This state of things must undoubtedly have served to irritate and embitter one of Poe's proud and sensitive nature, and may have partly led to the dissipated habits in which he now for the first time began to indulge--besides, in some measure, influencing the extreme bitterness and severity, or, as it has been called, _venom_ of the criticism for which the _Messenger_ began to be noted. Never before had he been accused of unamiability of disposition, but his temper seems suddenly to have changed, and he was called "haughty, overbearing and quarrelsome." A great and, it is to be feared, irreparable obloquy has attached to Poe's name through the utterance of a single individual--a Mr. Ferguson, who was employed as a printer's assistant in the office of the _Messenger_ at the time of Poe's editorship of that magazine. Not many years ago, Mr. Ferguson, who is still living, said, in answer to some inquiry concerning the poet: "There never was a more perfect gentleman than Mr. Poe when he was sober," but that at other times "he would just as soon lie down in the gutter as anywhere else." And this assertion has been taken up by one and another writer until it appears now to be received as a fixed fact. I have often heard this statement indignantly denied by persons who knew Poe at this time. Howsoever much under the influence of drink he might be, he was, they say, never at any time or by any person seen staggering through the streets or lying in a gutter. On the contrary, he was extremely sensitive about being seen by his friends, and especially ladies, under the influence of drink. Poe himself, long after this time, while denying the charge of general dissipation, confessed that while in Richmond he at long intervals yielded to temptation, and after each excess was invariably for some days confined to his bed. And now, in addition to other charges against him, was that of neglecting his wife and being frequently seen in attendance on other women; a point on which his motherly friend, Mrs. Mackenzie, more than once felt herself called upon to remonstrate with him. He would be, for a week at a time, away from his home, putting up at various hotels and boarding-houses, and spending his money freely, instead of, as formerly, committing it to the keeping of his mother-in-law. Mrs. Clemm, descending from the dignity of a boarder, tried to open a boarding-house of her own, but failed; and she now rented a cheap tenement on Seventh street and went back to her dressmaking, letting out rooms, and probably taking one or two boarders. But it was seldom that her son-in-law was to be found here; though always, after one of his excesses, he would seek its seclusion until fit to again appear in public.