∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
DURING THE LAWSUIT
[[blank]]
37. 23 July 1846: N.Y. Superior Court: Edgar A. Poe vs. Hiram Fuller and Augustus W. Clason, Jr.: Declaration of Grievances
[On 20 July 1846, after “Mr. English's Reply to Poe” appeared in the Evening Mirror (23 June 1846) and the Weekly Mirror (27 June 1846), Poe through his attorney, Enoch L. Fancher, wrote out his Declaration of Grievances, which was filed in New York Superior Court on July 23. (The New York Superior Court was merged with two other courts sometime in the 1870s to form the present-day New York Supreme Court.) The declaration contains two counts of libel based upon English's accusations that Poe had committed forgery and that he had taken money from him under false pretenses. Poe sued Fuller and Clason, owners of the Mirror, for publishing English's “Card” and thereby contriving, “wickedly and maliciously, ... to iniure the plaintiff in his good ... name, fame and credit, and to bring him into public scandal, infamy and disgrace ...; to vex, harass, oppress, impoverish, and wholly ruin him,” and asked damages of five thousand dollars.
Why Poe sued the owners of the Mirror and not English, or why he didn't sue the owners of the Mirror and English, can only be conjectured. There were personal reasons, of course, for his wanting to avenge himself upon Fuller; he had obviously been angered at Fuller's gratuitous and damaging editorial comments. Very likely his attorney had advised him that the proprietors of the Mirror had incurred a greater degree of culpability than English by giving circulation to English's libels and that typically one always sued the deeper pocket, advice that no doubt coincided with Poe's wishes. Perhaps, too, Poe wanted to be vindicated more than he wanted to avenge himself upon everyone implicated in the libel. If he could achieve this clearly by a legal victory in one case, there would be no point in bringing concurrent, consolidated, or subsequent suits against English and, for that matter, the owners of the Morning Telegraph who first published English's reply. As he no doubt had the sense to realize, bringing multiple suits would only damage his reputation still more, a reputation he was at pains to clear, by making him seem merely mercenary.
In any event, the first formal complaint was made against the Evening Mirror; the second, against the Weekly Mirror. Apart from modifications in the respective names and dates of the Mirrors involved in the complaints, [page 78:] the two statements are almost identical. The preliminary hearing was to be held in New York City Hall on 4 August 1846.
The entire Judgment Record is presented here episodically, as it was taken, so that the reader may follow the unfolding of events as Poe followed it. The reader who wishes to consult the entire court record at once can refer to the Index. No editorial liberties have been taken with this record except for some changes in punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and an occasional transposition of a phrase in order to gain clarity. The source of this and the other legal documents reproduced in this book are the records in the Hall of Records, Office of the County Clerk, New York County, New York.
Some scholars, having taken Poe's word that English's charges were “criminal” and that he could “have them investigated before a criminal tribunal,” have assumed that Poe initiated a criminal suit. This is incorrect. To initiate a criminal prosecution requires haling a person before a magistrate, who must decide upon the testimony heard whether to hold the person for the action of the Grand Jury. If the Grand Jury finds there is sufficient prima facie evidence to warrant an indictment, the defendant is then brought before a court to plead. At the time the magistrate holds the defendant for the action of the Grand Jury, the defendant must post bail to assure his appearance. Moreover, before the matter is brought to the magistrate, the aggrieved individual has to submit his charge to the Office of the District Attorney, at which time all subsequent legal actions are taken by the district attorney. The proceeding in this case would be introduced in the name of the People of the State of New York, on the complaint of Edgar A. Poe; there would be a statement of charges, which would specify the breach of peace that had occurred on account of the libel, and the criminal statutes allegedly violated would be cited. Lastly, the information would call for the imposition of the punishment provided in the criminal statutes violated, not damages to the witness Poe in a sum of money.
Poe's declaration, then, initiated a civil suit for libel, which has the advantage that a far lesser degree of certainty of guilt is required to be established than in a criminal prosecution for libel. As one lawyer put it, it takes 99 per cent certainty of guilt to be established in a criminal prosecution, since a prison sentence and a fine may be the result, and only 51 per cent certainty of guilt in a civil action, since only money is involved.
On the grounds of the charges made, Poe claimed that he had been [page 79:] damaged in his good name and reputation and demanded five thousand dollars in compensation. If Poe, believing that English's charges were criminal, had presented the matter to the Office of the District Attorney, the district attorney would have it within his discretion to determine whether to proceed for a violation of the pertinent criminal statutes or to advise him to find recourse in the civil court. Whatever Poe may have done, the records unmistakably attest that Poe's was a civil suit, not a criminal prosecution.]
N. Y. Superior Court. Pleas before the justices of the Superior Court of the City of New York, at the City Hall in the City of New York. Of July term, to wit, the twentieth day of July in the term of July, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-six.
City and County of New York, fs [scilicet; i.e., that is to say]: Edgar A. Poe, plaintiff in this suit, by Enoch L. Fancher, his attorney, comes into this Court, according to the form of the statute, authorizing the commencement of suits by declaration, and complains of Hiram Fuller and Augustus W. Clason, Junr, defendants in this suit, of a plea of trespass on the case [a plea of trespass is one of the general forms of pleading].
For that whereas the said plaintiff now is a good, true, honest, just and faithful citizen of this State, and as such hath always behaved and conducted himself, and until the committing of the several grievances by the said defendants, as hereinafter mentioned, was always reputed, esteemed and accepted by and amongst all his neighbors, and other good and worthy citizens of this State, to whom he was in anywise known, to be a person of good name, fame and credit, to wit, at the City and in the County of New York aforesaid and within the jurisdiction of this Court; and whereas also the said plaintiff hath not ever been guilty, and until the time of the committing of the said several grievances by the said defendants as hereinafter mentioned, been suspected to have been guilty of obtaining money under false pretences, [n]or of the offences and misconduct hereinafter mentioned to have been charged and imputed to the said plaintiff, [n]or of any other such offences and misconduct; by means of which said premises he, the said plaintiff, before the committing of the said several grievances by the said defendants, as hereinafter mentioned, had deservedly obtained the good opinion and credit of all his neighbors and other good and worthy citizens of this State to whom he was in anywise [page 80:] known, to wit, in the City and in the County of New York aforesaid and within the jurisdiction of this Court; yet the said defendants, well knowing the premises and greatly envying the happy state and condition of the said plaintiff, and contriving and wickedly and maliciously intending to injure the said plaintiff in his good name, fame and credit and to bring him into public scandal, infamy and disgrace with and amongst all his neighbors and other good and worthy citizens of this State, and to cause it to be suspected and believed by those neighbors and citizens that he, the said plaintiff, had been guilty of obtaining money under false pretences, and of the offences and misconduct hereinafter mentioned to have been imputed to him, and to subject him to the pains and penalties of the laws of this State made and provided against and inflicted upon persons guilty thereof, and to vex, harass, oppress, impoverish and wholly ruin him, the said plaintiff, heretofore, to wit, on the twenty-third day of June, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-six, at the City and in the County of New York aforesaid and within the jurisdiction of this Court, falsely, wickedly and maliciously did print and publish and cause and procure to be printed and published of and concerning the said plaintiff, in a certain newspaper called the “Evening Mirror,” a certain false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory libel over the name of one Thomas Dunn English, containing amongst other things the false, scandalous, malicious, defamatory and libellous matter following of and concerning the said plaintiff, that is to say: “I” (meaning one Thomas Dunn English) “hold Mr Poe's acknowledgment” (meaning the acknowledgment of the said plaintiff) “for a sum of money which he” (meaning the said plaintiff) “obtained of me” (meaning said Thomas Dunn English) “under false pretences,” thereby then and there meaning that the said plaintiff had obtained money under false pretences from the said Thomas Dunn English.
And the said plaintiff further saith that the said defendants further contriving and intending as aforesaid, heretofore, to wit, on the day and year last aforesaid, at the place last aforesaid, falsely, wickedly and maliciously did print and publish, and cause and procure to be printed and published, over the name of one Thomas Dunn English, a certain other false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory libel of and concerning the said plaintiff in a certain newspaper called the “Evening Mirror,” containing amongst other things the false, scandalous, malicious, defamatory and libellous matter following of and concerning the said plaintiff, that [page 81:] is to say: — “I” (meaning one Thomas Dunn English) “know Mr Poe” (meaning the said plaintiff) “by a succession of his acts” (meaning the acts of said plaintiff) “one of which is rather costly. I” (meaning said Thomas Dunn English) “hold Mr Poe's acknowledgment” (meaning the acknowledgment of said plaintiff) “for a sum of money which he” (meaning the said plaintiff) “obtained of me” (meaning said Thomas Dunn English) “under false pretences” (meaning that said plaintiff had obtained money from said Thomas Dunn English by the false pretences of said plaintiff). “Another act of his” (meaning another act of the said plaintiff) “gave me” (meaning the said Thomas Dunn English) “some knowledge of him” (meaning said plaintiff). “A merchant of this City” (meaning a merchant of the City of New York) “had accused him” (meaning the said plaintiff) “of committing forgery. He” (meaning the said plaintiff) “consulted me” (meaning the said Thomas Dunn English) “on the mode of punishing his accuser” (meaning the said merchant) “and as he” (meaning the said plaintiff) “was afraid to challenge him” (meaning said merchant) “to the field or chastise him” (meaning said merchant) “personally, I” (meaning the said Thomas Dunn English) “suggested a legal prosecution as his sole remedy” (meaning the sole remedy of the said plaintiff). “At his request” (meaning the request of the said plaintiff) “I” (meaning the said Thomas Dunn English) “obtained a counsellor who was willing as a compliment to me” (meaning the said English) “to conduct his suit” (meaning the suit of the said plaintiff) “without the customary retaining fee. But though so eager at first to commence proceedings, he” (meaning the said plaintiff) “dropped the matter altogether when the time came for him” (meaning the said plaintiff) “to act — thus virtually admitting the truth of the charge.” And thereby then and there meaning that he, the said plaintiff, had been accused of forgery, and had been charged with the crime of forgery by a merchant of the City of New York, and that the said plaintiff had virtually admitted the truth of such charge, by means of the committing of which said several grievances by the said defendants as aforesaid, he, the said plaintiff, hath been and is greatly injured in his said good name, fame and credit and brought into public scandal, infamy and disgrace with and amongst all his neighbors, and other good and worthy citizens of this State, insomuch that divers of these neighbors and citizens, to whom the innocence and integrity of the said plaintiff in the premises were unknown, have, on occasion of the committing of the said grievances by the said defendants as aforesaid, [page 82:] from thence hitherto suspected and believe and still do suspect and believe the said plaintiff to have been a person guilty of obtaining money under false pretences, and of the offences and misconduct as aforesaid charged upon and imputed to the said plaintiff, and have, by reason of the committing of the said grievances by the said defendants as aforesaid, from thence hitherto wholly refused and still do refuse to have any transaction, acquaintance or discourse with him, the said plaintiff, as they were before used and accustomed to have and otherwise would have had; and the said plaintiff hath been and is by means of the premises otherwise greatly injured, to wit, at the City and in the County of New York aforesaid and within the jurisdiction of this Court aforesaid.
And whereas also the said plaintiff now is a good, true, honest, just and faithful citizen, and as such hath always behaved and conducted himself, and until the committing of the several grievances by the said defendants, as hereinafter mentioned, was always reputed, esteemed and accepted by and amongst all his neighbors, and other good and worthy citizens of this State to whom he was in anywise know[n], to be a person of good name, fame and credit, to wit, at the City and in the County of New York aforesaid and within the jurisdiction of this Court; and whereas also the said plaintiff hath not ever been guilty or until the time of the committing of the said several grievances by the said defendants, as hereinafter mentioned, been suspected to have been guilty of obtaining money under false pretences or of the offences and misconduct hereinafter mentioned to have been charged and imputed to the said plaintiff or of any other such offences and misconduct, by means of which said premises, he, the said plaintiff, before the committing of the said several grievances by the said defendants, as hereinafter mentioned, had deservedly obtained the good opinion of all his neighbors and other good and worthy citizens to whom he was in anywise known, to wit, at the City and in the County of New York aforesaid and within the jurisdiction of this Court. Yet the said defendants, well knowing the premises but greatly envying the happy state and condition of the said plaintiff, and contriving and wickedly and maliciously intending to injure the said plaintiff in his said good name, fame and credit, and to bring him into public scandal, infamy and disgrace with and amongst all his neighbors and other good and worthy citizens of this State, and to cause it to be suspected and believed by those neighbors and citizens that he, the said plaintiff, had been guilty of [page 83:] obtaining money under false pretences, and of the offences and misconduct hereinafter mentioned to have been imputed to him, and to subject him to the pains and penalties of the laws of this State made and provided against and inflicted upon persons guilty thereof, and to vex, harass, oppress, impoverish and wholly ruin him, the said plaintiff, heretofore, to wit, on the twenty-seventh day of June in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-six, at the City and in the County of New York aforesaid, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, falsely, wickedly and maliciously did print and publish and cause and procure to be printed and published of and concerning the said plaintiff in a certain newspaper called the “Weekly Mirror” over the name of one Thomas Dunn English a certain other false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory libel concerning amongst other things the false, scandalous, malicious, defamatory and libellous matter following of and concerning the said plaintiff, that is to say: “I” (meaning one Thomas Dunn English) “hold Mr Poe's acknowledgment” (meaning the acknowledgment of the said plaintiff) “for a sum of money which he” (meaning the said plaintiff) “obtained of me” (meaning said Thomas Dunn English) “under false pretences,” thereby then and there meaning that the said plaintiff had obtained money under false pretences from the said Thomas Dunn English.
And the said plaintiff further saith that the said defendants further contriving and intending as aforesaid, heretofore, to wit, on the day and year last aforesaid, at the place last aforesaid, falsely, wickedly and maliciously did print and publish and cause and procure to be printed and published over the name of one Thomas Dunn English a certain other false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory libel of and concerning the said plaintiff in a certain newspaper called the “Weekly Mirror,” containing amongst other things the false, scandalous, malicious, defamatory and libellous matter of and concerning the said plaintiff, that is to say: “I” (meaning one Thomas Dunn English) “know Mr Poe” (meaning the said plaintiff) “by a succession of his acts” (meaning the acts of said plaintiff) “one of which is rather costly: I” (meaning said Thomas Dunn English) “hold Mr Poe's acknowledgment” (meaning the acknowledgment of said plaintiff) “for a sum of money which he” (meaning the said plaintiff) “obtained of me” (meaning said Thomas Dunn English) “under false pretences” (meaning that said plaintiff had obtained money from said Thomas Dunn English by the false pretences of said plaintiff). “Another act of [page 84:] his” (meaning another act of the said plaintiff) “gave me” (meaning the said Thomas Dunn English) “some knowledge of him” (meaning the said plaintiff). “A merchant of this City” (meaning a merchant of the City of New York) “had accused him” (meaning the said plaintiff) “of committing forgery. He” (meaning the said plaintiff) “consulted me” (meaning the said Thomas Dunn English) “on the mode of punishing his accuser” (meaning the said merchant) “and as he” (meaning the said plaintiff) “was afraid to challenge him” (meaning said merchant) “to the field or chastise him” (meaning said merchant) “personally, I” (meaning the said Thomas Dunn English) “obtained a counsellor who was willing as a compliment to me” (meaning the said English) “to conduct his suit” (meaning the suit of the said plaintiff) “without the customary retaining fee. But though so eager at first to commence proceedings, he” (meaning the said plaintiff) “dropped the matter altogether when the time came for him” (meaning the said plaintiff) “to act — thus virtually admitting the truth of the charge,” and thereby then and there meaning that he, the said plaintiff, had been accused of forgery, and had been charged with the crime of forgery, by a merchant of the City of New York, and that the said plaintiff had virtually admitted the truth of such charge, by means of the committing of which said several grievances by the said defendants as aforesaid, he, the said plaintiff, hath been and is greatly injured in his said good name, fame and credit and brought into public scandal, infamy and disgrace with and amongst all his neighbors, and other good and worthy citizens of this State, insomuch that divers of these neighbors and citizens, to whom the innocence and integrity of the said plaintiff in the premises were unknown, have, on occasion of the committing of the said grievances by the said defendants as aforesaid, from thence hitherto suspected and believed and still do suspect and believe the said plaintiff to have been a person guilty of obtaining money under false pretences and of the offences and misconduct as aforesaid charged upon and imputed to the said plaintiff, and have by reason of the committing of the said grievances by the said defendants as aforesaid, from thence hitherto wholly refused and still do refuse to have any transaction, acquaintance or discourse with him, the said plaintiff, as they were used and accustomed to have and otherwise would have; and the said plaintiff hath been and is by means of the premises otherwise greatly injured, to wit, at the City and in the County of New York aforesaid [page 85:] and within the jurisdiction of this Court aforesaid, to the damage of the said plaintiff of five thousand dollars, and therefore he brings suit, &c.
| [struck out] | [ E. L. Fancher [ plaintiffs attorney |
——————————————
38. 23 July 1846: “Godey's Magazine for August”
Hiram Fuller
[The evening of the day Poe's Declaration of Grievances was filed in court, Fuller vituperated Poe again. Among other things, he asserted that Poe's “habit of misrepresentation is ... confirmed, and malignity ... is a part of his nature. ...”
Miss Fuller, of course, is Margaret Fuller, whom Poe treated generously in a “Literati” sketch. General Wetmore is Prosper M. Wetmore, whose Lexington and Other Fugitive Poems had “considerable merit,” according to Poe. Mrs. Kirkland is Caroline M. Kirkland, well known for her narratives of the frontier, A New Home — Who'll Follow?, Forest Life, and Western Clearings. If only because she was the wife of William Kirkland (see headnote to Document 8), Fuller was bound to be pleased with Poe's gracious treatment of her, just as he was bound as an adversary to say that Poe had “stumbled upon the truth” of her merits “by some fortunate accident. ...”
Poe, in lauding Margaret Fuller's review of Longfellow's Poems in the Daily Tribune of 10 December 1845 — which he correctly said was “frank, candid, independent, ... giving honor only where honor was due” — made the remarks that Fuller attributes to him. But Poe did not insinuate, as Fuller asserts, that Longfellow's Poems (1845) was published at his own expense. Poe only “insinuated” that Longfellow had recently published collections of other people's poems, namely, The Waif: A Collection of Poems (1844, dated 1845), Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845), and The Estray: A Collection of Poems (1846).
Fuller singled out Poe for condemnation this time rather than the bulk of the contents of Godey's Lady's Book because, according to the report in the Home Journal of July 25, the August number was “beyond all dispute ... a brilliant one.”
The article below also appeared in the Weekly Mirror on August 1.] [page 86:]
GODEY'S MAGAZINE FOR AUGUST. — ... Mr Poe continues his Honest Opinions of the New York Literati in this number. In serving up Miss Fuller of the Tribune, and General Wetmore of the Navy Department, he has followed the recipe for preserving plums and quinces, and has ‘done them up’ in their own weight of sugar, although it is not exactly double refined. He has stumbled upon the truth by some fortunate accident, and spoken of Mrs. Kirkland in a manner to which her merits entitle her. The other articles in Mr. Godey's Magazine we will notice hereafter if we should ever read them. ...
Mr. Poe's habit of misrepresentation is so confirmed, and malignity is so much a part of his nature, that he continually goes out of his way to do ill-natured things, when nothing can be gained by it. In his essay upon Miss F., he has the following lying insinuations about Mr. Longfellow: —
‘Mr Longfellow is entitled to a certain and very distinguished rank among the poets of his country, but that country is disgraced by the evident toadyism which would award to his social position and influence, to his fine paper and large type, to his morocco binding and gilt edges, to his flattering portraits of himself, and to the illustrations of his poems by Huntingdon, that amount of indiscriminate approbation which neither could nor would have been given to the poems themselves.’
He also speaks of ‘Professor Longfellow's magnificent edition of his own works, with a portrait,’ meaning to insinuate that Carey & Hart's edition of Longfellow's Poems was published at the expense of the author.
For a man like Poe to talk of toadyism while penning such transparent adulations as are contained in this number of Godey's Lady's Book, is a very amusing spectacle to say the least of it. What does he mean by Professor Longfellow's portrait of himself?
——————————————
39. 24 July 1846: “Edgar A. Poe”
Hiram Fuller
[The day after Poe's attorney filed Poe's Declaration of Grievances in court, Fuller announced the fact that Poe “has commenced a suit against us for a libel” and suggested dire exposure should the case come to trial, [page 87:] as well as the possibility of his bringing countersuits “against some of Mr. Poe's publishers for his scurrillous libels on us.” The only time Poe had mentioned Fuller in print was in his “Reply to Mr. English and Others.” The worst thing he said of him was that he had “prostituted his filthy sheet” to the circulation of English's calumny, hardly a libelous statement or one that involved more publishers than John S. Du Solle who had printed “Poe's Reply” in his Spirit of the Times. Moreover, as was established in court, Fuller did not print English's “Reply to Mr. Poe” “as an advertisement,” as he alleges here. Though he had assigned the word “Card” to the article as a way of designating an advertisement, he had not charged English to have his reply printed.
Fuller seemed not to be averse to libel suits in principle. Only recently he had challenged James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald to “state in his paper that the Editor of the Evening Mirror was ever concerned in any ‘black mail transaction,”’ in which case Fuller would “bring an action for libel, and allow Bennett an opportunity to prove his charges” (Weekly Mirror, 30 May 1846).]
EDGAR A. POE has commenced a suit against us for a libel contained in a Card of Thomas Dunn English, which was copied from the Morning Telegraph, and published in the Mirror as an advertisement. We do not hold ourselves responsible for Mr. English's charges against Mr. Poe, but if the latter gentleman chooses to take the matter into Court, we shall not shrink from the trial. We are confident that his attorney cannot be aware of the testimony he will have to meet in the progress of the suit. In the meantime we may be compelled in self-defence to instigate counter proceedings against some of Mr. Poe's publishers for his scurrillous libels on us. We have hitherto deemed it best to treat him as one morally irresponsible.
——————————————
40. 25 July 1846: “A new Chesterfield”
Hiram Fuller
[Fuller took a satirical tack in the article reprinted below. He attributed to Poe an unsigned two-page filler in Godey's Lady's Book entitled “A Few Words on Etiquette” and proceeded to quote its various banalities. [page 88:]
“Innocent women” is an allusion to Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet; the “friend” is Thomas Dunn English.]
A NEW CHESTERFIELD. — The August number of Mr. Godey's Magazine contains a paper on etiquette, by Mr. Poe. It does not bear his signature, but it was written by him, and is almost equal to ... Chesterfield. Some of the maxims in this essay are quite up to Rochefoucauld — for instance: ‘A visit should always be returned; an insult never overlooked.’ The style of your conversation should always be in keeping with the character of your visit.’ ‘Familiarity of manner is the greatest vice of society.’ ‘Never use the term genteel.’ ‘Never ask a lady any question about anything whatever.’ ....
These maxims are excellent, and as they say in the Bowery, hard to beat. ... These new hints on etiquette should be immediately stereotyped, and hung up in all our primary schools and seminaries for young gentlemen. Think of the enormity of wearing white trowsers of a Sunday! or green spectacles on any day, or of touching any part of a lady but her fingers! But to use the word genteel, Good gracious! We didn’t know before that that was such a profane word. To get drunk, to curse and swear, to slander innocent women, to betray your friend, are trifles, in comparison with such an offence.
——————————————
41. 30 July 1846: Letter to Poe
William Gilmore Simms
[Simms, the South Carolina novelist who was a literary ally of Poe rather than his friend, was in New York during June and July 1846 to see a book through the press. Poe recognized that he desperately needed help in what was coming to be a life-or-death struggle for him in the jungle of journalism. As he acknowledged in his Declaration of Grievances, a declaration that should be discounted somewhat for its exaggerations: those “to whom the innocence and integrity of the ... plaintiff ... were un-‘known” have “refused and still do refuse to have any transaction, acquaintance or discourse with him ... as they were before used and accustomed to have and otherwise would have. ...” Poe therefore wrote to Simms, knowing that the novelist resented the New York literary clique [page 89:] as much as himself. Simms had been of help to him in the previous year. When Boston editors were harassing him because of his alleged hoax at the Boston Lyceum, Simms came to his aid in a long defense in the Charleston Southern Patriot of 10 November 1845, a defense that Poe quoted in full in the Broadway Journal of 22 November 1845.
