rsity. Here
one of his classmates was Dr. Creed Thomas, a noted Richmond physician,
who died so late as in 1890. In his reminiscences of Poe, published in a
Richmond paper not long before his own death, he says:

"Poe was one of our brightest pupils. He read and scanned the Latin
poets with ease when scarcely thirteen years of age. He was an apt
student and always recited well, with a great ambition to excel in
everything.

"Despite his retiring disposition he was never lacking in courage. There
was not a pluckier boy in school. He never provoked a quarrel, but would
always stand up for his rights.... It was a noticeable fact that he
never asked any of his schoolmates to go home with him after school. The
boys would frequently on Fridays take dinner or spend the night with
each other at their homes, but Poe was never known to enter in this
social intercourse. After he left the school ground we saw no more of
him until next day."

Dr. Thomas spoke of Poe's fondness for the stage. He and several other
of the brightest boys held amateur theatricals in an old building rented
for the purpose. Poe was one of the best actors; but Mr. Allan, upon
learning of it, forbade his having anything to do with these
theatricals, a great grievance to the boy.

"A singular fact," proceeds Dr. Thomas, "is that Poe never got a
whipping while at Burke's. I remember that the boys used to come in for
a flogging quite frequently--I got my share. Poe was quiet and dignified
during school hours, attending strictly to his studies; and we all used
to wonder at his escaping the rod so successfully."

He adds that Poe was not popular with most of his schoolmates; that his
manners were retiring and distant. Doubtless there were boys with whom
he did not care to associate, feeling the lack of a congeniality between
himself and them. Then there were the prim and priggish class who looked
with virtuous disapproval on the robber of apple orchards and
turnip-patches, and who in after years never had a good word to say of
Poe, whether as boy or man.

It will be observed from Dr. Davis' account that the "quiet and
dignified" manner which distinguished Poe in manhood was natural to him
even as a boy.

As regards his never inviting his schoolmates to accompany him home to
dinner or to spend the night, this would not have been agreeable to
Edgar, who would have preferred having his time to himself for reading
or writing his verses, a volume of which he