A rude but very curious specimen of the caricature of the early time is given on the next page of the collision on the floor of the House of Representatives between Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold, both representatives from Connecticut. Lyon, a native of Ireland, was an ardent Republican, who played a conspicuous part in politics during the final struggle between the Republicans and the Federalists. Roger Griswold, on the contrary, a member of an old and distinguished Connecticut family, a graduate of its ancient college, and a member of its really illustrious bar, was a pronounced Federalist. He was also a gentleman who had no natural relish for a strong-minded, unlettered emigrant who founded a town in his new country, built mills and foundries, invented processes, established a newspaper, and was elected to Congress. If Hamilton and Griswold and the other extreme Federalists had had their way in this country, there would have been no Matthew Lyons among us to create a new world for mankind, and begin the development of a better political system. Nor, indeed, was Matthew Lyon sufficiently tolerant of the old and tried methods that had become inadequate. He was not likely, either--at the age of fifty-two, standing upon the summit of a very successful career, which was wholly his own work--to regard as equal to himself a man of thirty-six, who seemed to owe his importance chiefly to his lineage. So here was a broad basis for an antipathy which the strife of politics could easily aggravate into an aversion extreme and fiery--fiery, at least, on the part of the Irishman. [Illustration: Fight in Congress between Lyon and Griswold, February 15th, 1798. "He in a trice struck Griswold thrice Upon his head, enraged, sir; Who seized the tongs to ease his wrongs, And Griswold thus engaged, sir."] Imagine this process complete, and the House, on the last day of the year 1798, in languid session, balloting. The two members were standing near one another outside the bar, when Griswold made taunting allusion to an old "campaign story" of Matthew Lyon's having been sentenced to wear a wooden sword for cowardice in the field. Lyon, in a fury, spit in Griswold's face. Instantly the House was in an uproar; and although the impetuous Lyon apologized to the House, he only escaped expulsion, after eleven days' debate, through the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds vote. This affair called forth a caricature in which the Irish member was depicted as a lion standing on his hind-legs wearing a wooden sword, while Griswold, handkerchief in hand, exclaims, "What a beastly action!"