Text: Sidney P. Moss, “Toward the Lawsuit,” Poe's Major Crisis, 1970, pp. 179-222 (This material is protected by copyright)

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AFTER THE LAWSUIT

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81.   15 March 1847: Letter to Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood

  Edward J. Thomas

[Thomas had spread the rumor that Poe had committed forgery, a rumor that English rashly included in his “Reply to Mr. Poe” (Document 13). The reason Thomas slandered Poe is that he had designs upon the flirtatious Mrs. Osgood and thought he could damage Poe in her eyes, a man, he regarded as a rival for her affection. Thomas was subpoenaed as a witness for the plaintiff to clear Poe of the charge, which he did. Having already incriminated himself, he was not disposed to incriminate himself still further, and obviously proved an unsatisfactory witness under cross-examination.

The interesting point of his letter is the information that Mrs. Osgood's name was left unmentioned for the sake of delicacy when English's deposition was read to the jury. Contrary to Thomas's statement in this letter, Poe did not lose “his home.” Though his rent was sometimes in arrears, he passed his remaining years there with Maria Clemm. “Sam” is Mrs. Osgood's husband, a portrait painter, who seemed to be down on his luck at this time. The “children” are Ellen and May, Mrs. Osgood's two daughters.

This letter is in the Boston Public Library.]

 

New York March 15/47.

I do not know as my kind friend will receive a line from one of her first & best well wishers with the slightest regard as he has so long delayed to discharge what to him is not only a duty but a pleasure. Be that as it may I know that I have thought of you daily and this I cannot help — for by some way or the other I never find myself giving up a few moments to reflection but in runs Mrs. Osgood — occupies the chief place — says a great many kind things — scolds now and then in jest and then departs until the next evening when again comes the same little witch. Well I like it for if I cannot see her I can think of her.

But I am getting along too fast — I meant to scold for your last little hasty note — it was a vex to get such a letter from such a friend. I forgive however as usual.

I am anxious to know how you are doing in Phila and how you like the quiet of the City. I fancy you have been there about long enough to want a change and that change our good City of York. This is the City [page 182:] for people of fancy and I know you fancy it say what you may and the result will be you will settle here as much as any where else.

You know the result of Poe's suit vs Fuller. It went as I thought it would for I always believed the article a libel in reality. I had strong apprehension that your name would come out under English's affadavit in a way I would not like for I believed Poe had told him things (when they were friends) that English would sweare to; hut they left the names blank in reading his testimony so that a “Mrs ——” and “a merchant in Broad St” were all the Jury knew, except on the latter point which I made clear by swearing on the stand that I was “the merchant in Broad St.” I got fifty cents as a witness for which sum I swore that Poe frequently “got drunk” and that was all I could afford to sweare to for fifty cents.

Poor Poe — he has lost his wife — his home — may the folly of the past make him contrite for the future — may he live to be what he can be if he has but the will. He is now alone & his good or his evil will not so much afflict others. I have nothing in particular to tell you. I was very sorry to be so poor when Sam was here for I declare from my heart that I refused with the greatest reluctance & partly because I fear when I say I cannotM parties think otherwise. It is not so however for those whose business I have to do urge me for every $10 note that I can advance them — particularly in the winter. I am glad he obtained at the quarter I men-tioned — it is all well there — if he had not — I would have raised it somehow for I had determined he should not go back without it.

Give him my best regards and say to him that I hope he is full of health and full of work — employment — encouragement or whatsoever other word is proper to apply to an artiste.

Let me hear from you soon and in my next I will promise to give you more about our friends. I want to “know what you are about and what you mean to do”.

Love to the children and believe me as I am ever your friend

E. J. T.

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82.     18 February 1847: Three Articles on Poe in the Evening Mirror: “The Court Journal,” “Law and Libel,” and “The Secret Out”

  Hiram Fuller

[The evening following the day of the trial, Fuller published three articles which corroborate or add to our knowledge of the case and, in addition, reflect Fuller's reaction to the man who had bested him in court. The four major points that Fuller makes are that Poe's attorney had offered to settle the case out of court; that Fancher had taken the stand as a witness against the defense to establish Clason's financial culpability; that Poe had been offered free use of the Evening Mirror's columns to reply to English; and that the statutes hold a publisher guilty for “printing and publishing only,” that is, lending his journal to the circulation of libel.

“The Court Journal” article also appeared in the Weekly Mirror on February 27.]

 

THE COURT JOURNAL — Chief Justice Jones was yesterday aroused from his slumbers in the Superior Court, at the particular request of Mr. Edgar A. Poe, who, after contributing for many years to the magazines and reviews, wished to add his mite to the records of a court. The gratification of this wish is a privilege which is readily granted in this litigation-loving community, and Mr. Poe could not of course be denied the pleasure which the lawyers and judges are ever anxious to extend to others, or be made an exception to the general rule.

The ladies are always causing mischief, as everybody knows. They will not permit a man to rest in peace, but delight in tormenting him. Our readers therefore will not be astonished to learn that Mr. Poe's complaints had their origin in Godey's Lady's Book, in which Mr. Poe published sundry un-literary articles on literary men, including in the latter category Mr. Thomas Dunn English. Although the sketch of Mr. E. was a mere scratch, still the latter, being quite as sharp a marksman with the quill as the former, determined to give a shot for a shot, and selected as his revolver the Evening Mirror. Mr. Poe's attack was a mere snapping of a percussion cap, compared to Mr. English's fusee, and as he found the pen fight an unequal one, he resorted to a libel suit, which, as we said in the commencement, opened the ocular demonstrations of our very worthy friend, the Chief Justice.

Mr. English, in his reply in the Mirror, published under his own [page 184:] signature, accused Mr. Poe of acts not very creditable to his character, but the sentences in which the libel was sought to be founded were as follows:

The first step Mr. Fancher took was to prove the proprietorship of the paper. Failing to show by other witnesses that any other person than Mr. Fuller was the owner, the Counsel for the plaintiff volunteered to take the stand, and testify to some private conversation with Mr. Clason, the counsel for the defence. Mr. Fancher should have usurped the place of the jury, and decided the case forthwith. Mr. Clason then opened the defence by reading the deposition of Mr. English, to confirm all his charges, and winding up by the grand peroration: 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.’

Judge Noah and Mr. Freeman Hunt also testified that Mr. Poe was addicted to intoxication, and notwithstanding this, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff of two hundred and twenty five dollars, and costs!

Mr. Fancher had previously offered to settle the suit by the payment of $100 — thus proving that even he, with his own testimony, was by no means confident of the justice of his cause.

We were always of the opinion that no man of character and reputation gained one jot of respectability by a libel suit, for if he cannot by his own efforts rise above the imputation, the verdict of a jury can never buy him the good will of the people. We have a higher opinion of the [page 185:] praise or censure of the public than to look upon it in the same light with a house and lot in New York at this season of the year, ‘For Sale or to Let.’ Reputation may be more easily made than bought, for we are unwilling to believe that he who has the greatest wealth is therefore entitled to the greater esteem.

In the case before us the attack was commenced by Mr. Poe, and the Mirror was in no wise a party to it, except by the mere publication of a card which every gentleman has a right to ask. We are well aware that the books are full of verdicts for ‘printing and publishing only,’ but two wrongs never made a right. By the same rule it might be shown that Mr. Colt, who manufactures pistols, is guilty of every death caused by the use of his fire-arms. If Tom Nooks has a good gun, which Bills [sic] Snooks hires and then shoots a man, what jury would say that Tom is guilty of the act?

LAW AND LIBEL. — It is customary with editors when they have been mulcted for any considerable amount in a case of libel, to come out in a bitter tirade against judge, jury and law, and to propose an immediate reform of the statute under which they have been tried and victimized. We do not intend to indulge in any such strictures, notwithstanding the remarkable verdict rendered against us yesterday in the Supreme Court, for allowing one literary individual to reply to another through our columns, in the shape of a ‘Card to the Public.’ The facts in the case are well known to our readers, and also the parties, who by resorting to low personal abuse of each other, have lost more in character than they have gained either in money or fame. We regret that we consented to the publication of the ‘Card’ containing the libel; but it was brought to us, printed in a morning paper [the New York Morning Telegraph], and we were assured that it was to be published in every newspaper in the city on the day that it appeared in the Mirror, and that every word it contained was true. An appeal was made to us on the score of justice; a gross attack had been made upon the literary reputation of a man who depended on his pen for bread, and it was but fair that a strong reply should be made. We did not suppose that a libel suit would be resorted to, in defence, by one who, with the exception, perhaps, of [James Gordon] Bennett [of the New York Herald], has probably written and published more libellous articles than any other man in the whole country. This is the first instance in our recollection of an action brought against an editor for publishing [page 186:] ‘a card.’ The principal is always the individual who stands or falls, suffers or is acquitted upon the truth of the charges set forth in the publication. However, we do not complain, though in justice to ourselves we must state that we offered the plaintiff the free use of our columns to vindicate himself from the charges contained in the ‘card,’ an offer which he at the time accepted, but was probably advised differently by counsel, who hoped to find something worth picking from this ‘bone of contention.’ Those editors who have allowed the said plaintiff to vilify us in their columns, will please consider that we have sued them for libel, and recovered the sum of $225 and 6 cents costs. One word more, and we dismiss the subject for to-day.

The action we have alluded to was brought against another gentleman conjointly with ourselves [Augustus Clason, Jr.], whose only connection with this paper consisted in a bill of sale taken by him of Morris & Willis, as security for money loaned. The Mirror, since the dissolution of partnership in 1845, has had but one editor and one proprietor, whose name duly appears as such on every copy of the paper issued [H. Fuller]. No other person has any control over its columns or affairs.

