was not until his return from Congress, in 1849, that he got the last dollar of it discharged. He paid Green his note of two hundred and fifty dollars, in small instalments, beginning in 1839, and ending in 1840. The history of his debt to Rutledge is not so well known. It was probably insignificant as compared with the others; and Mr. Rutledge proved a generous creditor, as he had always been a kind and considerate friend.

Certain that he had no abilities for trade, Mr. Lincoln took the best resolution he could have formed under the circumstances. He sat down to his books just where he was, believing that knowledge would be power, and power profit. He had no reason to shun bis creditors, for these were the men of all others who most applauded the honesty of his conduct at the period of his greatest pecuniary misfortune. He talked to them constantly of the "old debt," "the national debt," as he sometimes called it, promised to pay when he could, and they devoutly relied upon every word he said.

Row Herndon moved to the country, and Lincoln was compelled to change his boarding-place. He now began to live at a tavern for the first time in his life. It was kept by various persons during his stay,- first, it seems, by Mr. Rutledge, then by Henry Onstatt, and last by Nelson Alley. It was a small log-house, covered with clapboards, and contained four

rooms.

Lincoln began to read law while he lived with Herndon. Some of his acquaintances insist that he began even earlier than this, and assert, by way of proof, that he was known to borrow a well-worn copy of Blackstone from A. V. Bogue, a pork-dealer at Beardstown. At all events, he now went to I work in earnest, and studied law as faithfully as if he had never dreamed of any other business in life. As a matter of course, his slender purse was unequal to the purchase of the needful books: but this circumstance gave him little trouble; for, although he was short of funds, he was long in the legs, and had nothing to do but to walk off to Springfield, where his friend, John T. Stuart, cheerfully supplied his wants. Mr.

Stuart's partner, H. C. Dummer, says, "He was an uncouthlooking lad, did not say much, but what he did say he said straight and sharp."

"He used to read law," says Henry McHenry, "in 1832 or 1833, barefooted, seated in the shade of a tree, and would grind around with the shade, just opposite Berry's grocerystore, a few feet south of the door." He occasionally varied the attitude by lying flat on his back, and "putting his feet up the tree," a situation which might have been unfavorable to mental application in the case of a man with shorter extremities.

"The first time I ever saw Abe with a law-book in his hand," says Squire Godbey, "he was sitting astride of Jake Bales's woodpile in New Salem. Says I, Abe, what are you studying?'-'Law,' says Abe. Great God Almighty!' responded I." It was too much for Godbey: he could not suppress the blasphemy at seeing such a figure acquiring science in such an odd situation.

Minter Graham asserts that Abe did a little "of what we call sitting up to the fine gals of Illinois;" but, according to other authorities, he always had his book with him "when in company," and would read and talk alternately. He carried it along in his walks to the woods and the river; read it in daylight under the shade-tree by the grocery, and at night by any friendly light he could find, most frequently the one he kindled himself in the shop of his old benefactor, the cooper. Abe's progress in the law was as surprising as the intensity of his application to study. He never lost a moment that might be improved. It is even said that he read and recited to himself on the road and by the wayside as he came down from Springfield with the books he had borrowed from Stuart. The first time he went up he had "mastered" forty pages of Blackstone before he got back. It was not long until, with his restless desire to be doing something practical, he began to turn his acquisitions to account in forwarding the business of his neighbors. He wrote deeds, contracts, notes, and other legal papers, for them, "using a small dictionary

and an old form-book;" "petifogged" incessantly before the justice of the peace, and probably assisted that functionary in the administration of justice as much as he benefited his own clients. This species of country "student's " practice was entered upon very early, and kept up until long after he was quite a distinguished man in the Legislature. But in all this he was only trying himself: as he was not admitted to the bar until 1837, he did not regard it as legitimate practice, and never charged a penny for his services. Although this fact is mentioned by a great number of persons, and the generosity of his conduct much enlarged upon, it is seriously to be regretted that no one has furnished us with a circumstantial account of any of his numerous cases before the magistrate.

But Mr. Lincoln did not confine himself entirely to the law. He was not yet quite through with Kirkham nor the schoolmaster. The "valuable copy" of the grammar "he delighted to peruse " is still in the possession of R. B. Rutledge, with the thumb-marks of the President all over it. "He also studied natural philosophy, chemistry, astronomy, &c. He had no regular teacher, but perhaps received more assistance from Minter Graham than from any other person."

He read with avidity all the newspapers that came to New Salem, chiefly "The Sangamon Journal," "The Missouri Republican," and "The Louisville Journal." The latter was his favorite: its wit and anecdotes were after his own heart; and he was a regular subscriber for it through several years when he could ill afford a luxury so costly.

