Miscellany: The Heroic Age Of The U. States

i ne ten years uiat ímmediately succeedcd the Declaration of Peace, constituted the heroic age of the Uuited States. It was tlíe age of military bands and bards; the great reign of cockades and epaulettes; when those who had been peaceful citïzens in the war, became valorous soldiers, and charged the air with long undulating rows of bayonets, and scorched the trees and clouds and themselves with the villainous saltpetre. It was the great era of trainband chivalry, when .every able bodied man was summoned to the parade, to charge his gun with powder, and himself with rum; when corporals and qther distinguished men did doughty deëds on the village green, and captured heartsat the head ot" sections; when the whole village assembled with beating henrts, and mothers with intants in thcir arrns, stood sweltering in the sun tö see the trainers; when the rustic swairi who had well nigh lost his suit in his Sunday clothes, became irresistible in his fair one's eyes when he donried-the unifornrof a trainband Vfars. There is no of equal i our when. so many influénces co-operated to'make the war spirit the mania of tfee people. It put oldage, manhood and infancy under martial law. ft turned the nursery into a little military camp, vhere the associations, impressions and objects of warwere the first impressed upon the mfW mind.When ihe little thing nestled within its bulrush ark, and strained its eyes to seo whát kind of a world it was born into, to look Lbr some object to love, its mol her sfttisfied its yearning instincts with miniature instrumente of war. lts constant companions were soldicrs equipped in pustry; and squadrons of fie;-ce looking troopers of sugar, guarded its eradle. As soon as the boy had donned the garments vvhich were to distinguish his sex, his father celebrated that distinction by presenting him a wooden sword, with several incb.es of the point painted red to suggest its bloody design. At this point of his military education, he was plied with a set of influences which have ceased to exist. In every neighborhood there were always several' Revolutionary soldiers, whose hearts burned within them while recounting from house to house, the thrilling reminiscences of that long struggle. - And the little fellovv stared with extasy at those strange stories. Holding on to grandpa's knee, he looked up into his face with startling interest, while the garrulous old man was recounting to a contemporary the dreadful fatigue of Burgoyne. How it fired his young heart to see the old man turn the right wing of the Britsh army with his crutch, while the otherhmping veternn took them in flank witli hisstatT, and routed them horse and foot over a single mug of hard eider. He now begins to have a presentiment that he is to be a man. In his illicit explorations about the kitchen, parlor' and gárret, he has discovered his fathers gun, his cartridge box, the red-tipped plume, and parti-colored coat. From that moment he lóoks with sovereign contempt upon his tin and pewter dragoons. He will be pacified with no compromise with his mother or sisters; he spurns with indignation all allusions to the shortness of his lcgs; he will not be bought off vyith any promise oí larger troopers in wax or wood; he insists upon being led to the parade to see the trainers. His father acquiesces with an air ot feigned reluctance; and his mother, charging him not to get hef ore the guns, stands long in 0ê doorway under pretence of reiterating that charge, but really to admire the martia bearing of her husband. who knows sheis looking at him and wondering at the difference between a military coat and a (armer's frock. The boy comes home with eyes larger than his father's; and the visions of that day fill all his dreams for the next year. He ventures out into the street alone, and -with the first boys he meets he forms a military association. - They march by sections or in Indian file, as they cali it, to the same district school. The school-mistress makes them spell by platoons; and the boy that hits the target the oftenest in the eye, she sends strütting home with a penny epaulette pinned to his shoulder. His exulting parents respond to this reward of merit, and give him a couple of India crackers or a copper. If the Jatter, a military fund iá established, and the next day at noon, goose quills loaded with powder are shooting about the school house floor. More extensiveoperations in the fascinating combustible succeed. A contribution is Ieviec: upon all .fusible ihings in the cellar, kitchen and garret; and the next week, when the first class of boys arise to read, every mothef's son of them has a leaden plummet, a pewter button or the handle of a pewter mug in his pocket for some pat. riotic object. A ff er many mysterious givings out and ejivings in, a pewter cannon is added to the lefences of the country, and then comes ;he tug of war. On the next Fourth of Juy, our juvenile and honorable artillery jompany appear on the village green, ind contend for the mastery of the village swivel; forthen every village had a swiv]. as rnuch as a minister. Submittingto i subordínate capacity, they ai-e content o bring turf and bricks to be rammed lown the little rusty ordnance, and. rum ind sugar from the store to charge their mrents with; receiving in return the iweetened sediments of a hundred glasses o inspire them on to manly daring and weáring. On that great day of rum and owder, the radix and tincture of Amerin Independence; amid the boisterpus evelry and wassail of those who swore errible oatbs and staggered home patriotcally drunk for the defence of their couhry, those youmg minds entered upon aïother degree of their military education.