his wonderful and ever-wakeful brain.  I recollect, one morning, toward the close of his residence in this city, when he seemed unusually gay and light-hearted.  Virginia, his sweet wife, had written me a pressing invitation to come to them; and I, who never could resist her affectionate summons, and who enjoyed his society far more in his own home than elsewhere, hastened to Amity-street.  I found him just completing his series of papers entitled ‘The Literati of New York.’  ‘See,’ said he, displaying, in laughing triumph, several little rolls of narrow paper, (he always wrote thus for the press,) ’I am going to show you, by the difference of length in these, the different degrees of estimation in which I hold all you literary people.  In each of these, one of you is rolled up and fully discussed.  Come, Virginia, help me!’ And one by one they unfolded them.  At last they came to one which seemed interminable.  Virginia laughingly ran to one corner of the room with one end, and her husband to the opposite with the other.  ’And whose lengthened sweetness long drawn out is that?’ said I.  ‘Hear her!’ he cried, ‘just as if her little vain heart didn’t tell her it’s herself!’

“My first meeting with the poet was at the Astor House.  A few days previous.  Mr. Willis had handed me, at the table d’hote, that strange and thrilling poem entitled ‘The Raven,’ saying that the author wanted my opinion of it.  Its effect upon me was so singular, so like that of ’weird unearthly music,’ that it was with a feeling almost of dread, I heard he desired an introduction.  Yet I could not refuse without seeming ungrateful, because I had just heard of his enthusiastic and partial eulogy of my writings, in his lecture on American Literature.  I shall never forget the morning when I was summoned to the drawing-room by Mr. Willis to receive him.  With his proud and beautiful head erect, his dark eyes flashing with the elective light of feeling and of thought, a peculiar, an inimitable blending of sweetness and hauteur in his expression and manner, he greeted me, calmly, gravely, almost coldly; yet with so marked an earnestness that I could not help being deeply impressed by it.  From that moment until his death we were friends; although we met only during the first year of our acquaintance.  And in his last words, ere reason had forever left her imperial throne in that overtasked brain, I have a touching memento of his undying faith and friendship.

“During that year, while traveling for my health, I maintained a correspondence with Mr. Poe, in accordance with the earnest entreaties of his wife, who imagined that my influence over him had a restraining and beneficial effect.  It had, as far as this—­that having solemnly promised me to give up the use of stimulants, he so firmly respected his promise and me, as never once, during our whole acquaintance, to appear in my presence when in the slightest degree affected by them.  Of the charming love and confidence