clouded faces of little ones, whose being seemed, for a time, overshadowed by a mysterious and sympathetic awe; these manifestations rendered those dark April days, in this year of victory and sadness, memorable and historic beyond all precedent. Then came the grand and solemn obsequies. The funeral at Washington inaugurated the imposing ceremonies, and for two weeks, the procession, starting from that city, passed through the land to the wailings of a bereaved and stricken nation. At Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis and Chicago the funeral scene was repeated, and thus the honored and beloved dead was borne to his western resting place. Springfield-once the home, now the grave of Abraham Lincoln — where the obsequies begun at Washington were ended, is henceforth sacred among the shrines of the earth, sacred to every lover of labor, common sense, humanity, patriotism and God. In the pages that follow, an attempt has been made to preserve a record of the manner and the words in which the respect of the citizens of Troy was expressed for the memory of the late President, during the period intermediate the day of the assassination and the day designated as one of humiliation and mourning for the nation. In other cities throughout the land, similar observances obtained, and in many places the manifestations of sorrow were accompanied by displays of solemn grandeur. Not the least remarkable feature of this period, was the unanimity with which the journals of the United States joined in the general tribute of sorrow and respect which was rendered to the memory of the great patriot. The press of the other continent sympathized with these sentiments, and its eulogy and admiration were declared in language as sincere and impassioned as any that was uttered in this land. The intelligence of the death of Mr. Lincoln reached England on the twentysixth of April. On the day following, appeared in the editorial columns of the London Star, a leading article on his assassination, which is here inserted for the purpose of showing not only the immediate effect produced by the event in England, but also to enable the reader, by comparing this extract with the leaders of our own journals on the same subject, to observe that in the old world and in the new, those who best understood his character were most eulogistic of him as a man, and deplored his death as a loss not only to his country but to the world.· "The appalling tragedy which has just been perpetrated at Washington is absolutely without historical precedent. Not in the records of the fiercest European convulsion, in the darkest hour of partisan hatreds, have we an example of an assassin plot at once so foul and so senseless, so horrible and so successful, as that to which ABRAHAM LINCOLN has already fallen a victim, and from which William H. Seward can hardly escape. Only in such instances as the murder of William of Orange, of Henri Quatre, or of Capo d'Istria, have we any deed approaching in hideous ferocity to that which has just robbed the United States of one of the greatest of their Presidents. But from the fanatic's hateful point of view there was at least something to be said for men like Balthazar Gerard and Ravaillac. They, at least, might have believed that they saw embodied in their victims the whole living principle and motive power of that religious freedom which they detested. They might have supposed that with the man would die the great hopes and the great cause he inspired and guided. So, too, of Orsini. That unfortunate and guilty being believed, at least, that in Napoleon the Third there stood an embodied and concentrated system. But ABRAHAM LINCOLN was no dictator and no autocrat. He represented simply the resolution and the resources of a great people. The miserable excuse which fanaticism might attempt to plead for other political assassins has no application to the wretch whose felon hand dealt death to the pure and noble magistrate of a free nation. One would gladly, for the poor sake of common humanity, have caught at the idea that the crime was but the work of some maniacal partisan. But the mere nature of the deeds, without any additional evidence whatever, bids defiance to such an idea. While the one murderer was slaying the President of the Republic the other was making his even more dastardly attempt upon the life of the sick and prostrate Secretary. It does not need even the disclosures which have now, too late for any good purpose, reached official quarters to prove that two madmen cannot become" simultaneously inspired with the same monstrous project and impelled at the one moment to do their several parts of the one bloody business. The chivalry of the south has had much European compliment of late. It has been discovered to be the fount and origin of all the most noble and knightly qualities which the world heretofore had principally known through the medium of mediæval romance. Let it not be forgotten that southern brains lately planned the conflagration of a peaceful city. It never can be forgotten while history is read that the hands of southern partisans have been reddened by the foulest assassin plot the world has ever known, that they have been treacherously dipped in the blood of one of the best citizens and purest patriots to whom the land of Washington gave birth. For ABRAHAM LINCOLN one cry of universal regret will be raised all over the civilized earth. We do not believe that even the fiercest partisans of the confederacy in this country will entertain any sentiment at such a time but one of grief and horror. To us ABRAHAM LINCOLN has always seemed the finest character produced by the American war on either side of the struggle. He was great not merely by - the force of genius—and only the word genius will describe the power of intellect by which he guided himself and his country through such a crisis — but by the simple, natural strength and grandeur of his character. Talleyrand once said of a great American statesman that without experience he divined' his way through any crisis. Mr. LINCOLN thus divined his way through the perilous, exhausting, and unprecedented difficulties which might well have broken the strength and blinded the prescience of the besttrained professional statesman. He seemed to arrive by instinct- by the instinct of a noble, unselfish, and manly nature at the very ends which the highest of political genius, the longest of political experience, could have done no more than reach. He bore himself fearlessly in danger, calmly in difficulty, modestly in success. The world was at last beginning to know how good, and, in the best sense, how great a man he was. It had long indeed learned that he was as devoid of vanity as of fear, but it had only just come to know what magnanimity and mercy the hour of triumph would prove that he possessed. Reluctant enemies were just beginning to break into eulogy over his wise and noble clemency when the dastard hand of a vile murderer destroyed his noble and valuable life. We in England have something to feel ashamed of when we meditate upon the true greatness of the man so ruthlessly slain. Too many Englishmen lent themselves to the vulgar and ignoble |