[page 706:]

It seems more than passing strange, in consideration of their “verbal agreement” as to Poe's interest in the magazine should success warrant same, that Graham should write Dr. R. W. Griswold (at New York City) April 19, 1842:

DR, SR — Have you fully determined to abandon the editorial chair? [Ass‘t Editor of Park Benjamin's New World.] Or could you put it in your heart to locate in Philadelphia? Let me hear from you, as I have a proposal to make. I like your book much, ... although it will be an offense to a few, it must be popular and please every man of taste.

Yours,

G. R. GRAHAM.

This letter indicates prior to April parleys between the two; and it was followed by Mr. Graham's May 3rd letter, in which was:

I am glad that you agree to our proposal. ... The salary to be $1000 per annum. We shall hope to see the light of your countenance soon.

Yours,

G. R. GRAHAM.

This $1000 per year was $200 more than was given Poe for his superb editorial efforts that secured success. That these prior side issues were in some measure realized by Poe seems evident and logical by several records of earliest statements concerning Poe leaving Graham's; some, early and late, came from Mr. Graham himself to William Fearing Gill and others. One account was, that Poe — “from illness or other causes,” was “absent from his post on the magazine”; meanwhile Mr. Graham had made “temporary arrangement [page 707:] with Dr. Griswold to act as Poe's substitute until his return.” Graham's April and May letters, also prior to April preparation for May magazine, 1842, print of Poe's cessation of editorial connection, would not hold as a “temporary arrangement” — what these facts determine as definite and permanent only, for Dr. Griswold to act as Poe's substitute, not “until his return.” This statement continued, — ” Poe came back unexpectedly, and, seeing Dr. Griswold in his chair, turned on his heel without a word, and left the office, although ... he sent frequent contributions thereafter to the magazine.” Not withstanding Poe's “illness or other causes perhaps hypercritical attitudes as to reviews, character of the magazine's indulgence in the “namby pamby” and such editorial representatives — the facts stand strong to prove, by Poe's fostering the issue in its infancy and leaving it firmly established that, upon Graham's part to be free from Poe, and his just, however impractical, claim for “verbal” promise of some proprietary interest, became more than a desire, in a fixed purpose. However, some “fifty” articles were accepted from Poe after his editorial services ceased with Graham's Magazine.

Among Mr. Graham's other and more kindly Poe records are: “Literature with him was religion, and he, its high priest, with a whip of scorpions scourged the money-changers from the temple. In all else he had the docility and kind-heartedness of a child. No man was more. quickly touched by a kindness, none more prompt to atone for an injury. For three or four years I knew him intimately; and for eighteen months [page 708:] saw him almost daily; much of the time writing or conversing at the same desk; knowing all his hopes, his fears and little annoyances of life, as well as his high-hearted struggle with adverse fate; yet he was always the same polished gentleman, the quiet, unobtrusive, thoughtful scholar, the devoted husband, frugal in his personal expenses, punctual and unwearied in his industry, and the soul of honor in all his transactions. This ... was in his better days and by them we judge the man. But even after his habits had changed, ‘’ — growing nerve exhaustion, not “habits,” of which Poe wrote, “haunted me as a fiend” — Graham continued, “there was no literary man to whom I would more readily advance money for labor to be clone. He kept his accounts, small as they were, with the accuracy of a banker.” So much from Mr. Graham after Poe's death, and curiously, in refutation of the October 9, 1849, “Ludwig” Sketch of Poe by Dr. R. W. Griswold, whom Graham called to his first editor's place. To N. P. Willis Mr. Graham enclosed Poe's account, made after he left Philadelphia and returned to Graham, long after the items had escaped his mind. It concerned the return of “The Gold-Bug,” etc., of prior noting. As an example of Poe's exact methods, even “after his habits had changed” and he was charged with a variety of rascalities, the importance of this account is obvious. See Notes,(41) Section V.

This account shows that Poe was paid usual rates for his reviewing pages by Mr. Graham, who continued : “This, I find, was his uniform habit, with others as well as myself, carefully recalling to mind his [page 709:] indebtedness with each article sent. ... It may be a ... plain business view of the question, but that may pass as something as times go.” Only when nervous congestion disturbed Poe's mental force acutely was he ever less careful with any one. Concerning his home-folk and life when editor of Graham's Magazine, its owner added: “I shall never forget how solicitous of the happiness of his wife and mother-in-law he was; his whole efforts seemed to be to procure the comfort and welfare of his home. Except for their happiness and the natural ambition of having a magazine of his own [this was always known to Graham], I never heard him deplore the Want of wealth. The truth is he cared little for money, knew less of its value. ... seemed to have no personal expenses. What he received from me, in regular monthly installments, went directly into the hands of his mother-in-law for family comforts, and twice only I remember his purchasing some rather expensive luxuries for his home [perhaps the harp and piano for Virginia]. And then he was nervous to the degree of misery until he had, by extra articles, covered what he considered an improvident indebtedness. His love for his wife was a sort of rapturous worship of the spirit of beauty which he felt was fading before his eyes. I have seen him hovering around her, when she was ill, with all the fond fear and tender anxiety of a mother for her first-born, her slightest cough causing in him a shudder, a heart-chill that was visible.” Five years’ pressure on Poe's weary nerves of that constant consumptive cough with Virginia's sufferings, and going through poverty of anguish edge, might well have “changed” the “habits” of every Samson of [page 710:] Poe's stern critics! It seems to have been the summer of 1842 when Poe and his family were living on Coates Street, fringing later Fairmount Park, that Mr. Graham noted of Poe and Virginia: “I rode out one summer evening, with them, and the remembrance of his watchful eyes eagerly bent upon the slightest change ... in that loved face haunts me yet as the memory of a sad strain. It was the hourly anticipation of her loss that made him a sad and thoughtful man.” Under the fiery cross of conscience all this and more came from Mr. Graham, Feb. 2, 1850, then fresh in his mind; and in refutation of Dr. R. W. Griswold's “Ludwig” article on Poe, of perpetuation in his “Memoir,” written by the same hand, Oct. 9, 1849, when both Poe and Virginia were very still. Concerning this affliction befalling his wife in 1842, and its resulting consequences on his own strained nerves, Poe — six years later — Jan. 4, 1848, wrote his young Maine friend, George W. Eveleth, in answer to his query as to Poe's “hint” in the public press concerning “the terrible event,” that caused his “irregularities,” mentioning just this: “Yes, I can do more than hint: This ‘evil’ was the greatest which can befall a man. Six years ago, a wife whom I loved as no man ever loved before, ruptured a blood-vessel in singing. Her life was despaired of. I took leave of her forever, and underwent all the agonies of her death. She recovered partially, and I again hoped. At the end of a year the vessel broke again. I went through precisely the same scene. ... Then again and again — and even once again, at varying intervals. Each time I felt all the agonies of her death — and at [page 711:] each accession of the disorder I loved her more dearly and clung to her life with more desperate pertinacity. But 1 am constitutionally sensitive — nervous in a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. During these fits of absolute unconsciousness, I drank — God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to drink rather than the drink to insanity.” Dr. Edward B. Lane, the eminent nerve specialist, forcefully notes: “Delicate mental equipments are prone to disturbances of equilibrium by the shocks of life. This mental suffering, in its deep depression, drives the victim with irresistible force to seek relief in stimulants or drugs. It is as natural as it is for the famished to seek water.” And perhaps, when liquid stimulants failed to relieve him, Poe then may have made a sub-conscious, infrequent use of opium, as was of hearsay mention from his cousin(42) Miss Herring. It is idle to believe that aught but physical collapse, in nervous exhaustion, could have induced any man, at such a time, to add consciously a feather's weight more of misery to its surplus, already the portion of his family and himself.

But from the date of this shock of Virginia's first hemorrhage, Poe's power to resist the progress of this malicious, haunting, harking congestion — depression grew pathetically and pitilessly less strong until it won that fatal day, Oct. 7, 1849.

Of Poe's struggles, Editor Walter Colton of the North American, Philadelphia, 1842, wrote to Dr. Griswold, April 2, 1850: “I know something of the unfathomable gulf of darkness out of which the lightning [page 712:] of his genius sent its scorching flashes.” These critical, literary estimates were of reference, in relation to Poe's hypercritical reviews written under such attacks. And Graham knew that it was under such distress that Poe served the magazine from January to May, 1842. The wonder is, not that this skilful, literary artist may have failed in punctual appearance, at intervals, during that time, but with nervous congestion in pursuit of him, added to his seemingly certain knowledge of the Graham-Griswold parley to supplant his magazine service, the wonder is that Poe's signed productions scored the high standards they obtained then, in duality and quantity, and his intentionally veiled work, at times, fell so far below his own literary idealisms. Among Poe's “veiled” scripts — some so exacted by foreign periodical issues — seem to be a number of his own literary order. One of these occupies, apparently, about twenty-six pages in May, 1842, Blackwood's Magazine, and was in the form of a lawyer — like letter-quest concerning a murder, written over the initials “Q. Q. Q.” and to Sir Christopher North. Condensed, this letter began the story, “Who is the Murderer,” with this sub-title, — “A problem in the law of circumstantial evidence, in a letter to Christopher North.” It was dated, and in part read:

YORK, 15th March 1842.

MY DEAR CHRISTOPHER — A trial for murder occurred here a few clays ago, during the spring assizes for this county which , . . is in my opinion ... most remarkable ... little less so, indeed, than that of Eugene Aram; to which it bears ... a striking resemblance. [page 713:]

He, as Poe so well knew, was arrested when serving as usher at Dr. Bransby's Manor House School, Stoke Newington. The description added, that in the summer of 1830, at Eagle's-cliffe, near Yarm, a man, William Huntley, son of a farmer who had died and left considerable property, was mysteriously made away with. This letter-story astutely noted in logical sequence startling details of circumstantial evidence against a man charged with the crime but who — by trial — was acquitted. The letter most Poesquely ended with:

How now, dear Christopher, say you? or you, candid and attentive reader? Had you been on the jury, should you have said — Guilty, or Not Guilty? I am as ever, clear Christopher,

Your loving friend, Q. Q. Q.

The “Q's” might stand for Qui, or Who, on Poe hoax scores. When one recalls that Poe's obsession period of murder scripts began prior to the April, 1841, Graham's print of “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and that “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” finished June, 1842, was an American occurrence that the writer's imagination transported to Paris, and both taken in connection with other “Q. Q.” also “Q. Q. Q.” print-productions of home and foreign issues to be noted in this narrative's order of dates, — it seems not unreasonable to assume, for Poe studied law at least twice in his life and sent most of his writings to his much admired Professor Wilson, that this letter-story of criminology, in May, 1842, Blackwood's Magazine, was written, or inspired, by Edgar Allan Poe. [page 714:] It has been noted from the keen and able research of Mrs. Jennie E. Fitzpatrick, Boston, Mass.

Poe was not only “the first to hail Alfred Tennyson, from across the sea,” as the greatest poet of his day, but the first to mark the merits of George Eliot and Charles Dickens when unknown. In sequence, this winter of 1842 was waning into spring when the Cunarder Britannia, with Charles Dickens, the brilliant “Boz,” and his wife aboard, was nearing American shores. From “Dickens in America Fifty Years Ago,” and “Poe-Dickens Quarrel” by Joseph Jackson, [page 715:] Esq., of the Philadelphia Ledger staff, comes, in condensed form, that Dickens noted that the Boston pressmen sprang over the ship's rail and took him “by storm.” Certainly “Boz” thus took the United States and their bookmen, with young James T. Fields in their lead, at first through snow-ladened streets, also in later friendship, for shadowing and lionizing this literary light of Great Britain, who was indeed made the guest of our nation. After two weeks’ rounds of Boston balls, dances and dinners, whereby were begun life-friendships with Felton, Sumner, Longfellow and others, “Boz” and his party left for New York City, to be greeted by one he longed to see — Washington Irving — who presided at the most noted dinner of honor that — clay literary men gave to “Boz.” It transpired that Irving's “Christmas Chapters,” of “The Sketch Book,” captured Dickens’ fancy for his later “Christmas Stories.” After this “Great ‘Boz’ Dinner,” at City Hotel, came the “Great ‘Boz’ Ball” at Park Theatre. But for all these frolics, “Boz” was in stern pursuit of international copyright interests up to the very gates of our country's citadel — the Capitol at Washington — which, in friendly feeling, he found “a city of magnificent intentions,” and Henry Clay, “perfectly irresistible, an enchanting man.” But a White House dinner with President Tyler was declined; and Philadelphia, en route, Dickens voted “a handsome city, but distractingly regular” — geographically, perhaps, after being in Boston. But his greeting by a Philadelphia political mob at the United States Hotel, Chestnut Street, between 4th and 5th Streets, where “Boz” registered, [page 716:] was certainly an irregular feature of the Quaker City. Among the many who wrote Dickens for an interview during this visit was Edgar Allan Poe, then on Graham's editorial staff. It seems Poe sent his pre-exposure of the “Barnaby Rudge” plot in the May 1, 1841, issue of the Saturday Evening Post, and some others of his own writings, to Dickens, whose response, condensed, was:

UNITED STATES HOTEL, March 6, 1842.

MY DEAR SIR, — I have glanced over the books you have been so kind as to send nie, and more particularly at [page 717:] the papers to which you have called my attention. I have the greater pleasure in expressing my desire to see you on this account. Apropos of the construction of “Caleb Williams,” do you know Godwin wrote it backwards, the last volume first, and ... waited for months, casting about for a means of accounting for what he had clone ?

Faithfully yours always,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Several records show that Poe had two long interviews with “Boz,” whose influence was requested and granted for obtaining the English issue of Poe's “Tales,” as well as literary connection. with some British periodical. American reprints of Dickens’ Works at Philadelphia and elsewhere made the subject of international copyright mutually important, as it touched on Poe's several British free reprints. This subject had repeatedly enlisted Poe's editorial attention, and created a bond of further attraction between this lion of English literature and the then smaller lion of American letters. On account of endless engagements Dickens asked Poe to place in writing just what he wished done, to refresh the memory of his willing servitor — “Boz” — as pleader for Poe's British is sues. After Dickens’ tour(43) of continuous triumph through the East, South and West, and return to New York for later spring sailing — from Canada — he received, at his hotel, just prior to boarding the steamer, his suggested letter from Poe. As time drifted into months and Poe received no word of his pet project, foreign prints, upon which he seemed to have placed high hopes, this bitter disappointment was added to the Philadelphia publisher's refusal to issue his [page 718:] “Tales,” his constant anxiety for Virginia's life, and the loss of his editorial — regular, however small — salary after leaving Graham's, which with the waning hope of government employment and his own high nervous pressure, and all in all facing grim want stalking at his door, brought Poe within the limits of desperate straits. He believed himself forgotten by a man who had obtained royal welcome from all Americans, and who seemingly failed in his willing promise to one; therefore, when early November, 1842, brought to our country's shores “American Notes” by Charles Dickens, Poe's pathetic phrensy indulged itself, as print records strongly indicate, in a scathing reply to this hypercritical effort on Americans by “Boz.”

It seems the same morning that brought into the port of New York “American Notes,” by “Boz,” they were promptly reprinted; a private edition was put on sale and Poe soon received a copy. Up to that time Dickens claimed Poe's strong admiration, but after Dr. R. W. Griswold's September, 1842, leaving of Graham's, from prior May service, Poe had been writing reviews for that magazine and he made no mention of “Bon's” new book. Well, or ill as he was, it is inconceivable that Poe, as leading critic of his day, aside from his personal literary touch with “Boz” and continuous Dickens references of that time in letters to Lowell and others, could resist the force of his critical faculties, then fairly ensnared by “American Notes,” as a fascinating target for hot shots of direct aims from “English Notes,” by Quarles Quickens, Esq. Recent research made by Mrs. Jennie E. Fitzpatrick, Boston, seems to prove that Poe, or [page 719:] Quarles Quickens, Esq., shared that literary target practice with others, including a special reference to a “Q. Q. Q.” (perhaps but an added Q. to Quarles Quickens’ two) review of “American Notes,” in the December, 1842, issue of Blackwood's Magazine. However, Poe is credited with devoting his strained energies of November, 1842, to this flagellant, “English Notes” answer to “American Notes,” which many believed to be Dickens’ ungracious comments on a people who had extended to him the unstinted hospitalities of their hearts, homes and land.

Mrs. Browning(44) told a friend, in 1843, that if she were an American, Dickens’ famous “Notes” would make her rabid. She could not possibly love or admire Dickens’ biting comments.

“English Notes” was signed “Quarles Quickens, Esq.,” a travesty on Charles Dickens’ name, as were also its pages a Poe-steeped, satirical answer to “American Notes.” As a Poe production it so pathetically betrays uneven qualities that reflect the writer's mind under its drastic bondage of many adversities of that time, and to the extent of its mixed plan, etc., that some scholars doubt that “English Notes” was written by Poe. As one of these, Thomas Ollive Mabbott admits finding, on page 64 of “English Notes,” 1920 reprint, the joke about Philosopher Kant, spelled with a capital “C,” which occurs, but not in the same words, in “Eureka” and “Mellonta Tauta”; also that the nonsense on page 54, and some other pages, is “very much after Poe's manner.” From his 1827 harsh experiences there, Poe knew Boston well. The “chancendentalist's” thrust at Boston's transcendentalism [page 720:] that starts this paragraph — in all personal touches — seems direct from Poe's pen. But time promises to prove Edgar Allan Poe the peerless literary hoaxer of his clay and ranking with masters of such craft of all clays; also, that this incognito hoaxblurred, by his wish for its lack of literary values, into oblivion — is but one of many, let loose from a Pandora box that never lost its traditional Hope. At times, desperate illness played pranks with Poe's mask, which dropped from an able Southerner's keenly accurate view of political England — in the pages on “Slavery” — to the few, in which were inaccuracies, as to grammar, no doubt purposely made to serve hoax-scores of the writer, then too ill to bear in mental sequence such disconnections. But until documentary evidence proclaims another the author, no one of Poe's day — with all his disabilities — can be considered so ably fitted to write “English Notes” by Quarles Quickens, Esq. And strong reflections of Poe the man, under the conditions covering his personal keen distresses at the time of this — ,writing, which included, tinder the same signature, “The Times” rhymes of over one hundred and thirty lines, but lacking Poe's standard of literary excellence, seem to demand biographical record — mention of all notings possible to obtain concerning both productions.

Concerning “English Notes,” or “parody criticism upon a criticism,” the Hon. R. M. Hogg, Irvine, Scotland, calls attention to some convincing facts that forcibly identify Poe as its writer. “The port of Liverpool, and London are the two places Poe could speak of.” Touching the beggar-woman interview at [page 721:] Liverpool, Mr. Hogg noted the Scotch words, “maun,’ “douce,” “granny” and “weasened,” and added that on “various occasions Poe liked to use Scotch words and Allan liked to have him use them. Allan’ London home from 1815 to 1820 being in Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, made that district very familiar” to Poe the boy. That Allan's “clannish following of his native Scotsmen did include Dr. Neil Arnott of Bedford Square near by, and most likely through him Dr. John Aikin, of Stoke Newington, who was also undoubtedly well known to Dr. Bransby. His Manor House School was close to Dr. Aikin's Stoke Newington home then, which is now St. [page 722:] Mary's Mission.” These facts seem to have suggested Dr. Bransby's School to Mr. Allan for “little Edgar,” from 1817 to 1820. Aided by his sister, Mrs. Barbauld, “Evenings at Home; or, The Juvenile Budget Opened,” Dr. Aikin wrote for his delighted grandchildren, and one or more of them may have been at the Manor House School with Poe. Mr. Hogg definitely states that “English Notes’ ” mention of Dr. Aikin (Poe purposely spelled the name Aiken) was no “hap-hazard” reference; that Poe the boy, personally or otherwise, knew the man. “Every word in ‘ English Notes,’ so far as Dr. Aikin is concerned, refers to Poe's boyhood days; and to him Dr. Aikin was a real personage. He was the son of Rev. John Aikin, Scotland. Dr. Aikin took his M.D. degree at Leyden, [page 723:] Holland, practiced in various places and finally settled down in Stoke Newington, where he died in 1822.” And there, two years ago, his grave was seen by Mr. Hogg, who added, that Dr. Aikin collaborated with his well-known sister, Mrs. Barbauld, in producing several works, and his daughter Lucy was literary. “In his later years Dr. Aiken devoted himself to literary work, and his home — was the resort of literary men of his day. He produced a volume of selections from the British Poets.” On page 104 of Mr. Lewis M. Thompson's 1920 reprint of “English Notes” appears: [page 724:]

“It is probably unknown in America that Dr. Aiken, a celebrated Englishman, some time ago published a list of all the Poets who had monuments there [Westminster Abbey] for the benefit of travelers and strangers. This work contains their lives and some specimens of their writings. I scarcely need add, that they are almost entirely obsolete, and Dr. Aiken deserves the thanks of his countrymen and the world for having taken the pains to preserve some records of them. ... I have in my possession a single copy of this work of Dr. Aiken which I will be happy to show to any persons desirous of seeing it, at my lodgings in the city of Boston — [Poe's hoaxed residence].” [page 725:]

Poe did not mention the 1831 Philadelphia free reprint of Dr. Aikin's “British Poets.” Of Poe and “English Notes” Mr. Hogg adds:

“But the visit to Westminster Abbey interests me most. I think Poe was transcribing one of his boyish visits to the old Abbey with Dr. Aikin's ‘ British Poets’ to guide him. He possessed ‘ a single copy,’ and it is not difficult to conceive the poetic boy in the Poet's Corner looking up the names in his Aikin. Poe was the one man in America who would treasure, or even know, of Dr. Aikin's book. Of course Poe's reference to individual poets represents foolery, but the whole thing is not foolery. In the Aikin reference Poe gave himself away. Dec. 6, 1842, ‘English Votes’ was printed; also Poe's review of Goldsmith's ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ was in Graham's, Jan., 1842. This review closed with, ‘The Memoir by Dr. Aikin [the name correctly spelt] is highly interesting and embodies in pleasing narrative ... all that is, or need be known of Oliver Goldsmith.’ It seems to me this Jan., 1842, Graham's review by Poe, and the ‘Aiken’ reference in the Dec., 1842, print of ‘English Notes’ give the key to its authorship. Curiously enough, I have Poe's ‘A. Gordon Pym’ bound up with the ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ and Aikin's,essay, also one of his sister, Mrs. Barbauld, who died at Stoke Newington in 1825.”

It would be interesting to know why prints of Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld and Poe should be found within the same book-cover. Poe, knowing both Dr. Aikin and his sister, would clearly explain this query.

On page 51 of “Maclise Portrait Gallery” appears: “Famous Dr. Aikin whom some wicked wag named ‘an aching void.’ ”

Some years ago, when in an old book store, one copy of “English Notes,” a shabby old pamphlet, was offered [page 726:] as a Dickens item to Mr. Joseph Jackson, Philadelphia. It is a 16 pp. folio of a small quarto newspaper of its time, and bears the impress of “Boston Daily Mail, 1842” (which was then edited by E. C. Purdy and J. S. Houghton), also the copyright of its publisher, John H. Bradley & Co., 16 State Street, Boston. These facts Mr. Jackson noted in the January, 1912, World's Work. He courteously allows excerpt reprints from his text and this rare Poe item. One copy is owned, and a limited reprint issued, by 121. Lewis 112. Thompson, New York City. Harvard University and Boston Public Library each has an original print of “English Notes.” Only a few more copies are known to exist.

