The embattled meteors scale the arch,
And toss their lurid banners wide;
Heaven reels with their tempestuous march,
And quivers in the flashing tide.
Against the everlasting stars,
Against the old empyreal Right,
They vainly wage their anarch wars,
In vain they urge their fatuous light.
The skies may flash and meteors glare,
And Hell invade the spheral school;
But Law and Love are sovereign there,
And Sirius and Orion rule.
The stars are watching at their posts,
Again the Silences prevail;
The meteor crew, like guilty ghosts,
Have slunk to the infernal jail.
The truths of God forever shine,
Though Error glare and Falsehood rage;
The cause of Order is divine,
And Wisdom rules from age to age.
Faith, Hope, and Love, your time abide!
Let Hades marshal all his hosts,
The heavenly forces with you side,
The stars are watching at their posts.
THOMAS PAINE IN ENGLAND AND IN FRANCE.
Paine landed at Havre in May, A.D. 1787, aet. suae 50, with many titles to social success. He brought with him a literary fame which ranks higher in France than elsewhere; and his works were in the fashionable line of the day. He had been an energetic actor in the American Revolution,—a subject of unbounded enthusiasm with Frenchmen, who look upon it, to this day, as an achievement of their own. And he could boast of a scientific spécialité, without which no intelligent gentleman was complete in the last third of the eighteenth century. Philosopher, American, republican, friend of humanity, savant,—he could show every claim to notice. Besides all this, and better than all, he brought letters from Franklin, the charming old man, whose fondness for "that dear nation" which he could not leave without regret was returned a thousand fold by its admiring affection. De Rayneval did not exaggerate when he wrote to him,—"You will carry with you the affection of all France"; and De Chastellux told the simple truth in the graceful compliment he sent to the old sage after his return home,—"When you were here, we had no need to praise the Americans; we had only to say, 'Look! here is their representative.'" Let us devoutly pray that our ambassadors may not be made use of for the same purpose now!
For these reasons, Paine's reception in Paris was cordial; visits and invitations poured in upon him; he dined with Malesherbes; M. Le Roy took him to Buffon's, where he saw some interesting experiments on inflammable air; the Abbé Morellet exerted himself to get the model of his bridge, which had been stopped at the custom-house, safely to Paris. Through their influence it was submitted to a committee of the Académie des Sciences; their report was, in substance, that the iron bridge of M. Paine was ingénieusement imaginé,—that it merited an attempt to execute it, and furnished a new example of the application of a metal which had not yet been sufficiently used on a large scale.
Two other gentlemen from America, who were interested in science and in mechanics, were in Paris at that time. Rumsey was there with his model of a steamboat; and Thomas Jefferson, whose curiosity extended to all things visible or audible, was busily collecting ground-plans and elevations, and preparing to add at least two ugly buildings to a State "over which," as he himself wrote, "the Genius of Architecture had showered his malediction."