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. William D. Kelley tells 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:

[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1861.

From a photograph loaned by Mr. Frank A. Brown of Minneapolis,
Minnesota. This beautiful photograph was taken, probably early in
1861, by Alexander Hesler of Chicago. It was used by Leonard W. Volk,
the sculptor, in his studies of Lincoln, and closely resembles the
fine etching by T. Johnson.]

"'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, but 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