Text: Sidney P. Moss, “Toward the Lawsuit,” Poe's Major Crisis, 1970, pp. 1-73 (This material is protected by copyright)

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TOWARD THE LAWSUIT

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1.   May 1846: “The Literary Snob”: Two Versions

  Lewis Gaylord Clark and Cornelia Wells Walter

[When the Broadway Journal, heavily in debt and invested with Poe's entire capital, became defunct, Poe's only means of support was his pen. He contrived, therefore, to bring off a journalistic sensation that would make him the author to publish. In a series of sketches he would distinguish between the popular opinion of contemporary New York authors and the opinion expressed about them in private literary society, for, as he said, “the very editors who hesitate at saying in print an ill word of an author personally known, are usually the most frank in speaking about him privately. In literary society, they seem bent upon avenging the wrongs self-inflicted upon their own consciences. Here, accordingly, the quack is treated as he deserves ... by way of striking a balance” (“Author's Introduction” to “The Literati of New York City”).

To create this sensation, Poe had to exploit private gossip among the literati, something he was in an ideal position to do. For in 1845 the fantastic success of “The Raven,” the publication of two of his books, and the undoubted fact that he looked the poet, which the lady, if not the gentleman, writers found irresistible, became his entrée into the fashionable literary salons of New York. There the Raven held forth, spellbinding the ladies, charming them with his attentions, and listening to their views — as well as those of their guests — concerning their fellow authors and editors. That Poe was a leading critic and could and did say flattering things about them in print only enhanced his attractiveness as a literary lion.

But invitations to the salons ceased abruptly when in 1846 he published — or, more accurately, threatened to publish — what had been intended as privileged communications. His threatened betrayal, for he attributed the gossip he purveyed to no one in particular, made him seem a cad and a hack, and cost him his entrée into literary society. Now he became, in turn, the subject of spiteful gossip and outright abuse. Lewis Gaylord Clark, as editor of the popular Knickerbocker magazine and self-appointed [page 4:] custodian of New York literary reputations, greeted the first installment of “The Literati of New York City” by calling its author a “literary snob” (in nineteenth-century parlance, a low-class person vulgarly struggling for position and éclat) “to-day in the gutter, to-morrow in some milliner's magazine” (Godey's Lady's Book in which “The Literati” was appearing) “... who seems to invite the ‘Punchy’ writers among us to take up their pens and impale him for public amusement.” (Clark's article appears below.) a literary enemy of long standing, in like fashion. Informed by Godey that he had been “booked” for the series (Document 5), Clark decided to beat Poe to the punch, especially as the series, widely known because of Godey's “advertisements and placards,” threatened to be widely read.

Poe, obviously, succeeded all too well in creating the journalistic sensation he wanted. He could hardly have failed in the endeavor. As James Russell Lowell doggerelled in A Fable for Critics (a work that owed as much to Poe as Poe owed to The Dunciad): “So the excellent Public is hereby assured that the sale of my book is already secured. For there is not a poet throughout the whole land but will purchase a copy or two out of hand, in the fond expectation of being amused in it, by seeing his betters cut up and abused in it.” The irony is that the very success of “The Literati” cost Poe his livelihood as well as a great many of his friends, so that by winter, as we shall see, he became the object of public charity. For the thirty-eight authors and editors he noticed, not to mention their colleagues and friends or the purveyors of gossip whose confidence he had threatened to violate, were frequently more outraged than pleased at his sketches, and they pilloried him from all sides.

Now a pariah, Poe, just about the time “The Literati” first appeared, gave up his house at 85 Amity Street (now 85 West Third Street) and moved to Fordham, a village about thirteen miles out of the city, where he passed the three remaining years of his life in order, as Sarah Helen Whitman put it, to recover “that peace which had been so fatally perilled by the irritations and anxieties of his New York life.”

Poe, no doubt, would have agreed that he had practiced a dubious morality in betraying, or threatening to betray, the confidences of his friends for “The Literati”; but he would also have argued that his object, for all the impurity of his motives and the “occasional words of personality” (part of his subtitle to “The Literati”) that adulterated his purpose, was indubitably moral — the purification of American criticism.

Clark had a number of reasons for writing the article below besides the ones mentioned. Not only had Poe lampooned Charles F. Briggs (known to readers of the Knickerbocker as Harry Franco) in his first installment of “The Literati,” but he was preparing to treat Clark himself, [page 5:] Not to be outdone, Miss Walter, editress of the Boston Transcript, who had been attacking Poe with fair regularity since October 1845 for his performance at the Boston Lyceum and his subsequent quarrel with her, decided to copy Clark's attack. The two articles, printed side by side, appear below. Clark's statement was made in the well-known “Editor's Table” of the Knickerbocker in May 1846; Miss Walter's version of Clark's statement was made in the Boston Daily Evening Transcript on 5 May 1846. “Mrs. Louisa Godey” is, of course, a slur upon Louis Godey, the owner of Godey's Lady's Book. The papers in Punch on “The Snobs of England” were written by Thackeray, although they appeared anonymously.]

 

Clark in the Knickerbocker		Miss Walter in the Transcript
PUNCH is giving a series of papers on ‘The Snobs of England,’ and if we had a PUNCH in this country, the example would be immediately imitated, as a matter of course, be cause we imitate every thing English but the inimitable, and PUNCH is unhappily of this class of subjects. The ‘snobs’ however are not among American impossibilities, and we are in daily expectation of seeing some periodical come out with an article on SNOBS, by way of novelty. There is a wandering specimen of ‘The Literary Snob’ continually obtruding [page 6:] himself upon public notice; to-day in the gutter, to-morrow in some milliner's magazine; but in all places, and at all times, magnificently snobbish and dirty, who seems to invite the ‘Punchy’ writers among us to take up their pens and impale him for public amusement. Mrs. LOUISA GODEY has lately taken this snob into her service in a neighboring city, where he is doing his best to prove his title to the distinction of being one of the lowest of his class at present infesting the literary world. The ‘Evening Gazette and Times’ speaks of our literary ‘snob’ as one ‘whose idiosyncrasies have attracted some attention and compassion of late;’ and adds: ‘We have heard that he is at present in a state of health which renders him not completely accountable for all his peculiarities!’ We do not think that the ‘ungentlemanly and unpardonable personalities of this writer,’ of which our contemporary complains, are worthy of notice, simply because they are so notoriously false that they destroy themselves. The sketch for example of Mr. BRIGGS, (‘HARRY FRANCO,’) in the paper alluded to, is ludicrously untrue, in almost every particular. Who that knows ‘HARRY FRANCO,’ (whose prose style WASHINGTON IRVING pronounced ‘the freshest, most natural and graphic he had met with,’) would [page 7:] recognize his physical man from our ‘snob's’ description? But after all, why should one speak of all this? Poh! POE! Leave the ‘idiosyncratic’ man ‘alone in his glory.’		THE LITERARY SNOB. The Knickerbocker occasionally serves up in its “editor's table” rare bits of opinion which well answer the purpose of palpable hits for individuals. The last number, alluding to a series of papers given in Punch upon the “Snobs of England,” remarks that “if we had a Punch in this country the example would be immediately imitated. The ‘Snobs’ are by no means among American impossibilities. Indeed, there is a wandering specimen of ‘The Literary Snob’ [page 6:] continually obtruding himself upon public notice; today in the gutter, tomorrow in some milliner's magazine; but in all places, and at all times, magnificently snobbish and dirty, who seems to invite the ‘Punchy’ writers among us to take up their pens and impale him for public amusement. Mrs Louisa Godey has lately taken this snob into her service in a neighboring city, where he is doing his best to prove his title to the distinction of being one of the lowest of his class at present infesting the literary world. The Evening Gazette speaks of him as one ‘whose idiosyncrasies have attracted some attention and compassion of late because he is at present in a state of health which renders him not completely accountable for all his peculiarities!’ “The same individual is famous for indulging in gross falsehoods, and these have [page 7:] become so common with him that wherever seen in print they are ever met by the reader, with the simple exclamation Poh! POE!

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2.   21 April 1846: “New Publications”

  William G. King

[As he made clear, Lewis Gaylord Clark was not the first to mock the initial installment of “The Literati” and denigrate its author. That distinction probably belongs to King, the editor of the New York Gazette and Times, from whose notice of Godey's Lady's Book Clark quoted, using his “typographical tricks,” as Evert Duyckinck called them, to emphasize certain suggestive words.

The Gazette and Times was able to say that Poe was “at present in a state of health which renders him not completely accountable for all his peculiarities” because Poe had recently adopted an extreme “solution” to escape the persecution of Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet. He explained that he had maligned the lady in a seizure of insanity (see headnote to Document 89).

Ernest Helfenstein, William Cranston, and William Simmons, mentioned in the article below, were dilettantes whose reputations are extinct. Mrs. Caroline Kirkland is best known for her narratives of pioneer life. In 1845 her Western Clearings appeared with Poe's Tales and The Raven and Other Poems in Duyckinck's Library of American Books. Mrs. Sarah Josepha Hale was widely known as the literary editor of Godey's Lady's Book. Timothy Shay Arthur was the editor of Arthur's Ladies’ Magazine, which merged with Godey's in May 1846, as the Gazette and Times noted, the fateful month that saw the first installment of “The Literati” sketches. Arthur's many temperance tales were forerunners of his Ten Nights in a Bar-Room, a book whose popularity was first exceeded by Uncle Tom's Cabin.]

 

NEW PUBLICATIONS. GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK, which has contracted a matrimonial alliance with ARTHUR'S MAGAZINE, has the month of May for its Honey moon, which it spends in the company of Ernest Helfenstein, [page 8:] William Cranston, Mrs. Kirkland, Mrs. Hale, Mr. Simmons, T. S. Arthur and others. We are sorry to see admitted in such company, such a piece of gratuitous and unpardonable impertinence as the paper on “The Literati of New York City.” We hoped and believed till now that the ungentlemanly and unpardonable personalities, and intrusion into the private matters of living men, which appear at the close of each of these sketches was confined to the columns of the vilest and most unprincipled presses in this country and England, and are heartily sorry to be undeceived.

The unfortunate writer of this paper, a gentleman whose idiosincracies [sic] have attracted some attention and compassion of late, is, we regret to hear, at present in a state of health which renders him not completely accountable for all his peculiarities. The Editor should, we think, have considered this.

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3.   20 April 1846: Godey's Lady's Book for May

  Hiram Fuller

[When the first installment of “The Literati” appeared, Fuller, as editor of the New York Evening Mirror, applauded what he recognized would be a journalistic hit. Apart from his reservations, he observed that Poe “always writes with spirit and a commendable degree of independence,” and in encouraging him he predicted there would be “great sport. ...”

His notice, appearing prior to Lewis Clark's, Miss Walter's, and William King's, was unique for its essential cordiality. But that cordiality proved to be ephemeral, for Fuller by degrees became Poe's deadliest enemy.

For identification of the figures mentioned by Fuller, see “The Literati.” For more information about Fuller, see headnotes to Documents 9 and 61.]

 

GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK having swallowed Arthur's Magazine, presents in the May number unusual attractions. The leading article, and the one calculated to make the most noise, is from the pen of Edgar A. Poe on the ‘Literati of New York.’ The following gentlemen are the subjects of dissection number one: George Bush, George H. Colton, N. P. Willis, William [page 9:] M. Gillespie, Charles F. Briggs, William Kirkland and Doctor John W. Francis. The juxtaposition of names in this list is quite amusing. But as personalities are always popular, we think this kind of gossip will prove a happy hit for the publisher — though the friends of the gentlemen discussed would have been puzzled to recognize the portraits had the names been omitted. Dr. Francis and Mr. Kirkland are the only characters that are not caricatured. One is grossly abused and another as grossly flattered, while some are but superficially touched. Mr. Poe makes sad mistakes in his attempts at minute description of personal appearance, height, figure, age, foreheads, noses, &c. But he always writes with spirit, and a commendable degree of independence, and we hope that next month, he will dish us up a lady or two, just by way of adding a plum to his pudding. He now assumes to be master of the literary ring, so let him trot out the whole menagerie and show up the lions and kangaroos, parrots, cockatoos and all. As the Spirit of the Times would say, there is great sport in prospect. Poets, look to your laurels!

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4.   29 April 1846: “The Knickerbocker for May”

  Hiram Fuller

[Unlike Miss Walter (Document 1), Fuller was laconic concerning Lewis Clark's statement about Poe when he alluded to it in the Evening Mirror. “The way old ‘Knick’ touches up Poe is a ‘caution’ “was all he wrote.

To bear out the prediction he had earlier made, that Poe's “Literati” series would “prove a happy hit,” Fuller noted the extraordinary fact that Louis Godey, the publisher of Godey's Lady's Book, was “compelled ... to print a second edition.”

Fuller erred in writing “April number”; it should be “May number,” since the “Literati” series commenced with that number.]

 

THE KNICKERBOCKER FOR MAY is already on our table. It is particularly rich. The way old ‘Knick’ touches up Poe is ‘a caution.’ By the way, we notice that the article on the ‘New York Literati’ in the April number of Godey's Lady's Book has compelled the publisher to print a second edition. There is nothing in this country that sells so well as literary scandal. [page 10:] Any man who will go into it with a ‘perfect looseness’ may make his fortune.

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5.   8 May 1846: A Card: “Edgar A. Poe and the New York Writers — Lewis Gaylord Clark”

  Louis A. Godey

[Besides the fact that he and his magazine had been slurred by Clark in the Knickerbocker, Godey was incensed at Clark's treatment of Poe. He therefore decided to expose Clark's motives in writing “The Literary Snob.” Since the June number of Godey's would not appear for another two weeks (Godey's was regularly in the hands of New York booksellers by the twentieth of the month), he paid to have a Card placed in the Evening Mirror soon after the Knickerbocker appeared.

In retrospect, it is surprising that Hiram Fuller, editor of the Mirror, accepted Godey's Card, since he was to prove Poe's most militant enemy.]

 

EDGAR A. POE AND THE NEW YORK WRITERS — LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK. — When during a recent visit to New York, the subscriber informed Mr. Lewis Gaylord Clark that Mr. Poe had him ‘booked’ in his ‘Opinions of the New York Literati,’ he supposed that he was giving Mr. Lewis Gaylord Clark a very agreeable piece of information; as it must have been quite apparent to the gentleman himself, that his natural position was not among the literati, but sub-literati of New York; and he ought to have been greatly surprised and gratified to find himself placed in such agreeable company. But it seems that, on the contrary, the information that Mr. Lewis Gaylord Clark received has put him in a perfect agony of terror. His desperation is laughably exhibited in the insane attack he has made on Mr. Poe, in the Knickerbocker for May, where Mr. Poe is represented as imbecile from physical infirmity, and at the same time is threatened with impalement. It would undoubtedly afford the public much amusement to witness an attempt on the part of Mr. Lewis Gaylord Clark to impale Edgar A. Poe; and if Mr. Lewis Gaylord Clark will exhibit his talents at invective in this way, and prove that his article is written without assistance, it shall incontinently be inserted in the subscriber's Magazine, without note or comment. [page 11:]

Mr. Lewis Gaylord Clark says, ‘We do not think that the ungentlemanly and unpardonable personalities of this writer are worthy of notice, simply because they are so notoriously false that they destroy themselves.’ Some people make blunders because their education has been neglected; but it takes a born blockhead to make such a blunder as this. It is simply saying, ‘Mr. Poe's are unworthy of notice and destroy themselves; therefore we now make them the subject of special notice, and are doing our utmost to destroy him, even descending to the heartless and cruel insinuation, that illness has weakened the powers of his mind.’ Such an argument is the very essence of absurdity.

The subscriber has been repeatedly advised to discontinue the publication of ‘Mr. Poe's articles on the New York Literati.’ It will be readily perceived, however, that such a course on his part would be as indelicate and unjust towards Mr. Poe, as it would be ungrateful towards the public, who have expressed distinct and decisive approbation of the articles in that unmistakeable way which a publisher is always happy to recognize.