Though Poe's letters to Sirnms are lost, the help he wanted at this time is easy to infer from Simms's response. Poe wanted the novelist to offset the abusive comments of Lewis Clark, Hiram Fuller, and Thomas Dunn English by writing a flattering notice of “The Literati” sketches and of their author, especially in regard to his personal appearance. Moreover, as before, he wanted permission to quote Simms's remarks, this time by Godey. Simms, however, obeying “a law of my own nature,” could not accede to Poe's wishes with a clear conscience. Instead, he read Poe a lecture on his conduct and character. Furthermore, being a “Southern man,” he did not wish the “intolerable grievance” of “being mixed up in a squabble with persons whom he does not know, and does not care to know, — and from whom no Alexandrine process of cutting loose, would be permitted. ...” Poe did not publish any of Simms's remarks; in fact, he seems to have been offended by them, for there is no evidence that he wrote to Simms again.
Simms's advice that Poe cherish his wife and “trample those temptations underfoot, which degrade your person, and make it familiar to the mouth of vulgar jest,” has to do with Poe's romantic involvement with Mrs. Osgood, which had become common gossip in the small literary world of New York, especially as the malicious Mrs. Ellet was devoting her energies to vilifying both of them.
Poe obviously did not attempt to see Simms in downtown New York. Pleading illness as usual, he probably asked the novelist to visit him in Fordham, as Simms's postscript suggests.
This letter, printed here with all its original errors, appears in Oliphant et al., II, 174-7.]
New York July 30. 1846
Edgar A Poe, Esq.
Dear Sir
I recieved [[received]] your note a week ago, and proceeded at once to answer it, but being in daily expectation of a newspaper from the South, to which, in a Letter, I had communicated a paragraph concerning the matter [page 90:] which you had suggested in a previous letter, I determined to wait until I could enclose it to you. It has been delayed somewhat longer than I had anticipated, and has in part caused my delay to answer you. I now send it you, and trust that it will answer the desired purpose; though I must frankly say that I scarcely see the necessity of noticing the sort of scandal to which you refer. — I note with regret the very desponding character of your last letter. I surely need not tell you how deeply & sincerely I deplore the misfortunes which attend you — the more so as I see no process for your relief and, extrication but such as must result from your own decision and resolve. No friend can well help you in the struggle which is before you. Money, no doubt, can be procured; but this is not altogether what you require. Sympathy may soothe the hurts of Self-Esteem, and make a man temporarily forgetful of his assailants; — but in what degree will this avail, and for how long, in the protracted warfare of twenty or thirty years. You are still a very young man, and one too largely & too variously endowed, not to entertain the conviction — as your friends entertain it — of a long & manful struggle with, and a final victory over, fortune. But this warfare, the world requires you to carry on with your own unassisted powers. It is only in your manly resolution to use these powers, after a legitimate fashion, that it will countenance your claims to its regards & sympathy; and I need not tell you how rigid & exacting it has ever been in the case of the poetical genius, or, indeed, the genius of any order. Suffer me to tell you frankly, taking the privilege of a true friend, that you are now perhaps in the most perilous period of your career — just in that position — just at that time of life — when a false step becomes a capital error — when a single leading mistake is fatal in its consequences. You are no longer a boy. “At thirty wise or never!” You must subdue your impulses; &, in particular, let me exhort you to discard all associations with men, whatever their talents, whom you cannot esteem as men. Pardon me for presuming thus to counsel one whose great natural & acquired resources should make him rather the teacher of others. But I obey a law of my own nature, and it is because of my sympathies that I speak. Do not suppose yourself abandoned by the worthy and honorable among your friends. They will be glad to give you wel come if you will suffer them. They will rejoice — I know their feelings and hear their language — to countenance your return to that community — that moral province in society — of which, let me say to you, respectfully and regretfully, — you have been, according to all reports but too heedlessly [page 91:] and, perhaps, too scornfully indifferent. Remain in obscurity for awhile. You have a young wife — I am told a suffering & interesting one, — let me entreat you to cherish her, and to cast away those pleasures which are not worthy of your mind, and to trample those temptations underfoot, which degrade your person, and make it familiar to the mouth of vulgar jest. You may [do] all this, by a little circumspection. It is still within your power. Your resources from literature are probably much greater than mine. I am sure they are quite as great. You can increase them, so that they shall be ample for all your legitimate desires; but you must learn the worldling's lesson of prudence; — a lesson, let me add, which the literary world has but too frequently & unwisely disparaged. It may seem to you very impertinent, — in most cases it is impertinent — that he who gives nothing else, should presume to give counsel. But one gives that which he can most spare, and you must not esteem me indifferent to a condition which I can in no other way assist. I have never been regardless of your genius, even when I knew nothing of your person. It is some years, since I counseled Mr. Godey to obtain the contributions of your pen. He will tell you this. I hear that you reproach him. But how can you expect a Magazine proprietor to encourage contributions which embroil him with all his neighbours. These broils do you no good — vex your temper, destroy your peace of mind, and hurt your reputation. You have abundant resources upon which to draw even were there no Grub Street in Gotham. Change your tactics & begin a new series of papers with your publisher. — The printed matter which I send you, might be quoted by Godey, and might be ascribed to me. But, surely, I need not say to you that, to a Southern man, the annoyance of being mixed up in a squabble with persons whom he does not know, and does not care to know, — and from whom no Alexandrine process of cutting loose, would be permitted. by society — would be an intolerable grievance. I submit to frequent injuries & misrepresentations, content, though annoyed by the slaver, that the viper should amuse himself upon the file, at the expense of his own teeth. As a man, as a writer, I shall always be solicitous of your reputation & success. You have but to resolve on taking & asserting your position, equally in the social & the literary world, and your way is clear, your path is easy, and you will find true friends enough to sympathize in your triumphs. Very Sincerely though Sorrowfully, Yr frd & Servt.
W Gilmore Simms [page 92:]
P.S. If I could I should have been to see you. But I have been & am still drudging in the hands of the printers, kept busily employed night and day. Besides, my arrangements are to hurry back to the South where I have a sick family. A very few days will turn my feet in that direction.
——————————————
42. 20 July 1846: “From our Correspondent”
William Gilmore Simms
[In the foregoing letter to Poe, Simms remarked that he was enclosing some “printed matter,” a paragraph of which had been suggested by Poe “in a previous letter. ...” The “printed matter” had appeared anonymously in the Charleston Southern Patriot on July 20, though it was dated July 15, the time when Simms had sent the article to the newspaper. The paragraph on Poe, buried among other literary gossip, was neither an endorsement of “The Literati” sketches nor of their author. Poe must have been badly disappointed at what he probably regarded as Simms's squeamishness or cowardice and, of course, was hardly tempted to have Godey use the material.
Simms's remark that Poe was suffering from “brain fever” had been widely circulated in New York. As early as 12 April 1846 the Saint Louis Reveille wrote: “A rumor is in circulation in New York, to the effect that Mr. Edgar A. Poe, the poet and author, has become deranged, and his friends are about to place him under the charge of Dr. Brigham, of the Insane Retreat at Utica. We sincerely hope that this is not true; indeed we feel assured that it is altogether an invention.” Similarly, the New Orleans Daily Picayune of 14 May 1846 noticed that Poe “is sojourning in a retired part of Long Island, where he is still suffering from an attack of brain fever. So says the correspondent of the North American.” Simms himself in a letter dated 15 May 1846 reported: “... I see by one of the papers that it was gravely thought to send P. to Bedlam” (Oliphant et al., II, 163). And the New York Morning News as late as 24 July 1846 noted: “Poe is ill, we hear, of a brain fever.” The basis for this rumor was that Poe had had Dr. John W. Francis certify him as temporarily insane in order to provide him with an alibi for having asserted that Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet had written compromising letters to him (see headnote to Document [page 93:] 89) and that he had moved to Fordham. Needless to say, Poe had never been committed to an insane asylum.
Simms's entire article is presented here to indicate how he managed to introduce his comments on one of the “petty excitements” of the New York literary scene.]
NEW YORK, July 15.
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT. — I do not know that there is any thing in the literary world to interest you. At this moment, every thing in letters is particularly dull. Some personal items may give you pleasure. Washington Irving is expected daily from Europe. It is not understood that he has been doing any thing lately. He has it is said, had a work on hand for some time, but delays its publication to more auspicious seasons. Miss J. [sic] Margaret Fuller, the author of “Woman in the Nineteenth Century,” and several other works of contemplative morality — a woman of real ability and thought — is about to sail on a two years tour in Europe. Wiley & Putnam have in preparation, two pretty volumes from her pen, the subjects of which are chiefly drawn from art and literature [Papers on Literature and Art, 1846]. She was a writer for the “Dial,” one of those Boston Periodicals which our world styled transcendental, and the aim of which seems to have been spiritual progress. Mr. Cooper appears in a few days with a novel called “The Red Skins” — a title the taste of which seems very questionable. He is just now, we believe, at Philadelphia. His biographies of our naval heroes, of which two volumes have been published, have been quite successful, and deserved to be so. Mr. N. P. Willis, who is undoubtedly one of our most happy Magazine writers, is rusticating, we are told, in most unwonted obscurity. His chief literary employment seems to be in contributing in the form of correspondence, to one of the London Newspapers. His letters, which I have not seen, are said to be of the same staple with his well known productions of the same class and character, and to be equally worthy with them of the reader and himself. Fitz Greene Halleck is still banking, and likely to be so till the end of the chapter. The story of his getting up a newspaper was, to those who know, mere nonsense. His poems, however, are about to undergo illustrations like those of Bryant and Longfellow. His publishers are Appleton & Co. Bryant is looking well, but doing nothing for poetry. He works all the week at the Evening Post, and hurries down on Saturday to his delightful farm, Spring Bank, Long Island. Goodwin [Parke Godwin], his [page 94:] son-in-law, is busy preparing the Autobiography of Goethe, — a work which is due, at once, to the claims of the author, and the desires of the public. It is for Wiley & Putnam's Library. Goodwin will give us a good translation. Among the petty excitements common to authorship is that which Mr. Edgar A. Poe is producing by his pencil sketches of the New York Literati in Godey's Ladies Magazine. He has succeeded most happily (if such was the object), in fluttering the pigeons of this dove cote. His sketches, of which we have seen but a few, are given to a delineation as well of the persons as of the performances of his subjects. Some of them are amusing enough. I am not prepared to say how true are his sketches, but they have caused no little rattling among the dry bones of our Grub street. Of Poe, as a writer, we know something. He is undoubtedly a man of very peculiar and very considerable genius — but is irregular and exceedingly mercurial in his temperament. He is fond of mystifying in his stories, and they tell me, practises upon this plan even in his sketches; more solicitous, as they assert, of a striking picture than a likeness. Poe, himself, is a very good looking fellow. I have seen him on two or three occasions, and have enjoyed a good opportunity of examining him carefully. He is probably thirty three or four years old, some five, feet eight inches in height, of rather slender person, with a good eye, and a broad intelligent forehead. He is a man, clearly, of sudden and uneven impulses [,] of great nervous susceptibility, and one whose chief misfortune it is not to have been caught young and trained carefully. The efforts of his mind seem wholly spasmodic. He lacks habitual industry, I take it, which, in the case of the library [sic] man who must look to his daily wits for his daily bread, is something of a deficiency. He, also, is in obscurity, somewhere in the country, and sick, according to a report which reached me yesterday, of brain fever. By the way, the news from the West is that Henry R. Schoolcraft, the well known writer and Indian Agent has been murdered by a drunken savage at Sault de St. Marie. I trust that this report will turn out false. Schoolcraft's Algic Researches are of great value, and will rise in value as the aborignies [sic] disappear. He was for thirty years an Indian Agent under Government, married an Indian wife, and was admitted to all their mysteries. He was a gentleman of very respectable researches, considerable merit as a writer and of great industry. He had but just completed an elaborate report upon the Indian tribes of the State of New York. His most elaborate and valuable works are “Algic Researches” and “Oneota.” We are pleased to see that Nathaniel [page 95:] Hawthorne, one of our most original writers, has been permitted to dip his spoon into the treasury dishes — having received some appointment in the Customs in New England. This is as it should be. Hawthorne's volume just published by Wiley & Putnam, “The Mosses from an old Manse,” is full of fresh and pleasant reading. The “Pictures of Italy,” by Dickens, do not afford me pleasure. They seem laborious and strained. But they will be read on trust, — a sort of reading which never burdens the memory. A less artistical, but more readable book, is that just issued by Harper & Brothers, called “The Shores of the Mediterranean,” by Francis Schroeder. It is light and sketchy, and if it taxes no thought, it at least provokes no dullness. It is a pleasant feature of these two volumes, the pictures which illustrate the most striking objects, from the pencil of the author. To those who travel there is no companion or auxiliary more commendable than the art of sketching. The on dit here is that a new “Punch” [Yankee Doodle] is about to be started in this city. We have heard something of the plan and the parties, but are permitted to say no more at present. They tell also of a new Monthly Magazine, to be sent forth from Manhatten, which is to confound and delight the natives. If it appears under the management named for it, and with the designated list of contributors, it will not improbably effect this object.
——————————————
43. 4 August 1846: Preliminary Hearing in New York City Hall of the Case of Edgar A. Poe vs. Hiram Fuller and Augustus W. Clason, Jr.
[At this hearing Fuller and Clason, represented by their attorney William H. Paine, pleaded not guilty to the charge of libel on the grounds that the statements they had printed in the Mirror were true. Poe's attorney for his part argued that those statements were false and therefore libelous. In consequence, the Court ordered the trial set for the “first Monday of September next,” which was September 7.]
And now at this day, that is to say, on the fourth day of August, of August term in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-six, to which day the said defendants had leave to imparle to the declaration aforesaid, and then to answer the same before the Justices aforesaid at the City Hall in the City of New York; comes as well the said plaintiff [page 96:] by his attorney aforesaid, as the aforesaid defendants by William H. Paine, their attorney.
And the said defendants, Hiram Fuller and Augustus W. Clason, Junior, by their attorney, William H. Paine, come and defend the wrong and injury, when, &c:
And say that they are not nor is either of them guilty of the premises above laid to their charge, in manner and form as the said plaintiff in this suit hath above thereof complained against them; and of this they put themselves upon the Country, and the said plaintiff likewise, &c. And for a further plea in this behalf, the said defendants, by leave of the Court here for this purpose first had and obtained, according to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, say that the said plaintiff ought not to have or maintain his aforesaid action thereof against them, the said defendants, because they say that the said plaintiff, before the printing and publishing or causing to be printed and published in a certain newspaper called the “Evening Mirror,” the said several words concerning the said plaintiff, as is said [in the] first count of said declaration mentioned, did obtain of one Thomas Dunn English a certain sum of money under false pretences; and that the said plaintiff was accused of forgery by a gentleman of the City of New York, and that the said plaintiff was advised by one Thomas Dunn English to commence a suit for the injury sustained thereby, and that the said plaintiff did commence a suit and abandon the same, thereby virtually admitting the truth of said charge of forgery.
And as to the second plea count in the said declaration mentioned, the said defendants say that the said plaintiff ought not to have or maintain his said action against the said defendants because they say that the said plaintiff, before the printing and publishing, or causing to be printed and published in a certain newspaper published in the City of New York, called the “Weekly Mirror,” the said several words of and concerning the said plaintiff, as in said second count of said declaration mentioned, did obtain of one Thomas Dunn English a certain sum of money under false pretences, and that the said plaintiff was accused of forgery by a gentleman in the City of New York, and that the said plaintiff, by the advice and with the aid of one Thomas Dunn English, did commence a legal prosecution for the damage by said plaintiff thereby sustained; and that the said plaintiff did abandon the said suit, thereby virtually admitting the truth of said charge of forgery. [page 97:]
Wherefore the said defendants afterwards, to wit, at the City and within the County of New York, did print and publish and cause to be printed and published the said words in said several counts of said declaration mentioned, of and concerning the said plaintiff, as they lawfully might, for cause aforesaid, and this they are ready to verify.
Wherefore they pray judgment that the said plaintiff ought [not] to have or maintain his aforesaid action thereof against them, &c &c.
And the said plaintiff, as to the said plea of the said defendants by them secondly above pleaded, saith that the said plaintiff by reason of anything by the said defendants in that plea alleged ought not to be barred from having or maintaining his aforesaid action thereof against the said defendants, because he saith that the said plaintiff, before the printing or causing to be printed and published in a certain newspaper called the “Evening Mirror” the said several words concerning the said plaintiff, as in said first count of said declaration mentioned, did not obtain of one Thomas Dunn English a certain or any sum of money under false pretences; nor was the said plaintiff accused of forgery by a gentleman of the City of New York or advised by one Thomas Dunn English to commence a suit for the injury sustained thereby; [n] or commence suit and abandon the same; nor did the said plaintiff thereby or otherwise virtually admit the truth of said charge of forgery in manner and form as the said defendants bath above, in their said second plea in that behalf, alleged; and this, the said plaintiff prays, may be enquired of by the Country; and the said defendants likewise, &c.
And the said plaintiff, as to the said plea of the said defendants by them thirdly above pleaded, that the said plaintiff by reason of anything by the said defendants in that plea alleged ought not to be barred from having and maintaining his aforesaid action thereof against the said defendants, because he saith that the said plaintiff, before the printing and publishing in a certain newspaper published in the City of New York called the “Weekly Mirror” the said several words of and concerning the said plaintiff, as in said second count of said declaration mentioned, did not obtain of one Thomas Dunn English a certain or any sum of money under false pretences; nor was the said plaintiff accused of forgery by a gentleman in the City of New York; nor did the said plaintiff by the advice or with the aid of one Thomas Dunn English commence a legal prosecution for the damage thereby sustained by said plaintiff or abandon the suit; nor did the said plaintiff thereby or otherwise virtually admit [page 98:] the truth of said charge of forgery, in manner and form as the said defendants in this said third plea have above in that behalf alleged; and this the said plaintiff prays may be inquired of by the Country and the said defendants likewise, &c.
Therefore the issue above joined is ordered by the said Superior Court of the City of New York to be tried at the term of the said Court appointed to be held at the City Hall in the City of New York before the Justices aforesaid on the first Monday of September next. The same day is given to the parties aforesaid at the same place.
——————————————
44. 27 August 1846: “Godey's Magazine, for September”
Hiram Fuller
[Fuller continued to be critical of Godey's Lady's Book inasmuch as Poe's “Literati” sketches were still appearing in its pages. His squib, that Poe in “scanning the verse of Mrs. Osgood ... is quite at home,” is a double entendre. For Poe's sarcastic remarks about Lewis Clark, see the head-note to Document 50.
The article below also appeared in the Weekly Mirror on September 5.]
Godey's Magazine, for September, is very much of a muchness with thepast numbers; the proprietor will still persist in Americanising the Paris fashions, and Mr. Poe will go on with his pedantic sketches of our literati. His remarks on Mrs. [sic] Gould are evidently well intended. He describes her personal appearance with a flippant inaccuracy: it is possible that he has never seen her. In scanning the verses of Mrs. Osgood he is quite at home. His remarks about Mr. Clark of the Knickerbocker are probably intended to be sarcastic, but sarcasm is Mr. Poe's weakness....
——————————————
45. 5 September 1846: An Installment of 1844; or, The Power of the “S.F.”
Thomas Dunn English
[At this juncture Hiram Fuller began to serialize on the front pages of both the Evening Mirror and Weekly Mirror an anonymous novel entitled [page 99:] 1844; or, The Power of the “S.F.” The authorship of the novel was a well-kept secret even at a time when literary secrets were all but impossible to keep among the New York literati. According to Godey's Lady's Book of July 1847, “the authorship was attributed to many celebrated authors” during the time 1844 ran in the Mirrors. Only when the novel appeared in book form in 1847 did its author become known. It was, of course, Thomas Dunn English.
“S.F.” stands for “Startled Falcon,” a secret organization whose purpose was to swing the election of 1844 to the Democrats. (Yankee Doodle, a weekly journal edited by the Duyckinck circle, alleged that “Poh” wanted to know if “S.F.” stood for “Stupid Fiction.”) The locale is New York City, and the multitudinous episodes are concerned with crime, political intrigue, and love. English at times introduced satirical sketches of the well known and the not so well known. Among the lesser lights are Mrs. Elizabeth Ellet, who is called Mrs. Grodenap and hails from South Carolina, and Mrs. Frances Osgood disguised as Mrs. Flighty and described as “one of our poetesses ... and the best imitator of Mother Goose.” Among the better known persons satirized are Margaret Fuller and Horace Greeley. Miss Fuller appears briefly as the authoress of Women in the Present Day (the real title of her book is Woman in the Nineteenth Century). Of this book one character remarks: It is “a work which, to understand properly, you must commence at the middle, and read backwards to the beginning, then jump to the end and read backwards to the middle. In that way I managed to explain to myself a great deal of what was otherwise inexplicable.” Greeley of the Tribune appears as Satisfaction Sawdust, “editor of the ‘Sly Coon.’ ” Apart from being portrayed as ineffably ugly, the head of Sawdust is said to be “filled with crotchets of every description” — philanthropy, Transcendentalism, hydropathy, Fourierism, worship of the Dial, opposition to the annexation of Texas, and compulsions to abolish the death penalty, slavery, and land titles; in short, the portrait of a man who “could swallow all the ‘isms’ that might arise, and after having bolted his meal, pick his teeth with the ‘ologies.’ ”
The person most sustainedly and savagely treated is Poe, who appears under the sobriquet of Marmaduke Hammerhead. All the episodes but one in which he appears are digressive to the rambling plot and the relevance of that one is questionable since almost any other character could have revealed the true identity of Hercules, one of the criminals featured in the work. [page 100:]
Both editions of the Mirror carried large advertisements of the serial with fair regularity, though the serial itself appeared irregularly; and in 1847 the novel was the first to be published in the Mirror Library. No doubt, as the Literary World of 6 June 1847 pointed out, the serial “attracted no little attention as a feuilleton in the New York Mirror”; no doubt too, in book form, it was, to quote the Literary World again, “probably destined to still more general circulation,” a circulation that damaged Poe's reputation still more.
My collation of the three versions discloses only slight and infrequent ‘variants. For the curious reader, references to the passages involving Hammerhead-Poe as they occur in these versions are given below. Since, as regards the Hammerhead episodes, there is only one major discrepancy between the Weekly Mirror and book versions, a discrepancy noted in its proper place, I have chosen to reprint the book version here.
The Appearance of Marmaduke Hammerhead in the Three Versions of 1844; or, The Power of the “S.F.”
|
As a serial in the Weekly Mirror |
As a serial in the unpaginated Evening Mirror |
As a book |
||||||
|
With authorship withheld, the serial began on 25 July 1846 (Vol. IV) and ended on 7 Nov. 1846 (Vol. V). 5 Sept. 1846, pp. 339-40. 19 Sept. 1846, pp. 371-2. 3 Oct. 1846, p. 403. 24 Oct. 1846, p. 36. 31 Oct. 1846,pp. 49-50. 7 Nov. 1846, p. 66. |
With authorship withheld, the serial began on 27 July 1846 (Vol. and ended 6 Nov. 1846 (Vol. V). 8 and 9 Sept. 1846. 23, 26, 28 Sept. 1846. 8 and 9 Oct. 1846. 31 Oct. 1846. 2 Nov. 1846. 6 Nov. 1846. |
With authorship identified, it appeared in the Mirror Library in late May or early June 1847. Part of chap. xvi, pp. 120-4. Parts of chap. xxiii, pp. 161-4, and of chap. xxiv, p. 170. Part of chap. xxix, pp. 206-8. Part of chap. xli, pp. 268-9. Part of chap. lxi, pp. 273-6. Part of “Chapter the Last,” p. 299. |
Some scholars, Willard Thorp and William Henry Gravely, Jr., among them, are convinced that English had earlier written a satirical sketch of Poe in a temperance tract called Walter Woolfe; or, The Doom of the Drinker (1847), a work that had originally appeared in the Cold Water Magazine in 1843. Like Poe's Fortunato, however, I have my doubts, for no single detail in the sketch nor the sketch as a whole points infallibly to Poe. There were, after all, critics other than Poe, a number of whom might have sat for that portrait. (See Princeton University Library Chronicle, 1943 and 1944, for the 1843 and 1847 versions of the sketch.)