The testimony given on the trial has been written out by our reporter, and we may hereafter conclude to publish it entire. In the meantime we shall beware of contending with lawyers, who, when the testimony of their witnesses falls short, do not hesitate to go upon the stand and swear to the private conversation of their opposing counsel [Augustus Clason, Jr.].

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THE SECRET OUT. — We have often been at loss to account for the bitter and persevering attacks of the True Sun on the editor of the Tribune. We find the following explanation in one of Mr. Greeley's articles of this morning:

This is the gratitude of the world. Do a man a favor and he will pay you for it in some left handed way if he can. We gave a certain Poe-t $15 a week for three months, at a time when we neither needed his services nor could afford to pay for them, and have during the present winter contributed our mite to relieve his distresses, who in return gives us a viper's gratitude. Mr. Greeley is not alone in his “experiences.”

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83.   19 February 1847: “Genius and the Law of Libel”

  Horace Greeley

[Having read Hiram Fuller's comments on the trial in the Evening Mirror, as well as his expression of sympathy for “the editor of the Tribune” in “The Secret Out” (preceding document), Greeley himself discussed Poe's libel case in the Daily Tribune, obviously siding with the “helpless publisher.” He commended Poe for having refrained from shooting English (a means of retaliation less common in the East than in the South and West) or from horsewhipping him (as William Cullen Bryant had horsewhipped William Leete Stone of the New York Commercial Advertiser, or as Augustus Clason had cowhided James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald in similar instances, or as Greeley himself was to be caned in 1855 by the Honorable Albert Rust, a political foe). But for Poe to have sued Fuller for publishing English's article, not English for writing it, seemed, in Greeley's judgment, “mistaken and silly.”

Greeley also found fault with Poe for not having availed himself of “the columns of the Mirror,” which “were impartially tendered him for a rejoinder. ...” (Poe in his reply — Document 86 — asserted that the invitation was hedged “with a proviso that I should forego a suit and omit this passage and that passage, to suit the purposes of Mr Fuller.”) Greeley, no doubt, was remembering his own experiences with James Fenimore Cooper a few years back. Having lost one libel suit brought against him by the novelist, and facing the prospect of losing another one to him, Greeley pleaded with Cooper: “Why not settle this difference at the point of the pen? We hereby tender you a column of The Tribune for ten days, promising to publish verbatim whatever you may write and put your [page 188:] name to — and to publish it in both our daily and weekly papers. ... We will further agree not to write over two columns in reply to the whole” (Tribune, 31 December 1842). Cooper, of course, had refused Greeley's invitation, as Poe had refused Fuller's, which seemed unreasonable to Greeley.

The editor of the Tribune also felt that a verdict of $25 “would have been a liberal estimate of damages,” not $225.06, sufficient indication of Greeley's view of the harm done Poe's reputation. His remark about Poe's failure to fulfill his “pecuniary engagements” refers to the fact that Poe had borrowed $50 from Greeley to help him buy the Broadway Journal, a debt he had not repaid. What we learn here, among other things, is that Clason was Fuller's brother-in-law.

For more information about the Greeley-Poe relationship, see head-note to Document 64.]

 

GENIUS AND THE LAW OF LIBEL. — Mr. Edgar A. Poe, well known as a Poet, having of course more wit than wisdom, and we think making no pretensions to exemplary faultlessness in morals, still less to the scrupulous fulfillment of his pecuniary engagements, wrote for Godey's Lady's Book a series of Literary Portraits of New-York notables, both of the major and minor order. — They were plain, sincere, free, off-hand criticisms — seldom flattering, sometimes savagely otherwise. Of this latter class was an account of Mr. Thomas Dunn English, which seemed to us impelled by personal spite. To this birching Mr. English very naturally replied, charging Mr. Poe with gross pecuniary delinquency and personal dishonesty, and the Evening Mirror was so good-natured as to give him a hearing. Mr. English is a disbeliever in Capital Punishment, but you would hardly have suspected the fact from the tenor of this retort acidulous upon Poe. Mr. P. therefore threw away the goose-quill, (though the columns of the Mirror were impartially tendered him for a rejoinder,) and most commendably refrained from catching up instead the horsewhip or the pistol; but he did something equally mistaken and silly, if not equally wicked, in suing — not his self-roused castigator, but the harmless publisher, for a libel! The case came to trial on Wednesday, and the Jury condemned the Mirror to pay Mr. P. $225 damages and six cents costs. — This was all wrong; $25 would have been a liberal estimate of damages, all things considered, including the severe provocation; and this should have been rendered, not against the Mirror, but against English, if, upon [page 189:] a fair comparison of the two articles, it appeared that Mr. P. had got more than he gave. Mr. Fuller of the Mirror talks very philosophically of the matter, and seems only anxious for the preservation of his Editorial laurels. — In reference to the joinder of his brother-in-law in the action as a co-proprietor of the Mirror, he says:

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84.   19 February 1847: “What Has Become of the Funds?”

  Hiram Fuller

[Having made his contribution to the Poe fund, however involuntarily, and taking Poe at his word — in his open letter to Nathaniel P. Willis (Document 70) — that he needed no charity, Fuller in evident pique published the following paragraph, which also appeared in the Weekly Mirror on February 27.

The answer to Fuller's question is that Poe, for all the newspaper clamor about the Poes’ poverty and sickness, received, so far as is known, a total of $60.]

 

WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE FUNDS? — We know of three several persons — an old lady, a Christian minister, and a benevolent editor, who have during the past winter been about soliciting money for the support of poor Poe. In a recent communication to N. P. Willis, Poe declares that he has never been in want of pecuniary assistance, and in case he had, he knew of a hundred persons to whom he could apply with confidence for aid. We again ask, with some emphasis, what has become of the funds?

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85.   19 February 1847: “Mr. Edgar A. Poe”

  John S. Du Solle

[Du Solle, whom Louis Godey had paid ten dollars to print Poe's “Reply to Mr. English and Others” (Document 24) in his Spirit of the Times, now commented briefly on Poe's libel suit in his paper.

For earlier statements by Du Solle, see Documents 17 and 71.]

 

MR. EDGAR A. POE has just recovered in New York $225 and costs in an action for libel against the proprietors of the Evening Mirror, for publishing an article written by T. Dunn English, reflecting severely on the character of Mr. Poe. We regret to see Mr. Poe bring libel suits against authors, for with all his consummate ability he is not himself apt to speak mincingly of other writers. “Bear and forbear” is a very good motto.

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86.   21 February 1847: Letter to Horace Greeley

  Edgar A. Poe

[Poe was offended by Greeley's “Genius and the Law of Libel” (Document 83) because of the further damage it did his reputation (the Tribune had a circulation of about 11,000 copies at this time), for he desperately needed to regain entrée into the journals if he was to earn a livelihood. He had no option, however, but to appeal to Greeley's sense of “truth and love of justice.” He claimed that, barring one sentence, he had not engaged in personalities in writing his sketch of English (Document ii), an obvious distortion of the truth, and pointed out truthfully that English, overreacting, had libeled him on two counts. Poe did not explain, though Greeley had raised the question, why he had sued Fuller and Clason rather than English, or why he had not sued all three.

Greeley did not print Poe's letter nor feel the need to rectify the impression he had created. He simply ignored the matter entirely.

For more information on the Greeley-Poe relationship, see the head-note to Document 64. This letter appears in Ostrom, II, 344-5.] [page 191:]

New-York: Feb. 21-47.

My Dear Mr Greeley,

Enclosed is an editorial article which I cut from “The Tribune” of the 19th ult. When I first saw it I did not know you were in Washington and yet I said to myself — “this misrepresentation is not the work of Horace Greeley”.

The facts of my case are these: — In “Godey's Magazine” I wrote a literary criticism having reference to T. D. English. The only thing in it which resembled a “personality,” was contained in these words — “I have no acquaintance, personally, with Mr English” — meaning, of course, as every body understood, that I wished to decline his acquaintance for the future. This, English retaliates by asserting under his own name, in the Mirror, that he holds my acknowledgment for a sum of money obtained under false pretences, and by creating the impression on the public mind that I have been guilty of forgery. These charges (being false and, if false, easily shown to be so) could have been ventured upon by English only in the hope that on account of my illness and expected death, it would be impossible for me to reply to them at all. Their baseness is thus trebly aggravated by their cowardice. I sue; to redeem my character from these foul accusations. Of the obtaining money under false pretences from E. not a shadow of proof is shown: — the “acknowledgment” is not forthcoming. The “forgery,” by reference to the very man who originated the charge, is shown to be totally, radically baseless. The jury returned a verdict in my favor — and the paragraphs enclosed are the comments of the “Tribune”!

You are a man, Mr Greeley — an honest and a generous man — or I should not venture to tell you so, and to your face; and as a man you must imagine what I feel at finding those paragraphs to my discredit going the rounds of the country, as the opinions of Horace Greeley. Every body supposes that you have said these things. The weight of your character — the general sense of your truth and love of justice — cause those few sentences (which in almost any other paper in America I would treat with contempt) to do me a vital injury — to wound and oppress me beyond measure. I therefore ask you to do me what justice you can find it in your heart to do under the circumstances.

In the printed matter I have underscored two passages. As regards the first: — it alone would have sufficed to assure me that you did not write the article. I owe you money — I have been ill, unfortunate, no doubt [page 192:] weak, and as yet unable to refund the money — but on this ground you, Mr Greeley, could never have accused me of being habitually “unscrupulous in the fulfillment of my pecuniary engagements.” The charge is horribly false — I have a hundred times left myself destitute of bread for myself and family that I might discharge debts which the very writer of this infamous accusation (Fuller) would have left undischarged to the day of his death.

