Dear Sir : I have a favor to beg of you which I thought it best to ask in writing, because, sincerely, I had not courage to ask it in person. I am indeed too well aware that I have no claim whatever to your attention, and that even the manner of my introduction to your notice was at the best equivocal. Since the day you first saw me, my situation in life has altered materially. At that time I looked forward to the inheritance of a large fortune, and, in the meantime, was in receipt of an annuity for my support. This was allowed me by a gentleman of Virginia (Mr. Jno. Allan) who adopted me at

the age of two years (both my parents being dead), and who, until lately, always treated me with the affection of a father. But a second marriage on his part, and I dare say many follies on my own, at length ended in a quarrel between us. He is now dead, and has left me nothing. I am thrown entirely upon my own resources, with no profession and very few friends. Worse than all this, I am at length penniless. Indeed no circumstances less urgent would have induced me to risk your friendship by troubling you with my distresses. But I could not help thinking that if my situation was stated — as you could state it — to Carey & Lea, they might be led to aid me with a small sum in consideration of my MS. now in their hands. This would relieve my immediate wants, and I could then look forward more confidently to better days. At all events receive the assurance of my gratitude for what you have already done.

Most respectfully, your obedient servant,

My Dear Snodgrass, — I fear you have been thinking it was not my design to answer your kind letter at all. It is now April Fool's Day, and yours is dated March 8th ; but believe me, although, for good reason, I may occasionally postpone my reply to your favors, I am never in danger of forgetting them.

In regard to Burton. I feel indebted to you for the kind interest you express; but scarcely know how to reply. My situation is embarrassing. It is impossible, as you say, to notice a bufix)on and a felon, as one gentleman would notice another. The law, then, is my only resource. Now, if the truth of a scandal could be admitted in justification — I mean of what the law terms a scandal — I would have matters all my own way. I would institute a suit, forthwith, for his personal defamation of myself. He would be unable to prove the truth of his allegations. I could

prove their falsity and their malicious intent by witnesses who, seeing me at all hours of every day, would have the best right to speak — I mean Burton's own clerk, Morrell, and the compositors of the printing office. In fact, I could prove the scandal almost by acclamation. I should obtain damages. But, on the other hand, I have never been scrupulous in regard to what I have said of him. I have always told bim to his face, and everybody else, that I looked upon him as a blackguard and a villain. This is notorious. He would meet me with a cross-action. The truth of the allegation — which I could [as] easily prove as he would find it difficult to prove the truth of his own respecting me — would not avail me. The law will not admit, as justification of my calling Billy Burton a scoundrel, that Billy Burton is really such. What then can I do ? If I sue, he sues : you see how it is.

So far for the matter inasmuch as it concerns Burton. I have now to thank you for your defence of myself, as stated. You are a physician, and I presume no physician can have difficulty in detecting the drunkard at a glance. You are, moreover, a literary man, well read in morals.

You will never be brought to believe that I could write what I daily write, as I write it, were I as this

villain woakl induce those who know me not to believe. In fine, I pledge you, before God, the solemn word of a gendeman, that I am temperate even to rigor. From the hour in which I first saw this basest of calumniators to the hour in which I retired from his office in uncontrollable disgust at his chicanery, arrogance, ignorance and brutality, nothing stronger than water ever passed my tips.

It is, however, due to candor that I inform you upon what foundadon he has erected his slanders. At no period of my life was I ever what men call intemperate. I never was in the habit of intoxication. I never drank drams. Sec, But, for a period, while I rerided in Richmond, and edited the ''Messenger/ I certainly did give way, at long intervals, to the temptation held out on all sides by the spirit of Southern conviviality. My sensitive temperament could not stand an excitement which was an cvery-day matter to my companions. In short, it somedmes happened that I was completely intoxicated. For some days after each excess I was invariably confined to bed. But it is now quite four years since I have abandoned every kind of alcoholic drink — four years, with the exception of a single deviation, which occurred shortly a/ter my leaving Burton, and when I was induced to resort to the occasional use of cider with the hope of relieving a nervous attack.

You will thus see, frankly stated, the whole amount of my sin. You will also see the blackness of that heart which could revive slander of this nature. Neither can you fail to perceive how desperate the malignity of the slanderer must be — how resolute he must be to slander, and how slight the grounds upon which he would build up a defamation — since he can

find nothing better with which to charge me than an accusation which can be disproved by each and every man with whom I am in the habit of daily intercourse.

I have now only to repeat to you, in general, my solemn assurance that my habits are as far removed from intemperance as the day from the night. My sole drink is water.