If Walter Woolfe was really English's first satirical portrait of Poe, 1844 was not his last. In the John-Donkey, a humor magazine that English and George G. Foster edited from 1 January to 21 October 1848, English, among other editorial attacks on Poe, published another satirical portrait of the man in a fragmentary work called “The Untranslated Don Quixotte: The Adventures of Don Key Haughty.” The references to the “roll of manuscript,” “the minstrel of the Raven,” and the poem as “the rhythmical creation of beauty,” all point uneqivocally to Poe.]
“I’m nothing if not critical.” — Othello.
“TALKING of boots reminds me of a fish story,” says some prating gentleman, when about to inflict a tedious narrative upon an unfortunate victim. Our transition is not less abrupt — from a dance-house at Pete Williams’, in the Five Points, to a conversazione in one of our fashionable avenues. Yet it is necessary, or we should not make the change; and be it understood by all persons, little or great, that we intend telling our story in our own way, and snap our fingers in the face of the critics.
The Misses Veryblue were four young ladies, who possessed an intense admiration of all men and women who had acquired notoriety in literature, science, or the arts. Their weekly conversazione was a kind of jardin des plantes within whose bounds roared, frisked and gambolled various lions, old and young, collected from all parts of the Union, with not a few from other quarters of the globe. The beasts were exhibited weekly — not to be fed — since to gorge them were to prevent their roaring — but to be caressed and petted exceedingly by hosts of admiring young ladies. As this happy country produces lions in great abundance, who can either tear and rage in right royal fashion, or roar you like Nick Bottom's, “as gently as a sucking dove,” of course the Misses Veryblue had no difficulty whatever in obtaining tenants to their menagerie. [page 102:]
On one evening in the latter part of September — we will not be particular as to dates, however, (our organ of time being rated by Mr. Fowler at “1”) — a number of visiters were collected at the house of the Misses Very blue. They were divided into groups, and the women (we bless them, dear little toads, as a widower should,) outnumbered the sterner sex in the proportion of two to one. Among the latter were Danby, Blair, the two O’Conors, John Melton, and Ivory. The latter acted as a kind of cicerone to Danby, and after a general introduction, informed him of the name, character, and quality of those around him. As it may save us considerable trouble, we may as well report a part of his information, and adopt it as our own.
“Do you see that man standing by the smiling little woman in black, engaged, by his manner, in laying down some proposition, which he conceives it would be madness to doubt, yet believes it to be known only by himself?”
“Him with the broad, low, receding, and deformed forehead, and a peculiar expression of conceit in his face “The same.”
“That is Marmaduke Hammerhead — a very well known writer for the sixpenny periodicals, who aspires to be a critic, but never presumes himself a gentleman. He is the author of a poem, called the ‘Black Crow,’ now making some stir in the literary circles.”
“What kind of man is he?”
“Oh! you have nothing to do with his kind; you only want to know his character as an author.”
“I beg your pardon, but you are wrong. I can form my own judgment of his authorship by his works, if I chance to read them; but before I make his personal acquaintance, I must fully understand his character as a man. How stands that?”
“Oh! passable; he never gets drunk more than five days out of the seven; tells the truth sometimes by mistake; has moral courage sufficient to flog his wife, when he thinks she deserves it, and occasionally without any thought upon the subject, merely to keep his hand in; and has never, that I know of, been convicted of petit larceny. He has been horsewhipped occasionally, and has had his nose pulled so often as to considerably lengthen that prominent and necessary appendage to the human face. For the rest, an anecdote they tell of him, may give you a better idea than any portraiture of mine.” [page 103:]
“Oh the story, by all means.”
“It appears, that when Miss Gloomy was flourishing here some years since, as a writer of melo-dramas, Hammerhead was very much smitten by her charms of mind and person. So he posted one day to her lodgings, and falling upon his marrow-bones, made her a formal proffer of his hand, with his heart in it. Not having the same admiration of him that he possessed of himself, from her rather indifferent powers of perception, Miss Gloomy had the undoubted bad taste to refuse the liberal proffer, and rejected him without hesitation. After renewing again and again his important proposition, and finding his pathetic appeals to be unavailing, he rose from his knees, and exclaimed, in heart-rending accents, ‘Well, Miss Gloomy, if you won’t marry me, won’t you loan me ten dollars?’ “
Danby laughed, and said — “That will do for him; but pray who is the lady with whom he is conversing?”
“That is Mrs. Grodenap. She belongs to South Carolina, and is merely here on a visit. She possesses much ability, and is quite a linguist withal. Shall I introduce her to you?”
“No — I have no desire, though I think she is pretty. But who is that languishing would-be-juvenile lady, who is now approaching the two? By Jove! what laughable affectation of manner!”
“That is Mrs. Flighty, one of our poetesses and all that sort of thing, and the best imitator of Mother Goose. Her poetry is remarkable for its simplicity. As a general rule, the verses of most female writers may be described by the words — ‘milk and water;’ but her's resemble a large quantity of water, with a homœopathical addition of milk.”
“You don’t seem to have a high idea of female writers, Cloudsdale;” for this was the real name of Ivory. “Are you not aware that the writings of women are supposed to be exempt from criticism, and are to be praised ad nauseam?”
“Such is indeed the general impression, and it arises somewhat from the chivalry of man's nature. He connects insensibly the womanhood of the writer with her work, and will not attack the one lest the other should suffer. The reason is a weak one. The critic has his duty to per-form — he must assign a precedence to claimants, according to their quality — and not according to their sex. If he goes beyond the line of his duty, there are fathers, brothers, and husbands, to avenge mere personalities. The true critic speaks without fear or favoritism; he analyzes boldly and skilfully, and if he do not, he is no true critic.” [page 104:]
“Well conceived, and properly delivered, to be sure. But what would the female writers present say, were they to hear your opinions?”
“I do not know, but they are welcome to name any atonement for my heresy — except it be to read their works, or swear by the intense indigo blue of their stockings. The Constitution of the United States provides that cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted upon the citizen.”
“You are in a sneering mood to-night, Cloudsdale; but since you seem to be au fait in these matters, I will ask your opinion, contrary to my custom, of the merits of Mr. Hammerhead yonder, as a writer.”
“His pursuit after an idea always reminds me of a kitten hunting after its tail. He sees the end of it wagging at his side; he turns to snap at it — it turns with him; he snaps at it again, and it does as it did before. Thus he goes on, making continual efforts to seize that which eludes his grasp, until tired of spinning round — like a dancing dervish — through so many pages, he leaves the idea in a state of quiet, and settles down, in the last paragraph, into a profound sleep!”
“Has he not wit and humor, then?”
“Umph! that depends upon your definition of the terms. Hazlitt, I think it is, says that ‘lying is a species of wit and humor — to charge a man with something of which he is not guilty shows spirit and invention, and the more incredible the effrontery, the more pointed the joke.’ If that be the case, Hammerhead is a paragon of wit and humor — a perfect Joe Miller's jest-book among the critics. There is an immense deal of charlatanry, however, in all his productions. He affects ignorance in general of the author's real name, and seems to think that sarcasm and scurrility are identical.”
“Is he an educated man?”
“After a fashion. He has a knowledge of no language except his own, and that to a very limited extent; and of course interlards his works with an abundance of quotations, obtained from the works of other authors. As he does not understand the meaning of these, he occasionally commits some rather ludicrous errors.”
——————————————
46. 7 September 1846: The Case of Edgar A. Poe vs. Hiram Fuller and Augustus W. Clason, Jr., Postponed
[Because the court's calendar was full, the trial for libel, scheduled for 7 September 1846, was postponed until the “first Monday of February,” which was 1 February 1847. The Judgment Record, continued in a different hand at this juncture, is hurried and abrupt.]
At which day before the Justices aforesaid at the City Hall aforesaid, cometh parties aforesaid by their respective attorneys aforesaid. And because the aforesaid issue, as above joined in this cause between the parties aforesaid, was not tried at the term of the said Court, held at the time and place last aforesaid, therefore the process aforesaid between the parties aforesaid is continued until the term of the said Court appointed to be held at the City Hall in the City of New York, on the first Monday of February in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-seven.
——————————————
47. 9 September 1846: “Epigram on an Indigent Poet”
Weekly Mirror
[The fact that Poe persisted in prosecuting his case earned him a piece of doggerel in the Mirror.]
EPIGRAM
ON AN INDIGENT POET
P— money wants to ‘buy a bed,’ —
His case is surely trying;
It must be hard to want a bed,
For one so used to lying.
——————————————
48. 19 September 1846: “More Plagiarism”
Hiram Fuller
[On this date, which also marked the publication of the second episode in 1844 featuring Hammerhead-Poe (see next document), Fuller printed the following squib on Poe in the Weekly Mirror.] [page 106:]
MORE PLAGIARISM. — Somebody out in the extreme back part of Missouri, has discovered that Tom Moore, like other great poets, has been filching the ideas of another, and altering them to suit himself. He cites the following instance, which is perfectly unanswerable — the critical acumen of a Poe could no further go.
‘The minstrel boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.’
‘Little Bo-Peep has lost his sheep,
And does not know where to find 'em;
Let 'em alone, and they'll come home,
Bringing their tails behind ‘em.’
——————————————
49. 19 September 1846: The Second Episode in 1844 Depicting Hammerhead-Poe
Thomas Dunn English
[In this passage that appeared in the Weekly Mirror, Poe is shown as a panhandling, pugnacious, bragging, and drunken critic. It is the only passage that has the slightest relation to the plot. For a fuller discussion of 1844, see the headnote to Document 45.]
“A most drunken monster.” — Tempest.
MARMADUKE HAMMERHEAD was making his way along Broadway, by apeculiar progression, which has been called “worm-fence,” by the vulgar, since it enables the performer to go over a great deal of ground without making much headway. He had an indistinct notion in his head that he was about to do something — what, he could not tell — but something of importance, nevertheless. That he could perform it, and admirably at that, was his firm self-conviction; but he could not imagine what was necessary to be done. So he staggered back and forth, swaying his body unsteadily, and setting his hat on his head with a fierce cock, and looking daggers at every passer who dared to bestow a glance at the disgusting object before him. [page 107:]
The truth is that Hammerhead was drunk — though that was no won- der, for he was never sober over twenty-four hours at a time; but he was in a most beastly state of intoxication. His cups had given him a kind of courage; and though naturally the most abject poltroon in existence, he felt an irresistible inclination to fight with some one. Such a propensity can always be gratified in the city of New York, which is blessed with as pugnacious a population as any other city in the world. True to his purpose, Hammerhead accosted the first comer, and taking him by the button, said —
“Did — did — did you ever read my review of L — L — Longfellow?”
“No!” said the one addressed — a quiet, sober-looking personage — “I dare say it's very severe, but I never read it.”
“Well,” said Hammerhead, “you lost a gr — gr — eat pleasure. You’re an ass!”
“Oh! not quite so bad as that, surely,” said the puzzled man, endeavoring to free himself from detention.
“Yes you are, damn you! — I’ll kill you!” exclaimed Hammerhead.
The stranger saw but one course to pursue — the controversy was exciting a crowd — so he knocked Hammerhead down, and quietly went on his way.
Hammerhead lay on the pavement for a moment or so, when one of the by-standers helped him up, and, replacing his hat on his head, endeavored to lead him away. Hammerhead refused to budge — offered to fight the whole crowd, six at a time — entered into a disquisition on English metre, to the amusement of the by-standers, and finally begged some one in the crowd for God's sake to lend him sixpence.
The elder O’Conor, attracted by the crowd, had stopped to note its cause; and, on looking at the face of Hammerhead, felt there was something familiar in those features. So he pushed the crowd aside, and said —
“I’ll loan you a sixpence, if you’ll come with me, my friend.”
“You will!” cried Hammerhead. “Damn it if I don’t follow you to the end of the earth for half the money. As I said in my review of Longfellow, says I — “
“Yes, yes — I know all that. Here, let us get in this coming omnibus.”
The drunkard suffered himself to be assisted into the omnibus, in which there were, luckily, no other passengers; and O’Conor having followed him, the omnibus drove on.
As soon as they were seated, O’Conor commenced questioning Hammerhead [page 108:] — for he discovered one who had met Catesby abroad at one time, and he judged he might obtain some information. He inquired concerning the one whom he sought.
“Catesby,” said Hammerhead, “d — d good fellow — yes, I saw him when — did you ever see my review of Longfellow?”
“Yes — very good thing it is — but when did you see Catesby last?”
“When — oh — yes — ‘in the bleak December, when each’ — did you see my re — review?”
“Of course I did; and when do you expect to see him again?”
“Quoth the raven — never more! Did you ever read my — “
“Certainly; he is dead, then?”
“Dead, yes, ‘the lost Lenore.’ But I used up Longfellow — he's dead; yes, dead!”
“Oh, curse Longfellow! Is Catesby alive?”
“Cates — Catesby — oh! I saw him once — he — oh, Hercules can tell you — Hercules is a d — d clever fellow; but he hasn’t read my review of — “
“And who is Hercules?”
“Hercules isn’t at all. He was. Understand that. Hercules was a Grecian and a gentleman. He slew the hydra. I am Hercules — Longfellow is hydra — hydra, hydros — water — I hate water. It can’t be defined by the calculus of probabilities. Did you ever read my re — ”
“Yes, yes; but where shall I find Hercules?”
“Stranger,” said Hammerhead, “you’re an ass — understand me — you’re an ass. Longfellow has endeavored to give us some English hexameters. Now, they’re not hexameters, because there is not a pure spondee in — did you ever read my review of Longfellow?”
O’Conor found it was useless to attempt to gain anything further from Hammerhead: he was entirely too drunk for the purpose. After ineffectual questioning to discover Hammerhead's residence, a new passenger having entered, O’Conor paid for his companion and himself, and left the stage.
As he walked up Broadway, he met Frederick, to whom he communicated the result of his interview with Hammerhead. Frederick laughed, and said —
“Why, father, he has given you information, probably. There is a man named Hercules, who can give you information of Catesby, provided Catesby has ever been reduced to the necessity of resorting to the Five Points, as his wife has. This Hercules is a noted burglar, whose plundering [page 109:] has always escaped punishment, from the secrecy with which he has conducted it.”
“But how does Hammerhead know Hercules? The writer is not a burglar, I hope.”
“No; but he frequents low grog-shops, and is likely at such places to pick up acquaintances. At all events, it is worth search; and if you desire it, I will go in quest of this Hercules, and sound him.”
* * * *
While he [O'Conor] spoke, Hammerhead came staggering up, and accosted Hercules.
“How do you do?” said he, “you don’t know me, perhaps — my name's Ham — ha — ha — ammerhead. I met you abroad — you’re Catesby — Ca — Ca — Catesby.”
Frederick started, as if seized with a sudden pang. Hercules saw and was amused by his consternation.
“You see,” said Hercules, “this drunken fool calls me Catesby. Singular, is it not?”
He turned on his heel, as he said it, and walked up Centre street, leaving Frederick standing, gazing after him, with feelings of intense and angry mortification.
Hammerhead laid his hand on the arm of Frederick, saying:
“Your friend is a queer kind of fellow — eh! He used to be so. Did you see my re — re — view upon L — L — L — ongfellow?”
“No!” said Frederick, walking away, “nor do I desire to.”
“You d — don’t! you miserable reptile! You’re d — d — runk! You haven’t the common elements of an English education! You’d b — b — etter take care. I’ll write you down! I’ll use you up! I — I — you — you haven’t got such a thing as a shilling, have you?”
There was no withstanding this. Frederick, laughing in despite of his vexation, handed Hammerhead the required coin, and went in one way, as the drunken poet staggered the other.
——————————————
50. October 1846: Poe Discussed in the Knickerbocker
Lewis Gaylord Clark
[Poe's “Literati” sketch of Lewis Clark appeared in September 1846 even as Godey had promised in his Card (Document 5). Poe spoke of the [page 110:] “editorial scraps” to be found at the back of each number of the Knickerbocker — a reference to Clark's “Editor's Table,” a famous feature of the magazine — as “the joint composition of a great variety of gentlemen,” which it was in the sense that Clark habitually quoted items from newspapers, magazines, and correspondents. “Were a little more pains taken in elevating the tone of this ‘Editors’ Table,’ (which its best friends are forced to admit is at present a little Boweryish),” Poe went on, deliberately misplacing the apostrophe and at the same time alluding to such, vulgar attacks as those represented by “The Literary Snob” (Document 1), “I should have no hesitation in commending it ... as a specimen of ... easy writing and hard reading.”
When Poe turned to the Knickerbocker itself, he said that it seemed
to have in it some important elements of success. ... Still some incomprehensible incubus has seemed always to sit heavily upon it. ... On account of the manner in which it is necessarily edited, the work is deficient in that absolutely indispensable element, individuality. As the editor has no precise character, the magazine, as a matter of course, can have none. When I say “no precise character,” I mean that Mr. C., as a literary man, has about him no determinateness, no distinctiveness, no saliency of point; — an apple, in fact, or a pumpkin, has more angles. He is ... noticeable for nothing in the world except for the markedness by which he is noticeable for nothing.
Poe then mischievously speculated about the circulation of the Knickerbocker and arrived at the figure of “some fifteen hundred copies,” though its circulation was greater than five thousand. In a final paragraph, Poe offered a description of Clark, his characteristic way of ending these sketches. In doing this, he overstated Clark's age by four or five years, said that his “forehead is, phrenologically, bad ... [and that] the smile is too constant and lacks expression. ...”
Clark's response appears below. Lest readers of the Knickerbocker should regard these views of Poe as aroused and distorted by rancor, Clark corroborated them by citing apparently impartial opinions to indicate that his views were universally held. He alluded to an unnamed correspondent, “J. G. H.” of Springfield, Massachusetts, very likely Josiah Gilbert Holland who was an anonymous contributor to the Knickerbocker and who became a close friend of Emily Dickinson. He quoted from a newspaper identified only as “one of our most respectable daily journals,” [page 111:] which chanced to be the Evening Mirror (Document 34) whose editor was conducting his own war on Poe. In addition he cited the London Athenaeum of 28 February 1846. Thus J. G. H.'s view of Poe is by implication so much harsher than Clark's own and even perhaps so obscene that “man! you can’t expect us to publish it.” Thus from Fuller of the Mirror there are more defamations: “evil living,” “imbecility,” “radical obliquity of sense,” and “suicide upon body and character.” And thus in the third source there appear to be further heinous charges, but ones which only assert that Poe was pretentious at times or obscure or absurd in his stories, though Clark fobbed off these adjectives, not in relation to Poe's tales or poems as the Athenaeum had, but to his “literary opinions.”
Thus wrote, quoted, and commented the editor of the Knickerbocker whose complacency, he averred, was not ruffled for a moment. He even added a footnote to his remarks, obviously to assign a discreditable motive to Poe's attack on him, that of vengeance for Clark's having rejected a number of his manuscripts, though Poe never attempted to contribute to the Knickerbocker. That many of Clark's fabrications were baseless or exaggerated, his readers could not know, and the article no doubt had the effect it was intended to have.]
Our thanks are due to ‘J. G. H.,’ of Springfield, (Mass.,) for his communication touching the course and the capabilities of the wretched inebriate whose personalities disgrace a certain Milliner's Magazine in Philadelphia; but bless your heart, man! you can’t expect us to publish it. The jaded hack who runs a broken pace for common hire, upon whom you have wasted powder, might revel in his congenial abuse of this Magazine and its EDITOR from now till next October without disturbing our complacency for a single moment. He is too mean for hate, and hardly worthy scorn. In fact there are but two classes of persons who regard him in any light — those who despise and those who pity him; the first for his utter lack of principle, the latter for the infirmities which have overcome and ruined him. Here is a faithful picture, for which he but recently sat. We take it from one of our most respectable daily journals:
‘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 [page 112:] 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 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 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 toward 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.’
Now what can one gain by a victory over a person such as this? If there are some men whose enemies are to be pitied much, there are others whose alleged friends are to be pitied more. One whom this ‘critic’ has covered with what he deems praise, describes him as ‘a literary person of unfortunate peculiarities, who professes to know many to whom he is altogether unknown?’* Can it then be a matter of the least moment to us, when the quo animo of such a writer is made palpable even to his own readers, that he should underrate our circulation by thousands, overrate our age by years, or assign to other pens the departments of this Magazine which we have alone sustained, with such humble ability as we [page 113:] possessed, through nearly twenty-six out of its twenty-eight volumes? As well might CARLYLE lament that he had called him an ‘unmitigated ass,’ or LONGFELLOW grieve at being denounced by him as ‘a man of no genius, and an inveterate literary thief.’ And as to his literary opinions, who would regard them as of any importance? — a pen-and-ink writer, whose only ‘art’ is correctly described by the ‘London Athenæum’ to ‘consist in conveying plain things after a fashion which makes them hard to be understood, and commonplaces in a sort of mysterious form, which causes them to sound oracular.’ There are times,’ continues the able critical journal from which we quote, ‘when he probably desires to go no farther than the obscure; when the utmost extent of his ambition is to be unintelligible; that he approaches the verge of the childish, and wanders on the confines of the absurd!’ We put it to our Massachusetts correspondent, whether such a writer's idea of style is at all satire-worthy? And are we not excused from declining our friend's kindly-meant but quite unnecessary communication?
——————————————
51. 3 October 1846: The Third Episode in 1844 Depicting Hammerhead-Poe
Thomas Dunn English
[Sawdust in this episode is Horace Greeley. Boltanbar, the author of the “Moon Hoax,” is Richard Adams Locke, whom Poe had sketched in “The Literati” (October 1846). The “anecdote” concerning Poe and Locke seems to have been inserted in reaction to Poe's essay on Locke. The “coincidence” of Poe and English discussing Locke within the same week or two seems much too fortuitous, especially as the entire episode is irrelevant to the narrative and as English was clearly bent on discrediting the author of “The Literati.”
Here again Hammerhead-Poe is shown to have a reputation for meanness and folly, a reputation that even the foolish Sawdust recognizes to be just. Again, too, Hammerhead is depicted as a sponger and as a critic who threatens to use criticism for personal vengeance.]
“Well, I suppose you’re satisfied now?” said Sawdust. “Eh! there's some one calling to me through the speaking-pipe. “Well?” he cried, putting [page 114:] his mouth to one aperture, and immediately after applied his ear to another.
“Mr. Hammerhead wants to see you,” said the man in the lower story.
“I’ll be there presently,” replied Sawdust, through the tube. “I wonder,” continued he, to Pump, “what the fool wants with me — the shortest way is to ask him; I am going to Wall street, at all events.”
“A fool! he's a man of great parts. His Tales display a deal of ingenuity.”
“Yet he is a fool, nevertheless — since he prostitutes his talents to base use, and commits acts of meanness which, unless you admit him to be radically bad, must be ranked as folly. Did you hear of the trick he served Boltanbar, the author of the ‘Moon Hoax?’ “
”No!”
“Some days since, Hammerhead called on Boltanbar, who is in the custom-house, and insisted on his accompanying him to a tavern and taking some liquid fire, in the shape of a whiskey punch. Boltanbar, to get rid of him peaceably, consented. He took him to a house where the latter was unacquainted, and while there insisted on treating the company — supplying whiskey punch to every one in the room. This he did. When it came to settling-up time, Hammerhead had no money, and the bar-keeper, after a torrent of abuse, which his victim stood without flinching, seized the hat of the debtor. Boltanbar, not expecting this catastrophe, was not provided with money, but went home immediately, obtained it, and relieved Hammerhead's hat.”
“Oh! well, that's nothing. A drunken man's freak.”
“Stop! Boltanbar insisted that Hammerhead should go home. The latter promised he would, if Boltanbar would accompany him. The latter agreed to this; and the two were passing the Carlton House, when Hammerhead insisted on going in. As his companion had provided himself with money, he thought the best way of getting him safely housed was to humor him, and yielded. Hammerhead called for something to drink, and drew out a roll of bank-bills to pay for it, to the utter astonishment of his companion.”
