I would yield. Lincoln accordingly came, but not to entreat me, although he, too, was quite anxious on the subject. He merely said: "Whitney, in this Barrett case, we are willing to plead guilty of manslaughter and let Davis send him up for eight years, the full term, if you are willing." I was mad about something and replied curtly, "But you see I am NOT willing." Lincoln accepted this as final and said no more-not another word. He returned to his clients, and I heard him say to them: "We can't make that arrangement, but must go to trial. I have elsewhere affirmed that Mr. Lincoln was a gentleman, and I again refer to the subject in order to emphasize it. No term is so frequently misapplied: the conventional test of gentility is to wear a silk hat, fine clothes and patent leather shoes. The world has not yet learned that, "Worth makes the man; the want of it the fellow, The rest is all but leather and prunella." George IV. was styled the "first gentleman in England :" contrariwise, he was the first scoundrel; as his base treatment of Queen Caroline attests. Doubtless his friend, Beau Brummel, was also called a gentleman. As well might one term "Rabelais" a genteel book, because it was bound in velvet and morocco. The term "gentleman," properly used, means very much. One of Mr. Lincoln's successors was waited on by an officeseeker with strong recommendations. The sleek President received him graciously, listened to him genteelly, and definitely promised him the office. As the delighted applicant was about to leave, the President said, significantly: "before you leave town you had better see the Secretary of the Treasury." This he did, and was informed by the Secretary that the President had, that morning, appointed his rival in his own handwriting. This man was President and a professed Christian, but he was not a gentleman. Smith meets Jones and says joyously: lighted to see you and I hope you are well." "I am so deJones replies sadly: "I'm sorry I am not: my physician says I have heart disease and may drop dead any moment." Smith rejoins: "Sho! well, how is wheat to-day?" Was Smith a gentleman? Not much. But if Lincoln promised an office, he performed it. If he told one he was glad to see him, he was sincere. If he ventured to hope a man was well, he meant it. He would not even subscribe to the conventional white social lies. In his relations to womankind he was spotless, "no marble saint niched in cathedral aisle," was more secure from harm from him; adroit female lobbyists, adorned with the brightest carnation hues, and facile society women smoled their sweetest smiles upon him, in vain. One such, who thought she had made a decided impression, was dismissed with a note to Stanton: "This woman, dear Stanton, is smarter than she appears." While a poor girl, who didn't "wear hoops," got the coveted pardon at once. He had a critical sense of propriety and of honor. In traveling with a crowd of wild lawyers he regaled them with anecdotes more robust than ideal: but when a lady was of the party he entertained them equally well, but without the slightest indelicate allusion. He pronounced Samuel Hitt, of Ogle County, to be a perfect gentleman, and gave me this as an illustration: One of our friends turned his political coat at once, and, meeting Mr. Hitt, made a lame attempt to explain and justify his course; to which, after listening courteously to his feeble excuse, his sole reply was: "You're a fool." And Lincoln added: "Hitt talked to me an half-hour about this defection, but never once mentioned the epithet he had used." The idea being that, while a spirit of indig nation authorized the use of the epithet to the delinquent, gentle manners required that the incident be not repeated to others. Society, as we find it, is scarcely more artificial and insincere than the mock ladies and gentlemen we see in the drama, and social attrition and experience reveals the sad fact that, "A man may smile and smile and be a villain still." But, notwithstanding the rare combination of the highest moral and intellectual qualities required to make the definition complete: of Abraham Lincoln it may be properly averred that he is entitled to "The grand old name of GENTLEMAN." To recapitulate: Mr. Lincoln had great intellectual powers; was a master of logic and dialectics; had excellent judgment; and knew with precision the laws of, and relations between, cause and effect. He had a moral courage which was sublime: which nothing could daunt or impair: which enabled him to weave his own clear convictions into his administrative acts: and which compelled him to remorselessly pursue the path of duty, undismayed by obstacles, however threatening. His conceptions of equal and exact justice were so clear and well defined, and his judgment so accurate, that the nation was content to adopt and acquiesce in his policies, as a rule: and he really ruled the country with kind and beneficent, but despotic, sway: yet so unobtrusively, and "he bore his faculties so meekly," that his strong will was not visible, except in beneficent and necessary acts of administration. He was animated by one single object, and to its attainment, he directed all of his great powers and the resources and credit of the nation. The Radicals tried to divert his attention from this object, to the forcible, untimely abolition of slavery: the Rebel commissioners tried to induce him to attempt the conquest of Mexico; a foolish element wanted him to try conclusions with England; he thrust aside all these schemes as idle fancies; "the UNION with him arose to the sublimity of a religious mysticism;" its restoration was his sole duty; from its performance he did not for one moment swerve; to its execution he consecrated his life; and he sealed the bond of the regenerated nation with his precious blood. Finally, "he was the instrument of God:-the Divine Spirit, which in another day of regeneration took the form of an humble artisan of Galilee, had clothed itself in a man of lowly birth and degree;" and, as "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church," so was the martyrdom of Lincoln the pledge and promise of a regenerated Republic, under whose panoply, liberty and enlightenment shall dwell together for ages-from whose example Republicanism shall ultimately supplant legitimacy, aristocracy, king-craft and despotism throughout the earth. By pain of heart, now check'd and now impelled, --WORDSWORTH. What love is, if thou would'st be taught, Two souls with but a single thought, -INGOMAR. "Love laughs at locksmiths," they say; it has no law nor logic; no rules nor system; naught but idiosyncracies. And when a lady's in the case, You know all other things give place. When the heartless libertine, Aaron Burr, married the widow Prevost, his wild licentious life was changed into one of perfect propriety; his home was almost ideal; his habits were regular; he found no happiness but at his domestic hearth. His daughter Theodosia venerated him as a religious ascetic does a cherished saint, and he regarded her with no less devotion. But when his home circle was broken up, he became again a reckless debauchee, and left a dishonored name, "At which the world grew pale |