T.W. White_.

Afterward Mr. Poe became personally acquainted with the author, and he
then wrote, in his account of "The Literati of New-York City," as
follows:

"The Confessions of a Poet made much noise in the literary world, and no
little curiosity was excited in regard to its author, who was generally
supposed to be John Neal.... The 'Confessions,' however, far surpassed
any production of Mr. Neal's.... _He_ has done nothing which, as a whole,
is _even respectable_, and 'The Confessions' are quite remarkable for
their artistic unity and perfection. But on higher regards they are to be
commended. _I do not think, indeed, that a better book of its kind has
been written in America_....Its scenes of passion are intensely wrought,
its incidents are striking and original, its sentiments audacious and
suggestive at least, if not at all times tenable. In a word, it is that
rare thing, a fiction of _power_ without rudeness."

I will adduce another example of the same kind. In a notice of the
"Democratic Review," for September, 1845, Mr. Poe remarks of Mr. William
A. Jones's paper on American Humor:

"There is only one really bad article in the number, and that is
insufferable: nor do we think it the less a nuisance because it inflicts
upon ourselves individually a passage of maudlin compliment about our
bring a most 'ingenious critic' 'and prose poet,' with some other things
of a similar kind. We thank for his good word no man who gives palpable
evidence, in other cases than our own, of his _incapacity_ to distinguish
the false from the true--the right from the wrong. If we _are_ an
ingenious critic, or a prose poet, it is not because Mr. William Jones
says so. The truth is that this essay on 'American Humor' is
Contemptible both in a moral and literary sense--is the composition of an
_imitator and a quack_--and disgraces the magazine in which it makes its
appearance."--_Broadway Journal_, Vol. ii. No. 11.

In the following week he reconsidered this matter, opening his paper for
a defense of Mr. Jones; but at the close of it said--

"If we have done Mr. Jones injustice, we beg his pardon: but we do not
think we have."

Yet in a subsequent article in "Graham's Magazine," on "Critics and
Criticism," he says of Mr. Jones, referring only to writings of his that
had been for years before the public when he printed the above
paragraphs:

"Our most analytic, _if not altogether our best critic_, (Mr. Whipple,
perhaps, excep