which Lincoln beat all, keeping up a constant laughter and good humor all the time; among the soldiers some cardplaying and wrestling in which Lincoln took a prominent part. I think it safe to say he was never thrown in a wrestle. While in the army he kept a handkerchief tied around him all the time for wrestling purposes, and loved the sport as well as anyone could. He was seldom if ever beat jumping. During the campaign Lincoln himself was always ready for an emergency. He endured hardships like a good soldier; he never complained, nor did he fear dangers."

Returning to New Salem, Lincoln, having served his apprenticeship as a clerk, commenced storekeeping on his own account. An opening was made for him by the departure of Mr. Radford, the keeper of a grocery, who, having offended the Clary's Grove boys, they "selected a convenient night for breaking in his windows and gutting his establishment." From his ruins rose the firm of Lincoln & Berry.

In storekeeping, however, Mr. Lincoln did not prosper; neither storekeeping nor any other regular business or occupation was congenial to his character. He was born to be a politician. Accordingly he began to read law, with which he combined surveying, at which we are assured he made himself "expert" by a six weeks' course of study. The few law books needed for western practice were supplied to him by a kind friend at Springfield, and, according to a witness who has evidently an accurate memory for details, "he went to read law in 1832 or 1833 barefooted, seated in the shade of a tree and would grind around with the shade, just opposite Berry's grocery store, a few feet south of the door, occasionally lying flat on his back and putting his feet up the tree." Evidently, whatever he read, especially of a practical kind, he made thoroughly his own. It is needless to say that he did not become a master of scientific jurisprudence; but it seems that he did become an effective western advocate. What is more, there is conclusive testimony to the fact that he was what has been scandalously alleged to be rare, even in the United States an honest lawyer.

"Love of justice and fair play," says one of his professional brothers of the bar, "was his predominant trait.

I have often listened to him when I thought he would state his case out of Court. It was not in his nature to assume or attempt to bolster up a false position. He would abandon his case first. His power as an advocate seems to have depended on his conviction that the right was on his side. Mr. Herndon, who visited Lincoln's office on business, gives the following reminiscence: "Mr. Lincoln was seated at his table, listening very attentively to a man who was talking earnestly in a low tone. After the would-be client had stated the facts of the case, Mr. Lincoln replied, 'yes, there is no reasonable doubt but that I can gain your case for you. I can set a whole neighborhood at logger heads; I can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless children, and thereby get for you six hundred dollars, which rightly belongs, it appears to me, as much to the woman and her children as it does to you. You must remember that some things that are legally right are not morally right. I shall not take your case but will give you a bit of advice, for which I will charge you nothing. You seem to be a sprightly, energetic man. I would advise you to try your hand at making six hundred dollars in some other way.'

There is one part of Lincoln's early life which, though scandal may batten on it, we shall pass over lightly; we mean that part which relates to his love affairs and his marriage. Criticism, and even biography, should respect as far as possible the sanctuary of affection. That a man has dedicated his life to the service of the public is no reason why the public should be licensed to amuse itself by playing with his heartstrings. Not only as a storekeeper, but in every capacity, Mr. Lincoln was far more happy in his relations with men than with women. He however loved, and loved deeply, Ann Rutledge, who appears to have been entirely worthy of his attachment, and whose death at the moment when she would have felt herself at liberty to marry him, threw him into a transport of grief, which threatened his reason and excited the gravest apprehension of his friends. In stormy weather, especially, he would rave piteously, crying that he could never be reconciled to have the snow, rains and storms to beat upon her grave.” This first love he seems never to have forgotten.

He next had

an affair, not so creditable to him. Finally, he made a match of which the world has heard, perhaps, enough, though the western boy was too true a gentleman to let it hear anything about the matter from his lips. It is enough to

say that this man was not wanting in that not inconsiderable element of worth, even of the worth of statesmen, strong and pure affection.

"If ever," said Abraham Lincoln, "American society and the United States Government are demoralized and overthrown, it will come from the voracious desire of office-this wriggle to live without toil, from which I am not free myself." These words ought to be written up in the largest characters in every schoolroom in the United States. The confession with which they conclude is as true as the rest. Mr. Lincoln, we are told, took no part in the promotion of local enterprises, railroads, schools, churches, asylums. The benefits he proposed for his fellow-men were to be accomplished by political means alone.

