To a right understanding of the works of any author some knowledge of his life is essential, for a man’s writings are always to a greater or less extent the reflection of his character and his surroundings. Of course there are exceptions to this as to other rules. There are authors whose forte lies in describing the passions and the impossibility of controlling them, and who in private life are confirmed misogynists; while there are others, whose most entertaining books have been dictated upon a bed of suffering from which there was little chance of their ever rising again. But Poe was not one of these exceptions: in his writings—and more especially in his poetry—his character is mirrored for all men to behold it. Naturally of a morbid temperament, Poe’s innate propensity to look upon the dark side of things was strengthened by the circumstances in which he was placed. His life was one of continuous disappointment. He laboured incessantly, and hardly earned enough to keep body and soul together; he was, perhaps, the most original genius of his time, and was accused of pilfering from the work of vastly inferior minds; he was intensely ambitious, and remained a literary hack to the end of his days; he was of a most affectionate disposition, and was compelled to witness the one whom he loved best upon earth in the grip of a cruel and lingering disease, without possessing the means of procuring her the comforts which might have alleviated her sufferings. Knowing all this, can we wonder at the tone of settled melancholy which pervades his poetry—the regret for what might have been, the yearning for what can never be? Here and there, it is true, he strikes a different note, as in “Eulalie” and the charming little lyric “To Helen,” which latter poem, however, was written when he was still a boy; but these variations, like glimpses of blue sky on a dark and lowering horizon, only serve to intensify the general gloom. And yet, in spite of their sadness, there is a pathetic sweetness in his verses, which appeals irresistibly to the heart, and makes the reader fain to admit that in his particular strain Poe is indeed a master. Born at Boston on January 19th, 1809—the son of one David Poe, a man of good family, who had married an actress and subsequently adopted his wife’s profession—Edgar Allan Poe had the misfortune to lose both his parents in infancy, after which he was adopted by his godfather, Mr. John Allan, a wealthy and childless Richmond merchant, with the intention, it is thought, of making him his heir. The boy was handsome, witty, and precocious, and was petted and indulged by his adopted father to his heart’s content; indeed, it is to the injudicious treatment which he then received that Poe himself ascribes many of the difficulties which beset his path in after life.