Text: Andrew Kennedy Hutchinson Boyd (as “K. P. I.”), “Edgar Allan Poe,” Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country (London, UK), vol. LV, no. 6, whole no. 330, June 1857, pp. 684-700

[page 684, continued:]

EDGAR ALLAN POE.*

WE must go back to the days of the early dramatists — of Marlowe, Dekker, Ford, Massinger, and Otway — before we shall find in the history of literature any parallel to the wild and morbid genius, and the reckless and miserable life and death of Edgar Allan Poe. Never was there a sadder story than that of his wayward and infatuated youth, his wasted opportunities, his estranged friends, his poverty-stricken manhood, his drunken degradation, his despairing efforts to reform, his gradual sinking into lower and lower depths of profligacy and misery, till at last he died of delirium tremens in an hospital, at the age of thirty-eight. And his poetical genius, his extraordinary analytic power, his imagination that revelled in the realm of the awful, the weird, and the [column 2:] horrible; his utter lack of truth and honour, his inveterate selfishness, his inordinate vanity and insane folly, — all go to make a picture so strange and sad that it cannot easily be forgotten. We believe that this extraordinary man is but little known in this country; and we think our readers may a interested by a few pages given to some account of his life and works.

Poe has not been fortunate in his introduction to the English reading public. His tales have appeared in no more promising shape than that of two volumes of railway reading — much better printed and illustrated, indeed, than such volumes usually are; but blighted, so far as the prospect of admission to the library is concerned, by paper covers and gaudy colouring. His poetry has been published in a handsome [page 685:] volume, with some very pretty illustrations. But this volume unhappily sets out with a biographical notice of Poe, written by Mr. James Hannay, which we have read with considerable surprise. Should any man of taste and sense, not acquainted with Poe, be so unfortunate as to look at Mr. Hannay's preface before reading the poetry, it is extremely probable that he will throw the book into the fire, in indignation at the self-conceit and affected smartness by which the preface is characterized. Mr. Hannay is anxious to give us some account of himself as well as of Poe; and communicates the important fact, that

And then Mr. Hannay does say a good many words, everything of the least value in which is taken from Mr. Griswold's Life prefixed to the American edition; Mr. Griswold's facts being set in Mr. Hannay's comments. These are distinguished by offensive and extremely unsuccessful attempts at smartness, which are merely flippant and absurd. We have the following snobbish description of Poe's appearance: —

Mr. Hannay informs us that ‘there are some who think that from a post-mortem examination of the body you can learn the soul of a man.’ Likewise, that ‘ too often, particularly in artificial ages like ours, a man's whole career has to be run — like a race at a fair — in a sack!’ Then somebody had said that Poe's [column 2:] poetic faculty was the result of his analytic; on which Mr. Hannay observes —

Some one else had said in America, after Poe's death, that ‘his faults were many, his virtues few:’ whereupon Mr. Hannay puts the question —

And after a good deal more material of the same mark, Mr. Hannay's preface ends with the following important statement: —

We heartily regret that a production so unworthy of Mr. Hannay's real ability should go forth to the world with his name. Still this unlucky preface is by no means an anomalous phenomenon. It comes in proof of a theory we have long held, that the earliest productions of a man of real genius are almost always crude, flippant, and affectedly smart. Mr. Hannay is still a very young man; and this preface must have been written when he was a mere boy. Had he at that period written something very sound and sensible, he would probably never have become more than a dull, sensible, commonplace man. As it is, time has tamed him down; he has gained in taste and judgment, while still retaining the fm fire and originality. It was a high triumph to Mr. Hannay that, when he lately stood on the Tory interest for a Scotch borough of most Radical polities, he fairly talked over the mob into sympathy with his views, and was beyond comparison the popular candidate. A high Tory who obtains the show of hands in any Scotch borough must be a man of uncommon tact and talent. Now that Mr. Hannay is some years older, we are sure he must disapprove of this juvenile production as much as we do. But we are glad of a fact which confirms our theory. As we bethink ourselves of our old [page 686:] college companions, we note that those who wrote with good sense and good taste at twenty, have now settled down into the dullest and baldest of prosers; while such as dealt in bombastic flourishes and absurd extravagance of style, learned as time went on to prune their early luxuriances, while still retaining something of raciness, interest, and ornament.