Lincoln's fundamental principle was devotion to the popular will. In his address to the people of Sangamon County, he says, "while acting as their representative I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is, and upon all others I will do what my own judgment teaches me will advance their interests."

Lincoln's first attempt to get elected to the State legislature was unsuccessful. It however brought him the means of "doing something for his country," and partly averting the "death-struggle of the world," in the shape of the postmastership of New Salem. The business of the office was not on a large scale, for it was carried on in Mr. Lincoln's hat- - an integument of which it is recorded, that he refused to give it to a conjurer to play the egg trick in, "not from respect for his own hat, but for the conjurer's eggs." The future President did not fail to signalize his first appearance as an administrator by a sally of the jocularity which was always struggling with melancholy in his mind. A gentleman of the place, whose education had been defective, was in the habit of calling two or three times a day at the post-office, and ostentatiously inquiring for letters. At last he received a letter, which, being

unable to read himself, he got the postmaster to read for him before a large circle of friends. It proved to be from a negro lady engaged in domestic service in the South, recalling the memory of a mutual attachment, with a number of incidents more delectable than sublime. It is needless to say that the postmaster, by a slight extension of the sphere of his office, had written the letter as well as delivered it.

In a second candidature the aspirant was more successful, and he became one of nine representatives of Sangamon County, in the State legislature of Illinois, who, being all more than six feet high, were called "The Long Nine." With his Brobdingnagian colleagues, Abraham plunged at once into the "internal improvement system," and distinguished himself above his fellows by the unscrupulous energy and strategy with which he urged through the legislature a series of bubble schemes and jobs. Railroads and other improvements, especially improvements of river navigation, were voted out of all proportion to the means or credit of the then thinly-peopled State.

It is instructive as well as just to remember that all this time the man was strictly, nay sensitively, honorable in his private dealings, that he was regarded by his fellows as a paragon of probity, that his word was never questioned, that of personal corruption calumny itself, so far as we are aware, never dared to accuse him. Politics, it seems, may be a game apart, with rules of its own which supersede morality.

Considering that this man was destined to preside over the most tremendous operations in the whole history of finance, it is especially instructive to see what was the state of his mind on economical subjects. He actually proposed to pass a usury law, having arrived, it appears, at the sage conviction that while to pay the current rent for the use of a house or the current fee for the services of a lawyer is perfectly proper, to pay the current price for money is to "allow a few individuals to levy a direct tax on the community." But this is an ordinary illusion. Abraham Lincoln's illusions went far beyond it. As President, when told that the finances were low, he asked whether the printing machine had given out, and he suggested, as a special temptation to capitalists, the issue of a

class of bonds which should be exempt from seizure for debt. It may safely be said that the burden of the United States debt was ultimately increased fifty per cent. through sheer ignorance of the simplest principles of economy and finance on the part of those by whom it was contracted.

Lincoln's style, both as a speaker and a writer, ultimately became plain, terse, and with occasional faults of taste, caused by imperfect education, pure as well as effective. His Gettysburg address and some of his State Papers are admirable in their way. Saving one very flat expression, the address has no superior in literature. But it was impossible that the oratory of a rising politician, especially in the west, should be free from spread-eagleism. In debate he was neither bitter nor personal in the bad sense, though he had a good deal of caustic humor and knew how to make an effective use of it.

Passing from State politics to those of the Union, and elected to Congress as a Whig, a party to which he had gradually found his way from his original position as a "nominal Jackson man," Mr. Lincoln stood forth in vigorous though discreet and temperate opposition to the Mexican War.

Great events were by this time begining to loom on the political horizon. The Missouri Compromise was broken. Parties commenced slowly but surely to divide themselves into Pro-slavery and Anti-slavery. The "irrepressible conflict" was coming on, though none of the American politicians-not even the author of that famous phrase-distinctly recognized its advent. Lincoln seems to have been sincerely opposed to slavery, though he was not an Abolitionist.

But

he was evidently led more and more to take anti-slavery ground by his antagonism to Douglas, who occupied a middle position, and tried to gain at once the support of the South and that of the waverers at the North, by theoretically supporting the extension of slavery, yet practically excluding it from the territories by the doctrine of squatter sovereignty. Lincoln had to be very wary in angling for the vote of the Abolitionists, who had recently been the objects of universal obloquy, and were still offensive to a large section of the Republican party.

