The commonly received opinion, and most likely the correct one, with regard to Paine is this which we excerpt from _Appleton's Cyclopædia of Biography_:
"His attacks upon religion had exceedingly narrowed his circle of acquaintance; and his habitual intemperance tended to the injury of his health and the ultimate production of a complication of disorders, to which he fell a victim in 1809. The Quakers refused to admit his remains among their dead, and he was buried on his own farm. Cobbett boasted of having disinterred him in 1817, and of having brought his body to England; many, however, assert that Cobbett did not take that trouble, but brought over from America the remains of a criminal who had been executed."[39]
[39] The effects of Mr. Cobbett were sold by auction, in 1836; and the bones brought forward to be offered for competition. The auctioneer, however, refused to put them up; and they were withdrawn, and remained in the possession of the receiver. This gentleman, desiring to be relieved, awaited the orders of the Lord Chancellor; but the latter, upon the matter being mentioned to him in court, refused to recognize them as part of the estate, or make any order respecting them. The receiver thus continued to hold them; but finding that none of the creditors would relieve him of them, or, indeed, make inquiry about them, he transferred them, in 1844, to a Mr. Tilley, who retained them in his possession until a public funeral could be arranged. I have never heard that this has been done, and know nothing more of these _Thomæ venerabilis ossa_.--_William Bates: "The Maclise Portrait Gallery."_
_Ode to the Bones of the Im-mortal Thomas Paine, newly transported from America to England, by the no less Im-mortal William Cobbett, Esq._, by Thomas Rodd, Senr., the Bookseller (London, 1819, 4to). _A Brief History of the Remains of the late Thomas Paine, from the time of their disinterment, in 1819, by the late William Cobbett, M.P., down to the year 1846_ (London, Watson, 1847); and _Notes and Queries_, Fourth Series.
"How Tom gets a living now ... I know not, nor does it much signify. He has done all the mischief he can in the world; and whether his carcase is at last to be suffered to rot on the earth, or to be dried in the air, is of very little consequence. Whenever or wherever he breathes his last, he will excite neither sorrow nor compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes, not a groan will be uttered, not a tear will be shed. Like _Judas_, he will be remembered by posterity; _men will learn to express all that is base, malignant, treacherous, unnatural, and blasphemous, by the single monosyllable_--PAINE!"--_Life of Thomas Paine_, by William Cobbett.
