....

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

Amabam pulchra inferiora et ibam in profundum, et dicebam amicis meis: Num amamus aliquid nisi pulchrum? Quid est ergo pulchrum? et quid est pulchritudo? Quid est quod nos allicit et conciliat rebus quas amamus? Nisi enim esset in eis decus et species, nullo modo nos ad se moverent. Et ista consideratio scaturivit

....

in animo meo ex intimo corde meo, et scripsi libros."

S. AUGUSTINI EPISCOP. Confess. lib. iv. 20.

WE must all have observed, I am sure, with a great deal of pleasure how much the literature of our American kinsmen has been spreading amongst us within the last few years. Such men as Washington Irving and Cooper were familiar friends from the first; but they both founded, more or less, on our own classical models. Irving's whole tone of thought

and style, for instance, is English; his sentiment is essentially English. But we are now beginning to get acquainted with writers amongst the Americans who are really national-in the sense that American apples are national. Emerson has a distinct smack of the rich and sunny West; just as the honey in Madeira tastes of violets. Lowell's humour in the "Biglow Papers" is as gloriously Yankee as Burns's humour is gloriously Scotch. Is not the genius of Hawthorne a real native product? And from whom but an American could we have expected such a book as we had the other day in the Whale of Herman Melville? such a fresh daring book—wild, and yet true-with its quaint spiritual portraits looking ancient and also fresh, as though Puritanism had been kept fresh in the salt water over there, and were looking out living upon us once more. These writers one sees, at all events, have our old English virtue of pluck. They think what they please, and say what they think. And while M'Fungus is concocting philosophical histories in the style of the last century which drum on our ears, these other open-hearted men are getting into all our hearts, and making themselves friends by our firesides. An Englishman ought to require no apology from one who introduces an American Poet to him. I have undertaken this office very cheerfully with regard to EDGAR ALLAN POE. I owe his acquaintance, as

I owe much of the happiness of my life, to the society of friends devoted to art and poetry. His music has made several summers brighter for me; and now that his reputation (the man himself died just three years ago) is appealing for recognition to the English "reading public," I feel that I ought to say a few words about him. At all events, this notice may serve as a finger-post to direct the wanderer to a tumulus as worthy of honour as any that has been made on the earth lately.

EDGAR ALLAN POE was a native of Virginia; and as Virginia is richer in good families than other American States, we learn that he was of honourable descent. The name is not a common one in England. There was a Dr. Poe, physician to Queen Elizabeth; and there is a highly respectable family of the name in Ireland who bear the same coat-armour as the doctor. The poet's great-grandfather, who married a daughter of Admiral M'Bride, was probably of the same stock. His son was a quartermaster-general in the American line; and his grandson David, the poet's father-commencing an "eccentricity" which, we shall see, ran in the blood afterwards-married an enchanting actress of uncertain prospects. Having achieved this, David Poe (who was a younger son) took to acting himself; but both he and his wife died young, leaving three children destitute. Edgar (who was born at

B

Baltimore in January 1811) accordingly began the

world, for he was thrown thus early on his "

own

Mr. Allan, a rich gentleman who had no children of his own, adopted Edgar; brought him to England, where he put him to school at Stoke-Newington. Edgar, who was a "spoilt child," a beautiful, witty, precocious boy,-remained at school there for some five years. In 1822 he returned to the United States; went to the academy at Richmond; and thence to the University at Charlottesville. Always he signalised himself by early intellect, quickly learning all that came in his way, brilliant, vivacious, passionate, always-but always "eccentric" in proportion; so that, what with intemperance and insubordination, this youth,

To whom was given

So much of earth, so much of heaven,

And such impetuous blood,

was expelled from the University. Distant rumours, and—what fly faster than even rumoursbills, kept Mr. Allan informed of the youth's progress. Mr. A., who seems to have been a goodnatured old gentleman of the school of MICIO in the Adelphi, could pardon a great deal; but there are limits to the patience even of a MICIO. Edgar, finding that his bills recoiled on himself as boomerangs do, seems to have tried his satire on the worthy