invests the circumstances of both, drugs the mind, and makes us forget the improbabilities of their general design.

come "

An awakened ambition and the healthful influence of a conviction that his works were appreciated, and that his fame was increasing, led him for a while to cheerful views of life, and to regular habits of conduct. He wrote to a friend, the author of "Edge Hill," in Richmond, that he had quite overthe seductive and dangerous besetment" by which he had so often been prostrated, and to another friend that, incredible as it might seem, he had become a "model of temperance," and of "other virtues," which it had sometimes been difficult for him to practise. Before the close of the summer, however, he relapsed into his former courses, and for weeks was regardless of everything but a morbid and insatiable appetite for the means of intoxication.

In the autumn he published all the prose stories he had then written, in two volumes, under the title of "Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque." The work was not saleable, perhaps because its contents were too familiar from recent separate publication in magazines; and it was not so warmly praised, generally, as I think it should have been, though in point of style the pieces which it embraced are much less perfect than they were made subsequently.

f

but

He was with Mr. Burton until June, 1840—more than a year. Mr. Burton appreciated his abilities and would gladly have continued the connexion; Poe was so unsteady of purpose and so unreliable that the actor was never sure when he left the city that his business would be cared for. On one occasion, returning after the regular day of publication, he found the number unfinished, and Poe incapable of duty. He prepared the necessary copy himself, published the magazine, and was proceeding with arrangements for another month, when he received a letter from his assistant, of which the tone may be inferred from this answer:

"I am sorry you have thought it necessary to send me such a letter. Your troubles have given a morbid tone to your feelings which it is your duty to discourage. I myself have been as severely handled by the world as you can possibly have been, but my suf ferings have not tinged my mind with melancholy, nor jaundiced my views of society. You must rouse your energies, and if care assail you, conquer it. I will gladly overlook the past. I hope you will as easily fulfil your pledges for the future. We shall agree very well, though I cannot permit the magazine to be made a vehicle for that sort of severity which you think is so "successful with the mob." I am truly much less anxious about making a monthly "sensation" than I am upon the point of fairness. You must, my dear sir, get rid of your avowed ill-feelings toward your brother authors. You see I speak plainly: I cannot do otherwise upon such a subject. You say the people love havoc. I think they love justice. I think you yourself would not have written the article on Dawes, in a more healthy state of mind. I am not trammelled by any vulgar consideration of expediency; I would rather lose money than by such undue severity wound the feelings of a kind-hearted and honorable man. And I am satisfied that Dawes has something of the true fire in him. I regretted your word-catching spirit. But I wander from my design. I accept your proposition to recommence your interrupted avocations upon the Maga. Let us meet as if we had not exchanged letters. Use more exercise, write when feelings prompt, and be assured of my friendship. You will soon rega in a healthy activity of mind, and laugh at your past vagaries."

This letter was kind and judicious. It gives us a glimpse of Poe's theory of criticism, and displays the temper and principles of the literary comedian in an honorable light. Two or three months afterward Burton went out of town to fulfil a professional engagement, leaving material and directions for completing the next number of the magazine in four days. He was absent nearly a fortnight, and on returning he found that his printers in the meanwhile had not received a line of copy; but that Poe had prepared the prospectus of a new monthly, and obtained transcripts of his subscription and account books, to be used in a scheme for supplanting him. He encountered his associate late in the evening at one of his accustomed haunts, and said, "Mr. Poe, I am astonished: Give me my manuscripts so that I can attend to the duties you have so shamefully neglected, and when you are sober we will settle." Poe interrupted him with " Who are you that presume to address me in this manner? Burton, I am-the editor-of the Penn Magazineand you are hiccup-a fool." Of course this ended his relations with the "Gentleman's."

