acileness as he sang of country
scenes. He came to be a grave and patient invalid, living happily with
his second wife as he had with his first, and ending his days at
Idlewild,--his home on the Hudson.

It was with the newly started _Evening Mirror_ that Poe became
connected on his return from Philadelphia, and it would seem that if
he ever had prospects bright to look forward to it was with the
fair-minded, business-like Morris and the gentle-hearted Willis. But
when Poe had continued with them a brief six months even that gentle
restraint proved too much. The _Evening Mirror_ did not last long
after his going, though this had little to do with its failure. Then
the indefatigable Morris, with Willis, started the _Home Journal_ at
107 Fulton Street, which continued into the twentieth century, and is
now known under its changed title of _Town and Country_.

[Illustration: Where Poe wrote "The Raven"]

While Poe was working on the _Mirror_ he lived with his frail wife
Virginia and her mother, Mrs. Clemm, in Bloomingdale Village. It was a
village indeed then, and about the scattered houses were broad roads
and shaded lanes and clustering trees. The house in which Poe lived
was on a high bluff beside a country road which is now Eighty-fourth
Street, the house standing (as the thoroughfares run now) between
Broadway and West End Avenue. It was a plain, square, frame dwelling
with brick chimneys reaching high above the pointed roof, kept by Mrs.
Mary Brennan, and Poe rented rooms of her. Two windows faced towards
the Hudson, and he could sit and looking through the trees catch a
silvery glimpse of the river. Here he wrote _The Raven_ and _The Imp
of the Perverse_. From here he sent _The Raven_ to the _American
Review_ at 118 Nassau Street, where it was published over the pen name
of "Quarles"; and he was still living here when the poem was reprinted
in the _Evening Mirror_, for the first time over his own name.

[Illustration: POE'S COTTAGE AT FORDHAM.

(From a drawing by C.W. Mielatz, by permission.)

Copyright, 1899, by The Society of Iconophiles.]

It had come to be the summer of 1845 when Poe left the _Evening
Mirror_ for the long black desk in lower Nassau Street where he helped
Charles F. Briggs conduct the _Broadway Journal_. Briggs was the
matter-of-fact "Harry Franco," a journalist of great ability who in
another ten years was to edit _Putnam's Magazine_ from 10 Park Place.
More than one of Poe's friends sai