good-natured, and his style so peculiar, that he kept the
House in a continuous roar of merriment for the last half hour of his
speech. He would commence a point in his speech far up one of the
aisles, and keep on talking, gesticulating, and walking until he would
find himself, at the end of a paragraph, down in the centre of the area
in front of the clerk's desk. He would then go back and take another
_head_, and _work down_ again. And so on, through his capital
speech."

LINCOLN GOES TO NEW ENGLAND.--A NEW SPEECH.

This speech, as well as the respect Lincoln's work in the House had
inspired among the leaders of the party, brought him an invitation to
deliver several campaign speeches in New England at the close of
Congress, and he went there early in September. There was in New
England, at that date, much strong anti-slavery feeling. The Whigs
claimed to be "Free Soilers" as well as the party which appropriated
that name, and Lincoln, in the first speech he made, defined carefully
his position on the slavery question. This was at Worcester,
Massachusetts, on September 12th. The Whig State convention had met to
nominate a candidate for governor, and the most eminent Whigs of
Massachusetts were present. Curiously enough the meeting was presided
over by ex-Governor Levi Lincoln, a descendant, like Abraham Lincoln,
from the original Samuel of Hingham. There were many brilliant speeches
made; but if we are to trust the reports of the day, Lincoln's was the
one which by its logic, its clearness, and its humor, did most for the
Whig cause. "Gentlemen inform me," says one Boston reporter, who came
too late for the exercises, "that it was one of the best speeches ever
heard in Worcester, and that several Whigs who had gone off on the Free
Soil fizzle have come back again to the Whig ranks."

A report was made and printed in the Boston "Advertiser," though it has
hitherto been entirely overlooked by biographers of Lincoln. A search
made for this magazine through the files of the Boston and Worcester
papers of the year brought it to light, and we reprint it here for the
first time. It gives concisely what Lincoln thought about the slavery
question in 1848. The report reads:

"Mr. Lincoln has a very tall and thin figure, with an intellectual
face, showing a searching mind and a cool judgment. He spoke in a
clear and cool and very eloquent manner for an hour and a half,
carrying the audience with him in his able arguments a