seen, was entirely false in what purported to be its facts.  The statement of Dr. English appeared in the New York Mirror of the twenty-third of June, and on the twenty-seventh Mr. Poe sent to Mr. Godey for publication in the Lady’s Book his rejoinder, which would have made about five of the large pages of that miscellany.  Mr. Godey very properly declined to print it, and observed, in the communication of his decision, that the tone of the article was regarded as unsuitable for his work and as altogether wrong.  In compliance with the author’s wishes, however, he had caused its appearance in a daily paper.  Poe then wrote to him: 

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

Nevertheless, I agree with Mr. Godey.  Poe’s article was as bad as that of English.  Yet a part of one of its paragraphs is interesting, and it is here transcribed: 

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