In November, 1840, Burton's miscellany was merged in "The Casket," owned by Mr. George R. Graham, and the new series received the name of its proprietor, who engaged Poe in its editorship. His connexion with "Graham's Magazine" lasted about a year and a half, and this was one of the most active and brilliant periods of his literary life. He wrote in it several of his finest tales and most trenchant criticisms, and challenged attention by his papers entitled "Autography,” and those on cryptology and cyphers. In the first, adopting a suggestion of Lavater, he attempted the illustration of character from handwriting; and in the second, he assumed that human ingenuity could construct no secret writing which human ingenuity could not resolve: a not very dangerous proposition, since it implied no capacity in himself to discover every riddle of this kind that should be invented. He however succeeded with several difficult cryptographs that were sent to him, and the direction of his mind to the subject led to the composition of some of the tales of ratiocination which so largely increased his reputation. The infirmities which induced his separation from Mr. White and from Mr. Burton at length compelled Mr. Graham to seek for another editor; but Poe still remained in Philadelphia, engaged from time to time in various literary occupations, and in the vain effort to establish a journal of his own to be called "The Stylus." Although it requires considerable capital to carry on a monthly of the description he proposed, I think it would not have been difficult, with his well-earned fame as a magazinist, for him to have found a competent and suitable publisher, but for the unfortunate notoriety of his habits, and the failure in succession of three persons who had admired him for his genius and pitied him for his misfortunes, by every means that tact or friendship could suggest, to induce the consistency and steadiness of application indispensable to success in such pursuits. It was in the spring of 1848— more than a year after his dissociation from Graham-that he wrote the story of "The Gold Bug," for which he was paid a prize of one hundred dol

hee

lars. It has relation to Captain Kyd's treasure, and is one of the most remarkable illustrations of his ingenuity of construction and apparent subtlety of reasoning. The interest depends upon the solution of an intricate cypher. In the autumn of 1844 Poe removed to New-York.

It was while he resided in Philadelphia that I became acquainted with him. His manner, except during his fits of intoxication, was very quiet and gentlemanly; he was usually dressed with simplicity and elegance; and when once he sent for me to visit him, during a period of illness caused by protracted and anxious watching at the side of his sick wife, I was impressed by the singular neatness and the air of refinement in his home. It was in a small house, in one of the pleasant and silent neighborhoods far from the centre of the town, and though slightly and cheaply furnished, everything in it was so tasteful and so fitly disposed that it seemed altogether suitable for a man of genius. For this and for most of the comforts he enjoyed in his brightest as in his darkest years, he was chiefly indebted to his mother-in-law, who loved him with more than maternal devotion and constancy.

He had now written his most acute criticisms and his most admirable tales. Of tales, besides those to which I have referred, he had produced "The Descent into the Mælström," "The Premature Burial," "The Purloined Letter," "The Murders of the Rue Morgue," and its sequel, "The Mystery of Marie Roget." The scenes of the last three are in Paris, where the author's friend, the Chevalier Auguste Dupin, is supposed to reveal to him the curiosities of his experience and observation in matters of police. "The Mystery of Marie Roget" was first published in the autumn of 1842, before an extraordinary excitement, occasioned by the murder of a young girl named Mary Rogers, in the vicinity of New-York, had quite subsided, though several months after the tragedy. Under pretence of relating the fate of a Parisian grisette, Mr. Poe followed in minute detail the essential while merely paralleling the inessential facts of the real murder. His object appears to have been to reïnves tigate the case and to settle his own conclusions as to the probable culprit. There is a great deal of hair-splitting in the incidental discussions by Dupin, throughout all these stories, but it is made effective. Much of their popularity, as well as that of other tales of ratiocination by Poe, arose from their being in a new key. I do not mean to say that they are not ingenious; but they have been thought more ingenious than they are, on account of their method and air of method. In "The Murders of the Rue Morgue," for instance, what ingenuity is displayed in unravelling a web which has been woven for the express purpose of unravelling? The reader is made to confound the ingenuity of the supposititious Dupin with that of the writer of the story. These works brought the name of Poe himself somewhat conspicuously before the law courts of Paris. The journal, La Commerce, gave a feuilleton in which "The Murders of the Rue Morgue" appeared in translation. Afterward a writer for La Quotidienne served it for that paper under the title of " L'Orang-Otang." A third party accused La Quotidienne of plagiary from La Commerce, and in the course of the legal investigation

which ensued, the feuilletoniste of La Commerce proved to the satisfaction of the tribunal that he had stolen the tale entirely from Mr. Poe,* whose merits were soon after canvassed in the "Revue des Deux Mondes," and whose best tales were upon this impulse translated by Mme. Isabelle Meunier for the Democratie Pacifique and other French gazettes.

