Page:Edgar Allan Poe - a centenary tribute.pdf/99

 minutes of the Jefferson Society, of which he was the secretary. And again, when leaving one month before his eighteenth birthday, he carried with him all the honors it was possible for him to attain, as shown by the faculty minutes. "Distinctions" were the highest marks given at that time by the University, graduation belonged to a much later period and the marks received by Poe would later have entitled him to a diploma in Latin and French.

Among his friends during that year were T. G. Tucker, William M. Burwell, Upton Beale, Philip Slaughter, Philip St. George Ambler, John Willis and William Wertenbaker, the latter&mdash;librarian of the University for fortythree years&mdash;was in the same classes with Poe and wrote: "I am sure I will always tenderly cherish my recollections of Edgar Allan Poe." To Tucker and other friends gathered in his little room, No. 13, West Range, Poe read the early productions of his youth, and it is said that those who were so fortunate as to hear these impromptu readings never forgot them.

Returning to Mr. Allan's home in Richmond was not an especially happy event for Poe, "the distinctions" not counterbalancing his offense in making debts at cards. These debts Poe insisted upon paying, but Mr. Allan refused to do so and Poe rashly left his home. In May, 1827, he enlisted in Boston in the United States Army under the name of Edward A. Perry.

A few weeks later a tiny book of forty pages, giving Poe's collected poems, appeared in Boston as: "Tamer lane and Other Poems. By a Bostonian. Boston: