Of the speeches made in the Senate on the occasion, mine being the only one which was not read or given from memory, attracted some attention, and I was asked especially for the source of a quotation which occurred in it, and which was afterward dwelt upon by some of my hearers. It was the result of a sudden remembrance of the lines in Milton's ``Samson Agonistes,'' beginning: ``Oh, how comely it is, and how reviving To the spirits of just men long oppressed, When God into the hands of their deliverer Puts invincible might To quell the mighty of the earth, the oppressor, The brute and boisterous force of violent men,'' etc.[2] [2] Milton's ``Samson Agonistes,'' lines 1268-1280. The funeral was conducted with dignity and solemnity. When the coffin was opened and we were allowed to take one last look at Lincoln's face, it impressed me as having the same melancholy expression which I had seen upon it when he entered the East Room at the White House. In its quiet sadness there seemed to have been no change. There was no pomp in the surroundings; all, though dignified, was simple. Very different was it from the show and ceremonial at the funeral of the Emperor Nicholas which I had attended ten years before;--but it was even more impressive. At the head of the coffin stood General Dix, who had served so honorably in the War of 1812, in the Senate of the United States, in the Civil War, and who was afterward to serve with no less fidelity as governor of the State. Nothing could be more fitting than such a chieftaincy in the guard of honor. In the following autumn the question of my renomination came. It had been my fortune to gain, first of all, the ill will of Tammany Hall, and the arms of Tammany were long. Its power was exercised strongly through its henchmen not only in the Democratic party throughout the State, but especially in the Republican party, and, above all, among sundry contractors of the Erie Canal, many of whose bills I had opposed, and it was understood that they and their friends were determined to defeat me. Moreover, it was thought by some that I had mortally offended sundry Catholic priests by opposing their plan for acquiring Ward's Island, and that I had offended various Protestant bodies, especially the Methodists, by defeating their efforts to divide up the Land Grant Fund between some twenty petty sectarian colleges, and by exerting myself to secure it for Cornell University, which, because it was unsectarian, many called ``godless.''