Contrasted opinions of Paine's pamphlet
by Frederick George Byron
1791
Yale University Library 791.05.26.01++
The figures depicted reading Thomas Paine's pamphlet The Rights of Man are Edmund Burke, Charles Fox, George III, and Charles Jenkinson in the top row, and Queen Charlotte, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, William Pitt, and Richard Sheridan on the second.
Wollstonecraft (mis-identified in the handwritten annotation as Hannah More) exclaims, "These are something like true touches of genius!" and quotes from Paine's critique of Burke:
Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating reflection has Mr. Burke bestowed on those who lingered out the most wretched of lives, a life without hope, in the most miserable of prisons. He is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird. His hero or his heroine must be a tragedy-victim expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of misery, sliding into death in the silence of a dungeon.
This image is provided courtesy of the Yale University Library. Created in the 18th century, the copyright term for the image is expired and it is in the public domain.