Mr. Lincoln was never a profound historical student: if he happened to need historical facts for the purposes of a political or legal discussion, he read them on the spur of the occasion. For this reason his opinions of current affairs all through his life were based more upon individual observation and reflection than upon scientific deductions from the experience of the world. Yet at this time, when he probably felt more

1 According to Mr. McNamar, Lincoln took "The Sangamon Journal" and "The Louisville Journal" from 1832 to 1837; and Hill and Bale took "The Missouri Republican" and "The Cincinnati Gazette." "The Missouri Republican" was first issued as a daily in Sep. tember, 1836. Its size was then twenty-five by thirty-six inches.

keenly than ever after the want of a little learning to embellish the letters and speeches he was ambitious to compose, he is said to have read Rollin's "Ancient History," Gibbon's "Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire," and similar works, with great diligence and care. The books were borrowed from William Green, Bowlin Greene, and other parties in and about New Salem.

6

But he greatly preferred literature of another sort, such as Mrs. Lee Hentz's novels; some of which he found among the effects of Mr. Ellis, at the time his companion and occasional bedfellow. "He was very fond," Mr. Ellis declares, "of short stories, one and two columns long, -like Cousin Sally Dillard,' Becky Wilson's Courtship,' The Down-easter and the Bull,'' How a bashful man became a married man, with five little bashful boys, and how he and his red-headed wife became Millerites, and before they were to ascend agreed to make a clean breast of it to each other;' and how, when the old lady was through, the Down-easter earnestly wished that Gabriel might blow his horn without delay." One New Salemite insists that Mr. Lincoln told this latter story "with embezzlements" (embellishments), and therefore he is firmly convinced that Mr. Lincoln “had a hand” in originating it. The catalogue of literature in which he particularly delighted at New Salem is completed by the statement of Mr. Rutledge, that he took great pleasure in "Jack Downing's Letters."

Mr. Lincoln still relished a popular song with a broad "point" or a palpable moral in it as much as he had ever enjoyed the vocal efforts of Dennis Hanks and his rollicking compeers of the Gentryville grocery. He even continued his own unhappy attempts, although with as little success as before, and quite as much to the amusement of his friends. To the choice collection of miscellaneous ballads acquired in Indiana, he now added several new favorites, like "Old Sukey Blue Skin," and some selections from the "Missouri Harmony," with variations by himself. He was also singularly fond of an Irish song, "which tells how St. Patrick came to be born on the 17th day of March."

"You ask me," says Mr. Ellis, "if I remember the first time I saw Mr. Lincoln. Yes, I do. I was out collecting back tax for Gen. James D. Henry. I went from the tavern down to Jacob Bales's old mill, and then I first saw Mr. Lincoln. He was sitting on a saw-log talking to Jack and Rial Armstrong and a man by the name of Hohammer. I shook hands with the Armstrongs and Hohammer, and was conversing with them a few minutes, when we were joined by my old friend and former townsman, George Warburton, pretty tight as usual; and he soon asked me to tell him the old story about Ben Johnson and Mrs. Dale's blue dye, &c., which I did. And then Jack Armstrong said, Lincoln, tell Ellis the story about Gov. J. Sichner, his city-bred son, and his nigger Bob;' which he did, with several others, by Jack's calling for them. I found out then that Lincoln was a cousin to Charley Hanks of Island Grove. I told him I knew three of the boys, Joe, Charley, and John, and his uncle, old Billy Hanks, who lived up on the North gamon River, afterwards near Decatur.'

Fork of the San

This interview took place shortly after the Black Hawk War; but it was not until the next year (1833), the period at which we have now arrived, that Lincoln and Ellis became "intimate." At that time Ellis went there to keep a store, and boarded" at the same log-tavern " where Lincoln was. Lincoln, being "engaged in no particular business," merely endeavoring to make a lawyer, a surveyor, and a politician of himself, gave a great deal of his time to Ellis and Ellis's business. "He also used to assist me in the store," says this

1 "I myself knew old Billy Hanks, his mother's brother, and he was a very sensible old man. He was father to Mrs. Dillon, on Spring Creek; and Charley, Billy, jr., and John were his sons: they were all low-flung,-could neither read nor write. Some of them used to live in Island Grove, Sangamon County. . . . I remember the time that Lincoln and E. D. Baker ran in convention, to decide who should run for Congress in old Sangamon; that some of Baker's friends accused Mr. Lincoln of belonging to a proud and an aristocratic family, — meaning the Edwardses and Todds, I suppose; and, when it came to Mr. Lincoln's ears, he laughed heartily, and remarked, 'Well, that sounds strange to me: I do not remember of but one that ever came to see me, and while he was in town he was accused of stealing a jew's-harp.' Josh Speed remembers his say. ing this. I think you ought to remember it. Beverly Powell and myself lived with Bell and Speed, and I think he said so in their store. After that a Miss Hanks came to spend the winter with Mrs. Lincoln." -A. Y. ELLIS.