Special research by Mrs. Jennie E. Fitzpatrick concerning “English Notes,” first copyright issues by Boston Daily Mail, makes that paper's items, from Nov. 8, 1842, to Jan. 11, 1843, inclusive, on Dickens’ “American Notes,” of intense, Poe — interlinking interest with “English Notes,” by Quarles Quickens, Esq. The Boston Daily Mail begins its notings Thursday, Nov. 8th, by “‘Dickens’ Notes’ is already ... in the New World Extra, and is for sale by Redding and Prescott.” Nov. 9th gave, “An intense ... interest in the new work of Dickens is our excuse for want of variety today.” In Nov. 10th was: “About three cords of Boz's Notes have been circulated in this city ... many more are expected. All agents have them for 12 1/2 cents per copy. ... London price for the same is five dollars.” On Nov. 12th appeared, “Bon's Notes, Harper Edition, 12% cents, is the best out.” Nov. 15th gave: “Dickens’ Notes, Prescott, at [page 728:] No. 16 State Street, has received a fresh supply. The cry is, Still they come.” Marvelously Poesque is Saturday, Nov. 19th, Daily Mail print in: “Dickens Here and Dickens There! It would seem that Dickens’ ‘Notes for General Circulations’ do not satisfy the ... British Critics any better than they do ours. Nearly all the Magazines of the month — Tait's, Bentley's, Fraser's and Colburn's, at least, cut up these ‘Notes’ with unsparing hand. Old Blackwood has not yet got his eyes open; but when he does speak, ... somebody will hear thunder!” Just here, one wonders if “English Notes,” by Quarles Quickens, were not sent in MS. form to Sir Christopher North. Since April, 1840, Poe had been sending his “Tales,” etc., to Professor Wilson. To Dr. Snodgrass, Poe wrote prior Sept. 11, 1839: “I have made a profitable engagement with Blackwood's Magazine, and my forthcoming Tales are promised a very commendatory review in that journal from the pen of Professor Wilson. Keep this a secret if you please.” In Poe data March 29, 1841, sent to Dr. Griswold, appeared: “Lately I have written articles continuously for two British journals whose names I am not permitted to mention.” And why not? Unless Poe's need obliged him to agree to send thus his well written articles, that were well paid for, in money, for any use the purchaser desired. To Thomas, July 4, 1841, Poe wrote: “To coin one's brain into silver, at the nod of a master, is, to my way of thinking, the hardest work in the world.” Poe longed for open recognition from the master of Blackwood's, who never bestowed it in that Magazine's print over the name of Edgar Allan Poe. And that ghostly [page 729:] “Why” seems floating over many a Poesque print, in literary and individual personalities of startling resemblance to the poet's pen and incidents of life. The December, 1842, Blackwood “Q. Q. Q.” — said to be by Samuel Warren, of whom no record of being in America has been found — review of Dickens’ “American Notes” seems heavily charged with strong Poesque effects. While Warren is recorded as “no friend of Dickens,” Poe's love of cats glitters through this review in: “When the cruel and subtle grimalkin roused from her slumbers by some sudden impulse of hunger, [Poe well knew both cats and hunger] meditates an expedition to the regions she knows to be occupied by mice, do you think she ... frustrates her purpose by heralding her approach, shoeing herself, ... with Walnut-shells, clattering, mewing, spitting and sputtering? Alas, unhappy mice! no: ... Now, to compare small things with great (the former Grimalkin, the latter Boz), when we first heard it breathed that he was going to America, we thought ... If we had the admirable talent for observation, ... description, and the great reputation (to give universal currency to our ‘Notes‘) of Boz, ... and had intended to break up new ground in America, we should have imitated the aforesaid cat in all except her bloody designs and doings, ... we should ... take — brother Jonathan off his guard, ... and made all our most important observations under a strict incognito.” This was obviously and strictly observed by Quarles Quickens — also by Poe, in the Outis-Longfellow tangle. “Q. Q. Q.” of Blackwood's mentions Boz meeting President Tyler and added: “Here [page 730:] ends Vol. I. ... it is almost totally destitute of interest: a record of personal inconveniences and annoyances experienced by Boz ... , Where are his sketches of public characters, ... statesmen, ... universities, ... but above all, the authors, of America? Not one!” The last query surely seems to have rung from Poe's soul “Q. Q. Q.” Poesque touches on Dickens’ technical English, blemishes of style; also the noted idle anedote of two pigs in marked contrast, strongly reflects Poe's pen. Returning to the Boston Daily Mail, à la Poe, in Nov. 19, 1842, date was: “The truth is Dickens has tried to please both the British and Americans; and like the man who undertook to please everybody by carrying his poor beast of an ass on his own shoulders, he has pleased nobody, and lost his ass into the bargain. The Notes are crude verbiage of one who ... throws together a mass of rubbish, careless of facts, yet bent on pleasing his readers. ... We have no doubt that if Dickens could have had copyright in this country, it would have been a very different affair in all its leading features.” It is significant to bear in mind, that International Copyright quest of Dickens in America was one of the chief topics discussed by him and Poe at their two interviews at the United States Hotel, Philadelphia. Its importance probably suggested Boz's visit to our country, and its non-existence allowed the filching habit of that time; from Poe, his “House of Usher” was printed as Bentley's own, in the September number of 1839; “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” likewise by two French papers, also other items, and from its absence came free reprints of [page 731:] Dickens’ works in America as well as “The British Poets “by Dr. John Aikin, Philadelphia, 1851, but these were credited to their writers. Concerning foreign reviews of “American Notes,” in Fraser's November, 1842, issue was: “Nine tenths of Mr. Dickens’ volumes are about himself in abstract, or in relation to some thing or person.” Tait's, of November, 1842, gave: “Boz among the Yankees. ... too much has been expected ... the ‘Notes’ tell nothing new of America, nor take any enlarged or profound view of what is already known.” More of Blackwood's comes later.

But in the marked, adverse manner of Poe was a Boston Daily Mail, Nov. 23d, item by: “☞ Dickens in his commendation of Barnum's Hotel, [so well known to Poe and personally unknown to Samuel Warren, not known to have been in America] in Baltimore, says it is about the only hotel in the United States where he found water enough to wash himself. We wonder how much water it takes to wash Mr. Dickens. The remark ... quoted is not, we fear, the only evidence he gives of his being a rather ‘dirty fellow.“’ Nov. 26th Daily Mail noted: “‘Quiz’ is received and will be put in type.” The words “is received” indicate a mail transit from somewhere. The day after its Boston receipt, Nov. 27, 1842, at London, Charles Dickens wrote Poe a letter of later mention. At Boston, the Daily Mail of Nov. 30th announced “‘ENGLISH NOTES‘! Intended for a Very GREAT CIRCULATION. By Quarles Quickens, Esq. A work with above significant title will be published in a day or two. It is from the pen of a distinguished [page 732:] gentleman who fully understands the subject, and writes with a twelve hundred horse power. It will annihilate all future attempts of English travelers to write books against this country and its institutions. The hypocrisy of the English government on certain questions is handled with a great deal of severity and justice; and the burlesque on certain ‘Notes for General Circulation’ is happy and effective. The work will be published in the same form with the first edition of the ‘American Notes,’ and will fill a very large sheet. ☞ The price SIX CENTS PER COPY. Eight cents with a printed cover — the object ... being to give ... ‘English Notes’ a circulation equal to those which called them forth. Our Agents and Newsmen supplied on the usual terms. ... J. N. Bradley & Co., 16 State Street, Boston.” Dec. 2d and 3d issues of the Daily Mail repeated the foregoing notice, and Dec. 2d date added: “Mr. Quickens’ Notes will be out tomorrow or Monday. Be patient. We [page 733:] have about a thousand calls for them a day already; and won’t there be a rush on Monday?” That day, Dec. 5th, Mail gave: “☞ The publication of the ‘English Notes’ will be deferred till tomorrow, on account of an accident to our large press.” In the 6th, 7th, and 8th issues of the Daily Mail was: “☞ OUT☜ ‘English Notes’ intended for Very Extensive Circulation ☞ Make their debut before the public THIS DAY. Thousands of inquiries were made yesterday for them, ... but we were unable to answer the demands. The public can now be supplied wholsale [[wholesale]] and retail at ... 16 State Street.” To this notice the Dec. 9th Daily Mail editorially added: “We are asked at least fifty times a day upon an average, who is the author of ‘English Notes‘? To save waste of words, we wish to state, once for all, we do not know.”

Perhaps few American writers would have cared to own public adverse criticism of Dickens at that time; but aside from Poe's able, irresistible habit of literary pen-thrusts he — in dire need — keenly felt himself utterly forgotten in print and promise by Dickens, skimming the waves of utmost popularity. This made incognito of double force for Poe's observance and security as writer of “English Notes.” As the first editorial, in the Mail issues of Dec. 14th and 15th, appeared: “‘English Notes’ ... SECOND EDITION. Published this morning. ☞ In consequence of the extraordinary demand for this unique publication, the Publishers will give a 2nd Edition of 10,000 copies, revised and corrected by the author ... for sale at the Mail office ... and Redding & Co.” — [page 734:] and three other stores. At the words “revised and corrected,” the Quarles Quickens mask drops, again revealing Poe, who never ceased revising and correcting his writtings [[writings]]. Of “English Notes,” in Dec. 16th Mail was: We have a few copies of this unique publication, ... at eight cents per copy, in neat covers ... this brochure has met with unexampled sale.” The Mail of Dec. 21st noted: “We have sold the balance of our edition of ‘English Notes’ to ... Bedding & Co., 8 State Street, the remainder ... is small. ... At the rate they are going at present they will last but a short time.”

Boston editorial (including foreign notings), after the manner of Poe, in Dec. 24th Mail, gave: “ANOTHER ANNIHILATION OF DICKENS’ ‘ AMERICAN NOTES’ is in December ’ Blackwood's Magazine.’ In noticing the wholesome strictures of most British magazines ... upon Dickens’ ‘ American Notes,’ we remembered the worst would come when old Christopher North got hold of them. The December‘Blackwood's ’ ... takes hold of these Notes like a famished wolf, [this seems to describe conditions then well known to Poe] and hardly leaves a bone North the picking. ‘ Blackwood’ opens his battery upon these Notes by saying, that he should have pounced upon America as a sly cat does upon a mouse: ‘In plain English, we should have resolved to take, good naturedly, brother Jonathan off his guard: and ... our American friends will be unconscious, while we are doing it, that

“A chiel's among them takin’ notes,

An’ faith he‘ll prent them.” [page 735:]

[Mr. Hogg writes that it was easy for Poe to fall back to the Scotch dialect memories of his childhood.] ... He [Dickens] may not, perhaps, have wished or intended it, but his book is calculated to leave on the mind of the reader a most unfavorable impression of American character, habits and manners; for the occasional eulogistic passages ... here and there are excessively vague and forced, discriminating and unsatisfactory.“’

Thus Poe's pen seems a fluttering pinion over many opinions in this foreign (?) review aside from the many reflex touches of the poet's personality.

A logical following of prior noted Daily Mail items and like reading of “English Notes” by Quarles Quickens, Esq., seem to reveal strong reasons why Poe, as the writer, and sensitively self-critical on scores of honor, could not make his usual expressions of gratitude by any known answer whatever to Dickens, for his Nov. 27, 1842, London letter to Poe received three or more weeks later — and after the print and “Extensive Circulation” of “English Notes” critique. Dickens’ letter explained, that by “some strange accident” he had “never been able to find” the letter sent to him at New York by Poe. — There, it had been read and remembered to be the same as the oral request made by Poe in Philadelphia; that it had never, for a moment, escaped “Bon's” attention, for he had done all in his power for Poe's “Tales’ ” successful issue, but was unable to report favorably of publishers who claimed his influence; for one and all declined the venture, as any “collection of detached pieces by an unknown writer, even ... an Englishman, [page 736:] would not be at all likely, to find a publisher” just then. Dickens concluded:

Do not for a moment suppose that I ever thought of you but with a pleasant recollection; and that I am not at all times prepared to forward your views in this country, if I can. Faithfully yours,

CHARLES DICKENS.

While it is logical to believe that Poe thus found himself fairly horned on the dilemma of impossible explanation of “English Notes” and, thus to him, the equally impossible expression of gratitude; and his making no known answer to Dickens’ kindly letter, naturally led him to think his efforts in Poe's behalf were unappreciated, and the poet was ungrateful. In sequence to such feeling, a dim reference was made, it is thought, by Dickens in a letter of Dec. 31, 1842, to Professor Felton; in this letter appeared: “The American book has been a complete success, it has won golden opinions from all, except our friend in F—, [undoubtedly a typed error for “P.,” Philadelphia] — who is a miserable creature; a disappointed man in great poverty, to whom I have ever been most kind and considerate, and another friend.”(45) Probably this was “Q. Q. Q.,” of Blackwood's review. Seemingly Poe shrouded in “Q. Q. Q.,” credited to be Samuel Warren. As a fact, “American Notes” balanced well between “Q. Q. Q.” and “Q. Q.,” Quarles Quickens, Esq., and both had their followers. Had Dickens filled the space occupied by “the trivial anecdote of two pigs” in “American Notes,” with the mere mention of Poe's forecast of the “Barnaby Rudge” plot, this fact might [page 737:] have made Poe less “unknown” in London, and “English Notes,” by “Q.Q.” wholly unknown; also entirely have changed the current of difficult conditions that engulfed the friendship of these two fine men. Had Dickens — fully alive to Poe's critical, literary ability — even mentioned his name in connection with his acknowledged skill, made manifest in that early Philadelphia Post review of “Barnaby Rudge,” it is more than likely that Quarles Quickens’ comprehensive scoring in “English Notes” of those “that called them forth,” would never have come to print. That such issue was made, seems to throw new light upon how Poe — then in the double grasp of penury and illness of himself and family, with only the uncertain pay for fugitive works, including those to British periodicals he was not allowed to name, was enabled to struggle through that Philadelphia winter of horrors by reason of some returns from sales of “English Notes,” and a stipend paid for over one hundred and thirty lines of rhymes veiled out of Poe's disabled literary responsibility and others’ recognition by “Quarles Quickens.” As Poe's introspective expressions they seem covered by Thomas O. Mahbott's comments on Virgil's “Georgics” — the “fairest example of the Mantuan's art, a poem on the art of farming and carefully written at less than a line a clay.” Mr. Mabbott states: “To the psychologist the false starts, the passages suppressed by the poet in any work, may prove of greatest value in the discovery of the workings of the human heart, but to me who studies a poem, the carefully finished work, the expression of those ideas the poet's reason approved, and wished to [page 738:] be known to the world, is of prime importance.” Foregoing italics are not in the original script, but strongly point to Poe's personal feelings at that time; and Quarles Quickens’ rhymed lines as strongly reflect various incidents of the poet's life. These one hundred and thirty odd lines were in the Jan. 11, 1843, Boston Mail issue. Those in point are given, from all, under the title of:

“THE TIMES

By the Author of ‘English Notes.’

The times! the times! and yet once more the times,

In sad succession, like funereal chimes,

From lip to lip, the ringing echo passed

Mounts on the breeze and mutters in the blast. ...

From realm to realm, this watchword of the world,

O‘er oceans broad and continents is hurled,

How poor is he, who nursed in freedom's air,

Yet may not find one idle breath to spare, ... ”

Poe's utter weariness of days strongly permeates all these lines.

Here on a point between two oceans vast —

The boundless future and the measured past ...

While, full of life, the crowded scenes behind

In long procession thronging in the mind,

Like ghostly spectres of an army slain,

Remembered pleasures and remembered pain,

The day of love and hope, the bitter years,

When manhood saw its hopes dissolved in tears.”

Above couplet seems a Poe — soliloquy on wreckage of his first, lost love, and dreams.

All human actions, opened or concealed,

Both now alike in clearest light revealed, ... [page 739:]

Demand the judgment of the impartial pen,

That mighty judge and arbiter of men.

Before us lies the map of human things —

The currents of the times, their secret springs, ...

Man wraps himself in narrowness of soul,

Forgetting all but self-brooks no control ...

Weak-minded mortal! though thy God be gold,

And thou a worshipper to mammon sold,

The fairer smiles of Deity shall bless

What thou contemnest and esteem'st the less ...

Scarce dreaming that no wealth or names combined

Can match the measure of a noble mind.”

Some foregoing lines appear to bear on Dickens’ seeming forgetfulness of his promise and non-recognition of Poe as a littérateur, in former's pursuit of copyright returns.

“Mark now the Exchange, the back-bone of the town ...

Where the still tide of trade flows up and down

By fits and starts, beyond precedent bounds

Oft swells too high, oft bares the shallow grounds ...

And leads our thoughts to those whose bread they waste

In lofty capitals and costly taste.”

It is well to bear in mind that Burton's Gentleman's Magazine office was located directly across the street from the Philadelphia Exchange, and Graham's Magazine office was not far away. While editing both periodicals, also during Poe's entire Philadelphia years, the Exchange was one of his favored haunts, where he read foreign and homeland journals from everywhere, and the Exchange he so mentioned in various letters from time to time. Concerning it these lines continue: [page 740:]

“They whose fingers move the delicate springs

Of fortune's wheel, and monetary things, ...

While those whose honest wants deserve supply,

Driven from their hopes, to hungry leeches fly,

Whose fangs once fastened, suck them till they die.

And then Religion, friend of man assigned

Lightner of griefs, controller of the mind, ...

Where‘er ascends the incense of a prayer,

Thine answering dews distil — for thou art there. ...

Come then, celestial maid, in flame and fire,

A wayward world demands thy vengeful ire; ...

Shepherds of thine, ordained strict watch to hold

Over thy sheep, oft straying from thy fold, ...

Once more the times! methinks I hear the cry

Sullenly sounding through the troubled slay

As in a dream. when myriad tongues unite [page 741:]

To swell the chorus and disturb the night ... ,

Urge on thyself a calm and sweet content,

That treats all sorrow but an angel sent,

Revives the drooping spirit of the mind,

Points thee to Heaven, and bids thee be resigned.”

Thus again seemingly perished Poe's long-time, ceaseless, ardent hope to obtain open British literary recognition. “English Notes” closed this strong promise through the brilliant “Boz.” Probably, by some other sad trick of Fate, a copy of “English Notes” reached Dickens, who, more quickly than some Americans, fathomed its authorship as Poe's, and felt aggrieved that his own exertions in behalf of the “distressed American author” should have met such an issue. This would account for no mention of Poe in Forster's “Life of Dickens,” nor in the volumes of his “Letters” edited by his family. Yet Dickens’ intellectual grasp of the mental force in “English Notes” may have caused him, on later visiting our country, personally to greet, as a relative of Poe, Mrs. Clemm at Church Home, Baltimore, and generously request her acceptance of $150, “with the assurance of his sympathy,” was noted by the late John H. Ingram. This indicates that passing years brought to Charles Dickens fairer views than he once expressed of Americans and with special reference to Edgar Allan Poe. Dickens is credited with saying that had he been a writer in America he would “have starved to death.” These words close all known records up to date concerning “English Notes” by Quarles Quickens, Esq., beyond the fact that Poe later signed the pseudonym “Quarles” to the first issue of [page 742:] “The Raven” in American Whig Review, February, 1845.

Returning to the narrative order of dates: At Washington, D. C., May 21, 1842, F. W. Thomas wrote Poe that money aid for his magazine project could not come from Robert Tyler, as his situation exacted more than his $1500 salary, but he was spoken to of Poe frequently by Thomas and with mutual high regard. Writer made mention of a Philadelphia Custom House place for Poe — and another mirage this proved for the poet — was made to Tyler, who felt confident it could be obtained in two or three months, as vacancies would then occur. Thomas noted his failure to obtain Clay's report on copyright, also that Dickens was seen at a dinner and liked very much. Thomas added: “You certainly exhibited great sagacity in your criticism on ‘ Barnaby Rudge.’ ... Somebody told me, ... that you and Graham had parted company. Is it so?”

A side issue item claims date order of “May 25, 1842. Due Swain Abell & Simmonds, [publishers of Philadelphia Public Ledger] thirty-two dollars and eighty-five cents, for value received, — Edgar A. Poe” — reads an original Poe note of this time, owned by Mr. Joseph Jackson, Philadelphia.

May 25th, 1842, Poe wrote Thomas: “I feel that you have acted for me more judiciously, by far, than I should have done for myself. You have shown yourself, from the first hour of our acquaintance, that rara avis in terris — ‘a true friend.’ Nor am I the man to be unmindful of your kindness. What you say respecting a situation in the Custom House here gives [page 743:] me new life, ... Could I obtain such an appointment, I would be enabled ... to carry out all my ambitious projects. It would relieve me of all care as regards a mere subsistence, and thus allow me time for thought, which, in fact, is action. ... If the salary will barely enable me to live I shall be content. Will you say as much ... to Mr. Tyler, and express my sincere gratitude? ... The report of my parting from Graham is correct; ... filly duties ceased with the May number. ... My reason for resigning was disgust with the namby-pamby character of the Magazine ... which it was impossible to eradicate.” Poe's “resigning” seems logical, by virtue of his continued contributions; also as Professor Woodberry notes: “Poe found only disappointment in the success of the magazine, and Graham had found his editor,” who made so much of this success “for one and another reason impracticable,” and himself unwilling to keep the “verbal” promise Poe repeatedly referred to as being made to him. Many years later, as an invalid, Mr. Graham said Poe's leaving the magazine was caused by an incident in connection with Mr. Charles J. Peterson. Whatever of this as to Poe, it was doubly true, as letter records reveal, in relation to Dr. Griswold. No doubt, aside from friendship, Mr. Peterson's grasp on the magazine, as its editor of fashions, in styles of frills and flounces for fair ladies, tormented Poe in his pursuit of styles’ ideal in literature; however, kindly Mr. Peterson, May 31, 1842, wrote to Lowell: “Poe is a splendid fellow, but as unstable as water.” As to his health this was strictly true. Impaired nerves are sure to turn traitors [page 744:] at most inopportune times. But Professor Woodberry adds this touch: “At all times Poe's immediate associates were kindly disposed to him.”

But what could they know of his fagged nerves freighted with invalidism and dire need that breed a despair which soon would have rendered his well-fed critics as “unstable as water.” Of his reason for resigning, Poe continued to Thomas: “I allude to the contemptible pictures, fashion-plates, music and love-tales.” All these effects were so far from Poe's high, literary idealisms. He added:

The salary, moreover, did not pay me for the labor I was forced to bestow. With Graham ... a very gentlemanly, although weak man, I had no misunderstanding. I am rejoiced to say that my dear little wife is much better and I have strong hope of her ultimate recovery. She desires her kindest regards — as also Mrs. Clemm. I have moved from the old place — but should you pay an unexpected visit to Philadelphia, you will find my ad dress at Graham's. I would give the world to shake you by the hand; and have a thousand things to talk about ... do let me know something of yourself. ... You saw White — little Tom. — I am anxious to know what he said about things. ... He is a character if ever one was. God bless you.

EDGAR A. POE.

Because in this May 25, 1842, letter Poe noted: “I have moved from the old place,” and the first appearance of his name in the Philadelphia Directory was, for 1843, “Poe, E. A., Editor, Coates, N. F. meaning Coates Street, near Fairmount. Dr. Oberholtzer thinks, the hope Poe clung to for the recovery of his wife induced him to rent a small house on the [page 745:] outskirts of the city. Mr. Whitty writes that Poe stated in a letter that his former home became damp and he moved away in a hurry. From Dr. Oberholtzer's MS., of “Poe's Philadelphia Homes,” it comes that here, next door to Poe, lived Benjamin Detwiler, a Pennsylvania German, who had a steam flour mill near by. His son, as a boy, went out on the river with the poet in quest of reed birds. On its steep banks for several miles north, fine mansions had been built by Philadelphia men of wealth. In 1821, Engineer Ariel Cooley constructed a dam — marvel here at Fairmount, whereby the Schuylkill was made to raise its own waters, by engines, to the top of the hill for flowing into trunks, many of wood, logs bored through by augers, laid under the city streets. Stephen Girard's canal, to Reading and beyond, was fifteen years old and later opened an all-water route to the West. Fairmount [page 746:] built wharves and warehouses and soon became a market entry-port. But this river dam brought mosquitoes and malaria, which, with commerce, put to flight the fine summer-home residents on the river's picturesque banks. The Lemon Hill mansion of Henry Pratt stood empty, in front of Poe's door, with its gardens still attractive; its greenhouses, and pools in which goldfish swam, Were reminders of this home's one-time glory. The 1833 Pennsylvania Railroad venture stepped on the heels of the canal system, and railroad cars were drawn by horses up and down a street at Poe's back door. Farther east, on Coates and 21st Streets, Was the City Hospital for contagious diseases; and to the east, at Cherry Hill, was the new [page 747:] Penitentiary, remarkable enough in its artistic construction to attract the pens of Harriet Martineau, Charles Dickens and others. Separating Poe's home from the city were the locomotive shops of Matthew Baldwin and William Morris. The space between was a broad common, and to a spot in these open fields, May, 1837, James Moran, a sailor who killed a mate at sea, was driven on his coffin and hanged from the cart's tail in sight of the crowd. This was the last public execution in Philadelphia, and possibly its story supplied some near-time details for Poe's gruesome sea tales. It was in the wake of such scenes in 1842 and early ‘43 that Poe lived, in what now numbers 2502 of a row of brick houses on a triangular space formed by the railroad (now a subway), Coates Street (now Fairmount Avenue) and what is now 25th Street. At the sharp turn of the triangular space was the Great Western [page 748:] Hotel, kept by General Bartle, which served passengers, boatmen and warehousemen going to and coming from the West. Next door to Poe lived Mr. Detwiler and family. His son told Dr. Oberholtzer: “I do not know how long Poe lived next door to us; but my father was very sorry when he went away. The houses were owned by Bouvier, the marble man, and Mrs. Bouvier used to come around and collect the [page 749:] rents. I distinctly remember Poe, Virginia and Mrs. Clemm. My father idolized that man, and they talked to each other almost every evening. My father never missed an opportunity for his companionship. I also remember the statuesque figure of Virginia and the matronly appearance of Mrs. Clemm. When Poe asked me to go with him for reed birds I went. I was an active young boy. We got into a boat and paddled down to about Gray's Ferry. I rowed while he loaded and shot. For many of the birds I waded in water up to my chin. We brought home a big bag.”

