who came into the world in the year 1809. On Nov. 20 of that year he was born in Frankfort-on-the-Main, in Germany, and there received an academic education, supplemented by higher courses of instruction at the universities of Munich and Heidelberg, graduating from the latter in 1832, with high honors and the degree of LL. D. In the same year he was admitted to the bar by the supreme court of his native province, and there began the practice of law. Opposed to monarchial institutions he became involved in a revolutionary uprising at Frankfort, in April, 1833, and in the conflict with the royal troops was wounded. Escaping to France he was expelled by that government to Switzerland, but eluding his guards, he returned to Harve, and sailed from that port, with the Engelman family, to America. Arriving here he proceeded directly to St. Clair county, Illinois, where he resided during the sixty-three remaining years of his life.

Having a theoretical knowledge of our republican institutions, and well versed in German, Latin and French, he soon mastered the English language, and immediately commenced the study of American law at Transylvania university, Lexington, Kentucky. In 1835 he was admitted to the bar at Belleville, and at once engaged in practice of the legal profession as a partner of Hon. Adam W. Snyder, after whose retirement, in 1838, he entered into partnership with General James Shields. His first introduction to public life and the leading public men of our country was in 1840, when by the influence of Mr. Snyder, then a State Senator and one of the Electors, he was selected by the Presidential Electors of Illinois as messenger to convey their vote for Martin Van Buren to the national capital. His natural mental force and broad educational acquirements, together with his refined, courteous manners and his great influence among the voters of his own nationality, soon made him a prominent figure in Illinois politics. He twice represented his county in the Legislature, was a Justice of the Supreme

Court, Lieutenant Governor of the State, member of the Railroad and Warehouse Commission, Trustee of the Soldiers' Orphans' Home, U. S. Minister to Spain, unsuccessful nominee of his party for Congress and for Governor, Presidential Elector, and a delegate to innumerable political conventions, and in that at Chicago in 1860, was a very considerable factor in the nomination of Mr. Lincoln for President.

A radical Democrat when a student in Germany, his political views accorded well with the principles of the Democratic party of his adopted country, in which he exerted unquestioned leadership until repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, forced him-with Palmer, Trumbull, Bissell and others-to cast his lot with the new Republican organization to combat the threatened encroachments of slavery. That curse removed, he renewed his allegiance to the Democracy, and remained loyal to it until his death.

Revolt of the southern states imperiling the integrity of the Union, in 1861, stirred and revived his youthful military ardor. Though impaired health would not permit him to accept a Brigadier General's commission offered him by Mr. Lincoln, he was largely instrumental in raising the 43d regiment of Illinois infantry, which was known, in recognition of his services, as "The Koerner regiment." Not satisfied with his efforts to recruit the Illinois contingent of the army, he served in the field as aide de camp to General Fremont, and later, on account of ill health, declined the urgent offer of a similar position on the staff of General Halleck.

Under all circumstances and in every situation he discharged every obligation conscientiously and to the best of his ability. He was enamored with his professionlaying it aside temporarily for the public duties and posts of honor to which he was frequently called, but regarding them only as interruptions to his law practice. that claimed his devotion and attention almost to the day of his death, which occurred on the 9th of April, 1896. A

profound scholar and thinker, his range of reading and study embraced the best literature of America, France, England and Germany. He was a prolific and versatile writer, equally graceful in diction and forecful in expression in the English, German and French languages. Constantly engaged in the drudgery of professional and political work he yet found time to enliven it with a prodigious amount of literary labor in various departments of learning. For some years he was one of the staff writers of the Open Court of Chicago, and a frequent contributor to newspapers and periodicals in this country and Europe. As a literary critic he excelled, but was equally at home in disquisitions on art, science, philosophy, history, politics and the drama. Of the volumes he issued the best known are his Recollections of Spain and The German Element in America, the latter written in German, as he said, "for foreign consumption." His reported decisions when a justice of the Supreme Court are examples of thorough legal erudition with strong, logical reasoning. His exposition and interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine was admittedly the best ever written. He was the founder of the Belleville Public Library (in 1835) and its faithful guardian genius until his death.

The private life of Governor Koerner was pure and his character and honor without a stain. In manners an affable, polished gentleman; of social, cheerful disposition, he was a true, reliable friend, and a fair and manly opponent.

The personal history of such a man, extending over the greater part of a century, so full of marvelous events and momentous changes, as was the last, his graphic narration of the many incidents and mighty social and political movements that passed under his observationin some of which he participated; and his candid opinion of the prominent people and high officials with whom he came in contact, all written in plain, yet elegant, language, can not fail to interest all classes of readers. It was after he had passed the eightieth year of his age, and

upon the repeated solicitations of his children, that Governor Koerner wrote his Memoirs for their gratification, and for circulation only in family circles. For that reason they abound in details of social and domestic life, both in his native country and this, a feature of seldom occurrence in the memoirs of public men. The vividness of his recollections of all important-and even trivialmatters transpiring in his long and busy career, is truly remarkable. In the two bulky volumes there are here and there minor mistakes of names and dates, from lapse of memory, but they are wonderfully few in number, considering the more than four score years of the writer.

Beginning with his ancestry and parentage, he tells of his home training, his education, his university experience, and nascent republican principles, of his flight from Europe and voyage to America, his journey to Пllinois by steamboats and canal, of his commencing a new life in a new country, and of the planting of the first infant German colonies in the west. His marriage is told, and there is frequent mention of his wife whom he adored, and of his children in whom centered his pride and fervent affections and devotion. He recounts at length, and with singular accuracy, the political issues and struggles of political parties incident thereto, in Illinois and the nation, from 1834-the Oregon boundary question, the turbulent discussions of the slavery question, the Mexican war, the bitterness engendered by the Native American, or Know Nothing party, the fierce ebulition of passion following repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the birth of the Republican party, the civil war, followed by the reconstruction period, then restoration of peace and national quietude.

No work issued in recent years contains such a store of material relating to Illinois affairs and people and to the political history of the nation at large, as the Koerner memoirs. The work is a most valuable contributionand aid-for the study of American institutions, American policies and politics, for research in the inner motives

and causes operating in the progress of American history, for the investigation of men and measures prominent in the advancement of Illinois to its present proud position, and of the German element as a factor in our marvelous strides to national power and supremacy. It is well entitled to a place on the shelves of every public library, and in the private library of every one interested in any department of state or national history.

LINCOLN.

By Isaac Newton Phillips, reporter of decisions, of the Illinois Supreme Court. 117 pages, 12mo. Published by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1910.

The friends of Judge Phillips will be glad to know that he has published this little tribute to Abraham Lincoln. Judge Phillips is one of the closest and most careful of the Lincoln students and his addresses on Lincoln delivered on various occasions are among the most eloquent of the tributes paid to the memory of Lincoln by the present day orators. Judge Phillips has also delivered addresses upon George Washington, and John Marshall, and the funeral oration which he delivered over the remains of his close friend the late Gov. John R. Tanner is one of the most beautiful, just and pathetic tributes ever paid to a friend.

Judge Phillips does not intend that this monograph on Abraham Lincoln shall be his final tribute to the Great Emancipator. He has in contemplation a more exhaustive work to be published in the next year or two.

BYGONE DAYS IN CHICAGO; RECOLLECTIONS OF THE "GARDEN CITY" OF THE SIXTIES.

The above is the title of a book recently published by A. C. McClurg & Co., the author of which is Frederick