The American edition of Poe's works consists of four handsome volumes of five hundred pages each, which, as regards paper, printing, and binding, are very favourable specimens of transatlantic publishing. The first volume contains a memoir of Poe's life by Mr. Griswold, and notices of his genius by Mr. N. P. Willis and Mr. Lowell. Mr. Griswold gives us the severer estimate of Poe's life and character: Mr. Lowell and Mr. Willis appear anxious to say as much good of him as possible. There is something that relieves the dark colours in which Poe is usually depicted, in the brief notice of him by his mother-in-law, prefixed to the work. She says —

From this statement of Mrs. Clemm, and from a statement made by Frances Osgood, it seems that those who knew Poe best were witnesses of a more amiable aspect of his character. There is, unhappily, only one account of the melancholy phase of it which was known to the public. We are told by Mr. Willis that the slightest indulgence in intoxicating liquor was sufficient to convert Poe into a thorough blackguard — that ‘with a single glass of wine his whole nature was reversed; [column 2:] the demon became uppermost, and though none of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, his will was palpably insane.’ The only excuse which can be offered for much of Poe's life is, that he was truly not a responsible agent. He was morally, though not intellectually, insane.

The father of Edgar Allan Poe, when a law student, eloped with an English actress named Elizabeth Arnold. After a time he married her. He became an actor, and acted along with his wife for six or seven years in various cities of the United States. At length his wife and he died, within a few weeks of each other, leaving two sons and a daughter utterly destitute. Edgar, their second child, was born at Baltimore in 1811. He was adopted by a wealthy merchant, one Mr. John Allan; and Mr. Allan having no children, young Poe was generally regarded as destined to succeed to his fortune. The child was beautiful, precocious, high-spirited. He oval brook no opposition, and Mr. and Mrs. Allan foolishly humoured him in every way. In 1816 he accompanied them to England, and was left for four or five years at school at Stoke Newington. In one of his tales, Poe gives a striking description of his life here: —

In 1822 he returned to America, and entered the University of Charlotteville [[Charlottesville]]. Here he was distinguished for ability, but still more for gambling, drunkenness, and other vices, which led to his being expelled. Mr. Allan had given him a very liberal allowance of money while at the [page 689:] University, but the reckless lad ran deeply in debt. He paid some large sums which he had lost in gambling, with drafts upon Mr. Allan; and Mr. Allan having refused to pay these, the ungrateful young man wrote him an insulting letter, and set off for Europe with the avowed intention of joining the Greek army, which was at that. time engaged in war with the Turks. He never reached Greece; but, after having disappeared for a year, he turned up at St. Petersburg, where the American Minister saved him from the penalties which he had incurred in some drunken brawl.

He came back once more to America; and Mr. Allan, with extraordinary forbearance, once more received him kindly; and as Poe now expressed a desire to enter the army, he procured him admission to the Military Academy. Experience had taught poor Poe no wisdom; and, persevering in his vicious practices, in ten months he was cashiered and expelled.

Mr. Allan's patience was not yet exhausted; he again received the reckless scapegrace us a son. But there is a limit to all human endurance, and in a few months Poe was finally cast off by him. The first Mrs. Allan had died some time before, and Mr. Allan had married a young lady who, Poe assures us, might, as regards age, have been his grandchild. In that case, as Mr. Allan was just forty-eight, she must have been very young indeed. Poe's biographer insinuates that the last unpardonable provocation which led to Poe's final exclusion from Mr. Allan's house, was in some way connected with this lady; and the writer of an eulogium on Poe in an American newspaper, says that the circumstances of the case

Perhaps it would have been better plainly to have stated wherein this ast offence consisted. It is certain [column 2:] that the mysterious way in which the biography passes it by, as something too bad to be recorded, is calculated to damage Poe's reputation as much as any record of facts could do so. It is certain, too, that the offence was such as finally to exhaust the patience of a benefactor who had repeatedly forgiven every possible form of recklessness, debauchery, and insolence; and when Mr. Allan died in 1834, he left his fortune to his children by his second marriage, but not a farthing to Poe.

From the time that he was finally cast off by Mr. Allan, Poe sought to support himself by literature; and the remainder of his life is the melancholy story of a hack-writer's struggle for existence. At an early age he had published a little volume of poetry, which ran through several editions; but when he first began to depend upon his contributions to the periodical press he was very unsuccessful. He had not steadiness to persevere in spite of discouragement; and he enlisted in the army as a common soldier. He was soon recognised by some officers who had been with him at the Military Academy, and efforts were made to get him a commission. Just as these promised to be successful, it was found that he had deserted.

He disappeared for a while. After some months, a prize was offered by the publisher of a Baltimore newspaper for the best tale. On the committee which was to award the prize, meeting, the members of it were struck by the beauty of the handwriting of one of the tales offered in competition. And without reading any other of the manuscripts on which they were called to adjudicate, these upright and honourable judges resolved, in a mere whim, that the prize should be given to ‘the first of geniuses who had written legibly.’ The award was published on the 12th October, 1833; and the successful competitor proved to be Poe. Mr. Griswold's description of his appearance when he came to receive the prize, gives us some notion of the state to which he had been reduced:

