BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. EDGAR ALLAN POE. HIS gifted, versatile, but very erratic, writer was born in Boston, Massachusetts, February 19, 1809. His father was David Poe, a meritorious officer in the Revolutionary army; his mother, Elizabeth Arnold, was an English actress, and her husband also went on the stage. Their children were left orphans at a very early age, with no provision for their support. Edgar was adopted by Mr. John Allan, a wealthy gentleman of Richmond, Virginia, who sent him to England for his preliminary education. After remaining there four or five years he returned to Richmond in 1822, and made preparation to enter the University of Virginia, which he did in 1826. Although quick and receptive and clever in scholarship, he was so dissipated in his conduct that he was expelled within less than a year. In 1827 he started on a quixotic expedition to aid the struggling Greeks, and turned up unaccountably in St. Petersburg in a very forlorn condition. He was succored by the American minister, and returned to the United States. In 1829 he published a small volume of poems in Baltimore, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems. Mr. Allan then procured for him a cadet's warrant, and he entered the Military Academy at West Point in 1830. His irregular conduct caused him to be dismissed from the institution before a year had passed. This created an estrangement from his adopted father, and he was thrown upon his own resources for a livelihood. He began to write with great industry; in 1833 he gained two prizes for literary efforts, and was soon known as a promising writer. He was invited to the editorship of The Southern Literary Messenger, and, on the strength of his new success, he married his cousin, Miss Virginia Clemm. His restless spirit and irregular habits caused him to leave this post and go to New York City in 1837, where he lived precariously by his pen. In 1838 he published the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, which increased hist reputation. In 1839 he became editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, in Philadelphia; this office he held for only one year. From 1840 to 1842 he edited Graham's Magazine, and at that time published. his Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, which established his fame. His story entitled "The Gold-Bug" gained a prize of one hundred dollars in 1843. Ever restless, he was again in New York in 1844, and the next year presented to the world that most curious, quaint, weird poem called "The Raven." He contributed much in a desultory way to many journals, among them particularly The Home Journal, edited by Morris and Willis. But his career had culminated; he went down hill rapidly, became very poor and shiftless, and lost his wife in 1848. At last a gleam of light shone upon his broken fortunes; his habits were partially reformed, and he became engaged to an estimable lady of Richmond in 1849. He set out for New York City to prepare for his marriage, met some friends in Baltimore and spent a night in drinking; the next morning he was found in a forlorn condition in the streets and taken to the hospital, where he died on the 7th of October, 1849. As a writer of stories Poe is quite unique; his plots are very mysterious and well sus tained, and his details fantastic and hor-GERALD MASSEY, an English poet, rible. Among his most characteristic tales are "The Gold-Bug," "A Descent into the Maelström," "The Mystery of Mary Roget" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." As a critic he is powerful and crushing, but totally untrustworthy. His opinions of contemporaneous writers are the wild thrusts and slashes of unmitigated prej udice. As a poet he is tuneful and touching, and we have the paradox of the man in all his verses. The plaintive moan of "Annabel Lee;" "The Bells," changing from merry jingle and wedding-favors to the frantic peals of fire and the ghouls in the steeple; the surf-like sounding of "The Raven" in expression of the soul's despair,-are all phases in the experience of Poe; and when he wrote his "Haunted Palace," he was describing the great transfiguration in his own life from the freshness and happiness of healthy youth to the insanity which comes with unbridled indulgence. To what extent, from his peculiar mental conformation and conditions, he was irresponsible, how far the violence of his desires and the weakness of his power to resist may relieve was born May, 1828, near Tring, in Herts. His parents were so steeped in poverty that the children received scarcely any education. When only eight years old, Gerald was sent to work in a neighboring silkmill; but, the mill being burned down, the boy took to straw-plaiting. He had learned to read at a penny school, and when fifteen went up to London as an errand-boy, and spent all his spare time in reading and writing. When out of a situation, he has gone without a meal to purchase a book. His first appearance in print was in a provincial paper; he published a small collection of his verses in his native town, and during the political excitement of 1848 edited a cheap paper called the The Spirit of Freedom. His writing was so bold and vigorous that his political manifestations cost him five situations in eleven months. He was a warm advocate of the co-operative system, and thus was introduced to the Rev. Charles Kingsley and others who were promoting that movement. Still continuing to write, his name began to be known; and, in 1853, Christabel took the public completely by surprise five editions of the work were published in two years. His pecuniary circumstances improved in proportion to his fame as a poet, and in 1855 he removed to Edinburgh, where, in 1856, he issued Craigcrook Castle-in his own estimation his best work. A collected edition of his poems has lately been published. THE S. O. BEETON. THE HON. WILLIAM R. SPENCER. HE Hon. William Robert Spencer, born 1770, died 1834, published occasional poems of that description named vers de société, whose highest object is to gild the social hour. They were exaggerated in compliment and adulation, and wittily parodied in the "Rejected Addresses." As a companion Mr. Spencer was much prized by the brilliant circles of the metropolis, but, falling into pecuniary difficulties, he removed to Paris, where he died. His poems were collected and published in 1835. Sir Walter Scott, who knew and esteemed Spencer, quotes the following fine lines from one of his poems as expressive of his own feelings amidst the wreck and desolation of his fortunes at Abbotsford: "The shade of youthful hope is there, That lingered long, and latest died— Ambition, all-dissolved to air, With phantom honors by his side. What empty shadows glimmer nigh? Since lifeless to my heart ye prove!" W. & R. CHAMBERS. THE author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children. BENJAMIN DISRAELI THE FALL