On one occasion, the opinions which he propounded by no means suited the Abolitionists, and "they required him to change them forthwith. He thought it would be wise to do so considering the peculiar circumstances of his case; but, before committing himself finally, he sought an understanding with Judge Logan. He told the judge what he was disposed to do, and said he would act upon the inclination if the judge would not regard it as treading on his toes. The judge said he was opposed to the doctrine proposed, but, for the sake of the cause on hand, he would cheerfully risk his toes. And so the Abolitionists were accommodated. Lincoln quietly made the pledge, and they voted for him." He came out, however, square enough, and in the very nick of time with his "house divided against itself" speech, which took the wind out of the sails of Seward with his "irrepressible conflict." Douglas, whom Lincoln regarded with intense personal rivalry, was tripped up by a string of astute interrogations, the answers to which hopelessly embroiled him with the South.

Mr.

Lincoln's campaign against Douglas for the Senatorship greatly and deservedly enhanced his reputation as a debater, and he became marked out as the western candidate for the Republican nomination to the Presidency. A committee favorable to his claims sent to him to make a speech at New York. speech at New York. He arrived "in a sleek and shining suit of new black, covered with very apparent creases and wrinkles acquired by being packed too closely and too long in his little valise." Some of his supporters must have moralized on the strange apparition which their summons had raised. His speech, however, made before an immense audience at the Cooper Institute, was most successful, and as a display of constitutional logic it is a very good speech. It fails, as the speeches of these practical men one and all did fail, their common sense and shrewdness notwithstanding, in clear perception of the great facts that two totally different systems of society had been formed, one in the Slave States and the other in the Free, and that political institutions necessarily conform themselves to the social character of the people. Whether the Civil War could, by any men or means, have been arrested, it would be hard to say; but assuredly stump orators, even the very best of

them, were not the men to avert it. At that great crisis no saviour appeared.

On May 10th, in the eventful year 1860, the Republican State Convention of Illinois, by acclamation, and amid great enthusiasm, nominated Lincoln for the Presidency. One who saw him receive the nomination says, "I then thought him one of the most diffident and most plagued of men I ever saw." We may depend upon it, however, that his diffidence of manner was accompanied by no reluctance of heart. The splendid prize which he had won had been the object of his passionate desire. In the midst of the proceedings, the door of the wigwam opened, and Lincoln's kinsman, John Hanks, entered, with "two small triangular 'heart-rails,' surmounted by a banner with the inscription, Two rails from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the Sangamon bottom, in the year 1830." The bearer of the rails, we are told, was met "with wild and tumultuous cheers," and "the whole scene was simply tempestuous and bewildering.'

The Democrats, of course, did not share the delight. An old man, out of Egypt (the southern end of Illinois) came up to Mr. Lincoln, and said: "So you're Abe Lincoln?" "That's my name, sir." "They say you're a selfmade man." "Well, yes, what there is of me is self-made." Well, all I have got to say," observed the old Egpytian, after a careful survey of the statesman, "is, that it was a d―n bad job." This seems to be the germ of the smart reply to the remark that Andrew Jackson was a self-made man, that relieves the Almighty of a very heavy responsibility."

The nomination of the State Convention of Illinois was accepted after a very close and exciting contest between Lincoln and Seward by the convention of the Republican party assembled at Chicago. The proceedings seem to have been disgraceful. A large delegation of roughs, we are told, headed by Tom Shyer, the pugilist, attended for Seward. The Lincoln party, on the other side, spent the whole night in mustering their "loose fellows," and at daylight the next morning packed the wigwam, so that the Seward men were unable to get in. Another politician was there nominally as a candidate, but really only to sell himself for a seat in

the Cabinet. When he claimed the fulfilment of the bond, Lincoln's conscience, or at least his regard for his own reputation struggled hard. "All that I am in the world-the Presidency and all elseI owe to that opinion of me which the people express when they call me 'honest old Abe.' Now, what will they think of their honest Abe when he appoints this man to be his familiar adviser?" What they might have said with truth was that Abe was still honest but politics were not.

