Text: William Henry Gravely, Jr., “Chapter 06,” The Early Political and Literary Career of Thomas Dunn English Story, dissertation, 1953 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 260:]

The biographer who endeavors to treat objectively the unfortunate relationship between Thomas Dunn English and Edgar Allan Poe is confronted by a bewildering task. Even though the dramatic story of their association has often been vividly presented, much that has been spoken or written is clearly too biased to afford an accurate view of the part performed by either man. Generally, English has been cast in the role of villain, for the relationship has hitherto been treated chiefly by those whose sympathetic interests have naturally been with Poe as the leading character of the drama. Nor can it be denied that English's own efforts to repudiate this rôle might have been more convincing if, instead of being so intent upon transferring it entirely to Poe, he had been more disposed to avoid assiduously not only all inaccurate and conflicting statements concerning the ill-fated relationship, but also every temptation to besmirch Poe's character with accusations which he could not, or would not, substantiate.

A double difficulty confronts the objective biographer. In the first place, much that the two men said about each other during the period of their enmity was said in the heat of violent controversy. Both men were Impulsive, dogmatic, and caustic, and when emotionally aroused, were likely to affront each other with studied insults and to [page 261:] prefer charges that were either half-truths or palpable misstatements of facts. Being thus temperamentally constituted and having at the same time vastly different artistic standards, they were frequently critical of each other In such a way as to expose the more unattractive sides of their personalities. Hence, the impartial biographer is faced not only with a difficult problem of separating fact from fiction, but with the realization that any detailed account of the relationship, unless carefully and properly evaluated, will inevitably result in a distorted and prejudicial view of both men. In the second place, much of what English said about Poe after the latter's death, he said to defend himself against the disparaging remarks of various biographers of Poe, who, in their efforts to defend their subject against the calumnies of Rufus Griswold and others, were perhaps not solicitous enough of the reputations of those who, having fallen out with Poe, had formed an unfavorable, if biased and hence untrustworthy, estimate of his character. Consequently, English's counterattacks are bitter in tone and give the impression that he was determined to defend his reputation at all costs and to fight fire with fire whenever necessary to achieve his purpose. This impression is accentuated by his tendency to disclose disparaging information about Poe or to make insinuations about him only after death had removed the person or persons who might have come quickly to Poe's defense. The impression [page 262:] is further accentuated by English's undue dependence on secondhand knowledge in presenting his case and by numerous patently inaccurate statements which, even though they may have been due to the forgetfulness of age, must surely cast doubt upon the reliability of the rest. In the light of all these facts, then, the impartial biographer must weigh English's later accounts of his association with Poe.

Unfortunately, there is scarcely any contemporary documentary evidence to throw light on the first three and a half years of the Poe-English relationship. In no extant letter of Poe's during this period is English so much as mentioned by name. Of course, the fact that the two men resided in the same city would lessen the probability of an exchange of letters between them; but the absence of English's name from the chapters on autography, published in Graham's Magazine for November and December, 1841 as well as from the appendix of autographs appearing in the same magazine for January, 1842,(1) might well suggest that they were not so intimate with each other as English seems to imply in his reminiscences. Young as he was at the time, English had already figured as prominently in the periodical literature of the late thirties and early forties as had some of those whose signatures Poe included in his lengthy compilation of the autographs of distinguished American writers. It is significant, too, that [page 263:] during the years 1841 and 1842 English was not mentioned in the numerous letters exchanged between Poe and his friend, F. W. Thomas, concerning Poe's efforts to secure a minor political appointment under the Tyler Administration. By the beginning of 1842 English had attained considerable prominence in Philadelphia as a Tyler man and might have helped Poe materially had the two been especially intimate with each other.

All firsthand information concerning the relationship between English and Poe before the spring of 1843 comes from English himself, and most of this information may be found in his “Reminiscences of Poe,” published in The Independent during the months of October and November, 1896.(2) Several months before the appearance of these reminiscences English procured a copy of George E. Woodberry's first life of Poe, originally published in 1885.(3) Since his eyesight was failing rapidly at this time, English had the book read aloud in his presence; and, on hearing what Woodberry had said about him, felt that the biographer “had gone out of his way to make a libelous attack” upon him.(4) Thereupon, he decided to give to the public his own side of the story of his association with Poe. [page 264:]

At the time that his reminiscences appeared in 1896 English had already published two important accounts of his dealings with Poe. In 1870 he defended Griswold against the attacks of Poe's friends and admirers,(5) and in 1886 he published two open letters to Poe's British biographer, John H. Ingram, in which he took violent, although justifiable, exception to the treatment which Ingram had accorded him.(6) But according to English, it was a. series of events culminating in Woodberry's alleged attack upon him that determined him to publish a more comprehensive account of his relations with Poe. Even while he was. still a member of the national House of Representatives, a spurious account of what purported to be an interview with English about Poe appeared in a Washington paper.(7) Later, a similarly false interview was the subject of an unauthorized article in a New York daily.(8) Aside from wishing to protect himself from the repercussions of these bogus interviews, English strongly objected to an article on Poe by William. F. Gill, which appeared in the New York Home Journal for February 26, 1896, and which roundly condemned Griswold, Charles F. Briggs, and others for defaming [page 265:] Poe's character. After referring to Poe's detractors as unworthy “to loose the latchets” of his shoes, Gill made the following comment: “We are told that a Poe propaganda, which will reform all the injustice that has been done to the immortal author of ‘The Raven,’ is to illumine the closing hours of the waning century.”(9) English saw in this statement “a conspiracy to whiten one reputation and blacken a dozen others.”(10) But it was Woodberry's attack which, in English's words, was “the last drop in the cup” which “filled it to overflowing.”(11)

Apparently, English did not originally intend that his recollections of Poe should be published in The Independent, for the first of four installments appearing in this magazine is prefaced with the comment that the reminiscences had been extracted “from a manuscript work entitled Memories of Men and Things during over Sixty Years of Active Life.”(12) Shortly after the close of his Congressional career in March, 1895, English had begun the preparation of this work with publication in view.(13) He undertook the task at the urgent requests of his friends, but under a great handicap, for his failing eyesight compelled [page 266:] him to rely heavily on the assistance of his daughter. Alice, who served as his amanuensis. But dictating his memoirs under these circumstances eventually proved too great a strain upon his health, and he therefore abandoned the project, although not without having completed a substantial part of it. Perhaps his decision to publish his recollections of Poe in The Independent was due to his misgivings about ever being able to complete his more comprehensive memoirs and hence to a quite natural wish to vindicate himself during his lifetime against the attacks of Poe's biographers.

Although the original unfinished manuscript of “Memories of Men and Things during over Sixty Years of Active Life” is no longer extant, a substantial portion of it exists in the form of a typewritten copy arranged and prepared for publication by Arthur H. Noll, English's son-in-law and literary executor. These selected reminiscences Noll entitled “Memorabilia of Thomas Dunn English.”(14) Fortunately, although fragmentary, the typewritten copy preserves English's recollections of Poe in their entirety. Aside from some difference in arrangement and frequent minor variations in style, these recollections are essentially the same as those published in The Independent. The typescript copy, however, contains a small amount of [page 267:] biographical data which was not reproduced in The Independent and which has therefore not been available to any of Poe's biographers. Although, in presenting English's account of his association with Poe, I shall rely on the typescript copy for citations from this particular material, I shall ordinarily prefer to quote from the Independent version inasmuch as it seems to be an improved revision of the original.

It is inevitable that strong emphasis upon English's own account of his relationship with Poe will bring to the fore numerous accusations from which the more sympathetic biographers of Poe have exonerated their subject, either because they have felt the evidence to be sufficient to justify their doing so, or because they have seen fit, in the absence of evidence, pro or con, to accept Poe's unsupported statements rather than English's. As English's biographer, however, I feel that it is only fair to let him present his side of the story, even though in return for this privilege he must be held strictly accountable for everything he says which fails to stand the test of critical examination. Let us proceed, then, to hear English's testimony concerning his knowledge of Poe in Philadelphia and afterwards to subject it to close inspection:

Before considering the Poe-English relationship chronologically in the light of the foregoing account, we may as well dispose at once of the insinuations against Poe's character contained in the final paragraph. Needlessly to say, these insinuations are utterly indefensible, [page 272:] as well as undeserving of any serious answer by Poe's adherents. It cannot be denied that they distinctly weaken English's case against Poe. It is not enough to cite in English's defense his own statement that although he had been forced to expose Poe's life in part, he had withheld much which he did not need to reveal in order to vindicate himself.(16) If English actually knew of any scandalous action resulting in Poe's sudden departure from Philadelphia, either he should have discussed it without evasion and thereby rendered it subject to future investigation, or he should not have alluded to it at all. It is his own fault if his ungentlemanly insinuations cause us to suspect that, far from wanting to be as generous as possible toward Poe, he yielded to the temptation to disseminate idle gossip in order to malign a bitter enemy, and that in refusing to reveal an allegedly scandalous secret possessed only by himself he was virtually admitting that he had no sure knowledge of what he was insinuating and that his information was based merely on rumor.

If this is our suspicion, a further examination of the matter will surely tend to confirm it. It will be noted that in his account English gives no information about Poe's “after life in Philadelphia” aside from making the general accusations that his drunkenness continued and that stories of an otherwise scandalous nature became linked with his name. The very lack of detailed information [page 273:] about this period of Poe's life suggests that English had little firsthand knowledge of it. Moreover, as the present study will reveal, all existing evidence points to exceedingly bad blood between the two men for more than a year before Poe left Philadelphia. Both of these facts strongly indicate that English's vague accusations ought to be completely discounted. Although both Woodberry(17) and Allen(18) think that English's innuendoes allude to unsavory rumors growing out of Poe's supposed visits to Saratoga Springs in the summers of 1842 and 1843, Quinn refuses to express his opinion on the ground that the rumors are too flimsily based to warrant any discussion at all.(19)

But if English's unworthy insinuations throw an unfavorable light on his entire account, much specific information is related which cannot be so summarily dismissed and which, though inadequately supported by corroborating testimony, requires a more detailed examination. To begin with, there is little reason to doubt that English has accurately recorded the time and circumstances of his first meeting with Poe. Less than eight years [page 274:] after this meeting, during the period of his legal involvement with Poe, English was required to answer, under oath, a series of questions administered to him in Washington by order of the New York Superior Court. In answer to the first interrogatory, calling on him to state whether he knew Poe and, if so, how long and how intimately, English replied: “I know Edgar A. Poe: became acquainted with him shortly after he was first associated with Mr Wm E. Burton in the conduct of the Gentleman's Magazine. This was sometime previous to the year 1840. I cannot say in what year without I had the files of the Magazine by me to refresh my memory. Our acquaintanceship at portions of the time was very intimate.”(20) This statement lends considerable support to English's assertion almost fifty years later that Burton introduced him to Poe in 1839. But it does not reveal how soon their acquaintanceship developed into intimacy or how long it remained so.

