PATEESON
PAYNE
the Church, but the influence of Ruskin
turned him to art. The Hegelian philo
sophy next captivated him, and he had for
a time an idea of studying for the
Unitarian ministry. He became a tutor at
Oxford in 1862, and in 1864 he was elected
a Fellow of Brasenose. From philosophy
he turned again to art and letters, and
with the accession of humanistic ideas
he gradually lost all belief in the Christian
religion " (Edward Gosse in the Diet. Nat.
Biog.). His articles began to make a
reputation for him, and his masterly study
of refined Paganism and aesthetic humanism,
Marius the Epicurean (2 vols., 1885), com
pleted his position. Imaginary Portraits
(1887) sustained his high standard.
Benson diplomatically says that " his
intellectual subtlety prevents his aiming at
any very precise definition of his creed."
There was very little need to define the
thoroughly Pagan creed of life embodied in
Marius. D. July 30, 1894.
PATERSON, Thomas, Owenite lecturer. Paterson was born about the beginning of the last century, somewhere near Owen s mills at New Lanark, and was early attracted to Owenism. He seems in youth to have served in the army. He belonged to the aggressively Rationalist and plain- spoken group, and he edited the Oracle of Reason when Holyoake was sent to prison. He then opened a shop in London, and was prosecuted for exhibiting profane placards (1843) and sent to prison for three months. He next went to Edinburgh, where a courageous struggle for the right of free speech was proceeding, and he was sentenced to fifteen months in prison for selling " blasphemous " books. Some years later he emigrated to America, and his further fortunes cannot be traced.
PATERSON, William Romaine, M.A.,
novelist (" Benjamin Swift ") B. July 29, 1871. Ed. Lausanne, and Glasgow Uni versity. He graduated with first-class Philosophical Honours, and after leaving the university he travelled extensively over
589
Europe in order to acquire modei n
languages. His first novel, Nancy Noon,
appeared in 1896, and few years have since
elapsed without a story from his prolific pen.
From the first he adopted the pen-name
" Benjamin Swift." He has written also
The Eternal Conflict : An Essay (1901) and
Life s Questionings (1905). His Ration
alism is, however, best expounded in a
pamphlet, The Credentials of Faith, which
he published in his own name in 1918. It
is a searching criticism of Christianity in
the form of a dialogue.
PAYNE, John, poet. B. Aug. 23, 1842. Ed. private school. Between the ages of thirteen and nineteen Payne translated the whole of Dante, much of Goethe, Lessing, and Calderon, and fragments of other French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portu guese, Turkish, Persian, Arabian, Greek, and Latin writers. He acquired nearly all these languages by personal study. Un fortunately, his father suffered a serious reverse of fortune, and he was compelled to become a clerk. He entered a solicitor s office in 1861. Payne continued to culti vate poetry, and in 1870 he won attention by his Masque of Shadoivs. He translated Francois Villon (1878), the Decameron (1883), the Arabian Nights (1884), and other works, and published further volumes of his own verse (Songs of Life and Death, 1872, etc.). His poetical work was col lected in two volumes in 1902 (Poetical Works of John Payne). Several of his songs in Songs of Life and Death repudiate the idea of immortality ; and Thomas Wright shows in his biography (Life of John Payne, 1919) that he entirely rejected Christianity. He never went to church, and he thought Christianity "of no practical value as a moral agent" (p. 99). He observed that " the best faith is that without a priest, a faith that is pure of the poisonous parasite " (p. 247). A follower of Emerson in his earlier years, he turned in time to Schopenhauer, and eventually he looked mostly to the Vedas and called himself a Pantheist. Payne was one of the 590
