Text: Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Ollive Mabbott, “English's Rejoinder” The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. IV: The Literati of New York City (2026), pp. 201-203 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 201:]

Mr. Edgar A. Poe is not satisfied, it would seem. In the ‘Times,’ a Philadelphia journal of considerable circulation, there appears a communication, headed — ‘Mr. Poe's reply to Mr. English, and others.’ As it is dated ‘27th of June,’ and the newspaper containing it is dated loth July; and as it appears in another city than this, — it is to be inferred that Mr. Poe had some difficulty in obtaining a respectable journal to give currency to his scurrilous article. The following words and phrases, taken at random from the production, will give the public some idea of its style and temper:

To such vulgar stuff as this, which is liberally distributed through three columns of what would be, otherwise, tame and spiritless, it is unnecessary to reply. It neither suits my inclination, nor habits, to use language, of which the words I quote make up the wit and ornament. I leave that to Mr. Poe and the ancient and honorable community of fish-venders.

Actuated by a desire for the public good, I charged Mr. Poe with the commission of certain misdemeanors, which prove him to be profligate in habits and depraved in mind. The most serious of these he admits by silence — the remainder he attempts to palliate; and winds up his tedious disquisition by a threat to resort to a legal prosecution. That is my full desire. Let him institute a suit, if he dare, and I pledge myself to make my charges good by the most ample and satisfactory evidence.

To the charlatanry of Mr. Poe's reply; his play upon my name: his proclamation of recent reform, when it is not a week since he was seen intoxicated in the streets of New York; his attempt to prove me devoid of literary attainments; his sneers at my lack of personal beauty; his ridiculous invention of quarrels between me and others, that never took place; his charges of plagiarism, unsupported by example; his absurd story of a challenge accepted and avoided; his attempt to excuse his drunkenness and meanness on the ground of insanity; in short, to the froth, fustian, and vulgarity of his three-column article, I have no reply to make. My character for honor and physical courage needs no defence from even the occasional slanderer — although, if the gentlemen whose names he mentions, will endorse his charges, I shall then reply to them — much less does it require a shield from one whose habit of uttering falsehoods is so inveterate, that he utters them to his own hurt, rather [than] not utter them at all; with whom drunkenness is the practice and sobriety the exception, and who, from the constant commission of acts of meanness and depravity, is incapable of appreciating the feelings which animate the man of honor.

THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH.

[[Notes]]

[page 202:]

(1) English's second reply was published in the New York Evening Mirror, July 13, 1846, which had reprinted his initial reply from the New York Morning Telegraph on June 23, 1846.

The relations of Poe and English were never good, although there were intervals of armed truce between them. The two men met in 1839 or 1840, and the second time English encountered Poe, the poet was in a gutter. English picked him up and took him home, where Mrs. Clemm greeting them with an angry query, “How dare you get Eddy drunk?” English told her the next time he saw Eddy in a gutter, he’d leave him there.(2) Things were off to a bad start.

Poe wrote Thomas and Dow, March 16, 1843:

Clearly this is an apology for some quarrel. Again Poe wrote Thomas on September 8, 1844 describing Dunn English(3) as a “malicious villain . . . busy in both open and secret villification of Robert Tyler,” son of the President and friend of our poet.

Things were patched up again in 1845. We find Poe contributing to English's Aristidean and even supervising a number, when English was ill. English, in turn, too charge [page 203:] of the last number of the Broadway Journal. But there was a fist fight in the office of that paper, described by Thomas H. Lane, who was present. Obviously Poe was drunk, and it is hard to believe English (whose magazine advocated “Temperance”) would have fought had he been sober.(4) English, too, had talked about the troubles about the letters of Mrs. Osgood and Mrs. Ellet. The quarrel was now permanent.

[[Footnotes]]

[[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 202:]

2. This extremely significant incident, described by English in the Independent, October 15, 1896, has been completely neglected since then. Its truth cannot be called in question because Poe is said to have used bad language on this occasion. The tradition of Poe's extreme propriety of speech is so strong as to preclude invention of such a detail. But Dr. Chivers, too, records the use of bad language by the inebriated Poe.

3. Woodberry published the letter in 1894, giving the name as two blanks, for English was alive at the time; since the person is described as editor of the Aurora, the blanks can be certainly expanded.

4. See Quinn [[pp. 503-504]].