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There are, no doubt, one or two persons who have heard of one Henry A. Wise. At all events Mr. English had heard of him, and he resolved that nobody else should ever hear of him — this Mr. Wise — or even think of him, again. That Mr. Wise had never heard of Mr. English (probably on account of his being always called Mr. Brown) was no concern of Mr. English’s. He wrote an “article” — I saw it. He put “the magic of his name” — his three names — at the bottom of it. He printed it. He handed it for inspection to all the inhabitants of Philadelphia. He then buttoned up his coat — took under the tails of it seven revolvers — and dispatched the article, duly addressed, with his compliments, to “the Hon, Henry A. Wise,” who then resided at the house of the President.

Now, I never could understand precisely how or why it was that the Hon, Henry A. Wise did not repair forthwith from Washington to Philadelphia, with a company of the U. S. Artillery — the loan of which his interest could have obtained of Mr. Tyler — why he did not come, I say, to Philadelphia, engage Mr. English, take him captive, cut off his goatee, put him on a high stool, and insist upon his reading (upside down) the whole of that “Sonnet to Azthene” in which the poet sings about his “dreams” that “seems” and other English peculiarities. The punishment would have been scarcely more than adequate to the offence. The Philippic written by Mr. E. was, in fact, very severe. It called Mr. Wise “a poltroon” — an “ass,” if I remember — and “a dirty despicable vagabond”of that I feel particularly sure. There occurs then, of course, a question in metaphysics — “why did not the Hon. Henry A. Wise repair to Philadelphia and take Mr. Thomas Dunn Brown by the nose?[[”]] Perhaps the legislator had a horror of moustaches. But then neither did he write. Not even one word did he say-absolutely not one-nothing! Mr. Brown’s distress was, not altogether that he could not get himself kicked, but that he could not get any kind of a reason for the omission of the kicking.

This affair is to be classed among the “Historical Doubts” — among the insoluble problems of History. However — Mr. Wise felt himself everlastingly ruined, and soon after, as Minister to France, went, a brokenhearted man, into exile.

Mr. Brown abandoned the city of his birth. He has never been the same person since — that is to say be has been a person beside himself. He fords it impossible to recover from a chronic attack of astonishment. When he dies, the coroner’s verdict will be “Taken by Surprise.” This matter will account for Mr. English’s inveterate habit of rolling up the whites of his eyes.

About the one or two other unimportant points in this gentleman’s attack upon myself, there is, I believe, very little to be said. He asserts that I have complimented his literary performances. The sin of having, at one time, attempted to patronize him, is, I fear, justly to be laid to my charge; — but his goatee was so continual a source of admiration to me that I found it impossible ever to write a serious line in his behalf. And then the Imp of Mischief whispered in my ear, telling me how great a charity it would be to the public if I would only put the pen into Mr. English’s own hand, and permit him to kill himself off by self-praise. I listened to this whisper — and the public should have seen the zeal with which the poet labored in the good cause. If in this public’s estimation Mr. English did not become at once Phoebus Apollo, at least it was no fault of Mr. English’s. I solemnly say that in no paper of mine did there ever appear one word about this gentleman-unless of the broadest and most unmistakeable irony — that was not printed from the MS. of the gentleman himself. The last number of “The Broadway Journal” (the work having been turned over by me to another publisher) was edited by Mr. English. The editorial portion was wholly his, and was one interminable Pan of his own praises. The truth of all this — if any one is weak enough to care a