Pump laughed immoderately, and said:
“What has he to do with you — you are a temperance man.”
“He wants to borrow money, I suppose.”
On reaching the office below stairs, they met Hammerhead, who, if not so drunk as when we last introduced him, had drank sufficiently to make [page 115:] him quarrelsome. He took Sawdust by the button-hole, and drawing him aside, requested, as the latter had predicted, the loan of some money. This was denied, and Hammerhead waxed indignant.
“You’re a fool, Sawdust,” said he, “and don’t understand the elements of the English language. You haven’t the rudiments of an English education?’
“I admit the charge to its fullest extent,” said Sawdust.
“You’re a transcendentalist, and eat brown bread,” said Hammerhead. “I confess to both of these enormities.”
“D — n you! I made you. You owe all your reputation to me. I wrote you, up. I’ll criticise you; I’ll extinguish you — you ungrateful eater of bran pudding — you — you — galvanized squash.”
“Undoubtedly,” replied Sawdust, “and now let me go.”
He disengaged his coat from Hammerhead's grasp, as he spoke, and the poet, fastening on a stranger, informed him that he was the great critic, Hammerhead, at that moment in want of a loan — of a shilling. Sawdust and Pump separated — the latter crossing to the Park, and the former going down Nassau street.
——————————————
52. 21 October 1846: “Godey's Lady's Book, for November”
Hiram Fuller
[The October 1846 number of Godey's Lady's Book saw the last of Poe's “Literati of New York City” in its pages. Fuller, who had censured Godey for running the series (Document 8) and who had derided all but the May number of the Lady's Book containing the sketches (Documents 22, 38, 44), now in his Evening Mirror praised Godey and the November number of his magazine, obviously because of the “absence of the rigmarole papers on the literati of New York city...”]
Godey's Lady's Book, for November. — This magazine makes its appearance in a very beautiful new cover, of a delicate tint, and with the prettiest border we have seen of a similar work. If the design is original, we congratulate Mr. Godey on the discovery of an artist worth knowing. The illustrations in this number are of the usual order; but the literary department is much better than usual. What adds particularly to the [page 116:] value of the magazine, is the absence of the rigmarole papers on the literati of New York city, which, we are happy to hear, for his own sake, Mr. Godey has determined to discontinue. ...
——————————————
53. 24 October 1846: The Fourth Episode in 1844 Depicting Hammerhead-Poe
Thomas Dunn English
[In this installment of 1844 that appeared in the Weekly Mirror, we see how the “course of drunkenness” leads to Hammerhead-Poe's physical and mental collapse. He becomes paranoiac and thinks himself the “object of persecution on the part of the combined literati of the country. ...” In this wreck of “his fine abilities,” we are told, he wrote “The Literati” papers. But perhaps “mania-a-potu” — craziness from drink — was not the sole cause of his degeneration: there may have “been a taint of insanity in the blood,” for “his acts, during the previous part of his life,” would seem to suggest as much.]
“Fool. — Prythee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman, or a yeoman?
Lear. — A King! A King!” — KING LEAR.
THE course of drunkenness pursued by Hammerhead had its effect upon his physical and mental constitution. The former began to present evidences of decay and degradation. The bloated face — blood-shotten eyes — trembling figure, and attenuated frame, showed how rapidly he was sinking into a drunkard's grave; and the drivelling smile, and meaningless nonsense, he constantly uttered, showed the approaching wreck of his fine abilities. Although constantly watched by his near relatives, he would manage frequently to escape their control, and seeking some acquaintance, from whom he could beg a few shillings, he would soon be seen staggering through the streets in a filthy state of intoxication.
At length, before this constant stimulation, the brain gave way, and the mind manifested its operations, through a disordered and imbecile medium. Mania-a-potu, under which he had nearly sunk, supervened, and this was succeeded by confirmed insanity, or rather monomania. He deemed himself the object of persecution on the part of the combined [page 117:] literati of the country, and commenced writing criticisms upon their character, as writers, and their peculiarities, as men. In this he gave the first inkling of his insanity, by discovering that there were over eighty eminent writers, in the city of New York, when no sensible man would have dared to assert that the whole country ever produced one-fourth of that number, since it had commenced its existence as a nation. This promise of coming mental disorder was fulfilled in the end; for no sooner had the writer finished the first volume of his essays — he promised ten more — containing notices of about two hundred writers, than the disease broke out in its full extent, and he became an unmistakeable madman. There had, most probably, been a taint of insanity in the blood of the Hammerheads; and his acts, during the previous part of his life, showed a tendency to the distressing malady.
Mr. and Mrs. John Melton — for Melton and Mary Blair had now mar-ried — were on the customary tour, and were staying for a few days at Utica. Among the few lions of the place, was the Lunatic Asylum, which Mary was anxious to visit, and though John was averse to such sights, he thought it unnecessary to oppose her wishes. So they obtained an order, from one of the directors, and started to view the place. ...
——————————————
54. 31 October 1846: The Fifth Episode in 1844 Depicting Hammerhead-Poe
Thomas Dunn English
[In the preceding installment of 1844, the Meltons had obtained permission to visit the Lunatic Asylum in Utica, New York. In the course of visiting various cells, they are introduced to Hammerhead “who was an author in a small way,” but who is now a confirmed madman, though, never thought by Melton and Quipp, the attendant, “to be very sane” before. Hammerhead reflexively begs a shilling from Melton and brags that he is “using up” Carlyle and the Transcendentalists, as he had earlier “used up” Alexander Pope, Robert Burns, Longfellow, and Cornelius Mathews.
English made some telling thrusts in this installment. In a critique on William Ellery Channing, the Transcendentalist poet (Graham's Magazine, August 1843) Poe had remarked about Thomas Carlyle: If a man [page 118:] “write a book which he means to be understood, and ‘in this book be at all possible pains to prevent us from understanding it, we can only say he is an ass — and this, to be brief, is our private opinion of Mr. Carlyle. ...” Similarly, Poe had reversed his previous and considered judgment of Mathews and had recently praised him, if weakly and ambiguously (Godey's Lady's Book, November 1845). (The complicated reasons for this critical shift are explained by Moss, Poe's Literary Battles, pages 104 ff.) Likewise, Poe's judgments of Pope, Burns, and Emerson are represented without significant distortion.
R. H. Horne, mentioned in this episode, was the English poet best known for his long poem Orion, which Poe extolled with his usual reservations in Graham's Magazine (March 1844). Poe wrote at least two letters to Horne, none of them extant, in one of which he enclosed his review, but there is no indication that he asked Home to “notice my works favorably.” Horne answered that he could “derive advantage in the way of revision” from Poe's comments, “which is more,” he added, “than I can say of any of the critiques written on this side of the waters” (Harrison, XVII, 168). Despite this evidence of mutual respect, the “London Correspondent” of the Weekly Mirror, namely Charles F. Briggs who signed himself F. M. Pinto, published the following item on 12 September 1846 in his gossipy report: “Home enquired after Mr. Poe, and said that he had received from him a review of ‘Orion’ in some wishy-washy Magazine — the name of which he had forgotten. I asked what he thought of Poe as a critic? He replied, ‘He is a very good critic for a lady's magazine.
For Elizabeth Barrett, also mentioned in this episode, see Documents 9 and 10. Poe wrote an extensive review of her Drama of Exile and Other Poems (Broadway Journal, 4 and 11 January 1845) and dedicated his Raven volume to her. In addition, he sent her a copy of his compound book (the book made up of The Raven volume and the Tales) inscribed “To Miss Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, With the Respects of Edgar A. Poe,” which she received on 20 March 1846. Perhaps Poe also sent her a covering letter; if so, it is not extant. There is no evidence that Poe wrote to Carlyle.]
After showing them various cells, and allowing an opportunity of conversing with the inmates, the assistant took them to see the various departments of labor and recreation, used to divert and amuse the patients. [page 119:] When they had exhausted their admiration, they crossed over the quadrangle, in the centre of the building, and came to a part which, he informed them, was the department assigned to the confirmed madmen.
“We have a new man,” said the assistant, “a Mr. Hammerhead, who was an author in a small way, but whose constant intemperance has driven him mad.”
“Hammerhead!” said Melton, “why, I have met him. Has he gone mad? Though, by-the-bye, it is a matter of little wonder. I never thought him to be very sane.”
They entered the cell. Hammerhead was sitting at a table, writing. He raised his head, and seeing Melton, recognised him, and rose.
“Ah!” said the poet, “how are you? Come to see me? I am staying here a little while, to get rid of the bustle of the town. But I'm glad to see you, really. Pleasant quarters, these.”
“Very, indeed,” replied Melton, “let me present you to Mrs. Melton — Mary, my dear, this is Mr. Hammerhead, the celebrated writer of the ‘Black Crow,’ a poem — ‘The Humbug, and other Tales,’ with various popular works.”
Hammerhead bowed, and went on to say — “Pray, take a seat, madam. Melton, my dear fellow, I am really glad to see you, indeed I am.” Here he took Melton aside, and said, confidentially — ”You haven’t such a thing as a shilling about you, have you? The fact is, I’m devilish hard up, till I get some money for the article I’m writing.”
Melton produced the required small coin, and Hammerhead continue d —
“I'm engaged on a critique on Carlyle, and the transcendentalists. I’ll read a little to you, in order to show you how I use the fellows up.” Here he read in a sing-song tone of voice — ”The fact is, that Mr. Carlyle is an ass — yet it is not in the calculus of probabilities to explain why he has not discovered what the whole world long since knew. Perhaps — and for this suggestion, I am indebted to the wit of my friend, M. Dupin, with whose fine powers the whole world, thanks to my friendship, are acquainted — perhaps, I say, it could not be beaten into his noddle. He is a pitiable dunderhead, with a plentiful lack of brains. All that he is capable of — in sober truth he is capable of nothing — is to demonstrate his own lamentable absurdity. He is a rhapsodist and a noodle. He forgets the advice of Moulineau — ‘Belier, mon ami, commencez au commencement.’ Carlyle, my friend, begins at the beginning — and goes into his subject [page 120:] about four feet from the tail end. He is, in short, a gigantic watermelon. So are all his admirers. So are all his imitators, except Ralph Waldo Emerson, who, being a Yankee, may be considered a squash.”
Melton laughed very much at the extract, which he thought, bating its Billingsgate, contained a deal of truth, and was not like the writing of an insane man; while Hammerhead, delighted at this appreciation of his wit and humor, went on —
“Now, what does Mr. Carlyle mean by ‘hero-worship?’ Has he any definite idea attached to it at all, or is it only a bubble kicked up on the surface, after he has stirred the mud-puddle of his brain, with a stout stick? He reminds me of that fellow, Robert Burns, who has been extravagantly and unjustly praised — but who never wrote anything which would live a week, if published in the present day. In sober truth, and I say it with a just and proper appreciation of my own powers — he never wrote anything equal to my ‘Black Crow’ — nothing, so to speak, with that sonorous and musical rhythm, which marks it from its commencement to its close. But the difference is equally plain. I am a man of genius, and Burns was not. My productions will live, and his are rapidly passing away. The truth is, Burns could not be a great man. I can. He drank brandy — I drink small-beer. Now brandy is a mischievous and pernicious thing, according to the observations of Herodotus — Lib. I., Cap. V., who says — ‘Brandiarum est pernicium et abominalibus’ — Brandy is pernicious and abominable — Horace says, in his fourth ode — Topus not Brandiarum’ — Drink not brandy. But small-beer is the fabled nectar of the gods. There can be but little doubt that Jupiter, Juno, and the rest, drank small-beer. So do I. It suits my style, and suits me. I am small-beer. I was small-beer. I will be small-beer. This same small-beer made me what I am. Now there is no small-beer about Carlyle; therefore I pitch into him, as Shak-speare, who, by-the-bye, was no poet, says, in ‘Measure for Measure’ — ‘like a thousand of brick.’ “
Hammerhead grew excited — his eyes seemed starting from their sockets — the fit was on him, and though Melton desired to leave, he thought it best to humor him. So he sat still, and listened as the poet read.
“That Mr. Barlyle, or Tarlyle, or Farlyle — or whatever the man's name may be, is not a man of genius, is undoubtedly true — although his admirers may think this heresy. I am prepared to prove that in less than ten pages of his book, I have discovered no less than one hundred and ten dashes, instead of parentheses. Can any man who uses the dash instead [page 121:] of the mark of parenthesis, be considered a man of genius? Certainly not. The dash is a straight line, the parenthesis a curved one. To admirers and lovers of beauty, the superiority of a curved line is apparent. No worshipper of beauty admires a straight line — Mr. Carlyle admires a straight line; therefore, he is not a worshipper of beauty. He who is not a worshipper of beauty, cannot be great. Mr. Carlyle is not a worshipper of beauty. Therefore, Mr. Carlyle is not a great man. That is logically put. It is as plain as that part of a game of marbles, vulgarly called ‘knuckle from baste!’ Let us, therefore, hear no more of Mr. Carlyle. We shall hear no more of him. I have settled that — I have settled him, as I have settled Pope and Burns, and Longfellow — and such like small potatoes. I once settled Cornelius Mathews; and the proof that I did it well, is to be found in the fact, that I have tried to restore him to life by puffing, ever since, but have failed. No one can withstand me. I am the great mogul of all the critics. My ipse dixit is law, my assertion gospel — my commandments, the whole five books of Moses, with a considerable slice of the Revelations of St. John. As Homer makes Ajax say ‘Keepme soberos, aniamthe scrougeron ki.’ Keep me sober, and I am the scrouger!
“There, what do you think of that? can Carlyle survive that? Damn it, it's so severe, that I’m afraid it will kill all his readers. However, it serves Carlyle right. I wrote him a letter as I did Home, and Miss Barrett, requesting them to notice my works favorably. Home and Miss Barrett did — Carlyle never noticed them, nor me. See what follows. I puff them, and abuse him. This teaches a great moral lesson — that ‘virtue is its own reward!”
“Well,” said Melton, “we must leave you. Come, Mary — Good-day, Mr. Hammerhead.”
“Good-day, Melton — you’re a smart fellow, and a great writer.”
“Well, Mary, ] inquired Melton, “what do you think of him?”
“Why, his language is very queer, to be sure — but all that he wrote before he came here, was of the same character. I don’t see why they confine him as a lunatic.”
“Oh, Madam,[”] said Quipp, “he is quite rational to-day, but sometimes he goes on dreadfully, and threatens to kill every one. To be sure he is quite harmless — you have only to offer to pull his nose, he’ll settle down immediately, and cry most piteously; but he makes a great noise till coercive measures are used.”
——————————————
55. November 1846: “Epitaph on a Modern ‘Critic’: ‘P’oh’ Pudor!”
Lewis Gaylord Clark
[Still unhappy with Poe's sketch of himself in “The Literati,” Clark in his Knickerbocker magazine published an epitaph on Poe somewhat reminiscent of the doggerel that appeared in the Weekly Mirror (Document 47), at least in respect to the pun on lies.
This verse is attributed to Clark because he had often referred to Poe as Aristarchus and Poh in many of his diatribes. “Aristarchus” was a common epithet of the times for a captious critic. “ ‘P’oh’ Pudor” of the subtitle seems to be a strained pun on Poe, pooh, and pro in the expression pro pudor (for shame).]
Epitaph on a Modern ‘Critic.’
‘P’oh’ Pudor!
‘Here Aristarchus lies!’ (a pregnant phrase,
And greatly hackneyed, in his early days,
By those who saw him in his maudlin scenes,
And those who read him in the magazines.)
Here Aristarchus lies, (nay, never smile,)
Cold as his muse, and stiffer than his style;
But whether Bacchus or Minerva claims
The crusty critic, all conjecture shames;
Nor shall the world know which the mortal sin,
Excessive genius or excessive gin!
——————————————
56. 7 November 1846: The Final Episode in 1844 Depicting Hammerhead-Poe
Thomas Dunn English
[In the last chapter of his novel, English took one final fling at the two’ major figures he had chosen to satirize, Sawdust-Greeley and Hammerhead-Poe.]
“Walter (rising) — The story's told. — Hunchback.
IT is time that we sum up the history of those we have introduced.
O'Sycophant, Phumby, Bang and Sawdust still survive. The latter [page 123:] only remains as editor — and is as full of crotchets as ever. He has lately taken the morals of the community under his protection, and is engaged in advocating the creation of Magdalen societies in every ward of the city.
Hammerhead is still in the mad-house, writing as vigorously as ever.
——————————————
57. 23 November 1846: “Godey's Lady's Book for December”
Hiram Fuller
[Fuller's esteem for Godey's was almost fulsome now that the installments of Poe's “Literati of New York City” would no longer “blemish” its pages, and Fuller praised the magazine again in his Evening Mirror, as he had on October 21 (Document 52).]
GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK FOR DECEMBER. — This is really a beautiful number, surpassing all its predecessors. The embellishments are exquisitely done, and the literary matter is unusually attractive. ... The fashion plate, the art of making lace, and the music of the Redowa waltz, with instructions how to dance it, will be fully appreciated by the ladies. We are glad to learn that no more personalities under the head of ‘honest opinions of the New York Literati’ will hereafter blemish the pages of Godey's handsome Lady's Book.
——————————————
58. 15 December 1846: Letter to George W. Eveleth
Edgar A. Poe
[The last installment of “The Literati” appeared in the October 1846 number of Godey's Lady's Book, apparently at Godey's injunction. The series had aroused harsh criticism in Philadelphia, Boston, and especially Manhattan, which reflected upon Godey and his magazine; Poe's libel suit was pending and the charges and revelations to be made at the trial were likely to be discreditable to the parties involved; and Godey, despite the temptation of great sales, was not inclined to let his genteel “Lady's Book” be long associated with anything disreputable. (See Document 6 [page 124:] and its headnote for Godey's protestations of innocence in the matter.) In the letter below, however, Poe led his young admirer Eveleth to believe that the discontinuance of the series was the result of his own decision, not Godey's.
Eveleth, a student at Maine Medical School in Brunswick, had introduced himself to Poe in a letter dated 21 December 1845 in the hope that Mr. Poe, “selected from all the writers of whom I know any thing, for my especial favorite,” would — stoop so low’ as to address by letter a rustic youngster of the backwoods of Maine” (Mabbott, page 173). Despite the self-disparagement, Eveleth was shrewd and forthright. Even in this letter of introduction, while lauding the writer, he found the man “rather graceless — rather egotistical; rather irreverent towards his fellows. ...” Notwithstanding, Poe was surprisingly gentle and patient in answering Eveleth's queries, which were sometimes captious and annoying. Yet he tended to assume a role with him, rather that of the grand old man of letters, somewhat under a cloud to be sure, but pretty much in charge of his destiny.
The “book on American Letters” that Poe speaks of and that he provisionally titled Literary America: Some Honest Opinions about our Autorial Merits and Demerits with Occasional Words of Personality resulted in revised versions of his “Literati” articles on Richard Adams Locke, Thomas Dunn English, and Christopher Pearse Cranch. Both the original and revised versions of his articles on English, which are representative, appear as Documents 11 and 12 and are indication enough that it was just as well that he abandoned the work, for “haste, inaccuracy, or prejudice,” not to speak of other limitations, still mark the revisions.
The full version of this letter appears in Ostrom, II, 331-3.]
New-York: Dec. 15 / 46.
My Dear Sir,
... You will see that I have discontinued the “Literati” in Godey's Mag. I was forced to do so, because I found that people insisted on considering them elaborate criticisms when I had no other design than critical gossip. The unexpected circulation of the series, also, 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. ... [page 125:]
Do not trust, in making up your library, to the “opinions” in the Godey series. I meant “honest” — but my meaning is not as fully made out as I could wish. I thought too little of the series myself to guard sufficiently against haste, inaccuracy, or prejudice. The book will be true — according [[according]] to the best of my abilities
Truly Your Friend Edgar A Poe
——————————————
59. 15 December 1846: “Illness of Edgar A. Poe”
Morning Express
[By winter of 1846 the Poes were in a desperate state. Virginia Poe was dying of tuberculosis — her death would occur on 3o January 1847 — and her husband continually complained in his letters of the period that he had “been for a long time dreadfully ill.” Maria Clemm, Poe's widowed aunt and mother-in-law who was living with them at Fordham, had to beg help of friends, the family was so impoverished. When Mary Gove, a literary friend, first visited the Poes, she found the “little cottage at the top of a hill” very attractive. She reported, however, that when autumn came
Mrs. Poe sank rapidly in consumption. ... The weather was cold, and the sick lady had the dreadful chills that accompany the hectic fever of consumption. She lay on the straw bed, wrapped in her husband's great-coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat on her bosom. ... The coat and the cat were the sufferer's only means of warmth, except as her husband held her hands, and her mother her feet. ... As soon as I was made aware of these painful facts, I came to New York and enlisted the sympathies and services of a lady whose heart and hand were open to the poor and the miserable. ... The lady headed a subscription, and carried them sixty dollars the next week. (Mary Gove Nichols, “Reminiscences of Edgar Allan Poe.”)
The lady whose sympathies and services she enlisted was Mary Hewitt. Reporting to Mrs. Frances Osgood, another friend of the Poes, Mary Hewitt wrote: [page 126:]
The Poes are in the same state of physical and pecuniary suffering — indeed worse, than they were last summer, for now the cold weather is added to their accumulation of ills. I went to enquire of Mr. [Israel] Post [publisher of the Columbian Magazine] about them. He confirmed all that I had previously heard of their condition. Although he says Mrs. Clemm has never told him that they were in want, yet she borrows a shilling often, to get a letter from the [post] office — but Mrs. Gove had been to see the Poes and found them living in the greatest wretchedness. I am endeavoring to get up a contribution for them among the editors, and the matter has got into print — very much to my regret, as I fear it will hurt Poe's pride to have his affairs made so public. ... (Harrison, XVII, 272, n. 1.)
So far as I can determine, the New York Morning Express was the first newspaper to announce the illness and poverty of the Poes. Wiley and Putnam, mentioned in the article, had recently published Poe's Tales (June 1845) and The Raven and Other Poems (November 1845), as well as the compound book made of these two volumes (February 1846).]
ILLNESS OF EDGAR A. POE. — We regret to learn that this gentleman and his wife are both dangerously ill with the consumption, and that the hand of misfortune lies heavy upon their temporal affairs. We are sorry to mention the fact that they are so far reduced as to be barely able to obtain the necessaries of life. This is, indeed, a hard lot, and we do hope that the friends and admirers of Mr. Poe will come promptly to his assistance in his bitterest hour of need. Mr. Poe is the author of several tales and poems, of which Messrs. Wiley & Putnam are the publishers, and, it is believed, the profitable publishers. At least, his friends say that the publishers ought to start a movement in his behalf.
——————————————
60. 26 December 1846: “Edgar A. Poe”
Bostonian
[In addition to some New York papers, the Bostonian announced the sickness and impoverishment of the Poes, though one would hardly have expected a Boston newspaper to do so. Poe had alienated many Bostonians [page 127:] the previous year by his attacks upon Longfellow and Henry Norman Hudson, the Boston lecturer on Shakespeare; by the “hoax” he played at the Boston Lyceum (he had attempted to pass off “Al Aaraaf” as a new poem under the title “The Messenger Star”); and by the nasty exchange between him and many of the Bostonian newspaper editors when his deception was exposed.
Clarke, mentioned in the article, is McDonald Clarke (1798-1842), who was called the “Mad Poet,” his own sobriquet. He died in a cell of the asylum on Blackwell's, now Welfare, Island. His tomb, whose cost was paid by friends, is on the edge of Sylvan Lake in Greenwood. The fact that Clarke wrote inferior poetry and was deranged makes the linking his name with Poe's less than flattering, despite the writer's good intentions.]
EDGAR A. POE. — Great God! is it possible, that the literary people of the Union, will let poor Poe perish by starvation and lean faced beggary in New York? For so we are led to believe, from frequent notices in the papers, stating that Poe and his wife are both down upon a bed of misery, death and disease, with not a ducat in the world, nor a charitable hand to minister a crumb to their crying necessities. This is really too bad to be looked for in a christian land, where millions! are wasted in a heathenish war, in rum, in toasting and feasting swindlers, robbers of the public purse and squandering thousands for dress and parade, in ungodly finery, jewelry and such profanity, while a poor and suffering man, and a splendid genius, is left with the dying partner of his misfortunes to perish with hunger! Christians for shame. Poor Clarke, the poet, while living wandered around the streets of New York without a meal or a home; when he was dead his marrowless bones were honored with a magnificent sepulture at Mt. Auburn.