Inasmuch as Poe's most authoritative biographers have presented strong evidence to show that he was both abstemious in his habits and unfailing in industry during the period of his connection with Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, [page 275:] English's dissenting testimony in regard to these two points requires special consideration. Especially serious is English's charge that Poe drank to excess while he was associated with Burton; for not only does English maintain that he speaks from personal knowledge, but his testimony conflicts directly with that given by Poe in a letter to Dr. Snodgrass dated April 1, 1841. Snodgrass had evidently come to Poe's defence after Burton had accused his former associate of drunkenness and also, probably, of ensuant neglect of duty. Warmly defending himself against Burton's charges, Poe wrote: “I could prove their falsity and their malicious intent by witnesses who, seeing me at all hours of every day, would have the best right to speak — I mean Burton's own clerk, Morrell, and the compositors of the printing office. In fact, I could prove the scandal almost by acclamation.”(21) Further on in the letter he is even more specific in denying Burton's allegations:

Not only does Poe's frank and apparently sincere revelation of his personal habits have the ring of truth, but his unhesitating directness in pointing to those on [page 277:] whom he could rely to defend him against the charges of Burton makes his explanation all the more convincing. Aside from English's story of finding Poe drunk and accompanying him home, there is little evidence other than that contained in a letter to Thomas Cottrell Clarke from Charles W. Alexander, printer of Burton's Magazine when Poe was connected with it, to support the contention that Poe was not entirely abstemious during the period to which he refers in his letter to Snodgrass. Not only is Griswold's story that Poe drank and neglected his duty while employed by Burton based entirely on secondhand information, but his willful and malicious alteration of both the date and the content of a letter from Burton to Poe, obviously for the purpose of presenting a distorted account of the quarrel between the two men, would in itself be enough to destroy the validity of his story even though he had been an eyewitness of the quarrel and of the events leading up to it.(23) Actually, of course, Griswold did not even make Poe's acquaintance until some ten or eleven months after Poe parted with Burton.(24) Years later, Hyman [page 278:] Rosenbach published a similar story of the quarrel as communicated to him by Horace Wemyss Smith. But this story, which also contains an account of excessive drinking by Poe, is now considered apocryphal.(25)

Although Alexander's letter to Clarke lends some support to English's charge that Poe was addicted to drink while associated with Burton, it provides even stronger evidence that Poe was not neglectful of his editorial duties at this time. In answer to a specific request by Clarke for information about Poe's alleged negligence, Alexander replied:

It can be seen from this testimony that Alexander was primarily concerned with defending Poe against the accusation that he so neglected his editorial duties as to interfere with the regular publication of the magazine. His allusions to Poe's drinking habits are rather vague and indefinite. He admits that Poe “had faults seriously detrimental to his own interests,” which may have caused his own contributions to be uncertain at times. but he does not actually say that Poe occasioned any disappointment in this respect. Since the letter was written more than ten years after Poe's break with Burton, it is quite possible, as Woodberry has pointed out, that Alexander [page 280:] “may have confused his recollections and antedated the intemperance of Poe.”(27) Of course, Poe himself admits that he drank excessively after Virginia ruptured a blood vessel in January, 1842.(28) Consequently, there were more than two years remaining in the Philadelphia period during which Poe's acquaintances might have formed an impression of his drinking habits. It is unlikely that many persons would be able to state, a number of years later, precisely in what year or under what circumstances Poe acquired these habits.

Neither Woodberry nor Quinn is inclined to give much credence to English's account of Poe's derelictions during the Philadelphia period, but for somewhat different reasons. Let us first consider Woodberry's comments, which lead him to the conclusion that “English's observation of Poe in Philadelphia seems to have been no more than occasional, and his reminiscences of him at that time to be mixed with second-hand knowledge.”(29) conclusion on the following rather muddled observations:

These observations contain some surprising inaccuracies. Woodberry is clearly mistaken in holding that English got his capital facts entirely from Rosenbach. English's account of how, at first, he had been favorably impressed by Poe's manner is much closer to a paragraph in Griswold's “Memoir” than to anything in Rosenbach's article.(31) In describing how he had raised an intoxicated Poe from the gutter, he was merely giving a detailed account of an alleged occurrence which he himself had publicized fifty years before.(32) Moreover, Woodberry is mistaken in saying that English assigned this incident to 1841. When English said that the incident [page 282:] occurred during the time when Poe declared “in a letter to Snodgrass, that he was temperate,” he was clearly referring, not to the year in which Poe wrote the letter, but to the period of Poe's business association with Burton. Again, Woodberry makes the point that in describing the quarrel itself from Graham's account English was producing evidence that was “ten years after the fact.” Actually, the evidence was between thirty and forty years after the fact, for English distinctly says that he heard Graham's account of the quarrel in the office of the Newark Journal. Graham was not associated with this paper until sometime during the decade of the 1870's.(33) True, English did apparently draw upon Rosenbach's article for a few details to reinforce his own account of Poe's neglect of his editorial duties, but he had already told essentially the same story — allegedly on Graham's authority but clearly depending in part on Griswold's “Memoir” — in an open letter to J. H. Ingram.(34) Woodberry fails to point out that English's letter to Ingram preceded the Rosenbach article by nearly eleven months. Thus English's reliance on Rosenbach would seem to be exceedingly slight.

But in spite of the slips that Woodberry makes in commenting on English's recollections of Poe during the [page 283:] Philadelphia period, he is clearly right in concluding that these recollections are “mixed with secondhand knowledge.” Less certain, however, is his conclusion that English's “observation of Poe” at this time “seems to have been no more than occasional.” Anne E. C. Clarke, daughter of Poe's friend, Thomas Cottrell Clarke, has given us a picture of how visitors would invade her father's “editorial sanctum” which surely indicates a closer association between English and Poe than Woodberry is willing to admit. True, Miss Clarke's recollections have come down to us through the medium of a rather unreliable book by the elderly John Sartain, but inasmuch as they are quoted verbatim by Sartain, they cannot be discounted. “Among the callers or stoppers-in,” says Miss Clarke, “would be ‘Tom’ as he was called, Dr. Thomas Dunn English, who, after being bon camerade with Hirst and Poe, quarreled with one or both. All three of them happening in early one evening, they had to be kept apart lest they come to deadly strife. English was put in the parlour, Hirst in the library, where he was in the habit of lying prone on a lounge by the hour, dreaming dreams and seeing visions, and Poe was :shown as usual into the dining-room.”(35) Hirst was a particularly frequent visitor to Clarke's home, and Poe had formed the habit of dropping in before he had moved from his home near Locust Street on Sixteenth, then known [page 284:] as Schuylkill Seventh Street.(36) English's visits to Clarke's home were probably later, but at any rate they indicate that at one time during the Philadelphia period the friendship between English and Poe was less casual than Woodberry thought.

Professor Quinn, in defending Poe against the oft repeated accusation that he neglected his editorial duties under Burton, gives no weight to English's contrary testimony — probably because he agrees with Woodberry that English was repeating secondhand information. Why he completely ignores English's testimony in regard to this particular point is not clear.(37) Griswold's similar testimony must also have been based on secondhand information. Yet Quinn discredits it, not because of Griswold's lack of firsthand knowledge, but because of his proven untrustworthiness. Of course — although he does not say so — Quinn may have rejected English's testimony because, like Woodberry, he thought English to have relied heavily on Rosenbach's story, which he has pronounced as apocryphal, or on Griswold's “Memoir,” which contains most of the accusations.

On the other hand, Quinn discounts English's story of the drunken episode involving Poe in 1839 or 1840, apparently because he is convinced that English's description [page 285:] of Poe's cottage “tallies most definitely with the house in Spring Garden” and that therefore “his intimacy must have been later in the Philadelphia period.”(38) Quinn is probably correct in this opinion, although, if there were no evidence to support it other than that provided by English's vague, impressionistic description of Poe's house as he recollected it after more than fifty years, the opinion would be rather flimsily based. Impressions resulting from such descriptions may vary considerably, as one may easily see by contrasting Woodberry's observations on English's description of Poe's house with those of Quinn. Woodberry maintains that the house referred to by English is the one “described by Mayne Reid, as supported against an adjoining brick wall, evidently the earlier residence of Poe.”(39) Quinn, on the contrary, thinks English and Reid have described different houses, for he remarks: “Mayne Reid's description of ‘a lean-to of three rooms (there may have been a garret) with a closet of painted plank construction supported against the gable of the more pretentious dwelling’ can apply to neither the Coates Street nor the Spring Garden Street houses, both of which were made of brick.”(40) Mayne Reid himself, however, positively states: “When I first became acquainted with Poe he was living in a suburban district of Philadelphia, called ‘Spring Garden.’”(41) Thus, [page 286:] although both Woodberry and Quinn agree that Reid's description does not apply to Poe's last residence in Philadelphia, they are in no such agreement about the application of English's description; and, to add to the confusion, Mayne Reid has left us a picture which cannot be reconciled with that of the house in which Poe is known to have lived at the time Reid says he first met him.

But there is additional evidence to support Quinn's opinion that English's intimacy with Poe was “later in the Philadelphia period,” although, as the present study will subsequently show, there is good reason to conclude that their friendly association in Philadelphia probably came to an end during March, 1843. One will observe, on referring again to the previously quoted extract from the “Reminiscences,” that after relating that Poe had been drunk twice within a period of several weeks while he was still Burton's assistant, English states that meanwhile Poe had shown him “the prospectus of a new magazine” and that Poe had said “he had given it its name because he intended to write his criticisms with an iron pen.” English then says that the title of this projected magazine (which, elsewhere, he says he cannot recall)(42) was later changed to The Penn Magazine. Now it was not until February, 1843, after The Stylus had been adopted as the title, that the prospectus was prefaced with a quotation from Launcelot Canning containing the words, “Lo! this is writ / With the [page 287:] antique iron pen.”(43) Thus English's apparent confusion of The Penn with The Stylus and his assertion that he raised Poe from the gutter within a few weeks of the time that Poe showed him a prospectus — apparently one of The Stylus — lends considerable support to Quinn's opinion that English antedated the period of his intimacy with Poe. That English, in retrospect, might have been exceedingly hazy about the exact period of his visits to Poe's home in Philadelphia is all the more likely because of an inveterate tendency on his part to misdate some of the most memorable events of his life — probably through forgetfulness. The present biography will afford ample proof of this statement.

Even though he has almost certainly antedated the period of Poe's drunkenness in Philadelphia, it is not at all improbable that English did come to the rescue of Poe on one occasion when the latter was intoxicated and that he did assist Poe to his home. In his libelous reply to Poe's sketch of him in The Literati. English made certain statements which indicate considerable knowledge of Poe's habits at one time or another, both in Philadelphia and in New York. Referring to the Philadelphia period, English said: “I am not alone in my knowledge of Mr. Poe. The kennels of Philadelphia streets, from which I once kindly [page 288:] raised him, have frequently had the pleasure of his acquaintance.”(44) In answering English's article, Poe made no attempt to deny this or any other accusation pertaining to his use of alcohol. On the contrary, he apparently acknowledged his failings in this respect, although at the same time he indicated that much might be said to palliate them:

We know, from a letter to George W. Eveleth, what Poe referred to when he spoke of the “terrible evil” which led to his excessive drinking. He referred to long periods of mental illness which he called insanity or “fits of absolute unconsciousness” the result of an intolerable [page 289:] nervous strain caused by his agony over Virginia's illness and beginning when she ruptured a blood-vessel in January, 1842.(46) Thus, in replying to specific charges of drunkenness, including English's statement that he had once raised Poe from a street gutter in Philadelphia, it appears that Poe tacitly admitted the charges, but that he also understood none of them to be based on anything which occurred before January, 1842. Here, then, is further evidence that English may have antedated the period of Poe's drunkenness in Philadelphia.

