ed poem must always prove
an especial attraction to the curious. Such were the intrinsic merits
of the document, in addition to which, sober Time lent his aid to
enhance its value, and capricious Fortune added a peculiar charm of
mystery, which few papers of the kind could claim to the same extent.
The appearance also of this interesting paper was always admitted to be
entirely worthy of its fame. The hand-writing fully carried out the
idea of extreme debility and agitation corresponding with its nature,
while a larger and a lesser blot bore painful testimony to that
recklessness of propriety which a starving man might be supposed to
feel; one corner had been ruthlessly abstracted at the time it was seen
by the writer of this notice, and with it the last figures of the date;
a considerable rent crossed the sheet from right to left, but happily
without injuring its contents; several punctures were also observed,
one of these encroaching very critically upon the signature. But I need
not add that these marks of age and harsh treatment, like the scars on
the face of a veteran, far from being blemishes, were acknowledged to
be so many additional embellishments. The coloring of the piece was of
that precious hue, verging here and there on the dingy, the very tint
most charming in the eyes of an antiquary, and which Time alone can
bestow. In fact, one rarely sees a relic of the kind, more perfect in
color, more expressive in its general aspect, or more becoming to an
album, from the fine contrast between its poverty-stricken air, torn,
worn, and soiled, and the rich, embossed, unsullied leaf on which it
reposed, like some dark Rembrandt within its gilded frame. In short, it
was the very Torso of autographs. Happily the position which it finally
attained was one worthy of its merits, and we could not have wished it
a more elegant shrine than the precious pages of the Holberton Album, a
volume encased in velvet, secured with jeweled clasps, reposing on a
tasteful etagere.

{etagere = small table or shelf for displaying curios (French)}

But I proceed without further delay to relate some of the more
important steps in the progress of this interesting paper, from the
garret of the starving poet to the drawing-rooms of Holberton House,
merely observing by way of preface that the following notice may be
relied on so far as it goes, the writer--Colonel Jonathan Howard of
Trenton, New Jersey,--having had access to the very best auth