"_Trueman._ Mark all that. [_Reads._] 'Section the First. All legislative power herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.' Very judicious and salutary, upon my erudition! 'Section the Second--' "_Loveyet._ I'll hear no more of your sections." [Illustration: A Militia Drill in Massachusetts in 1832.] They continue the debate until both disputants are in the white heat of passion. Old Mr. Loveyet rushes away at last to break off the match between his daughter and Trueman's son, and Trueman retorts by calling his fiery antagonist "a conceited sot." This comedy is poor stuff, but it suffices to reveal the existence of the spirit of caricature among us at that early day, when New York was a clean, cobble-stoned, Dutch-looking town of thirty thousand inhabitants, one of whom, a boy five years of age, was named Washington Irving. General Washington was inaugurated President at the same city in the following year. How often has the world been assured that no dissentient voice was heard on that occasion! The arrival of the general in New York was a pageant which the entire population is supposed to have most heartily approved; and a very pleasing spectacle it must have been, as seen from the end of the island--the vessels decked with flags and streamers, and the President's stately barge, rowed by thirteen pilots in white uniforms, advancing toward the city, surrounded and followed by a cloud of small boats, to the thunder of great guns. But even then, it seems, there were a few who looked askance. At least one caricature appeared. "All the world here," wrote John Armstrong to the unreconciled General Gates, "are busy in collecting flowers and sweets of every kind to amuse and delight the President." People were asking one another, he adds, by what awe-inspiring title the President should be called, even plain Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, regarding "His Excellency" as beneath the grandeur of the office. "Yet," says Armstrong, "in the midst of this admiration there are skeptics who doubt its propriety, and wits who amuse themselves at its extravagance. The first will grumble and the last will laugh, and the President should be prepared to meet the attacks of both with firmness and good nature. A caricature has already appeared, called 'The Entry,' full of very disloyal and profane allusions." It was by no means a good-natured picture. General Washington was represented riding upon an ass, and held in the arms of his favorite man Billy, once huntsman, then valet and factotum; Colonel David Humphreys, the general's aid and secretary, led the ass, singing hosannas and birthday odes, one couplet of which was legible: "The glorious time has come to pass When David shall conduct an ass."