while her pet cat was suffered to nestle upon her bosom for the sake of the warmth that she might impart. Many a night Poe wandered, half distracted in mind, to the cold mound that hid the mortal remains of Virginia Poe.

When Poe resumed the pen he contributed many brilliant articles to different publications. There was a story of his engaging himself to be married to a gifted lady, Mrs. Whitman. But if there was such an engagement, it fell through for reasons satisfactory to the principal parties in interest.

The months of July, August, and September, Poe spent in Richmond, Va. Here he met with a Miss Royster, to whom he had been engaged nearly twenty years before. She was now a widow. Poe again became engaged to her; and wrote to Mrs. Clemm, inviting her to come on and join him, to be present at the wedding. On the second of October he left Richmond, for the purpose of going to Fordham to fetch Mrs. Clemm.

When he arrived in Baltimore it was election-day. A cousin of the poet's learned that he was in a back room of the "Fourth Ward Polls," on Lombard Street. There he was found in a state of complete prostration and stupefaction. It was learned that he had been drugged, and taken from one pollingplace to another all over the city. He was at once conveyed to the Washington College Hospital, on Broadway. Here he remained insensible until he

died, on the 7th of October, 1849, in the forty-first year of his age. On the cheerless autumn afternoon of October 9th he was gathered to his fathers, in the old cemetery of the Westminster Church.

For a quarter of a century the burial mound over all that was mortal of EDGAR ALLAN POE remained without a monument; but on the 17th of November, 1875, a splendid monument was placed over his remains, in the presence of many thousands of his admirers.

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE.

N speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either thorough or profound.

While discussing, very much at random, the essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to cite for consideration some few of those minor English or American poems which best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the most definite impression. By "minor poems" I mean, of course, poems of little length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say a few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether rightfully or wrongfully, has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of the poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase "a long poem is simply a flat contradiction in terms.

I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so

called at all can not be sustained throughout a composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it flags, fails, a revulsion ensues; and then the poem is, in effect and in fact, no longer such.

There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling the critical dictum that the "Paradise Lost" is to be devoutly admired throughout with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it, during perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand. This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical only when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of art, unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve its unity,—its totality of effect or impression,- we read it (as would be necessary) at a single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation of excitement and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude which no critical prejudgment can force us to admire; but if, upon completing the work, we read it again, omitting the first book,—that is to say, commencing with the second,-we shall be surprised at now finding that admirable which we before condemned, that damnable which we had previously so much admired. It follows from all this that the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun is a nullity: and this is precisely the fact.

In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very good reason, for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but granting the epic intention, I can only say that the work is based in an imperfect sense of art. The modern epic is of the supposititious ancient model; but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the days of these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very

long poem were popular in reality,—which I doubt, -it is at least clear that no very long poem will ever be popular again.

That the extent of a poetical work is, ceteris pari bus, the measure of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition sufficiently absurd; yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere size, abstractly considered, there can be nothing in mere bulk, so far as a volume is concerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration from these saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of physical magnitude which it conveys, does impress us with a sense of the sublime; but no man is impressed after this fashion by the material grandeur of even "The Columbiad." Even the quarterlies have not instructed us to be so impressed by it. As yet they have not insisted on our estimating Lamartine by the cubic foot, or Pollock by the pound; but what else are we to infer from their continually prating about "sustained effort"? If by "sustained effort" any little gentleman has accom