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6.   20 May 1846: “The Authors and Mr. Poe”

  Louis A. Godey

[Before “The Literati” papers were printed, the prediction was that they would “raise some commotion in the literary emporium,” to quote Godey's Lady's Book of May 1846. As early as 7 March 1846 the Daily Tribune reported the statement of a “New-York correspondent of a Washington paper” as follows: He “says that Mr. Poe is engaged on a work which will embrace his opinions of the various New-York literati, and thinks that it will create a sensation, and that the uproar which attended Pope's Dunciad was nothing to the stormy confusion of the literary elements which will war and rage ‘with red lightning winged,’ when the book (?) makes its appearance.”

Now, despite the success of the series and the strong statement he had made on May 8 (preceding document), Godey was prompted to print a disclaimer when the second installment of “The Literati” appeared (“We ... do but publish Mr. Poe's opinions, not our own”). He would, in fact, [page 12:] make a more forceful disclaimer in his September number: “We hear of some complaints having been made by those writers who have already been noticed by Mr. Poe. Some of the ladies have suggested that the publisher has something to do with them. This we positively deny, and we as positively assert, that they are published as written by Mr. Poe, without any alteration or suggestion from us.”

The phenomenon of the May edition of Godey's being “exhausted before the first of May” is attested by William H. Graham, a New York bookseller, who ran the following advertisement in the Daily Tribune of April 25: “EDGAR A. POE and the New-York Literati. — The great excitement caused by publication of No. 1 of the above remarkable papers, exhausted our supply of the May no. of Godey's Lady's Book. We have this morning received a few more, and will be in the constant receipt of them until the extraordinary demand is fully supplied.

“The June No. will contain several more notices, and they will be continued monthly.”

Godey's Lady's Book was regularly in the hands of New York booksellers on the twentieth of the month; hence the above date that is attributed to the June number.]

 

THE AUTHORS AND MR. POE. — We have received several letters from New York, anonymous and from personal friends, requesting us to be careful what we allow Mr. Poe to say of the New York authors, many of whom are our personal friends. We reply to one and all that we have nothing to do but publish Mr. Poe's opinions, not our own. Whether we agree with Mr. Poe or not is another matter. We are not to be intimidated by a threat of the loss of friends, or turned from our purpose by honeyed words. Our course is onward. The May edition was exhausted before the first of May, and we have had orders for hundreds from Boston and New York, which we could not supply. The first number of the series (with autographs) is republished in this number, which also contains No. 2. The usual quantity of reading matter is given in addition to the notices.

Many attempts have been made and are making by various persons to forestall public opinion. We have the name of one person. Others are busy with reports of Mr. Poe's illness. Mr. Poe has been ill, but we have letters from him of very recent dates, also a new batch of the Literati, which show anything but feebleness either of body or mind. Almost every paper that we exchange with has praised our new enterprise — the Union [page 13:] [of Godey's Lady's Book and Arthur's Ladies’ Magazine] — and spoken in high terms of No. 1 of Mr. Poe's opinions.

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7.   22 May 1846: “The Hornet's Nest Disturbed”

  Hiram Fuller, Joseph C. Neal, and “Mustard Mace”

[“Mustard Mace” wrote the skeltonic verse below which, introduced by Neal, was first published in the Philadelphia Saturday Gazette, and then, with Fuller's introduction, was reprinted in the Evening Mirror of May 22.

The statement that Poe was “not, just now, / Where you may cow / The slaves who bow,” was true enough, however wretched the lines; and the prediction that “A storm may brew / That harm may do / Yourself unto,” proved sound, though Poe, however smitten, never sued “for quarter. ...”]

 

THE HORNET'S NEST DISTURBED. — The following clever thing we clip from Neal's Saturday Gazette:

Poetical Warrings. — We cannot say from whom the subjoined emanates; but as literary warfare is ‘a deed in fashion,’ we give it for the sake of keeping up a healthy excitement among those who wield the pen and ride deadly passages, quill in rest. It is certainly a remarkable specimen of ingenious construction, while it talks to Mr. Poe with considerable seriousness on the subject of the sharp criticism in which that gentleman is prone to indulge — caustic all round:

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8.   26 May 1846: “Mr Poe and the New York Literati”

  Hiram Fuller

[When the first installment of “The Literati” appeared, Fuller reviewed it rather cordially (Document 3). Later, on May 16 in his Weekly Mirror, he even reprinted passages from the essays dealing with William Kirkland and Dr. John W. Francis, commenting, “They are very lust.” This tribute is explained by the fact that Kirkland was Fuller's close friend and Dr. Francis was everyone's, because, as Poe accurately remarked, the latter's bonhomie was irresistible. When Kirkland died some months later, Fuller wrote in the Evening Mirror (26 October 1846) that a “daily intercourse” with the man — Kirkland had been a regular contributor to the Mirror during the last two years of his life — “has impressed us with the profoundest [page 15:] convictions of his worth, and with such reverence for his many virtues as we have but rarely experienced towards our fellow men.”

But when the second installment of “The Literati” appeared, Fuller did a complete turnabout and joined Lewis Clark, Miss Walter, and William King in condemning the sketches. He had announced his intention to do so in the Evening Mirror of May 20. “GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK FOR JUNE,” he wrote, “is on our table. As we purpose giving in a day or two a thorough review of ‘Poe's Literati,’ which is continued in the present number, with a reprint of his former article, we shall not notice it particularly to-day. The writer of course would not object to the same treatment which he so liberally deals to others.” Now Fuller reviewed the two installments, fully determined to discredit them and their author. In the process he maligned Louis Godey for continuing to publish “The Literati” and expressed his resentment of Nathaniel P. Willis, under whose auspices and those of George Pope Morris he had served as part-owner and junior editor of the Mirror before buying them out.

This article also appeared in the Weekly Mirror on May 30.]

 

MR POE AND THE NEW YORK LITERATI. — By force of advertisements and placards, Mr. Godey succeeded a month ago in apprising that portion of the public — a rather small one, by the by — who take an interest in literary matters, that Mr. Poe was coming down, upon the New York literati, in a series of papers in a Philadelphia magazine, with the force of a ‘thousand of brick’ and two or three thousand trip hammers, which would infallibly grind them — the literati of New York — into dust and powder, and create a sensation in the world, which it would be impossible to allay, by any possible amount of extra editions of the Lady's Book. Those who knew Mr. Poe only smiled at such an announcement, and those who knew Mr. Godey, if there be any such in New York, put as much faith in the advertisement as they do in the announcement on the cover of his Lady's Book, that it is the best magazine in the world, and that it has the greatest number of subscribers. Mr. Poe's articles were to have still greater currency given them by uniting the Lady's Book with Arthur's Magazine, and publishing them with the latest Paris fashions, Americanized and expressed from Paris. A still greater impetus was to be given to Mr. Poe's opinions; they were even to be accompanied with autographs of the New York Literati. It is said that all Division street was put in an uproar by this tremendous announcement, and two milliner's apprentices never slept [page 16:] a wink one whole night, for thinking about it. Some of the students in Dr. Anthon's grammar school made a pilgrimage to Bloomingdale to gaze upon the asylum where Mr. Poe was reported to be confined, in consequence of his immense mental efforts having turned his brain; and a certain great writer on small subjects, in Ann street, had serious thoughts of calling him the American glass°, as to the New York literati, they all sat in their garrets shaking in their shoes, with their wives and children clinging to their knees, in fear. In short there was an earthquake among the literati and milliners. Mr. Godey was in Philadelphia all the while, as calm as a demon, smoking his cigar and writing advertisements of 2d Editions, and Mr. Poe was almost anywhere and in any situation which the mind could conceive.

At last the ‘honest opinions’ of Mr. Poe, and the Americanized fashions expressed from Paris, appeared together, and Mr. Godey himself says they are creating a great sensation throughout the country, — which we believe: But the sensation, so far as we have had an opportunity of observing, has been one of disgust. We never before saw so much froth on so small a quantity of small beer. Mr. Godey, in a card published in the Mirror, a few day's since, said that he had been advised to publish no more of Mr. Poe's opinions, and we are surprised that he, Mr. Godey, did not take the advice; because we are sure that none but a very sincere friend could have advised him to do so very sensible a thing. His enemies, if he have any, and we do not see how so amiable a gentleman can have any, would have advised him to act directly contrary. It was a capital thought in Mr. Poe to call his opinions of the New York literati honest, to distinguish them from his other judgments, and because nobody but himself would ever be likely to apply such an epithet to them. People were looking for a furious unbottling of carboy's of vitriol, torrents of aqua fortis, and demi-john's of prussic acid. But instead of these biting, withering and scorching elements, what was our astonishment to find only a few slender streams of sugar house molasses and Godfrey's cordial, trickling through the soft pages of Mr. Godey's Lady's Book. We were as much disappointed as though we had mixed a salad with eau sucre, instead of white vinegar. We had heard that Mr. Poe wrote with an antique stylus dipped in gall and mustard, and we find him using a crow quill and ink, ‘warranted free from corrosive qualities.’ Mr. Poe said a true thing of himself, in the preface to his opinions, in these words: [page 17:]

In the two numbers already published of Mr. Poe's ‘honest opinions,’ there are notices of fourteen gentlemen and one lady; of the fifteen persons, not more than half were ever heard of before as literati. The sketches are extremely slight, and of not the least consequence to anybody; three or four of them had already appeared in the Democratic Review, where they died a natural death. The opinion on Mr. Willis, who has no particular claim that we know of to be considered one of the literati of New York city, is the only one which makes any show of ability of analysis, or of knowledge. Of its fairness, the following extract will attest:

‘Mr. Willis speaks French with some fluency, and Italian not quite so well,’ says Mr. Poe, with a grand comme it faut air, as though he could speak French and Italian himself, which everybody knows he cannot do. But Mr. Poe thinks that Mr. Willis showed the greatest degree of ability, and gave the best evidence of possessing genius, by publishing a string of affidavits and certificates from my Lord knows who, in London, and the proprietors of certain tailors shops and boarding-houses in New York, in favor of his moral character, which had been attacked by the Courier & Enquirer. Well, if such ‘management’ as this be an evidence of genius, we know many a genius acting in the capacity of scullion, who always carry with them a certificate of character wherever they go. But Mr. Poe has a variety of ways of testing genius. He thinks the author of Tecumseh [George H. Colton] a genius, because he succeeded in obtaining 2500 subscribers for his Magazine [the American Review] in the first year of its establishment. One of his opinions is of a pot companion [William M. Gillespie?] contained in half a dozen lines, whose name appears for the [page 18:] first and probably for the last time, associated with the literati. Another is of somebody who, Mr. Poe says, never wrote three consecutive lines of grammatical English in his life [Charles F. Briggs, known as Harry Franco]. If this be true, his name has no right to be placed in a catalogue of the New York literati, nor of any other literati; but true or false, the opinion furnishes a key to Mr. Poe's ‘honesty,’ and affords sufficient evidence that he can be guilty of the meanness of making attacks on individuals to gratify personal malice, as some of his ‘tissues of flatteries’ prove that he can be a toady when he has any thing to gain.

As to the independence for which we have heard Mr. Poe commended, we certainly have never seen so small an amount of that commodity in a literary review as is contained in his ‘honest opinions.’ There is but one mark of it in the whole series of his ‘literati,’ and that is so purely personal as to appear the very reverse. His patronising notices of Dr. Bush, Mr. Verplanck, and Dr. Anthon, are really the most laughable things in their way that we ever saw in print. He is about as capable of measuring either of these gentlemen as the frog in the fable of showing the dimensions of an ox. If he didn’t burst in the attempt, we came near doing so when looking at him.

We hope that Mr. Poe gets well paid for his ‘honest opinions,’ for we are sure that a man must be sadly in want of money who resorts to such methods of raising it, and we hope also that they may be the means of giving increased circulation to Mr. Godey's book, for the same reason. Mr. Poe is the last man in the country who should undertake the task of writing ‘honest opinions’ of the literati. His infirmities of mind and body, his petty jealousies, his necessities even, which allow him neither time nor serenity for such work, his limited information on local subjects, his unfortunate habits, his quarrels and jealousies, all unfit him for the performance of such a duty, as the specimens already published abundantly prove. The folly and nonsense of Mr. Poe's attempt are sufficiently apparent, but to any one who has read the sketches by Hazlitt of some of his contemporaries, they must appear monstrous. It is a matter of no consequence what the ‘literati’ themselves think of their delineator, no man is a proper judge of his own picture, but to gain the admiration or respect of the world, some degree of integrity, benevolence and power of characterization must be evinced. And these are just the qualities in which Mr. Poe's opinions are lamentably deficient. We have no thought of reviewing Mr. Poe's opinions, or we could enumerate numerous misstatements [page 19:] which are altogether inexcusable in such sketches. Opinions, whether they are called honest by their author or not, are always received under protest. We do not adopt another man's opinion as an article of faith; but there should be no guesses at facts, which, to be of any value, must be truths.

Although we have laughed at Mr. Godey's expressed — Americanized — Paris fashions, we have no wish to underrate his Lady's Book, nor to dispute his announcement that it is “decidedly the most valuable monthly magazine now published,” for we know but little about it.

To conclude, after the fashion of our Thersitical Magazinist, Mr. Poe is about 39. He may be more or less. If neither more nor less, we should say he was decidedly 39. But of this we are not certain. In height he is about 5 feet 1 or two inches, perhaps 2 inches and a half. His face is pale and rather thin; eyes gray, watery, and always dull; nose rather prominent, pointed and sharp; nostrils wide; hair thin and cropped short; mouth not very well chiselled, nor very sweet; his tongue shows itself unpleasantly when he speaks earnestly, and seems too large for his mouth; teeth indifferent; forehead rather broad, and in the region of ideality decidedly large, but low, and in that part where phrenology places conscientiousness and the group of moral sentiments it is quite flat; chin narrow and pointed, which gives his head, upon the whole, a balloonish appearance, which may account for his supposed light-headedness; he generally carries his head upright like a fugleman on drill, but sometimes it droops considerably. His address is gentlemanly and agreeable at first, but it soon wears off and leaves a different impression after becoming acquainted with him; his walk is quick and jerking, sometimes waving, describing that peculiar figure in geometry denominated by Euclid, we think, but it may be Professor Farrar of Cambridge, Virginia fence. In dress he affects the tailor at times, and at times the cobbler, being in fact excessively nice or excessively something else. His hands are singularly small, resembling birds claws; his person slender; weight about no or 115 pounds, perhaps the latter; his study has not many of the Magliabechian characteristics, the shelves being filled mainly with ladies magazines; he is supposed to be a contributor to the Knickerbocker, but of this nothing certain is known; he is the author of Politian, a drama, to which Professor Longfellow is largely indebted, it is said by Mr Poe, for many of his ideas. Mr. Poe goes much into society, but what society we cannot positively [page 20:] say; he formerly lived at West Point; his present place of residence is unknown. He is married.

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9.   15 and 30 June 1846: Poe's Letter to Joseph M. Field and Field's Article on Poe

[Poe felt that Fuller's description of him as a cretin was damaging, so he wrote to Field, the editor of the Saint Louis Daily Reveille, pleading that he “say a few words in condemnation” of the attack and “do away with the false impression of my personal appearance” that Fuller may have created. He also requested Field to enlist in his behalf the New Orleans Daily Picayune, the most famous newspaper in the South, and that he make laudatory comments on his work, for which he provided Field with copy.

Poe seems to have gone far afield to get help, but he knew that the New York papers, including the Mirror, “exchanged” with the Reveille and Picayune, and might reprint their articles, as they sometimes did. “Exchanging” before the era of wire services was common practice. Fuller, for example, said that he printed an extra two thousand copies a week of both Mirrors at a cost of $1,300 a year for purposes of exchange, and complained that some editors “refuse to exchange papers unless the difference in the subscription price be paid in advance.” Despite the fact that the Reveille and Picayune cooperated with Poe, no New York paper republished their articles on him. Poe was reduced to sending clippings of the Reveille article to Louis Godey, who did not reprint it, and to Thomas Chivers.