OF PRAGUE. FROM "THADDEUS OF WARSAW." THE soldiers filed off through the gates, crossed the bridge and halted under the walls of Prague. The lines of the camp were drawn and fortified before the evening, at which time they found leisure to observe the enemy's strength. Russia seemed to have exhausted her wide regions to people the narrow shores of the Vistula; from east to west, as far as the eye could reach, her armies were stretched to the horizon. Sobieski looked at them, and then on the handful of intrepid. hearts contained in the small circumference of the Polish camp. Sighing heavily, he retired into his tent, and, vainly seeking repose, mixed his short and startled slumbers with frequent prayers for the preservation of these last victims to their country. The hours appeared to stand still. Several times he rose from his bed, and went to the door to see whether the clouds were tinged with any appearance of dawn. All continued dark. He again returned to his marquee, and, standing by the lamp, which was nearly exhausted, took out his watch and tried to distinguish the points; but, finding that the light burned too feebly, he was pressing the repeating-spring, which struck five, when the report of a single musket made him start. He fled to his tent-door, and, looking around, saw that all in that quarter was at rest. Suspecting it to be a signal of the enemy, he hurried toward the entrenchments, but found the sentinels in perfect security from any fears respecting the sound, as they supposed it to have proceeded from the town. Sobieski paid little attention to their opin ions, but, ascending the nearest bastion to take a wider survey, in a few minutes he discerned, though obsurely, through the gleams of morning, the whole host of Russia advancing in profound silence toward the Polish lines. The instant he made this discovery he came down, and lost no time in giving orders for a defence; then, flying to other parts of the camp, he awakened the commander-in-chief, encouraged the men, and saw that the whole encampment was not only in motion, but prepared for the assault. In consequence of these prompt arrangements, the Russians were received with the cross-fire of the batteries and case-shot and musketry from several redoubts, which raked their flanks as they approached. But, in defiance of this shower of bullets, they pressed on with an intrepidity worthy of a better cause, and, overleaping the ditch by squadrons, entered the camp. A passage once secured, the Cossacks rushed in by thousands, and, spreading themselves in front of the storming-party, put every soul to the bayonet who opposed their way. it ciless, and sanguinary. Every spot of van- Sobieski, almost maddened by the scene, dripping with his own blood and that of his brave friends, was seen in every part of the action: he was in the fosse defending the trampled bodies of the dying; he was on the dyke animating the few who survived. Wawrzecki was wounded, and every hope hung upon Thaddeus; his presence and voice infused new energy into the arms of his fainting countrymen. They kept close to his side, until the Russians, enraged at the dauntless intrepidity of this young hero, uttered the most unmanly imprecations, and, rushing on his little phalanx, attacked it with redoubled numbers and fury. Sobieski sustained the shock with firmness, but wherever he turned his eyes they were blasted with some object which made them recoil; he beheld his companions and his soldiers strewing the earth, and their barbarous adversaries mounting their dying bodies as they hastened with loud huzzas to the destruction of Prague, whose gates were now burst open. His eyes grew dim at the sight, and at the very moment in which he tore them from spectacles so deadly to his heart a Lavonian officer struck him with a sabreto all appearance, dead upon the field. The Polish works being gained, the Russians turned the cannon on its former masters, and as they rallied to the defence of what remained swept them down by whole regiments. The noise of artillery thundered from all sides of the camp; the smoke was so great that it was hardly possible to distinguish friends from foes. Nevertheless, the spirit of the Poles flagged not a moment; as fast as one rampart was wrested from them they threw themselves within another, which was as speedily taken by the help of hurdles, fascines, ladders and a courage as resistless as it was ferocious, mer--which, having lit on the steel of his cap, When Thaddeus recovered from the blow had only stunned him-he looked around and found that all near him was quiet, but a far different scene presented itself from the town. The roar of cannon and the bursting of bombs thundered through the air, which was rendered livid and tremendous by long spires of fire streaming from the burning houses and mingling with the volumes of smoke which rolled from the guns. The dreadful tocsin and the hurrahs of the victors pierced the soul of the count. Springing from the ground, he was preparing to rush toward the gates, when loud cries of distress issued from the interior of the place, and a moment after the grand magazine blew up with a horrible explosion. In an instant the field before Prague was filled with women and children flying in all directions and rending the sky with their shrieks. other. With eager eye he seizes the moon's place in the heavens, and her age, and rapidly computes where she will be at her next change: he finds the new moon occurring far from the sun's track. He runs round another revolution; the place of the new moon falls closer to the sun's path, and the next yet closer, until, reaching forward with piercing intellectual vigor, he at last finds a new moon which occurs precisely at the computed time of her passage across the sun's track. Here he makes his stand, and on the day of the occurrence of that new moon he announces to the startled inhabitants of the world that the sun shall expire in dark eclipse. Bold prediction! Mysterious prophet! With what scorn must the unthinking world have received this solemn declaration! How slowly do the moons roll away, and with what intense anxiety does the stern philosopher await the coming of that day which should crown him with victory or dash him to the ground in ruin and disgrace! Time to him. moves on leaden wings; day after day, and at last hour after hour, roll heavily away. The last night is gone; the moon has disappeared from his eagle gaze in her approach to the sun, and the dawn of the eventful day breaks in beauty on the slumbering world. This daring man, stern in his faith, climbs alone to his rocky home and greets the sun as he rises and mounts the heavens, scattering brightness and glory in his path. Beneath him is spread out the populous city, already teeming with life and activity. The busy morning hum rises on the still air and reaches the watching-place of the solitary astronomer. The thousands below him, uncon |