Now, this is dastardly, and, what is worse, it is false. It is very adroitly done, with phrases very well turned, and with gleams of truth shining out from a setting so dusky as to look devilish. Mr. Griswold does not feel the worth of the man he has undervalued—he had no sympathies in common with him, and has allowed old prejudices and old enmities to steal, insensibly perhaps, into the coloring of his picture. They were for years totally uncongenial, if not enemies, and during that period Mr. Poe, in a scathing lecture upon The Poets of America, gave Mr. Griswold some raps over the knuckles of force sufficient to be remembered. He had, too, in the exercise of his functions as critic, put to death, summarily, the literary reputation of some of Mr. Griswold’s best friends; and their ghosts cried in vain for him to avenge them during Poe’s life-time—and it almost seems, as if the present hacking at the cold remains of him who struck them down, is a sort of compensation for duty long delayed—for reprisal long desired but deferred. But without this—the opportunities afforded Mr. Griswold to estimate the character of Poe occurred, in the main, after his stability had been wrecked, his whole nature in a degree changed and with all his prejudices aroused and active. Nor do I consider Mr. Griswold _competent_—with all the opportunities he may have cultivated or acquired—to set as his judge—to dissect that subtle and singularly fine intellect—to probe the motives and weigh the actions of that proud heart. His whole nature—that distinctive presence of the departed which now stands impalpable, yet in strong outline before me, as I knew him and _felt_ him to be—eludes the rude grasp of a mind so warped and uncongenial as Mr. Griswold’s.