that he cannot fly to his cage, four feet above, till he has shaken himself out.

Now, at this hour of noon, all four birds are sitting quietly on their perches, indulging in their accustomed midday siesta. Suddenly the goldfinch utters in soft undertone, "Seep!" There is no reply, and after a moment he speaks again, a little louder: "Peep! peep!" Across the window the cardinal, sitting motionless on his perch, now adds his voice in a low call, followed soon by a loud "Three cheers! three cheers!" The thrush, on the other side of the room, next strikes in gently, a genuine whisper song, keeping his eye on me to see if I observe him. And at last comes the blackbird, with loud, clear " Conk-aree!" and all four are singing like mad. Then suddenly they drop to silence. The cardinal goes down for a lunch of rice; the thrush stands swelled out, motionless, on his perch; the blackbird

"In ignorant ages it was common to vaunt the human superiority by underrating the instinct of other animals, but a better discernment finds that the difference is only of less and more. Experiment shows that the bird and the dog reason as the hunter does; that all the animals show the same good sense in their humble walk that the man who is their enemy or friend does, and if it be in smaller measure, yet it is not diminished, as his often is, by freak and folly." Olive Thorne Miller.

THE Legend of Edgar Allan Poe would not be an inappropriate title for his biography. The most striking of the few things that the narratives of Poe's life have in common is a mythological strain, as if some subtle influence were at work in the minds of men to transform his career into a story stranger than truth, and to make his memory a mere tradition. It appears in that first newspaper article which Griswold wrote before the earth had chilled the body of the dead poet:

"He walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayer for their happiness who at the moment were objects of his idolatry; or with his glances introverted to a heart gnawed with anguish and with a face shrouded in gloom, he would brave the wildest storms, and all night, with drenched garments and arms beating the winds and rains, would speak as if to spirits that at such times only could be evoked by him from the Aidenn."

It is as plain to be seen in Baudelaire's declamatory eulogy over him as the martyr of a raw democracy. In Gilfillan he is the archangel ruined; in Ingram he is the ruined archangel rehabilitated; in all the biographies there is a demoniac element, as if Poe, who nevertheless was a man and an American, were a creature of his own fancy. This change which is worked upon Poe's human nature by the lurid reflection of his imagination is almost justifiable, since the true impression of him must be not only of a man who ate, slept, and put on his clothes, but of a genius as well, whose significant life was thought. In the legend of him, however, there is also a romantic element, not springing from any idiosyncrasy of his own character, but purely literary, historic; belonging to

the time when our fathers wore Byron collars and were on fire for adventure in the corsair line, and all for dying in the sere and yellow leaf of their thirtysixth year. Thus, in what would sentimentally be called his Wanderjahre, Poe is represented as a young Giaour in Greece, or as a Don Juan in some French provincial town; but always as a scapegrace of the transcendent order, impetuous, chivalric, unfortunate,— in a word, Byronic.

It is an amiable human weakness to believe those we love better than they are; and he, even the humblest of us, who has not profited by such fond idolatry must be a very pitiable creature. The idealization of the illustrious dead is wrought similarly, though rather by the imagination than the heart; and this refining and exalting power is a great privilege of our nature, for it strengthens and supports our faith in perfection, and brings a light of promise on our own lives. Of old, Hercules and Perseus, Roland and St. Francis, were golden names on the lips of youth, and the modern age has not been a mean heir of history. There is a light round Shelley's head that any saint, the noblest and purest in the calendar, might righteously envy. No man would deny to Poe the honor or affection won by his manhood or his genius, if, in however less a degree, his purpose was of the same high kind. Nay, if the memory that gathers about his name were merely picturesque, were that of a boy-Byron, who rode on until he drank waters of Marah quite different from those mock ones for which the noble lord found hock and soda a sufficient remedy, we would welcome the romance and regret the sorrow of it, and never disturb the tradition of a fine folly. Let the myth increase and flourish if the root be sound and the flower sweet, and

let a leaf from it decorate our sober annals; but if the bloom be fleurs du mal, and the root a falsehood, let us keep our literary history plain and unadorned, raw democracy though we be. In the worship of genius, we know, as in that of the gods, there springs up now and then a degraded cult.

"In a biography," wrote Poe, "the truth is everything;" but he was thinking of other people's biographies. The speediest discovery that a student of his life makes is that Poe was his own myth-maker. He had a habit of secrecy, and on occasion he could render silence more sure by a misleading word. Thus it happens that in the various versions of his story the incidents seem to share in the legendary character of the hero. The record belongs, one would say, to that early period of literature when our ancestors first termed biographies Veracious Hystories. The three white stones of life, even, birth, marriage, and death, are, in Poe's case, graven with different dates; the first bearing four from his own hand, to which Mr. R. H. Stoddard has thoughtfully contributed a fifth. The most obscure period, however, extends from the Christmas holidays of 1826, when he was just under eighteen years old, to the fall of 1833, when Kennedy found him starving in Baltimore. During this time, from July 1, 1830, to March 7, 1831, he was in the light of day at West Point. To the remainder of the period on each side of his cadet life the romantic element in his myth belongs, and to it this paper will be devoted in order to elucidate somewhat more in detail than was possible in a limited volume the facts of his career.

