th a good salary and a brilliant literary reputation, Poe was
dissatisfied. The old restlessness and discontent returned. What he
desired was a magazine of his own, for which he might be at liberty to
write according to his own will. His independent and ambitious spirit
revolted at being limited to certain bounds and controlled by what he
considered the narrow views of editors. We find him as early as June 26,
1841, writing to Mr. Snodgrass: "Notwithstanding Graham's unceasing
civility and real kindness, I am more and more disgusted with my
situation." It ended at length in his resigning the editorship of
_Graham's_ and devoting himself to writing for other publications, a
step which was the beginning of a long period of financial and other
troubles.

From Col. Du Solle, editor of "_Noah's New York Sunday Times_," who as a
resident of Philadelphia about that time knew Poe well, I gained some
information concerning him. His dissipation, the Colonel said, was too
notorious to be denied; and that for days, and even weeks at a time, he
would be sharing the bachelor life and quarters of his associates, who
were not aware that he was a married man. He would, on some evenings
when sober, come to the rooms occupied by himself and some other writers
for the press and, producing the manuscript of _The Raven_, read to them
the last additions to it, asking their opinion and suggestions. He
seemed to be having difficulty with it, said Col. Du Solle, and to be
very doubtful as to its merits as a poem. The general opinion of these
critics was against it.

The irregular habits of this summer resulted in the fall (1839) in a
severe illness, the first of the peculiar attacks to which Poe during
the rest of his life was at intervals subject. On recovering, he devoted
himself to the realization of a plan for establishing a magazine of his
own, to be called "_The Penn Magazine_," and wrote to Mr. Snodgrass that
his "prospects were glorious," and that he intended to give it the
reputation of using no article except from the best writers, and that in
criticism it was to be sternly, absolutely just with both friends and
foe, independent of the medium of a publisher's will." In these last
words we read the whole secret of his past dissatisfaction and of his
future aspiration as an editor.

The _Penn Magazine_ was advertised to appear on January 1, 1841, but
this scheme was balked by a financial depression which at that time
occurred througho