With due allowance for difference of latitude, and wide difference of aim and pursuit, the contemplation of the Master of Creole Melody recalls to us a genius which found utterance in song none the less melodious that it was written, not sung. The 'ashen sky' and 'crisped, sere leaves of the lonesome October,' so thrillingly pictured by Edgar Poe in his 'Ulalume,' find echo in the foreboding sadness of the opening bars to Gottschalk's 'Last Hope;' and as both poems grow in vague, dreamy sound, they culminate in a cry of smothered despair at the tomb where all hopes lie buried with the lost Ulalume. The same weird conception and eccentricity of design, with knowledge of rhythmical effect and extreme carefulness of finish, are prominent traits of both artists; and the American disregard of tradition, as evinced in all enterprises, whether literary, artistic, or commercial, and which readily infects the simple sojourner among us as well as the happy being born to republican privileges, marks alike the nationality of poet and pianist. Edgar Poe's literary reputation undoubtedly gains additional lustre as the lapse of years permits the veil of obscurity to fall over the personal vices and irregularities which so tarnished the living fame of this great artist. Genius draws around itself a magical circle, attracting and keeping by the force of its own magnetism those whom it values, but at the same time exercising an equally repellent effect on the envious and ignorant wandering beyond the pale of its charmed precincts. Hence the difficulty of judging it by contemporaneous standards. The Hyperion head of Poe was lost to the view of many by a too persistent search for the satyr's cloven foot. In considering the poet's eccentricities, in common with other extraordinary and anomalous beings, it must be deeply deplored that one so endowed with wealth of intellect beyond his fellow men, should be still so poor in moral store that the dullest of them could dare look with disdain on this heir to gifts regal and sacred.