Oh, distinctly I remember 'twas in bright and clear September Soon after I had returned to this ancient seat of lore, Vainly I had sought to borrow from my books surcease to sorrow,

Fearing, dreading that the harrow would pass over me

once more,

Little hoped I for Testamur, dreading to be ploughed once

more,

Ploughed perhaps for evermore.

So I pondered deeply thinking, fancy into fancy linking, Balmy air of cool night drinking soothingly through every pore.

Whilst I wandered with my dearest, and the moon was at her clearest,

Earth to heaven seemed the nearest it had ever been before; Life was sweeter at that moment than it had ever been before,

Than it will be evermore.

Thus while we were gently strolling, pleasant thoughts our our minds enrolling,

Suddenly I heard a footstep that I had not heard before, And I felt my blood run colder, and in fact was no way bolder,

As I felt upon my shoulder the "bulldog's" hand I so abhor,

Then he said with gleeful malice those old words I so abhor "The proctor wants you," nothing more.

"Bulldog," cried I, "thing of evil, how I wish you at the devil,"

But the "bulldog," most ferocious, never let me from his paw,

But before the proctor hurried, who my wits completely

But too well do I remember that hungriest, dreariest November;

Not a single blessèd ember cast its glow upon the floor, Nor dared I hope that on the morrow I could venture more to borrow

On my books, which, to my sorrow, had been carried by the score

"To my uncle's," by the slattern whom the Missis called Lenore

Why, I could not say, I'm sure.

And the shiv'ring, cold, uncertain rustling of each paper curtain

Told me of a bleaker draught than I had ever felt before; So that, while to rise objecting, I turned again and lay reflecting,

Through the crazy rattling sashes as the rain now came by dashes,

I began to think the knocking at the panel of my door
Was the wind, and nothing more.

Soon again it came, and stronger; hesitating then no longer,

"Girl," I cried, "had you but listened, you could well have heard me snore,

"For the fact is, I was napping when so rudely you came rapping;

And if you again come tapping, tapping at my chamber door, I will give you such a slapping as you never had before !" Shrieked the maiden :-"Never, sure!"

By the Author of "Flemish Interiors."

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"The Raven" has been repeatedly translated. A Latin version, by Lewis Gidley, was published in Exeter in 1863, and again in 1866 by Parker of Oxford and London. There are several German versions of it, also a French translation by William Hughes. But perhaps the most famous of all is the grand folio published in Paris in 1875, entitled “LE CORBEAU, traduction française de Stéphane Mallarmé, avec Illustrations par Edouard Manet." The translation is literal, and naturally loses much of the force and beauty of the original from the absence of rhyme. It lacks also much of the weird suggestiveness of "The Raven," whilst the refrain "Jamais-plus" is but a poor substitute for the sonorous "Nevermore!" Manet, the late chief of the Impressionist School of Painters, has here given full vent to his powers, and his eccentricity. some of his illustrations the effects of light and shade are marvellous, in others he has been less successful, whilst in one or two instances the illustrations appear absolutely meaningless.

In

Notes and Queries recently quoted an anecdote of a Raven which must have been an ancestor of Poe's sinister bird. It is taken from a rare little

book, to which it gives the subject of 166 pages of edifying preachment, and of course is firmly believed in by the author. The following is the title:

"Vox Corvi; or the Voice of a Raven, that Thrice spoke these words distinctly: Look into Colossians the 3rd and 15th. The Text it self looked into, and opened, in a Sermon, Preached at Wigmore, in the County of Hereford, To which is added, Serious Addresses to the People of this Kingdom; shewing the use we ought to make of this Voice from Heaven. By ALEX. OLOGIE, Minister of Wigmore, &c. Licensed according to order. Matth. 21, xviii. London, 1694."

The details are thus circumstantially related:

"On the 3d. of February, 1691, about Three in the Afternoon, this Reverend Divine, a person of the venerable Age of 80 years, and 40 of those a Laborious Teacher of God's Word, in the Parish of Wigmore, in the County of Hereford, being in the Hall of his own house, being with the Pious Matron, his Wife, some Neighbours and Relations, together with two small Grand-Children of his, in all to the number of Eight Persons; Thomas Kinnersley, one of the said Grand-Children, of but Ten Years of Age, starting up from the Fireside, went out of the Hall-Door, and sate himself down upon a Block by a Wood-pile, before the Door, employing himself in no other Childlike Exercise than cutting of a Stick, when in less than half a quarter of an Hour, he returned into the Hall in great amazement, his Countenance pale, and affrighted, and said to his Grandfather and Grandmother, LOOK IN THE THIRD OF THE COLOSSIANS, AND THE FIFTEENTH, with infinite Passion and Earnestness, repeating the words no less than three Times, which Deportment and Speech much surprising the whole Company, they asked him what he meant by those words, who answered with great Ardency of Spirit, that a RAVEN had spoken them Three times from the Peak of the Steeple, and that it looked towards W. W.'s House, and shook its HEAD and WINGS thitherwards, directing its Looks and Motions still towards that House. All which words he heard the RAVEN

distinctly utter three times, and then saw it mount and fly out of sight. His Grandfather hereupon, taking the Bible, and turning to the said Text, found these words. 'And let the Peace of God rule in your Hearts, to the which you are also called in one Body; and be ye thankful.' Upon reading whereof, the Child was fully satisfied, and his countenance perfectly composed agen [sic].”

cutting to indicate from what paper it had been taken. However, after considerable searching amongst the newspaper files in the British Museum I was enabled to trace it to The Morning Star (London) of September 1, 1864.

