u/DeepStateFuneral1789

Here’s a fascinating little piece of Paine history.

In 1798, the Irish revolutionary Arthur O’Connor was arrested by the British while attempting to reach France and was later imprisoned at Fort George in Scotland. He distributed these verses on his way to confinement.

One stanza invokes both Rights of Man and Common Sense before calling Paine:

“That foe to Princes, Thomas Paine!”

It’s a striking example of how far Paine’s reputation had traveled by the late 1790s. He wasn’t simply remembered as an American revolutionary writer—his name had become part of a much wider radical and anti-monarchical political culture. Paine had been directly involved in planning the Irish Revolution of 1798 , knew many of the main revolutionaries, and attempted to organize French support.

What do you make of the reference to Paine here?

On the Universe, XLIII. And Heracleitus rebukes the poet who says, “would that strife might perish from among gods and men.” For there could be (he said) no attunement without the opposites high and low, and no animals without the opposites male and female.

XLIV. War is the father of all and the king of all; some he has marked out to be gods and some to be men, some he has made slaves and some free.

XLV. They understand not how that which is at variance with itself agrees with itself. There is attunement of opposite tensions, like that of the bow and of the harp.

(Attunement: παλίντροπος, “a harmony from opposite shapes.”)