d the lap of poverty, the
history of their lives blend and conspire to unite their affections and
direct their labors. What these two men shall do, the world is yet too
stupid to think about. But their plan is made in England, and under the
patronage of the one the other is introduced to America.

If you truly believe Benjamin Franklin to be a fool, let me tell you how
you can demonstrate it. Prove to the world that Thomas Paine began his
literary life in America, and that Franklin intrusted the greatest work
of a nation, and the business of a world to an obscure English
exciseman, without previous history or character, and your point is
made. Yet this is just what chronologists would have us believe; _but
history delves beneath recorded events_.

Franklin was then an old man, he had almost reached his three-score
years and ten; Paine was thirty-one years and twelve days the younger.
Franklin has fifteen years of life and labor before him yet; Paine
thirty-four. The young scion of Democracy is growing up from the same
root by the side of the old stalk. Here youth supports old age, and the
boughs interlock, and they shall thus stand firm, supported by each
other against the terrible shocks which are yet to come during the
"hurricane months" of political revolution. "I am the sole depository of
my own secret, and it shall perish with me," said Junius; but Franklin
had been taught of nature, and the secret was kept.

Near the close of the year 1774, Junius lands in America, and begins to
dwell in the capital of the colonies, Philadelphia. Many things
conspired to take him there: it was the Quaker city of brotherly love;
it was Franklin's home; and, above all, the Continental Congress sat
there.

Immediately, that is, within two months after landing, he is employed as
editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. He did not write as editors do, but
his contributions appeared over the signature of ATLANTICUS--a name
which, like Junius, was the shadow of the writer. From the first he
wielded a mighty pen, and his contributions were noticed and highly
commended. The following extract is from one of his first efforts in
America, and consequently stands almost a year closer to Junius than
Common Sense. As it shows the hand of a master, long trained at the art,
I give it here, as a perfect sample of Junius:

"Though nature is gay, polite, and generous abroad, she is sullen,
rude, and niggardly at home. Return the visit, and she a