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

SIR-I have noticed with interest and astonishment the remarks made in different issues of your paper respecting Edgar A. Poe's "Raven," and I think the following fantastic poem (a copy of which I enclose), written by the poet whilst experimenting towards the production of that wonderful and beautiful piece of mechanism, may possibly interest your numerous readers. "The Fire-Fiend" (the title of the poem I enclose) Mr. Poe considered incomplete and threw it aside in disgust. Some months afterwards, finding it amongst his papers, he sent it in a letter to a friend, labelled facetiously, “To be read by fire-light at midnight, after thirty drops of laudanum." I was intimately acquainted with the mother-in-law of Poe, and have frequently conversed with her respecting "The Raven," and she assured me that he had the idea in his mind for some years, and used frequently to repeat verses of it to her and ask her opinion of them, frequently making alterations and improvements, according to the mood he chanced to be in at the time. Mrs. Clemm, knowing the great study I had given to "The Raven," and the reputation I had gained by its recital throughout America, took great interest in giving me all the information in her power, and the life and writings of Edgar A. Poe have been the topic of our conversation for hours. Respectfully,

Then I started up, unbidden, from my slumber nightmare ridden,

With the memory of that Dire Demon in my central Fire On my eye's interior mirror like the Shadow of a Fate!

X.

Ah! the fiendish Fire had smouldered to a white and formless heap,

And no knot of oak was flaming as it flamed upon my sleep; But around its very centre, where the Demon Face had shone,

Forked shadows seemed to linger, pointing as with spectral finger

To a BIBLE, massive, golden, on a table carved and oldenAnd I bowed, and said, "All Power is of God, of God alone !"

On showing this poem to Mr. J. H. Ingram he at once pronounced it a forgery, and from his remarkable collection of books relating to E. A. Poe he produced a small volume of 104 pages clad in green and gold, entitled The Fire-Fiend and other Poems, by Charles D. Gardette. Published in New York by Messrs. Bunce and Hartington in 1866. The book contains “The Fire-Fiend" and "Golgotha," both written in imitation of E. A. Poe, and some poems entitled "War Echoes" and "Vagaries" of no particular interest. The account given of the origin of the hoax perpetrated on the public by the author of "The Fire-Fiend" is contained in the

PRE-NOTE.

"A FEW-and but a few-words of explanation seem appropriate here, with reference to the poem which gives title to this volume.

The "FIRE-FIEND" was written some six years ago, in consequence of a literary discussion wherein it was asserted, that the marked originality of style, both as to conception and expression, in the poems of the late EDGAR ALLEN (sic) POE, rendered a successful imitation difficult even to impossibility. The author was challenged to produce a poem, in the manner of "The Raven," which should be accepted by the general critic as a genuine composition of Mr. POE's, and the "FIRE-FIEND" was the result.

This poem was printed as " from an unpublished MS. of the late EDGAR A. POE," and the hoax proved sufficiently successful to deceive a number of critics in this country, and also in England where it was afterwards republished (by Mr. MACREADY, the tragedian), in the London Star, as an undoubted production of its soi-disant author.

The comments upon it by the various critics, professional and others, who accepted it as Mr. POE's, were too flattering to be quoted here, the more especially since, had the poem appeared simply as the composition of its real author, these

Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire.

Leaping higher, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavour
Now, now to sit or never,

By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair ¡

How they clang, and clash, and roar !
What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,

By the twanging

And the clanging,

How the dangers ebbs and flows;

Yet the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells

Of the bells

Rolls

A paean from the bells;
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells;
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells-
Of the bells :

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the throbbing of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells-
To the sobbing of the bells;

Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells

In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,-
To the tolling of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Bells, bells, bells-

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

(First Published after the Author's death.)

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THE SWELLS.

By Edgardo Pooh.

SEE the Gardens with the swells

Noble swells!

What power of foolery their presence here foretels!
How they chatter, chatter, chatter,

To each other left and right,
What to them is any matter?

Since their tailor and their hatter,

Are their sole delight.

Running tick, tick, tick,

And hastening to Old Nick,

By expending time and money on dancing, dicing, belles, Are the swells, swells, swells, swells,

Swells, swells, swells!

Are the foolish and profligate young swells.

See the dressy little swells-
Snobby swells!

What a world of happiness that Moses' paletot tells!
Through the murky air of night,

How they shout out their delight,

From their Cashmere-shawled throats,
And out of tune,

What a drunken ditty floats

To the gas-lamps shining on policemen's coats,
On their shoon!

Oh, from out the Bow-street cells,

What a gush of harmony uproariously wells!
How it smells!

How it knells

For the morrow! how it tells

Of the folly that impels

To the laughing and the quaffing

Of the swells, swells, swells,

Of the swells, swells, swells, swells,

Swells, swells, swells,

Of the dining and the fine-ing of the swells!