The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1875-11-20
EsI0NT 4UNn Poe.

From the National Intelligencer 14th instant
The literary people oil the land are we'll aware
Though the great mass are not, that there once
lived and died few years since man named
Edgar Allan Poe, vino was somewhat famous in
his singular life, and still more so since his I'M
fortunate death, as a tale writer, poet and word
artist generally. He wrote a poem ballad
called "Tke RGUen," piece Of toord music rather
than high poem, in which with much labor,
and art bordering on genius, he constructed a
unsteady melancholy refrain quite extraordi-
nary. He wrote other poems, not of high i'm
agination, but skillful tone; and number of
tales, some wierd and wild, others strange and
improbable, and some which displayed math-
ematical sort of Imagination, as these entitled
the "Murder in the Rue .Morgue," and the
"Gold Bug" the latter depending for its in
terest upon pirates treasure concealed, and
found by the ingenious decyphering Of a cryp-
tograph; species of ingenious puzzle or enig-
ma which he much affected. We knew the
man when he lived in Philadelphia, and when
he imposed upon the Philadelphia Ledger and
Baltimore Sun Tor rather upon their weeklies)
as original, in competition for a"Prize" consid
Grafton the tale of "The Gold Bug" which had
been previously written by him aud published
prize tale for the Baltimore Saturday Vis
itor His birth place has been claimed for
both Virginia and Maryland his death I'M
dou btedly occurred in Baltimore under dis
tressing and pitiable circumstances, closing his
literary career and long one of habitual inebri-
alton, in prolonged debauch and evident des-
titutien, dying in ward of tho Washington
College Hospital, Baltimore, then under the
skillful care of DIR. Moran, now of Falls Church
Village, Fairfax county, Va. Recently, the adj
mirers of what is styled "Poe's Genius" have
succeeded in preparing q monument for the OBJ
ject of their admiration, and the past week had
been fixed for imposing ceremonies in connec
ton with renewing his remains, and placing
them beneath the new insignia of his fame
Public attention having thus been afresh di-
rected toward Poe's life, works, and death,
many publications have appeared, in the most
Of which a disposition has been manifested to
gloss over his failings and to exalt him into a
saint and martyr, or a splendid genius who
was an honor and an example to the race, in
stead Of stating the melancholy truth, that he
was life long sot whose genius or artistic
word utterances were but poor apology for
his failures as a member of society. The most
prominent of these recent publications is what
seems to us highly sensational monograph
from DR.. J. J. Moran, the physician of the Bal
timere hospital where he expired, as to the cir
cumstances connected with the last hours and
death and burial of Poe-which paper was
originally published in the New York Herald
and more recently in the Baltimore Sun and
in the daily papers of this city. We have said
UnaJ tnlS narrative OF LIT. M. seems 10 US 10 De
"highly sensational" and we are sustained in
this opinion by an article which we find in
Beadles Monthly Magazine, of New York city,
for the month Of March, 1867, from the pen of
DR.. jos. E. Snodgrass, then of New York but
now of Washington city. Indeed, if DR.. Snod-
grass is correct-and we are inclined to think
he is, for he wrote in sorrow as an old friend of
Poe, and within comparatively short period
after his terrible death, when the memory was
still fresh with the events stated, and with no
end to crafty, nor aught of purpose but to
state with unvarnished precision the terrible
facts of Poe's untimely taking o6-from DR..
SIS narrative it would appear that he, the per-
sonal friend of Poe, was the Good Samaritan
who picked him up at a drinking place, on
election day, where it will be seen he found
him in a state of utter stupor, and helped to
carry him like corpse to the carriage which
conveyed him to the hospital where DR.. Moran
was, at the time, the resident physician.
DR.. Moran is doubtless the highest authority
for what he has stated as to the symptoms of
the disease of which his patient died as the ul-
innate effect of his habits, and as to his dying
words though there will be some who will
think it likely he suffered his pen to run rather
much into the sensational, even there. But, as
to what occurred outside the hospital, and be-
fore DR.. Moran received his patient, that gem
tleman necessarily relied on the statements of
others, who misled him. DIR. Snodgrass' in for
nation was self-obtained; DR.. Moran's ne""s-