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is too well-known to require quoting here; one verse, however, will not be out of place :
" But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we— Of many far wiser than we— And neither the Angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee."
Many composers have set the words to music. I have seen the statement somewhere that " My Pretty Jane" has proved the most profit-able song ever issued; and yet it was almost by accident that it was given to the world at all. Edward Fitz-Ball, the author of the lyric, and of something like a hundred plays, when a youth, lived at Burwell, an old-fashioned village about three miles from Newmarket, on the road to Cambridge. It was his custom to pass along one of the numerous lanes round the village, in the early morning, for the purpose of looking after his father's property. In his route there happened to be in this particular lane the house of a farmer, who had a pretty daughter called Jane. And often, as young Fitz-Ball wended his merry way, this girl would peep round the corner of the blind of her window, showing only her eyes, forehead, nose, hair and ears,
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