traits of the author, under the title of Irvingiana (1859); History of the War for the Union (3 vols., 1861-65); Memorials of John Allan (1864); Poems relating to the American Revolution, with Memoirs of the Authors (1865); Poems of Philip Freneau, with notes and a memoir (1865); National Gallery of Eminent Americans (2 vols., 1866); History of the World from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (4 vols., 1870); and Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women of Europe and America. Embracing History, Statesmanship, Naval and Military Life, Philosophy, the Drama, Science, Literature and Art. With Biographies (2 vols., 1873). His last literary work was the preparation, with William Cullen Bryant, of an edition of William Shakespeare. He died on August 13, 1878 in New York City. Letter to Lincoln On 18 February 1865, Duyckinck sent President Abraham Lincoln a letter. Duyckinck signed the letter "Asmodeus", with his initials below his pseudonym. His letter enclosed a newspaper clipping about an inappropriate joke allegedly told by Lincoln at the Hampton Roads Peace Conference. The purpose of Duyckinck's letter was to advise Lincoln of "an important omission" about the history of the conference. He advised that the newspaper clipping be added to the "Archives of the Nation". Legacy and criticism In January 1879, a meeting in his memory was held by the New York Historical Society, and a biographical sketch of Duyckinck was read by William Allen Butler. Herman Melville, a close friend of Duyckinck's with whom he corresponded often, refers in his novel Mardi (1849) to Duyckinck's highbrow magazine Arcturus by naming a ship in the book Arcturion. Mardi'''s narrator "complained about the low literary level of its crew: 'Ay, ay, Arcturion! thou wast exceedingly dull'". Duyckinck also garnered a mention in James Russell Lowell's A Fable for Critics (1848) with the lines, "Good-day, Mr. Duyckinck, I am happy to meet / With a scholar so ripe and a critic so neat". Charles Frederick Briggs noted Duyckinck's ability in the "art of puffing", heavy praise for works that did not necessarily merit it. Edwin Percy Whipple chidingly called Duyckinck "the most Bostonian of New-Yorkers". William Allen Butler noted that Duckinck's taste in literature was too high for most readers: "While Duyckinck was the most genial of companions, and the most impartial of critics, he was too much of a recluse, buried in his books, almost solitary in life, and entirely