If, as there is good reason to suppose, English's friendly relations with Poe in Philadelphia ceased in March, 1843, and if Quinn is correct in saying that English's description of Poe's house is that of his last residence in Philadelphia, Poe may have moved to the Spring Garden district somewhat earlier than Quinn surmises, or before the spring of 1843. It is impossible, on the basis of extant data, to come within several months, at least, of determining when the change occurred. The Philadelphia directory for 1843 lists Poe as an editor and gives his address as Coates Street, near Fairmount, and the directory for 1844 also lists him as an editor and gives his address as Seventh Street, above Spring Garden. Moreover, in a letter to F. W. Thomas dated September 12, 1842, Poe says that he had “moved out in the neighborhood of Fairmount” since his [page 290:] friend's last visit;(47) and in a letter to James Russell Lowell, dated June 20, 1843, he says: “My address is 234, North Seventh above Spring Garden, West Side.”(48) Although the Philadelphia directories were normally published near the beginning of each year, they must have been compiled on the basis of data assembled considerably earlier. Hence, although Quinn gives the spring of 1843 as the probable time of Poe's removal from Coates Street to North Seventh, and although he thinks that Poe probably lived at the latter address “for only a year or less,”(49) there is no good reason, in the light of extant information, why the change might not just as probably have occurred several months earlier. Certainly, an earlier removal would make it easier to explain English's visits to the Spring Garden house, even though of course it must be granted that any attempt to determine the period during which Poe and English were closest to each other is highly speculative and, unless further evidence is turned up, can lead only to a provisional, not a final, solution.

There can be little doubt, of course, that Poe and Burton quarreled violently, and that Poe abused his employer, although perhaps for a sufficient reason. Poe himself admitted as much. Speaking of Burton in the letter [page 291:] to Snodgrass already quoted in part, he says: “I have never been scrupulous in regard to what I have said of him. I have always told him to his face, and everybody else, that I looked upon him as a blackguard and a villain.”(50) Moreover, in an extract previously quoted from the same letter he writes of his having retired from Burton's office “in uncontrollable disgust at his chicanery, arrogance, ignorance and brutality.”(51) In the light of these remarks. English's account of the actual quarrel as told him years later by George R. Graham in the office of the Newark Daily Journal probably has some factual basis, even though the causes of the quarrel have evidently been misrepresented. English, it will be recalled, says that he heard the statement of Graham, who witnessed the scene, and also the statements of Burton and Poe. English first revealed the alleged statement of Graham in 1886, when the latter was still alive. In English's own words, probably somewhat colored, Graham said that Poe “turned upon Burton with a stream of coarse and vulgar abuse,” and also that “it was a most disgusting exhibition.”(52)

Of course, one may be skeptical about Graham's spreading such a story years afterward in view of his once having defended Poe so warmly against Griswold's attack. If he did spread it, however, one may still find good [page 292:] reason to doubt its accuracy. At that time Graham was not the man he once had been. Although he had been given a place on the staff of the Newark Journal. “his mind,” according to George H. Genzmer, “was sluggish and his will feeble.”(53) It is unreasonable to maintain that a story told by a man more than thirty years after the actual occurrence of the events related and during a period of gradual mental decline should take precedence over a hardly reconcilable account written some twenty years earlier at the height of his intellectual powers.

Whether Poe's abuse was disgusting or not, his break with Burton seems to have resulted from causes other than drunkenness or neglect of duty. In the rough draft of a letter which may or may not have been rewritten and sent to Burton, and which survives only in the form of a careful copy, there is no indication from Poe's detailed recapitulation of his relations with his employer that these causes were the source of Burton's dissatisfaction and anger. It is clear from Poe's remarks that Burton, after giving way to violent anger, had written Poe an insulting letter two days before. Among other things, Burton had evidently asserted that Poe owed him a hundred dollars; that he had been receiving more money than the amount of his writing justified; and that he was selfish. Poe answered these points in detail and then made certain [page 293:] observations which indicate clearly the main cause of the rupture:

Evidently the chief source of contention between the two men was Poe's projected magazine. Indeed, the foregoing excerpt lends some support to English's assertion that Poe revealed to him his plan to print a number of prospectuses of The Penn Magazine “and send them by post to Burton's subscribers,” and also that he “excused himself by saying that most of these people would as soon take two magazines as one.”(55) Essentially the same story is told by Griswold, who charged Poe with having “prepared [page 294:] the prospectus of a new monthly” during Burton's absence and with having also “obtained transcripts of his subscription and account books.”(56) But regardless of Poe's actions, which he may have thought justifiable in the light of his own grievances against Burton as quoted above, the comments of both English and Griswold are obviously biased in that they contain not the slightest suggestion that Burton may have driven Poe to desperate measures. Nonetheless, if Poe did intend to solicit subscriptions to The Penn Magazine from Burton's subscribers, one can understand how angry Burton probably was in contemplating the harmful effect such a move would have on the market value of his own magazine.

The foregoing examination of English's charges that Poe drank excessively while associated with Burton and that he neglected his editorial duties indicates that English has relied too much on hearsay and on an uncertain memory. In fact, no surviving account of Poe's alleged failure to perform his duties at this time seems so convincing as Alexander's testimony that the Gentleman's Magazine was published regularly, and without a single interruption, during the entire period in which Poe was associated with it. Nor does any account of Poe's addiction to drink at this time sound so convincing as his own letter to Snodgrass, in which he clearly indicates that he drank nothing alcoholic from the time of his leaving [page 295:] Richmond to that of his rupture with Burton. Although in the same letter he admits that soon after he left Burton “he was induced to resort to the occasional use of cider, with the hope of relieving a nervous attack,”(57) he apparently abandoned even this stimulant after a short while. No evidence of any consequence exists to prove that Poe did not remain entirely free of the alcoholic habit aside from this single exception, until Virginia became seriously ill in January, 1842.(58) In support of Poe's own declaration, we have the testimony of William Gowans, who saw a great deal of Poe after the latter came to New York in 1837. “For eight months, or more,” said Gowans, “‘one house contained us, one table fed.’ During that time I saw much of him, and had an opportunity of conversing with him often, and I must say I never saw him the least affected with liquor, nor even descend to any known vice, while he was one of the most courteous, gentlemanly, and Intelligent companions I have met with during my journeyings and haltings through divers divisions of the globe.”(59) Additional support of Poe's declaration may be found in a statement by Mrs. Clemm, quoted by Woodberry on the authority of R. E. Shapley, of Philadelphia: “For years I know he did not taste even a glass of wine.”(60) As Woodberry truly observes, “To no other [page 296:] period of his mature life are those words applicable.”(61)

In view of English's prejudiced and rather garbled story of Poe's relations with Burton, one may well wonder how much trust can be put in his account of Poe's association with Graham. English's statement that Poe's “breaks in the way of stimulants were not uncommon”(62) during this period may be partly true, for Poe was with Graham for several months after Virginia became ill, and in all probability he did drink frequently during that time. But English seems to imply, as Griswold does, that Poe's weakness for drink caused Graham to look for another editor. He asserts, moreover, that Graham described as “disgraceful” the causes which led to his parting with Poe, and he deduces from their conversation that Graham originally came to Poe's defense primarily because he hated Griswold.(63) The difficulty of arriving at a satisfactory answer is due not only to English's demonstrable tendency to overstate his own case, but also to the probability that Graham himself was given to stretching the truth considerably as he grew older and as his mind prematurely underwent a decline.

Even if English did not distort Graham's remarks, it is fairly evident that Graham did not always tell the same story to persons who sought from him the exact cause of [page 297:] F his parting with Poe. Nor does any story purporting to come from Graham agree satisfactorily with either English's account or Poe's own explanation to Thomas. Poe wrote Thomas that he had had no misunderstanding with Graham, but that he had resigned because he was disgusted “with the namby-pamby character of the Magazine.”(64) This feeling about the magazine was unquestionably accentuated by Poe's own impatience and feeling of frustration at not having made sufficient progress toward establishing a magazine of his own. Many of Poe's letters to Thomas and other correspondents while he was associated with Graham clearly show that the project was continually on his mind. On the other hand, Gill states that in December, 1873, he talked to Graham about Poe, and on the basis of this interview he gives the following information bearing on the severance of relations between the two men:

Although this account of Poe's departure does not necessarily imply an overt quarrel with Graham, it hardly bears out Poe's statement that there was no misunderstanding. Nor does it agree completely with a later story which Graham told Albert H. Smyth. “A quarrel of the hour,” according to Smyth, “led to Poe's dismissal, but the friendly relations between the wayward poet and his former employer remained unsevered.”(66) Aside from the assertion that Poe was dismissed, however, there is nothing in the story which Graham told Smyth that is actually in conflict with anything he had previously related to Gill. Smyth says that Graham bore “clear and willing testimony to the efficient service rendered by Poe” and also that he “found little in Poe's conduct to reprove.”(67)

But there is one rather puzzling feature of the story which Graham related to Smyth. After the transference of the Gentleman's Magazine to Graham's ownership, Burton is said to have remarked, concerning Poe: “I want you to take care of my young editor.”(68) Quinn is inclined to discredit this story on the ground that “the relations between Burton and Poe make such a condition improbable” and to attribute it to Graham's probable tendency to romance a bit in his old age.(69) At any rate, in view of Smyth's acknowledgement of indebtedness to both Graham [page 299:] and Thomas Dunn English for “some of the most important facts”(70) of the very book in which this story is told, it is interesting to note how utterly irreconcilable are Smyth's and English's accounts of Poe's relationship with Graham, even though the author of each account maintains that he discussed the relationship with Graham. In the light of these discrepancies, it would seem unwise to place undue reliance on any story related by Graham during his declining years, or to assume that English was any more reliable or unbiased in discussing Poe's relations with Graham than he was in treating the poet's relations with Burton.

Perhaps the clearest indication of how English's habitually biased recollections of Poe give a distorted picture of the latter's personality and character may be seen in his unqualified endorsement of everything derogatory that Griswold had to say about Poe. In his article on Poe in The Old Guard for June, 1870, English tells a story of how Griswold was tricked by Poe which undoubtedly contains some truth, for it is basically the same story that Poe himself related to Thomas in a letter of September 12, 1842. Yet a comparison of the two accounts will show how easy it is for a prejudiced narrator, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to interpret a story of this kind in such a way as to place an enemy in a highly [page 300:] unfavorable light. That English's story is based on firsthand information is indicated by the fact that Poe's letter to Thomas was not published until 1880,(71) and hence Poe's version of the incident was not known to the public until ten years after English first related the story. English's version is contained in the following reminiscence:

Now let us compare the foregoing version with that contained in Poe's letter to Thomas of September 12, 1842. After thanking Thomas for all his efforts to help him get a Custom-House appointment, Poe says:

When English wrote his reminiscences of Poe as published in The Independent, he repeated his version of this incident.(74) Along with it, he reproduced Poe's account as related to Thomas, which he had seen by that time in Woodberry's first life of Poe. He contended that Poe, even according to the version given Thomas, had been guilty of dishonor. Actually, whether Poe did a reprehensible or commendable thing depends on whether we accept his or English's version of the affair. According to English, Poe told Griswold that he wanted to write a favorable review of his book and then wrote an unfavorable one and took Griswold's money. This, of course, would have been misrepresentation on Poe's part and would have been unethical. But Poe, it will be noted, says nothing about a favorable review in his letter to Thomas. [page 303:] He merely told Griswold that he would have liked to review the book in question; and when Griswold, realizing the value of a critical appraisal from Poe, showed his eagerness to have Poe write the review, Poe did so. But he wrote it, he says, exactly as he “would have written under ordinary circumstances.” According to this version, Poe acted just as he ought to have done; and, if Griswold expected extravagant praise — or at least praise in excess of what Poe could honestly accord — in exchange for compensation paid for the review, it was Griswold's action that was morally wrong and not Poe's. Furthermore, English, rather than Poe, would seem to be lacking in moral perception, as far as this particular incident is concerned.

