Landscape View of Old Bennington, 1798

Oil on canvas. Bennington Museum, Bennington, VT.

Also known as Townscape of Bennington, this landscape includes a self-portrait in the foreground, left. Earl is seated, sketching — not the landscape but sketching a portrait of the boy in front of him.

Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense (1775), urging the colonies to declare their independence, found 150,000 purchasers in a population of less than 3 million — the equivalent today of a sale of 14 million.

— Richard Brookhiser

Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution (2003)