Page:Edgar Poe and his critics.djvu/20

 individuality; that prefixed to the volumes edited by Dr. Griswold suggests, at first view, something of the general contour of his face, but is utterly void of character and expression; it has no sub-surface. The original painting, now in possession of the New York Historical Society, has the same cold, automatic look that makes the engraving so valueless as a portrait to those who remember the unmatched glory of his face when roused from its habitually introverted and abstracted look by some favorite theme, or profound emotion. Perhaps, from its peculiarly changeful and translucent character, any adequate transmission of its variable and subtle moods was impossible. By writers personally unacquainted with Mr. Poe this engraving has often been favourably noticed. Mr. Hannay, in a Memoir prefixed to the first London edition of Poe’s Poems, calls it an interesting and characteristic portrait, “a fine, thoughtful face with lineaments of delicacy, such as belong only to genius or high blood—the forehead grand and pale, the eye dark and gleaming