Text: Anonymous, “[Review of Stoddard's edition of Poe's poems],” New-York Tribune (New York, NY), vol. XXXIV, whole no. 10,510, December 8, 1874, p. 8, cols. 1-2

[page 8, column 1:]

The principal feature in this new edition of Poe, is the original memoir with which the editor introduces of the first complete collection his poetical works. Mr. Stoddard has made a special study of the life of the erratic genius, and has not only corrected numerous errors in the previous biographical accounts, but has set forth the facts of his tragic history in a singularly impressive manner.

Poe, it appears, was born in Boston (Feb. 19, 1809), and not as has been generally supposed in Baltimore in the year 1811. His parents were both connected with the stage, and it was during a temporary engagement in the former city that Edgar Allan was born. His mother, who had been deserted by her husband for several months before her death, died in poverty and distress in Richmond, on the 8th of December, 1811. Edgar who was left an orphan while less than three years old — for the father soon followed his wife to the grave — was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a merchant of Richmond. This gentleman was married, but without children, and he soon formed a great attachment to his new charge, at once putting him in the way to become a spoiled child. He was so foolishly proud of the handsome boy, that he insisted on letting him have his own way in all things, and would permit nobody to cross him for fear that it would break his spirit.

At the age of seven, Edgar accompanied his adopted parents on a tour in England, and was placed at a village school near London, where he remained five or six years. Upon his return to the United States he took up his abode with the Allans in Richmond, where he continued his studies for three or four years under the best masters. His sensitive temperament soon began to show itself in a quickness to take offense where no often so was intended. His seif-esteem was inordinate. He was in the habit of impaling his fancied enemies on the point of doggerel verses, which were much relished by Mr. Allan, but by the friends to whom be read them were secretly pronounced to be trash. There is no doubt that he was ill governed by his doting guardians. He took a crafty advantage of their weaknesses, which could not escape his penetration, and soon became a paragon of deceit and evasion. He evinced a decided talent for extemporaneous story-telling, and was noted for his skill in declamation, especially of poetry. The part of Cassias in “Julius Cæsar,” was a favorite, which, aided by his flashing eyes and expressive mouth, he would render with consummate art. Still he had no wish to become an actor, as he considered himself the heir of Mr. Allan, who at that time had recently come into possession of a large fortune left him by a wealthy relative. At the age of seventeen, Poe entered the University of Virginia, but remained only a single session, of less than a year in length.

It has been said that he was one of the most dissolute young men in college, which was then noted for its laxness of morals, but this seems to be disproved by the evidence brought forward by Mr. Stoddard. He was not addicted to drinking, but had an excessive passion for card-playing, at which be lost about $2,000 within the year. His father was often called upon to pay his gambling-debts, and on one occasion, after just disbursing a largo for that purpose, he received bills for immense quantities of champagne, and seventeen broadcloth coats, which he had lost at the card-table. After leaving college, Poe was still tolerated in the family, partly no doubt through the influence of Mrs. Allan, who retained an affection for him in spite of his waywardness and perversity. His first volume of poetry was published in Baltimore in 1829. Mr. Stoddard does not consider it a wonderful production for a man of twenty, and it does not seem young to have attracted much notice from the public.

About this time, Poe was admitted as a cadet at West Point. He remained at the Military Academy only five months, having entirely neglected the studies of the place, and failed at the first examination. His intellectual ability was recognized by all who knew him. The whole bent of his was mind towards criticism, or rather towards fault-finding, which is quite a different thing. He took delight in caviling at writers and works of supreme acknowledged excellence. One of his associates at West Point remarks that he never heard him speak in praise of any English author, living or dead. At this time, he had done nothing in a literary way of any importance. le was too idle to take much pains with anything, and too dissipated to be ambitions. He now drank brandy instead of champagne, his favorite potation at college, and was seldom without a bottle of the best that could be smuggled into his room. It shattered his nerves, and made him look much older than he was.

