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so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder | terranean cellar, in order to taste it. into an idea of the worthlessness of the docu- They (the two) proceed there according ment; these things, together with the hyper-ly; the tempter in some ordinary carnival obtrusive situation of this document, full in disguise; the doomed man in the motley view of every visitor, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the intention to suspect.

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"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and while I maintained a most animated discussion with the Minister, upon a topic which I knew well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed to memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack; and also fell, at length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed them to be more chafed than seemed necessary. They presented the broken appear ance which is manifested when a stiff paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed, and resealed. I bade the minister good morning, and took my departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table.'"-Pp. 278–279.

He goes home, prepares carefully a facsimile of the letter, and returns next morning for his snuff-box. During the gossip which ensues upon his visit, a loud report of fire-arms, accompanied by screams, is heard underneath the minister's window. That functionary throws up the sash for a moment to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and during this interval Dupin exchanges his fuc-simile for the original letter so ardently desired. The man who fires the pistol is a colleague of Dupin. The reasoning upon which Dupin proceeds in this matter must be sought for in the tale itself.

We had marked, as worthy of extract, a short story, entitled "The Cask of Amontillado;" but we are obliged to content ourselves with merely recommending it to the reader's notice. The tenor of it is as follows: A man, owing to some previous slight or insult, entertains the most implacable hatred towards another. During the Carnival, (for the scene is laid in Italy,) he insinuates himself into the society of his victim, who is a great amateur of rare wines, and inflames his imagination so much by the description of a certain matchless cask of Amontillado, that the other is induced to visit the sub

grotesque dress of a Fool or Zany, with All things the usual cap and bells. having been prepared beforehand, the amateur is induced to drink, glass after glass, until he becomes intoxicated and stupid. In this state, the other proceeds to build him up, in a recess in the wall. His task is almost done; and he is just about to fix the last stone in its place, when the poor drunkard shakes his fool's bells, and utters a single half-conscious cry of alarm. The murderer, staggered by the sound, hesitates for a moment-only a moment-and then contemplates his diabolical task; shuts up his enemy alive in his grave, and returns to the upper air and society. He is oppressed, however, by remorse, which never leaves him till he dies. The helpless cry of the stupefied victim, and the clash of his bells—a terrible incident in the murderous gloom of the scene-will ring for a long time (unless we mistake) in the reader's memory,

The poetical works of the author need not detain us long. With one remarkable exception, his verses do not differ materially from others of the same time. They are neither very good nor very bad. They do not exhibit much depth or graphic power, and but little tenderness-nor do they, in fact, possess any of those distinguishing qualities which lift a man up beyond his contemporaries. The blank verse is not good; but some of the smaller pieces have a smoothness and liquid flow that are pleasant enough. One short poem, said to have been written at the age of fourteen, and addressed "To Helen," is full of promise.

Of all Mr. Poe's poems, however, "The Raven" is by far the first. It is, like the larger part of the author's writings, of a gloomy cast; but its merit is great; and it ranks in that rare and remarkable class of productions which suffice singly to make a reputation. Whether or not it was manufactured in the deliberate way stated by the writer in his article on "The Philosophy of Composition," we do not know; but the passage in which he dissects with anatomical precision what might otherwise pass for the offspring of impulse and of genius, is curiously characteristic of his analytical disposition. The poem itself, however, deserves to be

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bosom's core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light reclining But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloated o'ergloating o'er,

She shall press, ah! nevermore!

"Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed

from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

'Wretch,' I cried, thy God hath lent thee-by these angels he hath sent thee Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!

Quaff, oh! quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!

Quoth the Raven: 'Nevermore.'

