man closed his doors against him. And so at the age of twenty-two the friendless poet was fain to turn for a livelihood to the common but too often sterile resource of literature.

In his first venture, however, Poe was fortunate. In 1833, the publisher of a literary journal at Baltimore having offered a prize of a hundred dollars for a tale in prose, and the same for a poem, Poe became a competitor, and won both prizes. This opened to him an engagement as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger at Richmond. In his editorial duties he labored for some time with industry, writing many tales and reviews, marked by genius and critical skill; but at length his old habits returned, and after a debauch he quarreled with the proprietor, and had to seek employment elsewhere. While in Richmond Poe married his cousin, Virginia Clem, "a beautiful and saintly creature," who was as destitute as himself, and who died of consumption the year before Poe's own sad end.

Removing to New York in 1837, Poe lived precariously by writing for the periodicals. Two years later he went to Philadelphia, where he edited, first the Gentleman's Magazine, and afterwards Graham's Magazine. While in Philadelphia he published a collection of his best stories, with the title Tales of the Arabesque and Grotesque (1840), which increased his now high reputation.

Poe's next move was a return to New York, where he contributed to the periodicals. In the American Review, published in that city, there appeared (February, 1845) a poem named “The Raven," and signed Quarles.

It paid Poe, who proved to be its author, the sum of ten dollars; but it carried his name to the four corners of the earth, and made him a great celebrity in New York society, where he was often seen.

Though Poe was now famous, and though he was by habit industrious, the rewards of literature were at this time so meager that he was wretchedly poor; and after the failure of the Broadway Journal, a literary magazine in which he embarked (1846), he was reduced to such straits that public appeals for pecuniary aid were made in his behalf by the newspapers.

At this time Poe was living in a small cottage at Fordham, a suburb of New York, where it was his melancholy office to watch over his dying wife. He was in extreme poverty, and the state of his household is thus described by a friend: "There was no clothing on the bed-which was only straw-but a snow-white spread and sheets. Virginia [his wife] lay on the straw bed, wrapped in her husband's great-coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat in her arms. These were her only means of warmth, except that Poe held her hands, and her mother her feet."

After his wife's death, Poe seems to have become reckless. His heart was broken. While in Baltimore (on his way from Richmond, where he had gone on a visit, to New York) he died, Oct. 7, 1849, in his fortyfirst year. The circumstances of his "taking-off" were very, very sad.

Like all strong personalities, Poe has been the subject of much discussion. His first biographer, Griswold, turned the attention of the world towards his

faults and failings. These were many: however, it is now recognized that they have been greatly exaggerated. With the fatal gift of genius, Poe had a temperament of varied moods, and in his fits of melancholy-which at times bordered on madness — he sought the delusive "nepenthe" of opium and alcohol. It seems that his nature, sensitive as it was to æsthetic beauty in all its forms, lacked somewhat of moral sensibility. It is the old story-illustrated before by Coleridge, and Lamb, and many others—of great powers allied to a weak will. He could not free himself from inherited qualities, and went down,—a great though broken life. Yet it would be a cold heart that could read without sympathy the story of this noble, misguided man,- himself the "unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster," till the melancholy end of his earthly career.

Leaving his moral character to be judged by those fitted to judge, we are free to consider, without prejudice or prepossession, his place in literature. This is unique. Poe's fame undoubtedly rests on fewer works than that of any other writer of equal renown. Though his writing is considerable in amount, it is most uneven in value. His philosophy-a sphere in which he thought to take high flights—may best be described as bosh. His literary criticism is so colored by personal prejudice as to be valueless save for the bright occasional utterances of his rare æsthetic instinct. But his stories and poems belong to a class apart, and these are his titles to enduring fame.

As a writer of tales, Poe was a great and original

master. His art was to take a single motive, and develop that and its belongings in a manner that can be described only by the word exquisite. The Gold Bug, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Fall of the House of Usher, and William Wilson, are good exemplifications of what may be called the Poe art,-an art in which he had no predecessor, and (though with many imitators) no successor. These high inventions of genius and art he wrote in hours stolen from poverty and despair.

It is matter of regret that we can not here exhibit Poe in his brightest work by presenting one of these tales; but there is not space to give one in its completeness, and no extract would be satisfactory.

As a poet Poe's fame rests on three or four pieces. The Raven, Annabel Lee, and The Haunted Palace are perhaps the most characteristic of his poetic productions. The Raven is, of course, his masterpiece. It belongs to the small class of poems that are never attributed to any but their authors, and which contain the divine essence of their creators.

Poe's grave in Baltimore was unmarked until, in 1875, the teachers of that city erected a stone to his memory. In May, 1885, a memorial tablet of him was placed in what should be called "Poets' Corner,” in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New-York City. So Time, which avenges every thing, places our poet where he belongs. He suffered for his frailties: we are the heirs of his genius. His image is to us that of one on a vessel far out at sea, alone on the deck, in a dark tempestuous night, illumined at intervals by a flash of lightning.

1.- THE RAVEN.

[In reproducing The Raven we would call the teacher's attention to the fact that the poem is followed by Poe's subtle piece of analysis entitled The Philosophy of Composition, in which he sets forth in a most interesting manner the processes by which The Raven was evolved. It is recommended that the poem be read first, then the analysis, and then the poem again.]

ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door. ""Tis some visitor," I muttered, tapping at my chamber

Only this, and nothing more."

Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the

floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow: vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow, -sorrow for the lost

Lenore;

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,

Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, ""Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door, Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door; This it is, and nothing more."