Exposition of plagiarism became a hobby with him, and his attacks upon Longfellow upon this ground, brought on a controversy between him and the gentle poet which reached such a heat that it was dubbed “The Longfellow War.”  All attempts of friends and fellow journalists to make him more moderate in his criticisms were in vain; they seemed indeed, but to excite the Imp of the Perverse, under whose influence he became more merciless than ever.  An admirer of this virtue carried to such an extreme that it became a serious fault, as it was assuredly a grievous mistake, humorously characterized him in a parody upon “The Raven,” containing the following stanza: 

    “Neither rank nor station heeding, with his foes around him bleeding,
    Sternly, singly and alone, his course he kept upon that floor;
    While the countless foes attacking, neither strength nor valor lacking,
    On his goodly armor hacking, wrought no change his visage o’er,
    As with high and honest aim he still his falchion proudly bore,
    Resisting error evermore.”

Many of the “waspish foes” thus made turned their stings upon his private character, against which there was already a secret poison working—­the poison that fell from the tongue, and the pen of Rufus Griswold.  He had the ear of numbers of Edgar Poe’s friends in the literary world, and what time The Dreamer dreamed his dreams in utter ignorance of the unfriendliness toward him of the big man whose big brain he admired, the big man watched for his chance to insert the poison.  It was invariably hidden in a coating of sugar.  Poe was a wonderful genius, he would declare, his imagination—­his style—­they were marvellous!  Marvelous!  His head was all right, but—.  The “but” always came in a lowered tone, full of commiseration, “but—­his heart!—­Allowance should, of course, be made for his innate lack of principle—­he should not be held too responsible.  His habits—­well known to everyone of course!”

No—­they were not even suspected, many of his listeners replied.  Might not Dr. Griswold be mistaken? they asked.  Was it possible that an habitual drunkard could turn out such a mass of brilliant and artistic work?  And consider the exquisite neatness of his manuscript!

Peradventure the listener persisted in believing his informant mistaken—­peradventure he at once accepted the damaging statements; but in every case the poison had been administered, and was at work.

* * * * *

There was just one class among the writers of the day sacred from the attacks of Edgar Poe’s pen.  Before almost everything else The Dreamer was chivalrous.  The “starry sisterhood of poetesses” and authoresses, therefore, escaped his criticisms.  One of his contemporaries said of him that he sometimes mistook his vial of prussic acid for his ink-pot.  In writing of authors of the gentle sex, his ink-pot became a pot of honey.