"No such scene as that described by Dr. Griswold ever transpired in my presence. No one, certainly no woman, who had the slightest acquaintance with, Edgar Poe could have credited the story for an instant. He was essentially and instinctively a gentleman, utterly incapable, even in moments of excitement and delirium, of such an outrage as Dr. Griswold has ascribed to him. No authentic anecdote of coarse indulgence in vulgar orgies or bestial riot has ever been recorded of him. During the last years of his unhappy life, whenever he yielded to the temptation that was drawing him into its fathomless abyss, as with the resistless swirl of the maelstrom, he always lost himself in sublime rhapsodies on the evolution of the universe, speaking as from some imaginary platform to vast audiences of rapt and attentive listeners. During one of his visits to this city, in the autumn of 1848, I once saw him, after one of those nights of wild excitement, before reason had fully recovered its throne. Yet even then, in those frenzied moments when the doors of the mind's 'Haunted Palace' were left all unguarded, his words were the words of a princely intellect, overwrought, and of a heart only too sensitive and too finely strung. I repeat that no one acquainted with Edgar Poe could have given Dr. Griswold's scandalous anecdote a moment's credence.

"Yours, etc.,

"S. H. WHITMAN."

In regard to Mr. Griswold's professed friendship for Poe, which he endeavors to demonstrate in copies of a correspondence which I cannot refrain from thinking was extensively doctored" by the doctor, to suit his purpose, I am able to present an extract from an autograph letter of Dr. Griswold written to Mrs. Whitman in 1849.

The object of this was evidently to cool Mrs. Whitman's friendship for Mrs. Clemm, thus preventing their further intimacy. This was desirable to Dr. Griswold for evident

reasons.

3

MY DEAR MRS. WHITMAN:

NEW YORK, December 17, 1849.

I have been two or three weeks in Philadelphia attending to the remains which a recent fire left of my library and furniture, and so did not receive your interesting letter in regard to our departed acquaintance until to-day. I wrote, as you suppose, the notice of Poe in the "Tribune," but very hastily.

I was not his friend, nor was he mine, as I remember to have told you. I undertook to edit his writings to oblige Mrs. Clemm, and they will soon be published in two thick volumes, of which a copy shall be sent to you. I saw very little of Poe in his last years. .. I cannot refrain from begging you to be very careful what you say or write to Mrs. Clemm, who is not your friend, nor anybody's friend, and who has no element of goodness or kindness in her nature, but whose whole heart and understanding are full of malice and wickedness. I confide in you these sentences for your own sake only, for Mrs. C. appears to be a very warm friend to me. Pray destroy this note, and, at least, act cautiously, till I may justify it in a conversation with you.

I am yours very sincerely,

RUFUS W. GRISWOLD.

This brief note affords a tolerably good specimen of the utter duplicity of the man. In his printed memoir of Poe, he quotes a correspondence indicating professed friendship; in private, he squarely owns that no friendship ever existed between Poe and himself.

He writes that Mrs. Clemm is a friend to no one, and stigmatizes her character, and in the same breath speaks of her warm friendship for him.

Had Griswold lived in Othello's time, no one could have disputed with him the position of "mine ancient,” honest Iago.

From a correspondence from Mrs. Clemm, who, there can be no reasonable doubt, is correctly described by Willis as one of those angels upon earth that women in adversity can be," we find the most positive testimony that Dr. Griswold's association with collecting the works of Poe, and of writing a memoir of the author, was purely voluntary and speculative.

It presents simply the fact of a designing and unscrupulous man, prompted by hatred and greed of gain, taking advantage of a helpless woman, unaccustomed to business, to defraud her of her rights, and gratify his malice and his avarice at her expense.

A miserable pittance having been given to Mrs. Clemm in exchange for Poe's private papers, Dr. Griswold draws up a paper for Mrs. Clemm to sign, announcing his appointment as Poè's literary executor, not omitting of course a touching allusion to himself. This is duly signed by Mrs. Clemm, and printed over her signature in the published editions of Poe's works. But if the wording of this curious paper be carefully observed, it will be noted that nothing whatever is said in it of any request by Poe that Dr. Griswold should write a memoir of his life. This duty was properly assigned to Mr. Willis, of all men familiar with the subject the most competent to fulfil such a task, and his tender and manly tribute to the stricken genius was all that could have been wished, all that the world called for.

Mrs. Clemm had no idea, at the time she signed the paper which she scarcely understood, that Dr. Griswold had any intention of supplementing Mr. Willis's obituary with any memoir by his own pen. It was a piece of gratuitous malice, — the act of a fiend exulting over a dead and helpless victim.

36

EDGAR A. POE AND HIS BIOGRAPHER.

The tone of Poe's critique of Griswold, in his review of the is Poets and Poetry of America," which unquestionably inspired the reverend doctor's malignant hatred, scathing as it is, will impress the reader with its outspoken manliness and integrity of purpose. What a contrast to the biography that, while undermining the very foundations of Poe's moral and social character, yet hypocritically professes to be dictated by friendship, and written in a generous spirit! I fear that Dr. Griswold's precious specimen of his generosity will go on record in the history of literature as an everlasting monument of his despicable meanness.

Dr. Griswold was, take him all in all, about as well fitted to be Poe's biographer, as Mr. Preston Brooks would have been to have written an impartial life of Charles Sumner. And, indeed, whenever it becomes possible for a Rufus W. Griswold to write a true transcript of the life of an Edgar A. Poe, then will perpetual motion have become possible, the world will find it easy and comfortable to arrest its revolutions at pleasure, and balloon voyages to the planets will become as popular and as practicable as is a trip to Saratoga at the present day.

THE RAVEN.

NCE 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 cham

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

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name

Lenore

Nameless here for evermore.