Text: Lewis Gaylord Clark, “Editor's Table,” The Knickerbocker (New York, NY), vol. 22, no. 4, October 1843, p. 392

[page 392, continued:]

[[. . .]] MR. PRENTICE, the well — known Louisville Journalist, is “down upon” a “gentleman of some smartness who rejoices in the euphonious name of POE,” (a correspondent of ours spells it “Poh!”) for terming CARLYLE, in one of his thousand-and-one MACGRAWLER critiques, “an ass.” The Kentucky poet and politician thus rejoins: “We have no more doubt that Mr. EDGAR A. POE is a very good judge of an ass, than we have that he is a very poor judge of such a man as THOMAS CARLYLE. He has no sympathies with the great and wonderful operations of CARLYLE's mind, and is therefore unable to appreciate him. A blind man can describe a rainbow as accurately as Mr. POE can CARLYLE's mind. What Mr. POE lacks in Carlyleism he makes up in jackassism. It is very likely that Mr. CARLYLE's disciples are as poor judges of an ass as Mr. POE is of CARLYLE. Let them not abuse each other, or strive to overcome obstacles which are utterly irremovable. That Mr. POE has all the native tendencies necessary to qualify him to be a judge of asses, he has given repeated evidences to the public.” [[. . .]]