w York. It
was the home of Seward, the centre of Republican strength, and to him
practically an unknown land. Through the invitation of the Young Men's
Central Republican Union he was now to lecture at Cooper Institute on
the 27th of February. It was arranged at first that he speak in Henry
Ward Beecher's church, but the change, relieving him from too close
association with the great apostle of abolition, opened a wider door
for his reception. Personally he was known to very few people in the
city or State. In 1848, on his way to New England to take the stump,
he had called upon Thurlow Weed at Albany, and together they visited
Millard Fillmore, then candidate for Vice President; but the meeting
made such a slight impression upon the editor of the _Evening Journal_
that he had entirely forgotten it. Thirty years before, in one of his
journeys to Illinois, William Cullen Bryant had met him. Lincoln was
then a tall, awkward lad, the captain of a militia company in the
Black Hawk War, whose racy and original conversation attracted the
young poet; but Bryant, too, had forgotten him, and it was long after
the famous debate that he identified his prairie acquaintance as the
opponent of Douglas. Lincoln, however, did not come as a stranger. His
encounter with the great Illinoisan had marked him as a powerful and
logical reasoner whose speeches embraced every political issue of the
day and cleared up every doubtful point. Well-informed people
everywhere knew of him. He was not yet a national character, but he
had a national reputation.

Though Lincoln's lecture was one of a course, the admission fee did
not restrain an eager audience from filling the commodious hall.
"Since the day of Clay and Webster," said the _Tribune_, "no man has
spoken to a larger assemblage of the intellect and mental culture of
our city."[510] Bryant acted as chairman of the meeting, and other
well-known men of the city occupied the stage. In his _Life of
Lincoln_, Herndon suggests that the new suit of clothes which seemed
so fine in his Springfield home was in such awkward contrast with the
neatly fitting dress of the New Yorkers that it disconcerted him, and
the brilliant audience dazzled and embarrassed him; but his hearers
thought only of the pregnant matter of the discourse, so calmly and
logically discussed that Horace Greeley, years afterward, pronounced
it "the very best political address to which I ever listened, and I
have heard some of Webst