His newly found friends were much interested in him, and lost no opportunity of serving him. They procured him literary occupation sufficient for his support; and in 1835 he was appointed editor of a journal published at Richmond, in Virginia. Down to this time he was compelled by actual necessity to lead a sober life; but upon receiving his first month's salary as editor, he relapsed into his old habits. For a week, Mr. Griswold tells us, ‘he was in a condition of brutish drunkenness,’ and his dismissal followed. When he became sober, he made many professions of repentance; and Mr. White, the proprietor of the journal, agreed to give him another trial, with the understanding ‘that all engagements on his part should cease the moment Poe got drunk.’ Poe did get drunk at intervals, ‘drinking till his senses were lost;’ but Mr. White struggled on with him for upwards of a year. At the end of that time Poe was finally dismissed. While holding his precarious place at Richmond, and with a very scanty income, he had married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, an amiable and beautiful girl, but quite devoid of that firmness of character which was requisite in the wife of such a man.

He went from Richmond to Baltimore, and thence to Philadelphia and New York, trusting for support to his chances of success as a magazine writer and newspaper correspondent. In May, 1839, he became editor of the Gentleman's [column 2:] Magazine of Philadelphia, and made a vigorous effort to begin a regular life. But moral stamina was entirely wanting, and before the close of summer he relapsed into his former courses; ‘and for weeks was regardless of everything but a morbid and insatiable appetite for the means of intoxication.” The magazine was conducted in the most irregular way; its proprietor on several occasions returning from some days’ absence from home, after the day of publication was past, to find the magazine unfinished and Poe senselessly drunk.

The story of Poe's connexion with several other periodicals might be told in the same words. In the autumn of 1844, he removed to New York. It was during his residence in Philadelphia that Mr. Griswold became acquainted with him. He says —

Poe's 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, 1 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 neighbourhoods 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.

Poe arrived at New York with a high literary reputation. He had by this time written his most successful tales; and soon after coming to New York, he published his remarkable poem, The Raven, of which Mr. Willis has said, that —

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.

About this time he also wrote his well-known story, entitled The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar; in which he gives a shockingly circumstantial [page 689:] and minute description of the use of mesmerism in the case of a dying man. This piece was translated into many languages; and caused much curious speculation in the philosophical world.

In October, 1845, he became the proprieter [[proprietor]] and editor of the New York Broadway Journal. His irregular habits rendered him quite unfit for such a position; and the last number of the journal was published at the close of the same year. He made some engagements to deliver public lectures, one to read a poem before the Boston Lyceum: but he was generally drunk when the period for fulfilling these engagements arrived. We have some curious specimens of the tone in which literary criticism is conducted in America, in a controversy into which Poe got at this time with a certain Dr. Dunn English. Poe had published, as one of a series of sketches called The Literati of New York City, an article reviewing the career of Dr. English, which Mr. Griswold admits was ‘entirely false in what purported to be its facts.’ Dr. English retorted by publishing an account of Poe's life and character, very much to the disadvantage of the latter; and wound up his article by a declaration that upon several occasions he had given Poe a sound horse-whipping. Poe returned to the charge in a paper which a New York journal was found willing to publish, in which, among other elegances of phrase, he describes Dr. English's attack upon himself as ‘oozing from the filthy lips of which a lie is the only natural language!’

But Poe was now sinking fast into lower depths of infamy. Witness the following: —

And Mr. Griswold tells us that those familiar with Poe's career can recal [[recall]] too many similar anecdotes.

In the autumn of 1846 the New York Express contained an appeal to the public on behalf of Poe and his wife, who were now at Fordham, some miles from the city, in want of the common necessaries of life. Mr. N. P. Willis seconded this appeal by a generous paper in the Home Journal; and the contributions which flowed in relieved Poe's necessities for the time. His wife died a few weeks later; and magazine writing, as before, occupied him till the beginning of 1848. Early in that year he delivered, before a brilliant auditory at New York, his extraordinary discourse upon the Cosmogony of the Universe, which he called Eureka, a Prose Poem. He utterly denied in it the value of the inductive philosophy, and proposed to construct a theory of nature which should be dictated merely by ‘that divinest instinct, the sense of beauty.’ His views, we need hardly say, in so far as they can be reduced to comprehensibility, are the most preposterous rubbish.

In August, 1849, Poe went from New York to Philadelphia. Here, for several days, he abandoned himself to excesses so shocking, that his biographer leaves them to be imagined. Reduced to actual beggary, he asked in charity the means of leaving the city, and proceeded to Richmond, in Virginia. Here he seems to have awakened to the degradation of his position; and he made a last desperate effort to begin a new life. He joined a teetotal society, and for several weeks conducted himself with perfect propriety. He delivered two lectures in several of the towns of Virginia. He became engaged to marry a lady whom he had known in his youth, and who certainly evinced much greater courage than discretion in forming an engagement so perilous; and he wrote to his friends that he was about to settle for the remainder of [page 690:] his days amid the scenes where he had passed his youth. We give the conclusion of the miserable history in Mr. Griswold's words: —

