do it, but if you and I unite our influence with this administration I believe we can manage it together and make two loyal fathers happy. Let us make them our prisoners."

And he did so.

I often heard the Attorney-General say on his return from important Cabinet meetings that the more he saw of Mr. Lincoln the more was he impressed with the clearness and vigor of his intellect and the breadth and sagacity of his views, and he would add:

"He is beyond question the master-mind of the Cabinet."

No man could talk with him on public questions without being struck with the singular lucidity of his mind and the rapidity with which he fastened on the essential point.

A day or two after the news came of the stopping of the English steamer Trent by Admiral Wilkes, and the forcible capture of Mason and Slidell, the President walked into the Attorney-General's room, and as he seated himself said to that officer:

"I am not getting much sleep out of that exploit of Wilkes', and I suppose we must look up the law of the case. I am not much of a prize lawyer, but it seems to me pretty clear that if Wilkes saw fit to make that capture on the high seas he had no right to turn his quarter-deck into a prize court."

His mind quickly saw the point which, first of all, gave the act its gravest and most indefensible aspect. The memory of Abraham Lincoln is and always will be precious to the American people, and the better his character and conduct are understood the brighter will he shine among those names that the world will not willingly let die.

TITIAN J. COFFEY.

ΜΥ

XIII.

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Y acquaintance with Lincoln could hardly be called an acquaintance. I was rather an observer. I followed him as I did every public character during the antislavery conflict. The first thing that really awakened my interest in him was his speeches parallel with Douglas in Illinois, and indeed it was that manifestation of ability that secured his nomination to the Presidency. It was a matter of great importance that the new Presidential election should have another candidate than Fremont, and Lincoln's speech at the Cooper Union, after his controversy with Douglas, settled it.

Seward expected the nomination, but overhopeful nature would, I think, have gone far to damage the whole country if he had been President, and the nomination of Lincoln was, to begin with, the revelation of the hand of God.

He was, in the most significant way, a man that embodied all the best qualities of unspoiled, middleclass men. He had the homely common sense; he had honesty with sagacity; and he had sympathetic