The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address

Orations by one President upon another are none too common in American literature; and this by Lincoln upon Taylor is of value in its estimate of the best in Taylor as discerned by one in whom the same quality was worthily present. Lincoln would have done for Worth what Taylor did. He treated in similar fashion the men who opposed him.

One feature of the oration has remarkable interest. It appears to have been the only address of Lincoln's in which he made use of his favorite poem,--

"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"

This poem he quoted so often to his friends that some of them supposed him to have been its author, but so far as a search of his published works can show, he did not use it in any other formal address.

Lincoln often inquired of his friends whether any of them knew the author of this poem. So far as is known, he never learned. Herndon, in his lecture which has served as the basis of all the literature concerning Linc