with one of his speeches on temperance that he sent it to friends in Ohio, where it was published in a newspaper; the first of his writings to appear in print. Another essay on "National Politics," written when he was nineteen, gave him great local reputation for literary talent. One of the lawyers who practised in that circuit and was considered a very high authority declared that "the world couldn't beat it." It is also related that he frequently interrupted harvesting, threshing, and other business events which drew the neighbors together by delivering political speeches, burlesquing local orators and preachers, and repeating doggerels of his own composition that referred to local affairs. His humor often exceeded his discretion, and we are told of coarse satires and rhymes which excited the amusement and admiration of a community, but did him no credit. Sometimes these ebullitions of wit involved him in trouble, particularly on two occasions when he wrote some verses about the deformed nose of his employer, of which the owner was very sensitive. Lincoln never attempted serious oratory until he went to New Salem, where he discovered Shakespeare and Burns, whose writings had a powerful influence upon his literary style and taste. These eminent authorities were introduced to him by a worthless loafer and fisherman named Jack Kelso, who was too lazy to work, but had a love of learning and literature and an unusually good education for his time and surroundings. Mutual tastes brought the two together, and Lincoln would sit evening after evening on the porch of Offutt's store or lie all day Sunday on the ground under the shade of a tree listening to Kelso discourse upon his favorite authors and repeat over and over the poems of Burns and fine passages from Shakespeare which he had committed to memory long before. There is no doubt that Burns, Shakespeare, and Kelso seriously interfered with the grocery business and contributed to the financial disaster which terminated Lincoln's first and only commercial enterprise. It was a long time before he obtained copies of his favorite poets, but no books were prized more highly by any man. Lincoln's first experience in debate was gained while he was a clerk in Offutt's store and attended the meetings of a debating club, which were held at different places in the neighborhood and sometimes so far away that he was compelled to walk seven or eight miles for the privilege. He used to call it "practising polemics." Occasionally the club met in a vacant store at New Salem, and Lincoln's first serious speech was delivered on one of those occasions.