New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-02-09
LINCOLN.
THE STORY OF HIS LIFE AND WORK.

Nicoiay and John Hay. 10 vols; PIP; clxxlil'
47O6 Maps and portraits. lhe century N0"p'"''
Monumental is the term one would choose IL
allowed but single word with which TO char-
acterize this work The labor OF generation
and the affection of lifetime nave ihue'"'
Joined in raising to the memory Oh 'he gieaes'
sme,;can of our DAYS monument worthy of his
fono The hest resources of material age nave
Noon drawn upon for its enrichment; and If the
authors have been fortunate in the subject gwen
,nto their hands by the conveyance of events, In
another aspect it be said that the history mas
been fortunate in the historians. For thirty
wears have gone since these two young friends
come with Lincoln when the country called MIN
from Illinois: they worked with him and for him,
they shared his confidence, his thoughts ana the
freedom of his familiar speech they loved him
they have stood true 10 him and they have been
allowed to see their task accomplished LOOK
ing forward from an early day TO this work. anu
encouraged and aided in il by Lincoln himseh'
they kept diaries and took notes ana cohec'eu
and preserved documents, now rendered oil price-
less value by the neglect and spolation OF the
National archives With most of the chiet
actors and many of the lesser actors of the war
and of the war time they enjoyed an acquaintance
more or less intimate and more or less direct
Thus, TO use the words of Macaulay, IN speaking
of Fox and Macintosh. Z" they had one eminent
qualification for writing history they had spoken
history, acted history, lived history. 10 theSe
advantages OF opportunity the authors have
brourht the breadth of comprehension indspensa-
bic to the view of a field vast, a knowledge OF
men and a perception of motives of no near order.
and n sustained power of narration by turns serl-
Gus and lively, yet always clear and always APP
propriate.
All the resources of 1.-THE Century establish
ment have been lavished upon the making OF thc
book The portraits of the chief actors, CIVIL
military or naval both sides of the great
struggle are many and good. OF the Lincoln
portraits. the one that represents him as seated
with Tad" at his knee, looking over DOOR,
best pleases our fancy The strong character III
most of the Southern faces, especially inaihe"
about the mouths, comes out so uniformly as 10
no worth noticing There is wealth of good
maps. and all the plate work is greatly the garner
by the more deliberate and careful printing 'ha'
has loon nossible in the book as compared with
the magazine.
first sight of the ten handsome volumes VIII
be ant to surprise any who thinks he mas
rood this history in the pages of The Century,
for practically half the work is new. The addeo
cbanters relate mainly to the war, and are easily
seen TO be essential to the history under the plan
adopted biographer not less well ln1oriseu
and equipped might have achieved immaculate
success. fame even, by rendering TO Line 1ln sucD
n service as Boswell performed for Johnson
Another might have chanted an admirable epic
of hero-worship. A third, if gifted with the 'rue
soul of q valet, might have outstrpped them al
in the market place by mounting TO Tie helgiV
of the back stairs and thence delghtlng the Nul"i
with q frank revelation of the sort OF hero MS
master seemed 10 him. Or a perfectly authentic
d ,or.lN- mi o.
heen compiIed. in the old standard manner wherein
Lincoln should have figured as everything ana
everybody. and nobody else as anything or any
bodv This would have been in the line OF highly
table and very weary precedent, though IL
must ALWAYS remain a mystery why the same
nnblic that finds an incOngruity in the bare nou0A
- .Uamlet without the Prince should be 50
easily contented with the yet drier prepard'io"
nj Hamlet that leaves out the sage Polohlos' oiie
,y;cted King. the feather-headed Queen, inc merry
Io,os +be matter-of- fact Horatio, the pondeIous
,,ot useful Ghost even the lovely If somewhat
anemic Ophelia. and all the rest OF tlat Wonuei-
o., comnanv. The plan Mr.. NicOlay and Mr. Hay
have chosen. and faithfully and with dflgehcc az
hered to. is best described in their own "oi''
@Faeh age owes to its successors the truti III re-
TO its own annals. To wrlie V'io iii'
creat American in such a way as TO sho" HIS re-
non6ous issues lie controlled the remarkable men
nv whom he was surrounded, has been the puI-
nose which the authors have diligently pursueu
for many wears" Thus it is that we have HIS
tory of Lincoln, rather than lAfe ol Lihcoi.''
This great task before which most men oil tiier
wears and in their circumstances must have heSi-
tated. under which many men would nave
brolxen' down the authors have performed with
skill with fairness, on the whole with good
taste. and, in one word, with success.
The narrative OF the war. in itself for the most
mart 50 admirable that if printed separately 1t
wonld deserve TO rank NEXT to that of the Comte
de Paris for fa,rness-and for proportion, per-
spectivc clearncss and concentration even before
that work-nIieht have been greatly compressed
with benefit to the general reader and to the gen.
eral student In places the treatment might nave
bcen more interesting The touch, fine and firm
q as it is nearly everywhere, is at times rather
hard and heavy. There few needless repe
4itions and some of the opinions expressed CRATE
somewhat upon the ear, sounding, indeed more
like the crude and hurried impressions OF 6l-'a
than the ripened thoughts of the orarter-cen
fury that has gone by since then. But the task
was great 1t demanded elbow-room. And may
not the labor Of twenty years thus undertaken
and in this spirit executed fairly ask from The
reader, from the student, and still more from th'
critic corresponding breadth OF Vlew' ii ONLY
for his own enjoyment? The sort of SCALE fol
example, that Private Thomas Atkins may have
had in mind when to his near-sighted officer h'
protested against the hardship Of having TO clear
bis accoutrements with the naked eye and ther
having them inspected through' magnifyine
glass The promise Of fairness has been fairly
kept In dealing with the many controversial
that arose out of the and during tie war this
is especially true. Nc one asks Of the Presidcnt'
secretaries impartiality kept on ice for thirty
years, nor the cheap and easy modern philosophy
that consists in taking the other side. 1t is thu
Lincoln side, the Lincoln story, we all want tC
hear, told, indeed, in the spirit of Lincoln with
malice toward nOne,, with charity for alp; and
here we have it, so we'll done that the labors OF
the future historian or even of the future anti