Little is known about Poe's relation to Field. From this one extant letter Poe wrote to Field, we know only that they met (“You have seen me and can describe me as I am”); that Poe knew about Field's connection with the Picayune — he had been its European correspondent in 1840; and that they had exchanged journals. Field mentioned or quoted from the Broadway Journal on occasion, and Poe remarked in his letter, “I have frequently seen in ‘The Reveille’ notices of myself. ...” These notices appeared on 24 September, io and 29 October, 9 November, and 4 December 1845, as well as on 12 April 1846.

Poe's remarks about Fuller's “swindling transactions” in Providence [page 21:] and cowardly behavior as a husband must remain in doubt, though in an article published subsequently (Document 24), Poe wrote: “Mr. Fuller is a pitiful man. Much is he to be pitied for his ... Providential escapes — for the unwavering conjugal chivalry which, in a public theatre — but I pause. Not even in taking vengeance on a Fuller can I stoop to become a Fuller myself.” All that I have been able to uncover is that Fuller had been the principal of Green Street Seminary in Providence, where he had as his assistant the gifted Margaret Fuller, no kin of his; that he afterward became a bookseller in Providence for several years before he moved to New York in 1843, where he joined the staff of the Mirror; and that in October 1844 he improved his social and financial position by marrying Emilie Louise, daughter of John F. Delaplaine, an affluent New Yorker. But Poe's statement that Nathaniel Willis and George Pope Morris had to abandon the Mirror because they found Fuller disreputable seems untrue. As Fuller was only a junior editor and part-owner of the Mirror, they could have bought him out. (For more information on this matter, see headnote to Document 61.)

Poe resorted to ruse in his letter. He did not explain to Field that Miss Barrett's remarks were made to him in a private letter. Instead, he changed her use of the second person to the third to give the impression that her remarks were taken from an essay-review. Of less significance but equally self-revealing is the fact that Poe was thirty-seven when he wrote this letter, not thirty-three as he alleges in his footnote.

That Poe had to seek editorial assistance in St. Louis is indicative of his loss of reputation in New York.

Poe's letter appears in Ostrom, II, 318-20.]

 

Poe's Letter to Field		Field's Statement in the Reveille
(Confidential) New-York: June 15. 46. Dear Field, I have frequently seen in “The Reveille” notices of myself, evincing a kindly feeling on your part which, believe me, I reciprocate in the most cordial manner. This conviction of your friendship induces me now to beg a favor of you. I enclose [page 22:] an article from “The New-York Mirror” of May 26th. headed “Mr Poe and the N.Y. Literati”. The attack is editorial & the editor is Hiram Fuller. He was a schoolmaster, about 3 years ago, in Providence, and was forced to leave that city on account of several swindling transactions in which he was found. out. As soon as Willis & Morris discovered the facts, they abandoned “The Mirror”, preferring to leave it in his hands rather than keep up so disreputable a connexion. This Fuller ran off with the daughter of a respectable gentleman in this city & was married. The father met the couple in the Park theatre (the Park, I think) and was so carried away by indignation at the disgrace inflicted upon his family by the marriage, that he actually struck Mrs Fuller repeated blows in the face with his clenched fist — the husband looking calmly on, and not even attempting to interfere. I pledge you the honor of a gentleman that I have not exaggerated these facts in the slightest degree. They are here notorious. All that I venture to ask of you in the case of this attack, however, is to say a few words in condemnation of it, and to do away with the false impression of my personal appearance* it may convey, in those parts [page 23:] of the country where I am not individually known. You have seen me and can describe me as I am. Will you do me this act of justice, and influence one or two of your editorial friends to do the same? I know you will. I think the “N. O. Picayune”, which has always been friendly to me, will act in concert with you. There is, also, an incidental service of great importance, just now, which you have it in your power to render me. That is, to put the following, editorially, in your paper:		EDGAR A. POE. — Certainly one of the most original geniuses of the country is Edgar A. Poe, and the only fault we have to find with him is, that he is wasting his time at present in giving his “honest opinions” touching his contemporaries — the maddest kind of honesty, in our opinion. Poe's papers upon the “New York Literati,” published in [page 22:] Godey's Magazine, have stirred up, as might have been expected, any amount of ill temper. The Evening Mirror takes the lead in the attack upon the author, who is very sick, by-the-bye, and unable to make battle, as is his wont. The Mirror, among other things, seeks to make Poe ridiculous by a false description of his personal appearance. We won’t stand this. Instead of being “five foot one,” &c, the poet is a figure to compare with any in manliness, while his features are not only intellectual, but handsome. As to his mental “presentment,” the British journals are admitting his merits in the most unequivocal manner. [page 23:]
A long and highly laudatory review of his Tales, written by Martin Farquhar Tupper, author of “Proverbial Philosophy”, “The Crock of Gold” etc., appeared in a late number of “The London Literary Gazette”. “The Athenaeum”, “The British Critic[“], “The Spectator”, “The Popular Record”[,] “Churton's Literary Register”, and various other journals, scientific as well as literary, have united in approbation of Tales & Poems. “The Raven” is copied in full in the “British Critic” and “The Athenaeum”. “The Times” — the matter of fact “Times!” — copies the “Valdemar Case”. The world's greatest poetess, Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, says of Mr Poe: — “This vivid writing! — this power which is felt! ‘The Raven’ has produced a sensation — a ‘fit horror’ — here in England. Some of my friends are [page 24:] taken by the fear of it and some by the music — but all are taken. I hear of persons absolutely haunted by the ‘Nevermore’, and one acquaintance of mine who has the misfortune of possessing a ‘bust of Pallas’ never can bear to look at it in the twilight. Our great poet, Mr Browning, the author of ‘Paracelsus’, ‘The Pomegranates’ etc. is enthusiastic in his admiration of the rhythm.”		A long and highly laudatory review of his “Tales,” written by Martin Farquhar Tupper, author of “Proverbial Philosophy,” “The Crock of Gold,” &c., appeared in a late number of “The London Literary Gazette.” “The Athenaeum,” “The British Critic,” “The Spectator,” “The Popular Record,” “Churton's Literary Register,” and various other journals, scientific as well as literary, have united in approbation of “Tales and Poems.” “The Raven” is copied, in full, in the “British Critic” and “The Athenaeum.” “The Times” — the matter of fact Times! — copies the “Valdemar Case.” The world's greatest poetess, Elizabeth Barrett, says of Mr. Poe: “This vivid writing! — this power which is felt! ‘The Raven’ has produced a sensation — a ‘fit horror’ — here in England. All are [page 24:] taken. I hear of persons absolutely haunted by the ‘Nevermore,’ and one acquaintance of mine, who has the misfortune of possessing a ‘bust of Pallas,’ never can bear to look at it in the twilight. Our great poet, Mr. Browning, the author of ‘Paracelsus,’ ‘The Pomegranates,’ &c, is enthusiastic in his admiration of the rhythm.”
After all this, Mr Poe may possibly make up his mind to endure the disapprobation of the editor of the Mirror.		After all this, Mr. Poe may possibly make up his mind to endure the disapprobation of the editor of the Mirror.
Miss Barrett continues: — “Then there is a tale of his which I do not find in this volume, but which is going the rounds of the newspapers, about Mesmerism (The Valdemar case) throwing us all into ‘most admired disorder’, or dreadful doubts as to ‘whether it can be true’. The certain thing in the tale in question is the power of the writer and the faculty he has of making horrible improbabilities seem near & familiar.” If you can oblige me in this case, you may depend on my most earnest reciprocation when where & how you please. Cordially yours Edgar A Poe. P.S. Please cut out anything you may say and en[close i]t to me in a letter. A newspaper wil[l] not be [li]kely to reach me. [page 25:] I have been very seriously ill for some months* and, being thus utterly unable to defend myself, must rely upon the chivalry of my friends. Fuller knows of my illness & depends upon it for his security. I have never said a word about the vagabond in my life. Some person, I presume, has hired him to abuse me. * I am 33 years of age — height 5 ft. 8. [Poe's note. Poe, of course, was 37 years old at this time.] [[This note appears at the bottom of page 22]] * — am now scarcely able to write even this letter — [[This note appears at the end of the column]]		Miss Barrett continues: “Then there is a tale of his which I do not find in this volume, but which is going the rounds of the newspapers about Mesmerism, (The Valdemar Case,’) throwing us all into ‘most admired disorder,’ or dreadful doubts as to whether it can be true. The certain thing in the tale in question is the power of the writer, and the faculty he has of making horrible improbabilities seem near and familiar.” We heartily wish Mr. Poe a speedy restoration to health and “honestly” regarding his literary combats as only tending to harass and weaken energies which were given for nobler struggles, we exclaim with the dramatist: —— “Honesty? 'Tis a ragged virtue; prithee, no more of it.” [page 25:]

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10.   April 1846: Letter to Poe

  Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

[The curious reader will want to read the letter below, if only to see what use Poe made of Miss Barrett in his letter to Field. For Poe was less than candid with Field in respect to the poetess. He had dedicated The Raven and Other Poems to her (“To the noblest of her sex, ... to Miss Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, of England, I dedicate this volume, with the most enthusiastic admiration and with the most sincere esteem”), though apparently she had received only the combined Tales and Poems that Wiley and Putnam had issued as a single volume, inscribed in Poe's handwriting, “To Miss Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, With the Respects of Edgar A. Poe.” In gratitude she had written him the letter below, from which Poe quoted liberally, changing her use of the second person to the third to give the impression that her letter was an essay-review. Apart from this deception and the fact that he italicized certain phrases and omitted others, his quotations from her letter are substantially correct.

The source of this letter is Harrison, XVII, 229-30.]

 

5 Wimpole St., April, 1846.

Dear Sir, — Receiving a book from you seems to authorize or at least encourage me to try to express what I have felt long before — my sense of the high honor you have done me in [illegible] your country and of mine, of the dedication of your poems. It is too great a distinction, conferred [page 26:] by a hand of too liberal generosity. I wish for my own sake I were worthy of it. But I may endeavour, by future work, to justify a little what I cannot deserve anywise, now. For it, meanwhile, I may be grateful — because gratitude is the virtue of the humblest.

After which imperfect acknowledgment of my personal obligation may I thank you as another reader would thank you for this vivid writing, this power which is felt! Your “Raven” has produced a sensation, a “fit horror,” here in England. Some of my friends are taken by the fear of it and some by the music. I hear of persons haunted by the “Nevermore,” and one acquaintance of mine who has the misfortune of possessing a “bust of Pallas” never can bear to look at it in the twilight. I think you will like to be told our great poet, Mr. Browning, the author of “Paracelsus,” and the “Bells and Pomegranates,” was struck much by the rhythm of that poem.

Then there is a tale of yours (“The Case of M. Valdemar”) which I do not find in this volume, but which is going the round of the newspapers, about mesmerism, throwing us all into “most admired disorder,” and dreadful doubts as to whether “it can be true,” as the children say of ghost stories. The certain thing in the tale in question is the power of the writer, and the faculty he has of making horrible improbabilities seem near and familiar.

And now will you permit me, dear Mr. Poe, as one who though a stranger is grateful to you, and has the right of esteeming you though unseen by your eyes — will you permit me to remain

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11.   20 June 1846: “Thomas Dunn English”

  Edgar A. Poe

[The third installment of “The Literati” contained Poe's outrageously playful sketch of English, the antic spirit of which English himself had encouraged in Poe. Companions in the Philadelphia days, they had become companions again in New York when Poe, conducting his “Little Longfellow War” in the Broadway Journal, found an ally in English's Aristidean, a monthly magazine that began and ended its career in 1845. [page 27:]

All the articles in English's journal were anonymous and, except for internal evidence, there was no way for the contemporary reader to identify an article until the Index appeared in the last number providing the titles and initials of contributors. If there was doubt as to the initials TDE or EAP, English's card of gratitude listing his “collaborators” dispelled it.

There was a great deal of editorial hanky-panky between Poe and English, both of whom liked to gibbet dunces. Both the Broadway Journal, once Poe owned it, and the Aristidean listed 304 Broadway as the address of their respective editorial offices. At this address English kept what he called chambers, and his friend, Thomas H. Lane, who had a financial hand in both magazines, had a room adjoining his. The Aristidean listed “Lane & Co.” as the proprietor, and Lane purchased a half-interest in the Broadway Journal just before its demise. (Poe's valedictory told subscribers that “Mr. Thomas H. Lane is authorized to collect all money due to the Journal.”) Whatever other role Lane played — perhaps that of an appreciative audience — one can at least imagine Poe and English in the apartment at their writing desks, hilariously spurring each other to greater and greater excesses as they collaborated in lampooning one dunce or another. The devastating ten-page review of “Henry B. Hirst's Poems,” a poet they used to pal with in Philadelphia, is a prime example of their being carried away by near-manic humor. (The article, though initialed TDE in the Index to the Aristidean, is entirely in Poe's style, which suggests at least that Poe wrote the final version.) Similarly, the articles on “Longfellow's Poems” and “Poe's Tales,” the first initialed EAP, the other for obvious reasons initialed TDE, go to fantastic lengths to prove Poe infinitely superior to Longfellow. The article on Longfellow stated — and one can hear the wild laughter in the background: “... We were not a little surprised to hear Mr. Poe ... claim for the Professor a pre-eminence over all poets of this country. ... We will make an even wager ... that the rash opinion would not be given again.”

In addition to this kind of hanky-panky, Poe and English in the Broadway Journal, whether individually or collaboratively, lauded certain articles in the Aristidean or the magazine as a whole. On 4 October 1845, for example, one of them wrote: “There is a scorching review of Hirst's Poems — a good thing for everybody but Mr. Hirst; — this is a very laughable article.”

Alliance between the two men came to an abrupt end in 1846 when Poe appeared at English's apartment begging for a pistol to defend himself [page 28:] against Colonel William Lummis, whose sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet, he had outraged by saying in the presence of witnesses that she had written compromising letters to him (see headnote to Document 89). English refused Poe the pistol, urging him instead to retract his unfounded charges if he wished to save his skin. Affronted by the insult that he was a rank liar, Poe had a fist fight with English, a fight that both men continued, at Poe's instigation, in the journalistic arena.

English not only encouraged Poe in the craft of ridicule, but he became in turn the ob/ect of his ridicule. Moreover, when he charged that Poe had taken money from him under false pretenses (the loan of thirty dollars to help buy the Broadway Journal, for which sum he was allegedly promised an interest in the magazine), Poe was able to retort that English had not fully reimbursed him for his contributions to the Aristidean, in particular for his article on American poetry.

This sketch of English was published in the July number of Godey's Lady's Book which appeared on June 20.]

 

THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH

I have seen one or two brief poems of considerable merit with the signature of Thomas Dunn English appended. For example —

“AZTHENE.

I must confess, however, that I do not appreciate the “dainty rhythm” of such a word as “Azthene,” and, perhaps, there is a little taint of egotism in the passage about “the magic” of Mr. English's pen. Let us be charitable, however, and set all this down under the head of “pure imagination” or invention — one of the first of poetical requisites. The inexcusable sin of Mr. E. is imitation — if this be not too mild a term. Barry Cornwall and others of the bizarre school are his especial favorites. He has taken, too, most unwarrantable liberties, in the way of downright plagiarism, from a Philadelphian poet whose high merits have not been properly appreciated — Mr. Henry B. Hirst.

I place Mr. English, however, on my list of New York literati, not on account of his poetry, (which I presume he is not weak enough to estimate very highly,) but on the score of his having edited for several months, “with the aid of numerous collaborators,” a monthly magazine called “The Aristidean.” This work, although professedly a “monthly,” was issued at irregular intervals, and was unfortunate, I fear, in not attaining at any period a very extensive circulation.