Thus perished one of the most singular geniuses which America has produced. From the very beginning of his career there seems to have been some insane infatuation uponhim. He was bad and wretched throughout. Through his whole life there never was a time when, for more than two or three weeks, he promised to become anything better. His sky never brightened. We feel that it would have been his salvation to have been put under some external control; he was not fit to be his own master. His will was in complete abeyance. Still, his genius ought not to be suffered to blind us to his guilt. Among the vulgar victims of drunkenness, there is probably not one who cannot declare, as truthfully as Poe could have declared, that he is absolutely a slave to that degrading vice, and that the most honest efforts cannot emancipate him. Let us be thankful that it does not rest with any human tribunal to decide how far such a man is responsible to eternal justice. It is plain that, as regards human laws, even the hereditary victim of an invincible tendency must be held as sufficiently free to be accountable.

There is nothing of the lues Boswelliana about Mr. Griswold. He states with the greatest frankness the sins and scandals of the man who entrusted to him the vindication of a memory which sorely needed vindicating, if it were possible. It is curious, indeed, how little pains the biographer takes to [column 2:] conceal-the shortcomings of his hero. He appears to have felt that any attempt to have done so would have been vain. He says,

Mr. Griswold tells us that Poe was as deficient in literary honesty as in truthfulness in the ordinary relations of life. ‘ Some of his plagiarisms are scarcely paralleled for their audacity in all literary history.’ Several of his most striking tales borrowed their entire machinery from the writings of English authors. He got possession of a manuscript poem by Mr. Longfellow, and much to the astonishment of that pleasing author, he published it, with some slight alteration, as his own. Longfellow having found fault with this appropriation, and having printed the piece with his own name, Poe, with extraordinary audacity, accused Longfellow of having stolen the poem from himself, and followed up the charge with ‘malignant criticism for many years.’ He must have presumed a good deal upon American ignorance of English literature, when he published as his own a good deal of the prose of Coleridge. But his most remarkable plagiarism consisted in publishing at Philadelphia, as original, a work on Conchology, which was a reprint, almost verbatim, of The Text-book of Conchology, by Captain Thomas Brown; — in Glasgow in 1833. Such dishonesty rarely fails of being discovered. The book was received with such unmistakeable disapprobation, that in a second edition Poe's name was withdrawn from the title-page, and his initials only affixed to the preface.

As a critic, Mr. Griswold recommends us to attach little weight to the opinions expressed by Poe: —

Poe's vanity was extraordinary. He preserved with care everything that was published respecting himself and his works, and all letters of a complimentary character. In 1843, he wrote for a Philadelphia newspaper a sketch of his own life, ‘man parts of which,’ says Mr. Griswold, ‘are untrue.’ In particular, it contained several laudatory remarks upon Poe's writings, purporting to be by Mr. Washington Irving, and Miss E. B. Barrett, now Mrs. Browning. It is melancholy to think that this laudatory character was given them, by grossly perverting them from the sense in which Mrs. Browning and Mr. Irving wrote. Mrs. Browning had written to Poe that her husband was struck much by the rhythm of The Raven; poor Poe published, as an extract from Mrs. Browning's letter, that ‘Mr. Browning is enthusiastic in his admiration of the rhythm.’ To such wretched shifts did this unhappy genius stoop, in the hope of adding to his reputation.

Mr. Griswold sums up his account of Poe in the following words: —

We have said we believe that Poe is little known or appreciated on this side of the Atlantic; but in America there appears to be perfect unanimity of opinion both as to the nature and the rank of his genius. He was a true poet, though he wrote but little poetry; and his more successful pieces in verse produce an impression akin to that produced by nearly all his prose. His power was confined almost entirely to the region of the awful, the mysterious, and the horrible; and it seems as if his works, in their tone and colouring, were the faithful reflection of his own ordinary mood and order of thought. We know that, in many cases, the tone of a man's writings is no index whatever to his ordinary temperament, It is trite now-a-days to say that some of the most laughter-moving authors have been very melancholy men; while some writers, whose works are distinguished by the most overdrawn sentiment, have been extremely prosaic in their real life. The author of The Man of’ Feeling was one of the hardest-headed of Scotch lawyers; and when Goethe wrote The Sorrows of Werter, he had a keen eye to business, and was extremely fond of a good dinner. But in the case of Poe there seems to have been a real consistency between the tone of his writings and that of his usual feeling and thought. The dreary, ghastly, and appalling fancies of which his tales are for the most part made up, seem to have been a faithful reflection of his own dreary, ghastly, and appalling thoughts.

