Great Britain, he seized with avidity the idea, and immediately began the above mentioned pamphlet, which, when finished, was shewn in manuscript to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Samuel Adams, and entitled, after some discussion, "Common Sense," at the suggestion of Dr. Rush. For this he received from the legislature of Pennsylvania, the sum of 500l.; and soon after this, although devoid of every thing that could be called literature, he was honoured. with a degree of M. A. from the university of Pennsylvas nia, and was chosen a member of the American Philosophical Society. In the title-page of his "Rights of Man," he styled himself "Secretary for foreign affairs to the Congress of the United States, in the late war." To this title, however, he had no pretensions, and so thorough a republican ought at least to have avoided assuming what he condemned so vehemently in others. He was merely a clerk, at a very low salary, to a committee of the congress; and his business was to copy papers, and number and file them. From this office, however, insignificant as it was, he was dismissed for a scandalous breach of trust, and then hired himself as a clerk to Mr. Owen Biddle of Philadel phia; and early in 1780, the assembly of Pennsylvania chose him as clerk. In 1782 he printed at Philadelphia, a letter to the abbé Raynal on the affairs of North Amer ca, in which he undertook to clear up the mistakes in Raynal's account of the revolution; and in the same year he also printed a letter to the earl of Shelburne, on his speech in parliament, July 10, 1782, in which that nobleman had prophesied that," When Great Britain shall acknowledge American independence, the sun of Britain's glory is set for ever." It could not be difficult to answer

such a prediction as this, which affords indeed a humiliating instance of want of political foresight. Great Britain did acknowledge American independence, and what is Great Britain now? In 1785, as a compensation for his revolutionary writings, congress granted him three thousand dollars, after having rejected with great indignation a motion for appointing him historiographer to the United States, with a salary. Two only of the states noticed by gratuities his revolutionary writings. Pennsylvania gave him, as we have mentioned, 500l. currency; and NewYork gave him an estate of more than three hundred acres, in high cultivation, which was perhaps the more agreeable to him, as it was the confiscated property of a royalist. In 1787 he came to London, and before the end of that year published a pamphlet on the recent transactions between Great Britain and Holland, entitled "Prospects on the Rubicon." In this, as may be expected, he censured the measures of the English administration.

He had long cherished in his mind a most cordial hatred against his native country, and was now prepared in some measure for that systematic attack on her happiness which he carried on, at intervals, during the remainder of his life. Being released, in November 1789, from a sponging-house where he was confined for debt, he beheld with delight the proceedings of the French, and hastened to that country, but made no long stay at this time; and finding, on his return to London in 1790, Mr. Burke's celebrated work on the French revolution, he produced, within a few months, the first part of his "Rights of Man," and in 1792, the second part. Had these been left to the natural demand of the public, it is probable they might have passed unnoticed by government, but the industry with which they were circulated by the democratic societies of that period, among the lower classes of society, betrayed intentions which it would have been criminal to overlook; and prosecutions were accordingly instituted against the author and publishers. The author made his escape to France, and never returned to this country more. His inveteracy against her establishments, however, continued unabated, and perhaps was aggravated by the verdict which expelled him from the only nation where he wished to propagate his disorganizing doctrines, and where he had at that time many abettors. When the proceedings of the latter had roused the loyal part of the nation to address the

throne in behalf of our constitution, Paine published “ A Letter to the Addressers," the object of which was to procure a national convention in contempt of the parliament. This likewise was circulated by his partizans with no small industry. In the mean time, although ignorant of the French language, he was chosen a member of the French convention, and in consistency with his avowed malignity, gave his vote for a declaration of war against Great Britain. His adopted country, however, was not very grateful for his services, for when Robespierre gained the ascendancy, he sent Paine, with that mad enthusiast Anacharsis Cloots, to prison at the Luxemburgh, and Paine narrowly escaped being guillotined, amidst the hundreds who then underwent that fate, or were murdered in other ways.

During his confinement, which lasted eleven months, he certainly merited the praise of his friends, for his calm unconcern, and his philosophy; and they no doubt would rejoice to hear that he passed those hours of danger in "defying the armies of the living God," by his blasphemous composition called "The Age of Reason," the first part of which was published at London in 1794, and the second the year following. If any thing can exceed the mischievous intention of this attack on revealed religion, and which certainly produced very alarming effects on the minds of many of the lower classes, among whom it was liberally circulated, it was the ignorance of which his answerers have convicted him in every species of knowledge necessary for a discussion of the kind *.

His subsequent publications were "The Decline and Fall of the English system of Finance;" a most impudent letter to general Washington, whom he had the ingratitude

*Should our language in speaking of Paine's ignorance and arrogance appear too harsh, the reader who is of that opinion, may exchange it for what Mr. Gilbert Wakefield has said of the second part of his "Age of Reason:" "Every man who feels himself solicitous for the dignity of human nature, who glories in the prerogative of rationality, or is charmed by the loveliness of virtue, will observe, with humiliating sympathy, a debasement of his species, in the most astonishing, unprincipled, and unparalleled arrogance, to the last, of such a contemptuous, self-opinionated, ill-informed

writer. His excess of folly will be la-
mented by all his friends, not estrang-
ed, like himself, from shame and mo-
desty; and his enemies will read his
outrageous vaunts, united to such an
excess of ignorance and stupor, with
that pleasure, which results from a just
expression of mingled abhorrence, de-
rision, and contempt. For my part,
his unprecedented infatuation almost
strikes me dumb with amazement.
am not acquainted with such a com-
pound of vanity and ignorance as
Thomas Paine, in the records of lite
rary history."

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