I learn that Mr. E. is not without talent; but the fate of “The Aristidean” should indicate to him the necessity of applying himself to study. No spectacle can be more pitiable than that of a man without the commonest school education busying himself in attempts to instruct mankind on topics of polite literature. The absurdity in such cases does not lie merely in the ignorance displayed by the would-be instructor, but in the transparency of the shifts by which he endeavours to keep this ignorance concealed. The editor of “The Aristidean,” for example, was not laughed at so much on account of writing “lay” for “lie,” etc. etc., and coupling nouns in the plural with verbs in the singular — as where he writes above,

he was not, I say, laughed at so much for his excusable deficiencies in English grammar (although an editor should certainly be able to write his own name) as that, in the hope of disguising such deficiency, he was perpetually lamenting the “typographical blunders” that “in the most unaccountable manner would creep into his work.[“] Nobody was so stupid [page 30:] as to suppose for a moment that there existed in New York a single proof-reader — or even a single printer's devil — who would have permitted such errors to escape. By the excuses offered, therefore, the errors were only the more obviously nailed to the counter as Mr. English's own.

I make these remarks in no spirit of unkindness. Mr. E. is yet young — certainly not more than thirty-five — and might, with his talents, readily improve himself at points where he is most defective. No one of any generosity would think the worse of him for getting private instruction.

I do not personally know Mr. English. He is, I believe, from Philadelphia, where he was formerly a doctor of medicine, and subsequently took up the profession of law; more latterly he joined the Tyler party and devoted his attention to politics. About his personal appearance there is nothing very observable. I cannot say whether he is married or not.

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12.   “Thomas Dunn Brown” (the Revised Version of “Thomas Dunn English”)

  Edgar A. Poe

[On 15 December 1846 Poe wrote that the “unexpected circulation” of “The Literati” “suggested to me that I might make a hit and some profit, as well as proper fame, by extending the plan into that of a book on American Letters generally, and keeping the publication in my own hands. I am now at this — body & soul” (Document 58). The protected book, though it had many provisional titles, was to be called Literary America: Some Honest Opinions about Our Aut[h]orial Merits and Demerits with Occasional Words of Personality. The three extant chapters on Richard Adams Locke, Christopher Pearse Cranch, and Thomas Dunn English — now called Thomas Dunn Brown, a nickname with which he was tagged in Philadelphia and to which English perversely referred in The John-Donkey he co-edited in 1848 (“Punch is certainly ‘Dunn brown’ by ... this modern speaking Ass”) — explain why Poe never finished the book. Mere elaborations of their originals, they do not go beyond the “critical gossip” which Poe recognized as the chief fault of “The Literati.”

Upon Poe's death in 1849, Rufus Wilmot Griswold, though an enemy of Poe, acted as Poe's literary executor. The third of his four-volume edition of the dead man's works was The Literati (1850). Whether he wanted to smear Poe's memory by republishing the New York sketches, as seems [page 31:] evident by his “Memoir of the Author” that introduces the volume, or whether he felt the sketches would make the edition more salable, he substituted without explanation the essay “Thomas Dunn Brown” for the original “Thomas Dunn English.” Since the two essays are often confused with each other (see, for instance, Hervey Allen, Israfel, page 549, and Frances Winwar, The Haunted Palace, page 298), it is reprinted here.]

 

THOMAS DUNN BROWN.

I HAVE seen one or two scraps of verse with this gentleman's nom de plume* appended, which had considerable merit. For example:

I must confess, however, that I do not appreciate the “dainty rhythm” of such a word as “Azthene,” and, perhaps, there is some taint of egotism in the passage about “the magic” of Mr. Brown's pen. Let us be charitable, however, and set all this down under the head of the pure imagination or invention — the first of poetical requisites. The inexcusable sin of Mr. Brown is imitation — if this be not too mild a term. When Barry Cornwall, for example, sings about a “dainty rhythm,” Mr. Brown forthwith, in B flat, hoots about it too. He has taken, however, his most unwarrantable [page 32:] liberties in the way of plagiarism, with Mr. Henry B. Hirst, of Philadelphia — a poet whose merits have not yet been properly estimated.

I place Mr. Brown, to be sure, on my list of literary people not on account of his poetry, (which I presume he himself is not weak enough to estimate very highly,) but on the score of his having edited, for several months, “with the aid of numerous collaborators,” a magazine called “The Aristidean.” This work, although professedly a “monthly,” was issued at irregular intervals, and was unfortunate, I fear, in not attaining at any period more than about fifty subscribers.

Mr. Brown has at least that amount of talent which would enable him to succeed in his father's profession — that of a ferryman on the Schuylkill — but the fate of “The Aristidean” should indicate to him that, to prosper in any higher walk of life, he must apply himself to study. No spectacle can be more ludicrous than that of a man without the commonest school education, busying himself in attempts to instruct mankind on topics of polite literature. The absurdity, in such cases, does not lie merely in the ignorance displayed by the would-be instructor, but in the transparency of the shifts by which he endeavors to keep this ignorance concealed. The “editor of the Aristidean,” for example, was not the public laughing-stock throughout the five months of his magazine's existence, so much on account of writing “lay” for “lie,” “went” for “gone,” “set” for “sit,” etc. etc., or for coupling nouns in the plural with verbs in the singular — as when he writes, above,

he was not, I say, laughed at so much on account of his excusable deficiencies in English grammar (although an editor should undoubtedly be able to write his own name) as on account of the pertinacity with which he exposed his weakness, in lamenting the “typographical blunders” which so unluckily would creep into his work. He should have reflected that there is not in all America a proof-reader so blind as to permit such errors to escape him. The rhyme, for instance, in the matter of the “dreams” that “seems,” would have distinctly shown even the most uneducated printers’ devil that he, the devil, had no right to meddle with so obviously an intentional peculiarity.

Were I writing merely for American readers, I should not, of course, have introduced Mr. Brown's name in this book. With us, grotesqueries [page 33:] such as “The Aristidean” and its editor, are not altogether unparalleled, and are sufficiently well understood — but my purpose is to convey to foreigners some idea of a condition of literary affairs among us, which otherwise they might find it difficult to comprehend or to conceive. That Mr. Brown's blunders are really such as I have described them — that I have not distorted their character or exaggerated their grossness in any respect — that there existed in New York, for some months, as conductor of a magazine that called itself the organ of the Tyler party, and was even mentioned, at times, by respectable papers, a man who obviously never went to school, and was so profoundly ignorant as not to know that he could not spell — are serious and positive facts — uncolored in the slightest degree — demonstrable, in a word, upon the spot, by reference to almost any editorial sentence upon any page of the magazine in question. But a single instance will suffice: — Mr. Hirst, in one of his poems, has the lines,

At page 200 of “The Aristidean” for September, 1845, Mr. Brown, commenting on the English of the passage, says: — “This lambkin might have used better language than ‘like me’ — unless he intended it for a specimen of choice Choctaw, when it may, for all we know to the contrary, pass muster.” It is needless, I presume, to proceed farther in a search for the most direct proof possible or conceivable, of the ignorance of Mr. Brown — who, in similar cases, invariably writes — “like I.”

In an editorial announcement on page 242 of the same “number,” he says: — ”This and the three succeeding numbers brings the work up to January and with the two numbers previously published makes up a volume or half year of numbers.” But enough of his absurdity: — Mr. Brown had, for the motto on his magazine cover, the words of Richelieu,

Here the two monosyllables “an ass” should have been appended. They were no doubt omitted through “one of those d——d typographical blunders” which, through life, have been at once the bane and the antidote of Mr. Brown.

I make these remarks in no spirit of unkindness. Mr. B. is yet young — certainly not more than thirty-eight or nine — and might readily improve [page 34:] himself at points where he is most defective. No one of any generosity would think the worse of him for getting private instruction.

I do not personally know him. About his appearance there is nothing very remarkable — except that he exists in a perpetual state of vacillation between mustachio and goatee. In character, a windbeutel.

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13.   23 June 1846: “A Card: Mr. English's Reply to Mr. Poe” (with an Introduction by Hiram Fuller)

  Thomas Dunn English

[Unlike the other literati featured in Poe's sketches — Lewis Gaylord Clark was to prove an exception — English did not vent his anger in private. Roused by Poe's tone of contempt and his charges of plagiarism and ignorance, not to mention Poe's mocking disclaimer that he made “these remarks in no spirit of unkindness,” English sent his reply to all the New York papers, if we can believe Hiram Fuller, but only the Morning Telegraph and Evening Mirror published it — on June 23. (Fuller also printed the reply in the Weekly Mirror on June 27.) Poe could not help hearing that the Telegraph had published English's reply. The Daily Tribune, for instance, carried this statement on 24 July 1846: “We understand that Mr. POE has commenced a libel-suit against the proprietor of the Evening Mirror for republishing the Card of Mr. English from the Telegraph.” But Poe chose to ignore that fact, for there is nothing in the record to suggest that he settled with the publisher of the Telegraph out of court.

English's so-called card was not a card at all, for English had not paid for its insertion; nor was it, like Godey's legitimate card (Document 5), buried among the advertisements. Rather, it was featured on the “news and gossip” page and prefaced by Fuller himself.

In his reply English made two actionable statements. The first was that Poe had obtained money from him under false pretenses, a matter of an alleged loan of thirty dollars to help Poe buy the Broadway Journal from John Bisco, the publisher, and that allegedly was to have given English an interest in the magazine. The second libel was that Poe had committed forgery. In his deposition (Document 76) English explained that Poe's victim was his uncle, though Poe, of course, had none. The other charges English made were execrable perhaps but not libelous. He [page 35:] charged Poe with irresponsible conduct in respect to New York University and with discreditable behavior at the Boston Lyceum; of having slandered an “esteemed authoress, of the South,” Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet, who, Poe had alleged, had written compromising letters to him; and he concluded by returning Poe's charges of plagiarism and ignorance, to which he added another, that Poe was “thoroughly unprincipled, base and depraved. ...”]

 

THE WAR OF THE LITERATI. — We publish the following terrific rejoinder of one of Mr. Poe's abused literati, with a twinge of pity for the object of its severity. But as Mr. Godey, ‘for a consideration,’ lends the use of his battery for an attack on the one side, it is but fair that we allow our friends an opportunity to exercise a little ‘self-defence’ on the other.

As I have not, of late, replied to attacks made upon me through the public press, I can easily afford to make an exception, and still keep my rule a general one. A Mr. Edgar A. Poe has been engaged for some time past in giving to the public, through the medium of the Lady's Book, sketches of what he facetiously calls the ‘literati of New York city.’ These he names by way of distinction, I presume, from his ordinary writings, ‘honest opinions.’ He honors me by including me in the very numerous and remarkably august body he affects to describe. Others have converted the paper on which his sketches are printed to its legitimate use — like to like — but as he seems to covet a notice from me, he shall be gratified.

Mr. Poe states in his article, ‘I do not personally know Mr. English.’ That he does not know me is not a matter of wonder. The severe treatment he received at my hands for brutal and dastardly conduct, rendered it necessary for him, if possible, to forget my existence. Unfortunately, I know him; and by the blessing of God, and the assistance of a grey-goose quill, my design is to make the public know him also.

I know Mr. Poe by a succession of his acts — one of which is rather costly. I hold Mr. Poe's acknowledgement for a sum of money which he obtained of me under false pretences. As I stand in need of it at this time, I am content he should forget to know me, provided he acquits himself of the money he owes me. I ask no interest, in lieu of which I am willing to credit him with the sound cuffing I gave him when I last saw him. [page 36:]

Another act of his gave me some knowledge of him. A merchant of this city had accused him of committing forgery. He consulted me on the mode of punishing his accuser, and as he was afraid to challenge him to the field, or chastise him personally, I suggested a legal prosecution as his sole remedy. At his request, I obtained a counsellor who was willing, as a compliment to me, to conduct his suit without the customary retaining fee. But, though so eager at first to commence proceedings, he dropped the matter altogether, when the time came for him to act — thus virtually admitting the truth of the charge.

Some time before this, if I mistake not, Mr. Poe accepted an invitation to deliver a poem before a society of the New York University. About a week before the time when this poem was to be pronounced, he called on me, appearing to be much troubled — said he could not write the poem, and begged me to help him out with some idea of the course to pursue. I suggested that he had better write a note to the society, and frankly state his inability to compose a poem on a stated subject. He did not do this, but — as he always does when troubled — drank until intoxicated; and remained in a state of intoxication during the week. When the night of exhibition came, it was gravely announced that Mr. Poe could not deliver his poem, on account of severe indisposition!

His next affair of a similar kind, was still more discreditable. Unmindful of his former act, he accepted an invitation to deliver a poem before a Boston institution — the Lyceum, I think. When I remonstrated with him on undertaking a task he could not perform, he alleged that he was in want of the money they would pay him, and would contrive to ‘cook up something.’ Want of ability prevented him from performing his intention, and he insulted his audience, and rendered himself a laughing-stock, by reciting a mass of ridiculous stuff, written by some one, and printed under his name when he was about 18 years of age. It had a peculiar effect on his audience, who dispersed under its infliction; and when he was rebuked for his fraud, he asserted that he had intended a hoax. Whether he did or not is little matter, when we reflect that he took the money offered for his performance — thus committing an act unworthy of a gentleman, though in strict keeping with Mr. Poe's previous acts.

But a series of events occurred in January last, which, while they led to my complete knowledge of Mr. Poe, has excited his wrath against me, and provoked the exhibition of impotent malice now under my notice.

Mr. Poe having been guilty of some most ungentlemanly conduct, [page 37:] while in a state of intoxication, I was obliged to treat him with discourtesy. Some time after this, he came to my chambers, in my absence, in search of me. He found there, a nephew of one of our ex-presidents. To that gentleman he stated, that he desired to see me in order to apologise to me for his conduct. I entered shortly after, when he tendered me an apology and his hand. The former I accepted, the latter I refused. He told me that he came to beg my pardon, because he wished me to do him a favor. Amused at this novel reason for an apology, I replied that I would do the favor, with pleasure, if possible, but not on the score of friendship. He said that though his friendship was of little service his enmity might be dangerous. To this I rejoined that I shunned his friendship and despised his enmity. He beseeched a private conversation, so abjectly, that, finally, moved by his humble entreaty, I accorded it. Then he told me that he had villified a certain well known and esteemed authoress, of the South, then on a visit to New York; that he had accused her of having written letters to him which compromised her reputation; and that her brother (her husband being absent) had threatened his life unless he produced the letters he named. He begged me for God's sake to stand his friend, as he expected to be challenged. I refused, because I was not willing to mix myself in his affairs, and because having once before done so, I had found him at the critical moment, to be an abject poltroon. These reasons I told him. He then begged the loan of a pistol to defend himself against attack. This request I refused, saying that his surest defence was a retraction of unfounded charges. He, at last, grew exasperated, and using offensive language, was expelled from the room. In a day or so, afterwards, being confined to his bed from the effect of fright and the blows he had received from me, he sent a letter to the brother of the lady he had so vilely slandered, denying all recollection of having made any charges of the kind alleged, and stating that, if he had made them, he was laboring under a fit of insanity to which he was periodically subject. The physician who bore it said that Mr. Poe was then suffering under great fear, and the consequences might be serious to the mind of his patient, if the injured party did not declare himself satisfied. — The letter being a full retraction of the falsehood, he, to whom it was addressed, stopped further proceedings, and the next day Mr. Poe hastily fled from town.

I can, if necessary, give some facts connected with the last mentioned [page 38:] circumstances, which show Mr Poe's conduct in a still baser view. And I can detail the history of my assailant's deeds in Philadelphia and New York. I have not room here, but, if Mr. Poe desires it, he can be accommodated at any future time.

I am not alone in my knowledge of Mr. Poe. The kennels of Philadelphia streets, from which I once kindly raised him, have frequently had the pleasure of his acquaintance; the ‘Tombs,’ of New York, has probably a dim remembrance of his person; and if certain very eminent and able authors and publishers, in this city, do not know him as I do, I am much mistaken — and so are they.

His review of my style and manner is only amusing when contrasted with his former laudation, almost to sycophancy, of my works. Whether he lied then or now, is a matter of little moment. His lamentation over my lack of common English education is heart-rending to hear. I will acknowledge my deficiencies with pleasure. It is a great pity he is not equally candid. He professes to know every language and to be a proficient in every art and science under the sun — when, except that half Choctaw, half-Winebago he habitually uses, and the art and science of ‘Jeremy-Diddling,’ he is ignorant of all. If he really understands the English language, the sooner he translates his notices of the New York literati, into it, the better for his readers.