——————————————
61. 26 December 1846: “Hospital for Disabled Labourers with the Brain” and Covering Letter to Poe
Nathaniel P. Willis
[Willis was one of the most popular writers and successful editors of his time. Before he and George Pope Morris had purchased and edited the [page 128:] New York Home Journal, they had jointly owned and edited the Evening Mirror and Weekly Mirror. (The Evening Mirror appeared six times a week; the Weekly Mirror, consisting largely of items published in the Evening Mirror, appeared on Saturday.) Given Willis's literary production, the task of running the Mirrors had probably become too onerous, which may account for Willis and Morris allowing Hiram Fuller, a former school principal and bookseller from Providence, to become a partner and junior editor in the firm. The editorial work was divided as follows: Willis ran the Evening Mirror, in which capacity he hired Poe as an assistant; Morris and Fuller ran the Weekly Mirror. As Fuller remarked in the Weekly Mirror of 18 January 1845: “For the opinions of the Daily paper, Mr. Willis is alone the gate-keeper, and by himself or by his direction, all its principal articles are written.” (Fuller, of course, with the help of his brother-in-law, Augustus W. Clason, Jr., eventually bought both Mirrors and became the sole editor of them.)
The Weekly Mirror of 12 October 1844 contained Willis's first allusion to Poe's connection with the paper: “We wish to light beacons for an authors’ crusade and we have no leisure to be more than its Peter the Hermit. We solemnly summon Edgar Poe to do the devoir of Coeur de Lion — no man's weapon half so trenchant!” Aside from doing the series on authors and authors’ pay and the need for an international copyright law, Poe performed other services, all of which earned Willis's approbation, including the two-installment review of Longfellow's The Waif, which launched what Poe came to call the “Little Longfellow War” and which induced Charles F. Briggs (“Harry Franco”) to lure Poe away from, the Mirror in March 1845 with the offer of a co-editorship of the Broadway Journal.
Having recently become aware of Poe's financial and physical difficulties through the Morning Express (Document 59), Willis decided to do his friend a good turn by proposing a hospital for disabled writers. His proposal was not too wild a notion for the period. A philanthropic epoch in America, there were “societies,” “institutions,” “homes,” and “missions” of all kinds, including a Society for Destitute Roman Catholic Children and a Home for Aged Hebrews, an Association for the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females and a Home for Friendless Women. Willis devoted a great part of his editorial in the Home Journal to Poe's problems, pointing out his poverty and sickness and offering to forward donations of money to him. Less discreetly, he attempted to gain [page 129:] forgiveness for Poe's erratic behavior by explaining that a “single glass of wine” made him behave in a way “neither sane nor responsible.” (Some three years later, however, in the “Death of Edgar Poe” — Home Journal of 20 October 1849 — Willis insisted, contrary to the report here, that he knew about this condition of Poe's only through “hearsay”: “we repeat, it was never our chance to see him” in this condition.)
Uneasy at taking liberties in such a public way with a proud man's private life, Willis was apologetic both in the editorial and in his covering letter to Poe. In the letter he makes a point that he did not make in the editorial; namely, that his statements in the Home Journal “will have a good bearing ... on your law case,” though what bearing he had in mind I cannot guess. The letter, dated merely Wednesday, was no doubt written on 23 December 1846 when the Home Journal containing Willis's editorial was ready for distribution.
Griswold, in the “Memoir of the Author” that he prefixed to his edition, of Poe's Literati, said of Willis's editorial that it “was an ingenious apology for Mr. Poe's infirmities,” which he identified as his “habits of frequent intoxication and his inattention to the means of support.”
The letter appears in Harrison, XVII, 272.]
Wednesday.
My dear Poe, — The enclosed speaks for itself — the letter, that is to say. Have I done right or wrong in the enclosed editorial? It was a kind of thing I could only do without asking you, & you may express anger about it if you like in print. It will have a good bearing, I think, on your law case. Please write me whether you are suffering or not, & if so, let us do something systematically for you.
In haste
Yours faithfully
N.P. Willis.
Kindest remembrance to Mrs Clemm.
HOSPITAL FOR DISABLED LABOURERS WITH THE BRAIN.
IF pity, felt more for a stab than for a bruise — more for an operation on the brain than for one on the arm — more for a man broken on the wheel than for one in prison — if this pity, greater in proportion as the suffering is keener, were answered to by correspondent Institutions for [page 130:] its relief, there would have been, long ago, in this or any other city, a Retreat for disabled labourers with the brain. We have long wished for the handle of this subject to come round. Obvious as its merit is, even with the simple statement we have just made — ready as any one will be to acknowledge, that the poverty of the diseasedly sensitive author must be ten-fold harder to bear as well as ten-fold more hopeless of self-relief, than the mere flesh and blood pauper's — the subject is difficult of mention, the relief difficult of application, and the lesser sufferer is consequently provided for, while the greater is set aside and forgotten. Twenty-six thousand visits of sympathy are mentioned in a late Report as having been made “to the poor” of this city, by one society; and what one of these visits was in search of sufferers whose first apprehension, even, of want, is a mental agony not many removes from madness?
The feeling we have long entertained on this subject, has been freshened by a recent paragraph in the Express announcing that Mr. EDGAR A. POE, and his wife, were both dangerously ill and suffering for want of the common necessaries of life. Here is one of the finest scholars, one of the most original men of genius, and one of the most industrious of the literary profession of our country, whose temporary suspension of labour, from bodily illness, drops him immediately to a level with the common objects of public charity. There was no intermediate stopping-place — no respectful shelter where, with the delicacy due to genius and culture, he might secure aid, unadvertised, till, with returning health, he could resume his labours and his unmortified sense of independence. He must either apply to individual friends — (a resource to which death is sometimes almost preferable) — or suffer down to the level where Charity receives claimants, but where Rags and Humiliation are the only recognised Ushers to her presence. Is this right? Should there not be, in all highly civilized communities, an Institution designed expressly for educated and refined objects of charity, — a hospital, a retreat, a home of seclusion and comfort, the sufficient claims to which would be such susceptibilities as are violated by the above mentioned appeal in a daily newspaper.
Mr. Poe lives out of the city, and we cannot ascertain before this goes to press, how far this report of his extreme necessity is true. We received yesterday a letter from an anonymous hand, mentioning the paragraph in question, expressing high admiration for Mr. Poe's genius, and enclosing a sum of money, with a request that we would forward it to him. [page 131:] We think it very possible that this, and other aid, may be timely and welcome, though we know, that, on Mr. Poe's recovery from former illnesses, he has been deeply mortified and distressed by the discovery that his friends had been called upon for assistance. The highly cultivated women who share his lot, his wife and mother, are, we also know, the prey of constant anxiety for him; and though he vigorously resumes the labours of his poorly paid profession with the first symptoms of returning strength, we have little doubt that a generous gift could hardly be better applied than to him, however unwilling he may be to have received it. We venture, therefore, while we acknowledge the delicate generosity of the letter of yesterday, to offer to forward any other similar tribute of sympathy with genius.
In connection with this public mention of Mr. Poe's personal matters, perhaps it will not be thought inopportune, if we put on its proper footing, a public impression, which does him some injustice. We have not seen nor corresponded with Mr. Poe for two years, and we hazard this delicate service without his leave, of course, and simply because we have seen him suffer for the lack of such vindication, when his name has been brought injuriously before the public, and have then wished for some such occasion to speak for him. We refer to conduct and language charged against him, which, were he, at the time, in sane mind, were an undeniable forfeiture of character and good feeling. To blame, in some degree, still, perhaps he is. But let charity for the failings of human nature judge of the degree. Mr. Poe was engaged with us in the editorship of a daily paper [Evening Mirror], we think, for about six months. A more considerate, quiet, talented, and gentlemanlike associate than he was for the whole of that time, we could not have wished. Not liking the unstudent-like necessity of coming every day into the city, however, he left us, by his own wish alone, and it was one day soon after, that we first saw him in the state to which we refer. He came into our office with his usual gait and manner, and with no symptom of ordinary intoxication, he talked like a man insane. Perfectly self-possessed in all other respects, his brain and tongue were evidently beyond his control. We learned afterwards that the least stimulus — a single glass of wine — would produce this effect upon Mr. Poe, and that, rarely as these instances of easy aberration of caution and mind occurred, he was liable to them, and while under the influence, voluble and personally self-possessed, but neither sane nor responsible. Now, very possibly, Mr. Poe may not be willing to consent to [page 132:] even this admission of any infirmity. He has little or no memory of them afterwards, we understand. But public opinion unqualifiedly holds him blameable for what he has said and done under such excitements; and while a call is made in a public paper for aid, it looks like doing him a timely service ... [at] least partially to exonerate him. We run the risk of being deemed officious.
The subject of a Retreat for disabled labourers with the brain, we shall resume hereafter.
——————————————
62. 26 December 1846: A Comment on Nathaniel P. Willis's “Hospital for Disabled Labourers with the Brain”
Hiram Fuller
[Fuller commented on Willis's editorial almost at once. His allusions to Poe, though Poe's name does not appear in Fuller's statement, are quite apparent, as are Fuller's reasons for suppressing his name: the libel suit was still pending. This, by the way, was not to be the last time Fuller would refer to Willis's editorial (see Document 94).
Fuller was not alone in commenting humorously on Willis's proposal. Peculiarly enough, Yankee Doodle, which was edited by the Duyckinck circle (see headnote to Document 72) and to which Willis himself contributed at times, used the occasion on 9 January 1847 to feature an article entitled “Hospital for Disabled Authors.” Among its various remarks was the following: “More forcibly to illustrate the necessity for the institution we are advocating, we present beneath a full-length view of the destitute and suffering condition to which even one of the most popular of American authors is reduced.” The “full-length view” is of Willis himself, famous for his dandyism, attired in patent-leather shoes, a Leary top hat, and an overcoat cut in the latest Regent Street style. “Any contributions for the above “object,’” the article concluded, “may be left with, YANKEE DOODLE or sent to Mr. WILLIS, at the office of the Home Journal.”]
N.P. Willis proposes to build a ‘hospital for disabled laborers with the brain.’ This is all very well; we approve of charity in any shape. But we propose to add to the building, an asylum for those who have been ruined [page 133:] by the diddlers of the quill. We think it quite possible that this apartment might be soonest filled, as we cannot now call to mind a single instance of a man of real literary ability suffering from poverty, who has always lived an industrious, honest and honorable life; while of the other class of indigents, we know of numerous melancholy specimens, of both sexes.
——————————————
63. 27 December 1846: “Edgar A. Poe”
Joseph M. Field
[The editor of the Saint Louis Daily Reveille had proved sympathetic to Poe on various occasions (see Document 9 and its headnote). Now, apprised of Poe's misfortunes, he made the following brief but sensitive statement. The item in the Morning Express, part of which Field quotes, appears as Document 59.]
EDGAR A. POE. — If Poe has made enemies, his misfortunes, unhappily, have afforded them ample revenge; and not all of them have had magnanimity enough to forego it. We still see his infirmities alluded to uncharitably. The New York [Morning] Express has the following painful announcement — enough, we think, to sweeten the bitterest disposition:
We regret to learn that this gentleman and his wife are both dangerously ill with the consumption, and that the hand of misfortune lies heavy upon their temporal affairs. We are sorry to mention the fact that they are so far reduced as to be barely able to obtain the necessaries of life.
——————————————
64. 29 December 1846: A Notice of the “Plea in Behalf of Mr. Poe”
Horace Greeley
[Much as Greeley respected Poe's genius, he had no reason to like him as a man. Among other reasons, Poe had antagonized Margaret Fuller, though he had treated her generously enough in a “Literati” sketch, and Miss Fuller, as an intimate family friend, not only shared the Greeleys’ [page 134:] house but had served as the Tribune book reviewer until she went abroad in August 1846. Poe had also been unkind to another friend of Greeley, George Ripley, the major founder of Brook Farm. Poe had called it “Snook Farm” and dubbed the Harbinger, which Ripley was then editing in quarters provided by Greeley in the Tribune Building, the “organ of the Crazyites.” To make their relations still worse, Poe had borrowed fifty dollars from Greeley to help buy the Broadway Journal — Greeley, generous to a fault, had helped to launch many a journal, even competitive ones — and this debt Poe was unable to repay. Greeley's single anecdote about Poe in his autobiography is that he replied to a searcher after Poe's autograph that he had one: “It is his note of hand for fifty dollars ... and you may have it for half the amount.” If this were not enough, Poe had derided the Transcendentalist and Fourieristic schemes which Greeley was advocating. It hardly helped matters for Poe to write in “Fifty Suggestions” (Graham's Magazine, 1845) that the “High Priest in the East” of a “new sect of philosophers is Charles Fourier — in the West, Horace Greeley,” and that the “only common bond among them is Credulity: — let us call it Insanity at once, and be done with it.” Finally, Greeley may have resented being featured with Poe in English's 1844 and wished to dissociate himself from the man. Whatever the reasons, it was no accident that Greeley allowed Rufus Griswold's infamous “Ludwig” obituary of Poe to be printed in his paper (9 October 1849).
At all events, the Daily Tribune carried Greeley's unfriendly notice of Poe printed below, which begins by quoting an item from the Morning Express commenting on Willis's editorial (Document 61). How Greeley knew, if he in fact did know, that Poe was “steadily, though slowly, recovering his health” has to be conjectured. The publishing and editorial world of New York — and New York was the literary capital of America at this time — was concentrated in an area of less than eight short square blocks near City Hall and gossip quickly spread from office to office. Any of the literary ladies who visited the Poes in Fordham at this time (see headnote to Document 59) could have quoted Poe to the effect, “I am getting better, and may add — if it be any comfort to my enemies — that I have little fear of getting worse” (Document 70). Greeley may have made his premature announcement to put an end to the contributions Willis was collecting for Poe. The thrust in the last phrase of his notice — Poe “is engaged at his usual literary avocations” — seems suggestive of ill will.] [page 135:]
A PLEA IN BEHALF OF MR. POE. — The Home Journal of this week contains an article about Mr. POE, suggested by the paragraph in our paper, and to which we would like to call the attention of the public. It would appear from the article in question, that what we said of Mr. POE'S condition was strictly true; and it also appears that Mr. WILLIS has received certain monies for his benefit, and that he is willing to act as agent in receiving more. We trust that the admirers of genius will remember the unfortunate but gifted author.
[Express.
We are glad to be able to state that the distressing accounts regarding Mr. POE, if they have not been from the first greatly exaggerated, are no longer applicable to his situation. He is steadily, though slowly, recovering his health, and is engaged at his usual literary avocations.
——————————————
65. 31 December 1846: “Edgar A. Poe”
Cornelia Wells Walter
[Miss Walter, editress of the Boston Daily Evening Transcript, had reasons to be unhappy with Poe. Resentful of his treatment of Longfellow and of Boston and Bostonians in general, she had in 1845 pronounced his performance at the Boston Lyceum “A Failure” and exposed him as a humbug in trying to pass off a juvenile poem (“Al Aaraal’) as an “original” before a “literary association of adults. ...” Poe held his fire, no doubt wishing that the event might be forgotten, but Miss Walter, not to mention other editors, kept squibbing him. Besides alluding to his reputation for drunkenness and suggesting that his performance was a swindle, Miss Walter called him a “poe-ser” and said that, like the “immortal Barabelle, the ‘Broadway poet of Rome, — he should be “crowned with cabbage.” Having waited two weeks without seeing the least abatement of this needling, Poe responded to Miss Walter, as well as other Boston editors. In a reply blustering and crude, Poe called her a “little old lady” who had “been telling a parcel of fibs about us,” but whose heart was in the right place — would that the same might be said of her wig. (For a full discussion of this episode, see Moss, Poe's Literary Battles, pages 190-207.) [page 136:]
Miss Walter, as is evident from Document 1, was not inclined to be sympathetic when she read the news that Poe was sick and impoverished. She suggested that much of his trouble was owing to “improvidence”; she quoted the Tribune (Document 64) as evidence that the report of his illness and poverty was exaggerated and, in any case, no longer applicable to his “present condition”; and she read him a lecture which concluded that he should with a “thankful spirit mark out for himself a new career...”]
EDGAR A. POE. The papers have told us in various ways, of the sufferings of this writer, who has been reduced to beg for sustenance owing to improvidence and sickness. The “Bostonian” has opened a subscription for the relief of Mr. Poe, and so has the Home Journal of New York. This is all very proper; no object of humanity should be permitted to die of hunger, or to lay upon the couch of sickness without some ministering angel to relieve distress. With respect to the present condition of Mr Poe, however, we copy from the N. Y. Tribune the following paragraph:
We are glad to be able to state that the distressing accounts regarding Mr Poe, if they have not been from the first greatly exaggerated, are no longer applicable to his situation. He is steadily, though slowly, recovering his health, and is engaged at his usual literary avocations.
If the burthen of this information be correct, and Mr Poe be recovering his health sufficiently to engage in literary avocations, will he not remember his duty to himself as a man and as a writer? Reformation of habits and proper principle exerted to others is what is requisite to free him in future from the necessity of pity; and, having in his distresses found those who have relieved his wants, let him no longer pervert those faculties which God has given him for his ennoblement. Let him remember how much of his pecuniary distress he has brought on through the indulgence of is own weaknesses. Let him in a thankful spirit mark out for himself a new career for the future.
——————————————
66. 5 January 1847: The Evening Mirror Hopes Poe Will Heed the Good Advice of the Boston Transcript
Hiram Fuller
[Fuller was no doubt gratified that Poe, having become an object of charity, had also become an object of advice, a condition which, Poe's advisers assumed, privileged them to invade his privacy and to harangue him in public about reforming his habits, altering his principles, and changing his career. Fuller likewise used the opportunity to urge Poe to follow the Transcript's “good advice” and to refer self-justifyingly to Poe's pending libel suit against him.
Despite his statement, Fuller did not pay Poe fifteen dollars a week; that salary was paid by all three partners in the Mirror firm. Nor is it true that Poe assisted “Morris and Willis ... in ... editing the Evening Mirror.” It was Fuller who assisted George P. Morris in putting out the Weekly Mirror and Poe who assisted Nathaniel P. Willis in putting out the Evening Mirror (see headnote to Document 61).]
The Boston Transcript, in copying a paragraph from a New York paper, which announces that Mr. Poe is again able to resume his pen, very properly adds —
‘If the burthen of this information be correct, and Mr. Poe be recovering his health sufficiently to engage in literary avocations, will he not remember his duty to himself as a man and as a writer? Reformation of habits and proper principles exercised to others is what is requisite to free him in future from the necessity of pity; and having, in his distresses, found those who have relieved his wants, let him no longer pervert those faculties which God has given him for his ennoblement. Let him remember how much of his pecuniary distress he has brought on through the indulgence of his own weaknesses. Let him in a thankful spirit mark out for himself a new career for the future.’
We sincerely hope this good advice will be heeded. Mr. Poe, after libelling half the literary men in the country, commenced a libel suit against us for publishing as an advertisement an article which originally appeared in a morning paper [the New York Morning Telegraph] in reply to one of his own coarse attacks. This suit was commenced after [page 138:] he had grossly abused us in a Philadelphia paper in one of the most scurrilous articles that we ever saw in print; and all this, too, after we had been paying him for some months a salary of $15 a week for assisting Morris and Willis, and two or three other ‘able bodied men,’ in the Herculean task of editing the Evening Mirror.
——————————————
67. 30 December 1846: Letter to Evert A. Duyckinck
Edgar A. Poe
[Poe's only means of support was his pen, and the irony is that “The Literati” series, the journalistic sensation of the year, cost him his livelihood (see headnotes to Document 1 and 102). The enmity he had aroused with “The Literati” and the illness that chronically beset him now, probably psychosomatic, discouraged him from going to the city. The task thus fell to Maria Clemm, now turning sixty, to make the thirteen-mile trip for him, which she frequently did, taking the Harlem Railroad that conveniently passed near their cottage. There were his messages and letters to convey; his manuscripts to deliver or peddle; the latest literary intelligence to be gathered; and the mail to be collected from the city post office, since Fordham had none.
Nathaniel Willis, one of Poe's abiding friends, recalled in the Home Journal of 20 October 1849 that “winter after winter, for years, the most touching sight to us, in this whole city, has been that tireless minister to genius, thinly ... clad, going from office to office with a poem, or an article on some literary subject to sell — sometimes simply pleading in a broken voice that he was ill, and begging for him.” Mary Hewitt in a letter to Frances Osgood dated 20 December 1846 noted that Mrs. Clemm “borrows a shilling often, to get a letter from the [post] office.” And Mrs. Clemm, without the pity for herself that others accorded her, wrote to Neilson Poe on 19 August 1860: “Oh, how supremely happy we were in our dear cottage home! We three lived only for each other. Eddie rarely left his beautiful home. I attended to his literary business.” (These two letters appear in Harrison, XVII, 273 and 430, respectively.)
On one such trip Mrs. Clemm heard from Evert Duyckinck, who in 1845 had published Poe's Tales and the Raven volume in his Library of American Books, that Poe had gained sudden fame in France. A French [page 139:] adaptation of his “Murders in the Rue Morgue” had been published in La Quotidienne. (Neither Duyckinck nor Poe had heard that La Revue brittanique had earlier published translations of “The Gold-Bug” and “A Descent into the Maelström.”) When a second Paris paper, Le Commerce, published another version of “The Murders,” La Presse accused the translator, E.-D. Forgues, of plagiarism from La Quotidienne. Forgues wrote an explanation of the coincidence. Both versions, he said, derived from a cominon source and were done independently. But the editor of La Presse, who had never heard of Poe, refused to publish Forgues's statement because Forgues had himself once charged La Presse with plagiarism. To clear his name, Forgues sued the journal for libel, as Poe, coincidentally, was suing the owners of the Mirror. Though the Frenchman lost his case, the trial held in December 1846 became a cause célèbre that brought Poe's name prominently before the French public.
Nathaniel P. Willis reported these events in the Home Journal of 30 January 1847 as follows:
EDGAR A. POE AND THE PARISIAN FEUILLETONISTS. — All lovers of fiction have read Mr. Edgar A. Poe's famous story of “Valdemar,” and will remember the excitement which it created not only in this country but in Europe. We find, by the following, from a Parisian correspondent of Willmer and Smith's European Times, that this excitement has not yet subsided: — “The name of Mr. Edgar A. Poe the American novelist, has figured rather prominently of late before the law courts. A newspaper, which, for the sake of clearness, I will call No. 1, gave a feuilleton, in which one of Mr. Poe's tales of a horrible murder in the United States was dressed up to suit the French palate; but no acknowledgment was made of the story being taken from Mr. Poe. Another newspaper, No. 2, stated that the said feuilleton was stolen from one previously published in another journal. This led to a squabble between the writer of feuilleton No. 1 and the editor of the newspaper No. 2, that accused him of plagiary from newspaper No. 3. This squabble resulted in a process [of litigation], in the course of which the feuilletoniste No. 1 proved that he had stolen it from Mr. Poe. It was proved, too, that No. 3 was himself an impudent plagiarist, for he had filched Mr. Poe's tale without one word of acknowledgment; whilst, as to No. 2, he was forced to admit that not only had he never read Mr. Poe, but had never heard of him in his [page 140:] life. All this, it will be perceived, is anything but creditable to the three newspapers in question.”
In the meantime, to vindicate himself, Forgues, the “No. 1” of Willis's report, published his critique of Poe's Tales in the prestigious Revue des deux Mondes on 15 October 1846, which turned what would only have been a succès de circonstance for Poe into a succès d'estime. Thus, at the very time Poe was being pilloried at home, he was coming into his own abroad. (For Forgues's essay see Document 69.)
All that Mrs. Clemm seems to have remembered of her conversation with Duyckinck was that some Paris papers had been discussing “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” As Poe said, “She could not give me the details. ...” Sensing an opportunity to enlist Duyckinck's aid, as earlier he had enlisted Field's and Simms's (Documents 9 and 41), Poe wrote the letter below and provided Duyckinck with information for “a paragraph or two for some one of the city papers. ...”
