THOMAS, a notorious political and deistical writer, was the son of a Quaker, and was born at Thetford in Norfolk in 1737. The early part of his career was marked by a restless love of visissitude. A scanty education had scarcely been received, and his father's trade of staymaking had scarcely been learned, when he went out into the world to seek his fortune. He shifted ceaselessly from town to town; divorced one wife after burying another; and plied, according as necessity compelled him, the various vocations of staymaker, sailor, exciseman, schoolmaster, grocer, and tobacconist. In 1774 he was a garret writer in London; and in the following year he arrived in Philadelphia, a literary adventurer, with a letter of introduction from Dr Franklin. Paine now began a new era of his life by appearing upon the field of political controversy as a defender of the rights of the American colonies. For engaging in such a contest with spirit and success he was well qualified both by disposition and training. His weapons were a rough, ready, and vigorous intellect; a coarse and merciless wit; a stock of impudence with which he could out-brave all the claims of propriety; and a supply of venomous ill-humour into which he could dip all the darts of his satire. He begun the attack in January 1775 by publishing Common Sense, a pamphlet which boldly sounded the note of rebellion, and summoned the colonies to prepare Palington for separating themselves from the mother country. The stirring effect which this work produced, and the unprecedented popularity which it acquired, fairly involved the author in the contest. As the great struggle for independence proceeded, he found himself called upon, in a series of papers called The Crisis, to console the Americans for any check they might have encountered, and to ridicule the British for any deed they might have done. All these services were rewarded during the continuation of the war by the office of clerk to the Committee for Foreign Affairs, and at the conclusion of hostilities by a donation of 3000 dollars and an estate near New Rochelle. The peace which followed between America and Great Britain was not the proper element for a spirit that revelled in revolution and misrule; and accordingly, in no long time, Paine had begun to look towards a new sphere of action. Repairing to Europe in 1787 with the professed purpose of exhibiting a model of an iron bridge, he commenced to incite and inflame the insurrectionary feeling that was secretly growing in England, and openly venting itself in France. For some time he continued to pass between the two countries like a firebrand, carrying the flame of rebellion from the one to the other. At length, in 1792, his arraignment by the British government on account of his seditious publication The Rights of Man, forced him to flee to France, and to play an active part in the bloody and indiscriminating revolution which was raging there. Barely escaping the guillotine on one occasion, and suffering imprisonment on another, he was for several years a member of the French National Convention. He brought his destructive labours to a climax in 1794-5 by attempting, in his celebrated book The Age of Reason, to overthrow Christianity, and introduce into religion the anarchy and disorder of his political creed. From this time the influence and happiness of Paine began simultaneously to decline. During the remainder of his stay in France he was fast falling into disrepute, and yet he was afraid to set sail for the United States lest he should be seized by British cruisers. On his return to America in 1802, the decay of his fortunes became still more apparent. His profane attacks upon religion had alienated many of his political friends; his growing worthlessness cooled the attachment of the few that were left; and his insolent resistance of all interference, repelled those strangers who would willingly have done him service. The wretched old man was thus driven to throw off all regard for his fellow-men, and consequently all respect for himself. Thenceforth he lived alone in lodgings, abandoning himself to sordid sloth, and deadening the pangs of his awakening conscience, and the uneasiness of his diseased body, with the stupor of intoxication. His miserable condition was terminated only by his death in June 1809. (Cheetham's Life of Paine.)

PAINTON, a town of England, county of Devon, at the head of Torbay, 6 miles N.N.E. of Dartmouth. The parish church is an old building, containing a curious stone pulpit. There are several other places of worship, schools, and a reading-room. Large quantities of cider are made in the vicinity. Pop. of parish, 2746.