Doctor Frailey had heard me speak of your having deciphered a letter which our mutual friend, Dow, wrote upon a challenge from you last year, at my lodgings in your city, when Aaron Burr’s correspondence in cipher was the subject of our conversation. You laughed at what you termed Burr’s shallow artifice, and said you could decipher any such cryptography easily. To test you on the spot, Dow withdrew to the corner of the room, and wrote a letter in cipher, which you solved in a much shorter time than it took him to indite it. As Doctor Frailey seemed to doubt your skill to the extent of my belief in it, when your article on “Secret Writing” appeared in the last number of your Magazine, I showed it to him. After reading it, he remarked that he thought he could puzzle you, and the next day he handed me the cryptograph which I transmitted to you. He did not tell me the key. The uncommon nature of his article, of which I gave you not the slightest hint, made me express to you my strong doubts of your ability to make the solution. I confess that your solution, so speedily and correctly made, surprised me. I congratulate myself that I do not live in an age when the black art is believed in, for, innocent as I am of all knowledge of cryptography, I should be arrested as an accessory before the fact, and, though I escaped, it is certain that you would have to die the death, and, alas! I fear upon my testimony. Your friend, F. W. Thomas. Edgar A. Poe, Esq. Washington, July 6th, 1841. Dear Sir, It gives me pleasure to state that the reading, by Mr. Poe, of the cryptograph which I gave you a few days since for transmission to him, is correct. I am the more astonished at this since—— [We omit the remainder of the letter, since it enters into details which would give our readers some clue to the cipher.] As ever, yours, &c., Chas. S. Frailey. F. W. Thomas, Esq. * * * * * [Illustration: LATEST FASHIONS, AUGUST 1841. FOR GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.] * * * * * Transcriber’s Notes: Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note. [End of _Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 2, August 1841_, George R. Graham, Editor]