POE, EDGAR ALLAN, perhaps the finest and most original poetical genius as yet pro duced by America, was b. at Boston, Feb. 19, 1809. His father, the son of gen. Poe, a distinguished officer in the revolutionary army, was educated for the law, but, falling in love with a beautiful English actress, he married her and went himself upon the stage. In a few Years the youthful couple died within a very short time of each other of con sumption, leaving three children entirely unprovided for. Edgar, the second child, was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a rich merchant, who had no children of his own. In 1816 the boy came to England with Mr. and Mrs. Allan, and was sent to a school at Stoke ' Newington. In 1821 lie returned to America, and attended an academy at Richmond, Va. In 1826 he entered the university of Charlottesville, where he was a very successful student, but quitted it at the end of a vear, deeply involved in debt, chiefly incurred .t through his strong passion for gaming. For a year or two he now remained quietly at home; the story of his having gone to assist the Greeks in their heroic efforts to throw off the yoke of their Turkish oppressors has no other foundation than the fact that his elder brother, who had gone to sea, got into some trouble with the police at St. Peters burg, from which he was rescued by the American minister. In 1829 Poe published a volume of poems. his first known essay in literature, under the title of ill .slerwil, Tam erlane, and other poems. Ile now expressed a wish to enter the army, and Mr. Allan exercised his influence to secure him a cadetship in the military academy at \Vest Point. Here he grossly neglected his duties, drank to excess, and was fluidly cash iered on Mar. 6, 1831. In the same year he published an enlarged collection of his poems, dedicated to the U. S. corps of cadets. Lpon leaving West Point, Poe returned to Richmond, and was kindly received by Mr. Allan, who had become a widower and married a second wife. It is related that Poe's conduct to this lady was such that Mr. Allan had to eject him from his house, but there is some reason to hope that this is mere calumny. It is certain, however, that Mr. Allan had some strong reason for displeasure with Poe, and at his death in 1834 he left him unmentioned in his will. Thus thrown upon his own resources, Poe devoted himself to literature as a profession. In 1833 the publisher of a Baltimore magazine having offered prizes for the best prose story and the best poem, Poe competed, and won both prizes. This led to his friendship with Mr. John 1'. Kennedy, one of the prize committee, who procured him literary employment in connection with the Southern Literary _Messenger at Richmond. While here Poe married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a beautiful and saintly creature, as destitute as himself, who died in 1848. In 1837 he removed to New York, where he lived by con tributing to the New York, Quarterly Review and other periodicals, and where in 1838 Ile published The _Narrative of Arthur Gordon P.m. In 1839 he became editor of The Gen
tleman'silfayazine at Philadelphia, and published a collection of his best slot ies with the title, Tales of the Arabesque and Grotesque: The next few years were spent in similar literary employment, chiefly at New York; the year 1845 being marked by the appear ance of his famous poem The Raven, and 1848, by the publication of Eureka, a Prose Poem, in which he endeavored to elaborate a system of cosmogony.
In 1849 he went to Richmond. and it is saidbecame engaged to a lady of considerable fortune. Ou Oct. 4 lie left Richmond by train, which he quitted at Baltimore. Some hours later he was discovered insensible in the streets, and taken to the hospital, where he died on Oct. 7. The ordinary explanation of his condition at Baltimore is that he had met some old cronies, and drunk himself into a stale of helpless intoxication.
Scarcely any such dark and disastrous career as that of Poe has a place in all the sad 'records of genius. From the sins and aberrations of a creature so obviously abnormal, we need not seek to " point a moral." There is no doubt that Griswold in his life of Poe has been guilty of imputing to him a most exaggerated state of moral depravity; but the fact remains that the failure of his life was mainly owing to his habits of frantic dissipation. There was about Poe a strange fascination; his friends loved him— those best who best knew him, and knew him in his wretehedest aberrations. By his wife and her mother he was regarded through all with an obstinacy of tender affection, not for an instant to be shaken.
Whatever may be thought of his morals, of his genius there will be little question. Slight in substance as for the most part it is, small in quantity, ti;u1 in range limited, there is that in his poetry which ranks it above everything of this kind which his coun try has hitherto produced. Save feisome traces of imitation in its earlier specimens, his verse is eminently is peculiar and individual product. In keen, clear, lyrical quality the music of Poe at his best is scarcely surpassed by that of any other poet. Many of his short prose tales arc wildly and weirdly impressive, though too frequently indulging by morbid preference in ghastly and painful effects. Over very much that Poe has written, alike in prose and in verse, there broods a significant shadow of misery and hopeless portentous gloom. A. much more favorable view than usual of Poe's character is taken by Mr. Ingram in the memoir accompanying his edition of Poe's works (4 vols., Edin., 1874); and Mr. Stoddard, in a memoir prefixed to a collection of his poems (New York and London, 1875). thought not so favorable to his character as Ingrain, shows him in a far better light than Griswold.