Mr. Burke the next year writes his " Reflections "
on the French Eevolution, and Mr. Paine returns in
November, 1790, to answer the publication. In
March, the first part of " The Rights of Man " ap-
peared for this purpose. It was dedicated to Washing-
ton. In another year the second part appeared,
dedicated to Lafayette. A hundred thousand copies
of this work went into the hands of the people. It
was translated into all the European languages, and
was read by the poor and the rich, the high and the
low ; it became the companion alike of the vassal and
his lord. In this he says: "The peer is exalted into
the man. Titles are but nicknames, and every nick-
name is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in
itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the
human character which degrades it. It talks about
its fine ribbon like a girl, and shows its garter like a
cliild. A certain writer of antiquity says, 'When I



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TirOMAS MAINE'S LIFE. 309

was ,a child I thought as a cliild, but when I hecanie
a mail I put away childish things.'. The insig-
nificaace of a senseless word like duke, count, or earl,
has ceased to please, and as they outgrew the rickets,
have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man,
thirsting for its native home society, contemns the gew-
gaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles
drawn by the magician's wand to contract the sphere
of man's felicity. He lives immured within the bastile
of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied life of
man." Aristocracy "is a law against every law of
nature, and nature herself calls for its destruction-
Establish family justice and aristocracy falls. By the
aristocrat! cai law of primogenitureship, in a family
of six children five are exposed. Aristocracy has
never but one child. The rest are begotten to be de-
voured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey,
and the natural parent prepares the unnatural repast.". " By nature they are children, and by mar-
riage they are heirs, bnt by aristocracy they are bas-
tards and orphans."

"In taking up this subject," he says, "I seek no
recompense; I fear no consequences. 