While others were calling Carlile ‘Atheist and Infidel,’ Place was calling him ‘the most, obstinately superstitious fellow alive;’ but always paid him the compliment of admitting that he was worth the trouble, and that if he could be set right he would keep right.(1) When Carlile’s days of thinking began, he began with himself. He knew himself well, and this was the source of his strength. Like Cobbett he could write always well of himself. His first study was to form a mind of his own on the basis of the best known principles.(2) Carlile began to write a man. Nature made him for an agitator. He had an iron will and limitless self-reliance. I have been told by one who advised him frequently, that no man could control him. His first papers in the _Republican_, are thoughtful, manly, self-possessed, nervous, and resolute. Sherwin preceded Carlile in the publication of a work, called the _Republican_, but, after the fourth number, it was changed into ‘_Sherwin’s Weekly Political Register_,’ on the ground that people were afraid of its name. But Carlile resumed its title, and selected those articles only which had the real names and addresses of the author appended. He called upon the friends of his opinions to avow themselves, and declared himself ambitious of incurring martyrdom, if martyrdom was necessary to the cause of liberty.(3) Carlile’s political and religious prototype was Paine. Carlile always wrote with manifest purpose, and seems to have emulated the plain vigour of Cobbett and the invective of Junius. Carlile’s habits were marked by great abstemiousnesss. Seldom taking animal food,(4) he refused wine(5) when offered a dozen at Dorchester Gaol, preferring good milk. He was morally as well as physically particular. In the rules of the Deistical Society, he provided that only persons of good character should be eligible.(6) ‘It is important to you, Republicans,’ wrote he, from Dorchester Gaol, ‘that however humble the advocates of your principles may be, they should exhibit a clear moral character to the world.’(7) He never sold a copy of any work which he would hesitate to read to his children.(8) He expressed a hope, when fairs were popular, that fairs would be put down all over the country. He was one of the first thus to oppose what the pious then approved. 1. Christian Warrior, p. 26. 2. Gauntlet, No. 8, p. 113. 3. Repub. No. 1, vol. i. 4. Repub. vol. ii. p. 148. 5. Repub. vol. ii. p. 234. 6. Repub. vol. v. ft. 31. 7. Repub. vol. vi. p. 3. 8. Repub. vol. vii. p. 36.