Memoir of the Author — Rufus Wilmot Griswold’s 1850 account of Poe — reading text

Lavater, he attempted the illustration of character from handwriting; and in the second, he assumed that human ingenuity could construct no secret writing which human ingenuity could not resolve: a not very dangerous proposition, since it implied no capacity in himself to discover every riddle of this kind that should be invented. He however succeeded with several difficult cryptographs that were sent to him, and the direction of his mind to the subject led to the composition of some of the tales of ratiocination which so largely increased his reputation. The infirmities which induced his separation from Mr. White and Mr. Burton at length compelled Mr. Graham to seek for another editor; but Poe still remained in Philadelphia, engaged from time to time in various literary occupations, and in the vain effort to establish a journal of his very own to be called “The Stylus.” Although it requires considerable capital to carry on a monthly of the description he proposed, I think it would not have been difficult with his well-earned fame as a magazinist, for him to have found a competent and suitable publisher, but for the unfortunate notoriety of his habits, and the failure in succession of three persons who had admired him for his genius and pities him for his misfortunes, by every means that tact or friendship could suggest, to induce the consistency and steadiness of application indispensible to success in such pursuits. It was in the spring of 1848 — more than a year after his dissociation from Graham — that he wrote the story of “The Gold Bug,” for which he was paid a prize of one hundred dollars. It has relation to Captain Kyd’s treasure, and is one of the most remarkable illustrations of his ingenuity of construction and apparent subtlety of reasoning. The interest depends upon the solution of an intricate cypher. In the autumn of 1844 Poe removed to New-York. It was while he resided in Philadelphia That I became acquainted with him. His manner, except during his fits of intoxication, was very quiet and gentlemanly; he was usually dressed with simplicity and elegance; and when once he sent for me to visit him, during a period of illness caused by protracted and anxious watching at the side of his sick wife, I was impressed by the singular neatness and the air of refinement in his home. It was in a small house, in one of the pleasant and silent neighborhoods far from the centre of the town, and though slightly and cheaply furnished, everything in it was so tasteful and so fitly disposed that it seemed altogether suitable for a man of genius. For this and for most of the comforts he enjoyed in his brightest as in his darkest years, he was chiefly indebted to his mother-in-law, who loved him with more than maternal devotion and constancy. He had now written his most acute criticisms and his most admirable tales. Of tales, besides those to which I have referred, he had produced “The Descent into the Maelstrom,” “The Premature Burial,” “The Purloined letter,” “The Murders of the Rue Morgue,” and its sequel, “The Mystery of Marie Roget.” The scenes of the last three are in Paris, where the author’s friend, the Chevalier Auguste Dupin, is supposed to reveal to him the curiosities of his experience and observation in matters of police. “The Mystery of Marie Roget” was first published in the autumn of 1842, before an extraordinary excitement, occasioned by the murder of a young girl named Mary Rogers, in the vicinity of New-York, had quite subsided, though several months after the tragedy. Under the pretense of relating the fate of a Parisian grisette, Mr. Poe followed in minute detail the essential while merely paralleling the inessential facts of the real murder. His object appears to have been to reinvestigate the case and to settle his own conclusions as to the probable culprit. There is a great deal of hair-splitting in the incidental discussions by Dupin, throughout all these stories, but it is made effective. Much of their popularity, as well as that of other tales of ratiocination by Poe, arose from their being in a new key. I do not mean to say that they are not ingenious; but they have been thought more ingenious than they are, on account of their method and air of method. In “The Murders of the Rue Morgue,” for instance, what ingenuity is displayed in unravelling a web which has been woven for the express purpose of unravelling? The reader is made to confound the ingenuity of the supposititious Dupin with that of the writer of the story. These works brought the name of Poe himself somewhat conspicuously before the law courts of Paris. The journal, La Commerce, gave a feuilleton in which “The Murders of the Rue Morgue” appeared in translation. Afterward a writer for La Quotidienne served it for that paper under the title of “L’Orang-Otang.” A third party accused La Quotidienne of plagiary from La Commerce, and in the course of the legal investigation which ensued, the feuilletoniste of La Commerce proved to the satisfaction of the tribunal that he had stolen the tale entirely from Mr. Poe,* whose merits were soon after canvassed in the “Revue Deux Mondes,” and whose best tales were upon this impulse translated by Mme. Isabelle Meunier for the Democratie Pacifique and other French gazettes. In New-York Poe entered upon a new sort of life. Heretofore, from the commencement of his literary career, he had resided in provincial towns. Now he was in a metropolis, and with a reputation which might have served as a passport to any society he could desire. For the first time he was received into circles capable of both the appreciation and the production of literature. He added to his fame soon after he came to the city by the publication of that remarkable composition “The Raven,” of which Mr. Willis has observed that in his opinion “it is the most effective single example of fugitive poetry ever published in this country, and is unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift,” and by that of one of the most extraordinary instances of the naturalness of detail — the versimilitude of minute narrative — for which he was preeminently distinguished, his “Mesmeric Revelation,” purporting to be the last conversation of a somnambule, held just before death with his magnetizer; which was followed by the yet more striking exhibition of abilities in the same way, entitled “The facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” in which the subject is represented as having been mesmerized in articulo mortis. These pieces were reprinted throughout the literary and philosophical world, in nearly all languages, everywhere causing sharp and curious speculation, and where readers could be persuaded that they were fables, challenging a reluctant but genuine admiration. He had not been long in New-York before he was engaged by Mr. Willis and General Morris as critic and assistant editor of “The Mirror.” He remained in this situation about six months, when he became associated with Mr. Briggs in the conduct of the “Broadway Journal,” which in October, 1845, passed entirely into his possession. He had now the long-sought but never before enjoyed absolute control of a literary gazette, and, with much friendly assistance, he maintained it long enough to show that whatever his genius, he had not the kind or degree of talent necessary to such a position. His chief critical writings in the “Broadway Journal,” were a paper on Miss Barrett’s Poems and a long discussion of the subject of plagiarism, with especial reference to Mr. Longfellow. In March, 1845, he had given a lecture at the Society Library upon the American Poets, composed, for the most part, of fragments of his previously published reviewals; and in the autumn he accepted an invitation to read a poem before the Boston Lyceum. A week after the event, he printed in the “Broadway Journal” the following account of it, in reply to a paragraph in one of the city papers, founded upon a statement in the Boston “Transcript.” “Our excellent friend, Major Noah, has suffered himself to be cajoled by that most beguiling of all beguiling little divinities, Miss Walter, of  ‘The Transcript.’ We have been looking all over her article with the aid of a taper, to see if we could discover a single syllable of truth in it — and really blush to acknowledge that we cannot. The adorable creature has been telling a parcel of fibs about us, by way of revenge for something that we did to Mr. Longfellow (who admires her very much) and for calling her ‘a pretty little witch’ into the bargain. The facts of the case seem to be these: We were invited to ‘deliver’ (stand and deliver) a poem before the Boston Lyceum. As a matter of course, we accepted the invitation. The audience was ‘large and distinguished.’ Mr. Cushing* preceded us with a very capital discourse: he was much applauded. On arising, we were most cordially received. We occupied some fifteen minutes with an apology for not ‘delivering, as is usual in such cases, a didactic poem: a didactic poem, in our opinion, being precisely no poem at all. After some farther words — still of apology — for the ‘indefinitiveness’ and ‘general imbecility’ of what we had to offer — all so unworthy a Bostonian audience — we commenced, and, with many interruptions of applause, concluded. Upon the whole the approbation was considerably more (the more the pity too) than that bestowed upon Mr. Cushing. When we had made an end, the audience, of course, arose to depart; and about one-tenth of them, probably, had really departed, when Mr. Coffin, one of the managing committee, arrested those who remained, by announcement that we had been requested to deliver ‘The Raven.’  We delivered ‘The Raven’ forthwith — without taking a receipt) — were very cordially applauded again — and this was the end of it — with the exception of the sad tale invented to suit her own purposes, by that amiable little enemy of ours, Miss Walter. We shall never call a woman ‘a pretty little witch’ again, as long as we live. “We like Boston. We were born there — and perhaps it is just as well not to mention that we are heartily ashamed of that fact. The Bostonians are very well in their way. Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin pies are delicious. Their poetry is not so good. Their common is no common thing — and the duck-pond might answer — if its answer could be heard for the frogs. But with all these good qualities the Bostonians have no soul. They have always evinced towards us, individually, the basest ingratitude for the services we rendered them in enlightening them about the originality of Mr. Longfellow. When we accepted, therefore, an invitation to ‘deliver’ a poem in Boston — we accepted it simply and solely, because we had a curiosity to know how it felt to be publicly hissed — and because we wished to see what effect we could produce by a neat little impromptu speech in reply. Perhaps, however, we overrated our own importance, or the Bostonian want of common civility — which is not quite so manifest as one or two of their editors would wish the public to believe. We assure Major Noah that he is wrong. The Bostonians are well-bred — as very dull persons very generally are. Still, with their vile ingratitude staring us in the eyes, it could scarcely be supposed that we would put ourselves to the trouble of composing for the Bostonians anything in the shape of an original poem. We did not. We had a poem (of about 500 lines) lying by us — one quite as good as new — one, at all events, that we considered would answer sufficiently well for an audience of Transcendentalists. That we gave them — it was the best that we had — for the price — and it did answer remarkably well. Its name was not ‘The Messenger Star’ — who but Miss Walter would ever think of so delicious a little bit of invention as that? We had no name for it at all. The poem is what is occasionally called a