Mr. Poe has announced his determination to hunt me down. I am very much obliged to him, and really wish he would hurry to begin. That he has a fifty fish-woman-power of Billingsgate, I admit; and that he has issued his bull, from his garret of a Vatican, up some six pair of stairs, excommunicating me from the church literary, is evident. But he overrates his own powers. He really does not possess one tithe of that greatness which he seems to regard as an uncomfortable burthen. He mistakes coarse abuse for polished invective, and vulgar insinuation for sly satire. He is not alone thoroughly unprincipled, base and depraved, but silly, vain and ignorant — not alone an assassin in morals, but a quack in literature. His frequent quotations from languages of which he is entirely ignorant, and his consequent blunders expose him to ridicule; while his cool plagiarisms from known or forgotten writers, excite the public amazement. He is a complete evidence of his own assertion, that ‘no spectacle can be more pitiable than that of a man without the commonest school education, busying himself in attempts to instruct mankind on topics of [page 39:] polite literature.’ If he deserves credit for any thing, it is for his frankness in acknowledging a fact, which his writings so triumphantly demonstrate.

THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH

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14.   24 June 1846: “Quarrel among the Literati”

  Morning News

[The earliest published reaction to English's “Card” was recorded in the Morning News, which, according to Fuller, was “issued from the Mirror building” (Evening Mirror, 1 May 1846).]

 

QUARRELS AMONG THE LITERATI. — Edgar A. Poe attacked Thomas Dunn English most ridiculously in a late number of Godey's Lady's Book, and Mr. English, in the papers of yesterday, replied in a most caustic and fearful article. When Mr. Poe attacked English he took hold of the wrong man.

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15.   25 June 1846: “Quarrels among the Literati”

  Public Ledger

[Another reaction to English's “Reply to Mr. Poe” was registered in the Philadelphia Public Ledger. The article was noncommittal on the whole, though the columnist observed that English “carves up” Poe “in the most caustic manner imaginable.”

“To catch a tartar” is to attack someone more powerful than oneself and thereby to get more than one bargained for. The “Resaca de la Palma affair” is an allusion to the battle fought there by General Mariano Arista and General Zachary Taylor in the previous month, on May 8 and 9. Because of the retreat of the Mexican forces at Resaca (Resaca de Guerrero), General Arista was replaced by General Pedro Ampudia.]

 

QUARRELS AMONG THE LITERATI. — The New York Literati are by the ears again, and are saying all sorts of complimentary things of each other in the tartest possible manner. Mr. Edgar A. Poe, poet and critic, well known in this city, recently attacked Thomas Dunn English, formerly of [page 40:] Philadelphia, in a late number of Godey's Lady's Book. But Mr. Poe evidently waked up the wrong passenger and caught a tartar, for Mr. English is out in a terrific rejoinder upon Mr. Poe, and carves him in the most caustic manner imaginable. This is the first brush between the literary combatants, and if English's assault does not prove a Resaca de la Palma affair to Mr. Poe, he will muster his intellectual forces, and give his adversary another battle.

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16.   26 June 1846: To the Editor of the Mirror

  “Justitia”

[From a subscriber in Troy came a letter responding to the publication of English's “Card,” which Fuller printed in the Evening Mirror without comment. “Justitia” is, of course, Latin for “justice.”]

 

Troy, June 24th, 1846

DEAR SIR. — In inserting Mr. English's card relative to Edgar A. Poe, you “have done the State some service.” Mr. Poe may consider his “position defined.” I think no one can deny that Mr. Thomas Dunn English has left Mr. Poe done brown.

Yours truly,

Justitia.

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17.   27 June 1846: “Literary Quarrel”

  John S. Du Solle

[Du Solle, editor of the Philadelphia Spirit of the Times, also recorded his reaction to English's “Reply to Mr. Poe” in his newspaper.

Judging from the reports, English had a reputation for pugnacity. The Morning News said that Poe had taken hold of the wrong man. The Public Ledger likewise said that Poe had “caught a tartar.” And now Du Solle, who had known the man when he lived in Philadelphia, said that English was “back upon the literary meat-axe,” an allusion to English's treatment of Henry A. Wise (see headnote to Document 20).] [page 41:]

LITERARY QUARREL — Mr. Poe, in an article in the July number of the Lady's Book, made an ungenerous attack upon Thomas Dunn English, and among other things asserted that he did not know Mr. E. The latter is back upon the literary meat-axe in a style which shows pretty conclusively that he knows Mr. Poe very well.

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18.   27 June 1846: “Literary Squabble”

  George Pope Morris

[Another reaction to English's “Reply to Mr. Poe” came from Morris, who was asked by correspondents of his National Press to reprint English's article. He refused on the grounds that it was “one of the most savage and bitter things we ever read. ...”

Morris's reply was not altogether unpredictable. His notices of Poe had been favorable when he and Hiram Fuller edited the Evening Mirror upon the departure of Nathaniel Willis for Europe in October 1845. On October 13, for instance, he announced Poe's scheduled appearance before the Boston Lyceum, though he never afterward alluded to Poe's controversial performance there or to its scandalous aftermath except once, and that on the whole approvingly. “The Broadway Journal of to-day,” he wrote on November 22, “contains a long tale by the editor, a long attack by the editor, and a long defense of the editor — each excellent of its kind.” (The “long attack” was Poe's assault upon the Boston newspaper editors who were then harrying him for his alleged hoax at the Boston Lyceum; the “long defense” was William Gilmore Simms's article on Poe reprinted from the Charleston Southern Patriot of 10 November 1845.) Morris's review of The Raven volume on November 21 was almost ecstatic, yet he said he was doing but “bare justice to the author.” And on November 18 he reprinted Poe's preface to The Raven volume under the title “Sentiments of a True Poet” and commented: “We like the spirit that dictated it.”

The notices of his associate, marked by an asterisk to denote “the contributions of Mr. Fuller the junior editor of the paper” (Evening Mirror, October 31), were not nearly so cordial in respect to Poe. He said Poe's tales belong “to that somewhat peculiar style of writing, which ... we will risk a pun — and name the new school of Poe-lite literature” (October [page 42:] 18), and he quarreled with a writer in Godey's Lady's Book who declared Poe to be “one of the most accomplished authors in America” and ranked in England “among the classic writers of the mother tongue” (November 27).

For reasons that are not clear, Morris and Willis sold their interest in the Evening Mirror and Weekly Mirror in January 1846 to Fuller and his brother-in-law, Augustus W. Clason, Jr. Morris did not remain idle, however; he founded the National Press: A Journal for Home, and Willis, upon his return to New York in March 1846 again became Morris's partner, at which time the weekly changed its name to the Home Journal.]

 

LITERARY SQUABBLE. — The reply of Mr. English to Mr. Poe is one of the most savage and bitter things we ever read — so much so that we are obliged to decline the requests of several correspondents to publish it in these columns. We condemn all literary squabbles — they are in very bad taste; but when attacks are made, rejoinders will follow.

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19.   24 July 1846: Letter to Evert A. Duyckinck

  Rufus W. Griswold

[Griswold commented on English's “Card” in the course of a brief letter to Duyckinck, a comment all the more telling for coming from Poe's self-acknowledged enemy, though allowance should be made for the fact that Griswold knew that Poe was Duyckinck's friend.

The Simms works Griswold alludes to are The Wigwam and the Cabin and Views and Reviews in American Literature, History and Fiction. They were not published in the Library of Choice Reading, which was devoted to works by foreign authors, but in the Library of American Books, both of which series were conducted by Duyckinck as editor for the New York publishers, Wiley and Putnam. Harnden and Company, like Gay and Company, was a private express firm that shipped mail and packages at cheaper rates than the government post office.

This letter is in the Duyckinck Collection of the New York Public Library.] [page 43:]

Dear Sir

If your leisure will permit you to write a review of Mr Simms's works, based on the late publications by him in The Library of Choice Reading, I will have it inserted in Graham's Magazine. I am sure the task would be an agreeable one to you, and its fulfilment would be pleasing to Mr Simms as well as to me.

I asked Mr [illegible] to endeavor to purchase for me a copy of the Paris edition of Irving, and in case of inability to do so, to beg the use of yours, a few days, upon its return by Mr Poe. It could be sent me by Harnden, and by the same means returned safely. Speaking of Poe reminds me of the brutal article in the Mirror, which it is impossible on any grounds whatever to justify in the slightest degree.

I, who have as much cause as any man to quarrel with Poe, would sooner have cut off my hand than used it to write such an ungentlemanly Card, though every word were true. But my indignation of this treatment even of an enemy exceeds my power of expression.

E. A. Duyckinck, Esq.

New York

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20.   27 June 1846: Letter to Henry B. Hirst

  Edgar A. Poe

[Whatever the reactions to English's “Card,” Poe seemed undisturbed by them. Instead, he proceeded to write a counterreply for which he began collecting information. The first person he apparently approached for this purpose was Hirst, a Philadelphia poet who had been a bon camarade of Poe and English. Hirst had been of service to him before: he had written the biographical sketch of Poe that appeared in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum on 4 March 1843.

Poe felt that Hirst would prove cooperative, for in his sketch of English he had written: English “has taken ... most unwarrantable liberties, in the way of downright plagiarism, from a Philadelphia poet whose high merits have not been properly appreciated — Mr. Henry B. [page 44:] Hirst.” Poe conveniently forgot his collaboration with English in the devastating article on Hirst published in the Aristidean (see headnote to Document 11). English would not forget, however; he would frequently deride Hirst in the John-Donkey by calling him Miss Henriette B. Hirst, as in this example: “Miss Henriette has been shining, like a defunct mackerel” (22 April 1848).

The Honorable Sandy Harris whom Poe mentions seems to be Ira Harris, who became a Supreme Court justice in 1848. John S. Du Solle was the editor of the Philadelphia Spirit of the Times, who had already indicated that he was less than sympathetic to Poe (Document 17). Henry A. Wise, a congressman, had acted as one of President Tyler's closest advisers. Tyler had appointed Wise to be minister to France, but the appointment was rejected by the Senate. English's “attack on H. A. Wise” which Poe requests from Hirst was published in the Public Ledger on 14 November 1842. English was provoked by Wise because under the name of “Hawkeye,” Wise had criticized the factionalism of the Philadelphia Democrats, in which activity English and his father were involved. English's response to Wise's article was much like his response to Poe's sketch of himself. He called Wise a “sneaking coward,” a “covert assassin,” “an anonymous libeller,” and a man “whose name is a stench in the nostrils of the great American people.” (See Gravely, pages 147-9, for the full article.)

Hirst's letter, assuming that he replied, is not extant, nor does the evidence indicate that Poe waited for Hirst's information since Poe's letter to Hirst and his “Reply to Mr. English and Others” (Document 24) are both dated June 27.

The letter below appears in Ostrom, II 321-2.]

 

New: York — June 27. 46.

My Dear Hirst

I presume you have seen what I said about you in “The New-York Literati” and an attack made on me by English, in consequence. Vive la Bagatelle!

I write now, to ask you if you can oblige me by a fair account of your duel with English. I would take it as a great favor, also, if you would get from Sandy Harris a statement of the fracas with him. See Du Solle, also, if you can & ask him if he is willing to give me, for publication, an account of his kicking E. out of his office.

I gave E. a flogging which he will remember to the day of his death — [page 45:] and, luckily, in the presence of witnesses. He thinks to avenge himself by lies — but I shall be a match for him by means of simple truth.

Is it possible to procure me a copy of E's attack on H.A. Wise?

Truly yours,

Poe

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21.   29 June 1846: Letter to Evert A. Duyckinck

  Edgar A. Poe

[Once he had prepared his “Reply to Mr. English and Others,” Poe wanted a friend's reaction to it. He therefore sent the article to Duyckinck with a covering letter, a portion of which is printed below. Still hesitating to appear downtown, he continued to use Mrs. C. — Maria Clemm — as his courier.

Little in this letter requires explanation. Louis Godey was, of course, the owner of Gody's [[Godey's]] Lady's Book in which “The Literati” was still appearing. Cornelius Mathews was Duyckinck's closest friend. Harnden was a private express company.

What Duyckinck may have written in answer to this letter is unknown, nor has my study of the Duyckinck Manuscript Collection unearthed anything, though Duyckinck sometimes kept fair copies of his letters. One item of interest appears as an undated entry in his Notebooks. Poe's “Sketches of the New York Literati,” Duyckinck remarked, consist of “113 acute sense, 113 wanton ingenuity, 113 sheer rigmarole.” Another undated item lists Poe as second only to Hawthorne under the rubric “American Tale Writers.”

This letter appears in Ostrom, II, 323.]

 

Monday 29.

My Dear Mr Duyckinck,

I am about to send the “Reply to English” (accompanying this note) to Mr Godey — but feel anxious that some friend should read it before it goes. Will you be kind enough to look it over & show it to Mathews? Mrs C. will then take it to Har[n]den. The particulars of the reply I would not wish mentioned to any one — of course you see the necessity of this. ...

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[page 46:]

22.   26 June 1846: Godey's Lady's Book for July

  Hiram Fuller

[Vexed with Godey for continuing to publish the “Literati” sketches, Fuller in the Evening Mirror found fault with almost everything in his magazine. The exception he made was the “very clever essay from William Kirkland,” a close friend of his (see headnote to Document 8).

According to Godey, the advice he received to discontinue the “Literati” sketches was far from friendly, notwithstanding Fuller's suggestion. “We are not,” Godey wrote in the May number of his magazine, “to be intimidated by a threat of the loss of friends, or turned from our purpose by honeyed words” or by the many attempts that “have been made and are making by various persons to forestall public opinion.”

John Waters, mentioned by Fuller, was the pen name of Henry Cary. Poe had discussed him in a “Marginalia” piece printed in the April number of the Democratic Review. While the “Literati” article on Cary derives largely from the “Marginalia” piece, the “Marginalia” piece is much more indulgent, for Poe turned the “Literati” article into an attack on Charles F. Briggs, who had flattered Cary.

Poe's statement that John Waters did not write the song (“Give Me the Old”) attributed to him by Griswold in Poets and Poetry of America is correct, despite Fuller's labeling Poe's “honest opinion” an “impudent falsehood.” Griswold in the eighth edition of his anthology, which appeared in 1847, conceded as much in a footnote to the poem: “In earlier editions, the above poem has been attributed to HENRY CAREY [sic] the elegant essayist, whose writings are published under the signature of ‘John Waters;’ but I learn that he is not the author of it” (page 528).

As for James Aldrich's “A Death-Bed,” Poe had demonstrated on various occasions that it derived from Thomas Hood's “The Death-Bed.” In “the compass of eight short lines,” he showed, there were “ten or twelve peculiar identities of thought and identities of expression” between the two poems.

Fuller is correct in suggesting that Poe, never having seen Henry Cary, was reduced to saying there is “nothing remarkable” about his person. In a letter dated 30 January 1846 Poe had asked a correspondent, presumed to be Evert Duyckinck, for “a few memoranda” respecting Cary's “personal appearance, age, residence, etc.” [page 47:]

For articles which, to use Fuller's words, “contrast very amusingly” with this one, see Documents 52 and 57.

The notice below also appeared in the Weekly Mirror on July 4.]

 

GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK. JULY. — This Philadelphia Magazine was promptly issued on the 20th June, with a dreadful caricature of the fashions for ladies’ dresses, which the editor calls ‘Paris Fashions Americanised;’ a term equally insulting to France and America. If Mr. Walsh don’t take the matter up, we trust Mons. Michelet will. Mr. Godey is clearly indictable for slander. There are, besides the fashion plate, a leaf of tissue paper containing some patterns for chemisettes and night-gowns, and two engravings, very poor indeed, even for a Philadelphia Magazine. Among the literary contents is a very clever essay from William Kirkland, on the character and opinions of the late Rev. Sydney Smith. The essay is well written, and seems to be quite out of place in Mr. Godey's Lady's Book. ...

Mr. Godey continues the publication of the insane riff-raff, which Mr. Poe calls his ‘honest opinions’ of the New York Literati, in spite of the friendly advice which he says has been given him to discontinue them.

