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Where no crude surfeit reigns?" Certainly, he ought to sing " Io Paean" over all things good, bad an indifferent -- then he is called a good-natured fellow, a discerner of excellence in others, a nice, pleasant individual with a heart as warm as a buckwheat cake -- ought to be. For a reputation like this being very ambitious, we don't like to be severe and never are -- are we, dear, mild, mellifluous Miss Jenkins, etc ?

But what avails running on in this way, like John Neal, hurry-skurry? "Behoveth us,"as Knowles fifty times in every play has written, "behoveth us" to be sedate and serious. Really, our correspondent says harsh and unkind things in a pleasant way. We like the Knickerbocker and the rest, and consider them very well edited. We have a high personal respect for the editors. As for Sargent's Magazine, though in its infancy, it has, we are told, begun to go alone; and if Mr. Sargent does write all the articles, so much the more to the credit of his industry, and to the Protean character of his style, now assuming the guise of a lady, now that of a gentleman: at this minute Helen Berkley, and at the next Sam Sampson, (what a funny name!) That we wish Mr. Sargent the most measureless success, our readers well know from the notices which have graced our columns.

A word in conclusion. We can't say that we ever read any of these Magazines. We have frequently tried to, and couldn't.

Notes:

The attribution of this article to Poe is highly problematic. It was first publically attributed to Poe in 1898 by William M. Griswold, the son of Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Poe's literary executor: "Poe expressed his opinion of Griswold and his brother editors in the New World of 11 March 1843. He had previously sent the same remarks, except that he then professed to hold the Knickerbocker in high esteem, to that periodical, but Clark refused to print them, and in mentioning their rejection added a few contemptuous words relative to their author, though without naming him" (p. 118). William Griswold also quoted part of the article so that there can be no doubt as to what item he referred.

Noting Griswold's comment, Killis Campbell tentatively repeated the attribution in his article on "The Poe Canon": " 'Our Magazine Literature," an article published in the New World for March 11, 1843, and there subscribed with the letter 'L.' The item is attributed to Poe by W. M Griswold in Passages from the Correspondence of Rufus W. Griswold . . . but on what ground he does not state. In both style and substance the article is not unlike Poe's work. Besides, L. G. Clark, editor of the Knickerbocker, apparently understood the article to be Poe's . . . But such evidence as we have is insufficient to warrant the unconditional ascription of the article to Poe" (reprinted in The Mind of Poe and Other Studies, 1933, pp. 227-228). The Knickerbocker actually printed two comments about the article. The first appeared in the issue for April 1843:

OUR friend and old correspondent, SARGENT, (whose new Magazine, by the way, let us hint to the editor, has never yet reached us,) as we see by a daily journal, has thought it advisable to notice an attack in the 'New World,' by some 'rejected contributor,' upon his publication. This was unwise. Even the editor was ashamed of his importunate correspondent, and disclaimed him. All that such a small-beer 'complainant' desires, is the notoriety of any notice whatsoever. If left to his native insignificance, he mourns with MEDDLE in the play, that he can 'get nobody to kick him.' Now to our mind, one of the most amusing spectacles in life, is a mortified but impotent litterateur of this sort; an ambitious 'authorling' perhaps of a small volume of effete and lamentable trash, full of little idle, ragged ideas, stolen and disguised among original inanities, which has fallen dead-born from the press, before the first fifty copies printed are exhausted in a 'third edition!' Disturb not, friend SARGENT, the leaden repose of a 'critic' which is even more harmless than it