We have said that he wrote but little poetry. He was compelled by the exigencies of his life to produce such literary material as might procure the daily bread. He wrote verse very slowly, and his best poems are finished with extraordinary care; though the wonderful flow of his rhythm has nothing of the constraint of visible elaboration. It is curious to observe his anxiety to do away the impression that his verse was composed under the influence of anything like poetic inspiration. He gives us, in one of his prose pieces, a most minute [page 692:] account of the process by which he built up his most popular poem, The Raven. It is so seldom that a poet is found willing to admit his readers behind the scenes, and to explain to them the nature of the machinery by which his effects are produced, that we shall give some account of this paper, which is called The Philosophy of Composition. Poe appears desirous to exhibit every cord and pulley, every sheet of daubed canvas, and every trapdoor in his theatre; and to assure us that the sulphureous glare thrown over the whole picture is nothing more than a red light in a scene-shifter's hand: —

We shall give the several steps of the process by which, as its author assures us, The Raven was turned out.

First, for certain reasons not mentioned, he was particularly anxious to write a poem which should suit at once the popular and the critical taste.

The question then came to be, How long should a poem be, in order to its producing the greatest possible impression? The conclusion was, that it should be so brief as to be easily read at a sitting; more minutely, that it ought to consist of about a hundred lines. The Raven actually consists of a hundred and eight.

The next question was, What sort of impression was most likely to be most generally and deeply felt? And the conclusion come to was, [column 2:] that for many reasons, stated somewhat prolixly, it must be an impression of sadness; the poem must be of a melancholy tone.

The poet next considered whether there was any ‘artistic piquancy’ that might be introduced into the structure of the proposed poem, with the view of intensifying its effect? And after some reflection, he concluded that there was nothing which was so suitable for this purpose as the employment of the refrain.

For full effect, the refrain must be brief; and that its application might be varied, while literally it remained unaltered, it was convenient that it should consist of a single word. The use of the refrain implied that the poem should be divided into stanzas.

What was the refrain to be? It must be sonorous and emphatic. Then the long o is the most sonorous vowel, in connexion with r as the most producible consonant. These considerations immediately suggested the word Nevermore.

How was Nevermore to be brought in at the close of each stanza? It would be awkward to have a single word monotonously repeated by a reasonable being. The refrain must therefore be uttered by a non-reasoning creature capable of speech. A parrot was thought of first, but a raven appeared more in keeping with the tone of the intended poem.

Now, gathering up his conclusions, Poe tells us he found that he had arrived at ‘the conception of a raven, a bird of ill omen, monotonously repeating the one word Nevermore at the conclusion of each stanza, in a poem of melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred lines.’

Next came the inquiry, What is the saddest of all subjects? The answer was, Death. And when is this melancholy subject most poetical? When most closely allied to Beauty. The subject of the poem must therefore be the death of a beautiful woman. And, as a further step, a bereaved lover is the fittest person to speak on such a subject.

Combine now the ideas of a lover lamenting his mistress, and a Raven repeating continuously Nevermore. Let the lover begin by a common-place [page 693:] query, to which the Raven should thus answer: then a query less commonplace: then another query; till at last, half in superstition and half in self-torture, he goes on to put questions whose solution he has passionately at heart, ‘receiving a frenzied pleasure in so modelling his questions as to obtain from the expected Nevermore the most delicious because the most intolerable of sorrow.’ The last uttered Nevermore must involve the utmost conceivable amount of sorrow and despair. And at this point in the induction, Poe assures us he first ‘put pen to paper,’ and wrote the stanza: —

This stanza was to form the climax of the poem; and no other was permitted to be so vigorous.

Originality in the rhythm and metre was also aimed at. And the author flattered himself that ‘nothing even remotely approaching’ the stanza of The Raven ‘has ever been attempted.’

Where were the Raven and the lover to meet? Not in the fields, for ‘circumscription of space is absolutely necessary to the effect of insulated incident; — it has the force of a frame to a picture.’ The meeting must be in the lover's chamber, which must be richly furnished.

The Raven must enter by the window. The night must be stormy. The bird must alight on a bust of Pallas — for contrast of marble and plumage, — because the lover is a scholar, — and because the name Pallas sounds well.

The narrative part of the poem being completed, two concluding stanzas are added, which serve to cast a meaning upon all that has gone before. The Raven becomes emblematical; ‘ but it is not till the last line of the last stanza that the intention of making him emblematical of mournful and never-ending [column 2:] remembrance is permitted distinctly to be seen:’

