induced only by
long-continued intoxication; after a night of insanity and exposure, he
was carried to a hospital; and there, on the evening of Sunday, the 7th
of October, 1849, he died, at the age of thirty-eight years.

It is a melancholy history. No author of as much genius had ever in this
country as much unhappiness; but Poe's unhappiness was in an unusual
degree the result of infirmities of nature, or of voluntary faults in
conduct. A writer who evidently knew him well, and who comes before us in
the "Southern Literary Messenger" as his defender, is "compelled to admit
that the blemishes in his life were effects of character rather than of
circumstances."[A] How this character might have been modified by a
judicious education of all his faculties I leave for the decision of
others, but it will be evident to those who read this biography that the
unchecked freedom of his earlier years was as unwise as its results were
unfortunate.

[Footnote A: _Southern Literary Messenger_, March, 1850, p. 179.]

It is contended that the higher intelligences, in the scrutiny to which
they appeal, are not to be judged by the common laws; but I apprehend
that this doctrine, as it is likely to be understood, is entirely wrong.
All men are amenable to the same principles, to the extent of the
parallelism of these principles with their experience; and the line of
duty becomes only more severe as it extends into the clearer atmosphere
of truth and beauty which is the life of genius. _De mortuis nil nisi
bonum_ is a common and an honorable sentiment, but its proper application
would lead to the suppression of the histories of half of the most
conspicuous of mankind; in this case it is impossible on account of the
notoriety of Mr. Poe's faults; and it would be unjust to the living
against whom his hands were always raided and who had no resort but in
his outlawry from their sympathies. Moreover, his career is full of
instruction and warning, and it has always been made a portion of the
penalty of wrong that its anatomy should be displayed for the common
study and advantage.

The character of Mr. Poe's genius has been so recently and so admirably
discussed by Mr. Lowell, with whose opinions on the subject I for the most
part agree, that I shall say but little of it here, having already
extended this notice beyond the limits at first designed. There is a
singular harmony between his personal and his literary qualities. St.
Pierre, w