Edgar Poe and His Critics — Sarah Helen Whitman, 1860 — reading text

their English compeers. Meantime the name underwent various changes in accent and orthography. A few branches of the family stQl bore in Ireland the old Italian name of De la Poe. John Poe, the great-grandfather of Edgar Poe, married a daughter of Admiral McBride, distinguished for his naval achieve- ments and connected with some of the most illustrious families of England. From genealogical records transmitted by him to his son, David Poe, the grandfather of the poet, who was but two years of age when his parents left Ireland, it appears that 8o Edgar Poe and his Critics. different modes of spelling the name were adopted by different members of the same family. David Poe was accustomed to speak of the Chevalier le Poer, a friend of the Marquis de Grammont, as having been of his father's family. The grand- father of Edgar Poe was an officer in the Maryland line during the war of the revolution, and, as Dr Griswold has told us, the intimate friend of La Fayette. He married a lady of Pennsyl- vania, by the name of Cairnes, wha is still remembered as having been a woman of singular beauty. The father of Edgar Poe, while a law student in the office of Wm. Gwynn, Esq., of Balti- more, married, at the age of eighteen, Elizabeth Arnold, a young English actress who was herself but a child. He first saw her at Norfolk, where he was sent on professional business, and in a few months they were married. Indignant at so imprudent a union, his parents refused their countenance to the marriage, and it was only after the birth of a child that he was forgiven and received back into the paternal mansion. During the period of his estrangement from his family he had joined his wife in a theatrical engagement. Edgar Poe was the offspring of this romantic and improvident union. 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