The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-05 00:00:00

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

First, then of the President. To say that he is ugly, is
nothing ; to add that his figure is grotesque, is to convey
no adequate impression. Fancy a man six foot high, and
thin out of proportion ; with long bony arms and legs,
which somehow seem to be always in the way; with great
rugged, furrowed hands, which grasp you like a vice
when shaking yours ; with a long scraggy neck, and a chest
too narrow for the great arms at its side. Add to this figure
a head, cocoa-nut shaped and somewhat too small for such
a stature, covered with rough, uncombed and uncornbable
hair, that stands out in every direction at once ; a face fur-
rowed, wrinkled, and indented, as though it had been
scarred by vitriol; a high narrow forehead, and sunk deep
beneath bushy eyebrows; two bright, somewhat dreamy
eyes, that seem to gaze through you without looking at
you ; a few irregular blotches of black bristly hair, in the
place where beard and whiskers ought to grow; a close-set,
thin-lipped, stern mouth, with two rows of large white
teeth, and a nose and ears which have been taken by mis-
take from a head of twice the size. Clothe this figure,
then, in a long, tight, badly-fitting suit of black, creased,
soiled, and puckered up at every salient point of the figure
(and every point of this figure is salient) ; put on large ill-
fitting boots, gloves too long for the long bony fingers, and
a fluffy hat, covered to the top with dusty puffy crape ; and
then add to all this an air of strength, physical as well as
moral, and a strange look of dignity coupled with all this
grotesqueness ; and you will have the impression left upon
me by Abraham Lincoln.
On the occasion when I had the honour of meeting the
President, the company was a small one, with most of
whom he was personally acquainted. I have no doubt,
therefore, that he was as much at his ease as usual. There
was a look of depression about his face, which, I am told
by those who see him daily, was habitual to him even before
his child's death. It was strange to me to witness the per-
fect terms of equality on which he appeared to be with
everybody. Occasionally some of his interlocutors called
him "Mr. President," but the habit was to address him
simply as " Sir." It was not, indeed, till I was introduced
to him, that I was aware that the President was one of the
company. He talked little, and seemed to prefer others
talking to him to talking himself; but, when he spoke, his
remarks were always shrewd and sensible. You would
never say he was a gentleman ; you would.still less say he
was not one. There are some women about whom no one
ever thinks in connection with beauty one way or the other ;
and there are men to whom the epithet of gentleman like or
ungentleman-like appears utterly incongruous; and of such
Mr. Lincicn is one. Still there is about him an utter ab-
sence of pretension, and an evident desire to be courteous
to everybody, which is the essence, if not the outward form,
of good breeding. There is a softness, too, about his smile,
and a sparkle of dry humoUr about his eye, which redeem
the expression of his face, and remind me more of the late
Dr. Arnold, as a child's recollection recalls him, than of any
face I can call to mind.

The conversation, like that of all American official men
I have met with, was unrestrained in the presence of
strangers, to a degree perfectly astonishing. Any remarks
that I heard made, as to the present state of affairs, Ido
not feel at liberty to repeat, though really every public man
here appears not only to live in a glass house, but in a re-
verberating gallery, and to be abbolutely indifferent as to
who sees or hears him. There are a few " Lincolniania,"
however, which I may fairly quote, and which will show
the style of his conversation. Some of the party began
smoking, and our host remarked, laughingly, " The Presi-
dent has got no vices; he neither smokes nor drinks."
" That is a doubtful compliment," answered the President;
" I recollect once being outside a stage in Illinois, and a
man sitting by me offered me a cigar. I told him I had no
vices. He said nothing, smoked for some time, and then
grunted out, 'lt's my experience that folks who have no
vices haveplaguyfew virtues.' " Again, a gentleman present
was telling how a friend of his had been driven away from
New Orleans as a Unionist, and how,on his expulsion,when he
asked to see the writ by which he was expelled, the deputation
which called on him told him that the Government had
made up their minds to do nothing illegal, and so they had
issued no illegal writs, and simply meant to make him go
of his own free will. " Well," said Mr. Lincoln, " that
reminds me of an hotel-keeper down at St. Louis, who
boasted that he never had a death in his hotel ; and no more
he had, for whenever a guest was dying in his house he
carried him out to die in the street." At another time the
conversation turned upon the discussions as to the Mis-
souri compromise, and elicited the following quaint remark
from the President. "It used to amuse me some (sie) to
find that the slaveholders wanted more territory, because
they had not room enough for their slaves, and yet they
complained of not having the slave-trade, because they
wanted more slaves for their room."