Poe left his home at Mr. Allan's in the beginning of 1827, and he entered West Point in July, 1830. The story which was accredited throughout his lifetime as a true account of his doings during the intervening years first appeared in print in the sketch of him in

"Mr. Allan refused to pay some of his [Poe's] debts of honour. He hastily quitted the country on a Quixotic expedition to join the Greeks, then struggling for liberty. He did not reach his original destination, however, but made his way to St. Petersburg, in Russia, where he became involved in difficulties, from which he was extricated by the late Mr. Henry Middleton, the American minister at that capital. He returned home in 1829, and immediately afterward entered the military academy at West Point."

The next year, H. B. Hirst, a young Philadelphia poet, repeated this statement in a more extended sketch of Poe:

"With a young friend, Ebenezer Burling, he endeavored to make his way, with scarcely a dollar in his pocket, to Greece, with the wild design of aiding in the revolution then taking place. Burling soon repented his folly, and gave up the design when he had scarcely entered on the expedition. Mr. Poe persevered, but did not succeed in reaching the scene of action; he proceeded, however, to St. Petersburg, where through deficiency of passport, he became involved in serious difficulties, from which he was finally extricated by the American consul. He returned to America, only in time to learn the severe illness of Mrs. Allan, who, in character, was the reverse of her husband, and whom he sincerely loved. He reached Richmond on the night after her burial." This was published in the Philadel phia Saturday Museum, with which Poe then had close connections, and the article was written for the express purpose of advancing a scheme which he had in hand, in partnership with the owner of this newspaper, to establish a new periodical. Poe sent the sketch to Lowell

a year later as authority for a new life which the latter was to prepare for Graham's Magazine, and wrote that Hirst had obtained his information from Mr. T. W. White, owner of the Southern Literary Messenger, and Mr. F. W. Thomas, a littérateur, both intimates of Poe; and he added that he believed it was "correct in the main." Lowell therefore introduced the story as here told into his own article, and sent it to Poe, who revised it with his own hand and forwarded it to Graham's, where it appeared in February, 1845. Griswold naturally embodied the reiterated and uncontradicted account in his Memoir after Poe's death.

This, however, was the established version long before 1842. A gentleman who saw Poe last at some time earlier than 1831, at Baltimore, writes to me, "I remember he told me he had left Richmond in a coal vessel, and made his way to Europe, to Russia." Allan B. Magruder, Esq., who was with him at West Point, also writes, "I am unable to remember whether I derived the information I gave you in a former letter, as to Poe's rambles in the East and his whaling voyage before the mast, from Poe himself while a classmate at West Point, or from some mutual friend who received the account from him. I certainly learned it while he was at the military academy." Mr. Magruder goes on to give the story then current as follows: "He made a voyage to sea on some merchant vessel, before the mast. Finding himself in the Mediterranean, he debarked at some Eastern port, and penetrated into Egypt and Arabia. Returning to the United States, he enlisted as a private in the United States army at Fortress Monroe. After some months' service his whereabouts and position became known to Mr. Allan, who, through the mediation of General Scott, obtained his release from the army, and sent him a cadet's warrant to West Point." These letters fix the date of the alleged adven

tures before July, 1830. The voyage to Greece and the journey to St. Petersburg, however, are stated by Mr. Didier, in his biography, to belong to the life of Poe's elder brother, William, and have consequently been discredited by later writers.

A second story is at hand, and for it we are indebted to Mr. Ingram, the English biographer. After mentioning that Poe's first book was printed at Boston, in 1827, on which account he supposes that the young man visited that city in the spring, he continues his narrative as follows:

:

...

"Toward the end of June, 1827, Edgar Poe would appear to have left the United States for Europe. It is very problematical whether he ever reached his presumed destination, the scene of the Greco-Turkish warfare. . . . Edgar Poe was absent from America on his Hellenic journey about eighteen months. The real adventures of his expedition have never, it is believed, been published. That he reached England is probable, although in the account of his travels, derived from his own dictation, that country was not alluded to any more than was the story of his having reached St. Petersburg, and there hav ing been involved in difficulties that necessitated ministerial aid to extricate him. The latter incident is now stated to have occurred to his brother, William Henry Leonard, whilst Edgar himself, it has been suggested by a writer claiming personal knowledge of him, resided for some time in London, formed the acquaintance of Leigh Hunt and Theodore Hook, and, like them, lived by literary labor.

"According to Poe's own story, which apparently accounts only for a portion of his time, he arrived, eventually, at a certain seaport in France. Here he was drawn into a quarrel about a lady, and in a fight which ensued was wounded by his antagonist, a much more skillful swordsman than he was. Taken to