Actually, it appears that Poe overemphasized the harshness of his review to Thomas. Clearly, the antagonistic tone adopted by Poe in his letter was, in part, for the purpose of assuring his friend that he disapproved of Griswold's having omitted him from the body of his book. When the review did finally appear in the Boston Miscellany of November, 1842, it contained some adverse criticism; but the general tone of approval should have been enough to satisfy a fair-minded man who was not bent on receiving excessive adulation.(75) Evidently, extreme [page 304:] adulation was what Griswold wanted, however, for in a letter to James T. Fields of August 12, 1842, he expressed indifference as to whether the review ever appeared and attributed its unfavorable remarks to the fact that he and Poe were not on particularly good terms.(76) It has been suggested, of course, that before submitting the review for publication Griswold may have stricken from it passages offensive to himself.(77) In view, however, of the nice way in which the favorable and unfavorable comments are balanced against each other, it is unlikely that Poe's review was subjected to any mutilation of this kind.

The more one studies the relationship between English and Poe, the more one is likely to reach the conclusion that their acquaintanceship never developed into a really close friendship. There is nothing on record to indicate that at any time during their association was there ever an open expression of kindly or warm feelings such, for example, as Poe expressed for F. W. Thomas, Jesse E. Dow, or Henry B. Hirst. Yet it is clear that for a considerable time during the New York period Poe and English were closely associated with each other — especially in a business way — even though it is equally clear, as will soon develop, that they could not have been on good terms during the [page 305:] latter part of the Philadelphia period. It will be interesting to speculate upon some of the reasons why their friendship seems to have been lukewarm at best and to establish, insofar as it is possible to do so, the probable grounds for the ill-feeling that existed between the two men during the last year, at least, of Poe's residence in Philadelphia.

It has already been pointed out that both Poe and English were impulsive and that their vastly different artistic standards were undoubtedly the source of much antagonism between them. There is every indication that both made enemies very easily because of their opinionated views and their caustic tongues, and it is a known fact that two such men are not likely to remain long on friendly terms with each other. Unfortunately, English had numerous deficiencies as a young poet which a sensitive and exacting critic like Poe was not likely to pass over unnoticed. After the final break between the two men Poe mercilessly held these deficiencies up to contempt and ridicule, but he had had ample opportunity to observe them earlier, and it is probable that he frequently pointed them out. English found it difficult to take this sort of criticism gracefully and was prone to answer it by intemperate abuse of his critic. A particularly persistent defect in English's early poetry was a tendency to use bad grammar, his most typical weaknesses being his frequent disregard of the proper case forms of the personal pronoun and his [page 306:] equally frequent failure to make his verbs agree in number with their subjects. It is difficult to account for the repeated occurrence of such errors — most of which were obviously not typographical — unless, as I have already held in the first chapter of this study, his family background was not particularly literate. This very circumstance may partly account for English's sensitiveness to ridicule.

Of course, Poe made many enemies because of the harshness of his criticism, but there is good reason to hold that English was especially repelled by it and that he generally retorted in kind when critically assailed. English's attitude can be sensed in a passage from his recollections of Poe, omitted from the Independent articles, where he intimates that the origin of Poe's dislike for him can be traced to a dispute over a critical matter. “His notion of criticism,” says English, writing about Poe, “was to hunt for defects, and where they could not be found to twist merits into censurable shape. Yet he was himself very sensitive to criticism even the most friendly. I remember his notice of a small Grammar designed for young people, and without any claims to originality. In this notice he declared that the subjunctive mood of the verb was not an arbitrary form, and that ‘if it be,’ was explained by the fact that ‘could,’ ‘would’ or ‘should’ was omitted through ellipses. I asked Poe if that were true, where he would place the auxiliaries in ‘if it were.’ [page 307:] He grew very red in the face, and then with the words ‘You’re an ass,’ flounced out of the room. I believe that this was the beginning of Poe's dislike of me ...”(78)

Among other evidence of English's resentment of Poe's critical attitude is his comment, already quoted, on the general reaction of Philadelphians toward Poe's literary critiques: “Poe's criticisms, from their acrimonious tone, attracted much attention. They did not meet with general approval, however, not only because of their ill nature, but because the people of Philadelphia at that time did not like anything so censorious and unjust as Poe's articles generally were.”(79) In this connection, too, may be mentioned the ‘amusing scene,” recalled by John Sartain, between Griswold and English. “The latter,” writes Sartain, “was chatting delightfully with me when in walked Griswold. I knew of course that they must be acquainted, and yet noticing after awhile [sic] that they behaved like strangers I apologized for neglecting to introduce them and for assuming that they knew each other. [page 308:] ‘Oh, yes,’ said one grimly, ‘we know one another.’ So I saw there was bad blood between them. A cheerless talk ensued for a time, when a name was spoken by chance that had a magical effect. It was Poe, and they fraternized at once, giving it to him right and left agreeing that he was a most unjust critic and a bad fellow every way.”(80)

But even if Poe did offend English by treating his creative work roughly, he was by no means the only one of English's contemporaries to do so. Interestingly enough, English's poetry was occasionally parodied or ridiculed by persons who were closer to Poe than they were to English, and this circumstance may have helped to widen the breach between the two men — especially, since we may assume that Poe's sympathies probably lay with the lampooners. An amusing instance of how English's poetry was subjected to this sort of indignity may be found in Henry B. Hirst's parody of English's poem, “Morning.” The latter poem first appeared in The Casket for April, 1840, and was dated March 13. It reads as follows:

In A1exander's Weekly Messenger for November 4, 1840, Hirst makes the following comment on English's poem:

After the foregoing explanation, Hirst reproduces the poem quoted above — not without a few minor errors — and along with it the following squib of his own, which he also entitles “Morning” and which he dates January 12, 1840, to create the illusion that it considerably antedated English's poem:

Perhaps the most facetiously contemptuous notice of any of English's fugitive poetry came from the pen of Poe's friend, Jesse E. Dow, on November 27, 1841. Inasmuch as Dow was one of those who later tried to help Poe get a minor Custom-House appointment in Philadelphia, at a time when English himself had some influence with the Tyler Administration, this contemptuous review may have been an unfortunate thing insofar as Poe's interests were concerned. Poe and Dow were very friendly toward each other at this time. The day before Dow's scathing lampoon appeared in his recently established newspaper, the Alexandria Index. Poe had written to F. W. Thomas telling him how much he would like to see him and Dow. “I would give the world to see you once again,” said Poe, “and have a little chat. Dow you & I — ‘when shall we three meet again?’ Soon, I hope — for I must try & slip over to [page 311:] Washington some of these days.”(83) Earlier in the year Thomas had written Poe that he saw Dow daily. “We walk often together,” said Thomas, “and I do not think we have ever taken a walk without speaking of you — ”(84) Rarely did Poe and Thomas exchange letters without some mention of Dow. All of this suggests a close bond of friendship among the three and, in view of English's unfriendly attitude toward Thomas later on, might cause one to suspect that there was little close companionship between Poe and English at this time.

The political victory of Harrison and Tyler in 1840 had doubtless revived memories of the Tippecanoe campaign of 1811 and of the brave Tecumseh's losing fight to save his race from destruction. At any rate, English, who had become moderately Influential in politics and who frequently wrote on timely topics, had recently produced a poem which dealt with Tecumseh. An extract from the poem appeared in Snowden's Ladies’ Companion during the autumn of l84l, under the title of “Tecumseh's Last Battle,” and shortly thereafter called forth Dow's lampoon.(85) Although Dow treated English's poem at some length, the review is amusing enough to be reproduced in full. It is not necessary to quote or to summarize the published portion of the poem, for the citations and comments of the reviewer give [page 312:] an adequate conception of its contents. The review follows:

It is interesting to note that Dow ridicules English's grammatical lapse in the line, “The teeth is set,” for Poe's contemptuous sketch of English in Godey's Lady's Book was later to call attention to English's frequent perpetration of the same kind of grammatical error. Since English was particularly sensitive to this kind of attack, Dow's barbed remarks may have caused smoldering resentment on English's part. Nor did Dow probably make matters any better a few months later when he alluded briefly, though condescendingly, to another poem by English which appeared in the same magazine. After commenting on the merits of The Ladies’ Companion, Dow remarked: “We see Snowden still sticks to Dr. DUNN ENGLISH; and by the way, the Doctor has improved since we gave him a TONIC; his last poem is positively readable.”(87)

But if the ill feeling between English and Poe during the Philadelphia period was probably due in no small measure to differences over matters of literary criticism, it may well have been accentuated by English's disapproval of Poe's drinking. It will be recalled that in the second chapter of this study some consideration is given to several of English's poems dealing with the evils of “the bowl.” The conclusion is reached that, although English later denied that he had ever had any connection with reformers, as Griswold had asserted, he was probably expressing his conscientious views when he dealt with the [page 316:] alleged evils of drink. It will be recalled, too, that in his reminiscences English speaks of Poe's drinking habits as improper; and before the present chapter closes it will develop that in the year 1843 English not only lectured before a temperance society, but contributed to a temperance magazine a serial novel which dealt with the evils of excessive drinking and which contained a thinly veiled satirical portrait of Poe representing him as being under the influence of wine. That the youthful English, who had once raised Poe from the street kennels, had also found occasion from time to time to rebuke his. older acquaintance is hardly to be doubted, nor is it likely that such an altitude on English's part would have served to strengthen the friendship. When English said, “There was no bond of sympathy between Poe and me, except the admiration I had for his undoubted genius,”(88) he was probably referring, in part at least, to an incompatibility of temperament which often exists between persons who entertain different notions concerning the morality of a practice like that of convivial drinking.

In any speculation, however, about the possible, or probable, reasons for the unfriendly feelings which developed between Poe and English during the Philadelphia period, perhaps the most intriguing question is whether English used his influence with the Tyler Administration [page 317:] to keep Poe from receiving an appointment in the Custom-House in Philadelphia during either 1842 or 1843.(89) Since Poe's efforts to get such an appointment were closely tied up with his desire to establish a magazine of his own, any open opposition by English would have probably made him Poe's mortal enemy from that time on. But the ways of politicians are often not open, and English may have been partly responsible for Poe's failure and still have kept his political machinations under cover. At any rate, the problem is complicated and requires extended consideration.

Poe's long-continued and futile efforts to obtain a minor governmental appointment began after the death of President Harrison in the spring of 1841. It was a period of extreme uncertainty on the part of both would-be office-holders and incumbents. As soon as General Harrison became President, he was besieged by a host of office-seekers, some of whom are said to have even invaded his sickroom. At any rate, he made many promises which he did not live to keep and which Tyler, who was opposed in principle to the spoils system, had to decide whether he would honor. It will be recalled that in Chapter III of this study President Tyler's predicament is discussed. It will be recalled, too, that at first he earnestly resolved to hold removals to a minimum, but that later in his term he was [page 318:] forced to abandon his earlier resolution when he found that numerous appointive offices were being manipulated to undermine his political strength. This situation was particularly bad in Philadelphia and grew worse as the breach between President Tyler and the regular Whigs continued to widen.

Because of his Locofocoism, Poe's friend Dow was turned out of office in Washington, but F. W. Thomas was rewarded for his support of Harrison and Tyler with a temporary appointment as clerk in the Treasury Department. In a letter dated May 20, l84l, Thomas urged Poe to come to Washington and apply for office.(90) He wrote engagingly of the leisurely and unexacting duties attached to a clerkship, of the generous and punctually paid salary, and of the wonderful opportunities to write that such a position would offer to a literary man. Poe became enthusiastic about the plan, and for a while Thomas directed his efforts toward getting Poe a position in Washington rather than in Philadelphia. But Thomas was not altogether certain about what course to pursue. Poe himself was unable to go to Washington because of the expense involved, and Thomas, although he was a personal friend of President [page 319:] Tyler's sons, felt that someone who had more political influence than he did could more successfully push Poe's claims. He suggested Poe's friend John P. Kennedy, who had once been exceedingly kind to Poe in Baltimore and who was now a member of Congress. This plan received the hearty approval of Poe, who urged Thomas to see Kennedy in his behalf.

