metic of the shape, it is one of those few productions which

bear repetition without palling.

"Deep into that darkness peering,

Long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal
Ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken,

And the darkness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken

Was the whispered word 'Lenore!'

This I whispered, and an echo

Murmured back the word 'Lenore !'
Merely this, and nothing more.

Not the least obeisance made he;
Not an instant stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady,

Perched above my chamber door

Perched upon a bust of Pallas

Just above my chamber door

Perched, and sat, and nothing more."

How visibly the poet's intention to produce effect by the

outer shape of verse is here made apparent:

"Then this ebony bird beguiling
My sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum

Of the countenance it wore,

Though thy crest be shorn and shaven,

Thou,' I said, 'art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient raven

Wandering from the Nightly shore

Tell me what thy lordly name is

On the Night's Plutonian shore!'

Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.""

"Then, methought, the air grew denser,
Perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by angels whose faint foot-falls
Tinkled on the tufted floor.

'Wretch,' I cried,' thy God hath lent thee,
By these angels he hath sent thee

Respite-respite and nepenthe

From thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe

And forget this lost Lenore!'

Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.""

"Be that word our sign of parting,
Bird or fiend!' I shrieked, upstarting—
Get thee back into the tempest

And the Night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token
Of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!

Quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and
Take thy form from off my door!'

Quoth the raven 'Nevermore.'

"And the raven, never flitting,

Still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas

Just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming

Of a demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming,
Throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow

That lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted-nevermore!"

Although his mechanical art is too visible, we cannot with

hold our praise for the success of the attempt. Coleridge was a

great master of the musical chords of verse, but he superadded a charm which spiritualized the vehicle of his thought.

In Mr. Poe we miss this power, and consequently we feel at times inclined to consider the whole affair as machine poetry, so far as the outer shape is concerned. But here Mr. Poe has not done himself justice; he has wilfully made his mechanical artifice so prominent, as to intercept the effect of his own poetical spirit. He has encumbered it with a needless ornament, which resembles a scaffolding so interwoven with the structure, as to persuade the beholder it is essential for the very support of the building.

We need hardly point out the injurious effect this has had upon Mr. Poe's reputation as a man of genius, for such he undoubtedly was.

Nor was his power confined to poetry alone. As a prose writer he was one of the most peculiar of his age; his stories have a circumstantiality about them perfectly marvellous; they seem bewilderingly true; the most astounding contradictions are accounted for, and a combination of improbabilities seems to meet as matter of course. This of necessity implies a genius, in our estimate of the word, although many acute writers merely term it ingenious. We would say above all other writers of American prose and verse, Mr. Poe is undoubtedly the most peculiar. Now that the grave has made him famous in the eyes of the world, he will have a school of imitators, and this will no doubt be accepted as a sure proof of a certain originality. From first to last there is the peculiar stamp of the man on everything he did: it is his own genuine coin, with his well-known effigy upon it. We must, however,

state that we think his circumstantiality becomes tedious, and that his over-anxiety to make every improbability fit into another improbability, so as to form a consecutive chain out of inconsistencies, throws very often a doubt over the whole story, and defeats his own object. We cannot illustrate this better than by relating a little anecdote we heard in our boyhood.

A certain Gascon nobleman, famous for his enormous fables, which he always swore were true, had a sycophant, who, whenever his patron's guests seemed staggering into unbelief by some outrageous Munchausen, was appealed to as a kind of witness to testify and confirm the truth of the story in question.

At an entertainment one day, the Gascon lord was peculiarly sublime in his marvels and his boastings, and encouraged by his guests' capacious swallow, he ventured to affirm that he had a herring pond in his park. As this was well known to be a salt-water fish, a general doubt of the fact was expressed. The somewhat offended owner of the pond in question appealed to his convenient friend, as to the truth of the statement. He readily and boldly confirmed it in the following manner:

"I can assure you, gentlemen, that what my lord says is true. He has a pond in his garden full of herrings! Ah! and red herrings too."

This over-proving a case by capping it with a notorious impossibility is the besetting sin of Mr. Poe's writings, more especially of his prose works. Nevertheless they are so mar