needed only some ruch trials as

its branches.

He had some rare tropical birds in cages, which he cherished and petted with assiduous care.' "Our English friend," continues Mrs. Whitman, "described Poe as giving to his birds and flowers a delighted attention which seemed quite inconsistent with the gloomy and grotesque character of his writings. A favourite cat, too, enjoyed his friendly patronage, and often when he was engaged in composition it seated itself on his shoulder, purring as if in complacent approval of the work proceeding under its supervision."

"During Poe's residence at Fordham, a walk to High Bridge was one of his favourite and habitual recreations," remarks Mrs. Whitman, and she describes the lofty and picturesque avenue across the aqueduct, where, in "the lonesome latter years" of his life, the poet was accustomed to walk "at all times of the day and night, often pacing the then solitary pathway for hours without meeting a human being." A rocky ledge in the neighbourhood, partly covered with pines and cedars, and commanding a fine view of the surrounding country, was also one of his favourite resorts, and here, resumes our informant, "through long summer days, and through solitary star-lit nights, he loved to sit, dreaming his gorgeous waking dreams, or pondering the deep problems of 'The Universe,'-that grand 'prose poem' to which he devoted the last and most matured energies of his wonderful intellect." Towards the close of this "most immemorial year," this year in which he had lost his cousin. bride, he wrote his weird monody of "Ulalume." Like so many of his poems it was autobiographical, and, on the poet's own authority, we are informed that it was, "in its basis, although not in the precise correspondence of time, simply Historical." It first appeared anonymously in Colton's American Review for December 1847, as Ulalume: a Ballad," and, being reprinted in the Home Journal, by an

absurd mistake was ascribed to the editor, N. P. Willis. Subsequently, Mrs. Whitman, being one morning with Poe in the Providence Athenæum Library, asked him if he had seen the new poem, and if he could tell who had written it. To her surprise he acknowledged himself the author, and, turning to a bound volume of the Review which was on a shelf near by, he wrote his name at the end of the poem, and there, a few months ago, a correspondent found it. The poem originally possessed an additional verse, but, at the suggestion of Mrs. Whitman, Poe subsequently omitted this, and thereby greatly strengthened the effect of the whole. The final and suppressed stanza read thus:

"Said we then-the two, then-Ah, can it

Have been that the woodlandish ghouls-
The pitiful, the merciful ghouls-
To bar up our path and to ban it

From the secret that lies in these wolds-

Had drawn up the spectre of a planet

From the limbo of lunary souls

This sinfully scintillant planet

From the Hell of the planetary souls?"

Early in 1848, Poe announced his intention of delivering a series of lectures, with a view to raise a sufficient capital to enable him to start a magazine of his own. In January of this year he thus wrote on the subject to his old and tried friend N. P. Willis :

'FORDHAM, January 22, 1848. "My dear Mr. Willis-I am about to make an effort at re-establishing myself in the literary world, and feel that I may depend upon your aid.

"My general aim is to start a magazine, to be called The Stylus ; but it would be useless to me, even when established, if not entirely out of the control of a publisher. I mean, therefore, to get up a journal

which shall be my own, at all points. With this end in view, I must get a list of at least five hundred subscribers to begin with-nearly two hundred I have already. I propose, however, to go south and west, among my personal and literary friends-old College and West Point acquaintances—and see what I can do. In order to get the means of taking the first step, I propose to lecture at the Society Library, on Thursday, the 3d of February-and, that there may be no cause of squabbling, my subject shall not be literary at all. I have chosen a broad text-The Universe.'

"Having thus given you the facts of the case, I leave all the rest to the suggestions of your own tact and generosity.-Gratefully, most gratefully, your friend always, EDGAR A. POE."

This letter was speedily followed by a prospectus, addressed To the Public, of "The Stylus; a Monthly Journal of Literature Proper, the Fine Arts, and the Drama. To be edited by Edgar A. Poe," and from it the following most noticeable paragraphs are extracted: "Since resigning the conduct of the Southern Literary Messenger at the beginning of its third year, and more especially since retiring from the editorship of Graham's Magazine soon after the commencement of its second, I have had always in view the establishment of a monthly journal which should retain one or two of the chief features of the work first mentioned, abandoning or greatly modifying its general character;—but not until now have I felt at liberty to attempt the execution of this design. I shall be pardoned for speaking more directly of the two magazines in question. Having in neither of them any proprietary right-the objects of their worthy owners, too, being at variance with my own-I found it not only impossible to effect anything, on the score of taste, for their mechanical appearance, but difficult to stamp upon them internally that individuality which I believed essential to their success. In regard to the permanent influence of such publications, it appears to me that continuity and a marked certainty of purpose are requisites of vital import