The arrangement entered into by White and Poe was most propitious. The proprietor of the ‘Messenger’ had obtained the services of a young man with a positive genius for the work in hand,--a young man who was able to contribute such tales as ‘Berenice,’ ‘Morella,’ ‘Hans Pfaall,’ ‘Metzengerstein,’ besides poems, miscellanies, and caustic book-criticisms. On the other hand, Poe had, if a small, at least a regular income. He could not buy luxury with a salary of five hundred and twenty dollars, but it was a beginning, and an increase was promised. Moreover, he was in the hands of a man who regarded him with affection no less than admiration. Unfortunately the arrangement was not to last. Poe had become the victim of a hereditary vice.[25] Whether he drank much or little is of less consequence than the fact that after a period of indulgence he was wholly unfitted for work. Once when Poe was temporarily in Baltimore, White wrote him that if he returned to the office it must be with the understanding that all engagements were at an end the moment he ‘got drunk.’ Kennedy explained Poe’s leaving the ‘Messenger’ thus: He was ‘irregular, eccentric, and querulous, and soon gave up his place.’ From Richmond, Poe went to New York, attracted by some promise in connection with a magazine. He lived in Carmine Street, and Mrs. Clemm contributed to the family support by taking boarders. In July, 1838, was published _The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym_. A month later Poe removed to Philadelphia. He contributed to annuals and magazines and had a hand in a piece of hack-work, _The Conchologist’s First Book_ (1839). This same year he became assistant editor of ‘Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and American Monthly,’ a periodical owned by the actor, William E. Burton, and held his position until June, 1840. The irregularity and querulousness which Kennedy had remarked led to misunderstandings. How the two men differed in policy becomes plain from a letter to Poe in which Burton says: ‘You must, my dear sir, get rid of your avowed ill feelings towards your brother authors.’ There was a quarrel, and Poe, who had some command of the rhetoric of abuse, described Burton as ‘a blackguard and a villain.’ The year 1840 was notable in the history of American letters, for then appeared the first collected edition of Poe’s prose writings, _Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque_. The edition, of seven hundred and fifty copies, was in two volumes and contained twenty-five stories, among them ‘Morella,’ ‘William Wilson,’ ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ ‘Ligeia,’ ‘Berenice,’ and ‘The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion’.