se saws and
modern instances as Mr. Lincoln, but beneath all this was the
thoughtful, practical, humane, and thoroughly earnest man, around whom
the fragments of France were to gather themselves till she took her
place again as a planet of the first magnitude in the European system.
In one respect Mr. Lincoln was more fortunate than Henry. However some
may think him wanting in zeal, the most fanatical can find no taint of
apostasy in any measure of his, nor can the most bitter charge him
with being influenced by motives of personal interest. The leading
distinction between the policies of the two is one of circumstances.
Henry went over to the nation; Mr. Lincoln has steadily drawn the
nation over to him. One left a united France; the other, we hope and
believe, will leave a reunited America. We leave our readers to trace
the further points of difference and resemblance for themselves,
merely suggesting a general similarity which has often occurred to us.
One only point of melancholy interest we will allow ourselves to touch
upon. That Mr. Lincoln is not handsome nor elegant, we learn from
certain English tourists who would consider similar revelations in
regard to Queen Victoria as thoroughly American in their want of
_bienseance_. It is no concern of ours, nor does it affect his fitness
for the high place he so worthily occupies; but he is certainly as
fortunate as Henry in the matter of good looks, if we may trust
contemporary evidence. Mr. Lincoln has also been reproached with
Americanism by some not unfriendly British critics; but, with all
deference, we cannot say that we like him any the worse for it, or see
in it any reason why he should govern Americans the less wisely.

People of more sensitive organizations may be shocked, but we are glad
that in this our true war of independence, which is to free us forever
from the Old World, we have had at the head of our affairs a man whom
America made as God made Adam, out of the very earth, unancestried,
unprivileged, unknown, to show us how much truth, how much
magnanimity, and how much statecraft await the call of opportunity in
simple manhood when it believes in the justice of God and the worth of
man. Conventionalities are all very well in their proper place, but
they shrivel at the touch of nature like stubble in the fire. The
genius that sways a nation by its arbitrary will seems less august to
us than that which multiplies and reinforces itself in the instincts