Had Poe been a person so reliable that we could feel assured that such was indeed the genesis of this celebrated poem, there would be much interest in the account of it which he gives us. For although it by no means follows that the process by which the mind of one man of genius matures a fine work, from the dawn of its first crude conception to the hour when it is finally turned out, totus, teres, et rotundus, shall be the same as that by which another man of equal genius should produce a similar piece of work; still it would be curious to know, from the confession of an author as intensely truthful as Dr. Arnold, for instance, how it was that some admirable poem which bears with it all the marks of the true poetic inspiration, was conceived, condensed, and elaborated. Unfortunately, in Poe's case we have not the slightest assurance that there is a syllable of truth in the long story he has told us, beyond that which may be afforded by the story's internal evidence of truthfulness. It is quite certain that if he thought it likely to ‘create a sensation’ in the public mind, Poe would have related the particulars with equal circumstantiality although they had been entirely false. We must rest, therefore, altogether on the internal evidence which may be afforded by the narrative itself: and it appears to us that the ostentatious parade of reasons, — the affectation of strict logical sequence in all the steps of the process of manufacturing the poem, — are characteristics directly the contrary of those which we might expect in a true narrative, and bear a most suspicious resemblance to those of the highly circumstantial fictitious tales which proceeded from Poe's pen. The story, in short, is psychologically absurd [page 694:] and improbable in itself; and it derives no weight from the author's character which may countervail its own unlikelihood. We believe that Poe, like all other authors, would have found it extremely hard to lay down the progressive steps by whic any of his works was matured. We believe that nothing can be more anomalous or fortuitous than the manner in which this end is reached in various cases: the conception sometimes breaking sharply and suddenly upon the mental view, and at other times first looming indistinctly as a mountain through morning mist, and gradually settling into vivid outline and detail.

There is a good deal of mannerism in Poe's versification. He is very fond of making use of the refrain; and he sometimes lingers on the same lines and cadences in a way which palls upon the ear. The poem entitled The Bells sets out with a peculiar music of its own; but before its close, it has degenerated into something almost like nursery rhymes. Here is its first stanza: —

The second stanza is given to wedding bells, the third to alarum bells, the fourth to bells tolled for the dead. It will require an admiration of Poe's poetry more enthusiastic than ours, to discern anything but jingle and absurdity in the latter lines of this fourth verse. The ‘King of the Ghouls,’ it appears, ‘dances and yells,’

The flow of all Poe's verses is remarkable for ease and gracefulness: it is hardly ever hampered by the difficulties of rhyme and rhythm which exist to a great degree in the metres of which he makes use. The stanzas which we have already quoted from The Raven have afforded those readers who are not familiar with the poem some notion of the singular character of its measure. We shall quote another specimen of it: —

Of the four large volumes which contain Poe's works, only a small portion of one is taken up by his poetry. That occupies no more than one hundred pages out of two thousand. The first volume consists of tales: the second contains the poetry, Eureka, one or two critical papers, and tales: the third volume is occupied by short critical sketches of almost all the authors of America, and of a few English authors, among whom are Macaulay, Dickens, Lever, and Mrs. Browning. The fourth volume contains a most shocking and repulsive tale of shipwreck and starvation at sea, entitled Arthur Gordon Pym; and more tales of a similar character to those in the preceding volumes. Arthur Gordon Pym is Poe's only attempt at a narrative of any length. [page 695:]

Mr. Griswold has forewarned us not to attach much weight to any of Poe's critical opinions; and a perusal of his critical essays leads us to the belief that his ability did not at all lie in that way. They are almost entirely taken up by minute verbal fault-finding: there is hardly anything like the discussion of principles; and many of the papers are evidently dictated by personal spite, and afford us a very unfavourable notion of the tone of American journalism. It is to be hoped that Poe's writings are not a fair specimen of the courtesy, or lack of courtesy, with which literary men across the Atlantic are wont to speak or write of one another. Of the editor of a rival magazine, Poe remarks —

Equally unsatisfactory are the glimpses of American manners with which these critical papers furnish us. The following is Poe's account of a certain John W. Francis, whom Poe evidently regarded as a very Chesterfield: —

But Poe's great power lay in writing tales, which rank in a class by themselves, and have their characteristics strongly defined. They inculcate no moral lesson; they delineate no character; they are utterly away from nature or experience: their sole end is to interest and excite; and this end is aimed at for the most part by the use of all the appliances of horror. They are sometimes extremely coarse in taste, though [column 2:] never impure in morality. They are often calculated to jar on all human feeling; and when read they leave an indescribably eerie and strange impression upon the mind. Yet they possess such interest as spell-binds the reader; and if read alone and late at night, we venture to say that one ma as readily shake off the nightmare as pause in the middle of one of these appalling narratives. There are some humorous tales, which are generally very unsuccessful; though the effect of the serious is often heightened by the infusion of a grotesque and maniac mirth. Monk Lewis and Mrs. Radcliffe are nowhere in the race with Poe. His imagination was so vivid that he appears to have seen all the horrors he describes; and he sets them before his readers with such terrible graphic power that no nervous person should read his works except by broad daylight, and with a whole family in the room. He gives all his narratives an extraordinary verisimilitude by a circumstantiality of detail which surpasses that of Robinson Crusoe or Sir Edward Seaward; and although the relation is almost always extravagant and impossible, one needs occasionally to pause and recollect, to avoid being carried away by the air of truthfulness and simplicity with which the story is told. Sometimes the interest is made to depend on following up a close chain of reasoning; and often we find that description of magnificence and that gloating over imaginary wealth which are not unusual in the writings of men possessing a rich fancy amid the res angusta domi. And at all times the language in which the description or the narrative is carried on is almost unparalleled for its exquisite clearness, precision, and nerve.

