Text: Anonymous, “[Comment on Poe and R. H. Stoddard],” Eau Claire News (Eau Claire, WI), vol. XII, no. 28, April 23, 1881, p. 1, col. 1

[page 1, column 1, continued:]

IN declining to participate in a proposed entertainment for a memorial to Edgar Allen Poe, one R. H. Stoddard, who writes verses for the magazines, is reported to have said: “I don’t think that Poe's doings in literature, either poetry or prose, were of sufficient merit to entitle him to distinction after his death.” It is fortunate for American literature that this opinion is not that of the American people; neither does it express the sentiment of lovers of poetry in foreign lands. If Poe's genius can be thus depreciated, what will become of Stoddard's name when he who bare it shall have rested as long under the sod?