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A Monument to Edgar A. Poe.

There is a movement in progress in Baltimore to erect a monument to the gifted but unfortunate author of “The Raven.” It originated with the Public School Teachers’s Association of that city, and though they have exhibited considerable zeal they have as yet made very little progress. It is now a little more than sixteen years since Poe died, and the place where his remains rest is unmarked by any token of respect or remembrance. Perhaps the task of rearing a suitable monument over his grave belongs of right to the people of Baltimore, his native city, and we are free to say that had he been a Bostonian or a Philadelphian such a tribute to his memory would have existed long ago. Poe’s reputation, however, as a poet and writer of fiction is national, and his contributions to American literature deserve the grateful remembrance of intelligent Americans everywhere. If this movement to erect a monument to his memory was properly directed, we have no doubt it would succeed. During his life Poe’s remarkable genius won for him many friends, and since his death thousands have learned to know and esteem him through his works, not only in his native country but in Europe. He was certainly the most thoroughly original of all our American poets. He belonged to no particular school, but rather was the founder of one himself, though unhappily he has had no pupil able to perpetuate it. His poem of “The Raven” — the best known, because the most remarkable of all his productions — is unquestionably without an equal in English literature, and would have made him famous had he written nothing else. But he has left us other poems scarcely inferior in many respects to “The Raven,” together with numerous unique and entertaining tales. These will constitute his true monument; but he is none the less deserving of some substantial recognition of his genius on the part of his friends and admirers. We are not fully informed as to what has actually been accomplished in Baltimore, nor do we know upon what plan those having the matter in charge are proceeding, but we hope something will be done whereby the grave of the poet will be marked by some token of respect and affectionate remembrance.