It was from this home Poe wrote his May 21, 1842, letter to Thomas. Then depending on random work for bread, Poe, June 4th, wrote to George Roberts, Esq., Boston, that it was just possible he had seen “Murders in the Rue Morgue” in Graham's for April, 1841; that its theme was the exercise of ingenuity in detection of a murderer. Poe stated he had just completed a similar article entitled “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” a sequel to “Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Of former tale Poe wrote: “The story is based upon the assassination of Mary Cecilia Rogers, which created so vast an excitement some months ago, in New York. [“She lived at 114-116 Liberty Street, in that city”; she was murdered about August, 1841, and her bethrothed, Daniel C. Payne, killed himself about October of that year, writes Thomas Ollive Mabbott.] ... I have imagined a series of nearly exact coincidences occurring in Paris. A young grizette, one Marie Roget, has been murdered tinder ... similar circumstances with Mary Rogers. Thus under pretense of showing how Dupin (the hero of the “Rue Morgue”) unravelled [page 750:] the mystery ... I ... enter into a very long and vigorous analysis of the New York tragedy.” Poe added that the tale would cover twenty-five pages of Graham's print; that the usual price was $4 per page, but, wishing this story to appear in Boston, he would take $50 from the forthcoming Mammoth Notion. This tale's first print appeared in the November, 1842, number of Snowden's Lady's Companion.(46) Mr. Whitty notes of “Marie Rogêt”: “Poe traced the crime to the Naval Officer” — and, “the time between the first and second elopements is a few months more than the general period of our men-of-war cruises.”

Poe noted this story as “based” on the Mary Rogers’ New York City murder of about 1842; and he clearly stated he imagined “nearly exact circumstances occurring in Paris.” As usual, he freed himself from some literal facts.(47) These were, that Mary Rogers and her male companion were murdered at the inn where they took refuge from a storm. The murder was committed for robbery by young ruffians, some of whom Were thought to be the sons of the inn's hostess. After the murder the bodies were thrown into the river. The man's was found some weeks after that of Mary Rogers. This murder-period obsession of Poe seems to enshroud his pen in May, 1842, Blackwood's print of “Who is the Murderer?” credited to Samuel Warren as “Q. Q. Q.” In part, “The Purloined Letter” was transported to Scotland, “The Devil in the Belfry” described Irvine, Scotland, but was pen-hoaxed by Poe to Holland that he never saw.

Poe's Pegasus enabled him to locate his scripts far and near. Twice, at least, his signed stories — “The [page 751:] Visionary,” 1834-1840, and “The Cask of Amontillado” of 1846 print-winged their transcription ways to the wizardry of the Rialto. These tales taken in connection with Poe's long-time yearnings for foreign open recognition, the veiled exacted prints allowed him, as he records, and his close gleanings, etc., of 1842 issues of Blackwood's, then seem to have attracted him to some of its various, nameless-written “Sketches of Italy.” Also, to claim his pen's attention for dispelling the baseless poetic glamour which Byron gave “The Bridge of Sighs.” The Records show but “one person's passing from Palace judgment to the Prison structure of Venice.” Poe, apparently, lets loose some satirical impulses, over no name, on page 738 of the June, 1842, Blackwood's Magazine, on —

“‘THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS!

There is nothing to see or to think of here but the names of certain gentlemen from New York, Montreal and Baltimore who ... have honored this structure with a visit, and recorded their American impressions on the spot ... We could make nothing of the ‘Bridge of Sighs!’ ” But, as apparently, Poe challenged Byron's effusive lines on this subject from the hot heights and the damp depths of the Ducal Palace dungeons thus: “N.B. Lord Byron's muse, to have seen from this point [The Bridge of Sighs] the ‘tiara of proud towers,’ or half the things she mentions, must have seen through all the stone masonry of the Ducal Palace, including the walls of Scammozi, Calandario, [page 752:] Barbolzi and Daponte!” Surely, in any event, Poe's natural bourne was classic-land! and this masterful satirical interlinking of localities far and near, with facts as they were, reveals the essence of Poe's expression methods.

Poe's “Autography” seems to have given curt comment as to the grammar of Dr. Thomas Holley Chivers, then in New York City. In Poe's dicta, Chivers was named “one of the best and one of the worst poets in America, ... [but] Even his worst nonsense ... has an indefinite charm of sentiment and melody.” Dr. Chivers wrote this critic concerning his review. June 6, 1842, Poe answered: “The paper bad scarcely gone to press before I saw ... the injustice I had done you — an injustice it is my purpose to repair ... ” Poe noted some details and asked: “Will you accept my proffer of friendship?” After the mention of his “having resigned the editorial charge of Graham's,” Poe noted his intention to resume the project of The Penn Magazine. Without emphasis of italics Poe wrote : “I had made every preparation for the issue of the first number in January, 1841, but relinquished the design at Mr. Graham's representation of joining me in July, provided I would edit his magazine in the meantime. In July he put me off until January, and in January to July again. He now finally declines and I am resolved to push forward for myself. ... I have many warm friends in the South and West. ... Is it possible you could afford me any aid, in the way of subscribers, in Middletown? As I have no money ... it will be ... necessary that I procure a partner who has ... means. I mention this ... for it is not [page 753:] impossible ... that you ... may have ... the will and the ability to join me.” Concerning the foregoing dates, as to Graham joining Poe in The Penn venture, they coincide with the dates of the same prior notings in his various other letters; and all affirm the truth as to Mr. Graham's “verbal agreement,” aside from his admitted knowledge that Poe's ambition, and only desire for money, were for this proprietary magazine venture. Poe's letter, and oral comments on it, were well known to Graham, who seems to have made no denial of any of them, but to his honor was firm in his statement that Poe “was the soul of honor” in personal associations between them. Had Graham's moral courage equalled his conscience in promised care of Poe's problems on magazine scores, perhaps mine speculations would not have led to the sale of the “failing” Graham's, in 1848, and its owner leaving Philadelphia, in 1853, for the lure of Wall Street, where loss of means and “failing” health made him the care of his nephew, Colonel Henry Rockefeller, until 1864. Then, with blighted eyesight, Mr. Graham was quietly provided for, by George W. Childs, at the Municipal Hospital, Orange, N. J., until 1894, whence George Rex Graham passed to his long home. He was brought to the city of his early triumphs for burial; but few were the journals that mentioned his name, even in marked connection with Poe's, which once meant so much in the Philadelphia world of press-work and of letters, noted Dr. Oberholtzer.

Poe's letter, July 6, 184?, to Daniel Bryan, Esq., Alexandria, Va.,(48) repeated what he wrote Dr. Chivers [page 754:] of this “verbal agreement” between Graham and its writer: that his connection had ceased with Graham's May, 1842, issue; that its editorial conduct rested with Mr. Griswold; that writer had no quarrel with either Mr. Graham or Mr. Griswold. Poe expressed thanks for kind wishes; mentioned his Penn Magazine project with a wish for subscribers, and stated, “I am making earnest although secret exertions [flouted by Graham then, Poe was obliged to make them “secret”] to resume my project of the Penn Magazine, ... I feel now is the time to strike.” Poe concluded: “I shall make war to the knife against the New England assumption of ‘All the decency and all the talent’ which has been so disgustingly manifested in the Rev. Rufus W. Griswold's ‘Poets and Poetry of America.“’

To Poe's July 6th letter to Dr. Thomas H. Chivers, he replied from New York, July 12th, that he was called South in connection with the August division of his father's estate; and after personal details added as to the Penn Magazine, that for the present all he could say was, he would do all he could by subscribers, and closed with flowing compliments on Poe. It seems Dr. Chivers had also lost a little daughter and had gone South for the burial. That, to his later lines, “To Allegra Florence in Heaven,” written of her, Poe owed his inspiration for “The Raven,” seems definitely settled against this charge, aside from much else, by simply comparing the two poems.

Mr. Whitty writes: “Poe's critical conditions, in illness, finance and family affairs of this time, are well stated in his letters dated Philadelphia, in late June, 1842, and with special reference to that of the 30th, [page 755:] written to James Herron, Esq. While Herron, at that time, was Chief Engineer of the Pensacola Navy Yard, he was also much about Washington, D. C. The following records are pithy and authentic extracts from these letters handed down to a son of James Herron

Your own brilliant prospects must be realized; for it is not Fate that makes such men as yourself. You make your own Fate. There is such a thing as compelling Fortune, however reluctant or adverse. As regards myself, ... I will probably succeed too. So let us both keep a good heart.

Believe me that I sincerely rejoice in your good fortune; or, rather, in the success which you so well earned and deserved; but my means of serving through the papers have been less than my desire to do so. You have learned, perhaps, that I have retired from Graham's Magazine. The state of my mind has, in fact, forced me to abandon for the present all mental exertion.

The renewed and hopeless illness of my wife, ill-health on my own part, and pecuniary embarrassments have nearly driven me to distraction. My only hope of relief is in the ‘Bankrupt Act,’ of which I shall avail myself as soon as possible. Had I resolved upon this at an earlier day I might now have been going well — but the struggle to keep up has at length entirely ruined me. I have left myself without even the means of availing myself of the act.

You will be pleased to bear that I have the promise of a situation in our Custom House. The offer was entirely unexpected and gratuitous. I am to receive the appointment upon the removal of several incumbents, the removal to be certainly made in a month. I am indebted to the personal friendship of Robert Tyler. If I really receive the appointment all may yet go well. The labors of the office are by no means onerous and I shall have [page 756:] time enough to spare for other pursuits. Please mention nothing of this, ... for after all I may be disappointed. Mrs. Poe is again dangerously ill with hemorrhage from the lungs. It is folly to hope.

With sincere esteem and friendship, yours, EDGAR A. POE.”

Mr. Whitty now owns these letters and adds “There are other unpublished pathetic letters of Poe about this period which depict the poet's acute sense of loneliness, and craving for literary companionship of the right sort, and how earnestly he sought for it.”

Aug. 15, 1842, Poe wrote his distant cousin, Washington Poe, Macon, Ga., that the writer's ambition was to serve “the great cause of truth, while endeavoring to forward the literature of the country ... my path in life has been beset with difficulties from which I hope to emerge by this effort. So far my exertions have served only to enhance my literary reputation in some degree and to benefit others so far as money” was concerned. This was strictly true in relation to Messrs. White, Burton and Graham. With only stray payments for fugitive articles, to sustain his family, Poe still pursued his forlorn hope of a Custom House appointment.(49) In such quest he wrote Thomas, Aug. 27, 1842, that from him no line had come for “four months”; that Poe had sent, about June, a few words from New York (these words locate Poe in New York City in June, 1842) ; he stated that a Mr. James Herron, knowing of the writer's hope, had called on Robert Tyler, who assured this caller that Poe “should certainly have” a Custom House place, and [page 757:] desired that he should be so informed; Poe mentioned his own Philadelphia efforts to obtain office, and added “notwithstanding all this I have my doubts ... , Literature is at a sad discount. ... Without an international copyright law, American authors may as well cut their throats. A good magazine, of the true stamp, would do wonders in the way of ... letters, or the law. We must have both. ... My poor little wife still continues ill. I have scarcely a faint hope of her recovery.”

A condensed Philadelphia, Sept. 12, 1842, letter from Poe to Thomas reads: “I have moved out in the neighborhood of Fairmount. ... A thousand sincere thanks for your kind offices in the matter of the appointment. ... Thos. S. Smith is to have the Collectorship. ... Should I obtain the office ... I shall feel that to you alone I am indebted. ... I would give the world to clasp you by the hand & assure you personally of my gratitude. ... In event of getting the place I am undetermined what literary course to pursue. ... Graham has made me a good offer to return. He is not especially pleased with Griswold, nor is anyone else, with the exception of the Rev. gentleman himself, who has gotten himself into ... a hornet's nest by his ‘Poets and Poetry.’ ... He is a pretty fellow to set himself up for an honest judge, or ... capable one. About two months since we were talking of the book, when I said ... I thought of reviewing it ... for the ‘Democratic Review’ but found my design was anticipated ... and that I knew no other work in which a notice would be readily admissible.” Griswold replied that Poe need not trouble about the [page 758:] review's publication should he decide to write it“for,” said Griswold, “I will attend to all of that. I will get it in some reputable work, and look to it for usual pay, in the meantime handing you whatever your charge would be.” Poe added: “This, you see, was an ingenious insinuation of a bribe to puff his book. I accepted his offer forthwith, and wrote the review, handed it to him, and received from him the compensation; he never daring to look over the MS. in my presence, and taking for granted all was right. But that review has not yet appeared, and I am doubtful if it ever will. I wrote it precisely as I would have written it under ordinary circumstances, and be sure there was no preponderance of praise.” From Thomas Ollive Mabbott comes a copy of Dr. Griswold's Aug. 12, 1842, letter to James T. Fields, in Harvard MSS. Collection. This letter throws a flashlight on actual use made of this review Poe handed to Dr. Griswold, who wrote: “I have sent today the article by Poe about my book to Bradbury & Soden [editors of Boston Miscellany] with the request if it be not acceptable they will return it to you. I thought likely the name of Poe, gratuitously furnished — might be of some consequence, though I care not a fig about the publication of the criticism as the author and myself not being on the best of terms, it is not decidedly as favorable as it might have been. Will you see to it though.” Thus Dr. Griswold, knowing the weight of Poe's name, brought this review to print light “in Boston Miscellany, Nov., 1842,” notes Mr. Mabbott.

Indeed, one wonders if, realizing that some such a review was in time bound to colue from Poe, Dr. [page 759:] Griswold did not adopt this method of trying to turn the trend he believed it would take. In any case Griswold was thinking of Dr. Griswold, while Poe thought only of literature and discipline, which included a mite of money earned on literary scores, as no doubt Poe's review also aided Griswold in his revisions for new editions of his work to the full amount he paid this reviewer. But his “discipline” was, after his death, turned cruelly upon his manhood. However, F. W. Thomas also irritated Dr. Griswold to the extent of the former's scant appearance in “Poets and Poetry of America.” Poe's Sept. 12th letter to Thomas continued

Should I go back to “Graham's” I will endeavor to ... get rid of the quackery which now infests it. ... If I do not get the appt. I should not be surprised if I joined Foster in the establishment of a Mag: in New York. He has made me an offer. ... I suppose you know he now edits the “Aurora.” ...

Have you seen how Benjamin and Tasistro have been playing Kilkenny cats with each other? I have always told Graham Tasistro stole everything worth reading, which he offered for sale. ... [Park Benjamin edited the New Yorker at No 1 Ann Street. Poe paid his “Autography” respects to “Count Louis Fitzgerald Tasistro, Editor of the Expositor,” at 6 Barclay Street, New York City.]

I am happy to say — Virginia's health has slightly improved. My spirits are proportionately good. Perhaps all will yet go well. ...

Ever your friend,

EDGAR A. POE.

The following is from the“Memoir” in “Complete Poems of E. A. Poe,” by James H. Whitty. It states [page 760:] that F. W. Thomas wrote of Poe, when living on “Coates St., N. Fairmount“.

I met Poe in Philadelphia during September, 1842. He lived in a rural home on the outskirts of the city. His house was small but comfortable inside. ... The rooms looked neat and orderly, but everything about the place wore an air of pecuniary want. Although I arrived late in the morning, Mrs. Clemm ... was busy preparing for his breakfast. My presence possibly caused some confusion, but I noticed ... delay and evident difficulty in procuring the meal. His wife entertained me. Her manners were agreeable and graceful. She had , . . regular features, with the most expressive and intelligent eyes I ever beheld. Her pale complexion, the deep lines in her face and a consumptive cough made me regard her as the victim for an early grave. She and her mother showed much concern about Eddie, as they called Poe, and were anxious to have him secure work. I afterwards learned from Poe that he had been to New York in search of employment and had also made effort to get out an edition of his tales but was unsuccessful.

Failure on both scores may have hastened Poe's attack of nervous congestion that led him — irresponsible and delirious — across the ferry to the home of Baltimore Mary, in Jersey City; and his friends later found him in a bewildered state roaming the woods on its outskirts. Baltimore Mary dated this sad venture in the late spring of 1842. Thomas’ letter continued:

When Poe appeared, his hair bung carelessly over his high forehead, and his dress was a little slovenly. He met me cordially, but was reserved. ... complained of feeling unwell. His pathetic tenderness and loving manners towards his wife greatly impressed me. I was not long in observing with deep regret ... he had fallen again into ... intemperance. I ventured to remonstrate ... He admitted [page 761:] yielding ... while in New York and turned the subject off by telling an amusing dialogue of Lucian the (creek writer. We visited the city together and had an engagement for the following day. I left him sober, but he did not keep the engagement and wrote me that he was ill.

Poe's Sept. 21, 1842, letter to Thomas noted its writer's failure to appear at Congress Hall on Sunday was not from lack of will but, —

upon reaching home on Saturday night, I was taken with a severe chill and fever — the latter keeping me company all next day ... too ill to venture out, but ... would have done so had I been able to obtain the consent of all parties ... I was ... in a quandary, for we keep no servant and no messenger could be procured ... I was much in hope that you would have made your way out in the afternoon. Virginia & Mrs. C. were much grieved at not being able to bid you farewell . , . DuSolle's paper ... announced your presence in the city on Sunday in very handsome terms. ... Excuse ... brevity for I am still very unwell, & believe me most gratefully & sincerely

Your friend,

EDGAR A. Poa.

Thus Thomas — who, like Poe, did not understand his nerve wreckage — found he had “fallen,” was “sober,” also was very ill at this time, and notwithstanding the brief holiday for his health the prior summer at Saratoga, N. Y., by kindness of friends that seem to include Dr. John K. Mitchell, who understood so well Poe's need of change.

Dr. Woodberry notes an allusion to Poe in the Green Mountain Gem(50) of early 18;0, within the death notice of Annabel Lee Leland, nine months and [page 762:] two weeks old. Her parents, T. C. and Mary J. Leland, were good friends of the poet, and Mrs. Leland, from the age of twelve, was one of his Richmond school mates. After they strayed apart, Poe thought she had died, but later found her married to Mr. Leland, who learned to love Poe for his warm heart, genius and dazzling attraction of conversation. Both had great affection for him and their home provided him refuge in his bitter hours of trial when other doors were closed against him. Often they took him in — when under the sway of subconsciousness from congestion or stimulants — from the streets in winter, where he must have perished from the cold, and gave him shelter, comfort and sympathy.

Mr. Theo. Pease writes that(51) his uncle, Judge Harlow Pease, was told by his uncle, Peter Pindar Pease, that his Delhi, Cincinnati, friend, E. M. Murdock, was introduced to Poe at Philadelphia, in 1840, when he was editing Graham's Magazine. On learning Murdock was from the West, Poe was all attention, and inquired about literary outlooks there. Murdock promptly discouraged such a venture and asked Poe why he desired a change when doing well. Poe said, he thought he “could do better.” This thought was probably for The Penn. But of special importance on personal score is, Murdock told Pease that, at this time — the winter of 1841-1842 — Poe had “heart failure.” Mr. Murdock added, that in the summer of 1842 Poe went to Saratoga, N. Y., “especially to arrange for the treatment of his wife,” then rapidly failing, and to recuperate his own health. For means to make this venture Poe was on the alert. He obtained [page 763:] a small loan, probably from Dr. Mitchell, and with a surprised acceptance by a New York magazine of a long-time submitted story, Poe was enabled to make this health quest at Saratoga. There he found his small means would not permit his moving Virginia, aside from the fact that she could never endure this trying trip. After some days of discouraging inquiry, and with no benefit to himself, Poe returned to Philadelphia “utterly cast down in spirit,” from which condition “he was long in rallying.” Poe's “heart failure” was affirmed by Mrs. Shew in 1847 and by Dr. John W. Francis, New York, in 1848. Poe first (sympathetic, at least) heart attack seems to date, Baltimore, May, 1834.

Because from Poe himself it came to Miss Susan A. [page 764:] Talley (Mrs. Weiss’ “Home Life of Poe”) that “The Raven” was “ten years” in being written, and stayed for that time within his easy desk-reach for now and then various touches of reconstruction, polish and finish, it would be difficult to cradle this entire poetic inspiration to any one time or place. But on the score of Poe at Saratoga in this connection, and of which trip his ever-ready critics strongly insinuated a mystery scandal, come some broad lights upon the entire situation from and through Dr. William Elliot Griffis, D.D., L.H.D., of Ithaca, N. Y. In Nov. 5, 1884, Home Journal, Dr. Griffis’ article, “Origin of ‘The Raven,’ ” has had present-day affirmation by himself, also through Professor Arthur S. Wright, of Cleveland, Ohio, grandson-in-law of the boy Poe knew in 1842 and ‘43 at Saratoga, now deceased; and his living sister, who then, as a little girl, also saw Poe. Mrs. Mary Waddell — this gracious invalid lady — now writes that the present beautiful Saratoga was only a little country village, called “The Springs,” when “the great Poe was domiciled, not at Barhyte's” but, “at a Hotel in Saratoga”; yet he made daily strolls to the Trout Ponds for inspiration.

These records and others agree that this poem was written prior to 1843. This glimpse of the truth was localized at Saratoga, where, in 1784, Jacobus Barhyte, of Dutch forbears and Revolutionary service in aiding Burgoyne to surrender, bought forest and streams locating a full view of the old battle-field of Bemis Heights. For his trout preserves and as host of delicious dinners that attracted Presidents of our country, foreigners of note, wits, scholars and epicures, [page 765:] Barhyte became famous. Jacobus’ son, James H. Barhyte, inherited this resort. In 1830, he married the daughter of Judge Gillespie of Sullivan County. Mrs. Barhyte, of literary culture, wrote prose and verse for The New York Mirror, under the pseudonym of “Tabitha.” In the summer of 1842, among the gay throngs at Barhyte's Trout Ponds was a stranger, lonely and gloomy, that — with his dark hair rather long, covered with a black broad-brimmed hat — Barbyte's young son, James H., and his sister Mary called “The Mexican”; this name was inspired by a “picture in a child's geography of that time of a fine distinguished-looking man with a broad-brimmed hat such as Poe wore.” Whenever brother James announced “‘The Mexican is coming!’ ” little sister slipped into some nook where she could see and admire, while brother never missed an interview. “Of course,” adds Mrs. [page 766:] Waddell, “Mother improved her opportunities of conversations with this congenial spirit, but alas, for proofs, even the dear old homestead so lovely and picturesque has left no reminder of itself except the stately view of ‘Yaddo’ ” — as a little child tried to say “Shadow” — which named this “stately” home of Mrs. Spencer Trask. But Dr. Griffis’ record recalls, that James Barhyte, about eleven years old, thought the “Mexican a gentleman, so kindly in manners “as to captivate the lad's heart and the regard of his elders. Rarely with others, the stranger sought rest in the quiet depths of the woods ; there muttering, humming and talking to himself. He spent hours with rod in hand, seemingly fishing, but few came to his fly. His favored walk was in a space beneath the pines and hemlocks encircling the lower pond nearer the house. There, a seat of boards between two trees served him when writing. Once the lad noticed his friend pacing up and down the upper wooded level about the pond, delivering an oration, and deep-toned utterances of “Nevermore! nevermore!” fell upon the ears of the young boatman of the pond beneath. However, this “Mexican” friend — Edgar A. Poe — on his first, 1842, stay at Saratoga, found on the mantel-piece at the Barhyte home the scrap-book of “Tahitha's” poems. Attracted by their reading, he inquired as to their writer, when Mrs. Barhyte revealed the secret. Then Poe stated his name and work. This fact precluded his invitation there, being given by Mrs. Barhyte as the “slander” insinuated, and is definite, that then and there began their congenial acquaintance. He told her he was thinking over a poem which he hoped to finish [page 767:] according to his ideal of perfection. It was to be called “The Raven.” At the close of the 1842 season Mrs. Barhyte took her scrap-book to her Sullivan County home, where her literary winter work was done, and there she left it on her return to Saratoga the summer of 1843. This makes certain that Poe spoke of “The Raven” to Mrs. Barhyte the prior summer of 1842. The summer of 1843 found the poet again at Saratoga, with dim hints of reaching many miles beyond; but here he resumed his strolls to Barhyte's Trout Ponds and found in their owners and their young son firm friends. The boy well remembered the dark-eyed man still fond of his secluded seat beneath the pines and hemlocks skirting the pond. One unforgettable day the boy had been trout-fishing near the old mill, and rowwing back ‘with a pail full, he was suddenly startled in the silence being broken by a deep echo of “Nevermore!” Nearing the shore, it rolled over the pond, and back to him in echo. again and again. It came from the grove and sounded as if some one were reading aloud. Reaching the landing, whole lines were heard, “that settled his fears in realizing” some one was “speaking a piece,” and “most likely Mr. Poe.” Full of fun, and laughing to himself, with a vigorous pull at the oars he brought to view the poet pacing tip and down, reciting “The Raven” to himself. Knowing him well, the lad leaped ashore and, walking up to Poe, shouted, “Oh, what a name for a bird! who ever heard of a bird named, ‘Nevermore ‘!” In no way disturbed, Poe's face brightened. He clapped his hands in delight with a new idea. “I have it,” he said, just the thing. That will make [page 768:] the very stanza I need to complete the poem.” He sat down on the rustic seat at once and wrote:

“For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door —

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as ‘Nevermore.“’

This finished the ninth stanza of “The Raven” in its latest form, revised by Poe. Having completed this draft, Poe submitted the MS. to Mrs. Barhyte for criticism, and said that her son caused the “stanza of the strange name,” and its writer had simply put boyish prose into his own best poetry. From that time forth, this new tie of interest bound the boy and the poet together. The boy's mother suggested a few changes favored by Poe and these made the last literary work of her life; for Mrs. Barhyte was taken ill soon afterwards and died in April, 1844. Her bereaved husband, a little later, sold his Saratoga estate and moved West, but always emphasized the fact that his wife's last pen-work was a criticism of “The Raven” MS. by request of Edgar Allan Poe. Thus by “Tabitha's” husband and her son was laid the ghost of this Philadelphia period Poe scandal.

