It is not true, as has been frequently alleged since Mr. Poe’s death, that his writings were above the popular taste, and therefore without a suitable market in this country.  His poems were worth as much to magazines as those of Bryant or Longfellow, (though none of the publishers paid him half as large a price for them,) and his tales were as popular as those of Willis, who has been commonly regarded as the best magazinist of his time.  He ceased to write for The Lady’s Book in consequence of a quarrel induced by Mr. Godey’s justifiable refusal to print in that miscellany his “Reply to Dr. English,” and though in the poor fustian published under the signature of “George R. Graham,” in answer to some remarks upon Poe’s character in The Tribune, that individual is made to assume a passionate friendship for the deceased author that would have become a Pythias, it is known that the personal ill-will on both sides was such that for some four or five years not a line by Poe was purchased for Graham’s Magazine.  To quote again the “Defense of Mr. Poe” in the Southern Literary Messenger: 

“His changeable humors, his irregularities, his caprices, his total disregard of everything and body, save the fancy in his head, prevented him from doing well in the world.  The evils and sufferings that poverty brought upon him, soured his nature, and deprived him of faith in human beings.  This was evident to the eye—­he believed in nobody, and cared for nobody.  Such a mental condition of course drove away all those who would otherwise have stood by him in his hours of trial.  He became, and was, an Ishmaelite.”

After having, in no ungenerous spirit, presented the chief facts in Mr. Poe’s history, not designedly exaggerating his genius, which none held in higher admiration, not bringing into bolder relief than was just and necessary his infirmities.  I am glad to offer a portraiture of some of his social qualities, equally beautiful, and—­so changeable and inconsistent was the man—­as far as it goes, truthful.  Speaking of him one day soon after his death, with the late Mrs. Osgood, the beauty of whose character had made upon Poe’s mind that impression which it never failed to produce upon minds capable of the apprehension of the finest traits in human nature, she said she did not doubt that my view of Mr. Poe, which she knew indeed to be the common view, was perfectly just, as it regarded him in his relations with men; but to women he was different, and she would write for me some recollections of him, to be placed beside my harsher judgments in any notice of his life that the acceptance of the appointment to be his literary executor might render it necessary for me to give to the world.  She was an invalid—­dying of that consumption by which in a few weeks she was removed to heaven, and calling for pillows to support her while she wrote, she drew this sketch: