The

"It might be said without offence that there was not a man who did more valiant acts than Roger le Poer." race which sprang from this knightly adventurer made itself conspicuous in the annals of Ireland for heroic daring and romantic deeds, as well as for its improvidence and reckless bravery. The chivalrous conduct of Sir Arnold le Poer, seneschal of Kilkenny Castle, "a knight, and instructed in letters,” in interposing, at the ultimate sacrifice of liberty and life, to rescue Lady Alice Kytler from the clutches of the ecclesiastics who accused her and brought her to trial for witchcraft, is fully detailed by Geraldus and other chroniclers. "The disastrous civil war of 1327," says Mrs. Whitman, "in which all the great barons of the country were involved, was occasioned by a personal feud between Arnold le Poer and Maurice of Desmond, the former having offended the dignity of the Desmond by calling him a rhymer," little deeming, indeed, that the most famous scion of his own knightly race would glorify the family more by his rhymings than any other member of it would by his swordsmanship.

The Le Poers were involved in the Irish troubles of 1641, and when Cromwell invaded the country they did not escape his pursuit; their families were dispersed, their estates confiscated, and their lands forfeited to the Commonwealth. Of the three leading branches of the family at the time of Cromwell's invasion, Kilmaedon, Don Isle, and Curraghmore, the last only escaped the vengeance of the Lord Protector, and that, according to Burke, solely by the ingenuity and courage of Alice, daughter of the Lord of Curraghmore. The romantic story of Cromwell's siege of the sea-girt castle of Don Isle, as told by Burke, in his Romance of the Aristocracy, is replete with interest. The isolated stronghold was bravely defended by a female descendant of Nicholas le Poer, Baron of Don Isle, and

this heroine is always styled, in the traditions of the Power family," the Countess." According to the legend recorded by Burke, the fortress was only surrendered through treachery, after Cromwell had withdrawn his troops in despair at making any impression upon its sea-surrounded walls. Don Isle was then blown up with gunpowder, and the beautiful countess (so the story runs), refusing to capitulate, perished in its ruins.

"The family of the Le Poers," remarks Mrs. Whitman, "like that of the Geraldines, and other Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland, passed from Italy into the north of France, and from France through England and Wales into Ireland, where, from their isolated position and other causes, they retained for a long period their hereditary traits with far less modification from intermarriage and association with other races than did their English compeers. Meantime the name underwent various changes in accent and orthography. A few branches of the family still bore in Ireland," and, it may be added, still bear, "the old Italian name of De la Poë." "The beautiful domain of Powerscourt," adds our authority, "took its name from the Le Poers," and through her father, Edmund Power, the late Lady Blessington claimed descent from the same old family. Some branches of the Power family, it may be remarked, have obtained heraldic sanction for resuming their more ancient patronymic of Le Poer.

A descendant of this famous and high-spirited race was John Poe, who, by his marriage with Jane, daughter of the distinguished naval hero, Admiral James M'Bride, became allied with some of the most illustrious families of Great Britain. David Poe, his son, and the grandfather of Edgar Poe, was but two years old, when his parents removed with him to America, and settled in Maryland; and, from the genealogical records he inherited from his father, it would appear

that various methods of spelling the ancestral name were at that time adopted by different members of the family. The Chevalier le Poer, a friend of the Marquis de Grammont, is recorded by Poe to have been a member of his father's family—a family, it is suggestive to note, not unfrequently marked out by mystery, by misery, and by romance, from the commonplace herd of happier lives. There was a Cornet Joseph Poe, doubtless one of this fated race, convicted and executed at Dublin in 1725 for an apparently commonplace highway robbery, but there was about the affair some strange, unfathomable mystery, dimly hinted at in contemporary broadsides; indeed, in one of these, a doggerel elegy,* it declares that this Poe died to save a friend, a no great improbability when the Quixotic fidelity of some members of the family is remembered. It was a race able to attain high honours by reckless or chivalrous deeds, but rarely sufficiently prudent to retain them. The above David Poe-who, although born in Ireland, prided himself upon being an American-took an active part in the revolu tionary war, and ultimately attained to the rank of Quartermaster-General,

General Poe married a Miss Cairnes of Pennsylvania, a woman famous for her beauty. They had five children, of whom David, the fourth son, being designed for the law, was placed in an office at Baltimore, but whilst still a student he was smitten with the charms of Elizabeth Arnold, a young English actress; he eloped with her, and, at little more than eighteen years of age, ruined his prospects of the future by an improvident marriage. Disowned by his parents because of this imprudent union, David Poe adopted his wife's profession and went on the stage, where, however, it

* The elegy concludes thus :

"To falsest Friends he ever true did prove,

His life he sacrific'd to friendship's Love."

does not appear that he exhibited much theatrical ability. Upon the birth of a child to the youthful couple, the parents relented towards their estranged child, and received him back into the family circle, and with him his youthful wife, who is described as a lovely little creature, and highly talented. The forgiveness was not needed for long; in 1815, the still youthful couple died within a few weeks of each other of consumption, at Richmond, Virginia, leaving totally unprovided for three children, Henry, Edgar, and Rosalie.

MEMOIR.

EDGAR ALLAN POE was born in Baltimore, on the 19th of February 1809. He was named Allan after a wealthy and intimate friend of the family, and when both his parents died his godfather, who, although long married, was childless, adopted the little orphan, then only six years old. Even at this early age Poe was noted for his precocity as well as for his beauty, and Mr. Allan appears to have been extremely proud of his youthful protégé, and to have treated him in many respects as his own son. The boy is stated to have been made quite a show-child of by his adopted father; a tenacious memory and a musical ear, we are informed, enabling him to learn by rote, and declaim to the evening visitors assembled at Mr. Allan's house, the finest passages of English poetry with great effect. "The justness of his emphasis, and his evident appreciation of the poems he recited," we learn, made a striking impression upon his audience, "while every heart was won by the ingenious simplicity and agreeable manners of the pretty little elocutionist." Gratifying as these exhibitions may have been to his godfather's vanity, the probable consequence of such a

system of recurring excitements upon the boy's morbidly nervous organisation could scarcely fail to be disastrous. Indeed, in after years, the poet bitterly bewailed the pernicious effects of his childhood's misdirected aims. "I am," he but too truthfully declared, "the descendant of a race whose imaginative and easily excitable temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable, and in my earliest infancy I gave evidence of having fully inherited the family character. As I advanced in years it was more strongly developed, becoming, for many reasons, a cause of serious disquietude to my friends, and of positive injury to myself, . . . my voice was a household law, and, at an age when few children have abandoned their leading-strings, I was left to the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but name, the master of my own actions.”

In 1816, the Allans having to visit England on matters connected with the disposal of some property there, brought their adopted son with them, and after taking him on a tour through England and Scotland with them, left him at the Manor-House School in Church Street, Stoke-Newington. The school belonged to a Rev. Dr. Bransby, who is so quaintly described in "William Wilson," one of Poe's finest stories. At the time of Poe's residence the school grounds occupied a large area, but of late years they have been greatly circumscribed in extent. The description of the place, and the account of his life there, Poe is stated to have declared were autobiographically portrayed in this tale; if so, a portion of "William Wilson's" oft-quoted reminiscences must be relegated to the exaggerated memories of childhood. In some respects the description of the "large, rambling, Elizabethan house" corresponds more closely to the fine old manorial residence facing the school, but in others the place is described with almost pre-Raphaelite minuteness. The picture of Stoke-Newington as it was when Poe