The feeling that was real and spontaneous in the sons of Revolutionary
soldiers was sometimes feigned or exaggerated in the young law
students of the next generation, who had merely read the history of
the Revolution. But with all the faults of those compositions, they
were eminently serviceable to the country. We believe that to them is
to be attributed a considerable part of that patriotic feeling which,
after a suspended animation of several years, awoke in the spring of
1861 and asserted itself with such unexpected power, and which
sustained the country during four years of a peculiarly disheartening
war. How pleasant and spirit-stirring was a celebration of the Fourth
of July as it was conducted in Webster's early day! We trust the old
customs will be revived and improved upon, and become universal. Nor
is it any objection to the practice of having an oration, that the
population is too large to be reached in that way; for if only a
thousand hear, a million may read. Nor ought we to object if the
orator _is_ a little more flowery and boastful than becomes an
ordinary occasion.
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