Lamon also wanted to run and that he should take no sides with either: but he added to me: "The world will hear of Cullom yet," and it has; he may even be Lincoln's successor.

:

Ingratitude is a social crime, and it cannot be imputed to Mr. Lincoln, for he had no radical moral imperfection or blemish the measure of his social morality was full and overflowing: he frequently erred, but always on the right side he pardoned offenders against the law and army regulations, when his duty forbade it. In this, his humanity in the concrete, was more tenacious than his responsibility in the abstract; and he declined to accord office to his friends sometimes, because his fidelity to his trust was stronger, for the time being, than his fidelity to his friends. He was a merely naked trustee and every office he bestowed was the investment of that which was not his, personally, to give -but which must be placed where it would do the most good (in making friends for the cause) and to the person best equipped with qualifications to fill properly the duties of the office.

Lincoln, therefore was loyal to his friends; loyal also to his wife and children; loyal to his duty; loyal to his God. But it sometimes occurred that he deemed his obligation to humanity to be greater than his obligation to his responsibility; and then-in such conflict-the latter must yield to the former. But any imputation of ingratitude or failure of reciprocity of friendship on his part, when he was free to act, was not well founded. Lincoln was to himself

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True;

And then it followed, as the night, the day:
He could not then be false to any man:-"

and he was not.

XXI.

HIS PENCHANT FOR POETRY.

"And this," said the great Chamberlain, "is poetry; this flimsy manufacture of the brain, which in comparison with the lofty and durable monuments of genius, is as the gold filigree work of Zamara, beside the eternal architecture of Egypt."

There breathes no being but has some pretence
To that fine instinct, called poetic sense.

-MOORE.

So far as I am advised, Mr. Lincoln's acquaintance with poetry did not embrace a very large field. Shakespeare was to him more than to the average great man. He read it over and over again, and was especially fond of the political characters, as Richard, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Cæsar, Coriolanus, and the like. And his favorite plays were Macbeth and Hamlet, when I knew him.

But while he was not averse to quoting other poetry in public, he never, to my knowledge, did quote either from Shakespeare or Byron, except in the circles of his close friends. He seemed to hold the former in as sacred veneration as he did the Bible.

The piece, "Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud:" seemed to accord with his gloomy and melancholy

spirit; but as a general, "all the year round" favorite, "The Last Leaf" is entitled to the palm. He considered the fourth verse to be the "bright particular star" of poesy; and the quaintness of the seventh verse struck his fancy very forcibly and he always pronounced the last word “quare."

The first poem named was brought to his notice just after the lamentable death of Ann Rutledge; and he often desired to know who the author was, but he never knew. It was William Knox-a Scotchman.

The portion of "Childe Harold," which I annex, and a few of the preceding verses, were great favorites. I refer to this in an earlier chapter.

Mr. Lincoln was once passing a house in Springfield, in summer time, and a girl was at her piano singing a piece, the air of which struck his fancy; and when he reached his office, he addressed a brief note to the house, asking where he could find that song, and for its name. In a day, or two, a delicate note came to the office with the verses transcribed in a female hand; but no name either of the writer, or the author; and he died, without knowing either; although the fact is well known that Charles Mackay, an English song-writer, is its author, but the fair writer is still unknown.

In some of his political speeches made in 1858, in referring to the attitude of Buchanan and the advocates of the Lecompton Constitution, toward Douglas; he used to quote. from the song (then in common use), by Thomas H. Bayley, this verse:

"Oh! no, we never mention him;

His voice is never heard;

My lips are now forbid to speak

That once familiar word."

Mr. Lincoln frequently used prose that was almost ideal enough to be termed prose poetry; but he was too severely practical and logical to wander far into Parnassian fields.

I annex these several extracts-also a note from the author of The Last Leaf. "