but the
temptation to be humorous was always uppermost, and while his speech on
the Mexican War was the greatest ever delivered in the Senate, excepting
Webster's reply to Hayne, he regretted that he was more known as a
humorist than as a statesman.

His first great achievement in the House was delivered in 1840 in reply
to General Crary, of Michigan, who had attacked General Harrison's
military career. Corwin's reply in defense of Harrison is universally
accepted as the most brilliant combination of humor and invective ever
delivered in that body. The venerable John Quincy Adams a day or two
after Corwin's speech, referred to Crary as "the late General Crary,"
and the justice of the remark from the "Old Man Eloquent" was accepted
by all. Mr. Lincoln differed from the celebrated humorists of the
country in the important fact that his humor was unstudied. He was
not in any sense a professional humorist, but I have never in all
my intercourse with public men, known one who was so apt in humorous
illustration us Mr. Lincoln, and I have known him many times to silence
controversy by a humorous story with pointed application to the issue.

His face was the saddest in repose that I have ever seen among
accomplished and intellectual men, and his sympathies for the people,
for the untold thousands who were suffering bereavement from the war,
often made him speak with his heart upon his sleeve, about the sorrows
which shadowed the homes of the land and for which his heart was freely
bleeding.

I have many times seen him discussing in the most serious and heartfelt
manner the sorrows and bereavements of the country, and when it would
seem as though the tension was so strained that the brittle cord of life
must break, his face would suddenly brighten like the sun escaping from
behind the cloud to throw its effulgence upon the earth, and he would
tell an appropriate story, and much as his stories were enjoyed by his
hearers none enjoyed them more than Mr. Lincoln himself.

I have often known him within the space of a few minutes to be
transformed from the saddest face I have ever looked upon to one of the
brightest and most mirthful. It was well known that he had his great
fountain of humor as a safety valve; as an escape and entire relief from
the fearful exactions his endless duties put upon him. In the gravest
consultations of the cabinet where he was usually a listener rather
than a speaker, he would often end dispute by t