y of "The Poetical Works
of Alexander Pope, Esq., to which is prefixed the life of the author by
Dr. Johnson." It bears the imprint on the title-page of J.J. Woodward,
Philadelphia, and was published in 1839. Our President wrote his own
name in it, and chronicles the fact that it was presented to him "by his
friend N.W. Edwards." In January, 1861, Mr. Lincoln gave the book to a
very dear friend of his, who honored me with it in January, 1867, as a
New-Year's present. As long as I live it will remain among my books,
specially treasured as having been owned and read by one of the noblest
and most sorely tried of men, a hero comparable with any of
Plutarch's,--

"The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American."

THACKERAY

* * * * *

_What Emerson has said in his fine subtle way of Shakespeare may well be
applied to the author of "Vanity Fair."

"One can discern in his ample pictures what forms and humanities pleased
him; his delight in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in cheerful
giving._

* * * * *

_"He read the hearts of men and women, their probity, and their second
thought, and wiles; the wiles of innocence, and the transitions by which
virtues and vices slide into their contraries."_

II. THACKERAY.

Dear old Thackeray!--as everybody who knew him intimately calls him, now
he is gone. That is his face, looking out upon us, next to Pope's. What
a contrast in bodily appearance those two English men of genius present!
Thackeray's great burly figure, broad-chested, and ample as the day,
seems to overshadow and quite blot out of existence the author of "The
Essay on Man." But what friends they would have been had they lived as
contemporaries under Queen Anne or Queen Victoria! One can imagine the
author of "Pendennis" gently lifting poor little Alexander out of his
"chariot" into the club, and revelling in talk with him all night long.
Pope's high-bred and gentlemanly manner, combined with his extraordinary
sensibility and dread of ridicule, would have modified Thackeray's usual
gigantic fun and sometimes boisterous sarcasm into a rich and strange
adaptability to his little guest. We can imagine them talking together
now, with even a nobler wisdom and ampler charity than were ever
vouchsafed to them when they were busy amid the tur