A transcript of the story, as told by Geraldus, may be found in "Ennemoser's Magic" and in "White's History of Soreery." The bitter feuds and troubled fortunes of the Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland are well illustrated in a recent genealogical history of the Geraldines by the Marquis of Kildare, noticed in the Edinburgh Quarterly for October 1858. The disastrous civil war of 1327, in which all the great barons of the country were involved, was occasioned by a personal feud between Arnold le Poer and Maurice of Desmond, the former having offended the dignity of the Desmond by calling him a rhymer.

The characteristics of the le Poers were marked and distinctive. They were improvident, adventurous, and recklessly brave. They were deeply involved in the Irish troubles of 1641, and when Cromwell invaded Ireland he pursued them with a special and relentless animosity. Their families were dispersed, their estates ravaged, and their lands forfeited. Of the three leading branches of the family at the time of Cromwell's invasion, Kilmaedon, Don Isle, and Curraghmore, the last only escaped his vengeance. The present representative of Curraghmore is the Marquis of Waterford. Cromwell's siege of the sea-girt castle and fortress of Don Isle, which was heroically defended by a female descendant of Nicholas le Poer, Baron of Don Isle, is, as represented by Sir Bernard Burke in his "Romance of the

Aristocracy," full of legendary interest. The beautiful domain of Powerscourt took its name from the le Poers, and was for centuries in the possession of the family. Lady Blessington, through her father, Edmund Power, claimed descent from the same old Norman family. The fact is not mentioned in Madden's memoir of the Countess, but is stated in a notice of her death published in the London Illustrated News for June 9th, 1849. The family of the le Poers, like that of the Geraldines and other Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland, passed from Italy into the north of France, and from France through England and Wales into Ireland, where, from their isolated position and other causes, they retained for a long period their hereditary traits with far less modification from intermarriage and consociation with other races than did their English compeers. Meantime the name underwent various changes in accent and orthography. A few branches of the family still bore in Ireland the old Italian name of De la Poe.

John Poe, the great-grandfather of Edgar Poe, married a daughter of Admiral McBride, distinguished for his naval achievements and connected with some of the most illustrious families of England. From genealogical records transmitted by him to his son, David Poe, the grandfather of the poet, who was but two years of age when his parents left Ireland, it appears that

different modes of spelling the name were adopted by different members of the same family. David Poe was accustomed to speak of the Chevalier le Poer, a friend of the Marquis de Grammont, as having been of his father's family. The grandfather of Edgar Poe was an officer in the Maryland line during the war of the revolution, and, as Dr Griswold has told us, the intimate friend of La Fayette. He married a lady of Pennsylvania, by the name of Cairnes, who is still remembered as having been a woman of singular beauty. The father of Edgar Poe, while a law student in the office of Wm. Gwynn, Esq., of Baltimore, married, at the age of eighteen, Elizabeth Arnold, a young English actress who was herself but a child. He first saw her at Norfolk, where he was sent on professional business, and in a few months they were married. Indignant at so imprudent a union, his parents refused their countenance to the marriage, and it was only after the birth of a child that he was forgiven and received back into the paternal mansion. During the period of his estrangement from his family he had joined his wife in a theatrical engagement. Edgar Poe was the offspring of this romantic and improvident union.

Having recorded our earnest protest against the misapprehension of his critics and the misstatements of

his biographists, we leave the subject for the present, in the belief that a more impartial memoir of the poet will yet be given to the world, and the story of his sad strange life, when contemplated from a new point of view, be found-like the shield of bronze whose color was so long contested by the knights of fable-to present, at least, a silver lining.

THE END.