"The man or men who told you that there was anything wrong in _the tone_ of my reply, were either my enemies, or your enemies, or asses. When you see them, tell them so, from me. I have never written an article upon which I more confidently depend for _literary_ reputation than that Reply. Its merit lay in its being precisely adapted to its purpose. In this city I have had upon it the favorable judgments of the best men. All the error about it was yours. You should have done as I requested--published it in the _Book_. It is of no use to conceive a plan if you have to depend upon another for its execution." Nevertheless, I agree with Mr. Godey. Poe's article was as bad as that of English. Yet a part of one of its paragraphs is interesting, and it is here transcribed: --"Let me not permit any profundity of disgust to induce, even for an instant, a violation of the dignity of truth. What is _not false_, amid the scurrility of this man's statements, it is not in my nature to brand as false, although oozing from the filthy lips of which a lie is the only natural language. The errors and frailties which I deplore, it cannot at least be asserted that I have been the coward to deny. Never, even, have I made attempt at _extenuating_ a weakness which is (or, by the blessing of God, was) a calamity, although those who did not know me intimately had little reason to regard it otherwise than a crime. For, indeed, had my pride, or that of my family permitted, there was much--very much--there was everything to be offered in extenuation. Perhaps, even, there was an epoch at which it might not have been wrong in me to hint--what by the testimony of Dr. Francis and other medical men I might have demonstrated, had the public, indeed, cared for the demonstration--that the irregularities so profoundly lamented were the _effect_ of a terrible evil rather than its cause.--And now let me thank God that in redemption from the physical ill I have forever got rid of the moral."