Poe's statement notwithstanding, no one has located a discussion of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” in the Charivari. The “letter from, Stonehaven” that Poe enclosed was from Arch Ramsay, a druggist (reprinted in Harrison, XVII, 268-9). “Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” did appear as a sixteen-page pamphlet with the title and publisher Poe ascribed to it. The tale also appeared, as Poe says, in the London Morning Post (5 January 1846) under the title “Mesmerism in America,” and in the Popular Record of Modern Science (10 January 1846) under the title “Mesmerism in America. Death of M. Valdemar, of New York.” The Record of 29 November 1845 carried Poe's “Mesmeric Revelation” under the title “The Last Conversation of a Somnambule.” The letter from Miss Barrett appears as Document 10.
This letter appears in Ostrom, II, 336.]
Dec. 30. 46.
Dear Duyckinck,
Mrs Clemm mentioned to me, this morning, that some of the Parisian papers had been speaking about my “Murders in the Rue Morgue”. She could not give me the details — merely saying that you had told her. The “Murders in the R. M.” was spoken of in the Paris “Charivari”, soon after the first issue of the tale in Graham's Mag: — April 1841. By the enclosed letter from Stonehaven[,] Scotland, you will see that the “Valdemar Case” still makes a talk, and that a pamphlet edition of it has been published by [page 141:] Short & co. of London under the title of “Mesmerism in Articulo Mortis.” It has fairly gone the rounds of the London Press, commencing with “The Morning Post”. The “Monthly Record of Science” &c gives it with the title “The Last Days of M. Valdemar. By the author of the Last Conversation of a Somnambule” — (Mesmeric Revelation).
My object in enclosing the Scotch letter and the one from Miss Barrett, is to ask you to do me a favor which (just at this moment) may be of great importance. It is, to make a paragraph or two for some one of the city papers, stating the facts here given, in connexion with what you know about the “Murders in the Rue Morgue”. If this will not give you too much trouble, I will be deeply obliged. If you think it advisable, there is no objection to your copying any portion of Miss B's letter. Willis or Morris will put in anything you may be kind enough to write; but as “The Home Journal” has already said a good deal about me, some other paper would be preferable.
Truly yours
Poe.
——————————————
68. 9 January 1847: “An Author[‘s Reputation] in Europe and America”
Evert A. Duyckinck
[Acting on Poe's request (see preceding document) Duyckinck wrote the article below, which appeared in the same number of the Home Journal as Poe's open letter to Willis (Document 70). Though Duyckinck used some of the information Poe provided, he seems not to have concerned himself with Poe's wish that he publish the article in a paper other than the Home Journal.
Since Duyckinck's assessment of Poe's European and American reputation appeared anonymously and is here identified for the first time, a few words should be said about its authorship. In addition to Duyckinck's using some of the information Poe provided, Willis in printing Poe's open letter referred to a “communication” in “another column” respecting Poe's “literary position, kindly furnished by one of the best of our scholars and gentlemen.” Poe explained to Eveleth that the scholar and gentleman Willis had reference to was Duyckinck (Ostrom, II, 348). Eveleth thanked Duyckinck “for this kindly speaking of my favorite one while ‘pestered [page 142:] and annoyed by those penny-a-liners’ “in your “kind notice of him published in ... the Home Journal for the ninth of last January — ‘An Author in Europe and America — (Mabbott, page 192). Duyckinck was evidently touched by this compliment, for he kept Eveleth's letter until he bequeathed it with the rest of his papers to the New York Public Library in the 1870s.
If only as editor of the Library of American Books, Duyckinck had reason to mention the North American Review contemptuously. In October 1846, the same month in which Forgues's article on Poe's Tales appeared in the Revue des deux Mondes (next document), the North American had taken occasion in reviewing Simms's Wigwam and the Cabin and Views and Reviews to remark that they form a “part of Wiley and Putnam's Library of American Books, a series, by the by, which, with the exception of a few volumes, is not likely to do much honor to American literature.” Among the works in the Library pointedly attacked — those by Simms, J. T. Headley (Letters from Italy), and Cornelius Mathews (Big Abel and the Little Manhattan) — was Poe's Tales, which, the reviewer said “belongs to the forcible-feeble and the shallow-profound school” of literature.]
AN AUTHOR [‘S REPUTATION] IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. While Mr. Poe, an author of understood merits, quite unique and apart from the rest of the literary race in his literary productions, which are all his own, paid for by himself in actual experience of heart and brain, is pestered and annoyed at home by penny-a-liners whom his iron pen has cut into too deeply, and denied all ability and morality whatever — it is curious to contrast this with his position abroad, where distance suffers only the prominent features of his genius to be visible, and see what is made of his good qualities in Europe.
Why the American press should be so intolerant of the original authors of the country, and battle with them at every step, while the most liberal good words are freely accorded to mediocrity, and imitative talents, is one of those little problems of human nature, well enough for Bochefoucault [sic] to pry into, but which we have too much of the wisdom of the serpent and the good feeling of the dove to meddle with. The fact is, that our most neglected and best abused authors, are generally our best authors.
The reception of Mr. Poe's tales in England is well known. The mystification [page 143:] of M. Valdemar was taken up by a mesmeric journal as a literal verity, and enquiries were sent on here, to be supplied (in case the historian of the event were not accessible) by personal solicitation of the poor victim's neighbours at Harlem, where the scene was laid. This story is still going the rounds of Great Britain. A London publisher has got it out, in pamphlet, under the title of “Mesmerism in Articulo Mortis,” and a Scotchman in Stonehaven has recently paid a postage by steamer, in a letter to the author, to test the matter-of-factness of the affair. We can conceive of nothing more impressive in the way of curiosity. Miss Barrett, by the way, paid the author a handsome compliment on this story. After admiring the popular credulity, she say[s] “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.”
The tale of the “Murders in the Morgue,” is giving rise to various editorial perplexities, in Paris. It has been translated in the feuilletons, local personal allusion discovered and the American authorship denied. One of the journals says “if there turn out to be such an American author, it will prove that America has at least one novelist besides Mr. Cooper” — and this, in France, is praise. The Revue des deux Mondes, in, the meantime, has an elaborate review of the “Tales.” The North American Review of the same date calls them trash.
Besides a peculiar vein of invention, Mr. Poe has a style, a clearness, cleanness and neatness of expression, which, together, will always make their way. They are unmistakeable classic elements. By them Mr. Poe will live. A writer so ready in new resources as Mr. Poe, should command his own terms and full employment from the trade. It is a duty they owe the world, to astonish it now and then by some clever performance, and a duty they owe their own families to put money in their pockets. An occasional book from Mr. Poe would unite these desirable conditions.
——————————————
69. 15 October 1846: Studies of English and American Fiction: The Tales of Edgar A. Poe
E.-D. Forgues
[The curious reader will want to read Forgues's critique of Poe, a condensed translation of which is made available below. A twenty-page [page 144:] article in the prestigious Revue des deux Mondes, it represents the first discussion of Poe to be published in France and, owing to its perspicacity and judgment, provides a very sharp contrast with Poe's general literary reputation at home. Hardly the least of its value was that it brought Poe to the attention of other French critics, translators, and literary figures, the most important of whom was, of course, Charles Baudelaire.
The chief talent of Forgues, who had abandoned law for belles lettres, lay in discovering, translating, and discussing literary works that would interest his French public. Though he concentrated on English authors such as Thackeray, Dickens, and George Eliot, he devoted critiques to Holmes, Melville, and Hawthorne, among others, and even translated The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Forgues rendered Poe the ultimate critical courtesy by treating him, as a serious writer. He knew Poe only through the Tales of 1845, however; he did not know that Poe was also a poet and, like himself, a journalist and critic. What especially impressed him about the handful of stories was Poe's powers as a probabilist, powers, he felt, Poe was using “to explore the most difficult problems of speculative philosophy,” and he paid him the highest compliment by placing him in the French mathematical tradition represented by Blaise Pascal, Pierre Fermat, and the Marquis de Laplace. Probability theory was first developed by Pascal (1623-1662) and Fermat (1601-1665) to analyze games of chance, and it remained limited to such amusements until Laplace (1749-1827), not to mention Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), discovered that the theory had wider application. Laplace saw no essential difference between calling observable outcomes “heads or tails” and calling them “life or death,” from which observation emerged actuarial science and demography. By like logic Menders study of the “toss-ups” of genes in garden peas enabled him to formulate his famous laws concerning hereditary phenomena.
Forgues (1813-1889), whose full given name was Paul Emile Daurand, was no trained probabilist and his firsthand knowledge of Laplace seems limited to his Essai philosophique sur les Probabilités, a short popular version of his great Théorie analytique des Probabilités. For this reason he discussed probability in nonmathematical terms easily understood by the uninitiated. If Poe could have foreseen his French reception on these grounds, he might not have complained so often that Duyckinck's selection for the volume was too one-sided. “Duyckinck,” he wrote to Philip [page 145:] Cooke on 9 August 1846, “has what he thinks [is] a taste for ratiocination, and has accordingly made up the book mostly of analytic stories,” though he had about seventy to choose from. “But this is not representing my mind in its various phases” (Ostrom, II, 328).
Forgues considered all the stories in the Tales except two. His neglect of “Lionizing” is understandable; his disregard of “The Fall of the House of Usher” is puzzling.
The article below has been condensed to about a third of its original length and Forgues's notes, specifying the book under discussion or identifying Charles Brockden Brown, have been dropped as unnecessary. Minor deletions are indicated by ellipsis marks; the nature of large omissions is explained in brackets; and the footnotes are mine. For other information concerning Forgues, see the headnote to Document 67.]
Are you acquainted with the [Marquis de Laplace's] Philosophical Essay on Probabilities? It is one of the books in which the boldness of the human mind is best revealed at its most audacious. Since the venture of Prometheus ... one has scarcely seen anything so daring as the urge of those men who want to make the mutable, uncertain, mysterious order of the destinies submit to their calculations, to penetrate the obscure realm of the future, to reduce the fortunes of chance to numbers. ... For this reason Laplace's book exerts a real fascination on certain minds which the power of reason intoxicates, and on which a new truth acts like an opium pipe. ... Such minds make probability their gospel; they devote themselves to propagating its theories. ... The Philosophical Essay is not only an ambitious effort of the intellect ... to know; the Essay has its moral aspect in that it brings men back to the practice of the good by observation of eternal principles.(1)
Without being of such an exalted order, without leading to such a noble end, without emanating from so vigorous a mind, the tales we are about to discuss have an evident kinship with the serious work of the learned Marquis. If the incoherent fictions of the common narrative have enough to attract and hold your interest, you will find nothing here to intrigue you. Poetry, invention, effects of style, logical dramatic sequence, all are subservient in these tales to a bizarre preoccupation. We might [page 146:] almost call it an obsession of the author, who seems to have only one faculty of inspiration, reason; only one muse, logic; only one effect upon his readers, the creation of doubt. There are as many enigmas as there are tales and all of them take diverse forms and guises. Whether wearing the fantastic livery of Hoffmann or the grave and magisterial costume of Godwin renovated by Washington Irving or Dickens, it is always the same combination which sets Oedipus and the Sphinx by the ears — a protagonist and a puzzle; ... an apparently impenetrable mystery and an intellect which irritated ... by the veil stretched before it solves the enigma after incredible operations of the mind rendered in the most minute detail.
... Every narrative ... implies a plot whose doubtful vicissitudes are ... linked together by a bond of logic, according to the ability of the writer. The syllogism is at the bottom of the most moving situations, and the climax that arouses the reader's emotions is fundamentally only a development of a dramatically rendered logical sequence. In short, logic is the hidden pivot of the action. It is concealed in an infinite number of details which are designed to dazzle and bewilder our minds; and because the action moves so quickly from its starting point and rushes so headlong to its conclusion, we tend not to be conscious of the logic. To see that logic is concealed by the fiction, you have merely to separate the logical substratum from its brilliantly colored and ingeniously embellished envelope. You will then notice from what a thin argument, from what a tenuous thread, the magnificent fabric hangs.
In contrast, the unique tales that we wish to make known and that have just arrived from New York by the last packet boat have a logic that is unconcealed. It dominates everything; it is queen and mistress. Its office is not to hide itself; it is not a monument to exterior riches — it is its own monument; it borrows nothing or nearly nothing from the many-resources of fiction. It no longer plays the role of the submissive slave which lends its robust shoulders to its master tottering with wine and conducts him, not without difficulty, to a door barely seen. Instead, it walks alone, strong in its own strength; it is the end and the way, the cause and the effect. Yesterday, in the hands of a philosopher, logic was used to explore the most difficult problems of speculative philosophy; today, it lodges in a fiction so as to put itself within reach of the greatest number, yet for all that departing as little as possible from philosophical dignity. [page 147:]
Exactly what was Laplace looking for in his analysis of chance and Buffon in his political arithmetic? Each of them ... wanted to subdue an obstinate unknown quantity by the power of induction, to neutralize the resistance it offers to reason, and to gain mathematical certainty in regard to moral problems. For this reason Laplace weighs in the same balance the periodical reappearance of a comet, the chances of a lottery ticket, and the value of historical testimony. The same power of reasoning serves to assure him that the action of the moon on the ocean is more than twice as powerful as that of the sun, and that Pascal's niece, the young Perrier, was not cured of her fistula by the direct and miraculous intervention of divine Providence.(2) Thus whether in respect to the past, the present, or the future, he lays down a system of principles and establishes the general laws of probability.
In his own unique way, Mr. Poe is also concerned with probabilities, but he does not weigh them by rules but by intuition. ... The fundamental idea of his tales seems to be borrowed from the first adventures of Zadig in which the young ... philosopher displays marvelous perspicacity. The eccentric character who is Mr. Poe's favorite protagonist and whose subtle intelligence he puts to such difficult tests would also have inferred by merely inspecting their tracks that the Queen of Babylon's spaniel had just had a litter of puppies and that the King's horse ... had twenty-three-caret gold bosses on his bit.(3) This protagonist is really Mr. Poe who hardly troubles to conceal himself, and in those tales in which he does not have a surrogate Mr. Poe appears in his own person.
Who other than this searcher after problems to solve would have imposed on himself the task of imagining what the posthumous sensations of a man, or rather of a body, might be, stretched out first on the funeral bed, then in a coffin under the damp earth, listening to himself dissolve and watching himself rot? To whose mind would it have occurred to relate in such a convincing way the final catastrophe which must reduce this terrestrial globe to nothingness? To touch on these great secrets of human and planetary death seems the business of the profoundest thinkers, [page 148:] the longest studies, and the most complete systems. For Mr. Poe it is only a question of assuming a hypothesis, of establishing a starting point, and letting the tale develop in the most plausible way among all its probable and possible consequences.
Monos has died. Una, his adored mistress, has followed him into the somber kingdom of death. They meet. Una wants to know of her beloved what he felt a while ago when, desolate, she contemplated him immobile, cold, disfigured, marked by the supreme wound. Had all thought disappeared with life? Is the divorce of soul and body so abrupt, ... so complete, that with the last death-rattle the soul escapes entirely, leaving behind it only an inert lump? The common man answers yes. Hardly afraid of shocking everyone's judgment, our author denies the validity of this unprovable assumption and, supporting his denial by logic, he erects his narrative from beyond the grave.
It is not, to tell the truth, the first time that imagination has gone beyond the limits of life, those limits impassable to reason and before which all philosophy lowers its eyes, humbled; but I do not think that anyone has ever before in fiction given to the recollections of a dead person this character of exact definition and reasoned conviction. It is not a question here of fantastic adventures, of arbitrary complications, of dialogues ... filled with fancy, but rather the matter of a veritable monograph patiently and methodically developed which seems to aspire to take its place among the other documents of humane philosophy. Mr. Poe has deduced from the phenomena of the dream the phenomena of the sensibility of the corpse; he has taken seriously the brotherhood of sleep and death of which so many poets have sung; and from this philosophical doctrine he has applied himself to drawing all the truths he could derive from it. One will agree that such work is not hackneyed. [Here follows a long quotation from “The Colloquy of Monos and Una” in which Monos describes his postmortem sensations.]
We shall not prolong this singular quotation which is indispensable for justifying what we said above of the unique character of Mr. Poe's work — in this instance, that of a dead man analyzing his posthumous sensations.
The final ruin of the globe, the destruction of our planet, is as methodically treated in the conversation of Eiros and Charmion as is the decomposition of the human being in that of Monos and Una. The principle is presented in the same way. Given the elementary fact that the breathable [page 149:] air is composed of twenty-one parts oxygen and seventy-nine parts nitrogen, ... as well as the fact that the earth is surrounded by a thick atmosphere of nearly fifteen leagues, what would happen if the elliptical course around the sun taken by a comet led that comet into contact with the terrestrial globe? This is exactly the supposition Trissotin makes in The Learned Ladies,(4) but Mr. Poe does not adopt his way of viewing the problem. He sees the comet not as a massive and heavy body but as a whirlwind of impalpable material whose nucleus is of a density much less than that of our lightest gases. The imminent meeting does not present the same kind of danger as that of two locomotives rushing toward each other on the same rails; indeed, it even seems probable that the earth might pass through this enemy comet without difficulty. But what is likely to happen to us while we are in this peculiar situation? Oxygen, the principle of combustion, would become a hostile force, for nitrogen would be completely drawn out of our earthly atmosphere. And what would be the result of this double phenomenon? An irresistible combustion would devour all, would prevail over all. ... On this fundamental idea, once conceded, the story develops with implacable logic, with inevitable deductions, with pitiless consequences. Challenge if you wish the major and minor premises which are the points of departure; the remainder is strictly unassailable.
[Here follows a detailed retelling of “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion.”]
You see, then, that this extraordinary story, this unprecedented freak of an imagination which nothing stops, has all the appearance, if not all the reality, of a severe logic. Few people will deny that a comet and the earth can meet in space. Granting this, one must recognize that the possibility of this conflagration of gas, this combustion of the atmosphere, and this horrible end of the entire human race, all of whom are reduced to breathing only fire, is at least very probable.
Having approached such problems, one takes pleasure in examining all those that philosophy seems eternally condemned to deny us the solution, reserved as they are to God. Mr. Poe is thus led to look for a plausible [page 150:] explanation of the human soul and of divinity. This is the subject of a third story entitled Mesmeric Revelation. The author imagines himself at the bedside of a skeptic who, arrived at the final stage of a fatal illness, has himself treated by mesmerism. Mr. Vankirk has all his life doubted the immortality of the soul. Now, troubled by the vague recollections that mesmeric trances have induced in him, he wonders if in this strange state a series of well-directed questions might not clarify ... those metaphysical truths which philosophy has guessed but has badly explained because of the inadequacy of our ordinary resources. Indeed, granting that mesmeric action permits man to compensate for the imperfection of his finite organs and enables him while endowed with miraculous clairvoyance to be transported to that domain of creation which is beyond the senses, does it not follow that the mesmerized person is better qualified than others to explain to us the hidden realities of the invisible world? This prime point granted, do you trust the storyteller to give you by questions and answers a very probable theory of all that which is related to the division of soul and body, with the essence that constitutes ... the superior order known under the name of God...? It goes without saying that we do not take it upon ourselves to guarantee ... the system expounded by the American storyteller. ... [Here is explained Poe's conception of the unparticled materiality of God, to be found in “Mesmeric Revelation.”]
We will not pursue this purely hypothetical revelation that reminds us of the inspirations or aspirations of those fiction writers of fourteen or fifteen years ago who found it fascinating to put into “madrigals” the visions of Jacob Boehm, of Saint Martin, of Swedenborg, and even of Mme Guyon. It must be said, however, that Mr. Poe's logic has a much more precise character. It is much more tenacious. ... It is not satisfied with vague, grandiloquent words and with impenetrable formulas rendered with feigned rigor. Once the principles are posed, his logic deviates only rarely; it is always clear, always intelligible, and it takes possession of the reader in spite of himself.
It is time to return to earth and ... follow this inexorable logic. ...
In The Gold-Bug we can see all the ratiocinative faculties of man at grips with an apparently impenetrable cipher, upon the solution of which depends a rich pirate's treasure. ... Later, in A Descent into the Maelström, Mr. Poe will tell us how a sound observation, a well-followed argument, will deliver safe and sound from the bottom of a Norwegian [page 151:] gulf an unfortunate fisherman carried away by a devouring whirlpool. We do not insist that ordinary verisimilitude be completely respected here — that a theory of gravity could be improvised by an uneducated countryman in a situation that would arrest the mental faculties ...; but if everything that is rigorously and strictly possible in the situation is conceived by the human mind, one must admit the possibility that extreme peril might induce in a man ... a peculiar lucidity of intellect, a miraculous power of observation, and that is enough to make this story captivate you, as do the Anacandala [P] of [“Monk”] Lewis or the novel of Frankenstein, both of which are certainly not very probable.
Here is something easier to believe. [The power of Auguste Lupin is recounted, that of a man who is “first rate in all games in which success depends on the exact valuation of chances” and who is able to read his companion's mind from a few clues.]
Apply this astonishing perspicacity, the result of almost superhuman concentration of the mind and of a marvelous intuition, to a police operation and you have ... an investigator whom nothing escapes. ... Mr. Poe fastens upon this situation and with completely American tenacity develops the extraordinary events to their extreme limits.
Three or four stories rest on this very simple contrivance with very telling effect. We regret only that the foreign storyteller has thought to enhance the interest of these tales by locating them in Paris, of which he has not the least idea, and in our contemporary society, which is very badly known in the United States. ... Mr. Poe was ... not ... unwise in removing his scenes to a distance in order to conceal the artifices of his painting and lend to it all the semblance of truth, but he should have foreseen that French readers, pausing before these canvases, would be astounded to find the capital of France completely overturned, the main quarters very suddenly dislodged — an Impasse Lamartine in the neighborhood of the Palais-Royal, a Rue Morgue in the Saint-Roch quarter, and the Barrière du Roule at the edge of the Seine “on the shore opposite the Rue Pavée-Saint-André.” Neither should he have applied the ideas of a much more democratic country to our social structure by supposing that the prefect of police, at his wit's end and not knowing which way to turn to recover a mysterious letter ..., would come one evening familiarly to smoke one or two cigars with the young observer of whom we have spoken, to ask his advice, to express his doubts, and to make a wager on the success of the measures proposed by this obliging [page 152:] counselor. Yet we do not cite all the blunders nor the most egregious ones that our red pencil has noted in the margin of these curious little fictions. These blunders are explained not only by their foreign origin but also by the method that the author adopts of transporting to our country some real chronicles chosen from among the crimes which have occupied the magistrates of New York or Boston. The story of Marie Roget ... is a famous American case; the names alone have been changed to French ones; the incidents could not be. The Hudson becomes the Seine; Weehawken the Barrière du Roule: Nassau Street, the Rue Pavée-Saint-André, and so forth. Likewise, Marie Roget, the supposed young Parisian grisette, is no other than Mary Cecilia Rogers, the cigar girl whose mysterious murder terrified a few years ago the people of New York. Let us first tell the event as it was related in the New York Mercury or in Brother Jonathan. We will return to the fiction when we have an exact idea of the reality.
[Here is summarized the murder mystery of Mary Rogers as it was reported in the newspapers.]
Mr. Poe seizes upon this story in his turn and sets in the midst of all these conflicting newspaper accounts his unique character, this living syllogism of whom we have spoken. The Chevalier Dupin — such is the name he has fabricated for him, a truly characteristic name that has a very remarkable improbability and strangeness — the Chevalier Dupin, attentive to all the contradictory versions, discusses them rigorously and submits them to mathematical analysis. One sees that he has read in Laplace's Philosophical Essay the chapter devoted to The Probability of the Judgments of Tribunals. ... His calculations of probability are striking and curious. That is all one must ask of them. This principle once granted, the consequences are self-evident. By abandoning the main fact in order to concentrate on the details which seem insignificant, the Chevalier succeeds in establishing a number of circumstances that eventually serve to clarify the mystery.