The 2^d passage underscored embodies a falsehood — and therefore you did not write it. I did not “throw away the quill”. I arose from a sick-bed (although scarcely able to stand or see) and wrote a reply which was published in the Phil. “Sp. of the Times”, and a copy of which reply I enclose you. The “columns of the Mirror” were tendered to me — with a proviso that I should forego a suit and omit this passage and that passage, to suit the purposes of Mr Fuller.

I have now placed the matter before you — I should not hope or ask for justice from any other man (except perhaps one) in America — but from you I demand and expect it. You will see, at once, that so gross a wrong, done in your name, dishonors yourself and me. If you do differ then, as I know you do, from these editorial opinions supposed to be yours — I beg of you to do by me as you would have me do by you in a similar case — disavow them.

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87.   23 February 1847: Two Squibs on Poe in the Evening Mirror

  Hiram Fuller

[The two items below require no explanation, though Poe, the object of the attacks, is unnamed.]

 

LIBEL SUITS. — A more aggravated case of libel, we understand, came off at Troy last week than we suffered under here, but in which, however, our neighbors of the Express had better luck than we had, thus showing that the New York jury set a higher estimate on such cases than a jury in the interior.

The Freeholder, (Anti-Rent paper) in Albany, sued the editor of the [page 193:] Express for libelling his editor, who was indeed pretty roughly handled, after provoking such handling, however. Counsel were employed and the case was argued at length last week, the plaintiff in person and another gentleman of the Bar vs Mr Brooks in person. The result was 6 1/2 cents damages and 6 1/2 cents cost, the jury being out about ten minutes. The jury properly thought, that it was one of those ridiculous libel suits with which a Court ought never to be troubled.

We believe in the case that the counsel for the plaintiff did not turn witness to help out his case.

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The Sunday Dispatch in alluding to libel suits very justly remarks: —

Sound reputations as rarely go to the Courts, as healthy constitutions go to the doctors. It is your weak, sickly man that swallows the apothecaries’ stuff; it is your rickety, rotten reputation that asks the contemptible prop of a verdict to sustain it.

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88.   27 February 1847: “To Correspondents”

  Hiram Fuller

[The item below is of interest for its reiteration of the statement made in “Law and Libel” (Document 82) that Fuller had a transcript of the trial, a document that has not yet come to light.

Two distortions occur in this brief item, which appeared in the Evening Mirror. One is that the “names of several literary ladies” were mentioned at the trial. The available information shows that the name of only one literary lady was mentioned, that of Mrs. Frances Osgood, for her name appears in English's deposition. However, as Thomas tells us (Document 81), the court left her name, as well as his, “blank in reading English's testimony so that a ‘Mrs ——’ and a ‘merchant in Broad St’ were all the Jury knew. ...” The other distortion is the suggestion that Poe was planning to bring another suit “involving some of the same parties. ...” There is nothing in the record that bears this out, though the rumor spread (see Document 91).]

 

TO CORRESPONDENTS. — “B.” wishes to know why we do not publish the whole of the testimony in Poe's libel suit. We answer, because it involves [page 194:] a good deal of delicate matter, and introduces the names of several literary ladies, for whom we have too much respect to publish their names in the connection in which they unfortunately appear. We understand that another suit is about to be brought on the tapis involving some of the same parties, and if “B.” feels particularly curious on the subject, we advise him to be present on the trial.

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89.   27 February 1847: A Passage from The Trippings of Tom Pepper: or, The Results of Romancing

  Harry Franco (Charles F. Briggs)

[During the course of the serialization of an innocuous picaresque novel in the Weekly Mirror, a satirical passage on Poe was introduced on 27 February 1847, ten days after the verdict was rendered in the libel suit. The same passage also appeared on 4 and 5 March 1847 in the Evening Mirror, which was also running the serial.

“Ferocious” was probably intended to be Cornelius Mathews, “Myrtle Pipps” William Gilmore Simms, and “Tibbings” Evert A. Duyckinck, though only suggestive identifications are made. Nowhere in the surviving correspondence of these men is there any reference to The Trippings, which there probably would be if any of them felt they had been caricatured in it. In the passage from the novel reprinted below, the author claims to treat only one real person, though in his preface and final chapter, not reprinted here, he disowns having caricatured anyone. However, the Literary World on 31 July 1847 stated: “we could not help, despite the disclaimer of all personalities in his preface, questioning ... whether, in fact, his book was not a gallery of portraits of well-known living people. ... If this be really so, the author must settle it with his own conscience and the parties whom he has libelled. ...” Likewise, in his “Editor's Table” in the Knickerbocker (February 1847), Lewis Gaylord Clark, whose favorite target of late was Cornelius Mathews, wrote: “these ‘Trippings’ are from the pen of an exceedingly clever writer, who copies character with the faithfulness of a daguerreotype. We wonder who is ‘MR. FEROCIOUS,” he added, and proceeded to identify him as Mathews in all but name. And Yankee Doodle, edited by the Duyckinck circle, wrote under the heading “A Hopeless Case” (2 January 1847): “We understand [page 195:] stand that the proprietors of the Evening Mirror intend dipping the remaining chapters of ‘The Trippings of Tom Pepper’ in nitric acid, hoping that they may make them go off.”

Whether Mathews, Simms, and Duyckinck were caricatured in the novel, the unarguable fact is that Poe, under the sobriquet of Austin Wicks, and Elizabeth Frieze Ellet, who appears as Annie Elizabeth Gilson, were ridiculed.

The author of the serial, which appeared anonymously on the front pages of both Mirrors, became known when the first volume of his book appeared in June 1847 in the Mirror Library. It was Briggs, better known as Harry Franco, who was then assisting Hiram Fuller in producing the Mirror. (Following the libel suit, Fuller began to carry the following notice in large bold type in the Mirror: H. Fuller, Proprietor and Editor, Assisted by Charles F. Briggs. ...”)

Briggs, the original editor of the Broadway Journal, had invited Poe to serve as his co-editor on that magazine. Poe, accepting the offer, soon dislodged Briggs to become the sole editor and, eventually, the sole owner of the Broadway Journal. To compound the injury he had done Briggs, Poe attacked him in the first installment of “The Literati.” In his sketch he remarked that Briggs's novels were obvious imitations of Smollett's, that he “never composed in his life three consecutive sentences of grammatical English,” and that he was “grossly uneducated” (this of the man to whom James Russell Lowell had dedicated his Fable for Critics).

As for Mrs. Ellet, her connection with Poe is rather complex (for what is known of the story, see Moss, Poe's Literary Battles, pages 207-21). Jealous of Poe and Mrs. Osgood's flirtation, she proceeded to slander them both. In addition, she prompted Margaret Fuller and Anne C. Lynch (both of whom appeared in “The Literati”) to retrieve from Poe the letters Mrs. Osgood had sent him, ostensibly because they were compromising and Poe untrustworthy, though her motive was only to embarrass them. Incensed at the affront, Poe told the ladies that Mrs. Ellet had better look after her own compromising letters to him. Later, feeling he had betrayed Mrs. Ellet's confidence and had proved her point that he was untrustworthy, he in his own words “made a package of her letters .... and with my own hands left them at the door” (Ostrom, II, 407-8). Mrs. Ellet, exposed as a meddling hypocrite, and a jealous one at that, urged her brother, Colonel William Lummis, to make Poe prove his charge that he possessed compromising letters from her or else declare [page 196:] himself a slanderer. Caught in this desperate situation, Poe adopted an extreme “solution”: He claimed he made his remark about Mrs. Ellet's letters in a fit of insanity, and had this explanation conveyed to the lady by Dr. John W. Francis (whom Poe had praised in the first installment of “The Literati”). If he had not been insane when he exposed Mrs. Ellet, he had by this time been driven to, if not over the edge of, insanity by her implacable persecution of him. As he wrote in the letter cited, “Is it any wonder that I was driven mad by the intolerable sense of wrong?” His self-confessed madness was, of course, exploited by his enemies, as is evident in the passages on Hammerhead in English's 1844, in Lewis Clark's comments in the Knickerbocker (Document 1), in the Gazette and Times's observations (Document 2), and in Fuller's editorial in the Mirror (Document 8).

The passage that appears below is identical in all three versions of The Trippings. It forms a part of Volume 1, Book 1, Chapter XVI, pages 156-64, in the Mirror Library version that appeared in June 1847. Volume 2 of the novel was published belatedly in April 1850.]

 

... Nothing is more painful to my feelings than to know that I have inflicted pain upon others, and I have always looked upon those authors who write histories of their own contemporaries from mercenary motives, with abhorrence. Such a person I became acquainted with while residing in the family of old Gil, whose character shall form the only episode in my autobiography, and the reader may skip it or not, without danger of being greatly a loser in either case. ...

One of old Gil's daughters, Lizzy, had a passion for literature, and, greatly to the grief of her parents, she would associate with literary people, and send her compositions to the magazines signed with her full name, Annie Elizabeth Gilson. This gave old Gil a good deal of uneasiness, for he classed the literati with dancing-masters, players and artists, for all of whom he entertained unmeasured contempt. He thought that the pen could be put to no higher or better use, than making entries in a ledger, unless, indeed, it were in writing sermons, and an author and a beggar being synonymous terms, he naturally looked upon his daughter Lizzy as a lost sheep, when he discovered the direction of her ambition. He could tolerate music because it formed a part of the church service, and a music-master was endurable, because he could be made serviceable to the cause of religion, but as for “a parcel of poets, and such kind [page 197:] of blackguards,” he used to say “they ought all to be sent to Sing Sing, where they could learn to earn an honest living.”

