[Footnote 1: Compare, for instance, Judge Drayton's Independence Charge to the Grand Jury of Charleston, delivered April 23, 1776, with "Common Sense."] Paine became suddenly famous. General Charles Lee said "that he burst upon the world like Jove, in thunder." His acquaintance was sought by all who were of the true faith in Independence; and when, soon afterward, he visited New York, he carried with him letters from Dr. Franklin and John Adams, introducing him to the principal residents "as a citizen of the world, the celebrated author of 'Common Sense.'" Had he been a man of fortune or American-born, he might have reached a place in the foremost rank of the Fathers of the Country. But nativism was powerful, and position important at that time, as Lee and Gates and even Hamilton himself experienced. The signature, "Common Sense," Paine preserved through life. It became what our authorlings, who ought to know better, will persist in calling a _nom [1] de plume_--a Yankee affectation, unknown to French idioms. [Footnote 1: They generally spell it "_nomme_."] In the autumn of 1776, Paine joined the army as volunteer aide-de-camp to General Greene, and served through the gloomy campaign which opened with the loss of New York in September. He remained in the field until the army went into winter-quarters after the battles of Trenton and Princeton. It was not as a combatant that Paine did the States good service. He played the part of Tyraetus in prose,--an adaptation of the old Greek lyrist to the eighteenth century and to British America,--and cheered the soldiers, not with songs, but with essays, continuations of "Common Sense." The first one was written on the retreat from Fort Lee, and published under the name of "The Crisis," on the 23d of December, when misfortune and severe weather had cast down the stoutest hearts. It began with the well-known phrase, "'These are the times that try men's souls.' The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."--"But after all," he continues, "matters might be worse. Howe has done very little. Fort Washington and Fort Lee were no loss to us. The retreat was admirably planned and conducted. General Washington is the right man for the place, 'with a mind that can even nourish upon care.'" He closes with a cheerful sketch of the spirit and condition of the army, attacks the Tories, and appeals to the Colonies for union and contributions.