In " The Morals and Literature of the Restoration,"
we have a severe commentary on the Stuarts and
their influence. That on " Homes of the London
Workmen" treats of the very inadequate accommo-
dation for the poorer classes in the Metropolis, but
almost despairs of remedy. The writer says—
The dilemma seems, for the present, to defy all efforts at
escape. The working classes, as a rule, are very insuffi-
ciently sensible to the evils amid which they have
been brought up. They will not make a great effort,
or a great sacrifice, to escape from them. They
will rather huddle together in ono room in a back
street in town, than incur the trifling expense and loss
of time involved in living out of London, and coming in to
their work by railway. They are very often reluctant to
submit to any rule or shadow of control, in order to enjoy
the great advantages hold out by the model lodging-houses.
While this is the case, the improvement of their condition
must go on gradually and at a very slow rate. It is very
hard to help those who do not greatly care to help them-
selves. Education is doing something to elevate the stan-
dard of comfort, morals, and decency, among the rising
generation, and will, no doubt, in time create a demand for
a better class of dwellings, under conditions which will
make it possible to satisfy the want. In the meantime,
compulsory measure, whether legal or otherwise, can do
little good, and may not do a little harm. Even the
modest demands of the sanitary inspectors tend to
raise rents already enormous, and, by enforcing
the demolition of houses that can no longer be
tolerated, to crowd still more densely those that remain.
The railway clearances have done, and will do, a great deal
of mischief in this way. The displaced population is driven
not outwards but inwards; not into more distant suburbs,
but into the already overcrowded " rookeries" as yet undis-
turbed. It will not be to be regretted, should Parliament
think it necessary to take up the cause of the expelled in-
habitants, and oblige the railway companies to provide
houses in suitable neighbourhoods, to replace those they
are permitted to destroy.

Other articles touch on " Edward Trying," "English
Poets in Italy," "British Columbia," &c.

The Cornhill.

Philip, at last, is on his road to fortune, if not to
fame. Plunged in distress by his quarrel with the
proprietor of the Pall Mall Gazette—" Good Sama-
ritans " once more come to the rescue, procure him
briefs for Railway Bills; money flows in,
and he takes a house on his own ac-
count. But the " Villain of the piece,"
that unlucky Dr. Firman, once more dashes his cup
with bitterness, not content with drawing bills on
his son which the latter pays, he forges his name for
a considerable amount, and Philip is overwhelmed
with consternation at the discovery. Whether it be
in good taste to make the son stand for virtue and
the father for vice, in a tale, We doubt. Contrast,
of course, there must be, neither bad fathers nor
good sons aro rare in the world. But Mr. Thack-
eray 's effect is harsh, his black and white are thickly
laid on, and his picture wants tone. HiS Round-
about Paper is a clever bit of non sense writing in
which ho laughs at, and with his readers. The
paper on " Superstition" touches, of course, on the
recent so-called spirit manifestations. " The whole
subject of supernatural stories may be summed up"
says the writer, "in one phrase; in so far as they are
strange, they ought not to be believed ; in so far as
they are supernatural, they ought to,be disbelived."
We commend attention to the article on "The Great
Naval Revolution," which contrasts the advantages
of wood and iron, and recommends that without
delay we should produce " Iron-plated vessels of
war, of moderate dimensions, that will bear our flag
to distant shores." Sir John Herschel gives a trans-
lation in Hexameter of the first book of the Iliad.
The words he interpolates being put in italics.
Doyle's Birds-eye view of " Rotten Row in the Sea-
son," confused in general effect, is clever in detail.
Agnes of Sorrento is finished, and there is a short
story called " Six Weeks at Heppenheim."

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Gymnastic Exercises. By Archibald Maclaren.
As this "military system of gymnastic exercises"
" has been appreyed by the General Commanding-