Mr. Poe gives an opinion of John Waters, which contrasts very amusingly with an opinion expressed in the April number of the Democratic Review, and re-asserts the impudent falsehood that John Waters did not write the song quoted by Mr. Griswold, as a specimen of his poetic talents, in the ‘Poets.’ He also re-asserts for the twentieth or thirtieth time, that Mr. Aldrich plagiarised from Hood in his little poem entitled ‘A Death Bed,’ and amusingly says of this gentleman and Mr. Cary, that there is ‘nothing remarkable’ about their persons. The truth is, Mr. Poe knows no more about them than of the man in the moon.

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23.   10 July 1846: Untitled Article in the Evening Mirror

  Hiram Fuller

[An unidentified Philadelphia newspaper ironically observed that the “Mirror has published one number without once referring to Poe's ... ‘New York Literati, — a notice to which Fuller responded.

References to Poe and “The Literati” appeared more frequently in the [page 48:] Mirror than is apparent here, for I have recorded only the more cogent ones. For instance, on June 1846 Fuller, reflecting on “the belligerent state of things,” wrote: “Look ... at the literary world! ... See the most ‘trenchant’ critic of the age! the Longinus of Lilliput! ‘taking off’ his unhappy compeers and exhibiting them in a peep show. ... The unhappy ‘literati of New York’ are being exhibited in portraiture by an artiste belonging to the same school as Dick Tinto, who could ‘take your portrait in five minutes, sir — even if I see you passing in a mail coach — but it won’t be like you. — Or, again, on 2 July 1846 he praised Lewis Clark for making “up a very readable monthly, considering that he is not one of the ‘New York Literati. — Elsewhere, in the same number, he said that Mrs. Mary Cove, who was scheduled to give a lecture, was “one of Mr. Poe's New York Literati. ...” Similarly, on 15 August 1846, in suggesting that an article be done on New York publishers, Fuller remarked that the names of some of them are familiar in places “where it is possible that some of the great names enumerated by Mr. Poe in his ‘literati of New York city,’ have not been heard.”

Harry Franco, mentioned in the article below, was the pen name of Charles F. Briggs, who had not yet become a member of the Mirror staff (see headnote to Document 89).]

 

“The New York Mirror has published one number without once referring to Poe's Notices of the New York Literati. Who is it about this establishment winces so dreadfully? Can it be Mr. Harry Franco Briggs?”

We found this odd paragraph in one of the small Philadelphia dailies, and are quite at a loss to surmise its meaning. We have probably taken more notice of Poe's articles in Godey's Magazine than any other paper in this city, and have done what we could to help them into circulation. We have not only announced them on the first day of their publication, but good naturedly copied the reply of Mr. English to Mr. Poe, from the Morning Telegraph. It is true that we have copied but one or two of Mr. Poe's notices, but they were the only ones we have seen which contained truth enough to render them fit for our columns. We are not aware of harboring any body about our establishment who would be likely to “wince” at anything which can emanate from Mr. Poe, who was once employed upon our paper, and of course is well known to us. We know exactly what degree of importance to attach to his statements of facts, and his estimates of the merits of his friends or enemies. The gentleman [page 49:] whose name is unwarrantably used by our Philadelphia contemporary is not, nor ever was, attached to our establishment. If he “winces dreadfully” at Mr. Poe's articles, he is more susceptible than we had supposed him to be.

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24.   10 July 1846: “Mr. Poe's Reply to Mr. English and Others”

  Edgar A. Poe

[Poe felt he had two major advantages over English at this point in the controversy. The first was superior polemical power. As he later told Godey, “I have never written an article upon which I more confidently depend for literary reputation than that Reply” (Document 32). The second was command of a much larger audience than English could muster. He assumed, of course, that Godey, who was still running “The Literati” sketches, would publish his reply. Exactly what the circulation of both the Evening Mirror and Weekly Mirror was cannot be determined, but it was significantly less than the “one hundred thousand readers” that Godey's Lady's Book claimed in its February 1847 number.

Poe erred in both expectations. His reply only detracted from his reputation and Godey, fearful of consequences, sent the article to the Philadelphia Spirit of the Times (then called the Times), a newspaper with little circulation, paying ten dollars to have it printed and charging Poe with the cost. With these delays Poe's reply, though dated June 27, made a belated appearance on July 10.

In the article Poe ignored English's charges in regard to New York University and the Boston Lyceum and was evasive about Mrs. Ellet. He preferred to concentrate instead upon the two libelous accusations, that of having committed forgery and of having taken money from English under false pretenses, accusations that, he said, were “criminal, and with the aid of ‘The Mirror’ I can have them investigated before a criminal tribunal.” Poe knew he had never given English an “acknowledgment for a sum of money,” as English had charged, and he could defy him “to produce such acknowledgement.” He knew too that if English could somehow establish his indebtedness to him, for English apparently did give John Bisco, the publisher of the Broadway Journal thirty dollars on Poe's account, he could demonstrate that “Mr. English is indebted to me [page 50:] in what (to me) is a considerable sum,” the amount he would have received had English paid him for his article on American poetry published in The Aristidean. (Poe's contributions to English's magazine are discussed in the headnote to Document 11.)]

 

[COMMUNICATED.]

MR. POE'S REPLY TO MR. ENGLISH

AND OTHERS.

NEW YORK, June 27.

To the Public. — A long and serious illness of such character as to render quiet and perfect seclusion in the country of vital importance, has hitherto prevented me from seeing an article headed “The War of the Literati,” signed “Thomas Dunn English,” and published in “The New York Mirror” of June 23d. This article I might, and should indeed, never have seen but for the kindness of Mr. Godey, editor of “The Lady's Book,” who enclosed it to me with a suggestion that certain portions of it might be thought on my part to demand a reply.

I had some difficulty in comprehending what that was, said or written by Mr. English, that could be deemed answerable by any human being; but I had not taken into consideration that I had been, for many months, absent and dangerously ill — that I had no longer a journal in which to defend myself — that these facts were well known to Mr. English — that he is a blackguard of the lowest order — that it would be silly truism, if not unpardonable flattery, to term him either a coward or a liar — and, lastly, that the magnitude of a slander is usually in the direct ratio of the littleness of the slanderer, but, above all things, of the impunity with which he fancies it may be uttered.

Of the series of papers which have called down upon me, while supposed defenceless, the animadversions of the pensive [Hiram] Fuller, the cultivated [Lewis Gaylord] Clark, the “indignant [Charles F.] Briggs,” and the animalcula with moustaches for antenna that is in the capital habit of signing itself in full, “Thomas Dunn English” — of this series of papers all have been long since written, and three have been already given to the public. The circulation of the Magazine in which they appear cannot be much less than 50,000; and, admitting but 4 readers to each copy (while 6 would more nearly approach the truth) I may congratulate myself on such an audience as has not often been known in any similar case — a monthly audience of at least 200,000, from among [page 51:] the most refined and intellectual classes of American society. Of course, it will be difficult on the part of “The Mirror” (I am not sure whether 500 or 600 be the precise number of copies it now circulates) — difficult, I say, to convince the 200,000 ladies and gentlemen in question that, individually and collectively, they are block-heads — that they do not rightly, comprehend the unpretending words which I have addressed to them in this series — and that, as for myself, I have no other design in the world than misrepresentation, scurrility, and the indulgence of personal spleen. What has been printed is before my readers; what I have written besides, is in the hands of Mr. Godey, and shall remain unaltered. The word “Personality,” used in the heading of the series, has of course led astray the quartette of dunderheads who have talked and scribbled themselves into convulsions about this matter — but no one else, I presume, has distorted the legitimate meaning of my expression into that of private scandal or personal offence. In sketching individuals, every candid reader will admit that, while my general aim has been accuracy, I have yielded to delicacy even a little too much of verisimilitude. Indeed, on this score should I not have credit for running my pen through certain sentences referring, for example, to the brandy-nose of Mr. Briggs (since Mr. Briggs is only one third described when this nose is omitted) and to the family resemblance between the whole visage of Mr. English and that of the best-looking but most unprincipled of Mr. Barnum's baboons?

It will not be supposed, from anything here said, that I myself attach any importance to this series of papers. The public, however, is the best judge of its own taste; and that the spasms of one or two enemies have given the articles a notoriety far surpassing their merit or my expectation — is, possibly, no fault of mine. In a preface their very narrow scope is defined. They are loosely and inconsiderately written — aiming at nothing beyond the gossip of criticism — unless, indeed, at the relief of those “necessities” which I have never blushed to admit and which the editor of “The Mirror” — the quondam associate of gentlemen — has, in the same manner, never blushed publicly to insult and to record.

But let me return to Mr. English's attack — and, in so returning, let me not permit any profundity of disgust to induce, even for an instant, a violation of the dignity of truth. What is not false, amid the scurrility of this man's statements, it is not in my nature to brand as false, although oozing from the filthy lips of which a lie is the only natural language. The errors and frailties which I deplore, it cannot at least be asserted that I [page 52:] have been the coward to deny. Never, even, have I made attempt at extenuating a weakness which is (or, by the blessing of God, was) a calamity, although those who did not know me intimately had little reason to regard it otherwise than as a crime. For, indeed, had my pride, or that of my family permitted, there was much — very much — there was every-thing — to be offered in extenuation. Perhaps, even, there was an epoch at which it might not have been wrong in me to hint — what by the testimony of Dr. Francis and other medical men I might have demonstrated, had the public, indeed, cared for the demonstration — that the irregularities so profoundly lamented were the effect of a terrible evil rather than its cause. — And now let me thank God that in redemption from the physical ill I have forever got rid of the moral.

It is not, then, my purpose to deny any part of the conversation represented to have been held privately between this person and myself. I scorn the denial of any portion of it, because every portion of it may be true, by a very desperate possibility, although uttered by an English. I pretend to no remembrance of anything which occurred — with the exception of having wearied and degraded myself, to little purpose, in bestowing upon Mr. E. the “fisticuffing” of which he speaks, and of being dragged from his prostrate and rascally carcase by Professor Thomas Wyatt, who, perhaps with good reason, had his fears for the vagabond's life. The details of the “conversation,” as asserted, I shall not busy myself in attempting to understand. The “celebrated authoress” is a mystery. With the exception, perhaps, of Mrs. Stephens, Mrs. Welby, and Miss Gould — three ladies whose acquaintance I yet hope to have the honor of making — there is no celebrated authoress in America with whom I am not on terms of perfect amity at least, if not of cordial and personal friendship. That I “offered” Mr. English “my hand” is by no means impossible. I have been too often and too justly blamed by those who have a right to impose bounds upon my intimacies, for the weakness of “offering my hand,” without thought of consequence, to any one whom. I see very generally reviled, hated, and despised.

Through this mad quixotism arose my first acquaintance with Mr. English, who introduced himself to me in Philadelphia — where, for one or two years, I remained under the impression that his real name was Thomas Done Brown.

I shall not think it necessary to maintain that I am no “coward.” On a point such as this a man should speak only through the acts, moral and [page 53:] physical, of his whole private life and his whole public career. But it is a matter of common observation that your real coward never fails to make it a primary point to accuse all his enemies of cowardice. A poltroon charges his foe, by instinct, with precisely that vice or meanness which the pricking of his (the poltroon's) conscience, assures him would furnish the most stable and therefore the most terrible ground of accusation against himself. The Mexicans, for example, seldom call their antagonists anything but cowards. It is the “stop thief!” principle, exactly, — and a very admirable principle it is.

Now, the origin of the nick-name, “Thomas Done Brown,” is, in Philadelphia, quite as thoroughly understood as Mr. English could desire. With even the inconceivable amount of brass in his possession, I doubt if he could in that city, pronounce aloud that simple word, “coward,” if his most saintly soul depended upon the issue.

These lines in “Hudibras” have reference to the case of Mr. English. His primary thrashing, of any note, was bestowed upon him, I believe, by Mr. John S. DuSolle, the editor of “The Spirit of the Times,” who could not very well get over acting with this indecorum on account of Mr. E's amiable weakness — a propensity for violating the privacy of a publisher's MSS. I have not heard that there was any resentment on the part of Mr. English. It is said, on the contrary, that he shed abundant tears, and took the whole thing, in its proper light — as a sort of favor. His second chastisement I cannot call to mind in all its particulars. His third I was reduced to giving him myself, for indecorous conduct at my house. His fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth, followed in so confused a manner and in so rapid a succession, that I have been unable to keep an account of them; they have always affected me as a difficult problem in mathematics. His eleventh was tendered him by the Hon. Sandy Harris, who (also for an insult to ladies at a private house) gave him such a glimpse of a Bowie knife as saved the trouble of a kick — having even more vigorous power of propulsion. For his twelfth lesson, in this course, I have always heard him express his gratitude to Mr. Henry B. Hirst. Mr. English could not help stealing Mr. Hirst's poetry. For this reason Mr. Hirst (who gets out of temper for trifles) threw, first, a pack of cards in [page 54:] Mr. English's face; then knocked that poet down; then pummeled him for not more than twenty minutes; (in Mr. E's case it cannot be well done under twenty-five, on account of callosity — the result of too frequent friction on the parts pummeled); then picked him up, set him down, and wrote him a challenge, to come off on the following morning. Of course, this challenge Mr. English accepted; — the fact is he accepts everything, from a kick to a piece of gingerbread — the smallest favors thankfully received. At the hour appointed Mr. Hirst was on the ground. In regard to Mr. English's whereabouts on the occasion I never could put my hand upon a record that was at all precise. It must be said, however, in his defence, that there is not a better shot in all America than Mr. Hirst. With a pistol, at fifty yards, I once saw him hit a chicken in full flight. Mr. English may have witnessed this identical exploit — if so, as a “bird of feather” he was excusable in staying at home. My own opinion, nevertheless, is, that he would have been at the rendezvous without fail, if his breakfast could have been got ready for him in time.

I do not think that Mr. English was ever afterwards flogged, or even challenged, in Philadelphia — but I cannot hope that he would ever “take me by the hand” again, were I to omit mention of that last and most important escapade which induced him at length to desert, in disgust, the city of his immense forefathers.

There are, no doubt, one or two persons who have heard of one Henry A. Wise. At all events Mr. English had heard of him, and he resolved that nobody else should ever hear of him — this Mr. Wise — or even think of him, again. That Mr. Wise had never heard of Mr. English (probably on account of his being always called Mr. Brown) was no concern of Mr. English's. He wrote an “article” — I saw it. He put “the magic of his name” — his three names — at the bottom of it. He printed it. He handed it for inspection to all the inhabitants of Philadelphia. He then buttoned up his coat — took under the tails of it seven revolvers — and dispatched the article, duly addressed, with his compliments, to “the Hon. Henry A. Wise,” who then resided at the house of the President.

Now, I never could understand precisely how or why it was that the Hon. Henry A. Wise did not repair forthwith from Washington to Philadelphia, with a company of the U. S. Artillery — the loan of which his interest could have obtained of Mr. Tyler — why he did not come, I say, to Philadelphia, engage Mr. English, take him captive, cut off his goatee, put him on a high stool, and insist upon his reading (upside down) the [page 55:] whole of that “Sonnet to Azthene” in which the poet sings about his “dreams” that “seems” and other English peculiarities. The punishment would have been scarcely more than adequate to the offence. The Philippic written by Mr. E. was, in fact, very severe. It called Mr. Wise “a poltroon” — an “ass,” if I remember — and “a dirty despicable vagabond” — of that I feel particularly sure. There occurs then, of course, a question in metaphysics — “why did not the Hon. Henry A. Wise repair to Philadelphia and take Mr. Thomas Dunn Brown by the nose?[“] Perhaps the legislator had a horror of moustaches. But then neither did he write. Not even one word did he say — absolutely not one — nothing! Mr. Brown's distress was, not altogether that he could not get himself kicked, but that he could not get any kind of a reason for the omission of the kicking.

This affair is to be classed among the “Historical Doubts” — among the insoluble problems of History. However — Mr. Wise felt himself everlastingly ruined, and soon after, as Minister to France, went, a brokenhearted man, into exile.