Poor Lizzy took all the scoldings of her parents as good naturedly as she could, and instead of trying to argue them out of their prejudices, which she knew would be a hopeless task, she used to utter her complaints to the Muse, and vent her griefs mysteriously in a magazine. She had addressed lines to every member of the family, and had even done me a similar favor, in Mr. Post's Magazine, in a sonnet, To “——,” which I have unfortunately forgotten, and cannot, therefore, furnish the reader with a copy, but I remember that it was highly complimentary to my truthfulness, and that I was compared to a rose with drab-colored petals. It was the height of Lizzy's ambition to give a conversazione, and invite all the literati and famous artists about town, and taking advantage of a revival of religion in the church of which her father was an elder, gave out that she would be at home on a certain evening, when she knew he would be engaged at a prayer meeting. Pauline [Lizzy's sister] had entrusted me with the secret, and requested me to remain at home, promising me delightful fun with her sister's visiters, for she had hardly a better opinion of the literati than her father. Old Gil and his wife went off to the prayer meeting, taking their children with them. ...

The family library of old Gil consisted chiefly of Bibles, with one or two Concordances, the works of Charlotte Elizabeth, the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, Doddridge's “Rise and Progress,” the writings of Hannah More, and the complete works of Mrs. Sherwood, besides a collection of little books, with such titles as “Charles Davis, or the Power of Grace,” “Matilda Brown, or the Sinner Saved by Charles Burdett,” etc., etc. These books were carefully arranged in a small book-case in the back parlor, but the moment that old Gil left the house, Lizzy had them all removed, excepting only the complete works of Mrs. Sherwood, and their places supplied with “Moore's Byron,” “Griswold's Poets,” and some bound volumes of the “Lady's Book.” The candelabras in the parlor were lighted up, a decanter of wine borrowed from her married sister, for old Gil would allow no fermented liquor in his house of any kind, some other refreshments were procured, and Lizzy stood in the middle of the room to receive her guests. Pauline and I seated ourselves as much out of the way as possible, that we might enjoy each other's conversation without being overheard, as well as watch the literati without mixing among them, and soon after they began to arrive. They were so unlike the usual [page 198:] visiters at old Gil's, that they probably appeared to us more outre than they would have done elsewhere. Pauline was delighted with the opportunity of sitting by me and showing her wit by making remarks upon the company as they entered the room. The first who entered was an artist, whose name I have forgotten; they called him the American Sir Martin Archer Shee, because he had written verses and painted portraits. He was a little man, with high-heeled boots, which pitched him forward as he walked; he was tightly strapped and buttoned, and he wore his lank black hair very long, and his mustache in imitation of Reubens. The American Shee talked but little, and so lisped his words that we could not make out what he said. A pensive lady, in a black silk dress, with very long curls, came next, accompanied by a learned Pole, who could speak all languages but English. The greeting between Lizzy and this lady was very cordial, she was the celebrated Miss Arabella Andrews, the American L. E. L., and the “Sappho” of the magazines. Then followed a Unitarian clergyman, and a German professor; another authoress, in spectacles, who was called the American Joanna Bailie, but there was nothing notable about her, except that she was dreadfully ugly, and wore a pink gauze cap, with a large bunch of yellow roses. A very pompous gentleman was next introduced as Mr. Myrtle Pipps. Lizzy said she was happy to have the honor of seeing the American George Paul Rainsford James in her father's house. Mr. Pipps bowed very low, rested his right hand inside of his outrageously fine vest, and elevating his head a little, remarked that there was no hospitality at the North, and that the only true article was to be found in the Palmetto State, where the domestic institutions encouraged the growth of a chivalric public sentiment. Two or three gentlemen of the press came next, whose names I suppress, and then Mr. Fitch Greenwood and his lady, the joint authors of a translation from the Swedish. Mr. Fitch Greenwood wore spectacles, and he looked through them as though it cost him an effort and didn’t think much of anything that he saw through them. He spoke to nobody, but he looked at everything. Mrs. Fitz [sic] Greenwood was a slender little body, with red eyes; she talked to everybody, and looked at nothing. I was startled to see Mr. Ferocious and his friend Tibbings enter next, followed by a gentleman who was announced as the celebrated critic, Austin Wicks, author of the “Castle of Duntriewell,” a metaphysical romance, and a pscychological [sic] essay on the sensations of shadows. Mr. Wicks entered the room like an automaton just set a going; he was [page 199:] a small man, with a very pale, small face, which terminated at a narrow point in the place of a chin; the shape of the lower part of his face gave to his head the appearance of a balloon, and as he had but little hair, his forehead had an intellectual appearance, but in that part of it which phrenologists appropriate for the home of the moral sentiments, it was quite flat; Pauline said, if he had any moral sentiments, they must be somewhere else, for it was very evident that there was no room for them there. He was small in person, his eyes were heavy and watery, his hands small and wiry, and his motions were like those of an automaton. He was dressed primly, and seemed to be conscious of having on a clean shirt, as though it were a novelty to him. Pauline was excessively amused at the monstrously absurd air of superiority with which this little creature carried himself, and was vexed with her sister Lizzy for receiving him with such marked respect. But the truth was, he had praised some of Lizzy's verses, and had talked to her about spondees and dactyls until she thought him a miracle of learning. He was shallow enough on almost all subjects which tend to make a man respectable in the world, but he had committed to memory a few pedantic terms, and contrived to pass himself off among literary ladies, like Lizzy, for a profound critic. Mr. Ferocious, and his follower, Mr. Tibbings, listened with open-mouthed admiration to Wicks, and declared he was the most profound critic of the age. There were many more notable people dropped in during the evening, among them a native tragedian, with a round and inexpressive countenance, a stoop in his shoulders, and a halt in his gait; he was called, I think, the American Kemble, for it was a peculiarity of those originals to call themselves after some English prototype. Mr. Wicks was the American Jeffrey, a singularly unfortunate name to apply to the poor creature, as he had neither the learning, the wit, the respectability, the honesty, the independence, nor a tithe part of the talents of the great Scotch critic. But Mr. Wick[s] called Jeffrey a humbug, and sneered at the pretensions of everybody who attempted criticism, although his highest efforts in literature had been contributions to a lady's magazine. The literati conducted themselves with great propriety during the evening, doing nothing worse than saying the most ill-natured things they could utter about all their acquaintances who were not present, and complimenting each other in the most fulsome and laughable manner, until the refreshments were introduced, when Mr. Wicks, having drank a glass full of wine, the little spirit that it contained flew into his weak [page 200:] head, and he began to abuse all present in such profane and scurrilous terms, that all the ladies went into hysterics, and poor Lizzy was in great tribulation, for fear that her father should return before he could be got out of the house. Mr. Ferocious and Tibbings were lamenting in dismal tones that a man of such splendid abilities should have such an unfortunate propensity. “However,” said Mr. Ferocious, “I like it. It shows the inner life of the individual being!”

“I endorse the remark of Ferocious,” said Tibbings; “it is one of the infirmities of genius; Savage used to drink, and Byron was fond of gin. I think that an American author should be allowed quite as much liberty as an English one, for you know, Ferocious, this is a free country.”

“Tibbings,” said the American Jeffrey, staggering towards that slender gentleman, “you are a fool.”

“Don’t notice him,” said Mr. Ferocious; “keep cool, quiet, sedate. It's only a phase of his genius. I like it. It's original, peculiar, American. He will bring up something fine, directly, out of the depths of his inner existence.”

“Ferocious!” said Mr. Wicks.

“Listen, ladies,” said Mr. Ferocious, winking at the ladies, who were standing aloof in terror.

“Ferocious,” said Mr. Wicks, again, “do you know what I think of you?”

“In vino veritas. What is it?” said Mr. Ferocious, smiling complacently towards the ladies.

“Ferocious you are an ass!” hiccupped Mr. Wicks, “a dunce; you can’t write English; I praised you once, but I am sorry for it; I said that you were one of our greatest poets, but I now say you are one of our greatest asses.”

The revulsion of feeling with Mr. Ferocious and Tibbings was so sudden, and their admiration of the critic so completely changed to raging scorn, contempt and hatred, that the natural language of their passions, instead of clothing itself in words, found a more forcible expression in actions, and utterly regardless of the presence of the ladies, they fell upon the helpless critic, and would probably have done him a serious injury if the tragedian and I had not jumped to his rescue and saved him from the terrible revenge of the enraged author and his friend. The poor wretch being entirely unconscious of his danger, immediately began at me and the player, bestowing upon us a string of scurrilous epithets, [page 201:] which must have been quite familiar to him when he was sober, or he could not have used them so freely. The company now broke up in great disorder, and we took the drunken critic home to his boarding-house, and delivered him into the hands of his wife, who thanked us meekly for the care we had taken of her poor husband. This incident was rather fortunate for Lizzy, as she got rid of her guests in time to put the house in order before the return of her parents. Her admiration for Mr. Wicks was not in the least diminished by this scandalous occurrence; she regarded it as an eccentricity of genius, and wrote a sonnet about it, which she published in a weekly paper. Mr. Wicks sent her a letter, lamenting his destiny, praising her poetical abilities, and asking for the loan of five dollars. The kind-hearted Lizzy was so shocked at the idea of so great a genius being in want of so trifling a sum, that she made a collection among her friends, for a man of genius in distress, and sent him fifty dollars, accompanied by a note so full of tender compassion, for his misfortune, and respect for his genius, that any man possessed of the common feelings of humanity must have valued it more than the money. But Mr. Wicks had no such feelings, and with a baseness that only those can believe possible who have known him, he exhibited Lizzy's note to some of her acquaintances, as an evidence that she had made improper advances to him. The scandal had been very widely circulated, before some candid friend brought it to Lizzy, who, on hearing it, was thrown into an agony of grief and shame, which nearly deprived her of reason. She could not call upon her father to avenge the wrong that had been done her, but one of her married sisters having heard of it, told it to her husband, who sought for the cowardly slanderer, with the intention of chastising him for his villa[i]ny. But he had become alarmed for the consequences of his slanders, and had persuaded a good natured physician to give him a certificate to the effect that he was of unsound mind, and not responsible for his actions. Having showed this to Lizzy's brother-in-law, and signed another paper acknowledging that he had slandered her and was sorry for it, he was allowed to escape without a personal chastisement. But shortly after, being empolyed to write for a fashionable magazine, he took an occasion, in a series of pretended biographical sketches of literary men and women who had been so unfortunate as to become known to him, to hold poor Lizzy up to ridicule, by imputing to her actions of which she was never guilty, and by misquoting from her verses. Lizzy had the good sense to laugh at such imbecile spite, and when the poor [page 202:] wretch had brought himself and his family into a starving condition by his irregularities, she had the goodness to contribute her quarterly allowance of pocket-money to the gatherings of some benevolent ladies who had exerted themselves in his behalf.

