he art of reading men and events as well as of
interpreting history.

Mr. Coffin's more serious productions are his arguments before
Congressional and State legislative committees; his pamphlets on the
labor question, railways, and patents; his addresses before general
audiences and gatherings of scientific, commercial, and religiously
interested men; his life of Garfield, as well as that of Lincoln; and
those voluminous contributions made to the daily or weekly press, and
to magazines, and to reviews. Editors often turned to him for that
kind of light and knowledge that the public needed when grave issues
were before the church, the city, the commonwealth, the nation. In
speaking or writing thus, he used a less ornate style, less fervid
rhetoric, and spoke or wrote with direct, business-like precision. In
a word, he suited his style to the work in hand. But, because he
attracted and delighted, while teaching, his young readers, that
critic must be blind or unappreciative who cannot see also the
purpose of a master mind. The mature intellect of Carleton which
animates and informs the pretty stones, educated also up and on to the
nobler heights of historical reading.

Strictly speaking, in the light of the more rigid canons of historical
knowledge and the research demanded in our days, and when tested by
stern criticism, Mr. Coffin was not a historical scholar of the first
order. Nor did he make any such pretension. No one, certainly not
himself, would dream of ranging his name in the same line with those
of the great masters, Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, or Parkman,--men of
wealth and leisure, as well as of ability. He painted his pictures
without going into the chemistry of colors, or searching into the
mysteries of botany, to be absolutely sure as to the classification of
the fibres which made his canvas. His first purpose was to make an
impression, and his second, to fix that impression inerasably on the
mind. For this, he trusted largely the work of those who had lived
before him, and he made diligent and liberal use of materials already
accumulated. He would paint his own picture after making the drawings
and arranging his tints, perspective, lights, and shadows.

Nevertheless, Mr. Coffin was not a man accustomed to take truth at
second hand. His own judgment was singularly sane, and he was not
accustomed to receive statements and to devour them unflavored by the
salt of criticism. Four years of the pursuit of le