Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions — John H. Ingram, 1880, volume II — reading text

monument was crowned with a wreath composed of ivy, and another of lilies and evergreens. After the dirge, Poe’s “Annabel Lee” was recited, and selections from “The Bells” were given by Mrs. Dillehunt. This concluded the ceremonies, and the crowd which had collected in the graveyard came forward to view the monument. During the unveiling a large throng was gathered in the vicinity of Fayette and Greene Streets, unable to gain admission to the Female High School or the churchyard. The monument is of the pedestal or cippus form, and is eight feet high; the surbase is of Woodstock granite, six feet square, the other portions being of white-veined Italian marble. The pedestal has an Attic base three feet ten inches square; the die block is a cube three feet square and three feet two inches high, relieved on each face by a squareprojecting and polished plane, the upper angles of which are broken and filled with a carved rosette. On the front panel is the bas-relief bust of the poet, modelled by Frederick Volck from a photograph in possession of Mr. Neilson Poe. On the opposite panel are inscribed the dates of the poet’s birth and death. The die block is surmounted by a bold and graceful frieze and cornice four feet square, broken on each face in the centre by a segment of a circle. The frieze is ornamented at the angles by richly-carved acanthus leaves, and in the centre by a lyre crowned with laurel. The whole is capped by a blocking three feet square, cut to a low pyramidal form. 1s The monument is simple and chaste, and strikes more by graceful outline than by crowding with unmeaning ornament.” Mr. Geo. A. Frederick was the architect. A TRIBUTE FROM THE STAGE. — “A pleasing feature of the ceremonies was the placing upon the monument of a large wreath of flowers, made up principally of camelias, lilies, and tea roses. Together with this was deposited a floral tribute in the shape of a raven, made from black immortellés. The large petals of the lilies suggested the ‘bells’ immortalised by Poe’s genius, the significance of the other emblems being obvious. These were tributes from the company at Ford’s Grand Opera House, Mrs. Germon being mainly instrumental in getting them up. Poe’s mother had been an actress at Holliday Street Theatre, which fact had been preserved is the traditions of the stage, and had something to do with inspiring this tribute.” *  Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19th, 1809. — J. H. I. John H. Ingram, “Appendix F,” Edgar Allan Poe: Life, Letters, and Opinions (1880), pp. 289-296 APPENDIX F. BIOGRAPHIES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE.. TO furnish a full and analytic account of the biographies of Edgar Allan Poe would be a task almost equal to that of rewriting his entire life. The history of this poet’s biographies might, indeed, fill a fresh chapter, and that by no means the least memorable, in the Curiosities of Literature. Naturally, only a concise and cursory summary of these sketches can be given here. Previous to the poet’s death, several slight biographical notices were published in various forms, and more or less diluted by speculative criticism. Griswold’s works on American Poets and Prose Writers, contained a certain number of correct and of incorrect data, to which Mr. J. R. Lowell added his quantum, in Graham’s Magazine for February 1845, in a clever but unsympathetic paper on “Edgar Allan Poe.” Poe died on the 7th of October 1849, and two days later a somewhat lengthy and bitterly hostile paper on his life and character appeared in the New York Tribune, over the signature of “Ludwig.” N. P. Willis, commenting in the Home Journal upon this posthumous hostility, revealed the fact that the pseudonymous reviler of the dead was Rufus Griswold. John Neal immediately denounced the calumniator’s sketch as “false and malicious,” and other friends and admirers were equally disgusted with it; whilst Mr. George R. Graham — that “noble fellow,” as Mrs Clemm styles him — knowing more of the connection between the dead lion and his dissector than any one else, published a long and eloquent reply in Graham’s Magazine for March 1850, in which he justly termed the characterisation by the soi-disant “Ludwig,” “the fancy sketch of a jaundiced vision,” “an immortal infamy,” and other similar appellations. Meanwhile, Mr. Powell, an English author resident in New York, had just completed a work on “The Living Authors of America,” in which a pleasant, unprejudiced, biographical sketch was given of Poe’s career. The book, however, did not appear until after the poet’s death; its data are very flattering to Poe, but do not appear very reliable. In March 1850 was published, in the Southern Literary Messenger, what Griswold styles an “Eulogium” on Poe, but what really was a still more dastardly attack on the dead man than the unsavoury “Ludwig” article. It had evidently been written and printed in hot haste, and was so disgraceful and cowardly that the editorial proprietor of the magazine, Mr. John R. Thompson, deemed it necessary to append a short printed note, to the effect that had “it not been inserted during his absence, and not seen by hire until too late to stop it, it should not have appeared in the Messenger. Who wrote this article? It is generally ascribed to Mr. J. M. Daniel; yet, strange to say, it not only uses lengthy passages of “Ludwig’s” sketch without inverted commas, or other signs of quotation, but, when Griswold’s long “Memoir of Poe” appeared in the Boston International Magazine, he also made use of long extracts from the “Eulogium” without acknowledgment. Certainly he does refer to it as his authority for one of the blackest crimes he charges Poe with, and which he himself not unaptly styles unfit for “any register but that of hell.” Was not this miscalled (by Griswold) I defender,’ then, Griswold himself, or some one acting under his inspiration? In 1850 appeared the third volume of Poe’s