In the second place, Poe affirms that the article appeared in the Philadelphia paper for 1st May 1841, and that the tale was only then begun. As for that, _Barnaby Rudge_ was first published as a volume in 1841, after having run as a serial in the pages of _Master Humphrey’s Clock_ from 13th February 1841 to 27th November 1841. I have failed to find the precise date of its first appearance in America. No doubt it appeared in serial form, and the first instalments on which Poe bases his assertions should have been printed in America considerably earlier than 1st May. But the assertion which chiefly demands scrutiny is very definitely made by Poe. He says: The secret was _distinctly_ understood _immediately_ upon the perusal of the story of Solomon Daisy.’ The italics are mine. THE STORY OF SOLOMON DAISY We turn to the story of Solomon Daisy ‘as told in the _Maypole_ at any time for four and twenty years.’ It is very simple and matter-of-fact. It tells how Mr. Reuben Haredale, of The Warren, a widower with one child, left the place when his lady died. He went up to London, where he stopped some months, but, finding that place as lonely as The Warren, he suddenly came back with his little girl, bringing with him besides, that day, only two women servants, and his steward and a gardener. The rest stayed behind in London, and were to follow next day. That night, an old gentleman who lived at Chigwell Row, and had long been poorly, died, and an order came to Solomon at half after twelve o’clock at night to go and toll the passing bell. Solomon relates to a thrilled audience how he went out in a windy, rainy, very dark night; how he entered the church, trimmed the candle, thought of old tales about dead people rising and sitting at the head of their own graves, fancying that he saw the old gentleman who was just dead, wrapping his shroud round him, and shivering as if he felt it cold. At length he started up and took the bell rope in his hands. At that minute there rang—not that bell, for he had scarcely touched the rope—but another! It was only for an instant, and even then the wind carried the sound away, but he heard it. He listened for a long time, but it rang no more. He then tolled his own bell and ran home to bed as fast as he could touch the ground. Next morning came the news that Mr. Reuben Haredale was found murdered in his bed-chamber, and in his hand was a piece of the cord attached to an alarm bell outside, which hung in his room, and had been cut asunder, no doubt by the murderer when he seized it. ‘That was the bell I heard.’ He further relates how the steward and the gardener were both missing, both suspected, but never found. The body of Mr. Rudge, the steward—scarcely to be recognised by his clothes and the watch and the ring he wore—was found months afterwards at the bottom of a piece of water in the grounds with a deep gash in the breast where he had been stabbed by a knife. Every one knew