Of James H. Barhyte, Dr. Griffis wrote, December, 1918: “My informant (in later life an elder in my church) was one of the most trustworthy, clear-headed men I ever knew; he told me the Poe story more than once: I cross-questioned him vigorously, but the coloring, details, date, etc., of the boy's story, and memory in his mature head, remained as before.” [page 769:]

For “The Raven,” Poe probably went harking back to his childhood days and the strong impression made on his mind by the bust of Pallas that Mr. Allan brought home from Europe, which, with her owl symbol, dwelt in the boy's brain until its transition into “The Raven” was accomplished by the man's matured scholarship. From boyhood Edgar Allan Poe was obsessed with unutterable longings to make some poetical “expression of immortal impress.” His early verses “To Helen” did not fulfill this more exalted dream of the poet's young manhood that produced “A Pæan” of 1831, through which the spirit of his recently lost foster-mother led floating, phantom shapes of no-land; upon these, from Poe's dream-desire, fell many names: “Ligeia,” of “Al Aaraaf,” comes first, in that 1829 shadow's land of the poet's pen-creations. And graphically has Poe transcribed the ideality of “Al Aaraaf” into his 1845 “Dreamland” by these lines:

“There the traveler meets aghast

Sheeted Memories of the Past —

Shrouded forms that start and sigh

As they pass the wanderer by —

White-robed forms of friends long given,

In agony, to the Earth — and Heaven.”

“Ligeia,” the soul's essence of harmony in Poe's starworld, was followed by “Eleonora,” of “The Valley of Many Colored Grass”; “Lenore,” of Lowell's Pioneer; and the “Lost Lenore,” of “The Raven,” and long study. On no less authority than the late ex-Governor Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker, in his 1914 issue of “Pennsylvania the Keystone,” page 187, is definitely stated: The [page 770:] Raven’ and ‘The Gold Bug’ were both written in Philadelphia.” From “Diary of Mr. Albert J. Edmunds, Pennsylvania Historical Society, comes: “July 10, 1914, Samuel W. Pennypacker, ex-Governor of Pennsylvania, tells me that he had a cousin Whitaker, a student of medicine and all 1833 graduate of our University, who was a companion of Poe and to whom Poe gave a manuscript copy of The Raven.” As Pennypacker has stated in his latest work that “‘The Raven’ was written in Phila., the MS. was doubtlessly presented before April 6, 1844,” when Poe and Virginia left the Quaker City for New York. From Mr. Edmunds’ further research comes: “Dr. Samuel A. Whitaker, after his graduation, in 1833, was one of the founders of the Library Co., Phœnixville, Penn., in 1843; and one of his University of Pennsylvania records is, ‘Samuel A. Whitaker, Penn., 1833, “Intermittent Fever,“’ ” Mr. Edmunds concludes: “It was evidently as a book-lover that Whitaker cultivated Poe.” By will, Dr. Whitaker left this precious Poe script to the present owner, — his son, Joseph C. Whitaker, Esq., Phoenixville, Penn. Through courtesy of his cousin, Mr. Isaac R. Pennypacker, the owner's address was obtained, and through which was procured two most gracious examination privileges of this remarkably well-preserved, rare Poe item. It is the only known Poe MS. copy of “The Raven” in existence. The paper is oyster white in tone, eight by ten inches, four-paged double sheet, on which in its upper, left-hand corner is a “P & S” stationer's impress design. “Price & Son, 74 Chestnut St.,” Philadelphia, appears in that city Directory from the years [page 771:] of 1837 to 1842 only; and Poe had no surplus cash to buy paper for aught than present needs.

After a study of variants between this unusual MS., owned by Mr. Whitaker, and Poe's last revision of The Raven” in print, Mr. James H. Whitty regards the text as that of the 1845 period, but there remain the several statements as to this poem being seen in MS. form prior to 1843 in Philadelphia, that the germ of “The Raven” was written by Poe about the time of his revision of his verses “Lenore” for Lowell's Pioneer, February, 1843, print. Its New York City prints were in Jan. 29, 1845, Evening Mirror and February issue of American Whig Review. From the editor of the latter, Poe received $10 for “The Raven.” Mr. Whitaker values his only known perfect MS. copy of this entire poem above $10,000.

From a Mr. Rosenbach, of Poe's Philadelphia, editorial touch, comes of these verses: “I read ‘The Raven’ long before it was published, and was in Mr. George R. Graham's office when the poem was offered to him. Poe said that his Wife and Mrs. Clemm were starving, and ... he was in very pressing need of money. I carried to him fifteen dollars contributed by Mr. Graham, Mr. Godey and Mr. McMichael,” Judge Charles B. McMichael, of Philadelphia, as a very young boy, heard his father, Morton McMichael, say: “Edgar Allan Poe was a great genius: he was of a very nervous temperament and too sensitive.” As Chief Editor of several literary magazines Morton McMichael had James R. Lowell and N. P. Willis as associates; also, “greatest of all, in his estimation, Edgar Allan Poe.” His friends, [page 772:] Murdock, the actor, and Morton McMichael selected “Annabel Lee,” “The Bells” and “The Raven” for a text-book of instruction in dramatic elocution, ‘which Murdock taught McMichael's son Charles, who, before he was twelve, knew “The Raven” by heart. As models of English, unsurpassed in the language, Poe's short tales were given to young McMichael by his father. Of him his son wrote in 1920: “I never heard my father speak of Edgar Allan Poe except in terms of affection and appreciation.” This paragraph seems a vitalizing touch of the heart of things as they were, prior to 1844, in the life of Edgar Allan Poe. Judge McMichael adds: “Ruben Dario, the Spanish lyric poet and writer of short stories, and regarded by Spanish critics as the greatest lyric poet for centuries in Spain, estimates Poe and Walt Whitman as the two North American poets who have shown originality and genius.” The “others, Who condemned the poem,” in Graham's office, yet gave the money as charity. So much for the early 1840's wintry estimate of verses later called by Edwin Markham “a requiem of imperial affection,” and to this dicta was added: “‘The Raven’ takes rank With the unworded and unearthly harmonies of ‘The Dead March’ in ’Saul.’ ” But in the heart of the writer royal of “The Raven,” who knew this poem's worth, bloomed a “charity “of kindly gratitude for its earlier judges, while their well-meant $15 warmed and fed Poe's household, who were then both hungry and cold.

Dr. Woodherry believes that the “true germ of ‘The Raven’ is contained in Poe's review of ‘Barnaby Rudge.’ ” (Graham's, February, 1842, issue.) In this [page 773:] review appears: “The raven, too, intensely amusing as it is, might have been made ... a portion of the fantastic Barnaby ... Each ... distinct ... might have differed ... from the other. Yet between them there might have been wrought an analogical resemblance, and although each might have existed apart, they might have formed together a whole which would have been imperfect in the absence of either.” Dr. Woodberry adds: “This is precisely the relation which exists in the poem between the raven and the lover.” Perhaps this clear logic applied to Poe's prior study of “The Raven” aspects, which were later adapted to Barnaby and his bird in this review by Poe.

Poe, then bravely on the alert for work to supply family needs, hearing of Lowell's venture in The Pioneer, sent to him a Nov. 16, 1842, letter-quest as to its writer's possibility of becoming a contributor by “short articles.”

Poe wished Lowell success With the assurance of admiration and esteem of writer. Lowell's answer, dated number 4 Court Street, Boston, Nov. 19, 1842, told Poe if he had not made this inquiry, he would soon have heard from Writer, who gave Poe “carte blanche” for either poetry or prose, excepting such prose as his article on Dawes — not a good poet, but he was human and sensitive, as a man. Lowell noted he would be hard pressed for “good stories”; thanked Poe on score of payment, offered $10 to begin with for his papers and later increase as the periodical's “growth” allowed. He wished to hear from Poe, and him to believe writer a friend, and closed with: “I am already (I mean my magazine) in the press — but [page 774:] anything sent ‘right away’ will be in season for the first number, in which I would like you to appear.”

Thomas, on his return to Washington, at once interested himself in Poe's Philadelphia Custom House prospects, with results better coming through notes from Poe's letter of Nov. 19, 1842:

“Your letter of the 14th gave me new hope — only to be dashed to the ground. On the day of its receipt some of the papers announced four removals and appointments. Among the latter I observed the name — Pogue. Upon inquiry ... I soon found ... the name was ... a misunderstanding of the reporters, who had heard my oxen name spoken of at the Custom-House. I waited 2 days, without calling on Mr. Smith, as he had twice told me that ‘he would send for me, when he wished to swear me in.’ To-day, however, ... I called. I asked him if he had no good news for me yet. He replied — ‘No, I am instructed to make no more removals.’ At this, being much astonished, I mentioned that I had heard through a friend, [James Herron, Esq.] from Mr. Rob. Tyler, that he was requested to appoint me. At these words he said roughly, — ‘ From whom did you say?’ I replied from Mr. Robert Tyler. I’ wish you could have seen the scoundrel — ... ‘From Robert Tyler!’ says he — ‘hem! I have received orders from President Tyler to make no more appts and shall make none’ . . , afterwards, he acknowledged that he had made one appt since these instructions. [After four prior fruitless calls Poe had waited a month, and called again.] ... My next and last interview was today — as I have just descibed [[described]] ... this insult is not to me, so much as to ... — Mr. Robert Tyler ... who requested my appointment ... the only way to serve me now, is to lay the matter ... before Mr. T., and. ... through him, to procure a few lines from the President, directing Air. Smith to give me the place. With these credentials he would scarcely again refuse. ... [page 775:] I would write more, my dear Thomas, but my heart is too heavy. You have felt the misery of hope deferred & will feel for me. ... Write soon & if possible relieve my suspense. You cannot imagine the trouble I am in, & have been in for the past 2 months — unable to . , . do anything — being in hourly expectation of getting the place.”

So perished Poe's hopes of the long waited — for Custom House place at Philadelphia. This fact and nerve — corroding incidents in its train must have been a severe shock to so ill a man as Poe then was, and one so swamped with insistent calls on his energies; [page 776:] while the many and continuous efforts to find work seemed fruitful only in failures. These desperate conditions certainly favored just such writing as would sell at that time in “English Notes by Quarles Quickens,” shrouded out of the writer's entire responsibilities on literary and other scores by copyright of Daily Mail publishers, No. 16 State Street, Boston, Mass., as of prior noting.

It was about this time Poe and family seemed to have left their “Coates St., N. Fairmount,” house for the “N. 7th St., Spring Garden” home of later mention. It is certain, that with all his troubles in those grey autumn days of 1842, neither Poe nor his pen was idle. Evidence of this literary industry — that he owned to writing — appeared in October, 1842, issue of Snowden's Lady's Companion by “The Landscape Garden,” which later was placed in “The Domain of Arnheim” print in No. II, page 11, Broadway Journal. October, 1842, date of Graham's gave Poe's drastic critical review of Rufus Dawes’ “Poems,” the like of which Lowell fully agreed with, but did not desire for his Pioneer. Dawes, as the fifteenth of sixteen children, was born in Boston, January, 1803, he entered Harvard College in 1820. Because unjust censure of class disturbances forced him to leave without his degree, he retaliated by his first printed poem, a severe satire on members of the College Faculty. His last work was “Nixs Mate,” an historical romance. Concerning Poe's treatment of Dawes’ “Geraldine,” Mr. Whitty writes, that the scathing October, 1842, review of Dawes’ poem as “supposed vengeance for his unfavorable critique of Poe's ‘Al Aaraaf,’ in [page 777:] 1829, is not borne out; for in Burton's Dec., 1839, issue appeared Poe's favorable critique on Dawes’ ‘Nix's Mate.’ ”

From dragging illness, anxieties in seeming failure of Dickens’ promised word for foreign issues and the real home one, in loss of the Custom-House place, Poe probably turned to finish his fine verses, “The Conqueror Worm,” in January, 1843, Graham's, also “The Pit and the Pendulum” prose piece, which might well be but a figurative reflex of his own tortured experience in this times revision of that tale for Miss Leslie's annual, The Gift, for 1843. But how Poe contrived to concentrate his mental forces on the revision of the intricacies of “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” which he wrote the Boston Notion editor prior June was completed, seems more of a mystery than this story held. It was issued in the November and December, 1842, numbers of Snowden's Lady's Companion, also that of February, 1843. The intervening January, Poe seems to have devoted to the hasty, uneven writing of “The Times’ ” 137 lines, by “Quarles Quickens,” for urgent money needs by returns from its Daily Mail, Boston print.

A letter to Poe from Lowell, dated No. 4 Court Street, Boston, Dec. 17, 1842, explains itself in noting, that he should be ashamed at not writing, but surplus work made him so sick of “pen & ink” that he could not. One wonders what Lowell would have done under Poe's burdens! But of his “Tell-Tale Heart” Lowell stated, it would be in the first number of The Pioneer; that its non-issue, by H. T. Tuckerman, in Boston Miscellany, might have been caused by Tuckerman [page 778:] “Autography” sketch by Poe. Lowell noted he “was glad to get it” and wished for “another” for the second number of The Pioneer soon going to press. He closed with all happiness from a true friend “torn to pieces with little businesses.”

Of literary Henry T. Tuckerman, Poe wrote: “He is a correct writer so far as mere English is concerned, but an insufferably tedious and dull one.” And of this critic Tuckerman noted: “If Mr. Poe would condescend to furnish more quiet articles he would be a most desirable correspondent.”

To The Pioneer print of “The Tell-Tale Heart” Poe added one local to Boston, personal, literary touch by preceding it with the fourth verse of Longfellow's “Psalm of Life”:

“Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still like muffled drums are beating

Funeral marches to the grave,”

“The Tell-Tale Heart” doubtlessly was some of the horrors Poe himself lived through in the spell of depression prior to its writing. — Mr. Robert B. Kegerries of “The Players,” New York City, made a strong dramatization of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” in which play he tools the first part with unqualified success. In Boston, New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere, he appeared in it no less than one hundred times. An able dramatic critic, unknown to Mr. Kegerries, wrote him: “I saw for the second time ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’ Nothing I have ever seen impressed me as so real. You make the man, mad though he is, win his [page 779:] way to the heart of his audience, demand its deepest sympathy and live with him through those horrible moments in the last act.” This was Poe's intention in writing that story.

On Christmas Day, 1842, Poe mailed his answer to Lowell's foregoing letter. In this answer was: “I send you a brief poem for No. 2, with my best wishes.” This poem was a revised transition of “The Pæan” Of 1831 printing, and went to Lowell as “Lenore.” On page 269, “Life of Longfellow” by Colonel T. W. Higginson, is found: “Never in American literature was such a fountain of melody flung into the air as when ’ Lenore’ appeared in The Pioneer.” Edwin Markham notes it, — “a burst of martial bugles — the flaw, — ‘when she fell in feeble health,’ is a mud ball stuck upon the radiant front of the rainbow.” Yet “The Pawn” of 1831 was, in a measure, Poe's lament on his foster-mother, who supplied the basic fact of these words. His answer to Lowell added: “I ... thank you for reversing the judgment of Mr. Tuckerman, — the author of the ‘Spirit of Poesy,’ ... somewhat of a misnomer — since no spirit appears ... if Mr. T. persists in his quietude, he will put a quietus on the Magazine of which ... Bradbury & Soden have been so stupid as to give him control. I am all anxiety to see your first number.” As to No. I of The Pioneer, February 4, 1843, Poe wrote to Lowell : “I ... congratulate you upon the triumphant debut of ‘The Pioneer,’ ... As far as a $3. Magazine can please me at all, I am delighted with yours. I am especially gratified with . . , coincidence of opinion and of taste, between yourself and your [page 780:] humble servant, ... As regards the contributors our thoughts are one ... when, ... I dreamed of ... a Magazine of my own, I said to myself — ‘If I can but succeed in engaging ... Mr. Hawthorne, Mr. Neal, and two others, with a certain young poet of Boston, who shall be nameless, I will engage to produce the best journal in America.’ ... You have many warm friends in this city, but the reforms you propose require time. ... In the meantime persevere. I forwarded you, ... ‘Notes upon English Verse’ ... it may prove too long, or perhaps too dull, ... in either case ... return it and I will ... send something in its place. I duly received, from Mr. Graham, [page 781:] $10 on your account, ... I am obliged. I would prefer, however, that you would remit directly to myself through the P. Office.”

Perhaps Poe had some misgivings as to taking Dr. Griswold's money for that review of his “Poets and Poetry,” which review had “not” yet “appeared“so reviewer thought — and for this reason in Poe's service for The Pioneer, he wrote Dr. Griswold in early 1843:

MY DEAR SIR, — I made use of your name with Carey & Hart, for a copy of your book, and am writing a review of it. ... for “The Pioneer,” I like it decidedly. It is of immense importance, as a guide to what we have clone; but you have permitted your good nature to influence you. ... I would have omitted at least a dozen whom you have quoted, and I can think of five or six that should have been in. Put with all its faults — you see I am perfectly frank with you — it is a better book than any other man in the United States could have made of the materials. This I will say.

With high respect, I am your obedient servant,

EDGAR A. POE.

Poe's editorial knowledge of Dr. R. W. Griswold began when he was junior editor of The New Yorker; this service was transferred to the New York Brother Jonathan; thence to the Daily Standard, under Francis L. Grund, whose withdrawal left Dr. Griswold sole editor for some weeks more of that paper's life: then he became editor of the Boston Notion, and later, editor of The Post, and from May to September, 1842, he was editor of Graham's Magazine.

As night fell over Poe's project for The Penn and his hopes for government service, a straying letter [page 782:] came to him from Editor Foster of The Aurora, who mistily proposed starting a New York magazine under Poe's direction. He also held in mind Mr. Graham's offer to return; but averse to facing the known thraldom, and careful as to creating any new, Poe seems to have turned, for at least more congenial association, to Thomas Cottrell Clarke, who owned the Saturday Museum, a Philadelphia weekly paper located at 101 Chestnut Street, in that city. Confusion covers several points on Poe-quests as to the Saturday Museum. Mr. Whitty writes that no complete file of it has been found, and that F. W. Thomas stated it announced “We have secured at a high salary the services of E. A. Poe, Esq., a gentleman whose high and versatile abilities have spoken for themselves, and who after the first of May will aid us in the editorial” department. For some reason this scheme went awry. But Mr. Whitty very definitely states: “After the turn of 1843, Poe became closely associated with the Philadelphia Saturday Museum, in which a severe unsigned criticism on ‘ Poets and Poetry of America’ appeared.” Thomas Ollive Mabbott writes: “I have found an advertisement in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Jan. 26, 27 & 28, 1843, to the effect that the current number of Saturday Museum contained a critical and thorough examination of the ‘Poets and Poetry of America.’ This enables me to fix the date of that Sat. Museum review as Jan. 28, 1843.” Its reprint appeared in William F. Gill's 1878 “Life of E. A. Poe,” and was possibly obtained from Thomas C. Clarke's copy of the Saturday Museum, as Mr. Gill told Mr. Whitty. This stinging review of Dr. Griswold's “Poets and [page 783:] Poetry of America” issued by Carey & Hart, Philadelphia, 1842, in Saturday Museum, January 28, 1843, seems to have been by lawyer Henry Beck Hirst, dominated by literary, Poe scannings. The scorings relating to Dr. Griswold, Poe and some others, with special reference to Judge Robert T. Conrad, as does also the later March 4th Saturday Museum review of Graham's March issue — found in 1913 by Thomas O. Mabbott — in review's reference to Dr. Griswold as “Mr. Driswold of Graham's Magazine,” strongly reflect a lawyer's, avoiding lawsuit action, and thus affirm such pen expressions to be made by H. B. Hirst. And this is in consonance with what Poe wrote Lowell, Oct. 19, 1843, that this Graham's Magazine review was by Hirst. The text of the Jan. 28, 1843, review [page 784:] was, “‘La fleur d‘une heure’ faded into nothingness.” Such scannings’ treatment, on Poe's part, could not be fittingly called aught but tactlessness of truthful genius, or a seal of friendship even With a Baptist clergyman. But Lowell's record of this Reverend gentleman(52) seems no less drastic in these words: “The Reverend Mr. Griswold is an ass, and what's more, a knave.” The review of Jan. 28th affirmed Dr. Griswold's editorial habit of changing original scripts of others, dated prior to this review. Its writer queries: “Again, how came you to alter Dr. J. K. Mitchell's song in such a manner that the author scarcely knows his own production?” This critic's mentor — Poe — was then in close touch with Dr. Mitchell's friendly, professional attendance on Virginia, also on the poet himself. But lawyer Hirst lamented the neglect by Griswold of “our own Conrad (one of the sweetest poets of the time).” This was not Poe's opinion, but as to placing Longfellow after Bryant and Dana — “Certainly not, for in Longfellow's pages the spirit of poetry — ideality — walks abroad. ... Longfellow is unquestionably the best poet in America.” These immediate foregoing words bespeak Poe and none other, and an attitude known to Longfellow instinctively, undoubtedly created the very atmosphere that existed between the two poets and Dr. Griswold. Yet F. W. Thomas believed: “Poe kept up a continuous warfare on Griswold in the Museum, poking fun at him and alluding to him as ‘Mr. Driswold of Graham's Magazine.’ ” To an extent this-time's drill and drain of many keen anxieties on Poe's mind and body swayed his judgment so far as tact is concerned — [page 785:] if, indeed, tact ever comes into touch with genius — in connection With his honest but altogether tactless treatment of literary efforts of Dr. Griswold. Only great souls, finished diplomats and altogether fools can successfully withstand the shafts of ridicule. And on no account was Dr. Griswold any one of these three. His line of editorial work was of a character that courted popularity by virtue of publicity given its mentioned writers, with merit or lacking it, and created some comparatively few troubles from those who were omitted; while Poe's critical labors, measured mostly by his exalted code of editorial and literary high standards, excited not only unpopularity, but the strongest resentments from the mediocrity of the public pressmen and the infancy of American literati of his day. With some radiant exceptions in Longfellow, Dr. O. W. Holmes and a rare few others, such otherwise hostile shadows overwhelmed Poe's entire life. However, this unfortunate, “Up like a rocket and down like a stick” early 1843 Saturday Museum treatment, given by Poe or Hirst to “Poets and Poetry of America,” was drastically turned by the editor. And upon the poet's 1850 “Memoir,” by Dr. Griswold, fell the full force of that “stick” for many a year. Notwithstanding Dr. English's own, later adverse Poe-experiences and some fifty years afterwards, Thomas Dunn English wrote of this Poe-Griswold incident, also of the Poe-Boston Lyceum fiasco, of 1845, to the late William M. Griswold, Cambridge, Mass., Dr. R. W. Griswold's son. And while time and prejudice must always color such memories, ‘without realizing the main cause of Poe's misfortunes was inherited and [page 786:] continuous nerve strain, Dr. English stumbled on to this truth of Poe, when under his depression bondage, by these words: “To hold such a man responsible for his deeds or sayings is absurd.” Here closes this Philadelphia Poe-Griswold incident.