In New-York Poe entered upon a new sort of life. Heretofore, from the commencement of his literary career, he had resided in provincial towns. Now he was in a metropolis, and with a reputation which might have served as a passport to any society he could desire. For the first time he was received into circles capable of both the appreciation and the production of literature. He added to his fame soon after he came to the city by the publication of that remarkable composition "The Raven," of which Mr. Willis has observed that in his opinion "it is the most effective single example of fugitive poetry ever published in this country, and is unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift ;" and by that of one of the most extraordinary instances of the naturalness of detail the verisimilitude of minute narrativefor which he was preeminently distinguished, his "Mesmeric Revelation,” purporting to be the last conversation of a somnambule, held just before death with his magnetizer; which was followed by the yet more striking exhibition of abilities in the same way, entitled "The Facts in the Case of M.

* The controversy is wittily described in the following extract from a Parisian journal, L'Entr Acte, of the twentieth of October, 1846:

"Un grand journal accusait l'autre jour M. Old-Nick d'avoir volé un orang-outang. Cet intéressant animal flânait dans le feuilleton de la Quotidienne, lorsque M. Old-Nick le vit, le trouva à son goût et s'en empara. Notre confrère avait sans doute besoin d'un groom. On sait que les Anglais ont depuis long-temps colonisé les orangs-outangs, et les ont instruits dans l'art de porter les lettres sur un plateau de vermeil, et de vernir les bottes. Il paraîtrait, toujours suivant le même grand journal, que M. Old-Nick, après avoir derobé cet orang-outang à la Quotidienne, l'aurait ensuite cédé au Commerce, comme propriété à lui appartenant. Je sais que M. Old-Nick est un garçon plein d'esprit et plein d'honneur, assez riche de son propre fonds pour ne pas s'approprier les orangs-outangs des autres; cette accusation me surprit. Après tout, me dis-je, il y a éu des monomanies plus extraordinaires que celle-là; le grand Bacon ne pouvait voir un bâton de cire à cacheter sans se l'approprier: dans une conférence avec M. de Metternich aux Tuileries, l'Empereur s'aperçut que le diplomate autrichien glissait des pains à cacheter dans sa poche. M. Old-Nick a une autre manie, il fait les orangs-outangs. Je m'attendais toujours à ce que la Quotidienne jetât feu et flammes et demandât à grands cris son homme des bois. Il faut vous dire que j'avais lu son histoire dans le Commerce, elle était charmante d'esprit et de style, pleine de rapidité et de désinvolture; la Quotidienne l'avait également publiée, mais en trois feuilletons. L'orang-outang du Commerce n'avait que neuf colonnes. Il s'agissait donc d'un autre quadrumane littéraire. Ma foi non! c'était le même; seulement il n'appartenait ni à la Quotidienne, ni au Commerce. M. Old-Nick l'avait emprunté à un romancier Américain qu'il est en train d'inventer dans la Revue des Deux-Mondes. Ce romancier s'appelle Poë; je ne dis pas le contraire. Voilà donc un écrivain qui use du droit légitime d'arranger les nouvelles d'un romancier Américain qu'il a inventé, et on l'accuse de plagiat, de vol au feuilleton; on alarme ses amis en leur faisant croire que cet écrivain est possédé de la monomanie des orangs-outangs. Par la Courchamps! voilà qui me paraît léger. M. Old-Nick a écrit au journal en question une réponse pour rétablir sa moralité, attaquée à l'endroit des orangs-outangs. Cet orangoutang a mis, ces jours derniers, toute la littérature en émoi; personne n'a cru un seul instant à l'accusation qu'on a essayé de faire peser sur M. Old-Nick, d'autant plus qu'il avait pris soin d'indiquer luimême la cage où il avait pris son orang-outang. Ceci va fournir de nouvelles armes à la secte qui croit aux romanciers Américains. Le préjugé de l'existence de Cooper en prendra de nouvelles forces. En attendant que la vérité se découvre, nous sommes forcés de convenir que ce Poë est un gaillard bien fin, bien spirituel, quand il est arrangé par M. Old-Nick.

