as a poet, author, physician,
lawyer, and statesman, the best known of his achievements were these
verses of _Ben Bolt_.

In the spring of 1846, when the poet's wife grew more feeble, her
brilliant eyes more brilliant, and her pallid look more unearthly, Poe
moved out into the country to a little village called Fordham in
Westchester County. This was then far out from the city, a secluded
spot with rocky heights from which a view could be had of country
lanes and broad sweeps of meadow where farmers worked in the fields.
Since then the open landscape has given way to the regularity of city
streets and buildings.

Not a great distance from the railroad station still stands the house
where Poe lived; such a plain, low wooden building that those that
have grown up around it seem to be shouldering it out of the way, and
the widening and improving of streets have pushed it somewhat aside
from its original position. But there the dingy little house still
stands with its veranda, where Poe walked in the night just outside
the sitting-room windows,--walked and dreamed out his _Eureka_. There
are the door and the dwarf hallway. Inside, to the right, is the room,
with its meagre furniture, much of which was purchased with the
proceeds of the suit against Thomas Dunn English, where Poe received
the friends who remembered him in his hours of illness, of poverty,
and distress. In a room towards the front lay the dying wife on her
straw bed, covered with the poet's coat and clasping the
tortoise-shell cat closely to her wasted form. Up the stairs is the
attic chamber, with its slanting roof, where Poe worked, with the cat
at his elbow; where after his wife's death he penned a dirge for her
in the exquisite _Annabel Lee_; where he wrote the first draught of
_The Bells_, which he was to revise and complete while on his lecture
trip to Lowell. Next to it is the room where slept Mrs. Clemm, his
more than mother.

So many memories cling to this home of Poe that those who search for
substantial literary reminders have made it a visiting shrine, much to
the dismay of landowners who hold to the strong belief that
historic old houses are well enough as curiosities, but are
inconvenient things when they stand in the way of money-making
improvements.

[Illustration: THE BATTERY IN 1830.

(From a drawing by C. Burton.)]

After passing through these rooms and with the memory of Poe strong
upon you, walk away along the street remembering