Will you do me the kindness to repeat this assurance to such of your own friends as happen to speak of me in your hearing ?

I feel that nothing more is requisite, and you will agree with me upon reflection.

Hoping soon to hear from you, I am. Yours most cordially.

My Dear Snodgrass, — I fear you have been thinking it was not my design to answer your kind letter at all. It is now April Fool's Day, and yours is dated March 8th ; but believe me, although, for good reason, I may occasionally postpone my reply to your favors, I am never in danger of forgetting them.

In regard to Burton. I feel indebted to you for the kind interest you express; but scarcely know how to reply. My situation is embarrassing. It is impossible, as you say, to notice a bufix)on and a felon, as one gentleman would notice another. The law, then, is my only resource. Now, if the truth of a scandal could be admitted in justification — I mean of what the law terms a scandal — I would have matters all my own way. I would institute a suit, forthwith, for his personal defamation of myself. He would be unable to prove the truth of his allegations. I could

prove their falsity and their malicious intent by witnesses who, seeing me at all hours of every day, would have the best right to speak — I mean Burton's own clerk, Morrell, and the compositors of the printing office. In fact, I could prove the scandal almost by acclamation. I should obtain damages. But, on the other hand, I have never been scrupulous in regard to what I have said of him. I have always told bim to his face, and everybody else, that I looked upon him as a blackguard and a villain. This is notorious. He would meet me with a cross-action. The truth of the allegation — which I could [as] easily prove as he would find it difficult to prove the truth of his own respecting me — would not avail me. The law will not admit, as justification of my calling Billy Burton a scoundrel, that Billy Burton is really such. What then can I do ? If I sue, he sues : you see how it is.

So far for the matter inasmuch as it concerns Burton. I have now to thank you for your defence of myself, as stated. You are a physician, and I presume no physician can have difficulty in detecting the drunkard at a glance. You are, moreover, a literary man, well read in morals.

You will never be brought to believe that I could write what I daily write, as I write it, were I as this

villain woakl induce those who know me not to believe. In fine, I pledge you, before God, the solemn word of a gendeman, that I am temperate even to rigor. From the hour in which I first saw this basest of calumniators to the hour in which I retired from his office in uncontrollable disgust at his chicanery, arrogance, ignorance and brutality, nothing stronger than water ever passed my tips.

It is, however, due to candor that I inform you upon what foundadon he has erected his slanders. At no period of my life was I ever what men call intemperate. I never was in the habit of intoxication. I never drank drams. Sec, But, for a period, while I rerided in Richmond, and edited the ''Messenger/ I certainly did give way, at long intervals, to the temptation held out on all sides by the spirit of Southern conviviality. My sensitive temperament could not stand an excitement which was an cvery-day matter to my companions. In short, it somedmes happened that I was completely intoxicated. For some days after each excess I was invariably confined to bed. But it is now quite four years since I have abandoned every kind of alcoholic drink — four years, with the exception of a single deviation, which occurred shortly a/ter my leaving Burton, and when I was induced to resort to the occasional use of cider with the hope of relieving a nervous attack.

You will thus see, frankly stated, the whole amount of my sin. You will also see the blackness of that heart which could revive slander of this nature. Neither can you fail to perceive how desperate the malignity of the slanderer must be — how resolute he must be to slander, and how slight the grounds upon which he would build up a defamation — since he can

find nothing better with which to charge me than an accusation which can be disproved by each and every man with whom I am in the habit of daily intercourse.

I have now only to repeat to you, in general, my solemn assurance that my habits are as far removed from intemperance as the day from the night. My sole drink is water.

Will you do me the kindness to repeat this assurance to such of your own friends as happen to speak of me in your hearing ?

I feel that nothing more is requisite, and you will agree with me upon reflection.

Hoping soon to hear from you, I am. Yours most cordially.

Dr. J. £. Snodgrass. Edgar A. Poe.

It is thus seen that it was the occasional convivial glass, not the habitual slip, that was the bane of the poet's existence — a view confirmed by his friend Tucker's testimony when they were boys at the University of Virginia, and reasserted all through his later life by those nearest to him. Mrs. Clemm asserted positively, For years I know he did not taste even a glass of wine," the period embraced being that between 1837 and 1841 ; testimony confirmed by L. A. Wilmer (''Our Press-Gang," p. 284), by William Gowans, "the eccentric book-miser of Nassau Street, who bought so many volumes, and sold so few, that both cellar and attic of his place of business were found, at his death, packed with forgotten purchases ; " and by many others.