In a Philadelphia, March, 1909, letter of Mrs. Robert B. Keesey to Mrs. John C. Wrenshall, Baltimore, Md., mention is made of a Mr. Robert Dybale of the Quaker City as an ardent admirer of Poe; and of his darkest days there, and reputed habits, Mr. Dybale would never permit any one to speak slightingly. In his connection with the editorial staff of The Press, Mr. Dybale noted: “Poe would come into the office and perch himself on the table, unroll his manuscript, and read his articles to the staff. These were never submitted for inspection before being sent to the printer, insomuch as they were written in a faultless manner. Poe always wrote on strips of paper about six inches wide, which as the MS. progressed were rolled up and another strip pasted on.”

Jan. 31, 1843, Mr. Thomas Cottrell Clarke, owner of the Saturday Museum, and Poe entered into an agreement with Felix O. C. Darley, the artist, to furnish original drawings to be employed in the illustration of a magazine entitled The Stylus, so named, said Poe, “because its criticisms were to be written with an iron pen!” Darley agreed to furnish not less than three drawings, at $7 each per month, to this magazine and no other; and the agreement was to be valid until July, 1844. It was signed by F. O. C. Darley, Thomas C. Clarke and Edgar A. Poe, and witnessed by Henry B. Hirst and W. D. Riebsam. Darley's first work [page 787:] seems to have been for Poe's “Gold Bug,” which its writer himself took to the artist, both pleasantly known to each other. As made under Poe's directions, Darley's two illustrations of this story — one of Le Grand's search for the treasure, the other showing it — were in “The Gold Bug” Prize Story issues of the Dollar Newspaper, June 21 and 28, 1843.

During the 1922 summer stay of the Hon. R. M. Hogg at Bristol, England (of various Alexander Selkirk associations), he linked tip the “enchanted days” of Poe's boyhood — when he “first learned to grow serious over Robinson Crusoe!” — with the reflex identity of his later hero, William Le Grand, of “The Gold Bug,” as seemingly anchored in the writer of “THE JOURNAL OF LLEWELLIN PENROSE, [Williams] A SEAMAN.” Its MS. was bought by Murray & Blackwood for £200, issued “in 4 Vols.,” in 1815, and a second edition, “in one volume,” appeared in 1825. From its first print “when” Edgar was in London, and as he later wrote, “we first found the spirit of wild adventure enkindling within us ... the marvelous import of those [Penrose] pages” would have appealed to Poe as child and man. Mr. Hogg “peeped,” very thoroughly, through the Penrose “Journal” and noted of it: “The book is just another ‘Robinson Crusoe.’ Its history is somewhat strange. Mr. Thomas Eagles of the Customs, Bristol, and a person of literary tastes, was accosted in the streets one day by an old man, poor and almost blind, who begged for assistance to gain admittance, as a pensioner, into St. Peter's Alms House. Mr. Eagles aided him temporarily and eventually got him [page 788:] (being a seaman) into the Merchants’ Almshouse, on King St. ... where he had a room to himself. Finding him well-educated, cultured and travelled, Mr. Eagles often had him to dinner at his home and much enjoyed the old man's talk. He lived a few years, died about the end of the 18th century, and left all he possessed — some 500 volumes & a MS. — to his benefactor. Later, when in London, a Mr. Annesly brought Sir Benjamin West to Mr. Eagles’ lodgings, where West read parts of Penrose's MS., and then said to his host, ‘ I knew — this man, but for him I never would have become a painter.’ ” Of Penrose Mr. Hogg continues: “His real name was Williams and West as a boy of 7 or 8 had seen him one day in Philadelphia, carrying a landscape picture he had painted. The boy ... asked ... to see the picture and Penrose, (Williams) then a painter in good circumstances, invited the boy to his house, showed to him his ‘camera secret’ and gave him every encouragement. Williams came from Bristol. At the Grammar School there, he first imbibed a love for painting from an elderly artist who painted heads and landscapes in oil. Early in life Williams crossed the Atlantic, as a seaman aboard a ship ... [commanded by Captain Hunter.] He lost two sons at Bunker Hill. Eventually he was reduced from comfort to abject poverty and disappeared from Philadelphia. West later saw him in London, then lost sight of him — he having gone to Bristol as a recluse, under the name of Llewellin Penrose. ... John Galt, of Irvine, wrote a life of West, in which I find some of facts stated ... agreeing in the main with a memorandum sent [page 789:] to Eagles by West after he had read parts of Penrose's ‘Journal.’ It was read with great interest by Byron, who wrote of it: ‘ I never read so much of a book at one sitting, He (Penrose) kept me tip reading half the night, and the other half dreaming of him.’ Eagles’ son John tells the story of Penrose in ‘The Beggar's Legacy’ which appeared in March, 1855, Blackwood's Magazine.” Of Penrose's “Journal” Mr. Hogg notes that its book print was dedicated, “To BENJAMIN WEST, ESQ. ... because your intimate knowledge of the Author, and the circumstance of his having communicated to you many of the facts recorded in it, seemed to require it of me, ... ” So wrote John Eagles. Mr. Hogg adds of Penrose's “Journal”: “I was strongly impressed that it was here that Poe found the basis of ‘The Gold Bug.’ With his keen interest in Robinson Crusoe Poe would revel in the Penrose ‘Journal‘; in West, giving account (in the Preface) of his meeting Penrose (Williams) in Philadelphia; and the mystification of his name would attract Poe, who delighted in mystification.” Mr. Hogg closes with giving items from Poe's “Gold Bug” which are similar to some found in Penrose's “Journal” and comments of West upon it; and from all of which came the conclusion that William Le Grand of “The Gold Bug” was drawn by Poe from the recluse Llewellin Penrose Williams.

Barring the pranks that Poe's pen played with dates, names, places and personalities, his close direction of Darley's drawings for “The Gold Bug” seems to conjure up Penrose anti-dated subjects — yelping dog, skeleton — and superstitions of “Finding the [page 790:] Treasure.” Mr. Hogg notes other similarities as follows:

[column 1:]

“Poe, in ‘The Gold Bug‘:

1. ‘MANY years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Le Grand. He ... had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters he left (sic) New Orleans, ... and took up his residence at Sullivan's Island.’ [page 791:]

2. Poe notes ’ the bristly palmetto.’

3. ’ ... by mere accident, II1 made his acquaintance . much in the recluse to — excite interest and esteem. ... He had with him many books,’ ... and was a ‘wanderer.’

4. Le Grand stated: ‘I draw tolerably — should do it ... have had good masters.

5. ’ This bug is to make my fortune,’ he continued, ... ‘to reinstate me ’. , .

6. A friend, Jupiter — a darkey who does much talking and a clog figure in Le Grand's search for treasure. [page 792:]

The Gold Bug's chance opening reveals sketch for search of treasure, with cryptic, cabalistic directions for finding it.

7. Symbolic characters abound in ‘The Gold Bug.’ Le Grand noted that the skullfrightened Jupiter was ‘infected with ... innumerable Southern superstitions about money buried,’

8. Darley pictures a yelping dog when the treasure is found.

9. Le Grand noted: ‘Still, the sneer at my graphic powers irritated me — for I am considered a good artist ’

10. A high rock — ’ Bishop's Hostel’ — appears in ‘The Gold Bug’ search.

11. ‘The Gold Bug’ mentions ’ eighty-three ... heavy crucifixes: — five gold censers,’ etc.”

[page 790, continued, column 2:]

“Penrose's ‘Journal,’ and comments by West:

1. Penrose had once been wealthy — West met him years ago, when in comfort, at Philadelphia. Disasters overtake him. He hides himself, by a venture in London, and latterly in Bristol under an assumed name.

2. The ‘Journal’ describes the palmetto. [page 791:]

3. West accidentally met Penrose (Williams) on the streets in Philadelphia. Likewise Eagles met him in Bristol begging for a place in which to die. He had a collection of books.

4. Williams was known in Philadelphia as a painter, and published a table for drawing — in Bristol — as Penrose.

5. Penrose's ‘Journal’ was ‘to reinstate’ him.

6. A negro, a dog and a talkative Dutchman who said of finding the treasure: ‘All de monics is dere I vii put in my [page 792:] eye, unt den ich sal see too,’ The bottle containing directions, for finding treasure is found, including a sketch, ‘Nimrod's Portion.’

7. They also appear in Penrose's ‘Journal’ which notes of skeleton found near the treasure; that superstition of buried money was, that one of such parties was sacrificed, so his spirit would watch over the treasures.

8. ‘Journal’ notes yelping dog when the skeleton is upturned.

9. Penrose (Williams) was considered ‘a good artist’

10. Penrose notes ’ Tower Rock’ in his ‘Journal’ search for treasure.

11. The ‘Journal’ states part of the treasure was plunder from a church or Cathedral.”

[page 792, resuming full width:]

Mr. Hogg concludes that his consecutive readings of “The Gold Bug,” and Penrose's “Journal” — in which “finding the treasure occupies but a small space” — suggested to him “that William Le Grand was based on Llewellin Penrose (Williams) as revealed in the ‘Dedication to West‘; and that ‘The Gold Bug’ treasure incident was based on the Treasure Finding in the ‘Journal.’ ” when in Philadelphia, Poe probably followed up all clews there of Penrose Williams.

MS. of Penrose “Journal” was turned over by a seaman of a Spanish ship to Mate Paul Taylor of an English brig “lying at Hammale, anno 1776.” Taylor [page 793:] had it copied “as the author wrote it” (by John Waters), “at Charlestown.” Poe may have seen original MS. or duplicate copy when searching Courthouse records of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1829, for his “Gold Bug” material found there.

Concerning Poe, Darley later wrote: “He impressed me as a refined, very gentlemanly man; exceedingly neat in his person; interesting always, from the intellectual character of his mind, ... tinged with sadness. His manner was quiet, and reserved; he rarely smiled. I remember his reading his ‘Gold Bug’ and ‘Black Cat’ to me before they were published. The form of his manuscript was peculiar; he wrote on half sheets of notepaper, ... pasted together at the ends, making one continuous piece which he rolled up tightly. And as he read he dropped it upon the floor.” Poe's friend, Felix O. C. Darley, paid his caricature respects to several famous American poets in 1849. Those of Poe and Longfellow appear in that date narrative order.

Baltimore, December, 1917, Mr. William J. McClellan(53) wrote: “This afternoon I saw at the Historical Society the only known file of the Dollar Newspaper, published by A. H. Simmons & Co., Philadelphia. A. H. Simmons was one of the proprietors and founders of the Public Ledger there, and The Sun of Baltimore. The Dollar Newspaper, a large, four-paged weekly, began Jan. 25, 1843. In the April 5th date, prizes were offered for the best tales submitted, at $100, $60 and $40. The June 21st, 1843, issue gave the first part of ‘The Gold Bug,’ with an illustration by Darley; this part almost filled the first page. The [page 794:] judges were R T. Conrad, H. S. Patterson, M.D., and W. L. Lane, ‘gentlemen of unquestioned literary talent.’ This tale was voted, — ‘the best written, most original in conception, and of more absorbing interest than any story compressed in the same space that has ever originally appeared in any American publication.’ The next number had the end of this story with another illustration by Darley, and a very complimentary editorial comment. Vol. II, of the Dollar Newspaper, began June 24, 1844. In prior March issue was ‘The Spectacles’ by E. A. Poe, written for this paper and filled over one page. The July date gave ‘The Premature Burial,’ in four and one half columns.” Mr. MeClellan notes other small items from Poe's pen, now and then, up to February, 1845, also others of later mention in their order of dates. Those already given will answer, in some measure, as to how Poe spent his time and obtained daily subsistence after leaving Graham's editorial service, May, 1842, and up to February, 1843.

Because Thomas had been asked by Poe to write his life-sketch for the Saturday Museum, some items from Feb. 1, 1843, letter of Thomas are of interest. He mentioned delay of Congress on the Smith case, — he was seemingly the party who refused Poe the Philadelphia Custom House place. Thomas added, that the biography notes were received, and it was his firm intention to give them his earliest attention, but Congress duties interfered. He continued:

It would have been a labor of love with me, Poe, as you know and, let who will do it now, some of these days I will do it better unless they do it damned well. [page 795:] I could not do it until Congress adjourns, ... I therefore ... send you the MS. as you request, ... with regret. I should be ... glad to greet you in the Capitol. Come on if possible ... I saw the “Saturday Museum” in Mr. Tyler's room, and happened to light upon the article in which we are mentioned. I read that portion of it to him, and shall take care that he is not misinformed on the subject. I remember Mr. Hirst. Why the devil did you not give me an inkling of ... your good luck ... when I opened your letter and read — In high spirits, Yours truly E. A. Poe.” I rose to “high spirits” myself. I assure you, Poe, ... nothing gives me greater pleasure than to know you are well and doing well. Remember me most affectionately to your mother and lady. When you come to Washington stop at Fuller's Hotel where you will find

Your friend,

F. W. THOMAS,

That Thomas eventually did write Poe's life-sketch, comes from its present owner, Mr. James H. Whitty, Richmond, Va., who scores from Thomas MS.: “Poe sent me the notes for the Museum biography, but I evaded writing them. I told him afterwards that I knew more of his history than he sent me. He was amused, and laughed the matter off by confessing that the story was intended to help the magazine project.” Poe's life-sketch for the Saturday Museum was finally written by Henry Beck Hirst, and appeared in March 4, 1843, issue. Curiously enough Hirst was credited by a few authorities with writing “The Raven.” So seriously impressed was the late Dr. Matthew Woods, Philadelphia, with the idea that Henry B. Hirst did write “The Raven,” that this eminent specialist was said to have in MS, form [page 796:] a life of Hirst in proof of this assertion. Concerning this subject Mr. Whitty writes: “I have a MS. article written by B. B. Minor, editor and owner of the Southern Literary Messenger, who claimed Hirst was a favorite of his, and wrote, with his sister, for the Southern Literary Messenger. He says Hirst could never have written ‘The Raven’ and never broached the subject to him, and that Dr. Woods was simply in error, etc.” Dr. Woods was told by Dr, Thomas Dunn English that he introduced Poe and Hirst, who for some time were close associates in their leisure as well as in literary pursuits during Poe's Philadelphia days. Hirst at twenty-two began writing verses, yet when

The Coming of the Mammoth, the Funeral of Time and Other Poems,” was Boston issued, in 1845, no effort in that volume would indicate its writer as leaping into the masterful literary expression made manifest in “The Raven,” by Edgar Allan Poe, issued in 1845. But strange it seems that Dr. Woods, in his selfless task in behalf of H. B. Hirst, should also have cherished enough regard for the alleged filcher of his wits — Poe for “The Raven” — to have obtained two mantels of his Spring Garden, North 7th Street home, where much revision of “The Raven” was continued from the Coates Street, North Fairmount, home — as Dr. Woods did, and had these mantels — one each — built into the upper and lower hall-walls of his own Broad Street, Philadelphia, home of endless fascinations. By grace of Dr. Woods, who died in 1917, pictures of Poe's mantels appear in these pages. It is also strange that the six claimants to the writing of “The Raven” make no mention of any other's [page 797:] verses as its source; but all agree in energetic pursuit of its literary perfection as obtained by Poe. As J. Q. Adams of Georgia wrote, they could not realize: “It is the psychological development of a theme, not its peculiar practical feat, that constitutes a work of art.” Concerning Henry B. Hirst comes from Mr. Joseph Jackson, as exponent of a literary majority, that “Hirst's poetry contains many fine lines but sustained effort was beyond his powers. He could not have written ‘The Raven’ in a hundred years.” In connection with Poe's filching this poem from others, Edwin [page 798:] Markham writes: “He may have borrowed, but his findings of bricks were transmuted into marble.”

Mr. John Sartain noted, Henry B. Hirst was “a rollicking companion of Poe.” And the daughter of Thomas Cottrell Clarke mentioned Hirst as “one of the nightly visitors” in her “father's editorial sanctum.” She said: “Henry B. Hirst would come swaggering in, making rings of smoke and telling yarns galore! ‘The most accomplished liar of his day,’ they used to call him.” In Hirst's law office, on Prince Street, it is said Poe spent many an hour. It was within a stone's throw of Sartain's No. 28 Sansom St. home. There, Hirst would drop in to lure Mr. Sartain off to drink absinthe with him, but succeeded only twice. Sartain knew its evils and stopped. It is not generally known that “many an hour” Poe spent in Hirst's office was devoted to poring over his law books with later record results as to this legal digging for knowledge on copyrights and safeguards on literary criticism scores. Poe conned these lessons well, and kept well outside the law's reach in his most drastic treatments on literary lines. And on such, was equally generous in his aid to Hirst, who often came to dine with Poe in his Spring Garden home, upon potted shad and waffles, during these years of friendship, is another record. But Miss Clarke continued: “Among the callers” — at her father's house, 12th and Walnut Streets — “would be ‘Tom,’ as he was called, Dr. Thomas Dunn English, who, ... being bon camarade with Hirst and Poe, quarrelled with both. All three happened in, early one evening; they had to be kept apart lest they come to deadly strife. English [page 799:] was put in the parlor; Hirst in the library, where he was in the habit of lying ... on a lounge by the hour, dreaming dreams and seeing visions; and Poe was shown as usual into the dining-room.” So closed the Poe-Hirst-English story of Miss Clarke.(54)

Of Hirst and other interests Poe wrote F. W. Thomas, Feb. 25, 1843, that advance or reprint copy was sent of “’Saturday Museum’ containing a Biography and caricature both of myself. I am ugly enough, God knows, but not quite so bad as that. The biographer is H. B. Hirst of this city. I put into his hands your package, as returned, and he has taken the liberty of stating his indebtedness for memoranda to yourself — a slight extention [[extension]] of the truth for which I pray you to excuse him.” Mr. Whitty notes: “Saturday Museum called in the proof, said to be corrected by Poe and later used by him in the ‘Lowell sketch.“’ In connection with the Saturday Museum sent to Thomas, Mr. Whitty adds that the only known copy of this Biography, made of pasted clippings and supposedly owned by Poe, dated March 4, 1843; this makes Poe's sending it a week earlier, to Thomas, a puzzle; that the Museum announced a second edition “of this ‘Poe Life Sketch,’ thus: ‘The Spirit of the Times’ of Friday says: ‘The Saturday Museum of this week contains a very fair likeness of our friend Edgar A. Poe, Esq., with a full account of his ... eventful life. We look upon Mr. Poe as one of the most powerful, chaste and erudite writers of the day, and it gives its pleasure to see him placed, through the public press, in his proper position before the world.“’ The Museum added: “We are glad to [page 800:] hear so good a paper as The Times speak thus highly of Mr. Poe, not only from the justice it renders that powerful writer, but because we have been so fortunate as to secure his services as associate editor of the Saturday Museum ... we intend it shall be placed beyond the reach of competition. So great was the interest excited by the biography and poems of Mr. Poe ... in the Museum of last week, ... we shall be at the expense of an extra edition, ... on fine white paper. It will be ready for delivery at the office [101 Chestnut Street] Saturday morning.” Besides this Biography of Poe, the Museum of March 4, 1843, gave his poem “The Sleeper,” which was also in Dr. Griswold's “Poets and Poetry of America,” 1842 issue. Edwin Markham writes that this poem is “drenched with mystery, the ethereal beauty of a summer night. Forever the beautiful dead lies there, tranced in silentness and perfect peace.”

Returning to Feb. 25, 1843, letter to Thomas from Poe, it continued: “On the outside of the paper you will see a Prospectus of ‘The Stylus’ — my old ‘Penn’ revived ... under better auspices ... I have managed at last, to secure, I think, . , . a partner possessing ample capital, and, ... so little self-esteem, as to allow me entire control of the editorial conduct. He gives me, also, a half interest, and is to furnish funds for all business operations — I agreeing to supply, for the first year, the literary matter ... tinder my own name and pseudonyms, ,and hope for the ... aid of my friends, ... The articles of copartnership have been signed & sealed for some weeks, and I should have written you ... of my good luck. [page 801:] but ... I was in hope of sending you ... a specimen-sheet. ... We shall make the most magnificent Magazine ... ever seen. The finest paper, bold type, in single column, and superb wood-engravings ... I wish an article from yourself for my opening number — in the second, one from Mr. Rob. Tyler — in the 3rd one from Judge Upshur ... I care not how brief, or on what subject, with his name. It would be worth; to me at least, $500, and give me caste at once . . , In a few weeks ... I hope to take you by the hand. ... About a week since I enclosed an introductory letter to yourself in one to a friend (Professor Wyatt) now in Washington ... He is much of a gentleman ... you will be pleased with him.” Poe added remembrances from Virginia and Mrs. Clemm; and his “P.S.” closed with: “Smith not rejected yet! Ah, if I could only get the Inspectorship, — now ... it would put me out of all difficulty.”

Poe's magazine editorial consequence seems affirmed by a letter of his friend, John Tomlin, Esq., Jackson, Tenn. In this letter of March 1, 1843, was: Since the January 19th “death of Mr. White, of the ‘Literary Messenger,’ I ... thought ... what a great Journal it would become under your conduct and super vision. With you at the head of the ‘Messenger’ and Simms of the ‘Magnolia’ ... we of the South would have a pride in ... our Periodical Literature. ... I would like to see you untrammeled at the head of some popular journal of the South.”

Mr. Whitty notes, Poe sent Thomas a later date Museum in which appeared under “‘Quick Perception‘: ‘We have published, in the ... sketch of Mr. [page 802:] Poe, ... evidences of the wonderful power ... his mind possesses in deciphering the most complicated and difficult questions. ... The Spirit of the Times copied the following puzzle. ... The Baltimore Sun gives the ... oddity and asks for its solution. The moment it met our eye, happening to be with Mr. Poe, We pointed out the article, when he immediately gave us the solution.’ ” This “Quick Perception” seems to follow Poe's critique of “Flaccus.” To Dr. Griswold, February 24, 1845, Poe wrote: “I believe that in ‘funny’ criticism ... Flaccus will convey a tolerable idea of my style.” In March, 1844, Graham's, “Flaccus” (Dr. Thomas Ward) not “Quintus Horatius, nor even his ghost,” Poe consigned to “OUR AMATEUR POETS, No. I”; quoted him to be (from Dr. Griswold) “a gentleman of elegant leisure,” which, Poe stated, was “so much at war with the divine afflatus,” for “Never sing the Nine so well as when penniless, ... ” Concerning “Passaic, a Group of Poems touching that river: with Other Musings, by Flaccus,” Poe noted their writer, “as a poet,” not “altogether destitute of merit ... but, ... we may be permitted to entertain a doubt whether he is Jupiter Tonans, or Phoebes Apollo.”

For The Stylus venture of Thomas Cottrell Clarke and himself, Poe, in early 1843, went to Washington City. No doubt he also had in mind some idea for obtaining his long desired government position.

Mr. Lewis M. Thompson, of New York City, sends a brief Washington, D. C., letter, of several interests, that locates Poe there, writing at “Fuller's Hotel, Thursday Morning March 9, ‘43,” to John Kirk [page 803:] Townsend (1809-1850). Townsend was a member of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, an associate of Audubon and a pioneer explorer, as his 1833 and ‘34 “Journey Across the Rocky Mountains,” etc. (the “Narrative” of 1839, Philadelphia print issue) affirms. It also strongly points to the author — more definitely than other suggested sources — as providing material as to facts, by some mutual agreement, for Poe's anonymous tale, “The Journal of Julius Rodman,” in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine from January to June, 1840. Doubtless Poe's fancy plentifully embellished Townsend's given facts. Poe's letter reads:

DR. SIR, — I have the honor to inclose two letters and the bearer will deliver a case containing an air gun. In a day or two I will do myself the pleasure of calling,

With High Respect yr. ob. st

EDGAR A. POE.