The conduct of Wicks had a very wholesome effect on Lizzy. It opened her eyes to the meretricious and worthless character of a mere literateur, and cured her forever from hankering after the transitory fame of a magazine contributor. She had seen her verses in print, and had been traduced and criticised by a mercenary writer, and was ever after content to remain unknown except to those whom she loved. Her first and last literary soiree had afforded her a source of unfailing merriment, whenever it was mentioned, and she describes with great gusto the tragical encounter between Wicks, Tibbings and Ferocious, for the amusement of her intimate friends. The poor creature, Wicks, having tried a great variety of literary employments, and growing too dishonest for anything respectable, at last fell into the congenial occupation of writing authentic accounts of marvellous cures for quack physicians, and having had the imprudence to swallow some of the medicine whose virtues he had been extolling, fell a victim to his own arts, and was buried at the expense of the public.

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90.   11 March 1847: Letter to George W. Eveleth

  Edgar A. Poe

[On 19 January 1847 Eveleth had informed Poe that he had been accused by the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post of plagiarizing his Conchologist's First Book (Philadelphia, 1839) from The Conchologist's Text Book (Glasgow, 1833). There was some basis for the charge, as Arthur Hobson Quinn points out in Edgar Allan Poe, pages 275-6 . In a letter dated 16 February 1847, Poe asked Eveleth for particulars and asserted that the “charge is infamous and I shall prosecute for it, as soon as I settle my accounts with the ‘Mirror.’ “Poe, however, neither sued the Post nor made it retract its charge.

In answering Eveleth's queries, Poe avers in the letter printed below that he suffered no actual damage from the lawsuit or the notoriety attending it, a mistaken assessment of the situation, as Poe well knew, but [page 203:] he was attempting as usual to put on a good face for his young admirer. This also accounts for his exaggerating the damage done to Fuller and Clason, whose actual assessment (unless Poe was including their legal fees) was $326.48 — $225.06 in damages and $101.42 in court costs. Poe does not mention his own legal fees. The “acknowledgment” Poe speaks of refers to English's allegation: “I hold Mr. Poe's acknowledgement for a sum of money which he obtained from me under false pretences.” If Poe had brought a criminal suit against English, as he alleges he might have, he would not have received damages in a sum of money; and English, if he had been found guilty, would have been punished by fine or imprisonment or both (see headnote to Document 37 for a discussion of the legal situation). The Mirror, contrary to Poe's statement, did have a witness to testify against Poe, if we ignore Lummis and Sturtevant (?), whose roles at the trial cannot be determined. It was English who by means of his deposition declared that the “general character of ... Poe is that of a notorious liar, a common drunkard, and of one utterly lost to all the obligations of honor.”

The full version of this letter appears in Ostrom, II, 348-9.]

 

New-York March 11. 47.

My Dear Sir,

I am still quite sick and overwhelmed with business — but I snatch a few moments to reply to yours of the 2irst ult. ...

I fear that according to the law technicalities there is nothing “actionable” in the Post's paragraphs — but I shall make them retract by some means.

My suit against “The Mirror” has terminated, by a verdict of $225, in my favor. The costs and all will make them a bill of $492. Pretty well — considering that there was no actual “damage” done to me.

I enclose you my reply to English — which will enable you to comprehend his accusations. The vagabond, at the period of the suit's coming on, ran off to Washington for fear of being criminally prosecuted. The “acknowledgment” referred to was not forthcoming, and “the Mirror” could not get a single witness to testify one word against my character. ...

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[page 204:]

91.   21 March 1847: “More Libel Suits”

  New York Dispatch

[The first person to suggest in print that Poe was about to bring “another suit ... involving some of the same parties” was Hiram Fuller, a suggestion he made on 27 February 1847 (Document 88). Now the New York Dispatch in its Sunday edition repeated the rumor, not citing the Evening Mirror but the Philadelphia Galaxy as its source; and Fuller in his turn quoted the Dispatch to the same effect (next document).

This matter raises some questions which I am not able to answer with, conviction but which suggest a “plant.” Why should the rumor have apparently arisen in Philadelphia and not in New York where Poe's affairs were better known? More to the point, was there a Philadelphia Galaxy at all? Neither the Union List of Serials nor the Union List of Newspapers indicates that the Galaxy ever existed, nor has the National Union Catalog any record that it existed. One can understand why the Atlanta Enterprise might not have survived General Sherman's burning of the city (one would like to see a file of that paper since Chivers told Poe that he had republished “the Home-Journal Article” in it, probably Duyckinck's “An Author in Europe and America”), but one has difficulty in understanding why a Philadelphia journal of the nineteenth century should totally disappear as if it had never existed. To add to my suspicion, the New York Dispatch, according to the Evening Mirror of I May 1846, was “to be issued from the Mirror Building. ...”]

 

MORE LIBEL SUITS. — The Philadelphia Galaxy promises another action growing out of Mr. Poe's suit against the Mirror, in which several literary ladies will figure. We hope not. We trust that we love the ladies, and honor and cherish them, all that sort of thing — but according to our experience and observation in all cases, where literature is not used to second benevolence, a literary lady is a blue bore. We write bas bleu — bah! blue!

Literature as a means, is all very well — but literature as an end, is a shocking perversion of the female intellect. Just in proportion as a woman is a good writer, she is a bad woman — not a bad character — but as a woman, bad. The proverb — ‘When the devil wishes to ruin a woman he puts a pen in her hand,’ is so true, that when you see a woman, taking [page 205:] up a pen as an avocation, you may consider her done for, as far as a woman's proper object is concerned.

A literary woman never ought to marry — her husband is sure to be ill treated, and her children neglected. The most melancholy, miserable looking men we ever saw were the unfortunate husbands of ‘literary ladies.’

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92.   24 March 1847: “More Libel Suits”

  Hiram Fuller

[Quoting from the Sunday edition of the New York Dispatch (preceding document), Fuller in the Evening Mirror reported the rumor that Poe and his attorney were planning a lawsuit against “several literary ladies ... The announcement in the Dispatch should not have surprised Fuller, for he had anticipated the rumor on 27 February 1847 (Document 88).

Given the conventions of the time, even contemplating legal action against ladies was considered outrageous.]

 

MORE LIBEL SUITS. — The Philadelphia Galaxy promises another action growing out of Mr. Poe's suit against the Mirror, in which several literary ladies will figure. — Sunday Dispatch.

We shouldn’t wonder. Mr. Poe and his lawyer having made so good a speculation by their infamous prosecution of the Mirror, will very naturally be tempted to try their hand upon some other victim. The counsellor and client were worthy of each other.

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93.   28 March 1847: Letter to Enoch L. Fancher

  Edgar A. Poe

[Maria Clemm was still living with Poe in Fordham, though Virginia had died some two months earlier, on January 30. Still reluctant to appear in the city, Poe sent her to Fancher to pick up the award money from his libel suit.

How much Fancher charged for his services to Poe is unknown. Hiram, Fuller asserted, with more spite than knowledge, that “the greater portion” [page 206:] of the award money “went into the pocket of the poet's sympathetic attorney” (Document 94).

The year-date of the letter below is wrong; it should be 1847. A Freudian would have a ready explanation for the slip: Poe was at once wishing himself back to 1846 when he was at the peak of his fame and wishing away the events of 1847 that had reduced him to ruin.

This letter appears in Ostrom, II, 716.]

 

E. L. FANCHER ESQ^re

D^r Sir,

Mrs Maria Clemm is hereby authorized to receive the amount of damages lately awarded in my suit, conducted by yourself, against the proprietors of the New-York Evening Mirror, and to give a receipt for the same.

Fordham, N.Y.

March 28^th 1846.

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94.   7 June 1847: “Prenez Garde, Chrony”

  Hiram Fuller

[Fuller permitted some two months to elapse before referring again to the libel suit in which he had been a defendant. He swore he would never again “confide to the smooth words and fair promises of irresponsible literary humbugs,” an allusion to English who had promised to make his charges good by the most ample and satisfactory evidence if Poe resorted to a legal prosecution, yet who not only deserted Fuller but failed to provide any testimony in his deposition to support his charges. English, discredited in New York, decided when he left Washington, D.C., in March 1847, to settle in Philadelphia, his old stamping ground, where he remained until 1852. Fuller, no doubt, had some bitter things to say about English in private, and English, vexed with Fuller, proceeded to satirize him oftener than he did Poe in the John-Donkey, a weekly he and George G. Foster edited from 1 January to 21 October 1848, when the seven libel [page 207:] suits filed against the magazine forced the publisher to discontinue the journal.

Fuller in his Evening Mirror article reprinted below is correct in saying that English's “Card” was first published in a morning newspaper, for the Morning Telegraph did carry English's article; but there is no evidence that the “Card” was “also published in one or two of the weekly papers.” What is patently untrue is that English's article appeared in “his advertising columns.” The first, third, and fourth pages of the four-page Evening Mirror were almost wholly given over to advertisements; the second, though containing two or three columns of advertising, also carried four or five columns of news and gossip. English's “Card” appeared on the second page and was definitely not among the advertisements. The page of the Weekly Mirror containing the “Card” carried no advertisements at all.