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We do not propose to enter into the accuracy of the numerous investigations which Mr. Poe appears to have instituted into the publications of his brother and sister authors. To say the truth, we do not estimate his powers as a critic very highly. His essays on Criticism were, we imagine, written on the spur of the moment, without much consideration, and were more than sufficiently imbued with those prejudices with which he was so apt, we are told, to view the works of contemporary writers. Some of his essays are very slight and brief; some flippant; some distinguishable for that remarkable power of analysis which he carried into all his productions. His review of " Barnaby Rudge," in the third volume

of this collection, is an extraordinary instance of his subtle and discriminating research into the very elements of fiction. It is impossible to trace out with greater nicety the very germ of a plot, and the finest artifices of invention. But here the few of them enter into the question of the interest of Edgar Poe's criticisms stops: peculiar genius of the author reviewed, of the class to which he belongs, of the way in which education and events have moulded him, of his habits or every-day life, or of those impulses or physical circumstances which have impelled his intellect to assume that particular shape in which it presents itself before the world.

Without entering into some such considerations, the critic can scarcely place his author fairly on his pedestal. We feel, even in the case of Mr. Poe, that it would have been most desirable if a fuller biography had accompanied his works. Honest and able, as far as it goes, and glancing upon the more prominent events of his life, it leaves us without information on many matters from which much might have been gathered to form an accurate judgment. Perhaps we are, after all, copying the deformities only of the man, at a time when we are anxious to submit all that was good as well as bad to the reader's judgment. The roughnesses that were so conspicuous on the surface of Poe's character would naturally attract the notice of his biographers in the first instance. But, underneath, was there nothing to tell of? no cheeriness in the boy-no casual acts of kindness-no adhesion to old friendships-no sympathy with the poor or the unhappy, that might have been brought forward as indicative of his better nature? Even he himself has done nothing to help us. His sketches and stories are singularly deficient in all reference to his own private life. It is strange that a man who did and suffered so much should have felt nothing for the historian's hands! The petty acts are indeed before us, but perhaps "the greatest is behind." For no man is thoroughly evil. There must be slumbering virtues. - good intentions undeveloped - even good actions, claiming to have a place on the record. Generosity, sympathy, charity have often their abodes in lowly and unexpected places-in poor, thoughtless, humble bosoms-in the hearts of those who have deeply sinned.

The influence of his faults was limited,

and the penalty (such as it was) he only had to bear. But the pleasure arising from his writings has been shared by many thousand people. In speaking of himself personally, we have felt bound to express our opinions without any subterfuge. But we are not insensible that, whilst he grasped and pressed hardly on some individuals with one hand, with the other he scattered his gifts in abundance on the public. These gifts are by no means of a common order, and on balancing the account of the author with posterity, he ought to have credit for their full value.

Fortunately for Edgar Poe, his personal history will be less read, and will be more short-lived than his fictions, which will

probably pass into many hands, unaccompanied by the narrative of his personal exploits. For one reader who carefully weighs the actions of an author's life, there are a hundred who plunge into the midst of his works without any previous inquiry. The seamstress reveling in "The Mysteries of Udolpho" neither knows nor cares any thing about the comfortable, domestic Mrs. Radcliffe. And the young man, intent on cheering his leisure hour with the adventures of Mrs. Amelia Booth, or Mr. Abraham Adams, has never heard perhaps that Henry Fielding (the noblest member of the house of Denbigh) was as often reduced to shifts as one of his own heroes, and that he died poor, and in a foreign land.

From the Leisure Hour.

"THE TIME OF THE SINGING OF BIRDS IS COME."

THE hour of song is come!

O'er all the wakening earth,

And through heaven's choral dome
Swells high a voice of mirth;

And where the flashing streamlets roam,
Life has its tuneful birth.

A sound, a motion slight,
An impulse half concealed,
A whisper but so light,

A thrill but scarce revealed,

Tells that a rush of life-blood bright Has earth's cold veins unsealed.

The fig-tree's branch is green,
The tender vine-bud swells,

! The flowret's brightest sheen
Gleams from its waving bells;

And where the turtle's voice hath been The quivering rose-leaf tells.

The lark's ecstatic lay,

On waves of sun-light borne,
From where the fount of day
O'erflows its crystal urn,

Swells the glad strains that float away
Far o'er the fields of morn.

I've heard a sweeter song-
It came from leafless bowers,
When storm-winds swept along
The plains where midnight lowers;
And from the thorny boughs among,

Those hymn-notes chimed the hours.

