“I am sorry you have thought it necessary to send me such a letter.  Your troubles have given a morbid tone to your feelings which it is your duty to discourage.  I myself have been as severely handled by the world as you can possibly have been, but my sufferings have not tinged my mind with melancholy, nor jaundiced my views of society.  You must rouse your energies, and if care assail you, conquer it.  I will gladly overlook the past.  I hope you will as easily fulfill your pledges for the future.  We shall agree very well, thought I cannot permit the magazine to be made a vehicle for that sort of severity which you think is so ’successful with the mob.’  I am truly much less anxious about making a monthly ‘sensation’ than I am upon the point of fairness.  You must, my dear sir, get rid of your avowed ill-feelings toward your brother authors.  You see I speak plainly; I cannot do otherwise upon such a subject.  You say the people love havoc.  I think they love justice.  I think you yourself would not have written the article on Dawes, in a more healthy state of mind.  I am not trammeled by any vulgar consideration of expediency; I would rather lose money than by such undue severity wound the feelings of a kind-hearted and honorable man.  And I am satisfied that Dawes has something the true fire in him.  I regretted your word-catching spirit.  But I wander from my design.  I accept your proposition to recommence your interrupted avocations upon the Maga.  Let us meet as if we had not exchanged letters.  Use more exercise, write when feelings prompt, and be assured of my friendship.  You will soon regain a healthy activity of mind, and laugh at your past vagaries.”

This letter was kind and judicious.  It gives us a glimpse of Poe’s theory of criticism, and displays the temper and principles of the literary comedian in an honorable light.  Two or three months afterward Burton went out of town to fulfill a professional engagement, leaving material and directions for completing the next number of the magazine in four days.  He was absent nearly a fortnight, and on returning he found that his printers in the meanwhile had not received a line of copy; but that Poe had prepared the prospectus of a new monthly, and obtained transcripts of his subscription and account books, to be used in a scheme for supplanting him.  He encountered his associate late in the evening at one of his accustomed haunts, and said, “Mr. Poe, I am astonished:  Give me my manuscripts so that I can attend to the duties you have so shamefully neglected, and when you are sober we will settle.”  Poe interrupted him with “Who are you that presume to address me in this manner?  Burton, I am—­the editor—­of the Penn.—­Magazine—­and you are—­hiccup—­a fool.”  Of course this ended his relations with the “Gentleman’s.”