Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/655

 POE BIRD lated into French. Besides " The Raven," his best known poem is " The Bells." The works of Poe were edited, with a memoir, by R. W. Griswold (4 vols., New York, 1850). The me- moir contained many severe imputations upon his character, and gave many details of his misconduct, the accuracy of which has been often warmly questioned. In 1860 Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman of Providence, to whom Poe was said to have been engaged not long before his death, published in defence of his character a volume entitled " Edgar Poe and his Critics." In 1874 the first volume of "The Works of Edgar Allan Poe " appeared in Edinburgh, edit- ed with a memoir by John H. Ingram, who en- deavors to show that Mr. Griswold was a slan- derer, and that Poe was free from the faults imputed to him with the exception of occasion- al intoxication. A memoir by R. H. Stoddard, prefixed to a collection of Poe's poems (New York and London, 1875), throws new light on Poe's history, and shows his conduct in a some- what more favorable light than that in which it was depicted by Griswold. Poe's grave, in Westminster churchyard, Baltimore, remained unmarked till 1875, when a monument was placed over it by the Baltimore school teachers. POE BIRD, a tenuirostral bird of the sub- family meliphagincB or honey eaters, and the genus prosthemadera (Vig. and Horsf.). The bill is long, curved, acute, slightly notched at the tip; wings moderate, the fifth and sixth quills equal and longest, the third and fifth more or less notched in the middle of the in- ner webs; tail long, broad, and rounded on the sides ; tarsi short and stout ; toes elonga- ted, the outer united to the middle; tongue long, capable of being protruded, ending in a pencil of fibres of great service in extracting honey and insects from flowers. The poe bird, or tui (P. Nova Zealandia, Strick.), is a native of New Zealand and the Auckland islands ; it is about the size of a thrush, of a fine glossy black, with green and violet reflec- tions ; on each side of the neck are two small tufts of white loose feathers, elegantly rolled in spirals ; these tufts have been compared to a pair of clerical bands, which, contrasting with the black color of the body, have ob- tained for it the name of parson bird. It is imitative, restless, and pugnacious, singing with sweet whistling notes ; the flight is noisy and heavy; the food consists of flies and other small insects, worms, and the sweet juices of fruits ; its flesh is said to be delicious ; the nest is made in shrubs, of twigs and moss, and the eggs are four. It is called in New Zealand the mocking bird ; in confinement it learns to speak long sentences with ease and fluency, and imitates a bark, mew, cackle, gabble, or any other sound. There are several allied spe- cies, like the friar bird of Australia (tropido- rhynchus corniculatus, Lath.), whose notes re- semble particular words, and the pogonornis eincta (Dub.) of New Zealand, which has re- markably long erectile tufts over the ears. POET LAUREATE 635 POERIO, Carlo, baron, an Italian statesman born in Naples in April, 1803, died in Flor- ence, April 28, 1867. He early followed his father into political exile, and was repeatedly under arrest after returning to Naples. Under the constitutional government of 1848 he was successively prefect of police and minister of education, and after its overthrow in May op- posed the government in parliament till March, 1849, when he was tried with others by a spe- cial tribunal and sentenced to 24 years' hard labor, and was transferred from prison to prison with ever increasing indignity. Mr. Gladstone, while in Italy in 1851, denounced the injustice of Poerio's trial and the rigor of his prison life in a letter addressed to Lord Aberdeen, which created a profound sensation. Nevertheless Poerio was detained till the end of 1858, and was then released only on con- dition of going to the United States ; but the captain of the American, vessel on which he embarked landed him in England, where he remained. In 1859 he returned to Italy, where in the following year he was elected to the parliament of Turin, of which he became vice president in 1861. Although poor, he refused public office, and was one of the noblest of the Italian patriots. See Morte di Carlo Poe- rio, by Settembrini (Naples, 1867). His broth- er ALEBSANDBO died in 1848 from a wound received at the siege of Venice. His Poesie edite e postume appeared at Florence in 1852. POET LAUREATE, a poet officially crowned with laurel. The custom of crowning the po- ets successful in a musical contest originated among the Greeks, and was adopted by the Romans during the empire. It was revived in the 12th century by the emperor of Germany, who invented the title of poet laureate. Hen- ry V. crowned his historian, and Frederick I. the monk Gunther, who had celebrated his deeds in an epic poem. But no great interest was attached to the title until the coronation of Petrarch in the capitol at Rome in 1341. Tasso died just as the honor was about to be conferred on him. In Germany, the custom, after having apparently fallen into disuse, was restored by the emperor Frederick III., who crowned ./Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini and Con- radus Celtes. Maximilian I. crowned Ulrich von Hutten, and gave to the counts palatine the right of bestowing the laurel crown in their own name ; and when Ferdinand II. gave to the counts of the imperial court singly the right of conferring the laurel, its value declined. After Ulrich von Hutten, the most prominent poets crowned in Germany were George Sabinus, John Stigelius, Nicodemus Frischlin, and especially Martin Opitz, who in 1625 was crowned by Ferdinand II. at Vienna, and was the first who received the laurel for poems written in the vernacular tongue. The last poet crowned in that country was Kar? Reinhard, editor of Burger's poems. The im- perial privilege was also given to universities, and the degree otpoeta laureatus was conferred