On

Widely different was the training undergone for the leadership of the people. by the Pericles of the American Republic from that undergone by the Pericles of Athens, or by any group of statesmen before him, Greek, Roman, or European. The advantages and the disadvantages of Lincoln's political education are manifest at a glance. He was sure to produce something strong, genuine, practical, and entirely in unison with the thoughts and feelings of a people which, like the Athenian in the days of Pericles, was to be led, not governed. the other hand, it necessarily left the statesman without the special knowledge necessary for certain portions of his work, such as finance, which was badly managed during Lincoln's Presidency, without the wisdom which flows from a knowledge of the political world and of the past, without elevation and comprehensiveness of view. It was fortunate for Lincoln that the questions with which he had to deal, and with which his country and the world proclaim him to have dealt, on the whole, admirably well, though not in their magnitude and importance, were completely within his ken, and had been always present to his mind. Reconstruction would have made a heavier demand on the political science of Clary's Grove. But that task was reserved for other hands.*

* The foregoing article, written a number of years ago for a volume of Lectures and Essays, originally printed for private circulation, we have the kind permission of the author to reproduce here. To bring it within the scope of our pages, the essay has been considerably abridged. Despite the latter fact, the paper will doubtless prove acceptable to our readers, as it presents some interesting phases in the early career of Lincoln not usually met with in later-day critiques. ED. S. C.

HE reign of Queen Victoria is at once the longest and most fruitful in British history. Since she ascended the throne her Empire has broadened its bounds until to-day it numbers one-fourth the population of the world. And the And the sway of Victoria finds response in a loyalty very different from the grudging submission accorded her predecessors especially her immediate predecessors on the throne. For all that the blood of the Stuarts flows in her veins, and granddaughter of George III. though she is, the Queen has been content to reign simply, and leave the task of government to her constitutional advisers. Such influence upon public affairs as she may have exerted has ever been on the side of peace and good-will; by kin or marriage bond the chief rulers of Europe are of her family, so that her influence has often at critical times been weighty, and, perhaps, more than once, decisive. In domestic politics her convictions are almost unknown; she stands for no party, but for the whole people, who rally round the throne as built upon a foundation deeper far than any moving tent of political sect or faction. Thrice happy has it been for England that, in the sixty eventful years when the tide of democratic feeling reflected from the shores of America has surged higher and higher, the sceptre of empire has rested in the gentle hand of a woman. A king, how ever tactful, wise and gracious, could scarcely have been so completely detached from kingly traditions of personal rule; and rare indeed in the roll of kings is the record of a home life so admirable as that of this good wife and mother.

While the reign of Elizabeth stands forth preeminently as the age of victory in arms, of an unexampled outburst in literary genius, the epoch of Victoria will be ever memorable as the golden era of Science. Within the past six decades man has entered upon an insight into nature and a mastery of her forces incomparably greater than during the six centuries that went before, and in this progress Englishmen have borne a leading part. The locomotive and the steamship, both British inventions, had been but introduced in 1837; these, with the

telegraph, largely a product of British skill and enterprise, have transformed the world. Indeed, without them there could be no such colonial empire as that which to-day, scattered upon every sea, finds itself within earshot and control of Westminster. To Faraday, Wheatstone, Maxwell, and Kelvin are due the instruments, or the researches, which at this hour bring electricity to services of more moment to man than those which had their birth when first he kindled fire and rejoiced.

If Newton dignified the reign of Anne by his discovery of universal gravitation, yet more has Spencer glorified the age of Victoria by expounding the profounder law of universal evolution. In this mighty task his chief ally was Darwin, the first naturalist of the century. century. Nor is it only in the triumphs of the chemist, the physicist, or the philosopher that radiance is reflected upon the garlands of Victoria. So much has the well-being of her subjects advanced since 1837, that the life of the average Englishman has been lengthened by no less than four years. While comfort has been diffused throughout the whole body of the people, crime and pauperism have subsided. With public opinion omnipotent and intelligent as never before, the government responds to the progressive needs of the people in a fashion that denies birth to the discontent which brings a cloud to the brow of every other monarch of Europe.

Whilst in the past six decades British progress has been mainly in the fields of science, Victorian literature is worthy a place near to the golden fruit of even the great Elizabethans. If the Virgin Queen saw the culmination of the drama under the touch of Shakespeare, Victoria has seen the perfect flowering of the novel at the hands of George Eliot, Thackeray, and Dickens, while in Carlyle, and Ruskin, Grote, Macaulay, and Green, the Victorian era can boast names unmatched in the annals of Elizabeth. Only in one supreme singer of the earlier time need Tennyson, Browning, and Matthew Arnold bow to their master. In art, no less than in letters, is the age of Victoria great. How much richer are British folk in treasures of the brush, how much