"I will strike the dagger to the heart of profligate lords and courtiers. I will trample on the pride of kings, and fortified with that proud integrity, that disdain to triumph or to yield, I will advocate the rights of man." He now steps forth to begin his _life's work_. He waits not long to brood over his miseries, but immediately sets off for London to inform the mind. A little the rise of twenty-eight he enters fully into the study of the natural sciences, and teaches in an academy to defray expenses. He attends the philosophical lectures of Mr. Martin and Ferguson, and becomes acquainted with Dr. Bevis, the astronomer and member of the Royal Society. He made himself master of the globes and orrery, and acquired a knowledge of _natural philosophy_, a term which then took in a wide field of science. We find him well acquainted with chemistry, and also the higher mathematics. Here he doubtless studied French, for afterward we find when called from an active life to visit France he could read but not speak the language. Yet this, as well as rhetoric and law, and many other branches of learning, he could acquire while in the employ of government. It is evident that while at London this year he threw his whole soul into study. How easily he could have risen to preferment in any branch of natural science must have been well known to himself when coming in contact with these great minds of his age. But he has other work on hand. There are many reasons for concluding he became acquainted with Franklin this year, among them these five: 1. Because he was eager to cultivate the acquaintance of great men of science, and Franklin, then in London, stood at the head of all. 2. Franklin was easy of access to the friends of learning. 3. Mr. Paine would be brought in hearty sympathy with the representative of the new world, who was at court, to represent the rights of man. 4. At this very time, Feb. 3, 1766, when we know Mr. Paine was attending to his studies and cultivating the acquaintance of the learned, Dr. Franklin was brought more conspicuously before the English nation than ever before, or thereafter, by undergoing an examination in the House of Commons upon the policy of repealing the Stamp Act; and never were the great talents of this great man exhibited so fully and favorably as then.