Text: Lorettus and editor, “[Comment about R. H. Stoddard on Poe],” Lancaster Daily Intelligencer (Lancaster, PA), vol. XXI, no. 214, May 9, 1885, p. 2, col. 3

[page 2, column 3, continued:]

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD, himself something of a poet, is the last offender against good taste, who seized upon the occasion of the late Poe memorial to fling his stone upon the poet's grave. Whereupon a Tribune correspondent, with pointed criticism, asks: “Can no one mention the high philosophy of Bacon but he must be told that the great chancellor took a bribe? Shall we only hear of Milton that he had marital infelicities or of Shakespeare that he stole deer; of Shelley that he was turned out of college and was not married betimes to either of his wives; of Coleridge that he was an opium inebriate; or of Sappho that she loved not wisely but too well? Are we to look at men's sores and not at their achievements? And why cannot poor Poe rest in his grave but the ghouls must be always tearing the tired heart afresh?”