But it was not written in the book of fate that this duel was to take place. Something of mightier moment was awaiting one of the actors in this drama. Two level-headed men, R. W. English and John J. Hardin, the friends respectively of Shields and Lincoln, crossing the Mississippi in a canoe close in the wake of the belligerents, reached the field just before the appointed hour. These gentlemen, acting in concert with the seconds, Whiteside and Merryman, soon effected a reconciliation deemed honorable to all, and the Shields-Lincoln duel passed to the domain of history. That the reconciliation thus brought about was sincere was evidenced by the fact that one of the earliest acts of President Lincoln was the appointment of General Shields to an important military command.
How strangely "the whirligig of time brings in his revenges!" A few paces apart in the old Hall at the Capitol at Washington, stand two statues, the contribution of Illinois for enduring place in the "Temple of the Immortals." One is the statue of Lincoln, the other that of Shields.
XI A PRINCELY GIFT
DESCENT OF JAMES SMITHSON, FOUNDER OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION— HIS EDUCATION AND HIS WRITINGS—HIS WILL—THE UNITED STATES HIS RESIDUARY LEGATEE—SUCCESSFUL PROSECUTION OF THE CLAIM OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE LEGACY—PLANS SUGGESTED FOR THE DISPOSAL OF THE FUND —PROF. JOSEPH HENRY APPOINTED SECRETARY—BENEFICENT WORK OF THE INSTITUTION.
Although a third of a century has passed since I met Professor Joseph Henry, I distinctly recall his kindly greeting and the courteous manner in which he gave me the information I requested for the use of one of the Committees of the House.
The frosts of many winters were then on his brow, and he was near the close of an honorable career, one of measureless benefit to mankind. He was the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and the originator of the plan by which was carried into practical effect the splendid bequest for "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."
As Vice-President of the United States, a regent ex-officio of the Smithsonian Institution, I had rare opportunity to learn much of its history and something of its marvellous accomplishment. As is well known, it bears the name of James Smithson. He was an Englishman, related to the historic family of Percy, and a lineal descendent of Henry the Seventh, his maternal ancestor being the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey, cousin to Queen Elizabeth.
Mr. Langley, the late secretary of the institution, said:
"Smithson always seems to have regarded the circumstances of his birth as doing him a peculiar injustice, and it was apparently this sense that he had been deprived of honors properly his which made him look for other sources of fame than those which birth had denied him, and constituted the motive of the most important action of his life, the creation of the Smithsonian Institution."
The deep resentment of Smithson against the great families who had virtually disowned him, finds vent in a letter yet extant, of which the following is a part: "The best blood of England flows in my veins; on my father's side I am a Northumberland, on my mother's I am related to kings; but this avails me not. My name shall live in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percys are extinct and forgotten."