Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), “The New York Mirror,” Alexander's Weekly Messenger, January 1, 1840, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 4, col. 6


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[page 4, column 6:]

The New York Mirror.

The last number of this popular paper comes to us with a fine portrait of Miss C. M. Sedgwick, engraved by Parker, from a painting by Ingham. The literary contents are, as usual, excellent, with the exception of a very silly “theory of dreaming” by Rufus Dawes, a gentleman who had much better dismiss all hope of attaining eminence as a metaphysician, and stick to the Camenœ. He has perpetrated more downright nonsense, in his attempts to look profound, than any man of the age. His “Athenia of Damascus” did him credit, and his minor poems are mostly good. It is a pity that he should make a fool of himself in meddling with a science about which he knows absolutely nothing.

All the other papers are very good. A well written critical notice commends, in the highest terms, Mr. Poe's “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.” We attribute this to the pen of General Morris; and it certainly has a double weight in coming from him; for, if we are not mistaken, Mr. Poe evinced much hostility to the “Mirror” during his editorship of the Southern Literary Messenger. Or, perhaps, his thrusts were aimed only at the author of Norman Leslie? At all events the criticism in last Saturday's paper looks high minded and well, and does the Mirror credit.

 


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Notes:

This notice was first attributed to Poe by Clarence S. Brigham in Edgar Allan Poe's Contributions to Alexander's Weekly Messenger, 1943, pp. 19-20.

Originals of this issue may be found in the collections of the American Antiquarian Society and the Koester Collection of the Harry Ransom Center, The Univeristy of Texas at Austin. The present text has been verified against copies from both of these institutions.

 

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[S:1 - AWM, 1840] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Criticism - The New York Mirror