Lincoln's oldest son, Robert, was at this time a student in Harvard University, and, chiefly to visit him, Lincoln made a brief trip to New England. While there he spoke at Concord and Manchester in New Hampshire; at Woonsocket in Rhode Island; and at Hartford, New Haven, Norwich, Meriden, and Bridgeport in Connecticut. These speeches were heard with delight by large audiences, and received hearty praise from the press. At Manchester, "The Mirror," a neutral paper, published the following remarks on Lincoln's style of oratory: "He spoke an hour and a half, with great fairness, great apparent candor, and with wonderful interest. He did not abuse the South, the administration, or the Democrats, nor indulge in any personalities, with the exception of a few hits at 'Douglas's notions.' He is far from prepossessing in personal appearance, and his voice is disagreeable; and yet he wins attention and good-will from the start. He indulges in no flowers of rhetoric, no eloquent passages. He is not a wit, a humorist, or a clown; yet so fine a vein of pleasantry and good-nature pervades what he says, gliding over a deep current of poetical arguments, that he keeps his hearers in a smiling mood, ready to swallow all he says. His sense of the ludicrous is very keen; and an exhibition of that is the clincher of all his arguments--not the ludicrous acts of persons, but ludicrous ideas. For the first half-hour his opponents would agree with every word he uttered; and from that point he began to lead them off little by little, until it seemed as if he had got them all into his fold."