On July 7, 1841, Thomas wrote Poe that he was soon to have an opportunity to see the President, but it is clear that he did not consider the occasion opportune for bringing up Poe's name directly:

Twelve days later Thomas wrote that he had tried twice without success to removals from office get in touch with Kennedy, and he also that the President was opposed to re in Washington. Twelve Locofocos, according to Thomas, “were turned out on Saturday last, [page 320:] and it is said the President has reinstated all but 5 — ”(92)

By August 30 Thomas had made some progress.. He wrote Poe that he had seen Kennedy and that the latter had “expressed his willingness” to assist Poe “in any way in his power.”(93) Furthermore, he said that he had talked to the President's sons about Poe and that he had gathered from them that although they thought the President would “be able and willing to give” Poe a position, they felt that in view of the troubled political situation and the expected dissolution of the Cabinet it would be useless to apply at that time. “As soon as times get a little more quiet,” said Thomas, “I will wait on the President myself and write you of the interview.

On November 26 Poe wrote Thomas that he had “not heard from Kennedy for a long time”; and he added, “I think, upon the whole, he has treated me somewhat cavalierly — professing to be a friend.”(94) Actually, there was probably little that Kennedy could do. The political situation had greatly deteriorated in the meantime. Tyler's second veto message of September 9 had been followed by the resignation of the Cabinet officers on September 11,(95) and Tyler was virtually a President [page 321:] without a party. Since Kennedy became an active opponent of Tyler during the latter's struggle with the Whigs, he was certainly no longer the man to advance Poe's interests. During the latter part of Tyler's administration, Kennedy was unalterably opposed to Tyler's efforts to bring about the annexation of Texas, and he further emphasized his opposition by writing a manifesto in 1844 condemning Tyler for his political defection.(96) Unquestionably, the instability of the political situation boded no good from the beginning as far as Poe's chances of success were concerned.

After Virginia's serious illness in January, 1842, Thomas’ efforts seem to have been directed for a while toward interesting Robert Tyler personally in Poe and in his projected magazine, although he did not encourage Poe to expect any financial assistance from this source. By May 21 Thomas had been so successful in this respect as to receive a virtual promise from Robert Tyler that Poe would be given an appointment — not in Washington, but in the Custom House in Philadelphia. In a letter of this date, Thomas said that he had talked to Robert Tyler the night before and had suggested to him that Poe might be given the kind of appointment that would enable him to pursue his literary interests. “Robert replied,” wrote Thomas, “that he felt confident that such a situation [page 322:] could be obtained for you in the course of two or three months at farthest, as certain vacancies would then occur.”(97)

Poe was much relieved to hear from Thomas of this new development, for he had recently given up his position with Graham for reasons that have already been discussed. He was determined to establish a magazine of his own, and now his plans seemed about to be realized. “What you say respecting a situation in the Custom House here,” he replied to Thomas on May 25, “gives me new life. Nothing could more precisely meet my views. Could I obtain such an appointment, I would be enabled thoroughly to carry out all my ambitious projects. It would relieve me of all care as regards a mere subsistence, and thus allow me time for thought, which, in fact, is action. I repeat that I would ask for nothing farther or better than a situation such as you mention. If the salary will barely enable me to live I shall be content. Will you say as much for me to Mr Tyler, and express to him my sincere gratitude for the interest he takes in my welfare?”(98) On the strength of Thomas's encouraging news, Poe wrote in early June to James Herron in Washington, saying that he had been promised a situation in the Philadelphia Custom House. “The offer was entirely unexpected & gratuitous,” said Poe. “I am to receive the appointment [page 323:] upon removal of several incumbents — the removal to be certainly made in a month. I am indebted to the personal friendship of Robert Tyler. If I really receive the appointment all may yet go well. The labors of the office are by no means onerous and I shall have time enough to spare for other pursuits.”(99) But Poe had prefaced these hopeful remarks with others of an entirely different import which showed how desperately he was in need of some hope to cling to after leaving Graham. “You have learned, perhaps,” he had said earlier in the letter, “that I have retired from ‘Graham's Magazine.’ The state of my mind has, in fact, forced me to abandon for the present, all mental exertion. The renewed and hopeless illness of my wife, ill health on my own part, and pecuniary embarrassments, have nearly driven me to distraction.”(100) Later on in June Herron wrote Poe a kind letter in reply, not only sending him a check for twenty dollars but informing him that he had seen Robert Tyler in his behalf. Although the letter is not extant, this much of its content can be inferred from Poe's letter of June 30, in which he thanked Herron for the money and for his “prompt and unexpected interposition with Mr Tyler.”(101) Poe said that he now felt “assured of success.”

But the Custom House in Philadelphia had already become the center of political dissension so threatening as [page 324:] to cause President Tyler considerable anxiety, and a brief retracing of some of these developments, already treated at length in Chapter III of the present study, will be necessary if the reasons for Poe's eventual disappointment are to be made clear. At the very beginning of his term Tyler was disturbed because of the contest for the Collectorship which had developed in Philadelphia between the supporters of J. Washington Tyson and those of a Mr. Badger. When he passed over both of these men and notified Jonathan Roberts on April 13, 1841, of his appointment to the post, he expressed the hope that Roberts would distribute his favors equally between the warring factions so that harmony might be restored. For a while, Roberts seemed to have the full confidence of the President, but as the breach widened between the President and the Whigs, rumors persisted that the Philadelphia Custom House had become a seat of insurrection against the chief executive. Matters continued to grow worse, and on April 27, 1842, Roberts received a communication from the Secretary of the Treasury in which was enclosed a letter from President Tyler to the Secretary requesting that thirty-one changes be made in the Philadelphia Custom House to take effect on May 1. Roberts, however, refused to admit that his appointees had been engaged in political machinations against the President and so expressed himself both in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury on April 30 and during an interview with [page 325:] the President on May 4. Nor did he take any action to carry out the President's wishes after he returned to Philadelphia and found on his desk a letter from Robert Tylers then the President's private secretary, stating that the President expected the Collector to make the desired changes at once. President Tyler did not force a showdown immediately, but after a delay of more than four months Roberts received a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, dated September 10, 1842, informing him that Thomas S. Smith had been appointed Collector. In defending his own course, in a lengthy open communication dated September 13, Roberts said:

In view of Roberts’ persistent refusal to make any of the changes requested by President Tyler for political reasons, it is small wonder that Thomas could do nothing at this time to advance the claims of Poe, whose appointment would have been politically helpful to no one concerned. That an impasse had been reached for the time being is indicated in Poe's letter to Thomas of August 27. “How happens it,” Poe inquired, “that I have received not a [page 326:] line from you for these four months? What in the world is the matter?”(103) In this letter Poe told Thomas of the assurance he had indirectly received from Robert Tyler through James Herron and also about his having called on “Gen. J. W. Tyson, the leader of the T. party in the city,” who seemed to be “especially well disposed. ” But in spite of these encouraging signs, Poe admitted to Thomas that he was doubtful of success. Evidently Thomas revived Poe's hopes if we may judge from the tone of Poe's letter of September 12. By that time, too, Poe had learned that Thomas S. Smith was to be the new Collector, and of course this change in the main office meant that numerous changes in the minor offices would soon take place. “Should I obtain the office,” Poe wrote his friend, “ — and of course I can no longer doubt that I shall obtain it — I shall feel that to you alone I am indebted. You have shown yourself a true friend, and I am not likely to forget it, however impotent I may be, now or hereafter, to reciprocate your kindness. I would give the world to clasp you by the hand & assure you, personally, of my gratitude. I hope it will not be long before we meet.”(104) It was not long before they met, for Thomas saw Poe in Philadelphia before this letter reached him.(105) [page 327:]

But Poe's revived hopes were not long-lived. As soon as the lists of removals and replacements in the Custom House began to appear in the Philadelphia newspapers; dissatisfaction on all sides was evident. The Democrats, hoping to profit by the irreconcilable differences that had developed between President Tyler and the Whigs, expected to receive a generous share of the new appointments. But Smith, convinced that his confirmation would depend upon the approval of the Whig majority in the Senate, surprised the Democrats by leaning heavily in favor of men of Whig background even though of course they were Whigs who had not deserted the cause of John Tyler. Robert S. English, Thomas Dunn's father, was among those who received appointments on October 18, 1842. He was one of those whom President Tyler had unsuccessfully tried to get Jonathan Roberts to appoint on May 1, 1842. It will be recalled that while living in Blockley in 1837 he served as Secretary of the Young Democratic Whigs, and that both he and Thomas Dunn were enthusiastic participants in the great Tyler celebration in Philadelphia on February 22, 1842.

The widespread Democratic victories in the November elections, however, indicated that Smith had pursued an unwise course in catering so strongly to the Whigs. Democratic supporters of Tyler accused Smith of being too subservient to J. W. Tyson and of being forced by him to make unsuitable appointments in order to provide for the [page 328:] latter's personal friends. Henry A. Wise alluded to this accusation in his attack on Tyson and Thomas Dunn English — an attack which was induced not only by the Democratic victories, but by a growing concern among Tyler's friends and advisers in Washington over the factional differences that were dissipating the President's strength in Philadelphia.(106) Wise, it will be remembered, was extremely critical of the successful attempt of the so-called Corporal's Guard in Philadelphia to crush a movement of disgruntled Democratic supporters of the President to organize a meeting of their own which would be free of Tyson's control. English's angry reply to Wise, which has been quoted in full earlier in this study, made it clear that the Corporal's Guard was determined to brook no interference from Washington in the local situation in Philadelphia. Under the editorial caption, TYLER QUARRELS, the Philadelphia National Forum of November 16, 1842, sarcastically commented on the parts played by both English and Tyson in the current controversies:

Poe's hopes gradually vanished as his name failed to figure in additional lists of removals and replacements which subsequently appeared in the Philadelphia newspapers. On November 15 the Philadelphia Pennsylvanian listed a total of fifty-six appointments by Smith, each of which was classified under “Whigs” or “Democrats.” The list contained the names of forty-six Whigs (including Robert S. English) and ten Democrats.(108) On November 17, however, Poe's fading hopes were revived somewhat when a few more changes were reported. Poe saw in one or more of the Philadelphia papers an announcement similar to the ensuing one in the National Forum: “The following removals and appointments have been made in the Custom House. Removals — Peter B. Curry, Henry Schell, Robert Neal, J. Hullings, and Urban R. Titterville. Appointments — George Guthrie, Jesse Walm, Sandy Harris, and —— Pogue.”(109) It was the presence of an unidentified —— Pogue on the list of appointees, as well as an [page 330:] encouraging letter from Thomas that arrived on the same day that these changes were announced, which revived Poe's spirits. How rudely they were crushed is vividly described in the following letter to Thomas:

This letter gives every indication of being a very accurate account of Poe's disheartening and exasperating experience with Thomas S. Smith. It indicates, too, that in the dominant group of President Tyler's supporters in Philadelphia there had been, from the time Smith assumed the duties of his office, either utter Indifference or active opposition to Poe's appointment. If opposition existed, what was the cause of it?

