ABSTRACT
We learn that the first number of the Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe, Esq., has met with a ready sale. This was to be expected. Mr Poe has distinguished himself in every walk of literature; and it may be doubted whether the country boasts a writer of greater favor and more varied and finished accomplishments. As an editor of the Southern Literary Messenger he acquired and deserved a reputation, of which any living writer might be proud. In the field of romance, he has the rare merit of originality. Most of the tales of the day are copies, -a reiteration of incidents a hundred times recited, and a repetition of sentiments, which, however commendable, are as well known as the Lord's Prayer. Mr Poe's Romances are of a character entirely dissimilar. There is no apparent effort; no straining after sentiment; no daubing of red and white antithesis; no copied descriptions, a thousand times repeated, and weakened like circles in the water, with every repetition. In the present number, 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' is the better of the two tales. Of itself it proves Mr Poe to be a man of genius. The inventive power exhibited is truly wonderful. At every step it whets the curiosity of the reader, until the interest is heightened to a point from which the mind shrinks with something like incredulity; when with an inventive power and skill, of which we know no parallel, he reconciles every difficulty, and with the most winning vraisemblance brings the mind to admit the truth of every marvel related. The reader is disposed to believe that this must be the actual observation of
