Text: Charlotte Charles Herr, “Hirst vs. Poe,” The Collector (New York, NY), vol. VIII, no. 6, March 1895, p. 64

[page 64, continued:]

There is no personality in American letters upon which the search light of biography and criticism has been more often turned than that of Poe, and with a success that seemed to have left nothing for the future to unveil. There is no nook or corner of his life but has been swept and garnished by successive writers, and save that of the Bronté family, there is no sadder reading in the whole range of literary lives as given to the world.

That there should be to day any doubt of the entire originality of Poe's best known poem, The Raven, seems almost an impossibility; and yet, in Philadelphia, Dr. Matthew Woods asserts his belief that the poem, if not written in collaboration with Henry B. Hirst, at least owes its origin to Hirst's poem “The Unseen River,” published with others in 1845, the year in which The Raven was given to the press.

The Dr's. reasons for his belief are not yet given in extenso, but will be presented along with an edition of Hirst's collected works which he is rapidly getting into shape to publish, with portraits.

Since his death little is known of Hirst, save as the writer, in 1844, of the first sketch of Poe, for a Philadelphia magazine. That the two men were friendly, if not friends, is vouched for by Philadelphians still living; that the friendship did not continue we may be certain. Hirst, it is recalled, was eccentric to the verge of madness, and while Poe could or would, in his greatest need, turn his hand to naught save literature, Hirst was many-sided and versatile in the extreme. Most of his poetry was written while studying for the bar, to which he afterwards belonged, but had, he not been a lawyer he would have become a painter; pictures of his in oil and water colors evince decided talent. Another remarkable gift was the power he possessed over the animal world. Did he go hunting with his friends, he, while they passed the night indoors, slept among the trees, where in the [column 2:] morning birds flew to him, rabbit and hare left their burrows and crept over him, and no living creature feared, but was drawn towards him by some occult power possessed within the man. To find if it were worth while to fish in certain waters, he had but to pass his hand over the surface, and the inmates, if any, would rise to greet him. His book on Cage Birds shows him an ornithologist of merit, and a large number of his poems are about birds.

Dr. Wood's reasons for his claims will be looked for with interest. It is just half a century since The Raven was written, and to day Poe is a cult among the younger French writers, while his works find equal favor in Germany, and he is the sole American author mentioned along with English ones in Trilby. It is worth recording too that at the “Evening with Henry B. Hirst” lately given by Dr. Woods, the writer of the song which was “Trilby's” earliest vocal accomplishment (or feat), was present, as was another veteran, and the reminiscences of these charming middle-aged old gentlemen, Thomas Dunn English and John Sartain, were among the most delightful features of the evening, where to the words of the poet was lent the beauty of voice of readers, poets themselves.

In the Dr's. upper hall is a fire-place and mantle before which Poe, holding Virginia's little hand, “with death in it,” must often have sat and dreamed in the little cottage of Fordham.

Both Poe and Hirst died in hospital from the same cause — absinthe in Hirst's case; both were men who lived within themselves and both were true poets, as Hirst wrote:

CHARLOTTE CHARLES HERR.