Thence Poe, in a March 11, 1843, letter to Mr. Clarke, wrote : “I write to inform you, ... so far I have clone nothing. My friend Thomas ... is sick. ... In the meantime ... I ... do the best I can. ... My expenses were more than I thought they would be, although I have economized in every respect. ... I have, ... subscriptions of all departments, President, &c. I believe that I am making a sensation which will tend to the benefit of the magazine. Day after tomorrow I am to lecture. Rob. Tyler is to give me an article, also Upshur. Send me $10 ... as soon as you get this. I am grieved to ask you for money, ... but you will find your account in it twice over.” It was later hinted that Thomas also suffered, at times, with [page 804:] the “drop too much,” which hint seemed of this time; but Feb. 8, 1843, dated his letter introducing Poe to Robt. Tyler, Esq., Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C. It read:

This will be handed to you by my friend Poe of Philadelphia, who is anxious to know the author of “Ahasuerus.” I would have presented Poe in person ... but I have been confined to my bed for the last week. ... When you are down town do call. ... I feel as lonely as a cat in a strange garret.

Yours most truly,

F. W. THOMAS.

Several records note Poe was a week or ten days in Washington “at the Widow Barrett's.” Her house, of two and one half stories, adjoined the Halls of the Ancients on the south side of New York Avenue, near H and 13th Streets. The house was on a terrace with steps to a landing, whence a long flight led to the side entrance lost to street sight in a thicket of green shrubberries [[shrubberies]]. Gloomy windows opened even with the terrace of the first floor and on a narrow side balcony of the second. Brady, the well-known Civil War photographer, met Poe there at that time.

But Washington conviviality, shorn of Thomas’ Capitol — pilotage, proved overmuch for Poe's nerves; and March 12, Editor J. E. Dow, of the Daily Madisonian, wrote Mr. Clarke: “I deem it to be my ... duty to write you ... in relation to our ... friend E. A. P. He arrived here a few days since. On the first evening he seemed somewhat excited, having been over persuaded to take some Port wine. On the second day he kept pretty steady, but since then he has [page 805:] been ... unreliable. He exposes himself here to those who may injure him ... with the President, and thus prevents us from doing for him what ... we can do if he is ... again in Philadelphia ...

Mr. Thomas is not well and cannot go home with Mr. P. My business and the health of my family will prevent me from doing so. ... I think it advisable for you to come on and see him ... back to his home. Mrs. Poe is in a bad state of health, and I charge you, [page 806:] as you have a soul to be saved, to say not one word to her about him until he arrives ... I shall expect you, or an answer ... by return of mail. Should you not come, we will see him on board the cars bound to Phila. ... Mr. Poe has the highest order of intellect, and I cannot bear that he should be the sport of senseless creatures who ... swallow everything. ... I cannot think it will be necessary to let him know that I have written you this letter. ... ” Mr. Clarke must have notified Mrs. Clennn that Poe was being sent home by friends, for she met him at the station. The next day, March 16, 1843, Poe wrote his two friends, Thomas and Dow: “I arrived ... in perfect safety, and sober, about half past four last evening. ... I shaved and breakfasted in Baltimore and lunched on The Susquehanna, and by the time I got to Phila felt quite decent. Mrs. Clemm was ... at the car-office. I Went ... home, took a warm bath & supper & then went to Clarke's. I never saw a man in my life more surprised to see another. He thought by Dow's epistle ... I must not only be dead but buried, ... He received me ... very cordially & made light of the matter. I told him what had been agreed upon — that I was a little sick & that Dow, knowing I had been, in times past, given to spreeing, ... had become unduly alarmed &c ... when I found he had written I thought it best to come home. He said my trip had improved me & that he had never seen me looking so well!!! — and I don’t believe I ever did. This morning I took medicine, and as it is ... snowy ... will ... stay at home — ... tomorrow I shall be really as well as ever. Virginia's health is [page 807:] about the same ... her distress of mind has been even more than I had anticipated. She desires her kindest remembrances to both of you — as also does Mrs. C. [Clemin.] Clarke ... wrote to Dow. ... Please reinclose the letter to me, ... so that I may know how to guide myself, — and Thomas, do write ... as proposed. If possible, enclose a line from Rob. Tyler — but I fear. ... it is not so. I blame no one but my self. [The prior sentence indicates that Poe's indulgence was with Robert Tyler] The letter ... looked for ... is not on its Nway — reason, no money ... Lowell had not yet sent it — he is ill in N. York ... upon receipt of it, or before, I will forward the money you were both so kind as to lend — which is 8 to Dow — and 3 1/2 to Thomas — What a confounded business ... to write a letter to two people at once! However ... for Dow ... Thank you a thousand times for your kindness & great forbearance, and don’t say a word about the cloak turned inside out, ... Also express to your wife my deep regret for the vexation I must have occasioned her. Send me also, ... the letter to Blythe. Call ... at the barber's shop just above Fuller's and pay ... a levy ... I believe I owe. And now God bless you — for a nobler fellow never lived. And this is for Thomas. My clear friend: Forgive me my petulance ... Believe me I am very grateful to you for your many attentions & forbearances, and the time will never come when I shall forget either them or you ... Please express my regret to Mr. Fuller for making such a fool of myself in his house, ... take an opportunity of saying to Mr Rob. Tyler that if he can look [page 808:] over matters & get me the Inspectorship, I will join the Washingtonians forthwith. ... I think it would be a feather in Mr. Tyler's cap to save from the perils of mint julip — & ‘Port wines’ — a young man of whom all the world thinks so well & who thinks so remarkably well of himself. And now, my dear friends, goodbye. ... Upon getting here I found numerous letters of subscribers to my magazine — for which no canvas has yet been made. This was unexpected & cheering”

Concerning the foregoing missive, Thomas truly noted: “This letter explains itself. While his friends were trying to get Poe a place, he came on to Washington in the way he mentions. He was soon quite sick and ... Dow wrote to one of his friends ... about him! ... Poor fellow, a place had been promised ... for him, and in that state of suspense ... so trying to all ... he presented himself. ... not in a way to advance his interests. I have seen a great deal of Poe, ... it was his excessive and, at times, marked sociability which forced him into his ‘ frolics,’ rather than any ... appetite for drink, [this “sociability” was a “marked” characteristic of normal Poe with which be was rarely credited] ... if he took but one glass of weak wine, or beer or cider, ... it almost always ended in excess and sickness. But he fought ... the propensity ... if he could have gotten office with a fixed salary, beyond the need of literary labor, ... he would have redeemed himself. ... The accounts of his derelictions ... when I knew him were very much exaggerated ... men who drank bottles of wine to Poe's wine glasses ... escaped all imputation of intemperance. His was one of those temperaments whose only safety [page 809:] is in total abstinence. He suffered terribly after any indiscretion. And, moreover, there is a good deal of heartache in the jestings of this letter.” With Professor Harrison one must agree that “at infrequent intervals,” under nervous pressure, or by strong social temptation, Poe was overcome by stimulants; and once, by hearsay only, also once by his own delirious statement, in failing relief from stimulants, he turned to drugs. But, that he was neither a drunkard nor an opium eater by habit, is in irrefutable evidence from intimate friends and some foes who knew Poe the man; also by endless items of exquisitely written MSS. done at all hours of the day and night, in good health and bad, hurried or at his leisure. Poe's illness, from any cause, was betrayed by his pen. No sot, of dram or opium, could have written the fine, clear, steady hand in ninety-eight per cent of MSS. Poe left to posterity. “English Notes, by Quarles Quickens,” and the draft of Poe-letter to Mrs. Jane E. Locke, also a few other similar items, are exponents of the other two per cent, in congestion or other adverse — made Poescripts. Thomas noted: “what Byron said of Sheridan was truer of Poe:

’. ... . ... Ah, little do they know

That what to them seemed vice might be but woe.’ ”

From Thomas’ “Life Sketch of Poe,” owned by Mr. Whitty, comes: “I was confined to my room ... when Poe came to Washington early in 1843. He was sober when I saw him, but afterwards in the company of old friends he drank to excess. My physician attended him for several days and he suffered much from his indiscretion.” [page 810:] Again and again incidents prove Poe's working energies and welfare exacted isolation on scores of good-fellowship of any kind then, and especially that which meant so much for promoting press, periodical and literary success of those days.

From the “Reminiscences” of John Sartain comes of Poe's planned partner for The Stylus venture, that Mr. Clarke was always engaged on some daily press [page 811:] or other, and in “those days” editing meant something different from now. Then it was “real, solid, all-day work, sometimes half the night for one man, the editor.” Miss Clarke's record of her father was: “Writing into the wee hours, he worked in the basement dining-room of his house, at Twelfth and Walnut Streets; ... because more accessible ‘to the boys,’ as he called them for it could be entered ... in front. Coming late from their wild evenings down town, they would find this busy worker who, though he never drank liquor nor used tobacco in any way, ... gladly welcomed them here, where they disturbed his household little with their noise and smoke. Tapping on the windowpane, they would be let in laden like bees, with news to be rehashed and delivered to the printers. ... And often Poe would drop in on his way home, — he then lived near Locust on Sixteenth, at that time named Schuylkill, Seventh Street, — and Mrs. Clarke would send him coffee to clear his head before going home to pretty Virginia and patient Mrs. Clemm.” Of how Poe was driven by his nerve demons, Miss Anne E, C. Clarke quoted from her father, that “it took less liquor to make a maniac of Poe than of anyone he had ever known; and that Mrs. Clemm in search of Eddie at all hours of the night was as sad as death.”

As to the aftermath of Poe's Washington, D. C., trip, he heard, March 27, 1843, from Thomas, that “Dow's epistle, I suppose, astonished your folks ... Our friend Dow, you know, is an imaginative man, and he thought that you, as we say in the West, had ‘broken for high timber’ — I have had a hearty laugh at him ... I am glad to learn that you are well. [page 812:]

I rejoice to know that your wife is better. I cannot ... at present ... see Robert Tyler. ... But this I can tell you that the President, yesterday, asked me many questions about you, and spoke of you kindly. John Tyler, who was by, told the President that he wished he would give you an office in Philadelphia, and before he could reply a servant entered and called him out. John has heard of your frolic ... but I made light of the matter ... and he seemed to think nothing of it himself. , . . Robert was not by. I feel satisfied that I can get you something from his pen for your Magazine. ... Be of good cheer. I trust to see you an official yet.”

Concerning The Stylus, March 24, 1843, Poe wrote his Richmond friend, Peter D. Barnard, son-in-law of the late Mr. White, and interested in the Southern Literary Messenger: “I mail to your address, ... the Philadelphia ‘Saturday Museum,’ containing a Prospectus of ‘The Stylus’ which I design to commence on the first of July next, in connection with Thomas C. Clarke of this city. My object ... is to ascertain if the list of ‘The South: Lit: Messenger’ is to be disposed of, and, if so, upon what terms. We are anxious to purchase, ... provided a suitable arrangement could be made. ... Mrs. Clemm & Virginia desire to be remembered to all our old acquaintances.”

Poe, with something of seeming promise, then fared better for The Stylus than did Lowell with The Pioneer, which failed this March, 1843. At Boston, the 24th,(55) Lowell wrote, that when he stated the facts, they would excuse his want of punctuality. The magazine [page 813:] began on his resposibility [[responsibility]]. He depended on the publisher's payment to keep even with his creditors. Lowell stated his distress when their first note given to him was protested, for non-payment, and The Pioneer thereby ruined, as $1800 or more of debts prevented its further pursuit, but he hoped to settle all claims. Lowell mentioned the inability to use his eyes “at this juncture,” added much to his distress, and he would remit to Poe before long. He begged forgiveness for what was in truth more of misfortune than fault and desired himself regarded as a friend in all ways. In Lowell's postscript was: “I hear you have become an Editor. I hope so; if it were only to keep our criticism in a little better trim.” In Poe's March 27, 1843, reply to Lowell, appeared:

I have just received yours of the 24th, and am deeply grieved ... that you ... have been so unfortunate, and, ... thought it necessary to offer me any apology. ... As for the few dollars you owe me give yourself not one moment's concern about them. I am poor, but must be very much poorer, indeed, when I even think of demanding them. But I ... hope all is not so bad as you suppose it, and ... you will ... continue “The Pioneer.” Its decease, just now, would be a ... severe blow to ... Pure Taste. I have looked upon your Magazine. ... as the best in America, and have lost no opportunity of expressing the opinion. Herewith I send a paper, “The Phil. Sat. Museum,” in which I have said a few words on the topic. [Thomas Ollive Mabbott calls attention to these “few words” — on the inside of aft cover of February, 1843, Pioneer — credited to the Philadelphia Saturday Museum. Some were, — ” In these days of self-bepuffed and glorified magazines, it is positively refreshing to look upon a publication that comes to us modestly, promising nothing, but wearing on its face the stamp of intrinsic [page 814:] merit. We hail the Pioneer as the first in the great work of reform. But how could it be otherwise, edited as it is by a man whose genius and originality is (sic) at once the praise and wonder of his countrymen: We mean JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. ... The contributors are J. Russell Lowell (‘a man of men!‘), Edgar Allan Poe, John Neal, ... with others whose names are known ... by all true lovers of sound literature. ... We bid Mr, Lowell, ‘God speed in the good cause,’ and cordially recommend the Pioneer to every sensible reader.”] I am not editing this paper, [Saturday Museum] although an announcement was prematurely made to that effect; but have the privilege of inserting what I please editorially. ... July next I hope to issue ... “The Stylus,” a new monthly, with some novel features. I send you ... the Prospectus. ... I am anxious to get a poem from yourself for the opening number, ... Believe me, my dear friend, that I sympathize with you truly in your affliction. ... When ... in condition to write, I would be indebted to you if you could put me in the way of procuring a brief article (also for my opening number) from Mr. Hawthorne ... we intend to give a series of portraits of the American literati, with critical sketches. I would be glad if I could ... have you first, ... Could you put me in possession of any likeness of yourself? — or would you do me the same favor in regard to Mr, Hawthorne? ... Could you furnish me with some biographical and critical data, ... of your writings generally? ... Please remember me to Mr. Carter, and believe me

Most sincerely your friend,

EDGAR A. Pot’..

To this letter Lowell made three replies. The first, dated Boston, April 17, 1843, noted that a Hawthorne letter promised an article in a week or two; stated his price as $5 a page, and Lowell suggested payment by the article as most satisfactory. Hawthorne's wife [page 815:] would make a drawing of his head or he would have “a Daguerreotpye [[Daguerreotype]]” taken, for Poe's magazine. Lowell added: “As to my own effigies, Page has painted a head of me ... called very fine ... the portrait ... having very long hair, not to mention a beard and some symptoms of moustache. ... This might be Daguerreotyped — or ... one taken from my head as it is now — namely in a more civilized condition.” Lowell noted personal details: in living with his father at the Cambridge home, where the writer was born; and that he would soon send a poem with biographical data. He concluded with: “Take my best love in exchange for your ready sympathy & use me always ... as your affectionate friend, J. R. L ... ,

I do hope & trust that your magazine will succeed. Be very watchful of your publishers & agents. They must be driven as men drive swine, — take your eyes off them for an instant & they bolt between your legs & leave you in the mire. J. R. L.”

To Poe's request, through Thomas, for a “line” of influence for a Custom House place, from Robt. Tyler, there came from him this answer dated, “White House, March 31, 1843”; and in it was: “It gives me pleasure to say ... that it would gratify me very sensibly to see you appointed by Judge Blythe. I am satisfied that no one is more competent, or would be more satisfactory in the discharge of any duty connected with the office.” Returing [[Returning]] to the following date of Lowell's letters, the second, May 8, 1843, told of his out-of-doors, country activities to restore his disabled eyes. He wrote: “You must forgive my dilatoriness, my clear friend, the natural strength of which is in — [page 816:] by the pressure of my debts — ” One wonders what Lowell would have done under Poe's continuous double burden of debts and invalidism! As to Lowell's “Life-Sketch” material, he wrote, “Carter thinks that he can give it better than I,” but Lowell noted his birth, dated “Feby 22, 1819” ; that he entered Harvard, 1834; took the regular course, with B.A. degree, in 1838, and — Master's degree in 1841; was elected editor of Harvardiana, issued by the undergraduates, and was also class poet. In the Law School, under Judge Story, Lowell took Bachelor of Laws degree, he wrote, by force of “my name on the books as a student”; and he issued a volume of “rather crude productions,” January, 1841. He thanked Poe for his “eventful” sketch sent recently, written by H. B. Hirst, and stated that Poe's “early poems display a maturity which astonished me & I recollect no ... early poems ... anything like as good. Shelley is nearest, perhaps.” Lowell concluded with greater hopes for The Stylus than he had for The Pioneer, “for,” he wrote, “you understand editing vastly better than I shall for many years yet — & you have more of that ... Siamese, twin brother of genius — industry than I.” May 16, 1843, Lowell mailed a “little poem” the “most likely to please” of his MSS., being “trusted to fortune like the Sybil's leaves, &, perhaps, like hers, rising in value to my mind as they decrease in number.” Lowell especially asked for Poe's address for future use, and closed, “With all truth & love ... your friend, J. R. L.”

June 19, 1843, Lowell's Pioneer partner, Robert Carter, wrote Poe that a copy of the Boston Notion, [page 817:] April 29, 1843, had been sent to him (Carter) in which was Hirst's life sketch of Poe, condensed from the Philadelphia Saturday Museum. Carter wrote that Lowell was “in excellent health” and “his eyes have nearly recovered”; he mentioned that Lowell wrote “Prometheus ” — four hundred lines of blank verse in seven or eight hours. Carter told Poe of reading his “Arthur Gordon Pym,” and of lending it to the “intelligent, shrewd” lawyer — brother of Dr. O. Wendell Holmes, who was so deceived by the accuracy of its details he cannot believe it a fictitious work; but, having crossed the sea, criticises setting a jib upon a “dismasted sloop.”

The May days of 1843 were far from merry ones for Edgar Poe and family. Virginia was again under another hemorrhage stress of frail health, and Poe himself was being pursued by the horrible depression of his nervous malady. Therefore these reasons and others induced him — prior to May, 1843, canvas for the Philadelphia Directory — to leave his 2502 Coates Street, North Fairmount, home and to settle his family roofage at what was then numbered “234 N. 741 Street, above Spring Garden, West Side.” There, Poe gave this address to Lowell, June 20, 1843. In this date letter Poe wrote: “I owe you fifty apologies for not having written before, — but sickness and domestic affliction will suffice for all.”(56) Poe voted Lowell's poem, sent for The Stylus, “as truly beautiful,” and added with pathetic anguish: “but, alas! my Magazine scheme has exploded — or, at least, M have been deprived, through the imbecility or ... idiocy of my partner, of all means of prosecuting it for the [page 818:] present, under better auspices I may resume it next year.” Poe asked if he should turn Lowell's poem over to Dr. Griswold for Graham's issue, and concluded: “My address is 234 North Seventh Street, above Spring Garden, West Side. Should you ever pay a visit to Philadelphia ... remember, there is no one in America who I would rattler hold by the hand than yourself.”

Another record of The Stylus wreckage — at that time — was that Mr. Sartain was told by Thomas Cottrell Clarke, Poe's partner in the venture, “the project was ruined” by Poe's “intensity ... in reviewing the writings of others.” And as a rule he abstained from speaking well of his own Work; notwithstanding he told Thomas Buchanan Read, “‘Anyway, I have written one thing that will live — The Raven.’ ” And yet, the fact is, Poe's caustic, critical methods were as well known to Mr. Clarke when he started in The Stylus venture with Poe as at its finish failure, by reason of Mr. Clarke's withdrawal from it.

June 15, 1843, Poe's relative and Baltimore associate at the Seven Stars and otherwise — William Poe(57) — wrote Edgar that he had not replied to the prior letter of writer of May 15th. In answer to Edgar's mention of his “many recent adverses” William feared that his letter was not relished, but it was written “in great sincerity of feeling for you & yours ... the reason why I presumed to be so free in my expressions was, ... the great friendship, I feel for you & interest I take in yr welfare, & ... hoped to hear ... of yr wife's ... & yr recovery from the sickness & despondency you were suffering ... I still write from [page 819:] the same motives — I observed in the Baltimore Sun ... that you have again, lately been successful in ... [an] awarded ... prize of $100, by the Dollar Newspaper for ... ‘The Gold Bug,’ which gave me much pleasure, & hope it came in time to relieve you from some of yr pecuniary wants — Ought you ever to give up in despair when you have ... yr well stored mind to apply to? let me entreat you to persevere, for I hope the time is not far distant, when a change will take place in yr affairs & place you beyond want in this — ,world.” Poe's mentality and industry were equally “beyond” challenge — but the “change” of his uttermost need was health for himself and his wife; and to the failing of both with consequences, he doubtlessly owed his shattered dream of The Stylus. However, William Poe continued:

Will you write to me freely & let me know what are your prospects in ... the “Stylus” & how yr wife is & Mrs. Clemm how is she, ... There is one thing I am anxious to caution you against, & which has been a great enemy to our family. I hope, however, in yr case, it may prove unnecessary, “A too free use of the Bottle.” Too many & especially Literary Characters, have sought to drown their sorrows & disappointments by this means, but in vain, and only, when it has been too late, discovered it to be a deeper source of misery — But enough of this say you, ... therefore hoping this may find you in better spirits & better prospects of future happiness, I subscribe myself Yrs affectionately

WILLIAM POE.

Various records show the personal interest Poe's relatives took in his welfare; also, at times, with substantial expression. [page 820:]

While Dr. Oberholtzer notes: “Poe's name made its second appearance in Phila. Directory by 1844 entry as ‘Poe, E. A., editor, 7th St., ab. S. Garden,“’ he must have lived there prior to the collapse of The Stylus; for Hiss Anne E. C. Clarke, daughter of Poe's partner in this venture, noted a sweet incident of his Spring Garden home life, which she told to Mr. Sartain. And of herself it must have been when she said: “My first recollection of the Poes is of one of us little children singing ... to pretty Mrs. Poe.” Another added (of Miss Clark?), that the Wee one sang several songs but hinted she knew one she would not sing, but was finally lured into it by the same pretty Mrs. Poe. When her husband came home one night and found the little tot in his bed, storm-stayed, after a day spent with Mrs. Poe and her flowers, she made the child’ repeat to him in her baby speech the only verse she knew, which was:

“‘Mr. Poe was a man of great riches and fame,

And 1 loved him, I‘m sure, though I loved not his name.

He asked me to wed — In a rage I said, No.

I‘ll never marry you and be called Mrs. Poe.’

“(Spoken) I think I hear the little children in the village singing

“‘That's Mistress Poe, Goody Poe, Gaffy Poe.

Oh, I‘ll never marry you and be called Mrs. Poe.’ ”

Mr. Joseph Jackson has a copy of this entire old song. But it was said that Mistress Poe received the song with “peal upon peal of laughing,” and Mr. Poe's delight was infinite; he gave the little singer a pretty [page 821:] box, which his wife tilled with trinkets, and the small songster always kept it as one of her chief treasures. Poe's North 7t11 Street, Spring Garden, home, a two and one half story brick structure, was built against a high, side-brick wall on the rear portion of its lot. The absence of the present front building, in Poe's day, left his home some ways from the corner of North 7th Street and Brandywine, a little lane north of Spring Garden, and inside a pale fence closed by two gates. A long narrow walk through his garden led to their door; and around the corner to a side entrance and small rear yard with its pear-tree shade under which Poe-legends seem sure he wrote part, or all, of “The Gold Bug.” Concerning this home of Poe, Thomas Cottrell Clarke wrote: “Their little garden in summer, and the house in winter, were overflowing with luxuriant grape and other vines and ornamented with choice flowers of the poet's selection. Poe was a pattern of social and domestic worth ... , Here, too, we were wont to participate in the hospitality which rendered Poe's home the home of his friends. We call to mind some ... intercourse that existed between . our families ... in the hours of sickness which rendered so much of Virginia's life a ... painful anxiety to all who had the pleasure of knowing her, but she was an exquisite picture of patient loveliness. ... How devotedly her husband loved the gentle being whose life was bound up in his own. ... She was a child, ... and, indeed, Poe himself was but little else in the every-day perplexities and responsibilities of life.” This characteristic with the Washington City adventure may have caused Mr. Clarke's [page 822:] quiet withdrawal from The Stylus; but whatever of Poe's disappointment as to this venture it comes from T. C. Clarke himself: “With Poe I had no quarrel.” Another record is; “Mr. Clarke continued in intimate and friendly relations with the poet.” It is said during their connection Poe wrote an important prose work and Clarke, having advanced money for The Stylus to Poe, he left this MS. as security for later payment he was never able to make; and Mr. Clarke [page 823:] intended to append this Poe script to his “Memoir” begun, but never finished. When Poe and Virginia went to New York, April 6, 1844, many of their flowers mentioned by Mr. Clarke were given to his family.

