Text: James H. Whitty and James H. Rindfleisch, “Appendix B: Article in The Edinburgh Review,” The Genius and Character of Edgar Allan Poe, 1929, pp. 51-52 (This material may be protected by copyright)

APPENDIX B

ARTICLE IN THE EDINBURGH REVIEW

From The Edinburgh Review.

The Works of the late Edgar A Ilan Poe: with a Memoir by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, and Notices of his Life and Genius by N. P, Willis and J. R, Lowell, 4 vols. New York 1857.

EDGAR ALLAN POE was incontestibly one of the most worthless persons of whom we have any record in the world of letters. Many authors may have been as idle; many as improvident; some as drunken and dissipated; and a few, perhaps, as treacherous and ungrateful; but he seems to have succeeded in attracting and combining, in his own person, all the floating vices which genius had hitherto shown itself capable of grasping in its widest and most eccentric orbit. As the faults of this writer present themselves more upon a level with the ordinary gaze than the loftier qualities which his friends ascribe to him, we shall venture to introduce him to the reader, in the first instance, by his humbler every day actions; satisfied that it is not of much moment how a picture has been commenced, if the proportions prove correct at last. Fuseli, as we know, preferred beginning his sketch of the human figure at the lowest point, and worked from the foot upwards. In like manner, we shall begin with the defects — or, to give them their true title, with the substantial vices, of Edgar Poe — proposing to ourselves to ascend ultimately to his virtues, should we discover any; at all events, to those rare qualities and endowments, the demonstration of which has entitled him to no mean place on the rolls of the Temple of Fame.

He was, as we have said, a blackguard of undeniable mark. Yet his chances of success at the outset of life were great and manifold. Nature was bountiful to him; bestowing upon him a pleasing person and excellent talents. Fortune favored him; education and society expanded and polished his intellect, and improved his manner into an insinuating and almost irresistible address. Upon these foundations he took his stand; became early very popular amongst his associates; and might have erected a laudable reputation, had he possessed ordinary prudence. But [page 52:] he defied his good Genius. There was a perpetual strife between him and virtue, in which virtue was never triumphant. His moral stamen was weak, and demanded resolute treatment; but instead of seeking a bracing and healthy atmosphere, he preferred the impurer airs, and gave way readily to those low and vulgar appetites, which infallibly relax and press down the victim to the lowest state of social abasement.

He arrived at the end of his descent, after many alarms, many warnings, that might have deterred him, and induced him to try another course. For the most instructive teaching of Edgar Poe was in the roughest school of life. He had, indeed, for a brief period the advantage of some grave counsel at Charlottesville. But he left that place early, when his intellect was merely in its adolescent state. It was in his subsequent transit through poverty and degradation, when he had to battle not only with the world, but also with those compunctious visitors that force their way into the most obstinate bosom that he received his most valuable lessons. The natural soil, however, was barren of good. The seed was sown upon a rock; or, if the reader prefer it, upon one of those shifting unprofitable sands which no culture will bring into fertility.

It seems impossible to have kept him upright. His tendency was decidedly downwards. He was, time after time, cautioned, forgiven, punished. All tender expostulation, all severe measures, were alike unavailable. The usual prizes of life — reputation, competency, friendship, love — presented themselves in turn; but they were all in turn abandoned, under the detestable passion for drink. He outraged his benefactor, he deceived his friends, he sacrificed his love, he became a beggar, a vagabond, the slanderer of a woman, the delirious drunken pauper of a comÂmon hospital, hated by some, despised by others, and avoided by all respectable men. The weakness of human nature has, we imagine, its limit; but the biography of Poe has satisfied us that the lowest abyss of moral imbecility and disrepute was never attained until he came and stood forth a warning to the times to come.