We have already alluded to a piece entitled The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,as one which excited interest when it was published, and which was translated into almost all the languages of Europe. It is an example of the author's power of balancing an extraordinary and impossible narrative, by an appearance of anxiety to tell the simple truth, and by minute circumstantiality in narrating it, [page 696:] which led to the story being very generally believed.

M. Valdemar, a friend of Poe, was in the last stage of consumption. For some months, Poe had been anxious for an opportunity of mesmerizing some person in the act of death; and having told this to M. Valdemar, the latter at once agreed that the operation might be tried upon himself, and promised to send a message to Poe twenty-four hours before the time announced by the physicians as that of his decease.

One day Poe received a note from M. Valdemar that he could not hold out beyond to-morrow midnight. He immediately hastened to the dying man's chamber. This was on Saturday evening, and the medical men declared that M. Valdemar would probably die about midnight on Sunday. Valdemar was still desirous of being mesmerized; and it was arranged that Poe, with a friend (one Mr. Theodore L —— l) should come to him on Sunday evening at eight o’clock. This friend was to take notes of all that should pass.

On Sunday evening, accordingly, M. Valdemar was mesmerized, being then in the last stage of physical exhaustion. The process was completed about midnight. He remained in the mesmeric state till three a.m. Poe then asked him, ‘M. Valdemar, are you asleep?’ In an audible whisper the answer was returned, ‘ Asleep now, — I am dying.’ The same answer was given still more faintly a few minutes later. The physicians thought it best that he should remain in this tranquil state till death should supervene, which they anticipated in a few minutes.

Poe repeated his question, ‘ Are you asleep?’ Even as he spoke a ghastly change passed over Valdemar, which is described with horrible minuteness. He was dead; and his friends were turning away, leaving him to the nurses.

In this condition, dead, yet still held in a strange connexion with Poe by the mesmeric influence, M. Valdemar continued for seven months. Death was so far arrested. At the end of that time it was resolved to awaken him. Poe made the necessary passes, and then said —

One of Poe's most striking tales is entitled A Descent into the Maelström. It is told, like most of his stories, in the first person. In company with an old Norwegian fisherman, the writer tells us he climbed to the top of an enormous crag upon the coast of Lofoden, commanding an extensive sea-view: —

The old man goes on to tell how he himself, in a little schooner, with two of his brothers, had been sucked into this tremendous whirl, the description of which given by Poe is, we need hardly tell our readers, very greatly exaggerated. It appears that, at the turn of the tide, the whirl ceases for a few minutes, and venturesome fishermen sometimes run the risk, when the wind is fair and strong, of pushing right across the Maelström. A great round is thus saved, and the finest fish are taken in extraordinary quantity. The old man's watch had upon one occasion run down, and miscalculating the time, he and his brothers steered their little craft right upon the whirlpool. A terrible storm uprisen suddenly, and the ström was in its most fearful power.

After flying before the wind, the schooner, on reaching the belt of foam which surrounds the whirl, suddenly turned off to one side, and flew round with tremendous velocity.

While in this position, the old fisherman began to observe that the lighter objects in the whirl, such as casks, were much longer in sliding down the slope of the funnel than heavy objects such as the schooner. This afforded him some hope of escape. He therefore lashed himself to a cask and threw himself into the water, hoping that he might not be plunged into the abyss below before the turn of the tide: —

Of all Poe's tales, the one which he himself esteemed most highly, is that entitled Ligeia. It is one of several which stand distinguished from his other tales by a peculiar character. In it, as in all his more powerful writings, the effect left on the mind is a feeling of awe and horror; but this feeling is in Ligeia produced by metaphysical means. Instead of the physical terror of the story of M. Valdemar, or the circumstantial dread of such a tale as the Descent into the Maelström, we find in Ligeia and several other pieces, strange and daring plunges into regions of speculation which thrill us with a sense of the forbidden, — as though prying into Nature's mysteries in a fashion not [page 699:] meet for man. The story is as follows: it is told, like most of the others, in the first person; the writer apparently having lost his own identity in the temporary conviction of the truth of what he tells.

Accordingly the constantly-recurring I had married the Lady Ligeia, having met her in some old decaying city on the Rhine. There was always something strange about her: her husband never knew what was her paternal name. Her eyes had an expression which suggested, in a fashion which bewildered, dim remembrances of some pre-existent state. Her beauty and learning were equally great: but her main characteristic was her tremendous strength of will.

