EDGAR ALLAN POE, the most musical of all American poets, was born in Boston, January 19th, 1809. His father was an actor, and the temporary residence of the family in Boston was an incident of his professional work. While very young, Poe was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a wealthy resident of Richmond, Virginia, who sent him to school for several years in England, and afterwards to the University of Virginia. Poe learned with the rapidity of genius, but was fickle in his ardor for study. After remaining a short time at the university, he left it to make his fortune as a poet. In 1827 he published “Tamerlane and Other Poems,” which, as a matter of course, failed to bring him a living, and he was forced to enlist as a private in the United States army. Under the alias of “Edward A. Perry,” he rose to be Sergeant Major, and his foster father secured his admission to West Point. Poe disliked the school, and it is said “contrived to get himself dismissed.” He was dismissed, at any rate, and as Mr. Allan repudiated further responsibility for him, he was left wholly destitute and dependent on literature for support. After working for some time in Baltimore, he became associate editor, first of the Southern Literary Messenger and afterwards of the Gentleman’s Magazine. He also edited Graham’s Magazine and assisted N. P. Willis on the Mirror, increasing steadily in reputation, but with no corresponding increase of fortune. “The Raven,” which made him famous, was published in 1845, when he was already disheartened and despondent. He died four years later in a Baltimore hospital, where he was carried after having been found delirious on the street. The stories of his wild and protracted dissipation seem to be without foundation, but he illustrated the central fact of the physiology of genius,—that its highly organized physique is apt to be disorganized rapidly by what for the average man is a moderate indulgence in the enjoyments of sense. Poe’s theory of verse divorced it from truth and confined its province to the expression of beauty. This incapacitated him for attaining the highest rank as a poet, but did not affect his extraordinary genius as a musician. No other poet of the century in America has equaled him as composer of tone harmonies in words. He approaches the “Tonkunst” of Homer. His prose tales have founded a “school” of their own, but he has found his disciples chiefly in France. As a reviewer and critical essayist, his perceptions were keen, but his prejudices intense and his judgment frequently inoperative. His life was distorted and sad, chiefly because he lacked “the much-enduring mind,” without which the life of every man of great genius must become an inferno of intellectual and spiritual disorder.