trong
_Virginia Comedians_ was, perhaps, in literary quality the best
southern novel produced before the civil war.

When Poe came to New York, the most conspicuous literary figure of the
metropolis, with the possible exception of Bryant and Halleck, was N.
P. Willis, one of the editors of the _Evening Mirror_, upon which
journal Poe was for a time engaged. Willis had made a literary
reputation, when a student at Yale, by his _Scripture Poems_, written
in smooth blank verse. Afterward he had edited the _American Monthly_
in his native city of Boston, and more recently he had published
_Pencillings by the Way_, 1835, a pleasant record of {537} European
saunterings; _Inklings of Adventure_, 1836, a collection of dashing
stories and sketches of American and foreign life; and _Letters from
Under a Bridge_, 1839, a series of charming rural letters from his
country place at Owego, on the Susquehanna. Willis's work, always
graceful and sparkling, sometimes even brilliant, though light in
substance and jaunty in style, had quickly raised him to the summit of
popularity. During the years from 1835 to 1850 he was the most
successful American magazinist, and even down to the day of his death,
in 1867, he retained his hold upon the attention of the fashionable
public by his easy paragraphing and correspondence in the _Mirror_ and
its successor, the _Home Journal_, which catered to the literary wants
of the _beau monde_. Much of Willis's work was ephemeral, though
clever of its kind, but a few of his best tales and sketches, such as
_F. Smith_, _The Ghost Ball at Congress Hall_, _Edith Linsey_, and the
_Lunatic's Skate_, together with some of the _Letters from Under a
Bridge_, are worthy of preservation, not only as readable stories, but
as society studies of life at American watering places like Nahant and
Saratoga and Ballston Spa half a century ago. A number of his simpler
poems, like _Unseen Spirits_, _Spring_, _To M---- from Abroad_, and
_Lines on Leaving Europe_, still retain a deserved place in collections
and anthologies.

The senior editor of the _Mirror_, George P. Morris, was once a very
popular song writer, and {538} his _Woodman, Spare that Tree_, still
survives. Other residents of New York City who have written single
famous pieces were Clement C. Moore, a professor in the General
Theological Seminary, whose _Visit from St. Nicholas_--"'Twas the Night
Before Christmas," etc.--is a favorite ballad in every nurs