
one another, and played with no great skill, but yet attaining the great object
for which the harmony of drum and clarion addresses itself to the multitude, -
that of imparting a higher and more heroic air to the scene of life that passes
before the eye. Little Pearl at first clapped her hands, but then lost, for an
instant, the restless agitation that had kept her in a continual effervescence
throughout the morning; she gazed silently, and seemed to be borne upward, like
a floating sea-bird, on the long heaves and swells of sound. But she was brought
back to her former mood by the shimmer of the sunshine on the weapons and bright
armour of the military company, which followed after the music, and formed the
honorary escort of the procession. This body of soldiery - which still sustains
a corporate existence, and marches down from past ages with an ancient and
honorable fame - was composed of no mercenary materials. Its ranks were filled
with gentlemen, who felt the stirrings of martial impulse, and sought to
establish a kind of College of Arms, where, as in an association of Knights
Templars, they might learn the science, and, so far as peaceful exercise would
teach them, the practices of war. The high estimation then placed upon the
military character might be seen in the lofty port of each individual member of
the company. Some of them, indeed, by their services in the Low Countries and on
other fields of European warfare, had fairly won their title to assume the name
and pomp of soldiership. The entire array, moreover, clad in burnished steel,
and with plumage nodding over their bright morions, had a brilliancy of effect
which no modern display can aspire to equal.
    And yet the men of civil eminence, who came immediately behind the military
escort, were better worth a thoughtful observer's eye. Even in outward demeanour
they showed a stamp of majesty that made the warrior's haughty stride look
vulgar, if not absurd. It was an age when what we call talent had far less
consideration than now, but the massive materials which produce stability and
dignity of character a great deal more. The people possessed, by hereditary
right, the quality of reverence; which, in their descendants, if it survive at
all, exists in smaller proportion, and with a vastly diminished force in the
selection and estimate of public men. The change may be for good or ill, and is
partly, perhaps, for both. In that old day, the English settler on these rude
shores, - having left king, nobles, and