The Home Journal's proposal for founding what Fuller here calls “an Asylum for used-up authors” appears as Document 61. The actual assessment of damages and court costs was $326.48, not $353, as Fuller asserts, and only $225.06 of this amount went to Poe and his attorney.

This and Document 34 are the only ones that specify the occasions when Poe broke his seclusion at Fordham to appear in person in the literary district of the city, though he may have been in attendance at court during the Preliminary Hearing (Document 43). No doubt his walk on Nassau Street was an ordeal for him, for on that street were located the editorial offices of the Mirror, the Knickerbocker, and the Tribune, among others, and he was more than likely to meet a number of enemies. No doubt too, as Fuller seems pleased to report, he had braced himself for that ordeal by drinking too much. And doubtless too the imp of the perverse, which Poe knew so well, impelled him to do the very thing he felt he ought not to do — namely, visit the publishing office of the Mirror where Fuller had his editorial quarters. Apparently Poe did not stop to see Duyckinck, for Duyckinck remarked on 24 June 1847 in his unpublished diary, “With Mathews, visited Poe at Fordham. ...”]

 

PRENEZ GARDE, CHRONY. — We regret to learn that the bold, clever, and rather reckless editor of the Boston Chronotype has been sued for a libel. He had better apologize and compromise at once. We speak from experience — having now before our eyes a document (which we intend to frame [page 208:] and hang up in our sanctum as a perpetual caution) showing the utter folly of trusting for justice to the law, and at the same time teaching us never again to confide to the smooth words and fair promises of irresponsible literary humbugs. The interesting document we allude to certifies that we have paid Edgar A. Poe and his attorney, E. L. Fancher, the sum of three hundred and fifty-three dollars to satisfy the offended majesty of the law, which we unwittingly violated by allowing Thomas Dunn English to insert “A Card” which he brought to us in the columns of a morning paper, and which was also published in one or two of the weekly papers. The verdict of the jury was $225 and costs, being the exact amount of damage which twelve “good men and true” conscientiously believed the character of the poet had suffered by the publication of the said English's “Card”; and the greater portion of the balance, of course, went into the pocket of the poet's sympathetic attorney.

We notice that Judge Wilde, of Massachusetts, a most excellent and. learned Judge, has recently decided a similar case in favor of the publisher, who should not be held responsible for what appears in his advertising columns. But notwithstanding this decision, we advise our contemporaries never to resort to the law for protection or defence in cases of libel. Litigation is always vexatious, and the result of a trial by jury is always uncertain, especially when desperate lawyers — to eke out a poor cause, leave the bar for the witness stand, and instead of pleading, swear a case through, per force. We regret to add that all the pecuniary losses and troubles that we have ever experienced have been occasioned by unfortunate connections with men who take pride in the name of Poet, and whose themes on paper have always been Honor, Love, and Religion. We can count on our fingers no less than four of these “ornaments of literature,” who have cost us in the aggregate a pretty big figure, — and the worst of all is the loss of faith in the integrity of human nature, which the rascality of a few individuals may forever inflict upon one's social philosophy and affections. ... So we will reiterate our advice to the Press generally, and to our little “Chrony” particularly, to eschew libels and live poets; the former will get you into difficulty, the latter into debt. ...

Since writing the above we have had a striking demonstration of the truth of our remarks: the poor wretch who succeeded by aid of the law and a sharp attorney in filching our money, staggered into our publishing office this morning, clad in a decent suit of black, which had doubtless been purchased by the money so infamously obtained, and behaved himself [page 209:] in so indecent a manner that we were compelled to send for a posse of the police to take him away.

The last thing that we heard him say, as they took him up Nassau street, was something about home, and we suppose that he wanted to go to his friend of the Home Journal, who a short time since proposed founding an Asylum for used-up authors. Poor wretch! We looked upon him with sincere pity, and forgave him all the wrong he had done us, only reserving our wrath for the instruments which give such people power to inflict injury upon innocent victims.

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95.   19 June 1847: “An Attorney in Search of Practice”

  Hiram Fuller

[Responding to the libelous comments made about him by Fuller on June 7 (Document 94), Enoch L. Fancher, Poe's attorney, evidently served a bill of complaint upon Fuller preparatory to filing it at court. Fuller decided to make the matter public in the Evening Mirror.]

 

AN ATTORNEY IN SEARCH OF PRACTICE. — The legal gentlemen [sic] of whom we spoke the other day as having assisted Mr. Poe to ease us of nearly four hundred dollars, thinks his character damaged by having the truth told of him, to the extent of 5,000 dollars, and has very quietly commenced a suit against us for that amount. For our own part, we think from a short acquaintance with this gentleman that he quite over estimates the value of his character, in supposing it possible that it could be so extensively damaged; and so, we think a jury will decide. But truly, we live in a pretty time when, if one man assists another to obtain the contents of your purse by employing the little crooks and cranks of the law, you are debarred from the privilege of announcing that fact to your friends. If telling the simple truth of an attorney will give him any right to ask the public authorites [sic] to assist him in obtaining 5,000 dollars, on the score of damage done to his character, what a character the attorney must have that would be seriously injured! and what magnificent damages might not some of the rogues of the Court of Sessions obtain from the press for assaults upon their characters. Jack Williams, who attempted to break jail the other day, should immediately commence [page 210:] suits against every paper in the city for publishing the truth about him. If it is an offence to tell the truth of an attorney, we do not see upon, what principle it should be less an offence to tell the truth of a pickpocket, particularly when the attorney has been instrumental in doing you a serious injury. We have looked carefully over our remarks and have not been able to discover anything libellous in them, they contain not a syllable of untruth; but a legal friend has suggested, that calling an attorney “sharp” is an offence in the eye of the law. If so, we think the law very sharp-sighted, (we hope there is nothing libellous in that) for the term is a very general one, and we thought, that, applied to an attorney, it was highly complimentary; but we are perfectly willing to make the amende honorable and eat our words, if it will save us from the horrors of a suit at law. If the gentleman will be satisfied by a recantation, we will admit that he is not a sharp attorney but quite the reverse, viz: a very dull one. But perhaps that would be libellous. We have one very great comfort in our affliction, we shall have the privilege of being tried before an upright and intelligent Bench; men who came out of the law and have never had to appeal to a jury to ascertain the precise legal value of their characters.

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96.   12 June 1847: “From the Express”

  Hiram Fuller

[Finding an item in the New York Express bearing on his article, “An Attorney in Search of Practice” (preceding document), Fuller quoted it and again discussed Fancher's threatened libel suit against him.

This article also appeared in the Weekly Mirror on June 19.]

 

As we have been repeatedly asked the name of the “legal gentleman,” alluded to in the above paragraph [New York Express], we will guardedly publish it for the admiration of the press and the public. ENOCH L. FANCHER, formerly a methodist minister, the friend and attorney of Edgar A. Poe, is the aggrieved and damaged party. His late success in prosecuting us for a libel on Mr. Poe, has probably inspired him with new ardor in his profession, while our recent advice to our contemporaries to settle libel suits without resorting to trial by jury may have led him to believe that he had only to issue another capias to obtain $5000. But we rather think he will find himself mistaken. There is a law that protects men from malicious prosecution — and there is such a thing as public opinion, an influence which we had much rather trust to than the law. But in the present case we are disposed to follow the advice of the Express, a good authority in these matters, and fight our adversary before a jury to his heart's content. We shall learn in what the liberty of the press consists, and whether truth and justice form any protection before the legal tribunals of the State. Our friends of the Express have had no less than sixty libel suits commenced against them, and in no case, we believe, has a jury rendered a verdict against them of more than six cents. Mr. Brooks has generally appeared in person in his own defence, proving the untruthfulness of the legal maxim that a man who pleads his own cause has a fool for a client. Probably Mr. Fancher thinks that he can put us to some expense by his ridiculous suit, even though he should not recover anything himself; but to show the kind of estimation in which such conduct as his, is held by the honorable members of his profession, many of whom we are happy to number among our most intimate friends, we would inform him for his consolation that several gentlemen of great legal ability have volunteered to defend us agains[t] this second attempt to harrass [sic] us and obtain our money. We cannot say with any degree of sincerity that we wish he may get it, for nothing would give us greater annoyance than to know that the quondam Methodist parson was clothing and feeding himself at our expense. It is greatly to be lamented that he had not experienced a little religion while he was engaged in the unprofitable [page 212:] business of preaching the gospel, for there is little hope of a man learning to be a christian at the bar who failed while in the pulpit.

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97.   14 June 1847: The Evening Mirror Quotes the Express

[The editor of the New York Express, responding to Fuller's remarks (preceding document), explained that the “Mirror misunderstands us as having some sixty libel suits commenced against us,” and offered advice on handling such lawsuits. Fuller published the item without comment, trusting, very likely, that subscribers to the Mirror would read it in connection with his earlier remarks on Enoch Fancher.]

 

The Mirror misunderstands us as having some sixty libel suits commenced against us, although it is a fact that since the rumor of a verdict obtained against us in Rochester, the legal gentlemen who mistake the Bar for the Road, have been in hot pursuit of paragraphs, out of which they thought they could make money, or extort fees to settle. A class of lawyers has arisen in this State since the monstrous decisions of the Courts, who are trying to live on the Press. The true rule is, to fight them and compel them to starve. When an Editor has been mistaken, or is innocently guilty of a libel, he himself owes to the party injured every honorable reparation, — but he is under no obligations to pay lawyers black mail. The Juries will take care of us, against these prosecutors, if cases are attended to with earnestness and determination. — Express.