The late William S. Hunt of South Orange, New Jersey, was quite convinced that he had found the cause of this opposition and, indeed, of the bitter feeling that developed between Poe and English during the Philadelphia period. To Mr. Hunt belongs the credit not only of establishing that Robert S. English was Thomas Dunn English's father, but also of discovering that he was given a position in the Custom House in Philadelphia at the very time that Poe was anticipating a similar appointment. Moreover, [page 333:] Mr. Hunt discovered Thomas Fitnam's published card, which caustically charged that although English pretended to have only unselfish motives in supporting the policies of John Tyler, he had already procured a Custom-House appointment for his own father. Mr. Hunt was thoroughly convinced that English succeeded in having the very appointment which. Poe had been promised transferred to Robert S. English. This position, however, can scarcely be maintained in the light of data now available. That Poe did lose his promised place to some political claimant is probably true, for in the margin of the first page of a letter from Poe dated May 25, 1842, Thomas wrote the following comment: “I had been promised a place in the Philadelphia Custom House by the powers that were for Poe, but some small beer politician or other got the place and genius was left to its fate.”(111) But this promise was made by Robert Tyler on the night of May 20,(112) whereas President Tyler had requested the appointment of Robert S. English in a letter dated April 27 That Robert English's appointment was originally requested more than three weeks before Robert Tyler promised Thomas a place for Poe clearly indicates that the eventual success of Robert English had no special connection with Poe's failure to obtain office. Although Robert English's success [page 334:] was probably due mainly to his son's political influence, it must not be forgotten that the father had been politically active in a small way and surely had some claim to a minor office in his own right.

Whether Thomas Dunn English opposed Poe's appointment is of course an entirely different matter. There is stronger reason for suspecting that he opposed it in 1843, however, than in 1842. Yet it is also clear from English's violent reply to Wise in November of 1842 that the dominant Tyler, faction in Philadelphia to which Tyson, Smith, and English all belonged was no more inclined to surrender its prerogatives in the matter of deciding upon minor local appointments than Jonathan Roberts had been. Since Smith seems to have owed his appointment as Collector largely to Tyson's influence, he probably confined his nominations mainly to those who were politically acceptable to Tyson. Quinn's contention that Poe's Whig sympathies militated against his success(113) is hardly supported by the anti-Whig sentiments expressed in his le ter to Thomas of November 19. 1842, or by the fact that Smith appointed forty-six Whigs and only ten Democrats. True, not long after Thomas first broached the subject of a political appointment Poe indicated that his sympathies had been with Harrison and Tyler in the campaign of 1840,(114) but it is more likely that Poe was not particularly concerned with [page 335:] politics and that he was not considered by local Philadelphia politicians to be a person on whom it was worth while to waste an appointment. ‘When one weighs the total lack of consideration for Poe shown by both Tyson and Smith together with English's close tieup with the Tyson clique, it is reasonable to assume that English probably advised against Poe's nomination even in 1842. There is no indication, however, that Poe ever had any definite proof that English worked against him.

After Smith's gruff refusal to consider Poe's claims any further, there was little Thomas could do except to wait and hope that the Senate would refuse to confirm Smith's appointment to the Collectorship. Poe's suggestion in his letter of November 19 that Thomas should try to procure through Robert Tyler “a few lines from the President, directing Mr. Smith” to give him the appointment(115) was, of course, wishful thinking. President Tyler had already brought upon himself the most violent sort of criticism by making a similar requisition on Jonathan Roberts in behalf of many who now held office. Then he felt that the necessities of the case demanded drastic action. But evidently he was too good a politician to take action of this sort a second time when there was no longer any impelling reason.

Shortly before February 1, 1843, Poe must have written to Thomas, surmising that his friend had not written for [page 336:] some time because he was waiting to see what action Congress was going to take in regard to Thomas S. Smith. This surmise was correct, for Thomas wrote Poe on that date: “You judged rightly I did not write to you waiting ‘for some definite action of Congress on Smith's case.’ I feel most anxious in the matter for you, my friend — ”(116) Poe had already apparently made plans to go to Washington in anticipation of the rejection of Smith, for at the end of this letter Thomas remarked: “When you come to Washington stop at Fullers [sic] Hotel where you will find your friend.” Poe's letter must have been written between January 28 and January 31, for it reached Thomas on the latter date and Thomas's reply contains definite proof that it pointedly referred to a criticism of the third edition of Griswold's The Poets and Poetry of America which had appeared in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum of January 28.(117) Since this reference has some bearing on Poe's contemplated trip to Washington, and since its significance in other respects has been wholly overlooked by Poe's biographers, a brief consideration of it here will not be irrelevant.

The criticism in question is the famous attack on Griswold which is generally supposed to have been the chief inspiration of the bitter vengeance that he wreaked on Poe and which contains the following much-quoted parting [page 337:] thrust: “Forgotten, save only by those whom he has injured and insulted, he will sink into oblivion, without leaving a landmark to tell that he once existed; or, if he is spoken of hereafter, he will be quoted as the unfaithful servant who abused his trust.”(118) Now, although the authorship of this article has been widely disputed, the prevailing critical opinion is that it was written either wholly or in part by Poe. But there is a portion of the article which, when read in the light of Thomas's comment on it in his reply to Poe's letter, strongly supports Killis Campbell's suggestion that the entire article may have been written by Henry B. Hirst. The portion referred to is as follows: “And now that we feel in the vein, we shall propound to Mr. Griswold a few questions. Why was Robert Tyler, the author of Ahasuerus, &c., omitted? Why was Frederick W. Thomas insulted with a place as the author of one song, among the miscellaneous writers, after his having been written to, and ‘his biography and best articles’ solicited? Was it not because he did not obey your dictatorial and impertinent request to write for you the biography of Mrs. Welby? Answer us that Mr. Griswold.”(119) Poe had evidently called Thomas's attention specifically to this portion of the article, for Thomas's reply contains the following comment: “Yes, I saw the ‘Saturday's [sic] Museum’ in Mr. Robert Tyler's [page 338:] room, and happened to light upon the article in which we are mentioned. I read that portion of it to him and shall take care that he is not misinformed on the subject. I remember Mr. Hirst.”(120) This comment indicates that Poe, who expected shortly to see both Robert Tyler and Thomas in Washington, was for some reason or other concerned about the impression which the article might make on Robert Tyler, that he wanted his own connection with it clarified, and that he had linked it in some way with Hirst.

Since Poe's letter is not extant, one can only conjecture from Thomas's brief comment what Poe was concerned about. It is probable, however, that Poe wanted both Thomas and Tyler to know that he was responsible for the inclusion of the remarks complimentary to them, but that Hirst actually wrote the article. Naturally Poe would not have wanted it thought that he himself had spoken of “the brilliant career of ‘Graham's Magazine’ under Mr. Poe's care,”(121) or that he felt resentment because his name was listed below that of Griswold in the prospectus [page 339:] of the book.(122)

Of course it can hardly be doubted that Poe did provide some of the ammunition fired in the article. Almost identical are the reasons given for Griswold's omission of Thomas from the body of the book and those which Poe had given in his letter to Thomas of September 12, 1842. Especially significant is the author's reference to the fact that Thomas had been slighted even though he had “been written to, and ‘his biography and best articles’ solicited.” Since Griswold had solicited this material through Poe, and since Thomas had taken trouble to prepare and mail to his friend a detailed sketch of his life, Poe was naturally incensed at Griswold's action. Undoubtedly he passed this information on to the author of the article.

But even though Poe must have furnished some of the material used against Griswold, there are other convincing reasons why the actual authorship of the article should be assigned, not to Poe, but to Hirst. In a letter to Thomas dated February 3, 1842, Poe discussed his second “Chapter on Autography,” published in Graham's Magazine for December, 1841. He said that he would have been much more laudatory of Thomas than he had been if he had not feared that the praise would “be attributed to personal friendship.”(123) He then expressed the fear that he himself had probably been [page 340:] injured by these autograph articles because he had allowed his opinions of some of the authors treated to be altered by Graham. “Those articles,” said Poe, “have had a great run — have done wonders for the Journal — but I fear have also done me, personally, much injury. I was weak enough to permit Graham to modify my opinions (or at least their expression) in many of the notices. In the case of Conrad, for example; he Insisted upon praise and worried me into speaking well of such ninnies as Holden, Peterson, Spear, &c., &c. I would not have yielded had I thought it made much difference what one said of such puppets as these, but it seems the error has been made to count against my critical impartiality. Know better next time. Let no man accuse me of leniency again.”(124) it is important to note that in this quotation from Poe's letter both Robert T. Conrad and Thomas G. Spear are belittled, for the Saturday Museum article praises both men. The author of the Museum article refers to Conrad as “our own Conrad (one of the sweetest poets of the time).”(125) Later in the same article the author asks why Conrad was ignored in Griswold's book. “Where is the Hon. Robert T. Conrad,” he writes. “You surely could not have forgotten him, for his ‘Aylmere’ has been the most successful of American Tragedies, and he is the author of some of the finest poems known in American [page 341:] literature.”(126) In regard to the omission of Spear, the author asks: “How came you to forget Mr. Spear, who was once placed by the Courier, if we remember aright, close to Shakespeare, and somewhere between Cowper and Goldsmith?”(127) It is most improbable that Poe would have expressed to Thomas such chagrin at having allowed himself to be persuaded by Graham to bestow undeserved praise on these men — whom he looked upon as either ninnies or puppets — and then, less than a year after he had rid himself of the warping effect of Graham's restraining influence on his criticism, that he would have written an article praising these very men even more so than he had praised them in his “Chapter on Autography.”

The more one examines the Museum article in the light of Thomas's letter indicating that Poe had linked Hirst's name with it, the more the evidence points to Hirst as the author. If Poe had been the author, it is unlikely that he would have asked Griswold to explain the omission of Thomas Dunn English(128) and have ignored, at the same time, the omission of a close friend like Hirst, whose poetry Poe undoubtedly thought to be superior to English's. Of course, it may be argued that Poe probably wished to curry favor with a man who could injure him politically, but the anonymity of the article would seem to discount [page 342:] this possibility. It will be shown subsequently in this study that ill feeling between Hirst and Griswold existed later in the l840's, and this ill feeling may well have had its origin in the Museum article.

According to Quinn, there are traces of Poe in the Museum article, “such as the elaborate analysis of the rules of versification, and the definition of poetry, which make it clear that if he was not the author of the entire review, he was at least a collaborator.”(129) Yet it should not be forgotten that less than two and a half years after the appearance of this article Poe said of Hirst that “his knowledge of the principles of the metrical art is more profound and more accurate than that of any American poet.”(130) Nor should it be forgotten that Hirst had every opportunity to become thoroughly conversant with Poe's critical theories long before the Museum article was written and that he was probably Poe's most constant companion in 1842 and 1843. “We saw him twice and thrice a day,” wrote Hirst after Poe's death, “for two years. We sat night by night, a welcome guest at his often meagre, but, when fortune smiled on him, his well-filled board.”(131) After some coolness developed [page 343:] between the two men, Poe asserted that Hirst's chief sin was imitativeness.(132) Many a lecture, on literary topics, have I given Mr. H.,” said Poe; “and I confess that, in general, he has adopted my advice so Implicitly that his poems, upon the whole, are little more than our conversations done into verse.”(133) It is hardly necessary to point out that in this comment Poe has intentionally overstated the case against Hirst. But there is probably truth enough in it to account for any traces of Poe's critical theory that may be found in the Museum article. Finally, there is a tendency toward florid rhetoric in the article which is much more characteristic of Hirst's style than of Poe's.