Mr. Brown abandoned the city of his birth. He has never been the same person since — that is to say he has been a person beside himself. He finds it impossible to recover from a chronic attack of astonishment. When he dies, the coroner's verdict will be “Taken by Surprise.” This matter will account for Mr. English's inveterate habit of rolling up the whites of his eyes.

About the one or two other unimportant points in this gentleman's attack upon myself, there is, I believe, very little to be said. He asserts that I have complimented his literary performances. The sin of having, at one time, attempted to patronize him, is, I fear, justly to be laid to my charge; — but his goatee was so continual a source of admiration to me that I found it impossible ever to write a serious line in his behalf. And then the Imp of Mischief whispered in my ear, telling me how great a charity it would be to the public if I would only put the pen into Mr. English's own hand, and permit him to kill himself off by self-praise. I listened to this whisper — and the public should have seen the zeal with which the poet labored in the good cause. If in this public's estimation Mr. English did not become at once Phoebus Apollo, at least it was no fault of Mr. English's. I solemnly say that in no paper of mine did there ever appear one word about this gentleman — unless of the broadest and most unmistakeable irony — that was not printed from the MS. of the gentleman himself. The last number of “The Broadway Journal” (the [page 56:] work having been turned over by me to another publisher) was edited. by Mr. English. The editorial portion was wholly his, and was one interminable Pæan of his own praises. The truth of all this — if any one is weak enough to care a penny about who praises or who damns Mr. English — will no doubt be corroborated by Mr. Jennings, the printer.

I am charged, too, unspecifically, with being a plagiarist on a very extensive scale. He who accuses another of what all the world knows to be especially false, is merely rendering the accused a service by calling attention to the converse of the fact, and should never be helped out of his ridiculous position by any denial on the part of his enemy. We want a Magazine paper on “The Philosophy of Billingsgate.” But I am really ashamed of indulging even in a sneer at this poor miserable fool, on any mere topic of literature alone.

He says, too, that I “seem determined to hunt him down.” He said the very same thing to Mr. Wise, who had not the most remote conception that any such individual had ever been born of woman. “Hunt him down!” Is it possible that I shall ever forget the paroxysm of laughter which the phrase occasioned me when I first saw it in Mr. English's MS? “Hunt him down!” What idea can the man attach to the term “down?” Does he really conceive that there exists a deeper depth of either moral or physical degradation than that of the hog-puddles in which he has wallowed from his infancy? “Hunt him down!” By Heaven! I should, in the first place, be under the stern necessity of hunting him up — up from among the dock-loafers and wharf-rats, his cronies. Besides, “hunt” is not precisely the word. “Catch” would do better. We say “hunting a buffalo” — “hunting a lion,” and, in a dearth of words, we might even go so far as to say “hunting a pig” — but we say “catching a frog” — “catching a weasel” — “catching an English” — and “catching a flea.”

As a matter of course I should have been satisfied to follow the good example of Mr. Wise, when insulted by Mr. English, (if this indeed be the person's name) had there been nothing more serious in the blatherskite's attack than the particulars to which I have hitherto alluded. The two passages which follow, however, are to be found in the article referred to:

“I hold Mr. Poe's acknowledgments for a sum of money which he obtained from me under false pretences.”

And again: [page 57:]

“A merchant of this city had accused him of committing forgery, and as he was afraid to challenge him to the field, or chastise him personally, I suggested a legal prosecution as his sole remedy. At his request I obtained a counsellor who was willing, as a compliment to me, to conduct his suit without the customary retaining fee. But, though so eager at first to commence proceedings, he dropped the matter altogether when the time came for him to act — thus virtually admitting the truth of the charge.”

It will be admitted by the most patient that these accusations are of such character as to justify me in rebutting them in the most public manner possible, even when they are found to be urged by a Thomas Dunn English. The charges are criminal, and with the aid of “The Mirror” I can have them investigated before a criminal tribunal. In the meantime I must not lie under these imputations a moment longer than necessary. To the first charge I reply, then, simply that Mr. English is indebted to me in what (to me) is a considerable sum — that I owe him nothing — that in the assertion that he holds my acknowledgment for a sum of money under any pretence obtained, he lies — and that I defy him to produce such acknowledgment.

In regard to the second charge I must necessarily be a little more explicit. “The merchant of New York” alluded to, is a gentleman of high respectability — Mr. Edward I. [sic] Thomas, of Broad Street. I have now the honor of his acquaintance, but some time previous to this acquaintance, he had remarked to a common friend that he had heard whispered against me an accusation of forgery. The friend, as in duty bound, reported this matter to me. I called at once on Mr. Thomas, who gave me no very thorough explanation, but promised to make inquiry, and confer with me hereafter. Not hearing from him in what I thought due time, however, I sent him (unfortunately by Mr. English, who was always in my office for the purpose of doing himself honor in running my errands) a note, of which the following is a copy:

OFFICE OF THE BROADWAY JOURNAL, ETC.

EDWARD J. THOMAS, Esq.

The reply brought me was verbal and somewhat vague. As usual, my messenger had played the bully, and, as very usual, had been treated with contempt. The idea of challenging a man for a charge of forgery could only have entered the head of an owl or an English: — of course I had no resource but in a suit, which one of Mr. E's friends offered to conduct for me. I left town to procure evidence, and on my return found at my house a letter from Mr. Thomas. It ran thus:

Now, as this note was most satisfactory and most kind — as I neither wished nor could have accepted Mr. Thomas’ money — as the motives which had actuated him did not seem to me malevolent — as I had heard him spoken of in the most flattering manner by one whom, above all others, I most profoundly respect and esteem — it does really appear to me hard to comprehend how even so malignant a villain as this English could have wished me to proceed with the suit.

In the presence of witnesses I handed him the letter, and, without [page 59:] meaning anything in especial, requested his opinion. In lieu of it he gave me his advice: — it was that I should deny having received such a letter and urge the prosecution to extremity. I promptly ordered him to quit the house. In his capacity of hound, he obeyed.

These are the facts which, in a court of justice, I propose to demon-strate — and, having demonstrated them, shall I not have a right to demand of a generous public that it brand with eternal infamy that wretch, who, with a full knowledge of my exculpation from so heinous a charge, has not been ashamed to take advantage of my supposed inability to defend myself, for the purpose of stigmatising me as a felon!

And of the gentleman who (also with a thorough knowledge of the facts, as I can and will show) prostituted his filthy sheet to the circulation of this calumny — of him what is it necessary to say? At present — nothing. He heads Mr. English's article with a profession of pity for myself. Ah yes, indeed! Mr. Fuller is a pitiful man. Much is he to be pitied for his countenance (that of a fat sheep in a reverie) — for his Providential escapes — for the unwavering conjugal chivalry which, in a public theatre — but I pause. Not even in taking vengeance on a Fuller can I stoop to become a Fuller myself.

The fact is, it is difficult to be angry with this man. Let his self-complacency be observed! How absolute an unconsciousness of that proverbial mental imbecility which serves to keep all the little world in which he moves, in one sempiternal sneer or giggle!

Mr. Fuller has fine eyes — but he should put them to use. He should turn them inwardly. — He should contemplate in solemn meditation, that vast arena within his sinciput which it has pleased Heaven to fill with hasty pudding by way of brains. He needs, indeed self-study, self-examination — and for this end, he will not think of me officious if I recommend to his perusal Heinsius’ admirable treatise “On the Ass.”

EDGAR A. POE.

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25.   11 July 1846: “Quarrel among the Literati”

  Morning News

[The first published reaction to Poe's “Reply to Mr. English and Others,” expressed by the New York Morning News in somewhat garbled form, was far from favorable.] [page 60:]

QUARREL AMONG THE LITERATI. — Poe has at last replied to the card of Mr. English, and it is a most terrific, absolutely bitterness and satire unadulterated [sic]. Poe states that he will prosecute the Mirror for publishing the card of Mr. E. This is rather small business for a man who has reviled nearly every literary man of eminence in the United States.

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26.   12(?) July 1846: “Mr. Poe and Mr. English” and “The Literary War”

  Joseph C. Neal

[Responding to the requests of “some of Mr. Poe's friends” in Philadelphia, Neal, the editor of the Philadelphia Saturday Gazette, reprinted Poe's “Reply to Mr. English and Others” in full, though he thought the affair “in bad taste.” The article occupied so much space that, as Neal said on another page, news of the “literary war” had crowded out news of the Mexican War, which had officially begun on 13 May 1846.

Only Neal's remarks on Poe's reply are reprinted here, not the reply itself, which Neal reproduced faithfully and which appears as Document 24.

I have been unable to date the two documents below except by conjecture, for I cannot locate a copy of the Saturday Gazette containing these items and have had to rely upon John Ingram's clippings from the Gazette (in the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia), which he mistakenly dated 27 June 1846. June 27 was the date of composition Poe assigned to the article; the article itself appeared in the Spirit of the Times on July 10.]

 

MR. POE AND MR. ENGLISH. — We publish on our first page to day, by particular request of some of Mr. Poe's friends in this city, a reply from that gentleman to Mr. English's letter in the New York Mirror. With the merits of this quarrel we have nothing to do, and we may add that we consider the whole affair one of very little importance to the public. Mr. E.'s letter was very severe upon the private character of Mr. Poe, and the latter retaliates in the same spirit. All this is, to our notion, in bad taste, yet we cannot well refuse the assailed an opportunity to exculpate himself.

As the war has actually commenced we suppose it will be prosecuted [page 61:] to the (literary) death, both the combatants having entered into it with a zeal and spirit that, with Fa[h]renheit ranging at go and upwards, will not be apt to cool off without the application of some tempering process. Whether much or any thing is to be gained by either of the gentlemen in this controversy it is useless to speculate. Their friends will probably watch the progress of affairs with some interest, and the public, if it reads them, will enjoy a laugh for which they must jointly pay unless the victorious party — as is proposed in our war with Mexico — makes the vanquished foot the bill. Were it only fine September weather we might be induced to “pitch in” for a bout or two with the crowned [k]night — when he is crowned — but just at present all our philosophy and good nature are actively exerted to keep our body corporate as cool as circumstances will allow. Meanwhile, we advise our extensive friend, the aforenamed Public, to read Messrs. P. & E. for his own edification.

————————

THE LITERARY WAR has crowded us to-day as closely as Gen. Taylor pushed the Mexicans at Reseca [sic] and while we ask the reader's indulgence we can assure them [sic] if they lose by the operation we gain an afternoon siesta that is not to be winked at these days of drowsy dullness and dearth of distressing news and refreshing breezes.

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27.   13 July 1846: “A Card: In Reply to Mr. Poe's Rejoinder”

  Thomas Dunn English

[Three days after the publication of “Mr. Poe's Reply to Mr. English and Others” in the Spirit of the Times, the Evening Mirror published English's rejoinder. The tone of this answer, compared with English's original “Card,” is remarkably decorous. English merely cited Poe's scurrilities and added that Poe admitted the most serious of his charges by silence, presumably his alleged vilification of Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet. As for Poe's threat to sue for libel, English said: “That is my full desire. Let him institute a suit, if he dare, and I pledge myself to make my charges good by the most ample and satisfactory evidence.”] [page 62:]

Mr. Edgar A. Poe is not satisfied, it would seem. In the ‘Times,’ a Philadelphia journal of considerable circulation, there appears a communication, headed — ‘Mr. Poe's reply to Mr. English, and others.’ As it is dated ‘27th of June,’ and the newspaper containing it is dated loth July; and as it appears in another city than this, — it is to be inferred that Mr. Poe had some difficulty in obtaining a respectable journal to give currency to his scurrilous article. The following words and phrases, taken at random from the production, will give the public some idea of its style and temper:

‘Blackguard,’ ‘coward,’ liar,”animalcula with moustaches for antennal”[sic], ‘block-heads,’ quartette of dunderheads,’ ‘brandy-nose,’ ‘best-looking, but most unprincipled of Mr. Barnum's baboons,’ filthy lips,’ ‘rascally carcase,’ inconceivable amount of brass,’ ‘poor miserable fool,’ ‘hog-puddles in which he has wallowed from infancy,’ ‘by Heaven!’ ‘dock-loafers and wharf-rats, his cronies,’ ‘the blatherskite's attack,’ hound,’ ‘malignant a villain,’ wretch,”filthy sheet,’ ‘hasty pudding by way of brains.’

To such vulgar stuff as this, which is liberally distributed through three columns of what would be, otherwise, tame and spiritless, it is unnecessary to reply. It neither suits my inclination, nor habits, to use language, of which the words I quote make up the wit and ornament. I leave that to Mr. Poe and the ancient and honorable community of fish-venders.

Actuated by a desire for the public good, I charged Mr. Poe with the commission of certain misdemeanors, which prove him to be profligate in habits and depraved in mind. The most serious of these he admits by silence — the remainder he attempts to palliate; and winds up his tedious disquisition by a threat to resort to a legal prosecution. That is my full desire. Let him institute a suit, if he dare, and I pledge myself to make my charges good by the most ample and satisfactory evidence.

To the charlatanry of Mr. Poe's reply; his play upon my name: his proclamation of recent reform, when it is not a week since he was seen intoxicated in the streets of New York; his attempt to prove me devoid of literary attainments; his sneers at my lack of personal beauty; his ridiculous invention of quarrels between me and others, that never took place; his charges of plagiarism, unsupported by example; his absurd [page 63:] story of a challenge accepted and avoided; his attempt to excuse his drunkenness and meanness on the ground of insanity; in short, to the froth, fustian, and vulgarity of his three-column article, I have no reply to make. My character for honor and physical courage needs no defence from even the occasional slanderer — although, if the gentlemen whose names he mentions, will endorse his charges, I shall then reply to them — much less does it require a shield from one whose habit of uttering falsehoods is so inveterate, that he utters them to his own hurt, rather [than] not utter them at all; with whom drunkenness is the practice and sobriety the exception, and who, from the constant commission of acts of meanness and depravity, is incapable of appreciating the feelings which animate the man of honor.

THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH.

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28.   14 July 1846: “The War still Raging”

  Morning News

[The New York Morning News, having commented on English's first “Card” and on Poe's “Reply to Mr. English and Others,” now commented on English's “Reply to Mr. Poe's Rejoinder.” With a libel suit threatening, the editor was more discreet than he had been before.]

 

THE WAR STILL RAGING. — T. D. English replies to Poe's bulletin No. 2, in last evening's Mirror. He dares Poe to a legal battle, and threatens to prove all the assertions made in his first official dispatch. We shall see in what all this warm work will result.

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29.   14 July 1846: “The War of the Literati”

  Public Ledger

[The Philadelphia Public Ledger, contemning “the war between the literati” but maintaining its neutrality to the combatants, now called for “a truce or treaty of peace,” and read the “critics” and “all publishers of periodicals” a lecture on breeding, taste, and judgment. [page 64:]

This article, beginning with “... we suggest to critics a little better breeding and a little better taste and a little better judgment,” was reprinted in the New York Morning News on July 16 under the title “CRITICS AND PERSONALITIES.” The editor of the Morning News introduced the passage as follows: “There is so much good sense — so correct a principle, or series of principles — and such a brief yet wholesome rebuke administered to those who deserve it — in the following, that we do not hesitate to transfer it to our columns.”]

 

THE WAR OF THE LITERATI. — The war between the literati increases in violence. Mr. Poe, whose “Sketches of the New York Literati” drew from Mr. English such a caustic attack, has replied in a manner equally biting and severe. We suggest a truce or treaty of peace among these ecclesiastics of the church literary; for Billingsgate is not the wide gate or the straight gait to Parnassus or Helicon, any more than to the White Mountains or Saratoga. And seriously we suggest to critics [a] little better breeding and a little better taste and a little better judgment, than is exhibited by vituperative personalities concerning authors. To invade the fireside, and drag men before the public in relations exclusively private, is not very consistent with that precept of the gentleman, derived from a high source, which says “Do as you would be done by.” It therefore exhibits not the best breeding. It not only outrages the feelings of all connected with the parties assailed, by the ties of consanguinity, affinity or friendship, but shocks the sensibilities of all strangers to the parties, who are too refined to relish slander or vituperation. It therefore exhibits not the best taste. It exposes the assailant to the imputation of envy, malignity, falsehood, and other vices of the heart, and to that of having exhausted his whole stock in the literary trade, and consequently of being driven to slander for raw material. To this we may add that the public are interested in authors only through their works, and care nothing for their personal affairs.

