ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 123 



to the more fanatical among them. King only in name over 

 the greater part of France, and with his capital barred against 

 him, it yet gradually became clear to the more far-seeing 

 even of the Catholic party, that he was the only centre of 

 order and legitimate authority round which France could re 

 organise itself. While preachers who held the divine right 

 of kings made the churches of Paris ring with declamations 

 in favour of democracy rather than submit to the heretic dog 

 of a Bdarnois much as our soi-disant Democrats have lately 

 been preaching the divine right of slavery, and denouncing 

 the heresies of the Declaration of Independence Henry 

 bore both parties in hand till he was convinced that only one 

 course of action could possibly combine his own interests and 

 those of France. Meanwhile the Protestants believed some 

 what doubtfully that he was theirs, the Catholics hoped 

 somewhat doubtfully that he would be theirs, and Henry 

 himself turned aside remonstrance, advice, and curiosity 

 alike with a jest or a proverb (if a little high, he liked them 

 none the worse), joking continually as his manner was. We 

 have seen Mr. Lincoln contemptuously compared to Sancho 

 Panza by persons incapable of appreciating one of the deepest 

 pieces of wisdom in the profoundest romance ever written ; 

 namely, that, while Don Quixote was incomparable in theo 

 retic and ideal statesmanship, Sancho, with his stock of 

 proverbs, the ready money of human experience, made the 

 best possible practical governor. Henry IV. was as full of 

 wise saws and modern instances as Mr. Lincoln, but beneath 

 all this was the thoughtful, practical, humane, and thoroughly 

 earnest man, around whom the fragments of France were to 

 gather themselves till she took her place again as a planet of 

 the first magnitude in the European system. In one respect 

 Mr. Lincoln was more fortunate than Henry. However 

 some may think him wanting in zeal, the most fanatical can 

 find no taint of apostasy in any measure of his, nor can the 

 most bitter charge him with being influenced by motives of 

 personal interest. The leading distinction between the 

 policies of the two is one of circumstances. Henry went 

 over to the nation; Mr. Lincoln has steadily drawn the 

 nation over to him. One left a united France ; the other, 

 we hope and believe, will leave a reunited America. We 

 leave our readers to trace the further points of difference and 

 resemblance for themselves, merely suggesting a general 

 similarity which has often occurred to us. One only point 



