be misunderstood, if not maligned. The firm of "Lincoln & Herndon" lacked such a man, neither partner having the saturnine grimness, or the brusque aloofness, for such a part; though Herndon would have made a better attempt at it had not his partner, who loved men more than money, interfered. If he brought suit for a fee and obtained judgment, the victim would hunt up Lincoln and by means of a skilfully woven tale of distress secure release. Lincoln made such small charges for his services that Herndon, and even Judge Davis, expostulated with him, but to no purpose. He could not be induced to sue for a fee, except in rare instances when a client, able to pay, was obviously trying to defraud the firm. Though his name appears in the Illinois reports in one hundred and seventy-three cases, his income was never more than two or three thousand dollars a year. Twice in later years as attorney for the Illinois Central Railway Company, and in the McCormick reaper patent litigation - he received what were then called large fees; but during the first four years after he left Congress he was often hard pressed for money. His father had moved three times, and when he died in 1851, there was a mortgage on the farm in Coles County to be raised, his mother to help, and a shiftless step-brother to advise in letters plain-spoken and quaintly wise. But he worked hard, and rapidly developed into one of the best trial lawyers in the state.

Law practice was more difficult then than now, by reason of the dearth of authority and the necessity of reasoning out cases upon original principles. Young men, especially, were at a disadvantage in intricate cases, and the habit was general of employing leaders of the bar from a distance. Hence the circuit-riding practice. Local attorneys were retained to work up the cases and prepare the papers awaiting the arrival of the journeying bar, from among whom litigants would select their champions. Such a practice was admirably suited to the peculiar genius of Lincoln, relieving him of details, which he detested, and giving free play to his powers of logic, of strategy, and of humor. While, as a lawyer, he was not learned, all agreed that he was able, skilful, and just, singu

larly lucid in stating a case, courteous but searching in examining witnesses, forceful and sagacious in argument, and when the case turned upon human or moral issues one of the most persuasive advocates at the bar. Quick in taking cases into his mind, having a remarkable memory for evidence, if he found beneath the facts a human principle, his heart warmed in the work of developing it. At times he would seclude himself while revolving some question raised by a village client, which had expanded into a great human problem, and he never failed to present it so vividly that dull minds grew alert and shrewd ones absorbed. His presence was commanding, with a certain modest dignity not easily defined, and the spell of his marvelous personality gave him a subtle, almost occult power over juries. Sometimes, though not often, his humor won the case, as when he rebutted a charge of trespass by an inimitable description of the perplexity of a wandering pig which found the fence of the plaintiff so crooked that it invariably came out on its own side. But he was not always mild, not always funny, and when he was angry it was a terrible spectacle. Outside the court room he talked politics, told stories, played pranks, and now and then slipped away from his fellows to walk alone, with his lips close shut, softly humming, and returned strangely sad and exhausted.

Twice a year, spring and autumn, the lawyers started out on the circuit, following the train of Judge David Davis, massive and able, and Lincoln seems to have been almost the only one who went the rounds of the circuit. Herndon was out with him about one-fourth of the time-long enough to learn that life on the circuit was a gay one, and that Lincoln loved it and he has left us vivid pictures of dramatic court scenes, of famous murder trials, of parleying lawyers and lying witnesses; of the camaraderie of country taverns where judge and jury, lawyers and litigants, and even prisoners, sat at table together; of a long, gaunt figure stretched upon beds too short for him, his feet hanging over the foot-board, his head propped up, poring over the Elements of Euclid; of story-telling jousts that continued, amidst roars of laughter, far into the night. Herndon looked after the business in

Springfield, while Lincoln, when he set out on a tour of the circuit, which kept him away for months, continued to the end, rarely returning home to spend the Sabbath with his family.

Nothing could be duller than remaining on the Sabbath in a country inn of that time after adjournment of court. Good cheer had expended its force during court week, and blank dullness succeeded; but Lincoln would entertain the few lingering roustabouts of the barroom with as great zest, apparently, as he had previously entertained the court and bar, and then would hitch up his horse," Old Tom," as he was called, and, solitary and alone, ride off to the next term in course. One would naturally suppose that the leading lawyer of the circuit, in a pursuit which occupied nearly half his time, would make himself comfortable, but he did not. His horse was as raw-boned and weird-looking as himself, and his buggy, an open one, as rude as either; his attire was that of an ordinary farmer or stock-raiser, while the sum total of his baggage consisted of a very attenuated carpetbag, an old weather-beaten umbrella, and a short blue cloak reaching to his hips-a style which was prevalent during the Mexican War.1

Reminiscence lies warm upon the life of Lincoln; upon no part of it, perhaps, so warmly as upon these circuit-riding years. Books dealing with this period glow with picturesque and humorous memories, leaving the impression that what joy there was in a life destined to great sacrifice was found on the old Eighth Circuit. Too often he has been portrayed, perhaps unconsciously, as a mere story-teller, which was as far as possible from the truth, though it is true that his humor was brightest when his heart was most forlorn. That may account, in part, for the memories of these years of poverty, obscurity, and baffled ambition, humor being his re

1 Life of Lincoln, by W. C. Whitney (1892).

2 Of these, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, by W. C. Whitney (1892), is doubtless the best, though it has been criticized as exploiting a kind of Damon and Pythias intimacy between Lincoln and Whitney, of which the old Illinois friends of Lincoln were unaware; Abraham Lincoln, by I. N. Phillips, Appendix (1901); while the legal aspects of the circuit-riding practice have been admirably portrayed by F. T. Hill, Lincoln the Lawyer (1906).

laxation from irksome toil without and pressing thoughts within. But he was fundamentally serious and a man of dignity, and while men spoke of him as "Old Abe" behind his back, in his presence they indulged in no uncouth familiarities. His humor- and it was humor rather than wit, for he was essentially a poet and a man of pathos - lay close to that profound and inscrutable melancholy which clung to him and tinged all his days the shadow, perhaps, of some pre-natal gloom, woven in the soul of his mother, and deepened, no doubt, by a temperament which felt the tragedy in mortal things. It was not for his humor that men loved him, nor yet for his intellect with its blend of integrity and shrewdness, which all admired, but for his manliness, his simplicity, his sympathy, and for much else which we feel even now and cannot put into words. To this day, men who were close to Lincoln have a memory as of something too deep for speech. They recount his doings, they recall his words, they laugh at his stories, but they always leave something untold: only a light comes into their eyes, and one realizes what a well-founded reverence is.

Of the inner life of Lincoln during these buried years from 1849 to 1854-few glimpses remain, but they are enough to show that it was a time of revolution and crisis. Mentally he was occupied as never before with those questions which every man, soon or late, must settle for himself; that he met and made terms with them is certain, but by what process we know not. What we do know is that he loved the old Eighth Circuit and the comradeship of the men with whom he journeyed. There he traveled with Leonard Swett, Judge Logan, E. H. Baker, O. H. Browning, Richard J. Oglesby, John M. Palmer, and others, and the friendships formed were enduring. It is not too much to say that it was

a small group of fellow-practitioners on the Eighth Circuit Davis, the judge; Swett, the advocate; and Logan, the leader of the bar, but especially Davis - who forced Lincoln upon the Chicago Convention in 1860, and thus gave him to the nation." Nor do we forget that it was largely the

1

1 Lincoln the Lawyer, by F. T. Hill, p. 195 (1906).