this time Mr. Poe had produced some of his best things, including "The Raven." Mr. Cooke makes a very common mistake, when he says "Mr. Poe edited the Messenger for several years;" it was only one year. Cooke becomes a regular story-teller.
The Virginia Historical Society holds its first annual meeting under its new organization, in the Capitol, December 16, 1847, and its president, Wm. Cabell Rives, delivers an address. This new organization was in succession to and substitution for "The Historical Department of the Society of Alumni of the University of Virginia," which had, upon the motion and plan of B. B. Minor, been formed and set in operation, in 1845-46. Upon its invitation, the Hon. Wm. C. Rives had delivered an address before it at the University. The "new organization" was effected mainly through the instrumentality of Mr. Minor, Col. Thos. H. Ellis and Conway Robinson, aided by Ex-president Wm. Maxwell, who was to be secretary and librarian, with a salary. The editorial work for the first number of Volume XIV. occupies eight pages and is well done.
Another new contributor was Henry A. Washington, then a young lawyer in Richmond. But his paper on "The Social System of Virginia" changed his career. It led to his election to the Chair of History, etc., in Wiliam and Mary Col-
