Page:Edgar Allan Poe - a centenary tribute.pdf/103

 Little is known of Poe's surroundings through the next two years. Harper's for March, 1899, brought to light some reminiscences of Augustus Van Cleef which shows Poe living in Baltimore during this time with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, and tells of a transitory love affair between Poe and his "Mary," a fair Baltimore girl, with little Virginia, a child of ten, carrying notes to and fro. That he continued to write diligently in the poverty to which Mr. Allan had consigned him is proved by the material ready when, in 1833, The Baltimore Saturday Visitor opened its columns to the famous prize contest for poems and stories, in which Poe entered "The Tales of the Folio Club." One of these tales, "The Manuscript Found in a Bottle" was awarded the one hundred dollar prize with an accompanying recommendation "to publish all the tales in book form." Of the poems offered for the contest all were rejected but two; one, "The Coliseum," was in the same unmistakably beautiful handwriting as the story to which had been awarded the hundred dollar prize; the other poem was excellent and the fifty dollar prize was given to its author, John H. Hewitt, of Baltimore.

The judges, John P. Kennedy, John H. B. Latrobe, and James H. Miller, men of eminent literary ability, were enthusiastic in their encomiums of Poe's work, and Mr. Latrobe states; "I am not prepared to say that the committee may not have been biased in awarding the fifty dollar prize to Mr. Hewitt by the fact that they had already given the hundred dollar prize to Mr. Poe.

From this competition dates the friendship of Mr.