Novalis has this passage in his Moral Ansichten: “There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally modify the ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and its consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with the Reformation; instead of Protestantism came Lutheranism.” In choosing this passage as the epigraph of his story, the American author explains to us his metaphysical design. When he exhibits the various hypotheses of the French (which is to say, American) journals on the subject of the murder committed in New York, when he exposes the gross errors of common logic, improvised as fodder for the unintelligent masses, [page 153:] his purpose is to prove that by virtue of certain principles an ideal series — one that is purely logical and consisting of mutually related facts — must lead, by an accumulation of mutually corroborative suppositions, to the nearest point of the real series or the truth. By an inexorable dialectic he thus destroys the false systems and, having thoroughly cleared the terrain, constructs a new edifice with all the pieces in place.
In the eyes of this remarkable thinker, the practice of the courts which restricts the admission of evidence to a few crucial facts is extremely erroneous. Modern science, which very often depends on the unexpected and proves the known by the unknown, understands better than the courts the importance of secondary incidents, of collateral evidence, which, above all, must be taken into consideration. There are seemingly inessential facts, apparent fortuities, which have become the foundation of the most complete and best-established systems. ...
[Here follows a retelling of “The Mystery of Marie Roget” which emphasizes Poe's power of logic.]
We do not give you — notice this well — a twentieth part of the reasonings which directly or indirectly corroborate this inference. ...
Now that you have an idea of the American author in his favorite aspect, we should try to see him under another one. We have studied him as a logician, as a pursuer of abstract truths, and as a lover of the most eccentric hypotheses and the most difficult calculations. Now we should see him as a poet, as an inventor of objectless fantasies, of purely literary whims. We will confine ourselves to two tales we have expressly reserved for this purpose, The Black Cat and The Man of the Crowd.
The Black Cat reminds us of the gloomiest inspirations of Theodore Hoffmann. Never did the Serapion Club listen to anything more fantastic than the story of this man, this unfortunate maniac, who harbors in his liquor-burned brain a monstrous hatred, the hatred of his poor cat. [Here follows a retelling of the story.]
The Man of the Crowd is not a story; it is a study, a simple idea vigorously rendered. [Here the tale is retold.]
We have already compared the talent of Mr. Poe with that of Washington [page 154:] Irving, the latter more cheerful, more varied, less ambitious, as well as to that of William Godwin, whose “sombre and unwholesome popularity” was so severely censured by Hazlitt. One must, however, recognize in the author of St. Leon and Caleb Williams more true philosophy and a tendency less pronounced toward purely literary paradox. If one wanted to show in America itself a predecessor of Mr. Edgar Poe, one could ... compare him to Charles Brockden Brown who also searched in good faith, even in his most frivolous fictions, for the solution of some intellectual problem, taking pleasure as Mr. Poe does in describing those interior tortures, those obsessions of the soul, those maladies of the mind which offer so vast a field for observation and so many curious phenomena to the thoughtful makers of metaphysical systems.
Brockden Brown, it is true, wrote novels and we know of Poe only by very brief short stories, some no more than six to ten pages, but it would be unwise, it seems to us, to classify compositions of this genre by length. It is so easy to protract indefinitely a series of facts and so difficult, on the other hand, to condense ... in the form of a tale a whole abstract theory with all the elements of an original concept. Today when the least scribbler appears with a melodrama in ten or twenty volumes, Richardson himself, if he returned to the world, would be ... obliged to trim his characterizations, curtail his interminable dialogues, and reduce to finely wrought medallions the numerous figures of his vast canvases. Yesterday the victory was to large battalions; tomorrow it will belong to elite troops. From the great novels ... one came to the stories of Voltaire and Diderot. ... Tales like these of Mr. Poe's offer more substance to the mind, open newer horizons to the imagination, than twenty volumes like those of Courtilz de Sandras, de Baculard D’Arnaud, and de Lussan, precursors and prototypes of many contemporary story writers. ...(5) Between such writers and the American author we will refrain from making comparisons. It will be opportune and useful to compare them when time has established the nascent reputation of the foreign storyteller and — who knows? — has shaken a little that of our prolific novelists.
——————————————
70. 9 January 1847: Letter to Nathaniel P. Willis Published in the Home Journal (with Willis's Preface)
Edgar A. Poe
[His “Reply to Mr. English and Others,” his attempts to enlist Field, Simms, and Duyckinck as allies (Documents 9, 41, 67), and his initiation of a libel suit against the owners of the Mirror seem to have exhausted Poe's possibilities for action against his persecutors. Even if he still had the Broadway Journal at his disposal, he could hardly have defended himself or assailed his enemies, for he was chronically ill, penniless, and no doubt distraught at his wife's imminent death.
Now invited by Willis to “express anger ... in print” about his editorial “Disabled Labourers with the Brain,” Poe wrote the letter below, dated 3o December 1846, which Willis published on 9 January 1847, together with Duyckinck's article on Poe (Document 68). (Until now the precise dating of the publication of this letter was impossible, for the crucial issue of the Home Journal was unlocated and an undated clipping in the Ingram Collection at the University of Virginia was all that was available.)
One of the “anonymous letters” that Poe mentions was sent by Mrs. Ellet (see Moss, Poe's Literary Battles, pages 207-21, for the reasons and Poe's letters dated 18 October and 24 November 1848 in Ostrom, as well as Ostrom's notes, for identification of her as the culprit). The “published calumnies of Messrs ———,” for which, Poe says, he yet hopes “to find redress in a court of justice,” were written, of course, by Hiram Fuller and Thomas Dunn English. Poe said as much, almost to the very words, in his October 18 letter, except that there he considered Mrs. Ellet to be the manipulator of Fuller and English. There was, he wrote, “one instance, where the malignity of the accuser hurried her beyond her usual caution, and thus the accusation was of such character that I could appeal to a court of justice for redress. The tools employed in this instance were Mr Hiram Fuller and Mr T. D. English.” Poe may not have been so paranoiac as he sounds here, for Fuller on 8 July 1847 admitted: “There have been actors behind the scenes in all this business, whom we may yet have to call before the footlights” (Document 98). Moreover, we know for certain that Rufus Griswold was persecuted by Mrs. Ellet for three years and that he found the situation intolerable. “From time to time during ... three years,” he wrote, [page 156:] anonymous letters about me, made up of almost every species of slander and vituperation, were continually appearing in the public journals. If I was observed to be a visitor at the house of any gentleman of social or professional eminence, an anonymous letter against me was addressed to him. Gentlemen and ladies called at my own house at the peril of receiving communications of the same description. ... All these communications, to individuals, or to the public, were easily traceable to the same circle, and the larger part of them to a single individual. ...
The individual Griswold alluded to was, of course, Mrs. Ellet. (See Joy Bayless, Rufus Wilmot Griswold: Poe's Literary Executor, especially page 229.)
Mrs. Ellet's persecution of Griswold began in 1853. In 1850, however, Griswold, still spared, made this statement about Poe's letter to Willis in his “Memoir of the Author”: “This was written for effect. He had not been ill a great while, nor dangerously at all; there was no literary or personal abuse of him in the journals; and his friends in town had been applied to for money until their patience was nearly exhausted.”
In a letter dated io March 1847 (it is a draft and may not have been sent), Poe explained to Mrs. Jane Locke why he denied having “ever materially suffered from privation”: “a natural pride ... impelled me to shrink from public charity, even at the cost of truth. Those necessities,” he added, “were but too real” (Ostrom, II, 347).]
MR. POE. — We have received the following letter from this gentleman. It speaks for itself. What was the under-current of feeling in his mind while it was written, can be easily understood by the few; but it carries enough on its surface to be sufficiently understood. In another column, we give a communication respecting his literary position, kindly furnished by one of the best of our scholars and gentlemen.
MY DEAR WILLIS: — The paragraph which has been put in circulation respecting my wife's illness, my own, my poverty, etc., is now lying before me; together with the beautiful lines by Mrs. Locke and those by Mrs. —, to which the paragraph has given rise, as well as your kind and manly comments in “THE HOME JOURNAL.”
The motive of the paragraph I leave to the conscience of him or her who wrote it or suggested it. Since the thing is done, however, and since [page 157:] the concerns of my family are thus pitilessly thrust before the public, I perceive no mode of escape from a public statement of what is true and what erroneous in the report alluded to.
That my wife is ill, then, is true; and you may imagine with what feeling I add that this illness, hopeless from the first, has been heightened and precipitated by her reception, at two different periods, of anonymous letters — one enclosing the paragraph now in question; the other, those published calumnies of Messrs — , for which I yet hope to find redress in a court of justice.
Of the facts, that I myself have been long and dangerously ill, and that my illness has been a well understood thing among my brethren of the press, the best evidence is afforded by the innumerable paragraphs of personal and of literary abuse with which I have been latterly assailed. This matter, however, will remedy itself. At the very first blush of my new prosperity, the gentlemen who toadied me in the old, will recollect themselves and toady me again. You, who know me, will comprehend that I speak of these things only as having served, in a measure, to lighten the gloom of unhappiness, by a gentle and not unpleasant sentiment of mingled pity, merriment and contempt.
That, as the inevitable consequence of so long an illness, I have been in want of money, it would be folly in me to deny — but that I have ever materially suffered from privation, beyond the extent of my capacity for suffering, is not altogether true. That I am “without friends” is a gross calumny, which I am sure you never could have believed, and which a thousand noble-hearted men would have good right never to forgive me for permitting to pass unnoticed and undenied. Even in the city of New York I could have no difficulty in naming a hundred persons, to each of whom — when the hour for speaking had arrived — I could and would have applied for aid and with unbounded confidence, and with absolutely no sense of humiliation.
I do not think, my dear Willis, that there is any need of my saying more. I am getting better, and may add — if it be any comfort to my enemies — that I have little fear of getting worse. The truth is, I have a great deal to do; and I have made up my mind not to die till it is done.
Sincerely yours,
EDGAR A. POE.
December 30th, 1846.
——————————————
71. 8 January 1847: The Philadelphia Spirit of the Times Comments on Poe's Letter in the Home Journal
John S. Du Solle
[Du Solle at Godey's direction had printed “Mr. Poe's Reply to Mr. English and Others” in his newspaper (Document 24), though the article had alleged that English's “primary thrashing ... was bestowed upon him ... by Mr. John S. Du Solle, 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.” Now with the Home Journal of 9 January 1847 in his possession — the Home Journal, like other magazines, appeared earlier than its dateline indicates — Du Solle felt obliged to comment upon Poe's letter to Nathaniel P. Willis.]
WE NEVER THINK OF MR. POE, the brilliant but bitter writer, but the Persian saying saturates the singular impression, viz: “The rose prayed for a gift, and the genius gave it thorns. The rose wept, until it saw the antelope eating lilies!” If Mr. P. had not been gifted with considerable gall, he would have been devoured long ago by the host of enemies his genius has created.
In the “Home Journal” of this week, we find a letter from Mr. P. full of this interesting mixture of acerbity and self-confidence. It is Poe-ish all over! In very truth we sincerely respect both the singular ability and fascinating diablerie that pervade all Mr. P's intellectual productions. When his celebrated M. Valdemar mystification appeared, it delighted us beyond expression. We were in London at the time, and its republication there as a grave statement of facts, compelled us to admit it one of the most triumphant imitations of reality, upon record. Mr. P. now says:
“I am getting better, and may add — if it be any comfort to my enemies — that I have little fear of getting worse. The truth is, I have a great deal to do; and I have made up my mind not to die till it is done.”
——————————————
72. 16 January 1847: “Editorial Delicacy”
Yankee Doodle
[Yankee Doodle, a New York weekly modeled on Punch, was issued by members of the Duyckinck circle from October 1846 to October 1847. G. G. Foster, the original editor who had earlier been on the Tribune staff and who later became T. D. English's co-editor on the John-Donkey, another humor magazine, was succeeded by Duyckinck's closest friend, Cornelius Mathews. Herman Melville, Nathaniel P. Willis, and Horace Greeley were among those who published unsigned articles in the weekly.
During its brief existence Yankee Doodle engaged in a slanging match with the Mirror, its chief target, calling it the “Mirror of Nighthood” and the “Evening Opiate.” It labeled English's 1844; or, The Power of the “S.F.,” then appearing in both Mirrors, “an admirable sudorific (the smallest conceivable quantity acting immediately, emetically and otherwise),” and alleged that “Poh” wanted to know if “S.F.” stood for “Stupid Fiction.” It also ran such items as the following under the head “To Scavengers Out of Work”: “Wanted, several fearless and unprincipled men to search a deep and filthy sewer for the little valuables which may perhaps have accidentally fallen into it — Apply to the Office of the Evening Mirror.”
Fuller, of course, responded in kind, referring to Yankee Doodle's usual running attack on the Mirror.” “Its squibs at us,” Fuller remarked, are “prompted by revenge,” and he observed that Yankee Doodle had done its “best to imitate the London ‘Punch,’ “and had succeeded, “excepting the wit, humor, good-nature, philanthropy, fun, learning, didacticism, and embellishments.”
Yankee Doodle had other targets than the Mirror, of course. One was the “paralytic” North American Review, which had recently (October 1846) attacked Poe, Simms, and Mathews, whose books had appeared in Duyckinck's Library of American Books. Another was Lewis Gaylord Clark of the Knickerbocker who was called “A Lying Editor, A Busy-Body Editor, A Critical Editor Paid to Puff, A Jobby Editor, A Cockney Editor.” Another was Rufus Wilmot Griswold, the indefatigable anthologist. “Let no one plunder you of your brains,” Yankee Doodle declared; “they are your own property; and let no one put his Griswold Hook into your jaws or nose.” Still another was Longfellow, typically called “H. W. Briefbody” or author of “Noises of the Night,” whose “Excelsior” was parodied. [page 160:] Even Poe was not spared. His “Haunted Palace” was travestied under the title, “The Haunted Pastry.” Now with Poe helpless and his private affairs bandied about in print, Yankee Doodle carried a sympathetic article about him, though earlier it had found occasion for humor in Willis's editorial (see headnote to Document 62).
Apart from its role in the Poe-Fuller controversy, Yankee Doodle, like other American humor magazines of the period, was very dull. As James Russell Lowell remarked in his Fable for Critics:
Petty thieves, kept from flagranter crimes by their fears,
Shall peruse Yankee Doodle a blank term of years, —
That American Punch, like the English, no doubt, —
Just the sugar and lemons and spirit left out.]
EDITORIAL DELICACY. — We have been inexpressibly delighted with the the considerate delicacy and forbearance with which the temporary misfortunes of a distinguished author have been recently dragged before the public by the newspapers. Every mean-spirited cur, who dared not bark when his tormentor had strength, feeds fat his ancient grudge, now that he sees his enemy prostrate and powerless — with heart crushed and brain shattered by the sickness and suffering of those most dear to him in life. This shows in a just and flattering light the prudence and discrimination of the Press, and is a pregnant commentary on the blessings of type-metal.
——————————————
73. 1 February 1847: Creation of a Commission To Obtain Thomas Dunn English's Deposition
[When the court convened as scheduled on February 1, English, the chief witness for the defense, was absent. Though he had pledged “to make my charges good by the most ample and satisfactory evidence” (Document 27), English in the previous month had gone to Washington, D.C., to avoid the trial. William H. Paine, attorney for the defense, urged the court to secure his deposition. Justice Aaron H. Vanderpoel of New York Superior Court acceded to his wishes and created a commission consisting of John Ross Browne, T. B. H. Smith, and John Lorimer Graham, Jr., to interrogate English in Washington. At the same time Justice Vanderpoel [page 161:] postponed further proceedings in the case until the third Monday in February, which was February 15. (A harsh “Mirror Reflex” of the Judge appears in the Evening Mirror of 21 June 1846 and in the Weekly Mirror of 4 July 1846.)
John Ross Browne (1821-1875) was serving at this time as private secretary to Robert J. Walker, secretary of the treasury. Among other works, he wrote Etchings of a Whaling Cruise (1846), which Herman Melville reviewed for the Duyckincks’ Literary World on 6 March 1847. J. B. H. Smith was an attorney at law. As it turned out, he was the only commissioner to secure English's testimony. John Lorimer Graham (1835-1876) became the owner of Poe's personal copy of The Raven and Other Poems in which the poet had made revisions with an eye to republication. (A facsimile of the volume has been edited by Thomas O. Mabbott.) His position in Washington at this time cannot be determined, for the city directories for 1846, 1850, and 1853 do not list him and it seems there was no city directory published in 1847.
The order creating the commission to receive English's deposition was a standard printed form. The information that was penned into this form is here put into brackets to distinguish it from the printed matter.]
The People of the State of New-York, To [J. Ross Browne, J. B. H. Smith & John Lorimer Graham, Junior]
KNOW YE, That we, with full faith in your prudence and competency, have appointed you Commisioner and by these presents do authorize you, [or any one of you] to examine
[Thomas Dunn English]
as witness in a cause pending in the [Superior Court of the City of New York, between Edgar A. Poe, plaintiff, & Hiram Fuller and Augustus W. Clason, Junior] defendant[s] on the part of the [defendants] on oath, upon the interrogatories annexed to this Commission, to take and certify the depositions of the witness and return the same according to the directions hereunto annexed.
WITNESS, [Samuel Jones, Esq., Chief Justice]
the [First Mon]day of [February] one thousand eight hundred and [forty-seven]
[J. Oakley
Clerk]
· · · · · · · · · · · · ·
This Commission, when executed, is to be returned [by mail to the Clerk of the Superior Court of the City and County of New York. Dated 8 February 1847.
A. Vanderpoel, Justice of Superior Court &c]
The execution of this Commission appears in certain schedules hereunto annexed.
Commissioner
· · · · · · · · · · · · ·
——————————————
74. 8 February 1847: Direct and Cross-Interrogatories To Be Put to Thomas Dunn English
[More was needed than a commission to obtain testimony from English, who had gone to Washington, D.0 . (see headnote to preceding document), and had found employment as a newspaper correspondent. Questions to be asked of English had to be prepared for the commission.
Since English was the star witness for the defense, the defense attorney, William H. Paine, drew up the direct interrogatories, while Poe's attorney drew up the cross-interrogatories. These interrogatories were approved by Justice Aaron H. Vanderpoel of the Superior Court on February 8.]
Superior Court
—————————————————————————
Hiram Fuller and
Augustus W. Clason, Junior
ads [ad sectam; i.e., at the suit of]
Edgar A. Poe
—————————————————————————
Order
[signed] Wm H. Paine
Atty fr Defts
$1.00
New York Superior Court: Interrogatories to be administered to Thomas Dunn English
of the City of Washington in the District of Columbia, a witness to be produced. Sworn and examined under and by virtue of the annexed [page 163:] Commission before J. Ross Browne, J. B. H. Smith, and John Lorimer Graham, Junior, of the City of Washington aforesaid, the Commissioners therein named, in a certain cause now pending and at issue in the Superior Court of the City and County of New York wherein Edgar A. Poe is plaintiff and Hiram Fuller and Augustus W. Clason, Junior, defendants: on the part and behalf of the said defendants.
First interrogatory: Do you know Edgar A. Poe? If yea, how long and how intimately have you known him?
Second interrogatory: What is the general character of said Poe?
Third interrogatory: Have you ever been connected with him as an editor? If yea, what is his character as an editor and critic?
Fourth interrogatory: State the particulars of a pecuniary transaction with Edgar A. Poe referred to in an article published in the Evening Mirror of the twenty-third day of June in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-six, over the signature of Thomas Dunn English.
Fifth interrogatory: State what you know of the charge of forgery imputed to Edgar A. Poe in an article alluded to in last interrogatory. General [sixth] interrogatory: State any thing further within your knowledge pertinent to the matter in issue.
[initialed] E.L.F [anther].
| I allow the above interrogatories Dated 8 Feby 1847 [signed] A Vanderpoel |
||
| N Y Superior Court ——————————————— Edgar A. Poe vs. Hiram Fuller and Augustus W. Clason, Jr. ——————————————— |
I allow these cross interrogatories Dated 8 Feby 1847 [signed] A Vanderpoel |
Cross-interrogatories in the above cause to be administered to Thomas Dunn English, a witness to be examined under and by virtue of the annexed Commission:
First cross-interrogatory: What is your present business or profession, and in what have you been engaged for the last two years? [page 164:]
Second cross-interrogatory: Do you know the defendants in this suit and how long have you known them?
Third cross-interrogatory: Are you acquainted with, or were you, in and about the month of June last, in the habit of seeing or reading a paper published in the City of New York called “The Evening Mirror”? If yea, do you know who at that time was the editor, and who the proprietor of that paper, and if so state.
Fourth cross-interrogatory: Did you see or read in the Evening Mirror, of the date of the 23d day of June 1846, a card or article entitled “Mr English's Reply to Mr Poe,” and signed “Thomas Dunn English”? If yea, are you the author and writer of that article? (The latter branch of interrogatories witness not obliged to answer, if by answering he may criminate himself.)
Fifth cross-interrogatory: Had you any and what agency in procuring the publication of that article in the Evening Mirror? To whom did you hand the manuscript, and what inducement or offer, if any, did you make for its publication? (Not obliged to answer, if it may criminate.)
Sixth cross-interrogatory: Supposing this suit to be an action for alleged libellous matter contained in that article, and that a recovery should be had against the defendants for such publication, are you in any manner obligated, or under promise to the defendants or either of them, to indemnify them from such recovery, or to share or pay the damages and costs? If so, state particularly.
Seventh cross-interrogatory: Did Edgar A. Poe personally ever receive from your hands any money for which you now hold or in June last held acknowledgements? If so, state when and where, and produce such acknowledgements and set forth a copy of it.
Eighth cross-interrogatory: Did not Mr John Bisco apply to you and receive the money alluded to when Mr Poe was not present, and what was the amount? And at the time you gave Mr Bisco such money, were you not indebted to Mr Poe for an article relating to American poetry published by you in a periodical called “The Aristidean”?
Ninth cross-interrogatory: Had you not, previous to Mr Bisco's calling on you, caused to be published in “The Aristidean” articles or an article or some portion thereof from Mr Poe's manuscript which had been written by him, and for which you had never paid him? [page 165:]
Tenth cross-interrogatory: Have you ever and how often paid Mr Poe for literary articles to be published by you, or which you had published? [initialed] E.L.F[ancher].
——————————————
75. 6 February 1847: “Death of Mrs. Edgar A. Poe”
Nathaniel P. Willis
[On January 30 Willis and George Pope Morris, his partner, went in bitter-cold weather to Fordham to attend the funeral for Virginia Poe. With the exception of Sarah Lewis of Brooklyn, whose poems Poe had edited and praised for a fee, no other literary figures appeared. The literati saw no occasion in Virginia's death to forgive Poe his derelictions.
In addition to Mrs. Lewis's husband, there were Mrs. Shew, a nurse, who had come earlier to tend Poe's failing wife and who remained for the funeral; Eliza Herring (Mrs. Smith), a relative; Mary Devereaux, an early girl friend of Poe who had known Virginia when the deceased was a child; and finally some neighbors, including the John Valentines whose cottage Poe was renting. The Valentines, aware that Poe had no grave plot or money to purchase one, put their family vault in Fordham's Dutch Reformed Church cemetery at his disposal.
Willis's statement, made in the Home Journal, that Virginia's “loss is mourned by a numerous circle of friends” was in the circumstances more kind than accurate.]
DEATH OF MRS. EDGAR A. POE. — Among the deaths, last week, we regret to notice that of Mrs. Poe, who fell a victim to pulmonary consumption. Mrs. Poe was an estimable woman and an excellent wife. Her loss is mourned by a numerous circle of friends.
——————————————
76. 11 February 1847: J. B. H. Smith Takes Thomas Dunn English's Testimony
[Smith, a Washington attorney and a member of the three-man commission appointed to take English's testimony, was the only one to examine [page 166:] English. John Ross Browne could not attend the examination because of his official duties, and John Lorimer Graham could not be located.
The direct and cross-interrogatories are interpolated in brackets to make this portion of the court record easier to read.]
Depositions of witness — produced, sworn and examined the eleventh day of February in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-seven at the office of J. B. H. Smith in the City of Washington, D. C., under and by virtue of a commission issued out of the Superior Court of the City of New York in a certain cause therein depending and at issue between Edgar A. Poe, plaintiff, and Hiram Fuller and Augustus W. Clason, Junior, defendants, as follows.
