Would prove his own subversive power.
First Paine his Rights of Man display’d,
But could no more—for falsely cross’d
Ev’n by the friends himself had made,
Enraged he fled to Gallia’s coast.
Next Priestley tried, to whom ’twas given
Mankind’s free-agency to tell;
Ordain’d to point the road to heaven,
In pure free will he points—to hell!
With meagre visage Thelwall came,