His acquaintance with the works of these two writers dates from this period. In New Salem there was one of those curious individuals sometimes found in frontier settlements, half poet, half loafer, incapable of earning a living in any steady employment, yet familiar with good literature and capable of enjoying it—Jack Kelso. He repeated passages from Shakespeare and Burns incessantly over the odd jobs he undertook, or as he idled by the streams—for he was a famous fisherman—and Lincoln soon became one of his constant companions. The taste he formed in company with Kelso he retained through life.
LINCOLN IN 1860.—HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
From a photograph loaned by H. W. Fay of DeKalb, Illinois. After Lincoln’s nomination for the presidency, Alexander Hesler of Chicago published a portrait he had made of Lincoln in 1857 (see page [49]). At the same time he put out a portrait of Douglas. The contrast was so great between the two, and in the opinion of the politicians so much in Douglas’s favor, that they told Hesler he must suppress Lincoln’s picture; accordingly the photographer wrote to Springfield, requesting Lincoln to call and sit again. Lincoln replied that his friends had decided that he remain in Springfield during the canvass, but that if Hesler would come to Springfield he would be “dressed up” and give him all the time he wanted. Hesler went to Springfield, and made at least four negatives, three of which are supposed to have been destroyed in the Chicago fire. The fourth is owned by Mr. George Ayers of Philadelphia. The photograph reproduced above is a print from one of the lost negatives.
William D. Kelley records an incident which shows that Lincoln had a really intimate knowledge of Shakespeare. Mr. Kelley had taken McDonough, an actor, to call at the White House, and Lincoln began the conversation by saying:
“‘I am very glad to meet you, Mr. McDonough, and am grateful to Kelley for bringing you in so early, for I want you to tell me something about Shakespeare’s plays as they are constructed for the stage. You can imagine that I do not get much time to study such matters, but I recently had a couple of talks with Hackett—Baron Hackett, as they call him—who is famous as Jack Falstaff, from whom I elicited few satisfactory replies, though I probed him with a good many questions.’
“Mr. McDonough,” continues Mr. Kelley, “avowed his willingness to give the President any information in his possession, but protested that he feared he would not succeed where his friend Hackett had failed. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said the President, ‘for Hackett’s lack of information impressed me with a doubt as to whether he had ever studied Shakespeare’s text, or had not been content with the acting edition of his plays.’ He arose, went to a shelf not far from his table, and having taken down a well-thumbed volume of the ‘Plays’ of Shakespeare, resumed his seat, arranged his glasses, and having turned to ‘Henry VI.’ and read with fine discrimination an extended passage, said: ‘Mr. McDonough, can you tell me why those lines are omitted from the acting play? There is nothing I have read in Shakespeare, certainly nothing in “Henry VI.” or the “Merry Wives of Windsor,” that surpasses its wit and humor.’ The actor suggested the breadth of its humor as the only reason he could assign for its omission, but thoughtfully added that it was possible that if the lines were spoken they would require the rendition of another or other passages which might be objectionable.
“‘Your last suggestion,’ said Mr. Lincoln, ‘carries with it greater weight than anything Mr. Hackett suggested, but the first is no reason at all;’ and after reading another passage, he said, ‘This is not withheld, and where it passes current there can be no reason for withholding the other.’... And, as if feeling the impropriety of preferring the player to the parson [there was a clergyman in the room], he turned to the chaplain and said: ‘From your calling it is probable that you do not know that the acting plays which people crowd to hear are not always those planned by their reputed authors. Thus, take the stage edition of “Richard III.” It opens with a passage from “Henry VI.,” after which come portions of “Richard III.,” then another scene from “Henry VI.;” and the finest soliloquy in the play, if we may judge from the many quotations it furnishes, and the frequency with which it is heard in amateur exhibitions, was never seen by Shakespeare, but was written—was it not, Mr. McDonough?—after his death, by Colley Cibber.’
MONUMENT AT KELLOGG’S GROVE.
On June 24, 1832, Black Hawk attacked Apple River Fort, fourteen miles east of Galena, Illinois, but was unable to drive out the inmates. The next day he attacked a spy battalion of one hundred and fifty men at Kellogg’s Grove, sixteen miles farther east. A detachment of volunteers relieved the battalion, and drove off the savages, about fifteen of whom were killed. The whites lost five men, who were buried at various points in the grove. During the summer of 1886 the remains of these men were collected and, with those of five or six other victims of the war, were placed together under the monument here represented.—See “The Black Hawk War,” by Reuben G. Thwaites, Vol. XII. in Wisconsin Historical Collections. This account of the Black Hawk War is the most trustworthy, complete, and interesting that has been made.
“Having disposed, for the present, of questions relating to the stage editions of the plays, he recurred to his standard copy, and ... read, or repeated from memory, extracts from several of the plays, some of which embraced a number of lines.... He interspersed his remarks with extracts striking from their similarity to, or contrast with, something of Shakespeare’s, from Byron, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and other English poets.”[[18]]