It is a melancholy history.  No author of as much genius had ever in this country as much unhappiness; but Poe’s unhappiness was in an unusual degree the result of infirmities of nature, or of voluntary faults in conduct.  A writer who evidently knew him well, and who comes before us in the “Southern Literary Messenger” as his defender, is “compelled to admit that the blemishes in his life were effects of character rather than of circumstances."[A] How this character might have been modified by a judicious education of all his faculties I leave for the decision of others, but it will be evident to those who read this biography that the unchecked freedom of his earlier years was as unwise as its results were unfortunate.

[Footnote A:  Southern Literary Messenger, March, 1850, p. 179.]

It is contended that the higher intelligences, in the scrutiny to which they appeal, are not to be judged by the common laws; but I apprehend that this doctrine, as it is likely to be understood, is entirely wrong.  All men are amenable to the same principles, to the extent of the parallelism of these principles with their experience; and the line of duty becomes only more severe as it extends into the clearer atmosphere of truth and beauty which is the life of genius. De mortuis nil nisi bonum is a common and an honorable sentiment, but its proper application would lead to the suppression of the histories of half of the most conspicuous of mankind; in this case it is impossible on account of the notoriety of Mr. Poe’s faults; and it would be unjust to the living against whom his hands were always raided and who had no resort but in his outlawry from their sympathies.  Moreover, his career is full of instruction and warning, and it has always been made a portion of the penalty of wrong that its anatomy should be displayed for the common study and advantage.

The character of Mr. Poe’s genius has been so recently and so admirably discussed by Mr. Lowell, with whose opinions on the subject I for the most part agree, that I shall say but little of it here, having already extended this notice beyond the limits at first designed.  There is a singular harmony between his personal and his literary qualities.  St. Pierre, who seemed to be without any nobility in his own nature, in his writings appeared to be moved only by the finest and highest impulses.  Poe exhibits scarcely any virtue in either his life or his writings.  Probably there is not another instance in the literature of our language in which so much has been accomplished without a recognition or a manifestation of conscience.  Seated behind the intelligence, and directing it, according to its capacities, Conscience is the parent of whatever is absolutely and unquestionably beautiful in art as well as in conduct.  It touches the creations of the mind and they have life; without it they have never, in the range of its just action, the truth and naturalness which are approved by universal taste or in enduring reputation.  In Poe’s works there is constantly displayed the most touching melancholy, the most extreme and terrible despair, but never reverence or remorse.