“Of this noble-hearted man, so full of genial impulses, so self-forgetful, so utterly unselfish, so pure and gentle and good, who lived for us and at last died for us, I feel how inadequate I am to portray his manifold excellence—his intellectual worth—his generous character—his fervid patriotism. Pope celebrated the memory of Robert Harley, the Lord of Oxford, a privy counsellor of Queen Anne, who himself narrowly escaped assassination, in lines that seem prophetic of Mr. Lincoln’s virtues:—

“Murdered, coffined, buried, he will live with those few immortal names who were not born to die; live as the Father of the Faithful in the time that tried men’s souls; live in the grateful hearts of the dark-browed race he lifted from under the heel of the oppressor to the dignity of freedom and manhood; live in every bereaved circle which has given father, husband, son, or friend to die, as he did, for his country; live with the glorious company of martyrs to liberty, justice, and humanity, that trio of Heaven-born principles; live in the love of all beneath the circuit of the sun, who loathe tyranny, slavery, and wrong. And, leaving behind him a record that shows how honesty and principle lifted him, self-made as he was, from the humblest ranks of the people to the noblest station on the globe, and a name that shall brighten under the eye of posterity as the ages roll by—

“ ‘From the top of Fame’s ladder he stepped to the sky.’ ”