Valdemar," in which the subject is represented as having been mesmerized in articulo mortis. These pieces were reprinted throughout the literary and philosophical world, in nearly all languages, everywhere causing sharp and curious speculation, and where readers could be persuaded that they were fables, challenging a reluctant but genuine admiration.

He had not been long in New-York before he was engaged by Mr. Willis and General Morris as critic and assistant editor of "The Mirror." He remained in this situation about six months, when he became associated with Mr. Briggs in the conduct of the "Broadway Journal," which in October, 1845, passed entirely into his possession. He had now the long-sought but never before enjoyed absolute control of a literary gazette, and, with much friendly assistance, he maintained it long enough to show that whatever his genius, he had not the kind or degree of talent necessary to such a position. His chief critical writings in the "Broadway Journal," were a paper on Miss Barrett's Poems and a long discussion of the subject of plagiarism, with especial reference to Mr. Longfellow. In March, 1845, he had given a lecture at the Society Library upon the American poets, composed, for the most part, of fragments of his previously published reviewals; and in the autumn he accepted an invitation to read a poem before the Boston Lyceum. A week after the event, he printed in the "Broadway Journal" the following account of it, in reply to a paragraph in one of the city papers, founded upon a state ment in the Boston "Transcript."

"Our excellent friend, Major Noah, has suffered himself to be cajoled by that most beguiling of all beguiling little divinities, Miss Walter, of 'The Transcript.' We have been looking all over her article with the aid of a taper, to see if we could discover a single syllable of truth in it-and really blush to acknowledge that we cannot. The adorable creature has been telling a parcel of fibs about us, by way of revenge for something that we did to Mr. Longfellow (who admires her very much) and for calling her 'a pretty little witch' into the bargain. The facts of the case seem to be these: We were invited to 'deliver' (stand and deliver) a poem before the Boston Lyceum. As a matter of course, we accepted the invitation. The audience was large and distinguished.' Mr. Cushing* preceded us with a very capital discourse: he was much applauded. On arising, we were most cordially received. We occupied some fifteen minutes with an apology for not 'delivering,' as is usual in such cases, a didactic poem: a didactic poem, in our opinion, being precisely no poem at all. After some farther words-still of apology -for the 'indefinitiveness' and 'general imbecility' of what we had to offer-all so unworthy a Bostonian audience-we commenced, and, with many interruptions of applause, concluded. Upon the whole the approbation was considerably more (the more the pity too) than that bestowed upon Mr. Cushing. When we had made an end, the audience, of course, arose to depart; and about one-tenth of them, probably, had really departed, when Mr. Coffin, one of the managing committee, arrested those who remained, by the announcement that we had been requested to deliver The Raven.' We delivered The Raven' forthwith-(without taking a receipt)-were very cordially applauded again-and this was the end of it-with the exception of the sad tale invented to suit her own purposes, by that amiable little enemy of ours, Miss Walter. We shall never call a woman a pretty little witch' again, as long as we live.

"We like Boston. We were born there-and perhaps it is just as well not to mention that we are heartily ashamed of the fact. The Bostonians are very well in their way. Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin pies are delicious. Their poetry is not so good.

* Hon. Caleb Cushing, then recently returned from his mission to China.