It was at these quarters that Lowell called on him, and found him, alas! "not himself that day." The old Square has no stranger nor sadder shade to haunt it than that of the brilliant and melancholy genius who in life loved it so well.
Poe's friend Willis published many of his stories and articles in the _Sun_, still a newcomer in the old field of journalism.

Willis has his own connection with the tale of the Square, though not a very glorious one.

The town buzzed for days with talk of the sensational interview between _Nym Crinkle_ and Edwin Forrest, the actor.

Mr.
Willis made some comments on Forrest's divorce, in an editorial, and that player, so well adored by the American public, took him by the coat collar in Washington Square and exercised his stage-trained muscles by giving him a thorough and spectacular thrashing.
Somewhere in that neighbourhood, much earlier, another editor, William Coleman, founder of the _Evening Post_, and Jeremiah Thompson, Collector of the Port, fought a duel to the death.

It was indeed to the death, for Thompson was wounded fatally.