he propriety of a continental charter, for I only
presume to offer hints, not plans." These things point to the same
mental source, and this characteristic influences the style to a marked
degree.

* * * * *

I call attention now to what is termed _alliteration:_ the bringing
words together commencing with the same letter, as follows:

_Paine._

Conduct and character.
Mark the movements and meaning.
For law as for land.
Fears and falsities.
Prejudice and prepossession.
Patron and punisher.
Wise and worthy.
Stay and starve.
Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related.

_Junius._

Best and brightest.
Character and conduct.
Concurrence of calamitous circumstances.
Catchpenny contrivance.
Dignity of the design.
Enormous excesses.
Faith and folly.
Fashionable formality.
Pernicious principles, etc.
Good faith and folly have long been received as
synonymous terms.

The above are only a few examples. Almost every page exhibits this
feature of the writer. It is a mania with Mr. Paine, and it is almost
the first observable feature of Junius. No other author that I have read
so abounds in alliteration. But herein Junius and Mr. Paine, not content
with two words, frequently unite three, as in some of the examples
above. They also bring two words thus together, and ascending from the
sound to the sense, give them relationship in meaning; as in the last
examples above.

As alliteration exhibits a law of the mind, it can easily be determined,
by the rule of averages, whether Mr. Paine and Junius agree. I have
estimated the ratio by counting twenty thousand words in each, and have
found them to average the same. Were all the words in Junius counted and
compared with the same number in Mr. Paine's political writings, it
would give the true law of averages, but twenty thousand words will give
an approximation not far from the truth.

{107}There is another peculiarity in the style of Mr. Paine and Junius,
arising out of this law of the mind, or this mania for alliteration,
which is to continue the alliteration throughout the paragraph. For
example, if a prominent word begins with an f, t, or p, or any other
letter, he continues to select words beginning with the same letter