Of Poe's North 7th Street, Spring Garden, home Dr. Oberholtzer writes; “Spring Garden was but some six squares along a Well-traveled highway leading into the centre of the city, a locality of market commerce, but where a number of well-to-do Quaker families had their homes, and was then rural, with some advantages over Poe's prior home. Being within walking range of editorial Philadelphia was one advantage favored by him. At diagonal corners of cross streets, rough poles twenty feet high were set in the ground; chains from one to the other were suspended, from the centre of which swung a whale oil lamp to be raised, or lowered for filling and cleaning; but to be lighted on dark nights only, ill the absence of moonlight. The Watch, then stalking the streets with their staves and rattles, crying the hours, — ‘Twelve o’clock and all's well!’ ‘Two o’clock and a starlight morning!’ — were sounds that greeted Poe's ears during the hours he lay awake in his bed,” tortured betimes with the agony of Virginia's consumptive cough and other acute anxieties that lurked within the walls of this Spring Garden home. Much changed, it now is the back building of a larger house that today numbers 530 North 7th Street, and both are occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Will. P. Owen. By kindness of Mrs. Owen were secured photographs, by Mr. Charles A. Bradford, of both exterior and interior views of this home [page 824:] of Poe. Interior print shows the second story, low-studded room in which Poe is said to have finished “The Gold Bug” and worked on “The Raven.” Because Poe himself noted this poem was ten years in writing and lying at that time within his desk-reach for now and then various touches of reconstruction, polish and finish, it would be difficult to cradle this entire poetic inspiration to any one time or place.

Captain Mayne Reid gave Poe's Spring Garden home romantic touches of later mention, but called it a “lean to” backed up against the dwelling of an opulent cereal merchant.” Dr. Oberholtzer's MS. notes Poe's landlord as William Alburger, a Quaker [page 825:] plumber, whose daughter, Mrs. Mary Walker, was called on by Dr. Oberholtzer one afternoon. Of his call he wrote: “I had scarcely seated myself when she brought in two chairs her father had received from Poe when he and Virginia left for New York, April, 1844. They were in hopeless arrears for rent and these chairs, with other things, were far from balancing accounts. The sofa and carpet had long since disappeared, but the three straight, hard-bottomed wooden chairs — then had little roses painted on their backs — are valued by Mrs. Mary Walker and her sister Margaret Alburger, daughters of Poe's Spring Garden home Landlord. Full of the spirit of youth Mrs. Walker said: ‘I would not take a thousand dollars for each of [page 826:] them!’ ‘But, what about Poe? “’ her visitor suggested. “She said that an Englishman told her, they thought well of him over there, but ‘Pap’ [her father] always thought he drank too much,” Her “‘Pap’ had a house for every month in the year, and he rented this one to Poe, truth is, he just gave it to him. He wasn’t hard on him; but when Poe went away he just sent these things around to our house.” This record shows how Poe tried, at least, to pay his rent. The writer was told by Mrs. Walker and her sister that they had often seen Poe walking past their home, into the city, but he looked so serious, so stern, they were afraid [page 827:] of him. When it was suggested he might have passed a sleepless night, watching his invalid wife, or have been hungry, both sisters cried, “My, if we had only known that!” However, to Dr. Oberholtzer, Mrs. Walker named Miss Lydia Hart Garrigues as another person who had living memories of Poe: that her grandfather, John Hart, lived next door but one to the poet. Of Poe, Dr. Oberholtzer was told by Miss Garrigues

“Dozens of times have I seen him pass my father's windows going down Seventh St., into the city. He wore a Spanish cloak; they, at that time, were much used instead of overcoats. 1 was always impressed with the grave and thoughtful aspect of his face. He looked to be much older than I now know him to have been. Tho’ little over thirtv he had the appearance of middle age. To his neighbors his name meant very little. It was not until after ‘The Raven’ was published, and that was subsequent to his removal to New York, that we knew him as a literary figure. Then, we felt sorry we had not taken more notice of him. He, his wife and Mrs. Clemm, kept to themselves. They had the reputation of being very reserved, — we thought because of their poverty and his great want of success. We knew he did not pay his rent to Mr. Alburger, who, however, was not disposed to cause him distress. Often have I sat on the large, roomy mahogany, hair-cloth sofa which Mr. Alburger took in lieu of other payment when Poe left the city. The sofa was for many years in the parlor of his landlord's Marshall St. home.” Dr. Oberholtzer continues: “Across the street from Poe's Spring Garden home, to the West, was the large lumber-yard of Peter [page 828:] A. Gorgas. On the East side of 7th St., in a block, was an old farmhouse, with a post and rail fence around it, occupied by a teamster, whose carts and furniture wagons stood on the place, — that was what Poe looked upon as he came out of his flower-garden to walk down 7th St. into the city.”

Of the poet and this Spring Garden, Philadelphia, house,(58) Captain Mayne Reid — born in Ireland, 1818 — wrote: “I knew ... Edgar Allan Poe ... as well as one man may know another after an intimate and almost daily association extending over ... two years.” Then Poe “Was living in suburban Philadelphia,” called Spring Garden — a quiet quarter of the Quakers. “Poe was no Quaker”; but he was next door to one who dwelt in a splendid four-story house — the poet lived in a lean — to, supported against the gable of the more pretentious dwelling where lived his landlord. In Poe's “humble domicile I have spent some of the pleasantest hours of my life, — certainly some of the most intellectual ... passed in the company [page 829:] of the poet and his wife — a lady angelically beautiful in person and not less beautiful in spirit. No one who remembers ... her grace, her facial beauty, her demeanor, so modest as to be remarkable — no one who has spent an hour in her company but will endorse what I have ... said. I remember how we, the friends of the poet, used to talk of her high qualities.” Of Virginia another record was: “Thanks to the untiring teaching of her husband,(59) Virginia had learned several languages and under others she had become an accomplished musician.” Captain Reid continued: I “well knew ... the rose-tint upon her cheek was too bright, too pure to be of earth. It was consumption's color — that sadly beautiful light which beckons to an early tomb. In the lean — to, besides the poet and his wife there was ... a woman of middle age, ... the size and figure of a man, with a countenance that ... scarce seemed feminine, ... surprised ... I was, — when introduced to her as the mother of that angelic creature who accepted Poe as partner of her life.” Captain Reid noted, “the truly feminine nature” of Mrs. Clemm's mind, and herself as “a type of those grand American mothers ... as existed where blockhouses had to be defended, bullets run in red-hot saucepans and guns loaded for sons and husbands to fire them. She was the ever vigilant guardian of the home, watching it against the silent, continuous sap of necessity. She was sole servant, keeping everything clean; sole messenger, doing errands, making pilgrimages between the poet and his publishers, frequently bringing back, not the ‘delicacies of the season,’ but commodities called for by dire exigencies [page 830:] of hunger. Yet there were some delicacies. I shall never forget how, when peaches were in season and cheap, a pottle of these were divested of their skins by the delicate fingers of the poet's wife, and left to the melting mood to be amalgamated with Spring Garden cream and crystallized sugar, ... then set before such guests as came in by chance.” Of Poe himself Captain Reid noted: “I found in him the following phases of character, accomplishment and disposition: First: I discovered rare genius: not all of the poetic order, but more of a practical kind in power of analytic reasoning such as few men possess, ... Secondly: I encountered a scholar of rare accomplishments — especially skilled in lore of Northern Europe ... more than Southern and strictly classic, ... Thirdly: I felt myself in communication with a man of original character, disputing many received doctrines and dogmas of the day; ... altogether regardless of consequences to himself or umbrage he gave his adversaries. Fourthly: I saw ... a man to whom ugly rumour attributed ... personal graces supposed to attract the admiration of women. ... His was a face purely intellectual. Women might admire it, thinking of this; but it is doubtful if many ever fell in love with the man to whom it belonged. ... It was enough for one man to be beloved by one such woman as he had for his wife. Fifthly: I feel satisfied Edgar Allan Poe was not ... a rake. I know he was not; but in truth the very opposite. I have been his companion in one or two of his wildest frolics, and can certify, ... they never went beyond the innocent mirth in which we all indulge when [page 831:] Bacchus gets the better of us. ... While acknowledging this, one of Poe's failings, I can truly speak of it as not habitual; only occasional, ... drawn out by ... accidental circumstances — ... disappointment, a ... social crowd whose flattering friendship might lead to champagne, a single glass ... used to affect him so much ... he was hardly ... responsible for his actions, or disposal of his hat. ... I have known him to be for a whole month closeted in his own house ... all the time hard at work with his pen, poorly paid, and hard driven to keep the wolf from his slightly fastened door, entruded upon only by a few select friends, who always found him, what they knew him to be, a generous host, an affectionate son-in-law and husband; in short a respectable gentleman.”

Recalling Poe, Mr. William Sartain writes(60) that his father said the poet “was most temperate in drinking — a model of punctuality in reviewing and other magazine work for fifteen years of his literary career, and much of that time starving. But for intermittent indulgences — his addictions to stimulants must have been grossly exaggerated by Griswold, whom my father has said, he had personally seen on quite bad terms with Poe. My father's acquaintance was closer in later life and his statements were most positive, that these derogatory stories mast be taken with a grain of salt.”

Later on, Thomas Cottrell Clarke noted of “Poe and the wife he so tenderly loved. ... I have some singular revelations which throw a strong light on the causes that darkened the life and made most unhappy the death of one of the most remarkable of our literary [page 832:] men. During his engagement in my office I published a life of Mr. Poe with a portrait from a daguerreotype. Both ... are utterly unlike the ... caricatures manufactured since his death; ... the portrait prefixed to a recent volume of Poe's poems bears no resemblance to the fine intellectual head of Poe.” As to Mr. Clarke's Poe-portrait in March 4, 1843, Saturday Museum, an only known copy is owned by Mr. James H. Whitty; he notes of this portrait, “It has the names of the artist and engraver, and would seem to be taken from life.” It illustrates H. B. Hirst's “Sketch of Poe.”

Concerning the severe criticisms causing the rupture of The Stylus venture between Poe and Mr. Clarke his nephew,(61) G. H. Howard Paul noted of this master-critic Poe, that he was singularly conscientious. He really “read the works he was called on to review. ... He regarded criticism as a science rewiring ... study, ... the ... most analytical of all mental operations.” In a letter to John Howard Payne — who acted with Poe's mother in several cities during 1809, and obtained $1400 for six nights in Boston, when she was paid a pittance there — Poe gave classic mention as to the limit of critical duty in: “I assume, ... that in pointing out frankly the errors of a work, I do ... all that is critically necessary in displaying its merits. In teaching what perfection is, how — , in fact, shall we more rationally proceed than in specifying what it is not?” An English record of this American poet and “master-critic” is: “The criticism of Poe inaugurated a new era, a new cult of taste and beauty ... in theory or practice he was ahead not only of his time, but of all [page 833:] time. Beauty is his cult; poetry, ‘the rhythmical creation of beauty.’ The ‘demands of Truth are severe; she has no sympathy with the myrtles.’ As a practical critic Poe was a fighter. His sense of honour knew neither civility nor favoritism. ‘When we attend less to authority and more to principles, — look less at merit and more to demerit, we shall be better critics than we are,’ he wrote. Poe might be called the Dupin of Criticism. But — not always harsh — he used the scourge ... in defense of literature. When Poe encountered a master, he was eager in appreciation. His praise of Tennyson was as generous as it was wise. ‘ I regard him as the noblest poet that ever lived.’ And — remembering this was written in 1843, you recognize in Poe the gift of prophecy.” And Alfred Tennyson noted Poe, “the most original American genius, ... not unworthy to stand beside Catullns, the most melodious of the Latins, and Heine, the most tuneful of the Germans.” To this dicta, American scholarship adds of Poe:

“There is no better proof of his natural force and originality than his acceptance of the fact that all tracks are not for all runners who wear the winged sandals.”(62) For this reason no glowing efforts in fiction nor the drama are found among the poet's literary records.(63) Poe's 1842 critical flagellation of Rufus Dawes’ poems seems balanced by his 1839 sense of justice, favorably noting of “Nix's Mate,” by Dawes, as of “wild and wonderful achievement.” Poe firmly thought, “The laudation of the unworthy is to the worthy, the most bitter of all wrong.” Mr. Paul continued of Poe: “He was a voracious reader [page 834:] and possessed an exhaustive knowledge of French, Italian and Spanish literature. He would quote entire passages from Tasso, and Dante, Byron, and Shelley, ... he seemed to have the Koran at his fingers’ ends. ... I‘oe admired Bulwver,” yet noted him “rarely lucid and seldom profound, ... but his taste is exquisite ... ” and he had “the keenest appreciation of the beautiful and true.”

Of Mr. Clarke's monthly dinner parties appeared: It was a positive privilege to hear Poe talk ... when at a dinner party, warmed with wine, and in a genial glowing mood, he would pour out torrents of learning, and say hundreds of Rochefoucauld-like things apropos of literature and art. ... Some of his utterances reminded one of the worldy-wise sayings of Tacitus and Seneca.” One of Poe's intimates was Captain Mayne Reid, and when the two frequented Mr. Clarke's table “they would exchange opinions and argue in the most brilliant manner,” while other guests were eager listeners. Reid was a fluent raconteur, and “shone when relating his travel adventures.” Poe “was at his best when critical.” At that time, his special abhorrence was Samuel Warren's “Ten Thousand a Year,”(64) which Poe noted “was written in slipshod English,” and its tone was “tedious, mawkish and inflated.” Reid pleaded, “But it was heralded with a flourish of trumpets.” Poe's crushing reply was, “No doubt, but they were penny ones.” One night Poe said that Bulwer's “Zanoni” should have been “a poem. ... A novel in the true acceptance of the name is a picture of real life. The plot may be involved, but it must not transcend probability. [page 835:] All the agencies introduced must belong to real life. Such were ‘Gin Blas’ and ‘Tom Jones,’ two of the best novels ever written, ... with all his merits. ... Bulwer is often abominably bombastic, strains for .effect, goes in for fine writing.” Reid was no match for Poe in critical discussions, and Poe, right or wrong, generally silenced his opponent. “Poe then would say, ‘Now, Reid, give us one of your Mexican adventures, ... and keep as near the truth as you can.’ ” Poe thought Reid had an exuberantly inventive imagination as to his own exploits. Poe was heard to assure Mr. Clarke one evening that Reid was “a colossal but most picturesque liar. He fibs on a surprising scale, but with the finish of an artist, and that is the reason why I listen to him attentively.” Years later Alexander Dumas uttered almost the same words of Reid. Mr. Paul noted that Poe was a playgoer — admired the drama — one time sketched out the scenario of a tragedy to be written with Dr. Bird, author of “Nick of the Woods.” But it never got beyond outline and talk. Poe held Junius Brutus Booth, father of Edwin Booth, who was said to resemble Poe, in high estimation. One night they adjourned from the theatre to a club, sat late over their cups, and returning home they accidentally jostled against a belated Hebrew who, on berating them with a desire to fight, was seized by the two, and suspended by his nether garments on the convenient spikes of a near fence railing and there uncomfortably left while the actor and poet continued their ways. Probably by stage reasons of Poe's mother and Robert M. Sully's father being of the dramatic profession, Booth was a warm friend [page 836:] of their sons, and Sully's artistic brush placed on canvas portraits of both poet and actor. That of Junius Brutus Booth, at The Players, New York City, has been wrongly credited to Thomas Sully, Whenever Booth went to Richmond, he would send for Robert Sully to come and fence with him.(65) [page 837:]

Concerning Poe's personality Mr. Paul noted: “Poe was a slight, ... delicate looking man, with a well-developed head which, at a glance, seemed out of proportion to his ... body. His features were regular; his complexion pale; his nose was Grecian ... his eyes large and luminous; when he was excited, they were peculiarly vivid and penetrating. He dressed with neatness, and there was an expression of hauteur in his manner toward strangers.”

In the poet's assaults on Editor R. W. Griswold, Poe realized naught but his allegiance to literary perfection, and unfortunately gave not a thought to Dr. Griswold the man — as welded within his works. This impossible consideration, as well as Virginia's and Poe's own illness, induced him on June 11, 1843, to write:

DEAR GRISWOLD: Can you not send me $5? I am sick and Virginia is almost gone. Come and see me. Peterson says you suspect me of a curious anonymous letter. I (lid not write it, [Poe's differences were usually and fearlessly fought out, in open fields, and mostly over his own name, though several that were not Will be given later on] but bring it along with you when you make the visit you promised Mrs. Clemm. I will try to fix that matter soon. Could you do anything with my note?

Yours truly,

E. A. POE.

Concerning this visit to Poe's Philadelphia home Dr. Griswold wrote: “When once he sent for me to visit him, during a period of illness caused by protracted [page 838:] ... 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 center 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 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.” Later, Dr. Griswold wrote less lovely things of Mrs. Clemm, but of Poe was then added: “We had no further correspondence for a year. In this period he delivered a lecture on ‘The Poets and Poetry of America’ in which my book under that title was sharply reviewed.”

During these months of 1843, Poe and Henry B. Hirst were much together. Concerning them, Mr. Thomas Ollive Mabbott found in Philadelphia Times, July 20, 1901, that “Poe registered in the District Court of Philadelphia to study to become a lawyer, with H. B. Hirst as sponsor, July 19, 1843.”

This close association seems to suggest that brilliant but erratic Henry B. Hirst absorbed Poe's finely balanced literary views of Dr. Griswold's “Poets and Poetry of America” and added his own opinions of the Hon. Robert T. Conrad and some others; also were absorbed Poe scholarly equipments, all of which appeared forcefully given — probably revised by Poe for Hirst's review of Dr. Griswold's “Poets and Poetry” book in Mr. Clarke's Saturday Museum issued at 101 [page 839:] Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. There, its latch-string was out to both Poe and Hirst. Poe's study of law at this time is of interest, and no doubt of service to him during his later stormy experiences with Dr. Thomas Dunn English, and Editor Hiram Fuller of the New York Evening Mirror. But in 1843 the effort seemed made to quiet Mr. Clarke's legal-action fears of Poe's critical severity in The Styles venture. The admitted need of this precaution probably caused its failure in connection with Mr. Clarke. July 2, 1843, Poe heard from his Tennessee friend, John Tomlin, that he had seen in the Museum Mr. Clarke's withdrawal from The Stylus project; the writer noted a Philadelphia clique against Poe's laudable design, and expressed a hope of his final triumph. Tomlin had asked William Gilmore Simms to notice The Styles in his Magnolia: said that Simms spoke in high praise of Poe, who was assured by the writer of his own continuous interest in behalf of any future magazine effort on Poe's part. Mr. Tomlin closed with: “I have had a letter ... lately, from one professing all friendship for you, in which ... allusions are made to you in a manner greatly astonishing me.” It seems, the anonymous ghost of that press-scandal concerning Poe astray at Saratoga, N. Y., as invited “guest” of a lady — supposed to be Mrs. Barhyte — unknown to Poe until he met her at her husband's Trout Ponds near Saratoga, where “Poe stayed at a hotel”; and where, as of prior mention, he was probably sent by Dr. John K. ‘Mitchell and other friends on Virginia's and his own accounts. But his good Baltimore friend — later so true to his memory — Lambert A. Wilmer, [page 840:] also at times astray, had become for the time being one of the “clique” adverse to Poe's interest and had written to Mr. Tomlin the letter he noted concerning Poe. In his answer of Aug. 28, 1843, Poe asked, as an important favor to himself, that this letter should be sent to him. Mr. Tomlin enclosed it in one of his own dated September loth, in which appeared:

My friendship for you, and nothing else, has prevailed on me to inclose the letter of L. A. Wilmer, Esquire. ... Believing ... your great good sense will protect my honor, ... I remain with affectionate regard

Yours ever,

JNO. ToMLIN.

P. S. Return Wilmer's letter.

It was dated May 20, 1843, and condensed was:

Literary affairs are at very low ebb in this city at present. Edgar A. Poe (you know him by character, ... if not personally) has become one of the strangest of our literati. He and I are old friends, have known each other since boyhood, and it gives me inexpressible pain to notice the vagaries to which he has lately become subject. Poor fellow! he is not a teetotaller by any means, and I fear he is going headlong to destruction, moral, physical and intellectual ...

Your obliged and sincere friend,

L. A. WILMER.

Certainly Poe in his editorial range with White, Burton and Graham tried to serve Wilmer, whose “Quacks of Helicon” claimed more favorable yet truthful attention from Poe a short time before, than that work deserved. But his Nemesis of nerve exhaustion probably waylaid him with wreckage of The [page 841:] Stylus, illness and need, and unfortunately Wilmer fastened on such occurrences for his tactless letter.

During these trials and 1843 summer efforts for health and subsistence there is a record of indefinite date as to Poe making his first appearance on the lecture platform of Egyptian Hall, Baltimore, Md., and his subject was “American Poetry.” Returns may have aided his search for health this 1843 summer at Saratoga.

It was June, 1843, that Editor Joseph Sailor of the Dollar Newspaper offered a prize of $100 for the best story. Poe's cipher story, “The Gold Bug,” — written in late 1842 for The Stylus, later sold to Graham, who pigeon-holed it nine months and returned it for a critical review — won this prize, as of prior noting. The Spirit of the Times’ Editor Du Solle, Philadelphia, charged Poe with plagiarizing this tale from “Imogene, or The Pirate's Treasure,” by Miss Sherburne; but Editor Sailor settled this issue in July 19th; 1843, date of this paper. “The Gold Bug” concerns the buried treasures of Captain Kidd. M. Potez states “the cryptogram device of Verne's ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ came from ‘The Gold Bug.’ ”(66) Research of Thomas Ollive Mabbott notes: “Aug. 8, 1843, Philadelphia Public Ledger mentioned, Mr. Silas S. Steele dramatized ‘The Gold Bug,’ added the sub-title, — ‘or The Pirate's Treasure,’ and presented it at his own benefit that date, in the American Theatre on Walnut Street, which closed for the sea son a few days later.” This incident affirms the popularity of this tale at that time and suggests Poe's pleasure in this demonstration of that fact. [page 842:]

In the New Mirror, June, 1896, Charles Whibley, M.A., LL.D., wrote: “ ‘The Gold Bug’ is a masterpiece. No step in the adventure but what is foreseen and inevitable. Never before nor since has use so admirable been made of ciphers and buried treasure. The material was not new but the treatment, a glorified treatment in mathematics, was Poe's own invention, — the slightest incident ceased to be curious and became a link in the chain of fate.”

There are various records that Poe's battle for bread this summer included a venture to bring out his tales, as “The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe,” in cheap serial form bearing on its paper cover the impress of William H. Graham, 98 Chestnut Street, and E. G. Dorsey, printer, Liberty Street, Philadelphia, writes Mr. Thomas Ollive Mabbott — and its price, as twelve and one-half cents. This booklet William Gowans later listed at thirty-eight cents; and the only number, One, in August, was a small pamphlet of thirty-nine pages, containing “Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Man that was Used Up,” appeared in a few copies; one was sold to Mr. J. P. Morgan for $3800. Mr. Joseph Jackson thinks this issue was exploited by B. Zieber & Co., Philadelphia bookseller of that time. Mr. Whitty writes, a notice of this print and “The Man that was Used Up,” was sent to the New Mirror. Also, that “The Black Cat,” by Poe, appeared in the Aug. 19, 1843, issue of Philadelphia United States Saturday Post. Mrs. Mary Newton Stanard notes this tale “as a text on the transformation, by alcohol, of a character naturally kind and affectionate to one irritable and brutal.” She [page 843:] questions if consequences were ever more fearfully set forth than in this story.

Graham's of August, 1843, gave Poe's review of William Ellery Channing as number three of “Our Amateur Poets”; which review by Poe, Professor Woodberry voted, is “perhaps the most contemptuous notice he ever seriously wrote.”