Thomas Dunn English of the City of New York, at present in the City of Washington, by occupation an author, aged twenty-eight years, being duly and publickly sworn pursuant to the directions hereto annexed and examined on the part of the defendants, doth depose and say as follows.
To wit:
To the first interrogatory [Do you know Edgar A. Poe? If yea, how long and how intimately have you known him?] he saith: I know Edgar A. Poe; became acquainted with him shortly after he was first associated with Mr Wm E. Burton in the conduct of the Gentleman's Magazine. This was sometime previous to the year 1840. I cannot say in what year without I had the files of the Magazine by me to refresh my memory. Our acquaintanceship at portions of the time was very intimate.
To the 2d interrogatory [What is the general character of said Poe?] he saith: The general character of said Poe is that of a notorious liar, a common drunkard and of one utterly lost to all the obligations of honor.
To the 3d interrogatory [Have you ever been connected with him as an editor? If yea, what is his character as an editor and critic?] he saith: No.
To the 4th interrogatory [State the particulars of a pecuniary transaction with Edgar A. Poe referred to in an article published in the Evening Mirror of the twenty-third day of June in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-six, over the signature of Thomas Dunn English] he saith: Mr Poe called upon me, I think in the early part of October 1845; stated that he had an opportunity to purchase the whole of the Broadway Journal, of which he said he was then part owner; that he lacked a part of the money necessary to effect the purchase; that if I [page 167:] would let him have the money which he desired he would let me have an interest in said journal; that the said journal would be profitable to those concerned in it, which consideration induced me to loan him the money he required, which was only $30, being aware that my only chance of re-payment would be from the profits of said journal. I had not the money by me & Mr Poe was to send for it the next day. Accordingly at the time appointed, Mr John Bisco, the person of whom Mr Poe had said the remaining interest in said journal had to be purchased, called on me with a written order from Mr Poe. I gave him the money & retained the order, which I have since mislaid. Mr Pot [[Poe]] not only never repaid me the money but never conveyed nor offered to convey to me an interest in said journal. This and the fact that I afterwards learned that the said journal was not a profitable investment constituted the false pretences to which I referred in the article alluded to in this interrogatory.
To the 5th interrogatory [State what you know of the charge of forgery imputed to Edgar A. Poe in an article alluded to in last interrogatory] he saith: The charge of forgery referred to was made against Mr Poe by a merchant in Broad street, whose name I forget. Mr Poe stated to me that this gentleman was jealous of him and of his visits to Mrs Frances S. Osgood, the writer, the wife of S. S. Osgood, the artist; that this gentleman was desirous of having criminal connection with Mrs Osgood; and that, supposing he, Mr Poe, to be a favored rival, he had cautioned Mrs Osgood against receiving his, Poe's, visits, alleging to her that he, Poe, had been guilty of forgery upon his, Poe's, uncle. Mr Poe then said to me that his rival was a great rascal & with a profuse flood of tears asked my advice as to what course he should pursue. As the charge was a serious one, I advised that some friend of Mr Poe should wait upon the gentleman who had made the charges and request either a denial or a retraction. Mr Poe requested me to perform this office & I consented. I called on the gentleman, who would not on his own responsibility avow the truth of the charge nor would he retract, saying he was not sure whether he had heard it from a certain other person whom he named, or whether he himself had told it to that person. He declined holding any further conversation on the subject from the contempt which he held for Mr Poe, avowing at the same time, in answer to an inquiry from me, that his refusal arose from no want of respect for myself. On communicating these facts to Mr Poe, he asked my advice as to what course he should next pursue. I told him that he had his alternative, as long as his [page 168:] adversary would not retract, either to fight or bring suit. The latter he preferred; &, as he said he had no money to fee a lawyer, I induced a friend of mine to take charge of his suit without a fee to oblige me. Mr Poe afterwards informed me that he had received an unsatisfactory apology from his adversary. I am not certain whether he read me portions of this apology or stated to me its general nature, but the impression on my mind at the time was that the apology was by no means sufficient. I advised him to prosecute the matter until a retraction or an atonement could be obtained. This, so far as I know, was never obtained. I should mention also that I bore a note from Mr Poe to his adversary, which he refused to answer.
To the 6th [general] interrogatory [State any thing further within your knowledge pertinent to the matter in issue] he saith: He knows nothing further in the matter.
[signed] Thos Dunn English
[signed] J. B. H. Smith
Acting Commissioner
Answers to Cross-Interrogatories
To the 1t cross-interrogatory [What is your present business or profession, and in what have you been engaged for the last two years?] he saith: That of an author & editor, & I have been the same for the last two years with the exception of some eight or nine months or more, during which I held the office of weigher of the customs at New York.
To the 2d cross-interrogatory [Do you know the defendants in this suit and how long have you known themN he saith: I do. Mr Fuller I have known some time but not intimately; Mr. Clason less time & less intimately; cannot say now how long.
To the 3d cross-interrogatory [Are you acquainted with, or were you, in and about the month of June last, in the habit of seeing or reading a paper published in the City of New York called “The Evening Mirror”? If yea, do you know who at that time was the editor, and who the proprietor of that paper, and if so state] he saith: I was in June last and am now. The editor and proprietor of the paper in June last was Mr Hiram Fuller, one of the defendants.
To the 4th cross-interrogatory [Did you see or read in the Evening Mirror, of the date of the 23d day of June 1846, a card or article entitled “Mr English's Reply to Mr Poe,” and signed “Thomas Dunn English”? If yea, are you the author and writer of that article?] he saith: I did see [page 169:] and read the article referred to in this interrogatory, and I am its author & writer.
To the 5th [cross-]interrogatory [Had you any and what agency in procuring the publication of that article in the Evening Mirror? To whom did you hand the manuscript, and what inducement or offer, if any, did you make for its publication?] he saith: I handed the article referred to, to Mr Fuller, the editor & proprietor of the Mirror, with a request that he would publish it. I made no inducement or offer for its publication beyond the fact that, as Mr. Poe had libelled me, I urged that the Mirror as a public newspaper should be open to my reply.
To the 6th cross-interrogatory [Supposing this suit to be an action for alleged libellous matter contained in that article, and that a recovery should be had against the defendants for such publication, are you in any manner obligated, or under promise to the defendants or either of them, to indemnify them from such recovery, or to share or pay the damages and costs? If so, state particularly] he saith: I am not.
To the 7th cross-interrogatory [Did Edgar A. Poe personally ever receive from your hands any money for which you now hold or in June last held acknowledgements? If so, state when and where, and produce such acknowledgements and set forth a copy of it] he saith: Not to Mr Poe personally but to Mr Bisco for Mr Poe I paid the sum of $30 under the circumstances stated in my answer to the 4th direct interrogatory. The acknowledgment for which sum I held in June last but have since mislaid.
To the 8th cross-interrogatory [Did not Mr John Bisco apply to you and receive the money alluded to when Mr Poe was not present, and what was the amount? And at the time you gave Mr Bisco such money, were you not indebted to Mr Poe for an article relating to American poetry published by you in a periodical called “The Aristidean”?] he saith: Mr John Bisco did apply to me, as stated in my answer to the 4th direct interrogatory, & received from me the sum of $30. I was not indebted to Mr Poe at the time for the article referred to, nor was I indebted to him at all.
To the 9th cross-interrogatory [Had you not, previous to Mr Bisco's calling on you, caused to be published in “The Aristidean” articles or an article or some portion thereof from Mr Poe's manuscript which had been written by him, and for which you had never paid him?] he saith: I did not. I never published any thing from the pen of Mr Poe for which I did [page 170:] not pay him promptly on the delivery to me of the manuscript, except an article on American Poetry, or a portion of an article on said subject, which was given to me by Mr Poe without solicitation in the presence of Mr Thomas H. Lane.
To the l0th cross-interrogatory [Have you ever and how often paid Mr Poe for literary articles to be published by you, or which you had published?] he saith: I have, but do not recollect how often.
[signed] Thos Dunn English
[signed] J. B. H. Smith
Acting Commissioner
Examination taken, reduced to writing, and by the witness subscribed and sworn to this eleventh day of February 1847, before
[signed] J. B. H. Smith
Acting Commissioner
I, J. B. H. Smith, Commissioner, acting by virtue of the annexed commission, do further certify that I notified & requested J. Ross Browne, one of the Commissioners mentioned in annexed commission, to attend the taking of the deposition of Thomas Dunn English, but he said he could not attend the same on account of his official duties as a Clerk in the Treasury Department of the W. T.; and further, that John L. Graham, the other Commissioner named in said commission, was not notified to attend because he could not be found.
Feb. 11, 1847.
[signed] J. B. H. Smith
Acting Commissioner
I also certify that the erasure in the answer to the 8th cross-interrogatory was made in the presence of the witness and before this deposition was signed.
[signed] J. B. H. Smith
Act. Comm.
——————————————
77. 17 February 1847: Hiram Fuller Announces He Stands Trial Today
[English's deposition enabled the court to hold the trial for libel. On the day of that trial, Fuller made one brief and amused comment in the Evening Mirror. He failed to mention that his chief witness, Thomas Dunn English, had gone to Washington, D.C., to escape involvement in the proceedings and would not be present in court.] [page 171:]
We are undergoing the luxury to-day of a trial for libel on Edgar A Poe, contained in a card of Thomas Dunn English. E. L. Fancher, persecuting [sic] attorney. Particulars to-morrow.
——————————————
78. 17 February 1847: Verdict in the Case of Edgar A. Poe vs. Hiram Fuller and Augustus W. Clason, Jr.
[The trial was held on February 17 before Samuel Jones, Chief Justice of New York Superior Court, some seven months after Poe first filed his Declaration of Grievances against Fuller and Clason. There is no verbatim transcript of the proceedings in the New York Hall of Records, for it was only during the second decade of the twentieth century that New York court rules required in the case of civil suits a verbatim transcript prepared by a court reporter. If a reporter had been present at this trial, his duty was prescribed by statute. Upon order of the attorneys engaged in the trial, he was to prepare a transcript at their cost. If ordered, this verbatim transcript would be retained by the attorneys as their own property, and only a narrative condensation of the verbatim record, such as is reprinted below, would be filed in the Hall of Records.
Fuller kept a transcript of the trial, according to his statements in the Evening Mirror (Documents 82, “Law and Libel,” and 88), as Poe's attorney may have, but he refused to make it public on the grounds that “it involves a good deal of delicate matter, and introduces the names of several literary ladies.” Actually, the name of only one lady appears in the record, that of Mrs. Osgood, and her name was genteelly passed over in court (Document 81).
For more information than appears in the summary reprinted below, we have to turn to collateral accounts. From them we learn that Poe's attorney called Edward I. Thomas to clear Poe of the charge of forgery and two men to act as character witnesses, Mordecai Manuel Noah and Freeman Hunt. Thomas was a well-to-do merchant conducting business in Broad Street. Motor Noah was a politician and journalist; according to Duyckinck, “there was no man better known in his day in New York.” (When he ran for sheriff of New York City, he was taunted for his religion. “Pity,” his opponent said, “that Christians are hereafter to be hung by a Jew.” “Pretty Christians,” retorted the Motor, “to require hanging at [page 172:] all.”) Hunt was best known for originating and editing the first magazine in America concerned exclusively with commerce, Hunt's Merchants’ Magazine.
Thomas admitted under questioning that Poe frequently got drunk, but testified that the charge of forgery was baseless. Noah's and Hunt's testimony was that they never “heard anything” against Poe “except that he is occasionally addicted to intoxication.” Hunt probably did not regard this statement as damaging, for his obituary in the New York Times of 4 March 1858 states that “he had an unfortunate foible for drink.” To establish Clason's guilt, Poe's attorney took the stand to testify that Clason was Fuller's partner in the Mirror enterprise, a proceeding whose legality Fuller subsequently challenged in his paper.
Clason conducted the defense on his own behalf and Fuller's, supplanting William H. Paine, the original lawyer in the case. He introduced English's deposition, though it conceded, contrary to English's original charge in Document 13, that English did not “hold Mr. Poe's acknowledgement for a sum of money” which Poe had allegedly obtained from him “under false pretenses,” and that, in fact, Poe had never written him such an acknowledgment. English's deposition also made it clear that he had not paid to have his so-called Card printed in the Mirror; his article, therefore, was not considered an advertisement by the court and blame redounded to the defendants for giving it circulation. Clason moved for a dismissal of himself as a defendant in the suit on the grounds that he was not a co-owner of the Mirror, but his motion was denied in the light of Fancher's testimony. Clason then moved for a verdict of acquittal, which was also denied. Whether Clason called Colonel William Lummis (Mrs. Ellet's brother) and 0. W. Sturtevant(?), an unidentified person who remains a mystery, cannot be determined, though no doubt they were intended as character witnesses against Poe.
Clason summed up the case for the defense, arguing that he was not a partner in the Mirror firm and that Poe was not entitled to favorable consideration by the jury on account of his disreputable character. What Fancher said to the jury is not known, but no doubt he refuted Clason's arguments and reviewed the evidence which showed that Poe had not committed forgery; that he had not taken money from English under false pretenses; that, except for a weakness for intoxicants, he was of good character and reputation; and that the defendants were guilty of circulating libels against Poe that did him severe injury. [page 173:]
Chief Justice Jones then instructed the jury to decide whether English's charges were libelous and, if so, whether there was “mitigation in relation to them as to the character of Mr. P(oe).” Given the evidence, the jury had no recourse but to return a verdict of guilty against the defendants, and Poe was awarded $225.06 in damages, the six cents being the token that the defendants had to bear court costs, adjudged to be $101.42. The award of $225.06 was considerably less, of course, than the $5,000 Poe had sued for, but it was equivalent to awards wrested by James Fenimore Cooper in the libel suits he brought against the American press from 1837 to 1845.
The news that his name had been cleared in court must have been anticlimactic for Poe at this time. His wife Virginia had died less than three weeks earlier. Broken in health and spirit, he was not present at court when the verdict was read.]
Afterwards, that is to say another day, and at the place last above mentioned, to wit, on the seventeenth day of February, one thousand eight hundred and forty-seven, before the Hon. Samuel Jones, Chief Justice of the said Superior Court of the City of New York, according to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, come as well the above-named plaintiff as the above-named defendants, by their respective attorneys above mentioned; and the jurors of the jury summoned to try the said issue, being called, also come, who to speak the truth of the matters aforesaid, being chosen, tried and sworn, say upon their oath that the said defendants are guilty of the premises above laid to their charge, in manner and form as the said plaintiff hath above complained against them; and they assess the damages of the said plaintiff by reason of the premises, over and above his costs and charges by him about his suit in this behalf expended, to two hundred and twenty-five dollars, and for those costs and charges to six cents.
Therefore it is considered that the said plaintiff do recover against the said defendants, his said damages, costs, and charges, by the jurors aforesaid in form aforesaid assessed, and also the sum of one hundred and one dollars and forty-two cents, for his said costs and charges by the said court nowhere adjudged of increase to the said plaintiff, and with his assent; which said damages, costs, and charges in the whole amount to three hundred and twenty-six dollars and forty-eight cents.
And the said defendants in mercy, &c [page 174:]
Judgment signed this twenty-second day of February, one thousand eight hundred and forty-seven.
[signed] J. Oakley [court clerk]
——————————————
79. 17 February 1847: “Rough Minutes” of the Trial
[The “Rough Minutes” of the trial, though brief, supply information found in no other record — the names of the jurymen, the persons called as witnesses, and the order of the proceedings.
Though the roles played at the trial by Edward J. Thomas, M. M. Noah, and Freeman Hunt have been explained (headnote to Document 78), there is no information that explains the identities and testimony of James L. Smith, E. R. Webb, and Officer Galligher, though no doubt they were called to the witness stand. The same is true for O. W. Sturtevant(?) and William Lummis, except that we know Lummis was Mrs. Ellet's brother who frightened Poe into declaring himself temporarily insane to avoid a duel (see headnote to Document 89).
Since I could not obtain a photostatic copy of these “Rough Minutes” from the Office of the New York County Clerk, I have had to reply [[rely]] upon a handwritten copy of the original record that was generously sent me by William Henry Gravely, Jr., the biographer of Thomas Dunn English, who was the first to discover the “Minutes” in the Hall of Records.]
| [Rough Minutes, Dec. 1846, to Dec. 1847 — Superior Court]
Wednesday Morning Febry 17, 1847 The Court met pursuant to adjournment |
||
| Present | His Honor The Ch. Justice |
|
| The Court is opened | ||
| Edgar A. Poe vs Hiram Fuller & Augustus Clason Jr [.] ——————————— Mr Fancher opens the case ——————————— |
} } } } |
E. L. Fancher Atty for Ptff Trial Wm H. Paine Atty for Defts |
| Evdce for Ptff | Jurors &c &c | ||||
| Jas. L. Smith Evening Mirror 23 June 1846 Weekly Mirror 27 ″ ″ E. R. Webb Libel read Edward J. Thomas |
|
||||
| Letter from Thomas to Ptff M. M. Noah Freeman Hunt — Ptff rests — E. L. Fancher Ptff. again rests |
Mr. Clason opens the Defence Evidce for Defts — ———————————————— Depn of Thos. D. English Wm Lummis O. W. Sturtevant [?] |
||||
| Officer Sworn ——————————— “Galligher” ——————————— |
Mr. Clason moves for the Dis- charge of Def[endan]t Clason & for a verdict of acquit[t]al. Jury who retire ———————— Defts rest Mr Clason sums up for the de- f[endan]ts Mr Fancher ″ ″ ″ ″ Ptff The Court charges the Mo. denied ———————— |
||||
| The Jury return into Court, and say that they find a ver- dict for the Ptff for $225 — Damages and six cents costs[.] (judg[men]t final thereon) Paid |
|||||
——————————————
80. 18 February 1847: The Trial as Reported in the New York Sun, Morning Express, and Daily Tribune
[A nameless reporter, who sometimes called himself “Yorick,” made a living by syndicating his reports of New York court cases to any newspaper [page 176:] that wished his services. House style aside, the reports in the three newspapers specified above are identical, except that the Morning Express printed, “The Jury returned a verdict for Plaintiff of $2,25,” an error that it corrected the next day as follows: “THE MIRROR LIBEL SUIT. — The verdict obtained by Mr. Poe in his Libel Suit against the Evening Mirror was ‘$225 and 6 cents cost,’ instead of ‘$2,25’ (as misprinted yesterday).”
The Evening Mirror also subscribed to “Yorick's” services, but in this instance Hiram Fuller adapted his report to his own purposes (Document 82, “The Court Journal”).
For reasons of decorum, the names of Mrs. Frances Osgood and Edward J. Thomas were deleted from the report.]
SUPERIOR COURT. — Before Chief Justice Jones. — Edgar A. Poe, vs. Hiram Fuller and A. W. Clason, Jr. — Mr. P. is known as an eminent writer and contributor to magazines, &c. Messrs. F. & C. are proprietors of the Evening Mirror. Mr. P. in an article published in Godey's Lady's Book, on literary men, made some mention of Mr. Thomas Dunn English, which caused that gentleman to publish, over his own name, one or two severe articles against Mr. Poe in the Evening Mirror. The sentences on which the suit for libel are [sic] founded are as follows:
“I hold Mr. Poe's acknowledgement for a sum of money which he obtained of me under false pretences.”
“I know Mr. Poe by a succession of his acts, one of which is rather costly. I hold Mr. P.'s acknowledgement,” &c. (As above.) “Another act of his gives me some knowledge of him. A merchant of this City [Edward J. Thomas] had accused him of committing forgery, and 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, and at his request I obtained a counsel 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.”
Proof was taken as to the proprietorship of the paper, &c. Mr. Clason, who defended the case, moved that a verdict for defendant [should not] be taken as related to himself, as it had not been shown that he was a proprietor. This was objected to by Mr. Fancher, counsel for plaintiff, who testified that Mr. Clason told him that he (Mr. Clason) in fact [page 177:] owned the establishment, and that Mr. Fuller was but a nominal proprietor. The motion was denied. For defence a justification was put in, also that the character of Mr. Poe was such as not to entitle him to the favorable consideration of a Jury.
The deposition of Mr. English, taken at Washington, was read. He states that Mr. Poe solicited of him the loan of $30 to get the Broadway Journal in his own hands, and promising to get Mr. E. a share of the profits; that Mr. E. lent him the money, taking his note, but Mr. P. never afterward offered to transfer an interest in the Journal, and deponent understood that the paper had not yielded any profits. As to the idea of forgery, Mr. P. had told him that a merchant of this City had designs upon a lady of their mutual acquaintance [Mrs. Frances Osgood], whom he supposed Mr. Poe to have great influence with, &c. and the said merchant in order to get the lady against Mr. Poe had told her he was a forger. Mr. English, in that deposition, also stated “the general character of said Poe is that of a notorious liar, a common drunkard, and of one utterly lost to all the obligations of honor.”
Mr. T. the merchant named, testified to having met with the party at the New-York House, where he put up — he was called upon by Mr. Poe in relation to what was said about forgery — witness immediately sought out the person who told him; that person denied that he had ever made any such charge about Mr. Poe, and I supposed, said the witness, that I had misunderstood him. I wrote a letter to Mr. Poe, informing him of the denial and retraction. This witness, also Judge Noah, and Mr. Freeman Hunt, testified as to the character of Mr. Poe. — Never heard anything against him except that he is occasionally addicted to intoxication.
The respective counsel summed up the case. Mr. Fancher, on behalf of Mr. P. stated that Mr. P. has recently buried his wife, and his own health was such as to prevent him being present.
The Court charged the question of the Jury to be whether the publications were true or not, or if there is mitigation in relation to them as to the character of Mr. P.
The Jury returned a verdict for plaintiff of $225. — For plaintiff, Mr. E. L. Fancher; for defendants, Mr. Clason in person.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 112:]
* He is equally unknown to those whom he abuses. The EDITOR hereof has no remembrance of ever having seen him save on two occasions. In the one case, we met him in the street with a gentleman [Thomas Holley Chivers?], who apologized the next day, in a note now before us, for having been seen in his company while he was laboring under such an ‘excitement;’ in the other, we caught a view of his retiring skirts as he wended his ‘winding way,’ like a furtive puppy with a considerable kettle to his tail, from the publication-office, whence — having left no other record of his tempestuous visit upon the publisher's mind than the recollection of a coagulum of maudlin and abusive jargon — he had just emerged, bearing with him one of his little narrow rolls of manuscript, which had been previously submitted for insertion in our ‘excellent Magazine,’ but which, unhappily for his peace, had shared the fate of its equally attractive predecessors [Clark's note].
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 145:]
1. Laplace considered in some detail what he called the “Application of the Calculus of Probabilities to the Moral Sciences.” The last half of the Essay is devoted to such applications. Poe speaks of “the Calculus of Probabilities” in the opening of “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” to cite only one instance.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 147:]
2. Mlle Perrier had suffered for more than three years from a lachrymal fistula. When she touched her afflicted eye with a relic supposed to be one of the thorns on Christ's crown, she recovered instantaneously. Doctors attested to the remarkable cure and declared it was wrought supernaturally. This “miracle” occurred in 1656 and made a great sensation. See chap. xi of the Essay on Probabilities for Laplace's discussion of this event.
3. Zadig's inferences concerning the queen's spaniel and the king's horse are recounted in chap. iii of Voltaire's Zadig.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 149:]
4. Trissotin in Molière's play, Les Femmes savantes, remarks: “Last night we had the narrowest escape! / A world passed just beside us, fell across / Our vortex; if in passing it had struck us, / We had been dashed to pieces just like glass.” This allusion to Trissotin is odd, for Trissotin, meaning Triple Fool, is the name under which Molière satirized the Abbé Charles Cotin. A poet and member of the French Academy, Cotin had published a work entitled Gallant Dissertation upon the Comet Which Appeared in December 1664 and January 1665.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 154:]
5. Gatien Courtilz de Sandras (1644-1712) spent nine years in the Bastille for writing scandalous novels; Françoise-Thomas de Baculard D’Arnaud (1718-1803) and Marguerite de Lussan (1682-1758) were once popular novelists.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Notes:
The “Rough Minutes” have proven to be very difficult to reproduce in HTML. It must be admitted that they are rather difficult to read even in the original printing.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
[S:0 - PMC, 1970] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - Poe' Major Crisis (Moss)