And we would seriously suggest to all publishers of periodicals, that they would exhibit quite as much taste and judgment, by excluding from their pages all personal sketches of authors. The works of an author are public property. His personal and private affairs demand equal immunity with those of other persons. People do not put their firesides in issue by writing books; and therefore nobody should be permitted, under pretence of literary criticism, to raise false issues on such points.

[[——————————————]]

[page 65:]

30.   15 July 1846: The New Orleans Daily Picayune Defends Poe

[As Poe had asked him to do (Document 9), Field exercised his influence upon the editor of the Picayune, whose European correspondent he had been in 1840; and about two weeks after Field's article on Poe appeared in the Reveille, the Picayune published its defense of Poe.

Poe had reason to believe that the Picayune would prove cooperative, for, as he remarked in his letter to Field, that newspaper “has always been friendly to me. ...” As editor and, later, as owner of the Broadway Journal, he had “exchanged” with the Picayune. That paper had high, respect for Poe's magazine, hailing it as “almost the only journal we receive with any decided claims to originality” (14 October 1845). For other notices of Poe in the Daily Picayune, see the issues of 18 July; 1, 4, and 18 October; 8 and 12 November 1845; 7 January and 14 May 1846.]

 

Mr. Edgar A. Poe has recently been writing for one of the Philadelphia magazines a series of papers upon the New York literati. They are off-hand sketches, and the critical opinions expressed in them appear to be sincere, and in this respect, so far as we know, they are fair enough. But these sketches have involved their author in a series of personal differences of the most rancorous description. He has been assailed in terms of unmeasured severity, and not content with efforts to impugn his critical judgments and to ridicule his literary pretensions, his enemies have assailed his personal character, and dragged his private affairs before the eyes of the public. So long as literary men confine their controversies to subjects of general interest, the public may laugh at their exhibitions of idle rage; but with their private, personal differences the public has nothing to do. We have seen with extreme regret that the controversy aroused by Mr. Poe's stricture, has degenerated into a personal persecution of him. With this no right-minded man can sympathize. There are modes of redress for such wrongs, real or imaginary, as he may have committed besides an indiscriminate onslaught upon his character as a man. The public ought not and does not care to hear what may be the personal failings of those known to it but as authors.

It is moreover quite idle to attempt to depreciate the position which Mr. Poe has attained as an author. He has been one of the most successful contributors to our literary periodicals, and his tales have been extensively copied both here and in England. They are not only copied, [page 66:] but are read and remembered by thousands. They are written with such power, that you cannot forget them if you would. We might cite several of his stories, wrought with an art so consummate, that it costs you an effort of mind to feel that they are fictions, nor can you wholly divest yourself of the idea that they may be or must be truthful narrations. Yet more idle does it appear to us to ridicule the poetry of Mr. Poe. That production of his which critics and his personal enemies have most frequently endeavored to deride is “The Raven,” but the oft repeated efforts have been entirely harmless. The Poem is written with extraordinary power, and it is impossible to read it unmoved. This single poem is a complete vindication of his possession of genius of the most sterling quality, and it were to be wished that it might be devoted to themes more worthy of its strength than ephemeral papers for the fashionable magazines.

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31.   15 July, 24 July, 28 July, 25 August 1846: From Philadelphia

  T. F. G.

[The Evening Mirror's Philadelphia correspondent, who signed himself only by his initials, made passing reference to Poe's “Literati” series from time to time. These appear below.]

 

... Mr. Poe is making many enemies here by his insane writings.

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I know of a case of physical deformity which is laughably strange, paradoxical as the announcement may seem. It is that of a man in middle life, whose ears have been growing from childhood, until they have become so disproportionately and ridiculously large, as to attract universal attention and remark. You will appreciate the picture when I tell you that each ear reaches far above the crown of a tall hat, and — they are still in course of development! I do not remember the name of the unfortunate individual, but it has a very Poetical sound when pronounced by the English [Thomas Dunn]. An impression is general that it will be necessary to crop these big ears; at least, such an opinion obtains among some of the most gifted in the land.

‘Now Go(e)dy [sic] please to moderate,’ &c. [page 67:]

... I would mention that there is nothing new in literature [here], but I know it will vex you, particularly in these days of Poe etical and nonsensical doings.

—————————

... One or two publishers in Philadelphia are quite out of temper with the impartial Magazine criticisms of the editor of the Mirror. Well — well — the truth ought to be heard sometimes, even if it is unpleasant.

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32.   16 July 1846: Letter to Louis A. Godey

  Edgar A. Poe

[Six days after the Philadelphia Spirit of the Times published his “Reply to Mr. English and Others,” Poe wrote to Godey, reproving him for not having “done as I requested — published it in the ‘Book’.”

The articles in the Saint Louis Reveille and the New Orleans Daily Picayune that Poe mentions at the end of his letter appear as Documents 9 and 30. My search through the Charleston Courier for this period uncovered no mention of Poe.

This letter appears in Ostrom, II 323-4.]

 

New-York: July 16. 46.

My Dear Sir,

I regret that you published my Reply in “The Times”. I should have found no difficulty in getting it printed here, in a respectable paper, and gratis. However — as I have the game in my own hands, I shall not stop to complain about trifles.

I am rather ashamed that, knowing me to be as poor as I am, you should have thought it advisable to make the demand on me of the $10. I confess that I thought better of you — but let it go — it is the way of the world.

The man, or men, who told you that there was anything wrong in the tone of my reply, were either my enemies, or your enemies, or asses. When you see them, tell them so from me. I have never written an article upon which I more confidently depend for literary reputation than that Reply. Its merit lay in being precisely adapted to its purpose. In this city I have had, upon it, the favorable judgments of the best men. All the [page 68:] error about it was yours. You should have done as I requested — published it in the “Book”. It is of no use to conceive a plan if you have to depend upon another for its execution.

Please distribute 20 or 30 copies of the Reply in Phil. and send me the balance through Hamden.

What paper, or papers, have copied E's attack?

I have put this matter in the hands of a competent attorney, and you shall see the result. Your charge, $10, will of course be brought before the court, as an item, when I speak of damages.

... I enclose the Reveillé article. I presume that, ere this, you have seen the highly flattering notices of the “Picayune” and the “Charleston Courier”.

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33.   17 July 1846: Letter to John Bisco

  Edgar A. Poe

[In his letter to Godey (preceding document) Poe mentioned that he had referred English's libels to an attorney. No doubt he had, for on the following day he wrote to Bisco, the original owner of the Broadway Journal, asking him to call upon Enoch L. Fancher, the lawyer he had engaged, most likely through Mrs. Clemm's agency, to conduct his libel suit against Hiram Fuller and Augustus W. Clason, Jr., proprietors of the Evening Mirror and Weekly Mirror, in which journals English's libels had appeared (see headnote to Document 13).

Again Poe shows no willingness to appear in the city, especially as Fancher's office, located at 33 John Street, was only four short blocks from City Hall and in the heart of New York's Grub Street.

This letter appears in Ostrom, II, 325.]

 

New-York July 17. 1846.

My Dear Mr Bisco,

You will confer a very great favor on me by stepping in, when you have leisure, at the office of E. L. Fancher, Attorney-at-Law, 33 John St. [page 69:] Please mention to him that I requested you to call in relation to Mr English. He will, also, show you my Reply to some attacks lately made upon me by this gentleman.

Mr John Bisco.

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34.   20 July 1846: “A Sad Sight”

  Hiram Fuller

[In the article below, the editor of the Evening Mirror protests that he can no longer feel harsh, contemptuous, or vengeful toward Poe, only sorry, since the man “was evidently committing a suicide upon his body, as he had already done upon his character.” Yet, regardless of how much, compassion Poe's “wretched imbecility,” “evil living,” and “radical obliquity of sense” induced in him, Fuller managed to smear “the poor creature” in his editorial.

The “aged female relative” mentioned by Fuller is Maria Clemm. This visit by Poe to New York's editorial and publishing district was a rare one for him. Perhaps he had come to see his attorney. No doubt, as Fuller alleged, Poe had drunk himself into “a state of inebriation” to brace himself for the occasion. No doubt too, in that condition, he had gone to the Mirror Building on the corner of Ann and Nassau Streets to tell Fuller his opinion of him.

Editors were horsewhipped, cowhided, or caned for less provocative articles than this one, which also appeared in the Weekly Mirror on July 25.]

 

A SAD SIGHT. — It is melancholy enough to see a man maimed in his limbs, or deprived by nature of his due proportions; the blind, the deaf, the mute, the lame, the impotent are all subjects that touch our hearts, at least all whose hearts have not been indurated in the fiery furnace of sin; but sad, sadder, saddest of all, is the poor wretch whose want of moral rectitude has reduced his mind and person to a condition where indignation for his vices, and revenge for his insults are changed into compassion for the poor victim of himself. When a man has sunk so low [page 70:] that he has lost the power to provoke vengeance, he is the most pitiful of all pitiable objects. A poor creature of this description, called at our office the other day, in a condition of sad, wretched imbecility, bearing in his feeble body the evidences of evil living, and betraying by his talk, such radical obliquity of sense, that every spark of harsh feeling towards him was extinguished, and we could not even entertain a feeling of contempt for one who was evidently committing a suicide upon his body, as he had already done upon his character. Unhappy man! He was accompanied by an aged female relative, who was going a weary round in the hot streets, following his steps to prevent his indulging in a love of drink; but he had eluded her watchful eye by some means, and was already far gone in a state of inebriation. After listening awhile with painful feelings to his profane ribaldry, he left the office, accompanied by his good genius, to whom he owed the duties which she was discharging for him, and we muttered involuntarily, ‘remote, unfriended, solitary alone,’ &c. &c. And this is the poor man who has been hired by a mammon-worshipping publisher to do execution upon the gifted, noble-minded and pure-hearted men and women, whose works are cherished by their contemporaries as their dearest national treasure. It would be unreasonable to look to such a person for a just appreciation of the works of an upright intellect. But the only harm that such men can do is by praise, and we might well suspect the merits of those who are lauded by such persons, if we did not know that their seemingly good words were as sinister as their abuse.

A transient emotion may be created in the public mind by such criticisms, but it is sure to be succeeded by a contemptuous forgetfulness. The public can never be humbugged a second time by the same operator. Charlatans should estimate their profits very closely before they embark in a speculation upon the credulity of the public, for if they fail in the first attempt they lose all. Dr. Brandreth could never get up another pill, if he were to spend all he has made by his first one, in the attempt. If the publisher and his critic fail to reap a sufficient reward from their exertions this time, they can never stir up the curiosity of a wonder-loving public again. They will find, we think, that they have killed their gold-laying goose, in their impatience to get rich.

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[page 71:]

35.   21 July 1846: “Mr. Poe”

  Morning News

[With Poe being treated to Fuller's “backwoods vituperation,” as in the preceding document, the Morning News now pleaded for decency (“let public opinion condemn him” — Poe — “but do not let us make the press a vehicle of personal abuse and revengeful cant”).

The exhortations of the Morning News had little effect upon the editor of the Mirror and despite its condemnation of the article in question, Lewis Clark felt no compunction in reprinting portions of that “most inexcusable and vindictive editorial attack” in his Knickerbocker (Document 50). For good reason Clark did not identify his source except to say it was “one of our most respectable daily journals.” Even this allusion was evasive, for there were many daily journals published in New York at the time but only one evening paper, the Evening Mirror.]

 

MR. POE. — There is no excuse more miserable than that which is used to palliate a wrong by a wrong. The man who picks a neighbor's pocket because that neighbor has picked his is none the less a criminal on the ground of retributive justice. We are pained by having read a most inexcusable and vindictive editorial attack upon Mr. Poe and his personal, ay! his domestic relations. That gentleman may have discoursed coarsely of others, but that furnishes no reason for those that have been attacked to make blackguards of themselves, and to offend the public by a wanton display of backwoods vituperation. Mr. Poe is a man of talent but he is, notwithstanding, flesh, and possesses frailties with which a great portion of the human family is afflicted.

If he has invaded domestic privacy, let public opinion condemn him, but do not let us make the press a vehicle of personal abuse and revengeful cant. We hope the press was instituted for worthier purposes. It is a melancholy fact that the literary profession is divided against itself. Instead of being a fraternity, it is like the athlete of old. — Gladiator like, we meet that we may destroy. There is no feeling in common among us — no esprit de corps; no brotherly sympathy. And yet, with all their necessities, the literary workies, or drudges, have greater need for mutual aid than any other class of men in the country.

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[page 72:]

36.   22 July 1846: Letter to Thomas Holley Chivers

  Edgar A. Poe

[However much the letter below may be discounted for its “being precisely adapted to its purpose,” to use Poe's words about his “Reply to Mr. English and Others,” it suggests what is true enough, that most of Poe's friends had deserted him, that he was ill, impoverished, and in despair, and that his literary enemies were attempting his ruin.

Twice moved, the Poe cottage, which came into possession of New York City in 1913, is now located in Poe Park at 194th Street and Kings-bridge Road in the Bronx, where, badly neglected, it has deteriorated from “a snug little cottage” into a shack. The “slip” from the Saint Louis Reveille that Poe says he enclosed in this letter appears as Document 9.

Chivers, though a warm admirer of Poe during his lifetime (he even begged him to “come to the South to live” where “I will take care of you as long as you live”), charged after Poe's death that “The Raven” and “Ulalume” were plagiarized from two of his poems.

Poe's reference to his being “done forever with drink” has to do with the fact that Chivers, according to the manuscript biography of Poe he left behind (since edited by Richard Beale Davis), saw Poe “as drunk as an Indian” in New York, where he had gone to see his Lost Pleiad and Other Poems through the press.

The full version of this letter appears in Ostrom, II, 325-7.]

 

New-York, July 22 / 46.

My Dear Friend,

I had long given you up (thinking that, after the fashion of numerous other friends, you had made up your mind to desert me at the first breath of what seemed to be trouble) when this morning I received no less than 6 letters from you, all of them addressed 195 East Broadway. Did you not know that I merely boarded at this house? .... I am living out of town about 13 miles, at a village called Fordham, on the rail-road leading north. We are in a snug little cottage, keeping house, and would be very comfortable, but that I have been for a long time dreadfully ill. I am getting better, however, although slowly, and shall get well. In the meantime the flocks of little birds of prey that always take the opportunity of illness to peck at a sick fowl of larger dimensions, have been endeavoring with all their power to effect my ruin. My dreadful poverty, also, has [page 73:] given them every advantage. In fact, my dear friend, I have been driven to the very gates of death and a despair more dreadful than death, and I had not even one friend, out of my family, with whom to advise. ...

It is with the greatest difficulty that I write you this letter — as you may perceive, indeed, by the M.S. I have not been able to write one line for the Magazines for more than 5 months — you can then form some idea of the dreadful extremity to which I have been reduced. The articles [on the New York literati] lately published in “Godey's Book” were written and paid for a long while ago. ...

There is one thing you will be glad to learn: .... I am done forever with drink — depend upon that — but there is much more in this matter than meets the eye.

Do not let anything in this letter impress you with the belief that I despair even of worldly prosperity. On the contrary although I feel ill, and am ground into the very dust with poverty, there is a sweet hope in the bottom of my soul. ...

I enclose you a slip from the “Reveilée” [sic]. You will be pleased to see how they appreciate me in England. ...

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 17:]

* Fuller, of course, is quoting out of context here for the sake of “exposing” Poe. In the “Author's Introduction” to “The Literati,” Poe charged that two kinds of opinion exist in regard to contemporary authors — one popular and clique-manufactured; the other, private and honest. In respect to manufactured reputations, he maintained that editors — the “we” of this passage — were guilty of publishing a “tissue of flatteries. ...”

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 31:]

* Thomas Dunn English [Poe's note].

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 58:]

* The bracketed statements are Poe's interpolations.