Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe

EDGAR ALLAN POE was born in Boston, o the 19th of January, 1809. He was name Allan after a wealthy and intimate friend the family, and when both his parents die his godfather, who, although long married, wa childless, adopted the little orphan, then on six years old. Even at this early age Poe wa noted for his precocity as well as for h beauty, and Mr. Allan appears to have bee extremely proud of his youthful protege, an to have treated him in many respects as h own son. The boy is stated to have been mad quite a show-child of by his adopted father; tenacious memory and a musical ear, we a informed, enabling him to learn by rote, ar declaim to the evening visitors assembled Mr. Allan's house, the finest passages of En lish poetry with great effect. "The justne of his emphasis, and his evident appreciatio of the poems he recited," we learn, made striking impression upon his audience, "whi every heart was won by the ingenuous sin plicity and agreeable manner of the pretty litt elocutionist." Gratifying as these exhibition may have been to his godfather's vanity, t probable consequence of such a system of r

urring excitements upon the boy's morbidly ervous organization could scarcely fail to be isastrous. Indeed, in after years, the poet itterly bewailed the pernicious_effects of his hildhood's misdirected aims. "I am," he but oo truthfully declared, "the descendant of a ace whose imaginative and easily excitable emperament has at all times rendered them emarkable, and in my earliest infancy I gave vidence of having fully inherited the family haracter. As I advanced in years it was more trongly developed, becoming, for many reaons, a cause of serious disquietude to my riends, and of positive injury to myself;

ny voice was a household law, and, at an age when few children have abandoned their leadng-strings, I was left to the guidance of my wn will, and became, in all but name, the master of my own actions."

to have declared trayed in this ta iam Wilson's " be relegated to childhood. In s of the "large, ra Corresponds mor orial residence fa the place is descr ite minuteness. ton as it was w unusually accur and orphaned th the happiest por poet passed in th looking village number of gig where all the ho "In truth," ad and spirit-sooth town," and it plastic mind sho indelibly impri and in after y freshing chillne nues, inhale t shrubberies, an delight, at the bell, breaking sullen roar, up atmosphere in lay imbedded a Here, in this

In 1816, the Allans having to visit England n matters connected with the disposal of some -roperty there, brought their adopted son with hem, and after taking him on a tour through England and Scotland with them, left him at he Manor-House School in Church Street, toke-Newington. The school belonged to a Rev. Dr. Bransby, who is so quaintly decribed in "William Wilson," one of Poe's nest stories. At the time of Poe's residence he school grounds occupied a large area, but f late years they have been greatly circumcribed in extent. The description of the place, nd the account of his life there, Poe is stated

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