She gradually faded, in early youth; but this wonderful volition appeared to struggle at every step with advancing death. She ‘wrestled with the advancing shadow with a desperate fierceness of resistance.’ She was resolved that she would not leave her husband; she was determined that she would not die. Death came, notwithstanding; but in the last moment of life she sprang upon her feet and shrieked aloud those strangely-suggestive words of Joseph Glanvill, ‘Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor to death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.’ She sank down, exhausted; and as she breathed her last sigh, her husband heard a low murmur come from her lips. He bent his ear to them, and heard the same words repeated.

The husband sank into a morbid state, described with great power; but after some time he again married. The dwelling where he and his wife lived, and the appearance of their chamber, are described with more than Poe's usual power of exciting a creeping sensation of awe. Mysterious sounds and footsteps were heard about that chamber. Strange shadows from invisible figures were cast upon its floor. After several mysterious fits of illness the second wife died, and her husband watched at night beside her shrouded form.

As he sat he heard a low sob come from the bed of death. He watched in an agony of superstitious terror. After some minutes a feeble tinge of [column 2:] colour began to flush the dead face. The husband thought that life was not gone, and used every means of restoring it. But in a very short time all signs of life had disappeared, and the body lay more dead in appearance than ever.

An hour passed, and a sigh was again heard from the bed. The lips trembled and parted. A partial glow came over the forehead and cheek; the heart feebly beat. The husband chafed and bathed temples and hands, and used every exertion which no little medical reading could suggest. But in vain. Suddenly the colour fled, and the pulsation ceased; and in an instant the body assumed the appearance of that which has for many days been buried.

Through that unspeakably horrible night, ‘time after time, until near the period of the grey dawn, this hideous drama of revivification was repeated; each terrific relapse was only into a sterner and apparently more irredeemable death; each agony wore the aspect of a struggle with some invisible foe; and each struggle was preceded by, I know not what, of wild change in the personal appearance of the corpse.’

Once more, as dawn approached, rising from a more appalling and hopeless dissolution than any before it, the dead stirred with a more vigorous life. The hues of life flushed up, the limbs relaxed; and ‘rising from the bed, tottering with feeble steps, with closed eyes, and with the manner of one bewildered in a dream, the thing that was enshrouded advanced boldly and palpably into the middle of the apartment.’ We give the rest in the writer's words: —

There is certainly something very thrilling in the minute description in this tale, of the persevering and awful struggle of the Will to break the trammels of death; and in the strange gradual transformation of the second wife into the first. Poe prided himself much upon the psychical ingenuity of the conception. He tells us he regarded the piece as containing the highest-class thought which he had ever written.

Our space forbids that we should give any further specimens of the wild and strange fictions which proceeded from the dark and distempered imagination of this miserable but extraordinary genius. Should any of our readers desire to extend their acquaintance with the works of Poe, we may refer them to the pieces entitled, The Masque of the Red Death, The Tell-tale Heart, William Wilson, and The Fall of the House of Usher, as specimens of his power in the realm of the eerie and earful; and to the pieces entitled, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, [column 2:] The Gold-bug, Hans Pfaal, and The Purloined Letter, as specimens of tales which draw their effect from their circumstantiality of detail and the closeness with which they follow up a train of reasoning. Hans Pfaal is the account of a voyage to the moon, given with such an appearance of truthful simplicity, and with such an apparent earnestness of desire to explain the precise rationale of every step in the process which brought the voyager to his destination, that one can almost fancy that the story might in many quarters receive implicit credit. The sketches called The Domain of Arnheim, and Landor's Cottage, are remarkable examples of Poe's power of life-like description.

On the whole, it appears to us, that whether we regard the character of Poe's genius, or the nature of his career, we are looking upon as sad and strange a phenomenon as can be found in literary history. Principle he seems to have had none. Decision of character was entirely lacking. His envy of those more favoured by fortune than himself amounted to raging ferocity. He starved his wife, and broke her heart. He estranged the friends who were most firmly resolved to hold by him. He foully slandered his best benefactors. He had no faith in man or woman. His biographer tells us that ‘he regarded society as composed altogether of villains.’ He had no sympathy, no honour, no truth. And we carry with us from the contemplation of the entire subject, the sad recollection of a powerful intellect, a most vivid imagination, an utterly evil heart, and a career of guilt, misery, and despair.

K. P. I.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 684:]

*The Works of the late Edgar Allan Poe: with a Memoir by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, and Notices of his Life and Genius by N. P. Willis and J. R. Lowell. In Four Volumes. New York: Redfield. 1856.

The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe: with a Notice of his Life and Genius by James Hannay. Illustrated. London: Addey and Co. 1853.

Tales of Mystery, Imagination, and Humour; and Poems. By Edgar Allan Poe. Two Volumes, London: Vizetelly. 1852.