of nutgalls
or of sugar. But it is easier to be generous than to be just, and we
might readily put faith in that fabulous direction to the hiding-place
of truth, did we judge from the amount of water which we usually find
mixed with it.

Remarkable experiences are usually confined to the inner life of
imaginative men, but Mr. Poe's biography displays a vicissitude and
peculiarity of interest such as is rarely met with. The offspring of a
romantic marriage, and left an orphan at an early age, he was adopted by
Mr. Allan, a wealthy Virginian, whose barren marriage-bed seemed the
warranty of a large estate to the young poet. Having received a
classical education in England, he returned home and entered the
University of Virginia, where, after an extravagant course, followed by
reformation at the last extremity, he was graduated with the highest
honors of his class. Then came a boyish attempt to join the fortunes of
the insurgent Greeks, which ended at St. Petersburg, where he got into
difficulties through want of a passport, from which he was rescued by
the American consul, and sent home.[1] He now entered the military
academy at West Point from which he obtained a dismissal on hearing of
the birth of a son to his adopted father, by a second marriage, an event
which cut off his expectations as an heir. The death of Mr. Allan, in
whose will his name was not mentioned, soon after relieved him of all
doubt in this regard, and he committed himself at once to authorship for
a support. Previously to this, however, he had published (in 1827) a
small volume of poems, which soon ran through three editions, and
excited high expectations of its author's future distinction in the
minds of many competent judges.

[Footnote 1: There is little evidence for this story, which some
biographers have dismissed as a myth created by Poe himself. See
Woodberry's _Poe_, v. i, p. 337.]

That no certain augury can be drawn from a poet's earliest lispings
there are instances enough to prove. Shakespeare's first poems, though
brimful of vigor and youth and picturesqueness, give but a very faint
promise of the directness, condensation, and overflowing moral of his
maturer works. Perhaps, however, Shakespeare is hardly a case in point,
his "Venus and Adonis" having been published, we believe, in his
twenty-sixth year. Milton's Latin verses show tenderness, a fine eye for
nature, and a delicate appreciation of classic models, but give no hint
of the