After his dismissal from West Point he is said to have returned to the house of Mr. Allan, who had in the meantime married a second wife, but was soon discarded by his benefactor, who died three years afterwards, leaving three children to inherit his large fortune. la 1835 Poe became a contributor to the “Southern Literary Messenger,” and in the same year took up his residence in Richmond. In a few mouths he was installed as editor of that Magazine, but evinced little aptitude or taste for the position. He would fill a vacant space with productions of his own that had already been printed, forgetting to mention the fact, and which, Mr. Stoddard quaintly remarks, “were very useful to him when not in the mood for writing, and never lost their usefulness while he was alive.” Poe is represented as destitute of the catholicity of taste and sweetness of temper essential to the making of a good editor. He was dogmatic and insolent, and always sin hot water. He had the genius of the Celt for creating a row, and made almost every literary man with whom he came in contact his enemy. “His reviews were usually personal, and therefore worthless. He had no settled stand and of criticism, except that he was infallible, even when contradictory.” His habits of drinking aggravated the trouble, and in January, 1837, he retired from the Magazine.

During his stay in Richmond he had married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, who was 88 poor as himself, and with no qualification for being his wife but a sweet face, a gentle temper, and love for her husband. After various removals from city to city, Poe at last came to New-York in 1844, where ho had lived a short time about six years before, and soon became prominent as a journalist and magazine writer. Mr. Stoddard was at that time just entering upon the poetical career in which he has since won such honorable distinction, and by a whimsical irony of circumstances the very superiority of his youthful talents involved him in a misunderstanding with the potent critic, The affair can be related in no words but his own.

It was while he was one of the editors of The Broadway Journal that I became acquainted with Poe, and my reminiscences of him, slight as they are, must be the if any is needed, for the apparent egotism of what followed. I was a young man, and I had a weakness not wholly confined to young men. I wrote verse, and thought it poetry. Something that I had written assumed that pleasing form to my deluded imagination. It was “An Ode on a Grecian Flute.” I have a strong suspicion that I was fresh from the reading of Keats, and that I particularly admired his “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Be this as it may. I sent my ode to The Broadway Journal, I presume, with a letter addressed to Edgar A. Poe, and waited with fear and trembling. One week, two weeks parsed, and it did not appear. Evidently the demand for odes was slack. When I could bear my disappointment no longer. I made time to take a long walk to the office of The Broadway Journal, and asked for Mr. Poe. He was not in. Might I inquire where he lived? I was directed to a street and a number that I have forgotten, but it was in the eastern part of the city, a neighborhood now given up to sundry of the tribes of Israel. I knocked at the street door, and was presently shown up to Poe's chambers, on the second or third floor. He received me very ode kindly. I told my errand, and he promised that my ode should be printed next week. was struck with his polite wanner toward me, and with the elegance of his appearance. He was slight and pale, I saw, with large, eyes, and was dressed in black. When I quilted the room I could not but see Mrs. Poe, who was lying on a bed, apparently asleep. She, too, was dreesed in black. and was pale and wasted. “Poor lady!” I thought; “she is dying of consumption.” I was sad on her account, but glad on my own: for had I not seen a real live author, the great Edgar Allan Poe, and was not my ode to be published at once in his paper?

I bought the next number of The Broadway Journal, but the ode was not in it. It was mentioned, however, somewhat in this style: We decline to publish the ode on a Grecian unless we can be assured of ite authenticity.” I was astounded, as almost any young man would have been. I was indignant also. [column 2:] I made time to take another long walk to the office of The Broadway Journal, and asked again for Mr. Poe. I was told that he was out, but would probably be in in half an hour. I sauntered about, beating myself in the hot sun, and went back at the end of an hour. Poe had returned, and was in the inner office. He was sitting on a chair asleep, but the publisher woke him. He was in a morose mood. “Mr. Poe,” I said, “I have call to assure you of the authenticity lie of the te declured on a that Grecian Flute.’” He gave me the lie direct, declared that I never wrote it, and threatened to chastise me unless I left him at once. I was more indignant and astounded than before; but I left him as he desired, and walked slowly home, chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies.” I could not understand then [[the]] way I had been subjected to such an indignity. I can now. When I came to think the matter over, I was rather flattered than otherwise; for had not the great Poe declared that did not write the poem, when I kuew that I did? What a genius I must be!

