Poe’s real début in letters was in 1833, when (ætat 24) he won a prize of a hundred dollars offered by the proprietor of _The Saturday Visitor_, Baltimore, for the best story. Better than the money, the contest brought him the friendship of the judges, and about a year later the editorship of _The Southern Literary Messenger_, Richmond, at ten dollars a week. The intervening year is one of the blanks. The Richmond editorship marks a turning point in Poe’s career. He made the fortune of the _Messenger_; married (’35) his cousin, Virginia Clem; and first began that line of work which is, in my opinion, its distinctive feature, as it certainly proved to be decisive of his destiny—to-wit: criticism. He published in some issues as much as thirty or forty pages of book reviews. They created a tempest; for, rare as is his imagery and wonderful as is his imagination, Poe’s distinguishing mental characteristic is analysis. He is more logician than poet, more metaphysician than romancer. Poe subsequently (’37-’38) edited the _Gentlemen’s Magazine_, and then _Graham’s Magazine_, both in Philadelphia, and in ’44 we find him in New York, employed on the _Mirror_, the journal of the poets N. P. Willis and George P. Morris. In Philadelphia he did the best work of his life in romance and criticism. Here, too, he made the acquaintance of his evil genius, Dr. Griswold. Poe believed that Griswold supplanted him from the editorship of _Graham’s_; G.’s subsequent enmity, while professing friendship, was of the unforgiving nature that often comes of the consciousness of having inflicted a secret wrong on another. The only other causes of disagreement between them alleged are that Poe criticised Griswold’s book in a lecture, and that Griswold attempted to buy a favorable criticism from Poe’s pen. But they were outwardly friendly, after a reconciliation, till Poe’s voice and pen were beyond the power of response. The work of detraction had preceded Poe to New York, for Mr. Willis writes of this engagement: “With the highest admiration for his genius, and a willingness to let it alone for more than ordinary irregularity, we were led by common report to expect a very capricious attention to his duties, and occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. To our occasional request that he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or that he would erase a passage colored too highly with his resentments against society and mankind, he readily and courteously assented—far more yielding than most men, we thought, on points so excusably sensitive. Through all this considerable period we had seen but one presentment of the man—a quiet, patient, industrious, and most gentlemanly person, commanding the utmost respect and good feeling by his unvarying deportment and ability.”