Text: “E. R. R.,” “Edgar Allen [[Allan]] Poe,” Vermont Journal (Windsor, VT), vol. XV, no. 23, November 20, 1858, p. 1, cols. 1-2

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This brilliant but erratic child of genius was born in the city of Baltimore, in the month of January, 1811. His parents dying while he was very young, be was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a liberal-minded and wealthy merchant of Richmond, who had been their intimate friend. Naturally proud, sensitive and irritable, the well-meant indulgence which be received from Mr. Allan, was exceedingly unfavorable to the proper development of a character in which the romantic element, if we may so express it, was predominant. “Nothing was permitted that could break his spirit and, as we might expect, we early find him disregarding the wishes of his kind-hearted patron, and involving himself in difficulty. While a member of the University of Virginia, which be entered in 1823, the struggle of unhappy Greece for her liberty was commenced. Poe, without reflecting upon the consequences of the step he was about to take, but yielding to his natural impulse, and reveling in dreams of freedom for his beloved classic land, at once set out tar the scene of conflict; but (for some misdemeanor) falling into the hands of the authorities at St. Petersburg, from whom be was rescued by the timely intervention of the United States Minister, his ardor was cooled; and abandoning his Quixotic intention of joining the Greeks as hastily as it had been formed, he returned home, arriving at Richmond the day after the obsequies of Mrs. Allan for whom be had entertained a high regard. Chagrined at the result of his expedition, yet learning from it no lesson of wisdom, be now, through the influence of Mr. Allan, obtained a situation at West Point. But here he was ill at ease; his proud spirit could not brook restraint; the habits of dissipation, which be had acquired at the University, were resumed, and in ten months from his matriculation, he was dismissed for neglect of duty. In the meantime Mr. Allan had contracted a second marriage, and the birth of a child following the Union, coeval with that event, was the death of his hopes of inheriting the estate of his adopted father. Unfitted both by nature and training to endure adversity, when his cherished hope of a competency was suddenly cut off, in a fit of despondency, he enlisted as a private soldier. In this, as in the attempt to join the Greeks, we see displayed his characteristic rashness, and notice tbe lack of persistency, which left him on the troubled sea of life, the sport of the billows, like a ship that has parted its anchor. Soon tiring of the monotonous duties of a soldier, he turned his attention toward a literary life; and so successful was be in the outset, that be was marked as the proudest rising star of American literature, and men of genius drew for him a proud boroscope- But ignorant of tbe world, without a settled purpose, and unaccustomed to depend upon his own resources, almost from the commencement of his literary career until it waa closed by death, his life was a struggle with want and misfortune. Sometimes, indeed, be wrote with his eagle eye fixed on Fame's proud temple, but oftener want guided his capricious pen. In 1836, while residing at Richmond, Va., as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, Poe was joined in marriage to his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a lady well fitted, by her amiability and gentle temper, to become the wife of such a man. To him she was destined to prove a ministering angel, to cheer in his time of deepest gloom and wretchedness, and by her hallowed influence, to preserve him from deeper woe; and be, whatever may have been his vices, throughout the ten yean which she was spared to him, never ceased to exhibit for her the same pure affection as on the day he led her to the altar. During these ten years, which brought to him little but misery, Poe lived first at Richmond, then at Philadelphia, editing the Gentleman's Magazine, and in 1844 removed to New York, where occurred the death of his wile. This great bereavement well-nigh drove him to madness. — “She was,” says the lamented poetess, Frances Osgood, “the only woman whom be ever truly loved; and this is evidenced by the exquisite pathos of the little poem called Annabel Lee, of which she was the subject, and which is by far the moot natural, simple, leader and touchingly beautiful of all his songs.” In August, 1849, be left New York and took up hie residence in Richmond and a few weeks later, while returning m fulfil a literary engagement, [column 2:] he was taken ill at Baltimore, and died in a hospital of that city on the evening of the 7th of October, aged 38 years. He died, alas, too soon for his country's literature! but almost a life-time behind his happiness. In this country, probably, no man of genius ever passed so miserable a life; his misery came not so much oat of the circumstances in which he was placed, as from constitutional infirmity, or a voluntary vicious course of conduct. Extremely sensitive, and with a lofty ambition, can we wonder that his proud spirit chafed in the galling bonds of poverty? or, however much we may lament it, that he should sometimes yield to the tempter's power, or seek in unhallowed pleasure to forget for a while his wretchedness? Those delicate nerves for which a beautiful sunset, or the music of a waterfall, have a charm which coarser natures can never feel, will they not throb as readily at the excitement of more sensual pleasure? — That deep yearning for the beautiful, will it not burry along until bitter experience has taught that the pursuit of earthly pleasure gains no richer reward than disease fur the body, and remorse that preys upon the soul? Was it not so with the silver-tongued Elia over his bottle and his pipe? — with Burns, in his secluded home? — with Hartley Coleridge, in that quiet Grosmere valley? — and could we expect it would have been otherwise with Poe. His own unguided passions made the world to him a valley of unrest; would that the waves of Lethe could close over the memory of his unhappy life, leaving his works alone; and long after the proudest mausoleum which earth can boast shall have crumbled and fallen, they will remain an enduring monument of his genius. Although we well know that he had grevious faults, which we would not attempt to conceal nor excuse, yet let us not harshly condemn, remembering that it is not for us to sit in judgment on the man, but for God. Let his melancholy career and untimely death, of which intemperance was the cause, enforce upon our attention the words of Solomon: Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. Alas! in the thrilling words of Stoddard,

E. R. R.