I had glimpses of Poe afterward in the streets, but we never spoke. The Inst time that I remember to have seen him was in the afternoon of a dreary Autumn day. A heavy shower had come up suddenly, and he was standing under an awning. I had an umbrella, and my impulse was to share it with him on his way home; but something — certainly not unkindness — withheld me. I went on and left him there in the rain, pale, shivering, miserable, the embodiment of his own

The remainder of Poe's unrestful and perturbed life is described by Mr. Stoddard with a terse brevity of statement, which if sufticient for the intrinsic demands of the subject, is hardly equal, to the curiosity which he has awakened afresh by the pathetic interest of narrative. Although he shows no sympathy with the morbid and deformed nature of Poe, his sketch is marked by a high sense of justice, and is written not only wich compassion for human frailty, but with tenderness for personal The melancholy tale is brought to a temptation. close, and the curtain falls upon the last sad scene as follows:

Poe wrote at this time, besides “The Bells,” the stanzas “For Anne [[Annie]],” and “Annabel Lee,” and a series of brief paragraphs which were published in the Messenger as “Marginalia.” In the summer of this year he made another journey from Fordham to Richmond, and under the impression that he might not return he requested that Dr. Griswold should be his literary executor. When he got as far as Philadelphia he fell in with some of his old boon companions, and was overcome by the old temptation. It was “hail-fellow, well met” with him while his money lasted. When it was all gone he was obliged to solicit charity for the means of reaching Richmond. When he was first heard of by his friends there he had been for several days at a sort of common tavern in a common part of the city. One of these friends, the late Mr. John R. Thompson, who was then editing The Messenger, took a carriage and drove thither with the intention of fetching him away, but he had disappeared. The tavern keeper knew nothing of his whereabouts, or who he was, except that he said his name was Poe, and that he had slept for a number of nights on the sanded floor of the bar-room. At the end of a week or ten days he appeared one morning at the office of Mr. Thompson, whom he knew only by correspondence, and introduced himself. His garments were old and seedy, but brushed with scrupulous care, and there were no signs of dissipation in his clean and fresh-shaved face. He asked permission to have his letters directed to Mr. Thompson's box, and room enough in his office to write in, both of which requests were cordially granted. A desk was given him, and he was soon at his literary work — “Marginalia.” What Mr. Kennedy had done for him nearly sixteen years before in Baltimore was done for him now — he was rejuvenated as regards his clothing, and made presentable in society by Mr. Thompson's tailor. For a time all went well with him, but at last he disappeared. At the end of several days he returned with a damaged eye. He had been mistaken for some one else by a ruffian in a bar-room, and knocked down without a word. He returned to his work, to disappear again. He was next heard of at a fashionable drinking saloon, where he was found explaining “Eureka” to a motley crowd of bar-room loungers. He returned to his work again, and made another effort to reform. He joined a temperance society, and gave a lecture, which was attended by the best people in Richmond. He renewed acquaintance with a lady whom he had loved in youth, and who was now a widow, and became engaged to her. He had but two things to do before they were married — one was to go to Philadelphia, and write a preface for a volume of feminine poetry, the other was to go to Fordham, and fetch Mrs. Clemm to the wedding.

The final impression of Poe's character, as set forth by his biographer, is one of intense disapproval and profound pity. He was unscrupulous as a writer; with no sense of literary honor, no love of the truth, and no zeal in its pursuit, prostituting the functions of the critic to the indulgence of spite and vindictiveness; with a keen love of beauty, but with only a capricious and superficial standard of art and more intent on producing an ephemeral sensation than on embodying the pure conceptions of the ideal in the forms of the imagination. Of moral principle, he appears to have possessed not even the rudest elements. The imperial grandeur of duty never dawned upon his mind. From his earliest boyhood, he was the creature of impulse and wayward passion. In this respect he remained a child even in the maturity of manly strength. No spiritual growth succeeded the youthful effervescence of his animal development. His nature was a splendid blossom, but with a worm at the heart, and it could never ripen into sweet and genial fruit. The discords of his character were too great for harmony of life, and he must now be remembered as a magnificent ruin, and not judged as a consummate structure in the City of the Lord. Such a mournful waste of power may call forth the censorious scorn of the Pharisee, but he who possesses the deepest insight into the mystery of life will look upon the spectacle of perverted humanity with equal wonder and compassion.