Higher than matin swell,
Richer than choir of day,
Softer than vesper bell,
Or wind-harp's lightest play,

That midnight hymn*-I knew it well,
And who inspired the lay.

When clouds in wild haste rove
Over the storm-swept sky,

A holy white-winged dove
From the cleft rock doth fly-
A soft-plumed messenger of love,
On radiant wing borne high.

Where'er by new-closed tomb
A pale-browed mourner bends-
Where from death's curtained room

Life's quenchless flame ascends---

Where prayer can pierce grief's deepest gloom, Or praise its soft breath sends :

Where star-beam from above

Can sparkle on a tear,

Where the cross bends in love,

The penitent to cheer;

There comes that Holy, Heavenly Dove,
On gentle mission here.

Oh! ever in our breast

Fold thou thy wing of light,

And take thy hallowing rest

Where sin had breathed its blight, And teach us, from thy hidden nest, Songs in affliction's night!

*"He giveth songs in the night."-Job 35: 10.

From Titan.

A GLANCE AT THE THEOLOGY OF HOMER.

WHEN luxuriating over the pages of some classic author of any age, how naturally does the wish arise, that we could take a peep at the people who read them, with not less keen a relish, at their first issue. We long to ask them, who and what is the God or gods you worship? How do you worship Him or them? What are your ideas of religion, philosophy, the world, and things in general? What, in short, your universal relations? Man, in spite of Hobbes and his Leviathan, is a social animal, and as such will constantly be making inquiries into the social life of his fellows in remote times and distant places. In ages and countries where novels or plays have been in vogue, we arrive at the closest approach to a resolution of our difficulty; but in times anterior, and in places foreign to this class of literary production, we are driven to speculation as to the state of society in which such and such historical facts were possible; and to deduction from the hero of the poet, to the peculiar thoughts and feelings of the epoch and the nation of which this hero was intended to be the representative and embodiment. The office and gift of the poet, we take it, is not so much actually to create, as to mould and fashion; not so much to announce to the people amongst whom he sings their wants and aspirations, as to put these into their most harmonious and cosmical form; not so much to give them a faith, as to render tangible and luminous the faith already floating in their minds. Apollo stabilizes and fixes, does not make, Delos. In what follows, we shall for convenience' sake, upon the principle just laid down, sometimes employ the words Homer and Homeric as coëxtensive with Greece and Grecian. Those who regard Hesiod as contemporaneous with Homer will, perhaps, think that, by the exclusion of the former, we lose something of the dogmatic element of Greek theology, at least so far as the genesis of the gods is concerned; but over and above the fact

that we can not regard such a loss as deplorable, is to be remembered the improbability of their having been contemporaries. Religion takes precedence of philosophy; action, of investigation; the epos, of genealogy: and it is altogether to be regarded as unlikely that Hesiod's Theogony was the product of Homer's century, as that Mrs. Cowden Clarke's" Infancy of Shakspeare's Heroines" was in being at the same time with the immortal bard himself.

The

"Who but the poet has given gods to men ?" is a question that has been asked by one, who, in the interrogative form, meant to assert strongly a categorical proposition. From which we take leave to dissent; involving, as it does, at least the one fallacy of concreting the poetical sentiment into the poetic individual. poet may be the god-fashioner, but not the god-giver; although the poetic feeling, apart from revelation or intuition, (which is a kind of individual revelation,) may have postulated a deity, or more probably deities. Of what kind those deities were which man eliminated, as the German his camel out of the depths of his moral consciousness, we are about to see. Let it be premised that men, with a sort of hazy conviction that neither class of beings fulfilled the ideal of their respective natures, held a tradition, that in the olden time, long anterior to the Homeric, and the dynasty under which we are about to place ourselves, more beneficent and just gods bore sway over more happy and contented subjects.

The gods of Homer were for the most part either the children or the children's children of Saturn, (Kronos, or Time,) a parentage which precluded the idea of eternity, but which yet preserved to them an existence that could never terminate. In form they did not materially differ from the human race; their greater power for good or evil, their blessedness, their possession of the peaks of Olympus, and thrones beyond the ether, broadly marked their superiority. They governed the

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