In “that stray child of Poetry and Passion” concentered hot Celtic and Southern blood, stimulated upon his father’s side by drink, upon his mother’s by the artificial surroundings of an actress’s life, and in both intensified by a runaway marriage, followed by a joint “barn-storming” life. Himself an inter-act, his nursery was the green room, his necessary nourishment narcotics. It is a sad thing to say, but probably one of the few fortunate circumstances of his life was that his parents died in his infancy—one of his many misfortunes was to have been adopted and raised by a wealthy family (Mr. Allan’s of Baltimore). He was born in 1809, or 1811, in either Boston, Baltimore or Richmond, through all of which he, living, “begged his bread,” _a la_ Homer. The Allans assiduously spoiled the child with unlimited money, indulgence and praise. It was easy, for he was rarely beautiful, affectionate, and precocious; he recited with marvelous childish effect, spun webs of imaginative stories, and composed rhymes. “He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came,” and when he was nine or ten years old his proud foster-father seriously contemplated issuing a volume of his baby-verse, but was dissuaded by the boy’s tutor, who said he had conceit enough already, and such additional celebrity would probably ruin his prospects. Edgar was schooled in England, at the University of Virginia, and at West Point, but he must have picked up independently of schools and school masters the varied culture which shows in his versatile writings—especially his acquaintance with science, psychology and literature. At these schools he was distinguished alike for fast learning and fast living—his easy absorption of the branches he liked, his utter revulsion against those he did not like (mathematics, notably), for his literary and critical tastes, athletic exercises, and the lavishness with which he scattered his guardian’s money. These characteristics won him the jealousy of his plodding classmates, distinction at the university, expulsion from West Point, and quarrels with his foster-father. Over-indulgence by parents produced the usual result of disrespect and ingratitude in the youth; and the marriage of Mr. Allan to a second wife, and the birth of heirs to his estates brought about a final separation and a disinheritance of the adopted son, and so Edgar, at about his majority age, was thrown on his own resources. He chose literature as his profession, and doomed himself to poverty, anguish, professional jealousy (especially strong among authors), triumphs, defeats, ruin and insanity.