Page:Edgar Poe and his critics.djvu/17

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Edgar Poe and his Critics.
15

guiltless in comparison, we must nevertheless endeavour to remember that the memorialist, himself, now claims from us that tender grace of charity that he was unwilling, or unable, to accord to the man who trusted him as a friend.

It is not our purpose at present specially to review Dr. Griswold’s numerous misrepresentations, and misstatements. Some of the more injurious of these anecdotes were disproved, during the life of Dr. Griswold, in the New York Tribune and other leading journals, without eliciting from him any public statement in explanation or apology. Quite recently we have had, through the columns of the Home Journal, the refutation of another calumnious story, which for ten years has been going the rounds of the English and American periodicals.

We have authority for stating that many of the disgraceful anecdotes, so industriously collected by Dr. Griswold, are utterly fabulous, while others are perversions of the truth, more injurious in their effects than