Let us turn now to what was one of the most pathetic episodes in Poe's career — his ill-fated journey to Washington. When Poe wrote to Thomas on February 25, 1843, Smith had not yet been rejected, but Poe was full of hope. He had entered into a partnership with Thomas C. Clarke on January 31 to publish a magazine to be called The Stylus, of which he was to have complete editorial control. Now he was more eager than ever to go to Washington, for he looked forward not only to being appointed to office, but to obtaining subscriptions to his new magazine while he was in the city. Sometime, prior to March 3, 1843, Smith had been notified of his removal from office, [page 344:] for on that date Calvin Blythe succeeded him.(134) Since Blythe had held the office just prior to Jonathan Roberts’ appointment to it, his reappointment clearly indicated that the powers in Washington, as well as the controlling Tyler faction in Philadelphia, had ceased trying to placate the Whigs and had placed all their hopes in trying to effect a reconciliation with the Democratic Party. Poe lost little time in proceeding to take advantage of the new situation. He evidently arrived in Washington on March 8, 1843, for he had written, in Philadelphia on March 7, a brief letter to Robert Carter asking for money due him from The Pioneer,(135) and on the morning of March 9 he wrote, from Fuller's Hotel, a brief note to a Philadelphia ornithologist, John Kirk Townsend, who was in Washington at that time.(136) That Poe arrived before March 9 is clearly indicated in Dow's letter to Clarke of March 12.(137) Poe evidently went to Fuller's Hotel as he had planned, only to find Thomas ill and unable to be his companion and official escort. Apparently, on the very day of Poe's arrival, Thomas wrote and handed his friend the following letter of introduction to Robert Tyler, [page 345:] which he mistakenly dated February 8 instead of March 8 and which Poe seems never to have had occasion to use:

Poe was evidently in a highly nervous condition at this time which caused him to be unduly upset about the illness of Thomas. For months he had worried continuously over the state of Virginia's health and over the interminable delays that had caused his hopes of obtaining office to be deferred again and again. Now that success seemed about to come his way, his exceedingly sensitive nervous system was unable to endure still further delay caused by the indisposition of Thomas. At any rate, he began drinking. On March 11, he wrote a letter to Clarke — evidently while in his cups — asking for ten dollars, expressing great discomfiture because of Thomas's illness, and, with unintended irony, declaring that he was “making a sensation” which would “tend to the benefit of the Magazine.(139)

Dow, who had apparently more or less taken Poe under his wing because Thomas was indisposed, clearly saw that Poe was rapidly dissipating his chances of securing office Consequently, he hurriedly wrote the following letter to Thomas C. Clarke on March 12:

One important point in connection with this letter needs clarification before we go on with the story of Poe's unfortunate behavior in Washington and especially with an examination of the probable effect of this behavior on his relations with Thomas Dunn English. Gill mistakenly asserts that Dow was at this time editor of the Daily Madisonian, which, of course, was the chief [page 348:] organ of the Tyler Administration. All of Poe's subsequent biographers have either repeated Gill's erroneous statement or implied acceptance of it by failing to correct it.(141) If Dow had been editor of the Madisonian at this time, Poe's chances of securing office would have been much greater than they were. But the editor was J. B. Jones, and he remained so until more than a month after President Tyler's term of office expired. It was not until April 7, 1845, that Jones announced that he had disposed of the newspaper to “Jesse E. Dow, Esq., a gentleman of established reputation both in the literary and political circles of the country.”(142) True, Dow would have been able to do more for Poe in 1843 than he could have possibly done earlier in the Tyler Administration. Not only was he on friendly terms with Robert Tyler, but by 1843 his strong anti-Whig sentiments, which had earlier caused him to lose his own office, would have no longer been embarrassing to the Administration. Yet even though he lacked the influence that he surely would have possessed if he had been editor of the main Tyler organ, his letter to Clarke indicates that he was very eager to do whatever he could for Poe and that he had a [page 349:] penetrating and sympathetic understanding of Poe's intrinsic worth. The letter thoroughly justifies the tribute which Thomas paid Dow after the latter's death — that “he was possessed of the noblest qualities of heart and mind.”(143)

From Dow's letter and from one of Poe's written jointly to Thomas and Dow after Poe returned to Philadelphia,(144) it is possible to reconstruct much of the pathetic story of Poe's sojourn in Washington, and, on the basis of this reconstructed narrative, to advance strong reasons to support the proposition that, as far as Poe's hopes of obtaining office were concerned, the most damaging effect of his behavior in Washington was to arouse the ire of Thomas Dunn English. Although Poe's biographers have generally discussed his visit at some length, they have never stressed its probable effect upon his relations with English.

As Dow's letter unmistakably reveals, Poe began to drink on the very first day of his arrival and by March 12 [page 350:] had so far lost control over his own actions that his continued presence in Washington was no longer an asset but a liability to those who were most interested in having him appointed to office. Poe's letter of apology to Thomas and Dow, however, indicates more specifically what actually took place. It is written in a jesting manner, but the jesting is of the sort which indicates that Poe was exceedingly ashamed of his own conduct and that he was conscious of having made a complete fool of himself.

At one time during the visit there was apparently a little social gathering at Fuller's Hotel which might have led to better things for Poe had he been the charming and brilliant conversationalist that he was capable of being when sober. But he proceeded to get drunk on Mr. Fuller's Port wine and then to make matters worse by following it up with “rummy” coffee. Among those present were a Dr. Lacey who wished to become a subscriber to The Stylus and Dr. Frailey, who had doubtless come to meet the man who had once astounded him by solving a difficult cryptogram of his which had been forwarded to the editor of Graham's Magazine through Thomas. But evidently Poe had done nothing to offend these men. He was sure, however, that he had been inconsiderate of his closest friends. He had been petulant with Thomas and had apparently said things that made him seen ungrateful for all that his friend had tried to do for him. He remembered, at some time or other, going home with Dow and he realized that his drunkenness [page 351:] must have caused Dow's wife some vexation. He recalled, too, having been drunk enough to wear his cloak turned inside out. Moreover, he had quickly run through the money he had taken with him and had been compelled to borrow from both Thomas and Dow before he could return home.

But Thomas and Dow were his friends, and Poe counted on their sympathetic understanding. He was afraid, however, that his escapade had made an unfavorable impression upon Robert Tyler, whose friendly interest he had particularly wished to cultivate. “If possible,” he wrote, “enclose a line from Rob. Tyler — but I fear, under the circumstances, it is not so — I blame no one but myself.”(145) Near the end of the letter he again indicated his concern about Robert Tyler's reaction, in the following remarks directed to Thomas: “I would be glad, too, if you would take an opportunity of saying to Mr Rob. Tyler that if he can look over matters & get me the Inspectorship, I will join the Washingtonians forthwith. I am as serious as a judge & much so than many. I think it would be a feather in Mr Tyler's cap to save [fr]om the perils of mint julap — & ‘Port wines’ — a young man of whom all the world thinks so well & who thinks so remarkably well of himself.”(146) Poe's biographers have never pointed out that when Poe said he was “as serious as a judge” about joining [page 352:] the Washingtonians he was promising to join the Washington Temperance Society in Philadelphia if he got the inspectorship. Members of the Society were called Washingtonians.

It was not Robert Tyler, however, but Thomas Dunn English who was apparently most offended by Poe's behavior and whose resentment seems to have been most detrimental to Poe's prospects of obtaining office. Very likely, English had come to Washington for some political purpose relating directly to the recently altered situation in the Philadelphia Custom House due to the appointment of Calvin Blythe to the Collectorship. At any rate, since English had been linked with the Tyson faction in Philadelphia and had openly and violently opposed the attempt of Henry A. Wise to meddle in the local controversies involving President Tyler's supporters, some clarification of his present position in the Philadelphia organization was probably necessary, and he may have journeyed to Washington to consult with Robert Tyler and perhaps with other political leaders close to the President. Quite likely, too, he was staying at Fuller's Hotel when Poe arrived, and probably Poe's friends thought it would be politically wise to Include him in the little social gathering that seems to have taken place.

Unfortunately, however, when Poe had drunk enough of Mr. Fuller's Port wine to loosen his tongue beyond the bounds of discretion, he apparently began making fun of English's mustaches and figure. It has already been pointed out that English was and was not inclined [page 353:] exceptionally sensitive to ridicule to endure it meekly. But in his letter of apology to Thomas and Dow there is no indication that Poe foresaw at the time that his treatment of English might the contrary, have serious implications for himself. On he still appeared to be considerably amused at this particular episode, “Remember me, most kindly to Dr Lacey,” he remarked to Thomas, mustachios I do admire after all, and who has about the finest figure I ever beheld.”(147) tone of this humorous request was “also the Don, whose The rather patronizing to be repeated several years later in Poe's lengthy rejoinder to a libelous attack by English. Speaking then of English's literary accomplishments, Poe caustically remarked: “The sin of having, at one time, attempted to patronize him, is, I fear, justly to be laid to my charge; — but his goatee was so continual a source of admiration to me that I found it impossible ever to write a serious line in his behalf.”(148) Still later, when Poe rewrote his Literati sketch of English for his projected Literary America and renamed it “Thomas Dunn Brown,” he made the following observation about “Mr. Brown”: “About his appearance there is nothing very remarkable — except that he exists in a perpetual state of [page 354:] vacillation between mustachio and goatee.”(149) These and other humorous references to English's mustaches leave little room for questioning the identity of “the Don” whose mustaches and figure were the ill-chosen objects of Poe's ridicule at Fuller's Hotel.(150)

There is little evidence to indicate that either Robert Tyler or any other member of the President's family took Poe's behavior in Washington very seriously. When Thomas eventually found time on March 27 to answer Poe's letter of March 16, he wrote that he had not yet had an opportunity to secure a line from Robert Tyler as Poe had suggested. “But this I can tell you,” he continued, “that the President, yesterday, asked me many questions about you, and spoke of you kindly — John Tyler, who was by, told the President that he wished he would give you an office in Philadelphia, and before he could reply a servant entered and called him out. John had heard of your frolic from a man who saw you in it, but I made light of the matter when he mentioned it to me, and he seemed to think nothing of it himself. He seems to feel a deep interest in you — ”(151) When Poe realized that Thomas was [page 355:] too busy to see Robert Tyler at this time, he evidently decided to write at once to the President's son for a letter of recommendation to give to the recently appointed Collector in Philadelphia, Calvin Blythe. The following answer by Robert Tyler clearly indicates that he, like his brother John, was sincerely interested in Poe's securing a place in the Custom House and that he, too, was not inclined to condemn Poe for his frolic:

Whatever the Tylers may have thought about Poe's conduct, however, it is clear that Thomas eventually realized that Poe had thrown away his big opportunity. Before he finally disposed of Poe's letters, Thomas wrote explanatory notes on a number of them.(153) The longest of these notes [page 356:] is an understanding comment on the letter of apology addressed jointly to himself and to Dow, a portion of which bears directly on the harm that Poe had done to himself. “Poor Fellow,” wrote Thomas, “a place had been promised his friends for him, and in that state of suspense which is so trying to all men, and particularly to men of imagination, he presented himself in Washington certainly not in a way to advance his interests. I have seen a great deal of Poe, and it was his excessive and at times marked sensibility which forced him into his ‘frolics,1 rather than any mere morbid appetite for drink, but if he took but one glass of weak wine or beer or cider, the Rubicon of the cup was passed with him. and it almost always ended in excess and sickness.”(154) Dow was astute enough to see from the very first that Poe's conduct was injuring his chances of success. It is most likely that Thomas Dunn English was one of the politicians whom Dow had in mind when he wrote to Clarke that Poe was exposing himself in Washington to persons who might “injure him very much with the President.”(155) Since there can be little doubt that English was strongly opposed to drinking at this period of his life, and that he refused any alcoholic beverage offered him at convivial gatherings, it is most likely, too, that [page 357:] Dow was alluding partly to English in confiding to Clarke that he could not bear to see Poe made “the sport of senseless creatures, who, like oysters, keep sober, and gape and swallow everything.”(156) Thomas H. Lane recalled, years later, that over a long period of time English “had the capacity of being a perfect irritant” to Poe — particularly when the latter “was lost in the inebriate.”(157) When Poe drank to excess, English seems to have lost few opportunities to taunt him, and it is quite understandable that this self righteous attitude would have aroused Poe's antipathy.