works, prefaced by the so-styled “Memoir” of the poet, a concentration of hatred and malice that had already done duty, as pointed out above, in the International Magazine. It is quite impossible to comprehend the immense injury this publication did to Poe’s memory. Its author appeared to be in possession of the facts — as editor of the poet’s works he was in possession of the field — and, therefore, all the numerous writers, friendly or hostile, who essayed biographical sketches of Poe, resorted to Griswold for their data. And, notwithstanding intermittent bursts of indignation, no new life of Poe, founded upon evidence independent of that proffered by this initial biographer, was published until the present writer’s sketch, introductory of the first complete edition of the poet’s works, appeared in October 1874. During this quarter of a century, however, several noteworthy “memoirs of Poe” saw the light. The best known of these was the essay of Baudelaire, and it is chiefly remarkable as the attempt, by a man of genius, to explain Poe’s character as described by Griswold, by an ingenious theory of his own. Of course he failed in that, however valuable his essay otherwise may be and truly is. Baudelaire, it should be added, had read the “Eulogium,” and, probably, Powell’s account of Poe already referred to. Next in importance to the French critic’s characterisation of Poe, is that by James Hannay, prefixed to the 1853 English edition of the Poetical Works. It is a charming and appreciative sketch, but having no biographical details other than Griswold’s to go by, and being as instinctively attracted to Poe as was Baudelaire, Hannay also started a theory as ingenious and as unsatisfactory as his, to account for the poet’s presumed misdeeds. A writer in the British Quarterly Review for July 1875, now understood to be Dr. A. H. Japp, in a clever and impartial article on “Edgar Allan Poe,” has very thoroughly sifted the errors promulgated by the two writers, and thus disposes of the latest offspring of a remarkable group: “Owing to influences precisely similar, Mr. Curwen, in his Sorrow and Song,’ errs in the same direction as Baudelaire and Hannay; and his sympathy seems wholly misplaced, because he will drive against society, instead of acknowledging frankly Poe’s faults and perversities.” The above writers, as intimated, did not dispute Griswold’s premises, only his inferences, but others, more or less known in the literary world, doubted the trustworthiness of both. The editor of Chambers’ ’s Handbook of American Literature,” writing in 1854, mildly expressed doubts of several of the allegations made against Poe by his biographer. Nemesis began to loom in the distance. In April 1857 Mr. Moy Thomas drew attention to the fact,that Poe’s miserable story rested wholly upon Griswold’s Memoir; that all since him have followed Griswold, with the exactness of a Hebrew copyist, trembling at the prophet’s curse upon all who should add to or take away one tittle of the text.” “It did appear to me to be an, important and an interesting point,” he remarks, “to learn what explanation, if any, Griswold himself had given of the reasons which had determined him to fulfil his painful task.” Mr. Moy Thomas then proceeded to show, “what even American readers appear to have forgotten, that when Mr. Griswold’s Memoir was first published, its assertions were denied by many who had known Poe, that no person corroborated the worst parts of his story, that some went so far as to impugn his motives; and that others, who had known and had closer relations with the poet, gave accounts differing materially from Griswold’s.” Finally, after alluding to the enmity existing between the poet and his biographer, Mr. Moy Thomas concludes his highly suggestive paper, by reminding English readers that there are “portraits of Poe less repulsive than that one which is best known.” In November 1857 appeared in Russell’s Magazine, Charleston, S. C., a still more remarkable vindicatory article, by Professor James Wood Davidson; is this defence of Edgar Poe’s fair fame, many of Griswold’s imputations were proved to be false, whilst others were rendered extremely improbable. This important step was contemporaneous with similar efforts made by Captain Mayne Reid, Mr. T. C. Clarke, and other personal acquaintances of the deceased poet, in the magazines and newspapers, and by Mr. L. A. Wilmer, in his book called “Our Press Gang.” The slow progress made by these justificatory pieces may be comprehended when reading the last named author’s words respecting an article he had published on,“Edgar A. Poe and his Calumniators.” “I do not know,” he states, “I that this vindication was copied by a single paper; whereas the whole press of the country seemed desirous of giving circulation and authenticity to the slanders.” But the ball had been set rolling, and in 1860, when Mrs. Whitman published her beautiful little monograph on “Edgar Poe and his Critics,” several influential literati were prepared to add the impetus of their words towards aiding the cause of truth and justice. Mrs. Whitman’s defence of her dead friend dealt almost entirely with his literary character, ” leaving to some later writer the task of giving to the world a more impartial memoir of the poet than Griswold’s,” but at the same time she pointed out that that author’s “perverted facts and baseless assumptions had been adopted into every subsequent memoir and notice of the poet,” and therefore she published her book as an earnest protest against such a “great wrong to the dead.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine for September 1872, contained an article on “Edgar Allan Poe” which, although showing animus against the poet, was noteworthy as affording evidence of original research. In 1875 this article, revised and enlarged, and for some occult reason “submitted” to English readers, did duty as 1s an original memoir,” as the introduction to a new American edition of the Poetical Works. In the British Quarterly Review it is disposed of thus: “The