Sympathy with the North took the form of a sudden exaltation of the personality of Lincoln, bringing out characterizations of the man far different from those which had been his earlier in the war.

The presence of a "rural attorney" in the Presidential office had seemed like the irony of fate in the great crisis of 1861.

Even so acute an observer as Lyons could then write, "Mr.Lincoln has not hitherto given proof of his possessing any natural talents to compensate for his ignorance of everything but Illinois village politics.

He seems to be well meaning and conscientious, in the measure of his understanding, but not much more[1293]." But Lyons was no more blind than his contemporaries, for nearly all characterizations, whether American or foreign, were of like nature.
But the slow progress of the years of war had brought a different estimate of Lincoln--a curious blending of admiration for the growth of his personal authority and for his steadiness of purpose, with criticism of his alleged despotism.

Now, with his death, following so closely the collapse of the Confederacy, there poured out from British press and public a great stream of laudation for Lincoln almost amounting to a national recantation.