sidering the career of the hero of the Union, but which, from the point of view of letters, is of absorbing interest. No criticism of Mr. Lincoln can be in any sense adequate which does not deal with his astonishing power over words. It is not too much to say of him that he is among the greatest masters of prose ever produced by the English race. Self-educated, or rather not educated at all in the ordinary sense, as he was, he contrived to obtain an insight and power in the handling of the mechanism of letters such as has been given to few men in his, or, indeed, in any age. That the gift of oratory should be a natural gift, is understandable enough, for the methods of the orator, like those of the poet, are primarily sensuous, and may well be instinctive. Mr. Lincoln's achievement seems to show that no less is the writing of prose an endowment of Nature. Mr. Lincoln did not get his ability to handle prose through his gift of speech. That these are separate, though coördinate, faculties is a matter beyond dispute, for many of the great orators of the world have proved themselves exceedingly inefficient in the matter of deliberate composition. Mr. Lincoln enjoyed both gifts. His letters, dispatches, memoranda, and written addresses are even better than his speeches; and in speaking thus of Mr. Lincoln's prose, we are not thinking merely of certain pieces of inspired rhetoric. We do not praise his work because, like Mr. Bright, he could exercise his power of coining

illuminating phrases as effectively upon paper as on the platform. It is in his conduct of the pedestrian portions of composition that Mr. Lincoln's genius for prose style is exhibited. Mr. Bright's writing cannot claim to answer the description which Hazlitt has given of the successful prose-writer's performance. Mr. Lincoln's can. What Hazlitt says is complete and perfect in definition. He tells us that the prosewriter so uses his pen "that he loses no particle of the exact characteristic extreme impression of the thing he writes about"; and with equal significance he points out that "the prose-writer is master of his materials," as "the poet is the slave of his style." If these words convey a true definition, then Mr. Lincoln is a master of prose. Whatever the subject he has in hand, whether it be bold or impassioned, business-like or pathetic, we feel that we "lose no particle of the exact characteristic extreme impression" of the thing written about. We have it all, and not merely a part. Every line shows that the writer is master of his materials; that he guides the words, never the words him. This is, indeed, the predominant note throughout all Mr. Lincoln's work. We feel that he is like the engineer who controls some mighty reservoir. As he desires, he opens the various sluice-gates, but for no instant is the water not under his entire control. We are sensible in reading Mr. Lincoln's writings, that an immense force is gathered up behind him, and that in each jet that flows every

drop is meant. Some writers only leak; others half flow through determined channels, half leak away their words like a broken lock when it is emptying. The greatest, like Mr. Lincoln, send out none but clear-shaped streams.

-London Spectator, April 25 and May 5, 1891.

LETTER TO GEN. G. B. McCLELLAN.

WASHINGTON, April 9, 1862.

MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN.

My Dear Sir:-Your dispatches, complaining that you are not properly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much.

Blenker's division was withdrawn from you before you left here, and you know the pressure under which I did it, and, as I thought, acquiesced in it-certainly not without reluctance.

After you left I ascertained that less than twenty thousand unorganized men, without a single field battery, were all you designed to be left for the defense of Washington and Manassas Junction, and part of this even was to go to General Hooker's old position; General Banks' corps, once designated for Manassas Junction, was divided and tied up on the

NOTE.-General McClellan was assigned to the command of the Army of the Potomac July 25, 1861; was commander-in-chief of all the armies of the U. S. Nov. 1, 1861-March 11, 1862. Conducted the Peninsular campaign March to July, 1862, and was superseded by Burnside Nov. 7, 1862.

line of Winchester and Strasburgh, and could not leave it without again exposing the Upper Potomac and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. This presented -or would present, when McDowell and Sumner should be gone-a great temptation to the enemy to turn back from the Rappahannock and sack Washington. My explicit order that Washington should, by the judgment of all the commanders of corps, be left entirely secure, had been neglected. It was precisely this that drove me to detain McDowell.

I do not forget that I was satisfied with your arrangement to leave Banks at Manassas Junction; but when that arrangement was broken up and nothing was substituted for it, of course I was not satisfied, but I was constrained to substitute something for it myself.

And now allow me to ask, do you really think I should permit the line from Richmond via Manassas Junction to this city to be entirely open, except what resistance could be presented by less than twenty thousand unorganized troops? This is a question which the country will not allow me to evade.

There is a curious mystery about the number of troops now with you. When I telegraphed you on the 6th, saying you had over a hundred thousand with you, I had just obtained from the Secretary of War a statement, taken as he said from your own returns, making one hundred and eight thousand then with you and en route to you. You now say you will have

but eighty-five thousand when all en route to you shall have reached you. How can this discrepancy of twentythree thousand be accounted for?

As to General Wool's command, I understand it is doing for you precisely what a like number of your own would have to do if that command was away. I suppose the whole force which has gone forward to you is with you by this time; and if so, I think it is the precise time for you to strike a blow. By delay the enemy will relatively gain upon you-—that is, he will gain faster by fortifications and reinforcement than you can by reinforcements alone.

And once more let me tell you, it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will do me the justice to remember I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting and not surmounting a difficulty; that we would find the same enemy and the same or equal intrenchments at either place. The country will not fail to note-is noting now-that the present hesitation to move upon an intrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated.

I beg to assure you that I have never written you or spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as in my most anxious judgment I consistently can; but you must act. Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.