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98.   8 July 1847: “Attorney and Client”

  Hiram Fuller

[E. L. Fancher either settled with Fuller out of court or, as seems more likely, accepted the apology he published in the Evening Mirror (reprinted below). In any event, he dropped his suit against Fuller, for my search in the New York Hall of Records shows that Fancher did not file his bill of complaint against him.

Fuller here corroborates the charges Poe made in his letter of 18 October [page 213:] 1847 (see headnote to Document 70) when he writes: “There have been actors behind the scenes in all this business. ...” Unlike Poe, however, he does not name them.

This apology was also published in the Weekly Mirror of July 10.]

 

ATTORNEY AND CLIENT. — In our remarks on the libel suit of Edgar A. Poe, brought by Mr. Fancher against us — we did not mean to dispute the right of counsel to bring a suit on the complaint of a client, but we thought then, and think now, that when men of questionable character and intemperate habits desire to have a libel suit brought against an editor of a paper for a libel, which he did not himself write, a discretion should be used on the part of counsel, because an absence of that discretion would seriously affect the liberty of the press. In conducting that case, we imputed to Mr. Fancher the betrayal of a confidential communication — we are now assured by a disinterested friend, that his information was not obtained in any confidential way, and therefore our information was incorrect. In conducting Poe's suit, we did not intend charging Mr. Fancher with any dishonorable confederacy in extorting money from us. There have been actors behind the scenes in all this business, whom we may yet have to call before the footlights. When a man has robbed you he will kill you also if he can, for the reason that “dead men tell no tales.”

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99.   27 July 1847: Letter to Poe

  George W. Eveleth

[Poe had sent a clipping of his “Reply to Mr. English and Others” (Document 24) to Eveleth, upon which his admirer made some candid comments. “... There are some things in it which I had rather not seen,” he wrote, and added: “In some instances you have come down too nearly on a level with English himself. This, as the editor of the paper” — Hiram, Fuller — “says ... is in bad taste.” Eveleth nevertheless excused his “especial favorite” on the grounds that his illness must have made him “a little peevish. ...”

The “book” Eveleth mentions is Literary America, which Poe was probably working on spasmodically (see headnote to Document 58). [page 214:]

This letter, only a portion of which is given below, appears in Mabbott, 182-4.]

 

Phillips, Me. Tuesday evening, 27

Friend Poe.

I received yours of March 11, inclosing the reply to Dunn English, in due season. ...

I am impatient to hear from you. I haven’t heard a word since your last letter, neither of good nor of bad — and I have watched pretty snugly the papers that have come to our office, in the hope of coming across your name. I would almost rather have seen it, written with a slanderer's pen, as I have seen it before, than not at all. How is it that you contrive to keep so still? — it must be contrary to your disposition to do so — it is contrary to the order of the Mind that gifted you so bountifully with the active principle, mind — it is not in accordance with the idea in your letter to Willis — “The truth is, I have a great deal to do; and I have made up my mind not to die till it is done.” It may be though, that you are very busy with your “book,” so that you haven’t time to make a noise — pretty likely it will make a noise when it appears — when is it to appear? — or it may be that illness keeps you still. I should indeed be afflicted to know that this is the case. Are you better than when you last wrote? Your reply to English is severe, and should be so — but there are some things in it which I had rather not seen. In some instances you have come down too nearly on a level with English himself. This, as the editor of the paper (what paper is it?) says on the other side, is in bad taste — You laid yourself liable to be laughed at by answering in such a spirit, more than you would have done if you had kept calm — I imagine that your illness made you a little peevish. ...

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100.   4 January 1848: Letter to George W. Eveleth Edgar A. Poe

[Poe was months late in answering Eveleth's letter (preceding document) and was at once self-justifying and self-congratulatory about his libel suit when he did. Poe may have liked his “Reply to Mr. English and [page 215:] Others” (Document 24), but it would be hard to find anyone then or now who shares his taste. The peevishness and indignation which at times mark his “Reply,” Poe insists, were “put on.” One cannot help wondering how much he was putting Eveleth on in this letter, since he liked to play at being Dupin who was nothing if not rational and in that sense superior to circumstance.

The “magazine campaign” which Poe mentions in the opening portion of the letter printed below refers to his efforts “to establish a journal in which,” as he said, “the men of genius may fight their battles; upon some terms of equality, with these dunces the men of talent.” This, to quote Poe again, had become the “one great purpose of my literary life.” If he succeeded, he said, he would within two years put himself “in possession of a fortune and infinitely more,” the “infinitely more” being perhaps the power to redress the grievances done him.

The full letter appears in Ostrom, II, 354-7.]

 

New-York — Jan. 4, 1848.

My Dear Sir —

... I have been “so still” on account of preparation for the magazine campaign — also have been working at my book — nevertheless I have written some trifles not yet published — some which have been. ... My health is better — best. I have never been so well. ... I do not well see how I could have otherwise replied to English. You must know him, (English) before you can well estimate my reply. He is so thorough a “blatherskite” that [to] have replied to him with dignity would have been the extreme of the ludicrous. The only true plan — not to have replied to him at all — was precluded on account of the nature of some of his accusations — forgery for instance. To such charges, even from the Auto[crat] of all the Asses — a man is compelled to answer. There he had me. Answer him I must[.] But how? Believe me there exists no such dilemma as that in which a gentleman [is] placed when he is forced to reply to a blackguard. If he have any genius then is the time for its display. I confess to you that I rather like that reply of mine in a literary sense — and so do a great many of my friends. It fully answered its purpose beyond a doubt — would to Heaven every work of art did as much! You err in supposing me to have been “peevish” when I wrote the reply: — the peevishness was all “put on” as a part of my argument — of my plan: — so was the “indignation” with which I wound up. How could I be either [peev]ish or indignant about a matter so well adapted to further my purposes? Were I able [page 216:] to afford so expensive a luxury as personal and especially as refutable abuse, I would [w]illingly pay any man $2000 per annum, to hammer away at me all the year round. I suppose you know that I sued the Mirror & got a verdict. English eloped. ...

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101.   8 September 1847: “Important Legal Ruling”

  Hiram Fuller

[Despite his apology to Enoch L. Fancher (Document 98), Fuller continued to make an issue of the fact that he had taken the stand to testify that Clason, his brother-in-law, was a partner in the Mirror firm. This time his target of attack was Justice Samuel Jones, the Nudge in the case, who had allowed Poe's attorney to act as a witness.]

 

IMPORTANT LEGAL RULING. — In the course of a trial yesterday in the Court of Common Pleas, Judge Daly, presiding, R. N. Morrison, Esq., of counsel for the plaintiff, offered to take the stand as witness for his client. Blunt, counsel for the defendant, objected on the ground of incompetency. In support of the objection, the learned counsel introduced and read two decisions lately made by the Queens Bench of England. After able argument on both sides of the question, Judge Daly ruled the evidence offered as inadmissible, thus sustaining the decisions of the English bench.

This is a most important and most just decision. In a recent libel suit in which we were defendants, the principal witness was the plaintiff's counsel, and it was on his testimony solely that an innocent party [Augustus W. Clason, Jr.] was mulcted in heavy damages. Judge Jones admitted this kind of testimony, which Judge Daly rules out. And this is Law. Opposite ends of the City Hall are governed by opposite principles. What is admissible in the Supreme Court is inadmissible in an inferior one. In this case the inferior Court has the superior Judge. Such mockery of Justice, with the recollection of a heavy verdict, makes one's gorge rise.

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[page 217:]

102.   16 November 1847: An Untitled Article in the Evening Mirror

  Hiram Fuller

[This documentary began with Lewis Clark's attack on Poe, an attack that was vigorously joined by Hiram Fuller, and it seems only fitting to end the account with Fuller's protestations that he had had “no quarrels with ... cotemporaries that have occasioned any unpleasant feelings on either side,” as well as with his expression of gratitude for the “words of ‘brotherly love’ “that came from the “lips and pen” of Clark.

The record presented here shows how Poe as a person was reduced to ruin by the New York literati and their sponsors, who used the occasion while he was defenseless to work out old grudges or new ones. What the record fails to show clearly enough is that Poe, up to the time he had written “The Literati” sketches, had achieved an unparalleled national reputation as a critic, whatever notoriety he earned in gaining that reputation; that, on the strength of “The Raven,” he became famous as a poet, however parodied and mocked “The Raven” was; and that his narratives, widely if not invariably accepted as brilliant at home, were beginning to be acclaimed in England and France.

His encounters with English, Fuller, and company, however, brought his career to a grinding halt, for his personal reputation, smeared beyond recovery by his enemies, soured his literary reputation, so that his manuscripts often went begging for publication or he was forced, “anxious,” as he says, “to get out of ... pecuniary difficulties,” to publish in a journal such as the Boston Flag of Our Union. His bibliography shows that from June 1846 to the time of his death he chiefly wrote poetry, probably because, being least likely to offend, it was most likely to be published. The few critical articles he wrote were with three exceptions all innocuous and inoffensive. The bibliography also shows that Poe, who had a record of being published in more than fifty magazines, annuals, and daily papers, now had access to only four New York journals — the American Whig Review, the Columbian Magazine, the Democratic Review, and the Home Journal — and that these magazines accepted only one contribution of his which was remotely critical. That contribution was “The Literati of New York — S. Anna Lewis,” which was published in the Democratic Review, very likely with Duyckinck's help. (Duyckinck's connection with the Democratic Review was so well known that Lowell in his Fable for Critics could portray him as urging a critic to review a book, saying: “And [page 218:] I think I can promise your thoughts, if you do, / A place in the next Democratic Review.”) Impoverished and desperate, Poe had edited and applauded Mrs. Lewis's poems “for a consideration,” because, as he “fiercely” told Mary Gove who rebuked him for this “unpardonable sin,” “Would you blame a man for not allowing his sick wife to starve?” (Mary Gove Nichols, “Reminiscences of Edgar Allan Poe.”) The title of this essay led English in his John-Donkey to hail “Poe's New Dunciad,” if only to disturb the New York literati again. “We hear it stated in certain quarters,” he wrote, “that Mr. POE is about to resume his sketches of character, commenced in the Lady's Book something more than a year ago. ... Mr. POE ... is a perfect windfall of a critic. He is a ripe scholar, too; dead ripe; rather too ripe; perhaps gone to seed.”

