adoption of it has saved it from merited oblivion, and translated it from the "poet's corner" of the country newspaper to a place in the story of his own life,--a story that will continue to be written, or written about, as long as our language exists. Many years afterwards, when Mr. Lincoln, the best lawyer of his section, with one exception, travelled the circuit with the court and a crowd of his jolly brethren, he always rose early, be fore any one else was stirring, and, raking together a few glowing coals on the hearth, he would sit looking into them, musing and talking with himself, for hours together. One morning, in the year of his nomination, his companions found him in this attitude, when "Mr. Lincoln repeated aloud, and at length, the poem 'Immortality,'" indicating his preference for the two last stanzas, but insisting that the entire composition "sounded to him as much like true poetry as any thing that he had ever heard." In Carpenter's "Anecdotes and Reminiscences of President Lincoln," occurs the following passage:--? "The evening of March 22, 1864, was a most interesting one to me. I was with the President alone in his office for several hours. Busy with pen and papers when I went in, he presently threw them aside, and commenced talking to me of Shakspeare, of whom he was very fond. Little 'Tad,' his son, coming in, he sent him to the library for a copy of the plays, and then read to me several of his favorite passages. Relapsing into a sadder strain, he laid the book aside, and, leaning back in his chair, said,-- "'There is a poem which has been a great favorite with me for years, which was first shown to me when a young man by a friend, and which I afterwards saw and cut from a newspaper, and learned by heart. I would,' he continued, 'give a great deal to know who wrote it; but I have never been able to ascertain.' "Then, half closing his eyes, he repeated the verses to me:-- "'Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie. The infant a mother attended and loved; The mother that infant's affection who proved; The husband that mother and infant who blest,-- Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest. [The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by; And the memory of those who loved her and praised, Are alike from the minds of the living erased.]