of profane ballads and amorous ditties he knew the words of a vast number. When Dennis got happy at the grocery, or passed the bounds of propriety at a frolic, he was in the habit of raising a charming carol in praise of the joys which enter into the Mussulman's estate on earth, of which he has vouchsafed us only three lines,

-

"The turbaned Turk that scorns the world,

And struts about with his whiskers curled,
For no other man but himself to see."

It was a prime favorite of Abe's; and Dennis sang it with such appropriate zest and feeling, that Abe never forgot a single word of it while he lived.

a song which Dennis thinks should be warbled only in the “fields;" and tells us that they knew and enjoyed "all such [songs] as this." Dave Turnham was also a musical genius,

and had a "piece" beginning,

"There was a Romish lady

Brought up in popery,"

which Abe thought one of the best he ever heard, and insisted upon Dave's singing it for the delectation of old Tom Lincoln, who relished it quite as much as Abe did.1

Mrs. Crawford says, that Abe did not attempt to sing much

1 "I recollect some more:

'Come, thou Fount of every blessing,

Tune my heart to sing thy praise.'

'When I can read my title clear

To mansions in the skies!'

• How tedious and tasteless the hours.'

'Oh! to grace how great a debtor!'

Other little songs I won't say any thing about: they would not look well in print; but I could give them."-DENNIS HANKS.

:

about the house he was probably afraid to indulge in such offensive gayeties in the very habitation of the morose Crawford. According to Dennis Hanks, his melody was not of the sort that hath power to charm the savage; and he was naturally timid about trying it upon Crawford. But, when he was freed from those chilling restraints, he put forth his best endeavors to render "one [song] that was called 'William Riley,' and one that was called John Anderson's Lamentations,' and one that was made about Gen. Jackson and John Adams, at the time they were nominated for the presidency."

The Jackson song indicated clearly enough Abe's steadiness in the political views inculcated by Jones. Mrs. Crawford could recollect but a single stanza of it :

"Let auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to mind,

And Jackson be our President,
And Adams left behind."

In the text of "John Anderson's Lamentations," a most distressful lyric to begin with, -Abe was popularly supposed to have interpolated some lines of his own, which conclusively attested his genius for poetic composition. At all events, he sang it as follows:

and see;

"O sinners! poor sinners, take warning by me:
The fruits of transgression behold now,
My soul is tormented, my body confined,
My friends and dear children left weeping behind.

"Much intoxication my ruin has been,

And my dear companion hath barbarously slain :
In yonder cold graveyard the body doth lie;
Whilst I am condemned, and shortly must die.

"Remember John Anderson's death, and reform
Before death overtakes you, and vengeance comes on.
My grief's overwhelming; in God I must trust :
I am justly condemned; my sentence is just.

"I am waiting the summons in eternity to be hurled ;
Whilst my poor little orphans are cast on the world.
I hope my kind neighbors their guardeens will be,

And Heaven, kind Heaven, protect them and me.”

In 1826 Abe's sister Nancy (or Sarah) was married to Aaron Grigsby; and the festivities of the occasion were made memorable by a song entitled, "Adam and Eve's Wedding Song," which many believed Abe had himself composed. The conceits embodied in the doggerel were old before Abe was born; but there is some intrinsic as well as extraneous evidence to show that the doggerel itself was his. It was sung by the whole Lincoln family, before Nancy's marriage and since, but by nobody else in the neighborhood.

ADAM AND EVE'S WEDDING SONG.

When Adam was created, he dwelt in Eden's shade,
As Moses has recorded, and soon an Eve was made.
Ten thousand times ten thousand

Of creatures swarmed around
Before a bride was formed,
And yet no mate was found.

The Lord then was not willing

The man should be alone,
But caused a sleep upon him,

And took from him a bone,

And closed the flesh in that place of;
And then he took the same,

And of it made a woman,
And brought her to the man.

Then Adam he rejoiced
To see his loving bride,
A part of his own body,
The product of his side.

This woman was not taken
From Adam's feet, we see;
So he must not abuse her,
The meaning seems to be.

This woman was not taken
From Adam's head, we know;
To show she must not rule him,
'Tis evidently so.

This woman she was taken

From under Adam's arm;

So she must be protected

From injuries and harm.

"It was considered at that time," says Mr. Richardson, "that Abe was the best penman in the neighborhood. One day, while he was on a visit at my mother's, I asked him to write some copies for me. He very willingly consented. He wrote several of them, but one of them I have never forgotten, although a boy at the time. It was this:

'Good boys who to their books apply

Will all be great men by and by.''

Here are two original lines from Abe's own copy-book, probably the first he ever had, and which must not be confounded with the famous scrap-book in which his step-mother, lost in admiration of its contents, declares he "entered all things:"

Again,

"Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen:
He will be good, but God knows when."

"Abraham Lincoln is my name,

And with my pen I write the same :

I will be a good boy, but God knows when."

The same book contains the following, written at a later day, and with nothing to indicate that any part of it was borrowed:

"Time! what an empty vapor 'tis !

And days how swift they are!

Swift as an Indian arrow,

Fly on like a shooting-star.

The present moment just is here,

Then slides away in haste,

That we can never say they're ours,

But only say they are past."

Abe wrote many "satires" and "chronicles," which are only remembered in fragments by a few old persons in the neighborhood. Even if we had them in full, they were most of them too indecent for publication. Such, at least, was the character of "a piece" which is said to have been "exceedingly humorous and witty," touching a church trial, wherein Brother Harper and Sister Gordon were the parties seeking judgment. It was very coarse, but it served admirably to raise a laugh in the grocery at the expense of the church.

His chronicles were many, and on a great variety of subjects. They were written, as his early admirers love to tell us, "in the scriptural style;" but those we have betray a very limited acquaintance with the model. In these "chapters" was celebrated every event of importance that took place in the neighborhood: weddings, fights, Crawford's nose, Sister Gordon's innocence, Brother Harper's wit, were all served up, fresh and gross, for the amusement of the groundlings.

Charles and Reuben Grigsby were married about the same time, and, being brothers, returned to their father's house with their brides upon the same day. The infare, the feast, the dance, the ostentatious retirement of the brides and grooms, were conducted in the old-fashioned way of all new countries in the United States, but a way which was bad enough to shock Squire Western himself. On this occasion Abe was not invited, and was very "mad" in consequence. This indignation found vent in a highly-spiced piece of descriptive writing, entitled "The Chronicles of Reuben," which are still in existence.

But even "The Chronicles," venomous and highly successful as they were, were totally insufficient to sate Abe's desire for vengeance on the Grigsbys. They were important people about Gentryville, and the social slight they had given him stung him bitterly. He therefore began on "Billy" in rhyme, after disposing of Charles and Reuben "in scriptural style." Mrs. Crawford attempted to repeat these verses to Mr. Herndon; but the good old lady had not proceeded far, when she blushed very red, and, saying that they were hardly decent,