In his “Memories of Men,” Dr. Thomas Dunn English(67) gives a pathetic note of Poe, and his Spring Garden home, described as “only part of a house, the owner had built the rear portion, and the ground where the front was to stand had been turned into a grass-plot with a flower border against the adjoining brick wall.” This writer gave details of aiding Poe to this home from street straits, caused by his inability to withstand stimulants. It seems Mrs. Clemm came to the door and some unpleasing words passed between the three; yet the writer, if clothed in normal conditions, being the most responsible, should have been least objectionable in his expressions. Dr. English noted the Poe-Burton disturbance and added: “Poe was not an habitual drunkard but offenses were at irregular intervals and a slight amount would upset his reason.” Many years later concerning Poe's Fordham Cottage(68) preservation Dr. English said: “The house in which he lived for a time and, in which his wife died, should be kept intact.”

Another record of Poe's Spring Garden home is, when they arrived there, Mrs. Clemm found in the neglected garden a struggling, climbing rosebush, which she cheered into generous growing with attractive effects all over their little front porch. This [page 844:] pretty aspect, with other plentiful flowers and vines about the place, named it “the poet's rose-covered cottage.” Mrs. Clemm and Virginia were of record as happy and busy. The neighbors noted Virginia as laughing among her flowers and sewing on their porch; and Mrs. Clemm as window-washing — also, white washing the fence. When distress was near, it is said the front room was rented to lodgers; also that Poe and family kept to their living-room and kitchen next to it. No doubt Poe spent some of his August, 1843, days in this Spring Garden home writing his fine review of Fitz-Greene Halleck for Graham's September issue. Because compensations failed to meet urgent family needs the writer may have been forced to remember the $10 still in abeyance since prior March from Lowell's bankrupt Pioneer. Poe then wrote: “As for the few dollars you owe me, give yourself not a moment's concern about them. I am poor, but must be very much poorer when I even think of demanding them.”

He must indeed have become “poorer,” at least, than Lowell, for in Poe's Sept.13, 1843, letter to Lowell was:

Since I last wrote you I have suffered much from domestic and pecuniary trouble, and, at one period, had nearly succumbed. I mention this by way of apology to the request l am forced to make — that you would send me, if possible, $10, — which, I believe, is the amount you owe me for contribution. You cannot imagine how sincerely I grieve that any necessity can urge me to ask this of you — but I ask it in the hope ... you are now in much better position than myself, and can spare me the sum without inconvenience. I hope ere long to have the [page 845:] pleasure of conversing with you. ... There is no man living with whom I have so much desire to become acquainted. Truly your friend,

EDGAR A. POE.

This was for reviews in The Pioneer that Poe later put into “Rationale of Verse.”

No doubt Poe's endless letter duties as an accepted, if not always an. acceptable critic, were not lightly taxed by youthful aspirants for literary fame; and that he took time to direct and encourage some, is in evidence by two letters from A. M. Ide, of Old Attleboro, Mass., who admiringly addressed Poe, Oct 1 and Nov. 2, 1843, as the “Peter McPrawler of Graham's Magazine.” The poetical aspirations of this poor country lad of eighteen claimed several letters and some later print issues of Poe's verses from him.

Poe's letter appeal to Lowell concerning the $10, still due, gained quick attention in one from Mr. Carter enclosing $5, and another, of Oct. 13th, enclosing balance. Oct. 19th, Poe wrote Lowell as to receipt of both amounts; asked if “A Year's Life” would be in Lowell's promised volume of which justice, in review, was hoped to be given by Poe. He mentioned his extended notice of Longfellow's “Spanish Student” for Graham's December, 1843, issue. It seemed “a poor thing with now and then fine passages.” Poe voted Longfellow's “Hymn to the Night,” “glorious.” Some technical details on poetry followed; then was noted the sending of a paper with writer's life-sketch and portrait. The former was very “true in general”; of the portrait, “No one of my family recognized it,” Poe wrote. On the reverse of this life-sketch [page 846:] — written by Henry B. Hirst — appeared, that Poe was to become editor of Saturday Museum, which statement he voted as “unauthorized.” Poe asked Lowell who was to write his life for Graham's. This letter closed by requesting Lowell to send writer “A Year's Life”; to write him and to believe him his “most sincere friend.” Poe noted in this letter: “The review of ‘Graham's Magazine’ was written by H. B. Hirst, a young poet of this city.” This review included the drastic castigation of Dr. Griswold, which Poe's critics credited to him.

November, 1843, Graham's gave Poe's review of Cooper's “Wyandotte, or the Hutted Knoll.” In sixteen pages it was noted “a forest subject”; that the story was a good one, for “Mr. Cooper has never been known to fail either in the forest or on the sea.”

Tuesday, Nov. 25, 1843, Poe made his first Philadelphia appearance on the lecture platform. Concerning this occasion, his friend Mr. Thomas C. Clarke noted in the Saturday Museum, — “quite a large and highly intelligent audience attended the Lecture on ‘American Poetry’ delivered by Edgar A. Poe. Esq., Tuesday evening, before the William Wirt Literary Institute. ... The fact of the lecturer possessing talents as a poet of high order, with great analytical power, and that command of language and strength of voice which enable a speaker to give full expression to what he may say, it will be perceived the lecturer combined qualities rarely associated in a public speaker. With exception of some severity too personal, the lecture gave satisfaction; especially Poe's recitation of the eloquent sonnets of Judge Conrad on [page 847:] the ‘Lord's Prayer’ created a marked sensation.” This incident seems to have inspired the Poe-Episode in “Kennedy Square” by F. Hopkinson Smith. Few knew that the Lord's Prayer in the poet's Bible bears his own pencil mark. The “severity” mentioned, related to a stinging attack on “Poets and Poetry of America” by Dr. R. W. Griswold, and probably sold not a few copies of that work. This incident and prior year's “unsigned” H. B. Hirst review — Poe probably aided and was credited with writing on literary failures of Dr. Griswold — placed in blighting contrast with Poe's able, mental equipments in Philadelphia Saturday Museum print, eventually had a most unfortunate aftermath of personalities on the poet's memory.

Dr. Griswold was never less than fair to Poe's power of genius. His prior favorable notice of Dr. Griswold's work in Boston Miscellany(69) seemed to serve no purpose, nor Poe's later mention to Griswold of this lecture attack on his work as “some absurd jokes at your expense,” and owing to some one's imputation to Dr. Griswold being the anonymous writer of that summer-gossip press notice concerning Poe at Saratoga, which was noted by L. A. Wilmer to John Tomlin of Tennessee. Since the prior September, 1842, Rev. Dr. Griswold had not occupied Graham's editorial chair, and curiously runs this record, upon account of a nom de plume article traced to him by Mr. Graham on his friend Charles J. Peterson, which article(70) was sent by Dr. Griswold to, and printed in, the New York Review.

Dr. Griswold denied writing it to Mr. Graham, who, [page 848:] when in New York, later on, saw this Griswold MS., charged him with the fact, then parted with him. All of this would naturally account for the ever afterwards adverse relations existing between these two editors.

Charles G. Leland — Haas Breitman — wrote Dr. Griswold as a strange character and noted man of letters. “He was, to his death, untiring in his efforts to aid me — though he was one of the most irritable and vindictive men I ever met, if he fancied he was in any way familiarly treated, — when he became savage.”(71) Poe's Philadelphia lecture mentioned could be truly called a literary attack. It may [page 849:] have been an open counter-attack upon the writer of that anonymous press-print scandal alleged of Poe which Dr. Griswold, later on, confided to Charles F. Briggs, who wrote Lowell to such effect. However, Poe the man — at this lecture date — was very human, as mortality was gauged in those days of hitting back. In any case it caused an “open” breach for a year or more between these two ex-editors of Graham's Magazine. [page 850:]

In the meantime one wonders how Poe, Virginia and Mrs. Clemm passed their Christmas-tide of 1843, in their Philadelphia, Spring Garden home! In The Opal annual for the New Year, 1844, appeared “The Elk,” [“Morning on the Wissahiccon”] of which Poe wrote some prior time as, “the rare loveliness of a stream” that flows through the real Eden of our land, of which “delicious region the sweeter portions are reached only by bypaths” — which were followed by the poet, and “The Elk” of Poe's story.

Mr. William J. McClellan found in the Baltimore Sun, Jan. 24, 1844, this editorial announcement:

“LECTURE BY EDGAR A. POE, Esq — We have authority to promise our readers ... within a short time, ... a lecture by ‘Mr. Edgar A. Poe, the subject ... will be ’ American Poetry.’ It is scarcely necessary ... to do more than introduce this gentleman by name, as he is so well and popularly known to every admirer of modern literature, not only by the exquisite productions of his own imaginative genius, but by his elaborate, daring and caustic criticisms which have from time to time enriched the pages of the most popular magazines of the day. ... The author ... within a short time past admired in that ingenious production of his pen, ’ The Gold Bug’ which took the first prize of ‘The Dollar Newspaper,’ is sure of a hearty welcome in this city, and equally sure to be honored with, as he is to entertain, a crowded audience on his lecture night.” (Editorial.)

In the Baltimore Sun, Jan. 31, 1844, was:

“☞ A LECTURE ON AMERICAN POETRY by EDGAR A. POE in Odd Fellows Hall, in Gay Street, on this (Wednesday) EVENING 31st, at half-past 7 o’clock. [page 851:]

Single tickets, 25 cents; admitting a gentleman and two ladies, 50 cents — to be had at Mr. Hickman's bookstore, Mr. Isaac P. Cook's and at the door.”

The Baltimore American noted Poe's lecture subject as “American Poetry” that “affords an excellent and interesting theme; and will be treated with ability.” Mr. McClellan mentions Egyptian Hall, Baltimore, as “a large, handsome saloon of Odd Fellows’ Temple, built, or renovated, but a few months before, on Gay Street, in the center of the city. This was not far from the home of Mr. Henry Herring” where “Poe stayed with his cousins when he lectured in Baltimore,” notes Mrs. George K. McGaw. But lecture admissions at prices quoted could not have added much to Poe's revenue — and perhaps the expense accounts induced him to sell the Irish Citizen issue, [by Dr. Thomas Dunn English?] of “The Ghost of a Grey Tadpole ” — before the usually careful revision of this Poe story could be made — to the Baltimore Republican and Daily Argus, of Feb. 1, 1844. Thomas O. Mabbott, notes the Irish Citizen, was “a two dollar weekly, begun January, 1843, by Benjamin P. Binns, 164 S. 4th Street, Phila., and printed by Severns and Magill, Con 3rd and Dock Streets, with persons and localities well known to Poe.” Mr. Mabbott calls attention to Poe's Sept. 11, 1839, letter to Dr. Snodgrass,(72) which gave evidence of its writer being favored by the Baltimore Republican editor in,“upon your stating the fact [of the item at issue] to Mr. Harker of ‘The Republican’ you will secure its insertion there.” This favor seemed secure in 1844.

Mr. Mabbott believes “The Ghost of a Grey Tadpole” [page 852:] to be a burlesque of Poe, written by Dr. English for the Irish Citizen (of no known print existence), and, with slight changes, of later vitriolic use in his John Donkey, June 3, 1848, issue. Aside from this story giving the figurative aspects of a physician's most accurate diagnosis of Poe's nervous-congestion malady, Poe's own heroic combat, with symptoms, progress and his resulting failure, is too keenly stamped on this pathetic self-allegory to be even transscribed [[transcribed]] by any other than himself. Also the personal knowledge that this tale contains of Poe's “cellar-kitchen,” etc., of that time, would not have been allowed by Mrs. Clemm, then unfriendly to Dr. English. His John Donkey, July 3, 1848, purposely stated with truly asinine comments on the crudities of (Poe's subnormal pen-work) this tale: “It has been attributed to Mr. POE.” English knew, this authorship could not be denied; and, doubtless with legal advice, he went as far as he dared, on other scores, including a nameless reference to Mrs. Ellet's vamp-tactics; he knowing that Poe was powerless to defend himself, by reason of his return of her letters to their writer. English also knew that Poe was a very ill man during the spring and summer of 1848, and totally unable to reply to these Donkey brayings, which Dr. English intended as a hit-back for Poe's Mirror lawsuit, he won February 22, 1847, against Editor Fuller and Dr. English.

When under the blighting effects of his shattered nerves Poe wrote this unique essay on “strange antipathies and stranger attachments,” with touches of criticism and conscience gloss, in his Spring Garden, [page 853:] Philadelphia, home. It came from abject money needs and tormenting illness; and such reflex ;appears in: “Underneath the house in which I lived, there was a cellar. The first part was for wood, coal, refrigerators, mice. The back part was a kitchen-denominated by the unthinking vulgar, a cellar-kitchen. This communicated with the yard by steps-partly outside the House — in an open area paved with damp bricks,” In the “N. E. Cor., six inches from the wall,” Poe located the home — a water cask — of his tadpole. He then tells his story.

Mrs. William P. Owen, the present occupant of Poe's former home, when having this cellar cleaned recently,(73) discovered a small space in the floor where the bricks had been removed and replaced by boarding. This suggested to her the treasure, of Poe's “Gold Bug.” It may have suggested to him the cellar digging of “The Black Cat,” or served him as a sepulcher for “The Grey Tadpole” whose “Ghost” definitely indicated Poe's physical disability, that mortal power — in his heel of the story — could not crush; thus this gruesome phantom inspired Poe's conscience story “The Ghost of a Grey Tadpole ” — that suffering and many necessities gave him no time to revise for the pittance it twice brought to a lean purse. To J. R. Thompson, or another in 1849, Dr. Griswold wrote that “The Ghost of the Grey Tadpole” had been relegated to Poe's “lack of humour” writings. Surely Dr. Griswold failed to fathom the generous measure of grim humor in this fine self-allegory of Poe. That leering Tadpole's Ghost on the wall — after the sure death crush of the poet's heel — seems a ghastly [page 854:] mockery of his strenuous resolutions to snap the vital grasp of a heritage of woe that this fiendish vision so graphically placed before him as beyond mortal power to subdue; and this seems what that demon told Poe. Professor Killis Campbell seems to think this story a hoax on Poe's alleged love for liquor, as he delivered an evening lecture Jan. 31, 1844, at Baltimore, and the story appeared in pressprint the next morning. But the description of Poe's Spring Garden, Philadelphia, home is too exact, and its environment seems too intimate to sustain this view, and his physical disabilities of this date could readily account for its lack of Poe's usual, careful literary revision given — as well as the writer's urgent need of money. His revision needs equally apply to “English Notes by Quarles Quickens Esq.” Concerning “The Grey Tadpole” Thomas Ollive Mabbott calls attention to Poe's mention of “Henson,” which “personage was afterwards used in ‘The Balloon Hoax’ that Poe was even then writing.”

Professor Campbell notes an interesting Poe letter, of Feb. 18, 1844, in George Lippard's “Herbert Tracer.” This letter gives a critique of Lippard's “Ladye Annabel”; and of the unscrupulous and undiscerning human product Poe wrote: “Let a fool alone — especially if he be both — scoundrel and fool, and he will kill himself far sooner than you can kill hint by any active exertion. ... I have never yet been able to snake up my, mind whether I regard as the higher compliment, the approbation of a man of honor and talent, or the abuse of an ass or a blackguard.” The Philadelphia “clique,” noted by Poe's friend John Tomlin, [page 855:] Tennessee, made Poe well acquainted With such abuse, as plentiful records prove. Yet, as the poet's “Marginalia” stated of “The Crab,” — “To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself obtain greatness. The Crab might never have become a constellation but for the courage it evinced in nibbling Hercules on the heel.” As much might be said of the irate literati of Poe's time and adverse treatment, that for no other reasons cluster about the poet's immortality.

Graham's January, 1844, issue noticed the receipt of “Onion,” in three Books, by Richard Hengist Horne, J. H. Miller, London, and gave more than a hint as to its near review. With its “picturesque imagery and mysticism,” “Onion” with special pleasure claimed Poe's best critical efforts during these early days of 1844: a long able review of this epic-drama appeared in Graham's March issue. Poe noted “Onion” as, not a “Poem, but as a WORK — ... the earnest outpouring of the oneness of psychological MAN.” Its defects, “as trivial, conventional; its beauties, intrinsic and supreme.” Its quickening touch on Poe's idealisms, perhaps, led him to write to the author of “Onion” concerning the British print of its critic's own works and other literary values. As to Poe, during these troubled days, came a reply from Mr. Horne at London, April 16, 1844. It stated Poe's letter was received that morning; that at all times he would be happy to further its writer's literary interests. Horne quoted New Spirit of the Age to prove many British critics were far from pleased with his own efforts: that Jerold's Illuminated Magazine might print for Poe, [page 856:] but — in confidence — it was not doing well; Horne expressed his gratitude for the “noble and generous” words given his works by Poe, whose name was “well known, ... in the critical literature of America,” to the writer. Again he wrote, April 27th, that at the time of prior letter he had not seen Poe's critique of “Orion” in Graham's of March; that Mr. Cornelius Mathews of New York, and Miss E. B. Barrett writer's friend — had mentioned it was to be reviewed by Poe, Its “high praise” and some objections were noted in detail, and inquiries made as to American reprint; even if author of “Orion” got “nothing,” he was still willing “to give” it. Horne added “Your MS. of ‘The Spectacles’ is safely lodged in my iron chest with my own MSS. till I find a favorable opportunity for its use.” Professor Campbell notes “The Spectacles “appeared in Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper for March 27, 1844. Concerning this story Horne wrote, from London, April 8, 1876, that it was sent by Poe requesting friendly service for its remunerative English printing, With this in mind Horne had tried several magazines, but not an editor Would touch it by reason of false modesty, social and religious hypocrisy; he added, it was utterly ridiculous to perceive anything contrary to — the most rigid and puritanic delicacy in the playful but not powerful badinage of “The Spectacles.” “The Spectacles” script(74) sent to Horne was written on thirty-eight pages, — three by seven — of a blankbook, in a neat, clear hand, without change or correction, and differs from the print of this story of the man who married his great-grandmother. [page 857:]

Feb. 23, 1844, Poe's friend John Tomlin, Esq., wrote from Jackson, Tenn., that since sending Wilmer's libelous letter to Poe, writer had not heard from him; inquiries were made, if chastisement equal to injuries had been inflicted on the author of “Quacks of Helicon,” of which Poe's review had given Tomlin a good opinion of Wilmer. Tomlin added: “I hope ... you will forgive him, and ... he will go and ‘sin no more the writer noted the review of “Orion” as of “great ability.” But prior to this latchet of Britain's door, after Dickens’ failure, again snapping on Poe's hope for “The Spectacles” print, it appears he and Lowell had exchanged letters as to a mutual interest for “giving some lectures in Boston,” and to Poe on this score Lowell — at Elmwood, Cambridge, March 6, 1844 — wrote that he had been to Boston to find lecturing over for the season; that the secretary of Boston Lyceum — its lectures of highest rank — seemed much pleased as to the plan of engaging Poe for next year. Lowell added: “I should be delighted both to see & hear you. ... The Boston people want a little independent criticism vastly. ... It is these ‘halfpenny critics’ ... ‘practical printers’ & what not, that are ruining our literature — men who never doubt that they have a full right to pronounce upon the music of Apollo's lute, because they can criticise fitly the filing of a handsaw.” It appears that Lowell, normal and unsaddled with Poe's nervous-congestion malady, could also use “vitriol ink” at times. More harshly than this, Poe never touched “Bostonians.” Lowell inquired when Graham was to give Poe's portrait, and hoped it would be well and quickly done; [page 858:] Lowell noted that Goethe had made a good distinction in dividing his biography into “poetry & fact”; that “A Year's Life” was nearing its third edition; Lowell, recently, in writing to Graham, noted, “I congratulated him upon having engaged you as editor again. I recognized your hand in some of the editorial matter (critical) & missed it in the rest. ... He tells me I was mistaken & I am sorry.” Lowell suggested Poe's writing for the North American Review; that writer knew the editor slightly and would like to get Poe introduced; the pay was $2 per page. Lowell regretted that he did not earlier know Poe's plan to lecture in Boston, as something might have been done; he stated the Lyceum paid $50 to $100, as its purse was “full or empty” — and its aid was promised for the coming year. Yet Lowell seemed too sure of himself when he wrote: “I care not ... what a man says, if I see that he has his grounds for it, & knows thoroughly what he is talking about. You might cut me up as much as you please & I should read what you said with respect, & with a great deal more satisfaction than most of the praise I get affords me.”

From Thomas Ollive Mabbott comes transcript, courtesy use of a Poe letter owned by Mr. Thomas F. Madigan, New York. This letter dates Philadelphia, March 7, 1844, and reads

GENTLEMEN: I have just received your favor of the 5th, and will be pleased to deliver a Lecture on “American Poetry” in Reading, on Tuesday the 12th inst., if convenient. Please reply by return-mail and let me know at what place I shall meet the committee.

Very Resply Yr. Ob. Svt.

EDGAR A. POE. [page 859:]

“Mess. Sam. Williams, Wm. Graeff Jr.,” were ad dressed by Poe.

Research of Mr. William J. McClellan, Baltimore, traced Poe to this Reading, Pa.. lecture by a Baltimore Sun, March 21, 1844, press notice. With his name in capital letters this notice was: “Edgar A. Poe Esq. This distinguished writer delivered his much extolled lecture ‘Poets and Poetry of America’ at Reading, Pa., Wednesday last. He was greeted by a large audience, and they testified their appreciation by repeated bursts of applause.” In the Saturday, March 23rd, date of the Baltimore Sun appeared: “A TALE of THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS” from the ever-entertaining pen of Edgar A. Poe, Esq., occupies the first columns of THE WEEKLY SUN this morning.” This tale was also in Godey's Lady's Book for April, which was out in March, 1844.

Lowell's March 6, 1844, letter, Poe answered the 30th. He stated that Graham spoke recently of Lowell's Biography. Poe added: “I am anxious to write it at once, ... Could you forward ... materials ... ? I am just now quite disengaged — in fact positively idle.” Poe asked if Lowell had read the “Memoir of Willis” by Landor in Graham's April issue: “Willis is no genius. ... He wants force and sincerity ... — the best poem he has written is ... ‘Unseen Spirits,’ beginning, ‘The Shadows Lay — Along Broadway.“’

Of Poe's own portrait(75) he wrote Lowell: “It scarcely resembles me at all. [This half-length, watercolor miniature of Poe was painted from life by A. C. Smith at Philadelphia, in 1843. It represents the [page 861:] poet's face from a rare viewpoint, and himself as seated in a chair — “in a careless easy attitude.” For many years this Poe portrait was owned by the well-known Philadelphia journalist John Swinton.] When it will appear I cannot say. ... My life is not yet written. I am at a loss for a Biographer — for Graham insists on leaving the matter to myself. I ... rejoice to hear of the success of your volume. To sell eleven hundred copies of a bound book of American poetry, is to do wonders.” How pathetically Poe realized this fact! He asked if Lowell had read “Orion,” or had seen the article on American Poetry in the London Foreign Quarterly which Poe strongly attributed to Dickens, and in which, Poe wrote, “is much truth; ... ignorance, and ... spleen.” He added: “It has been denied that Dickens wrote it — but, to me, the article affords so strong internal evidence of his hand that I would as soon think of doubting my existence. ... Among other points he accuses myself of ‘metrical imitation’ of Tennyson, citing, by way of instance, passages from poems which were written and published by me long before Tennyson was heard of.” Later on this noting of Dickens becomes of much importance. Of himself Poe wrote as being greatly indebted to Lowell concerning next season's Boston Lyceum lectures, and “hint” as to the North American Review. He mentioned mailing the Dollar Newspaper containing “The Spectacles” — a tale of his that might be little to Lowell's taste. Poe deplored the present condition of International Copy-Right Law, and noted a well-founded “Journal” of enough ability, circulation and character was needed [page 862:] to control and give tone to our Letters. Poe deplored the condition of our Literature, and added of journal:

Its chief aims should be Independence, Truth, Originality. It should be ... of some 120 pp. and furnished at $5. ... Such a journal might ... be set on foot by a coalition, and, ... with proper understanding would be irresistible. Suppose, ... that the elite of our men of letters should combine secretly. ... Let each subscribe, say $200 for ... the undertaking; ... The articles to be supplied by members solely. ... A nominal editor to be elected from among the number. How could such a journal fail? . ... If we do not defend ourselves by some such coalition, we shall be devoured, without mercy, by the Godeys, the Snowdens, et id genus omne.

Most truly your friend

EDGAR A. POE.

 

END OF SECTION V AND VOLUME I