Although it cannot actually be proved that Poe's behavior in Washington caused English to use his influence with Robert Tyler to keep Poe out of the Philadelphia Custom House, there is ample reason for suspecting that it probably did. Less than three weeks after Poe got drunk on Mr. Fuller's “excellent Port wine,” English delivered a lecture to the members of the Washington Temperance Society of Philadelphia at a meeting to which the public had been invited.(158) Six or seven months later his temperance novel, The Doom of the Drinkers; or. Revel and Retribution, began to appear serially in The Cold Water Magazine, a monthly temperance periodical.(159) It is the [page 358:] sordid autobiographical narrative of Walter Woolfe, a reformed drunkard who, before two Washingtonians persuaded him to sign the pledge of abstinence and to become a member of their Society, had sunk to the lowest depths of human degradation. After eloping with his devoted sweetheart, even though her father had forbidden him ever to see her again, he succeeded in making her happy for a while. But as he became more and more dissipated, he also grew more and more cruel to his wife during his fits of intoxication. On one occasion he knocked her senseless, and on another, after his wife had become an incurable consumptive and when their little girl was seriously ill, he drove them both from his house during the night, out into the snow. Particularly significant, however, is the fact that the novel contains a vicious portrait of Poe, who is represented as attending a wine party and as being under the influence of wine.(160) At a dinner party further on in the book a physician is introduced, who is unquestionably [page 359:] intended to be English himself, and also the latter's red-haired friend, who is just as certainly meant to portray Henry B. Hirst.(161) Especially significant about the portrait of English, however, is the fact that the physician is the only person present who drinks none of the wine which flows freely after the dinner is over, but is content with cold water instead.

The portraits of Poe and English provide an interesting contrast in character study. Poe is thinly disguised as one of the guests whom Walter Woolfe sees at a wine party given by a close friend of his father. After describing one of the other guests, Walter proceeds:

The physician representing English is a guest at a dinner party for men of note given by William St. Arthur, the former counsellor of Walter Woolfe's now-deceased father. Walter, who has gone to Philadelphia to attend to a matter concerning his father's estate, is invited to the party, to meet the guests. He is late, however, and arrives after the dinner is over and wine-bottles cover the table. After describing a guest sitting opposite the physician, Walter draws the following portrait of the latter:

Now although it is true that English's self-portrait is not altogether flattering, there is no doubt that he has represented himself as being vastly superior to Poe insofar as the essentials of sterling character are concerned. True, he acknowledges that he is cynical, ungracious in manner, inclined to make enemies, contemptuous of others, and smugly self-satisfied. But however unattractive this characterization may be, it is at least suggestive of a Byronic pose and in no way reflects on the integrity of the man portrayed. Indeed, the physician, besides being versatile and talented, is a man of firmness and honor. The portrait of Poe is not only distinctly less flattering, but is undoubtedly drawn with vindictive intent. Although Poe's intellectual brilliance, his analytical powers, and even his natural sensitivity are duly acknowledge, his integrity is covertly assailed. He has the “power to steal judiciously,” his style is “apparently candid,” and he is “the very incarnation of treachery and falsehood.” It is hardly conceivable that a writer, even in a fictional narrative, would thus depict a man with whom he was on friendly terms. Evidently something — either the incident in Washington or a combination of incidents — had evoked in English a revengeful feeling toward Poe.

After the final installment of The Doom of the Drinkers appeared in The Cold Water Magazine for December, 1843, very little time elapsed before English was again harassing Poe. [page 362:] Shortly before February 1, 1844 — probably near the end of January — English wrote a tale burlesquing Poe's style as exemplified in The Black Cat and published it under Poe's name in the Philadelphia Irish Citizen, a newspaper which has already been discussed in Chapter III of this study and which English edited for a while. It will be recalled that this newspaper was established in the interests of Irish Repeal and that not only were both English and Robert Tyler ardent Irish Repealers, but they were bent upon winning over as many Irish as possible to President Tyler's cause. Almost certainly, English edited this paper during the first two months of 1844 and perhaps even before and afterward. The tale, which is entitled “The Ghost of a Grey Tadpole,” was reprinted under Poe's name in the Baltimore Republican and Daily Argus of February 1, 1844.(164) It follows in its entirety, the very first paragraph leaving no doubt of English's burlesque intent or of his spiteful motive: [page 363:]

In his article in The Journal of the American Irish Historical Society Professor Mabbott has already called attention to some of English's rather clever hits at Poe, such as the reference to cryptography; the use of cui bono, a phrase frequently employed by Poe; and the allusion [page 366:] to Poe's well-known antipathy to Carlyle.(166) He has also pointed out that “the whole story of the tadpole closely follows that of the Black Cat” — at least with respect to “the appearance of the first cat” in Poe's tale.(167) It is also revealing to note that in addition to an indisputable similarity between the two tales in choice and treatment of subject matter, there is sometimes a close resemblance in sentence structure and paragraph arrangement. For example, the second paragraph of “The Ghost of a Grey Tadpole” begins with the following sentence: “From my infancy to the present time I have possessed a dislike to tadpoles.” Similarly, the second paragraph of “The Black Cat” begins as follows: “From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition.”(168) Devices of this sort enabled English to compensate in some measure for what is perhaps the chief weakness of an otherwise rather skillful burlesque — its failure to measure up to “The Black Cat” in strength and incisiveness of style.

More important that stylistic imitation as far as this study is concerned, however, is the fact that “The Ghost of a Grey Tadpole” unmistakably reveals that, near the beginning of 1844, English was still pursuing Poe in the same vindictive spirit which he had displayed in his temperance novel. A mere burlesquing of Poe's manner of [page 367:] writing, of course, would not necessarily mean that English was hostile to Poe at that time. But his demonstrable allusion to Poe's drinking habits leaves no doubt of his intent. Even before Killis Campbell knew that English was the author of the tale, he attributed its appearance in a Baltimore newspaper on the day after Poe lectured in the city to an enemy “who was willing to make capital out of the poet's unhappy fondness for drink.”(169) Later, Professor Mabbott pointed out that Poe's tippling in Washington during his visit there in March, 1843, and his consequent objection to English's mustaches tended to support Campbell's opinion.(170) Now, in the light of English's activities as a temperance lecturer and writer in 1843 and of his spiteful portrayal of Poe in a temperance novel, it is possible to demonstrate beyond any question that one of the motives behind “The Ghost of a Grey Tadpole” was exactly what Campbell suspected.

The inculpatory portion of the burlesque may be found in the very first paragraph, which of course definitely establishes that the narrator of the story is meant to be Poe himself. After referring to the female infant's fondness for milk in the Polish sentence, “Ona luba mleka,” Poe is made to say: “By the addition of the English words [page 368:] ‘and water,’ the remark may be applied to the writings of the great Mrs. Arthur; and at the same time refer to the taste of her admirers. Now, while many admire, there are a benighted few who detest both the writings of the divine Mrs. Arthur, and the milk-and-water to which they may be likened. They prefer for their reading, Mrs. Radcliffe and the Newgate Calendar, and refresh their inner man by that peculiar draught known as ‘cold without.’”(171) Now the milk-and-water writings of “the divine Mrs. Arthur” unquestionably refer to the temperance tales of T. S. Arthur, who had moved from Baltimore to Philadelphia in 1841. He had already become very active in the temperance movement and in 1842 had published his first important book, Six Nights with the Washingtonians: A Series of Original Temperance Tales.(172) Hervey Allen has pointed out that when Poe lived in Baltimore from 1831 to 1835 he drew inspiration chiefly from a group of writers who, like their leader, John P. Kennedy, were more literarily than journalistically inclined. But there was another rising group, to which T. S. Arthur belonged, that was beginning to make its presence felt and which, according to Allen, “represented rather ably the various tendencies in cheap verse, magazine stories, and the more ‘popular’ writing of the time.”(173) That Poe was rather contemptuous [page 369:] of the sort of thing that the latter group represented is indicated by the following remark about T. S. Arthur in his second “Chapter on Autography” published in Graham's Magazine for December, 1841: “Mr. Arthur is not without a rich talent for description of scenes in low life, but is uneducated, and too fond of mere vulgarities to please a refined taste.”(174) Obviously, when English represented Poe as aligning himself with those who detested “milk-and-water” and who preferred refreshing their inner selves with a draught of “cold without” — or, in other words, with brandy and cold water without sugar”,(175) he was spitefully alluding to Poe's weakness for drink. Obviously, too, in mentioning that Mrs. Radcliffe and the Newgate Calendar furnished the preferred reading of those who detested the sort of thing that T. S. Arthur stood for, not only was English sneeringly intimating that terror and crime constituted the staple of Poe's literary stock in trade, but he was implying that his literary taste was perverted and definitely related to his fondness for drink.

Poe must have observed during the year 1843 and in the early part of 1844 that English was playing an increasingly important role in the Tyler Administration and also that English's political relations with Robert Tyler were becoming correspondingly closer. In view of this development, [page 370:] it is difficult to believe that he did not suspect, long before he left Philadelphia, that English had opposed his appointment to office in some way or another. At any rate, when he learned afterwards that English had been appointed editor of the only outright Tyler newspaper in the city of New York, he was apparently convinced of what had happened. If he had known that Robert Tyler was one of two men who offered the editorship of the Aurora to English, he might have been even more positive of his appraisal of the situation.

That both Poe and Thomas reached the same conclusion in regard to this matter is indicated in an exchange of letters between the two, beginning nearly five months after Poe left Philadelphia. On September 2, 1844, Thomas wrote, saying that when he had tried to get in touch with Poe several months earlier he had learned of his friend's removal to New York. He also wanted to call Poe's attention to his poem, “The Beechen Tree,” which English had reviewed unfavorably in the Aurora. Commenting on the poem Thomas said: “My particular friend (heaven save the mark!) Thomas Dunn English, is I see editor of the Aurora The only notice, except from Clarke of the Knickerbocker, from whom I have had a very kind letter, that I have seen of my poem is in the columns of the Aforesaid Aurora — The editor says it gave him ‘nausea’ and that it was all twattle — ”(176) [page 371:]

In his reply of September 8 Poe promised to write a favorable review of “The Beechen Tree” as soon as he could find time to do so and, as the following excerpt from his letter attests, expressed his feelings about English in no uncertain terms:

Answering Poe's letter on October 10, Thomas mentioned that so far as he knew, only English and Park Benjamin had reviewed his book unfavorably. “As to Dunn English,” said Thomas, “what you say of him I believed long ago — it would not be consistent with self-love for me to think otherwise now — ”(178)

Thomas was probably correct in his opinion that Robert Tyler was personally in favor of giving Poe a Custom-House appointment in Philadelphia. But it would be unrealistic to conclude that at a time when the President's son was [page 372:] expending most of his energy helping his father to struggle for political survival, he would have been willing to weaken his father's position in Philadelphia by trying to enforce a minor political appointment if he had reason to believe that an important local supporter like English was strongly opposed to it.

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