The condition of affairs in America, immediately following the Revolution, was not what many suppose. The people were not completely united in raving against John Bull and his institutions. It is true the lower classes and those of the middle class, who had been excited into believing that delusive and, for them, hypocritical motto; “No taxation without representation”, or who had gained or lost all through the late fratricidal struggle, were thriving wonderfully on “spread eagle” patriotism stimulated by “Yankee Doodle” and “Hail Columbia”—which, today, unfortunately bandage the eyes of America’s native civilization—and entertained a cordial hatred of England and all things English. Later they were to sympathize with Mirabeau, with Robespierre and others, and cry death to that French King who had so lately saved them from the dismal caprices of George III and his ignorant and haughty ministers. Politically, they gloried in the name of Democrat. Nevertheless, there existed an aristocracy in America; an aristocracy that had refrained from becoming Tory solely because personal interest demanded that it should become rebel. Its members were English in taste and manner, in their hearts they were Royalists. They called themselves Federalists. To this category belonged the Hancocks, John Adams, Hamilton, perhaps even Washington himself; and here we find the Apthorps and the Mortons. They had a fondness for court and ceremony—thought and culture were still colonial; they talked of the American gentleman, while they dreamed of the English nobleman; for all that, there was a rapidly growing strain of independence, of confidence in self. All of which qualities have today evolved the best type of the American lady and gentleman. * * * * * Early in the second half of the eighteenth century, a literary revolution was in progress in England: sentimentalism, which so long had been mistaken for sentiment, was given its proper place; knightly romance was sneered at and shelved, the hale hearty laughter of Fielding disturbed the spinsters and gossip mongers sipping their tea in the corners; Laurence Sterne, that sentimentalist in realism, condemned in caricature what the foolish thought he defended in truth; and Sheridan, the hater of sham and conventionality, satirized the social deformity of the times in drama, drawing scenes and characters from real life as found in the famous Pump-room at Bath.