Referring to this intellectual combat William Cobbett, one of England's most distinguished political writers, writing more than a quarter of a century after Paine's reply to Burke, says: "As my Lord Grenville introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord, to introduce that of a man who put this Burke to shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in the pension list, and who is now named fifty million times where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once." Lord John Morley: "Thomas Paine replied to them [Burke's 'Reflections'] with an energy, courage and eloquence worthy of his cause in the 'Rights of Man.'" "In brilliant rhetoric Burke argued its [Natural Rights] dangerous and baseless nature.. Paine in his even more brilliant 'Rights of Man,' answered Burke."--_Encyclopedia of Social Reform._ Thomas Campbell: "He strongly answered at the bar of public opinion all the arguments of Burke. I do not deny that fact; and I should be sorry if I could be blind, even with tears in my eyes for Mackintosh, to the services that have been rendered to the cause of truth by the shrewdness and courage of Thomas Paine." (Great events inspire great works. Three of the masterpieces of literature were inspired by the French Revolution, Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution" condemning it, and Sir James Mackintosh's "Vindiciæ Gallicæ" and Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" defending it.) Dictionary of National Biography (England): "Paine is the only English writer who exposes with uncompromising sharpness the abstract doctrines of political rights held by the French Revolutionists." Charles James Fox: "It ['Rights of Man'] seems as clear and as simple as the first rules of arithmetic." Manchester Constitutional Society (March 13, 1792): "A work of the highest importance to every nation under heaven, but particularly to this, as containing excellent and practical plans for an immediate and considerable reduction of the public expenditure; for the prevention of wars; for the extension of our manufactures and commerce; for the education of the young; for the comfortable support of the aged; for the better maintenance of the poor." Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information (March 14, 1792): "We have derived more true knowledge from the two works of Thomas Paine, entitled 'Rights of Man,' Parts First and Second, than from any other author. The practice as well as the principle of government is laid down in those works in a manner so clear and irresistibly convincing." James Anthony Froude: "Copies of Paine's 'Rights of Man' were sown broadcast [in Ireland]." "Protestant Belfast had declared itself a disciple of Paine." "The Irish patriots were red republicans... anxious to establish in Ireland the principles of Paine." "Paine," says his biographer, Dr. Conway, "held a supremacy in the constitutional clubs of England and Ireland equal to that of Robespierre over the Jacobins of Paris."