The three reviews Poe wrote that were not innocuous he had to publish in magazines outside New York. These were his critiques of Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse, which he published in Philadelphia in Godey's Lady's Book, Lowell's Fable for Critics, and Joel T. Headley's The Sacred Mountains, both of which he published in Richmond, in the Southern Literary Messenger. Yet even this statement glosses the situation. For in the summer of 1849 Poe was complaining to Annie Richmond that the New York magazines to which he had access had either failed (the Columbian Magazine) or were “forced to stop paying for contributions” (the American Whig Review and the Democratic Review), and that other magazines outside New York (the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, Graham's Magazine and Sartain's Union Magazine in Philadelphia) were “very precarious.” The only book he published during the period was Eureka (1848), which, of course, was noncritical and anomalous in every sense. For that work he received from George P. Putnam, a former partner in the firm of Wiley and Putnam which had published his Tales and Raven volume, only fourteen dollars, and that amount only as a loan to be repaid “in case the sales of said work do not cover the expenses.” Furthermore, despite the fact that under his guidance the Southern Literary Messenger, against fantastic odds, had come to rival the Knickerbocker in popularity and that he had made Graham's Magazine the leading literary journal in the country, no one, as Duyckinck pointed out (Document 68), offered him a berth on a magazine, let alone an editorship. In short, though totally committed to literature, Poe was almost literally starved out of the profession. The poverty and persecution he suffered, which exhausted his energies and drained his self-esteem [page 219:] — a self-esteem he vainly tried to recoup by efforts to establish his own magazine — led to his being found semiconscious on a street in Baltimore and to his death on 7 October 1849 at Washington College Hospital, having gone through a “state,” to quote Arthur Hobson, Quinn, “of utter despair and self-reproach” that “passed into a violent delirium.” We may leave the final word on this score to Duyckinck who, as a pivotal figure of the period, was an authority on the matter. In his unpublished diary Duyckinck wrote on 1 November 1875:

... Poe came into the world, for America a little too soon, at a period when there was the least possible encouragement for a man of genius; when the public was indifferent and in an inverse way of mending the matter the writers themselves were often absurdly antagonistic to each other. ...

Poe, cool and fastidious, aristocratic in his taste in literature, should have been nurtured in a proud academic society. ... As it was, he was compelled to splash among the minnows, entangling himself in the weeds and mud. Two things demoralized the man, his faulty temperament ... and his daily necessities. ... If he was insincere at times, it was because he was indifferent. The stake was too trifling for him to preserve the honour of the game. ...

What if he had lived a little longer to enjoy the European fame which his works were on the eve of receiving when he died? A few months longer and “Fame that the clear spirit cloth raise” might have proved the beacon and incentive to a better and higher life.

One curious incident is worth recording before we turn to the article below. The Weekly Mirror on 22 May 1847 changed its name to the American Literary Gazette and New York Weekly Mirror. In anticipation of the “new” literary journal, the Weekly Mirror of May 8 announced that Jedidiah B. Auld, Duyckinck's friend who had written for Yankee Doodle, would be the new editor and that he would be assisted by Duyckinck himself, not to mention Charles F. Briggs and H. C. Watson, the music and art critic, who were already on the Mirror staff. Despite continuing announcements that Auld and Duyckinck would be added to the staff, there was never any official notice that they helped to conduct the magazine. In fact, the last announcement to mention Auld and Duyckinck appeared on 19 June 1847, after which Fuller dropped their names, though he continued to announce the new journal. On July 24, to [page 220:] dispel any misunderstanding that may have developed, Fuller announced that he was the sole editor and proprietor of the American Literary Gazette and New York Weekly Mirror.

Auld's position in all this is made clear by a letter he wrote to George Duyckinck, Evert's young brother, who was traveling in Europe. The letter is dated September 1847 and is in the Duyckinck Manuscript Collection in the New York Public Library. Auld said that he would like to publish George's letters about his travels abroad in “my little Mirror but alas I abdicated three months ago the sceptre. With me it was but a reign of one hundred days. ...” The reasons he gave for having accepted the editorship were that Cornelius Mathews, who was then editing Yankee Doodle, “was very anxious ... that I should EDITORSHIP” and that he himself was willing to “go into the scribbling to get paid.” The reasons he gave for relinquishing the editorship were that he “saw no [monetary] compensation was likely to be gained” and that he felt “sensibly the disgrace of a failure [in his management of the journal] which I believed inevitable from the first.”

Evert Duyckinck's role in this affair, while more intriguing, is less clear. He had edited the newly founded Literary World from 6 February to 24 April 1847, after which time he abruptly “retired” from the editorship in favor of Charles Fenno Hoffman, only to become connected with the magazine again on 7 October 1848 when he and his brother bought the journal and jointly edited it. Duyckinck retired as editor of the Literary World on account of a dispute with the publishers. He had allegedly broken an unwritten agreement with them that Cornelius Mathews, his best friend, would have nothing to do with the magazine. (The angry exchange of correspondence between Duyckinck and his publishers is in the Duyckinck Manuscript Collection.) It seems likely that, following his retirement from the Literary World, Fuller offered him the editorship of the American Literary Gazette, a position he declined in favor of Auld, though probably agreeing upon Fuller's urging to assist Auld if the need arose. What services, if any, he actually rendered is not clear from Auld's letter. All that Auld says on this score is that “Evert received the offer of the affair and his name was connected with the Mirror more than I desired, since it seemed in some measure like a display of feeling against the [Literary] World.”

Among other errors that Perry Miller (The Raven and the Whale, pages 206, 209) made in discussing this situation — for instance, that Fuller [page 221:] sold the Weekly Mirror to the Duyckinck group and then bought it back — is that the “first volume” of the Trippings of Tom Pepper (Document 89) carried on “its cover the statement that it was edited by Auld and Duyckinck.” There is no indication on the title page, any preliminary pages, or outside cover of either one of the two volumes that Auld and Duyckinck “edited” the novel.

In the article below, Fuller's quotation from the Knickerbocker of November 1847 is accurate. The Gazette and Times, probably the first journal to deride Poe's “Literati” and the author himself (Document 2), was obviously congenial to Fuller. Yankee Doodle, whose expiration on the eve of its third volume (2 October 1847) surprised its own staff (it had announced the contents of the next number, which never appeared), did not, of course, send Fuller its love. Instead, in its final number, Yankee Doodle observed: “The Gazette and Times, having been incorporated with the (Evening) Mirror, has ceased to exist — that is, it has resolved itself into nothing — alias, the Mirror.”]

 

The ‘New York Evening Mirror’ daily journal has received into itself the ‘Daily Gazette and Times,’ and is now among the liveliest, best conducted and widest circulated of our daily sheets. Mr. FULLER is indefatigable in his efforts, and his capable assistants second well his exertions. A second series of ‘Tom Pepper’ is commenced as a feuilleton, which is continued in the ‘Weekly Mirror,’ now a very handsomely printed sheet, in the folio form.

We copy the above from the Knickerbocker of November, not for the purpose of promulgating our own praise, but as an excuse for publicly thanking Mr. Clark for the many words of fraternal kindness, or, to use a good old scriptural expression, words of “brotherly love” that we have received both from his lips and pen. We do not feel over-burthened with indebtedness to our contemporaries, some of whom have carefully visited upon us as it were “the sins of the fathers;” and it is pleasant occasionally to let out some expressions of gratitude in return for kindness received. We have had in our editorial career to contend with enemies that we never made, and many adverse influences which were not easily overcome. We took the Mirror with forty mortal quarrels on its face; and, like the sons of the old houses of Capulet and Montague, inherited feuds which we could not feel. There was a Courier quarrel — a Commercial quarrel — a Herald quarrel — an Express quarrel, an Onderdonk quarrel, [page 222:] with other minor quarrels scattered about the country too numerous to mention. — Our first effort was to bury the editorial hatchet, rub out old scores and begin anew. And we are happy to state that, with many of the old enemies of this paper, we have long since smoked the pipe of peace. But some of them, to use a more expressive than elegant word, are still grouty and will remain so, for aught we know or care, till doomsday. Such occasionally do us the honor to steal, from our columns, and when compelled to notice us it is only as an “evening paper.” But it is something to boast of, that independent and plain spoken as the Mirror has always been, we have thus far had no libel suit to answer on our own account, and no quarrels with our cotemporaries that have occasioned any unpleasant feelings on either side. Yankee Doodle on his death bed sent us his love, and begged forgiveness for thepoor jokes he had attempted at our expense. We ejaculated in return the commonprayer for all departed sinners — requiescat in pace. But we are straying from our purpose, which was to thank our friend Clark for his ever welcome Monthly with its words of cheer. It is enough to reconcile one to many severities and asperities to find here and there a generous specimen of humanity. It enables us to appreciate the remark of Coleridge, who declared that he was preserved from misanthropy by the thought that Wordsworth lived.

In contrast with the treatment of the Knickerbocker, we may be allowed to mention that the editor of one of the oldest and wealthiest newspaper establishments in this city was requested by a person belonging to this office to notice editorially the fact that the Evening Gazette had been united to the Mirror. The request was compiled with, and a bill sent in for about two dollars.