One of many noble utterances upon the occasion of his death was that in
which 'Punch' made its magnanimous recantation of the spirit with which
it had pursued him:
"Beside this corpse that bears for winding sheet
The stars and stripes he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet,
Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you?
...................
"Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer,
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen
To make me own this hind--of princes peer,
This rail-splitter--a true born king of men."
Fiction can furnish no match for the romance of his life, and biography
will be searched in vain for such startling vicissitudes of fortune, so
great power and glory won out of such humble beginnings and adverse
circumstances.
Doubtless you are all familiar with the salient points of his
extraordinary career. In the zenith of his fame he was the wise,
patient, courageous, successful ruler of men; exercising more power than
any monarch of his time, not for himself, but for the good of the people
who had placed it in his hands; commander-in-chief of a vast military
power, which waged with ultimate success the greatest war of the century;
the triumphant champion of popular government, the deliverer of four
millions of his fellowmen from bondage; honored by mankind as Statesman,
President, and Liberator.
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