The Devil's Law-Case (Part Two)

"A poltroon charges his foe, by instinct, with precisely that vice or meanness which the pricking of his (the poltroon's) conscience assures him would furnish the most stable and therefore the most terrible ground of accusation against himself."
-Edgar Allan Poe, "Reply to Mr. English and Others"

"I'm the innocent bystander
But somehow I got stuck
Between a rock and a hard place
And I'm down on my luck."
-Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns, and Money"

*"Mirror" editor Hiram Fuller, some months after the lawsuit ended, referred to the incident in his paper with the words, "There have been actors behind the scenes in all this business, whom we may yet have to call before the footlights. When a man has robbed you he will kill you also if he can, for the reason that 'dead men tell no tales.'" What in the world did he mean by that? A letter Sarah Helen Whitman claimed Poe wrote her in 1848 described Fuller and English--in frustratingly vague terms--as being merely Elizabeth Ellet's "tools" in the publication of libels against him. But who else could have been secretly involved? Surely, Ellet alone was not powerful enough to use such prominent literary figures for her own petty personal grudges. And, in any case, Fuller clearly had men--or one particular man--in mind. The last sentence quoted, incidentally, is particularly chilling in its implications. Could Fuller really have been suggesting someone "behind the scenes" might actually kill--or, at least, use very drastic means--in order to prevent the true history of the lawsuit from being told?

*In December 1846, Fuller published an editorial commenting on the widespread reports of Poe's destitution. Without mentioning his enemy by name, Fuller said that "we cannot now call to mind a single instance of a man of real literary ability suffering from poverty, who has always lived an industrious, honest, and honorable life; while of the other class of indigents, we know of numerous melancholy specimens, of both sexes." [My italics.] Now, this cheap jab was clearly meant, not just for Poe, but for someone else--a female someone. But what literary woman was Fuller insulting?

In the early 1840s, he and Frances Osgood had a close, coyly flirtatious relationship, but by this time they were estranged, for reasons unknown to us. Perhaps Fuller had become aware of the fact that Osgood passed his more overheated letters to her around to other of her friends for their entertainment, turning him into something of a laughingstock within her circle. He also had professional reasons to resent the poetess. Her friend Edward Thomas' sworn testimony that Poe was not a forger--an refutation she may well have encouraged him to make, if only to keep both her and Thomas out of trouble--effectively lost the lawsuit for the "Mirror." Fuller later published blind items suggesting that Poe would sue certain "literary ladies" who figured in the trial. That was obviously a taunt aimed at least partly at Osgood, who, so far as is known, was the only woman whose name surfaced in the lawsuit. Were Fuller's remarks about destitute literary figures who led disreputable lives also directed to Osgood, who was suffering from financial problems during this period?

*In an open letter to Nathaniel P. Willis that was published in Willis' "Home Journal" in January 1847, Poe, among other things, stated that his wife's illness had been "heightened and precipitated" by the receipt of two anonymous letters (evidently from Elizabeth Ellet)--one containing a newspaper report of the Poe family's degrading poverty, the other enclosing the violent columns Fuller and English wrote against Poe.



This persecution of the dying Virginia--seemingly an innocent bystander if ever there was one--raises several questions. What had Virginia done to inspire such venomous and vengeful hatred in Poe's enemies? It suggests that she played a larger role in his literary and personal battles than has been presumed. And why send her previously published attacks, of which she must already have been aware? Receiving in the mail attacks that were already public hardly seems enough to "heighten and precipitate" a fatal illness. Did these letters contain, not merely abuse against her beloved husband, but actual covert threats? (The newspaper paragraphs describing their destitution claimed that not only Virginia, but Poe as well, was soon to die.)

*In July 1846, Fuller, again carefully avoiding Poe's name but making his target plain, published a truly ugly column attacking the poet as "a poor wretch" whose personal misbehavior had "reduced his mind and person to a condition where indignation for his vices, and revenge for his insults, are changed into compassion for the poor victim of himself," that he was now "the most pitiful of all pitiable objects," and "in a condition of sad, wretched imbecility." (This piece of abuse probably was among the items included in the poison-pen letters sent to Virginia.)

Intriguingly, in this column Fuller momentarily veered from his assault on Poe to address someone else. In an obvious reference to Poe's "The Literati of New York City," Fuller remarked that "It would be unreasonable to look to such a person for a just appreciation of the works of an upright intellect. But the only harm that such men can do is by praise, and we might well suspect the merits of those who are lauded by such persons, if we did not know that their seemingly good words were as sinister as their abuse."

In short, Fuller claimed that Poe's praises of certain writers included in "The Literati" were, in reality, veiled insults. Was this another of Fuller's sly attempts to derogate his erstwhile friend Frances Osgood? Poe's "Literati" sketch of her, as well as his other published reviews of her work, certainly were full of "seemingly good words"--words which, Fuller now stated unequivocally, were actually attacks. Whether Fuller had Osgood specifically in mind or not, his remark bears keeping in mind when considering any "praise" Poe ever made of her. In this regard, of particular note is Poe's review of Osgood's poems that was published in March of 1846. When discussing her verse drama "Elfrida," (a play he strongly panned, incidentally,) Poe commented, "In depicting the impassioned ambition of Elfrida, the authoress seems especially at home, and upon this character she has evidently put forth her strength."

The title character Poe referred to was a heartless, deceitful, scheming woman who plotted the murder of her innocent husband because he stood in the way of her "impassioned ambition" of marrying a king. Could Poe's identification of Osgood with such a creature be called anything but "sinister?"

The Devil's Law-Case (Part One)

"The touchstone by which falsehood is detected is inconsistency. In a true narrative, inconsistencies are impossible."
-Jeremy Bentham, "Rationale of Judicial Evidence"

The chain of events surrounding the libel suit Poe filed against the "New York Mirror" in 1846 comprise some of the most peculiar unanswered questions in his entire career. These are among the many mysteries clouding the story:

*It is a puzzle why "Mirror" editor Hiram Fuller bothered to involve himself and his newspaper in the attacks against Poe at all. His prior dealings with Poe had been scant, and evidently not unfriendly. Then suddenly, when "The Literati of New York City" appeared in print, Fuller began using his paper as a forum to heap abuse on the sketches and their author, a campaign that culminated with his publication of English's libelous column. We know of no reason for his abrupt, venomous attitude change towards the poet.

Poe himself offered what may be a clue to the cause of Fuller's hostility. In his "Reply to Mr. English and Others," Poe referred to Fuller having "prostituted his filthy sheet" by publishing English's column--a column, he declared, that Fuller had known was full of lies.

"Prostituted" is an interesting choice of words. It implies that Fuller was merely a hired gun, that he was "bought off" in some way to join the efforts to defame Poe. But how? English did not pay Fuller to print his column, and he was not wealthy enough to "buy" the editor in other ways. Was there someone else--one of the people "behind the scenes," to use Fuller's own words--who secretly used money or the promise of some other favors in order to enlist him into the Poe Wars?

*One of the actionable charges Thomas Dunn English made in the "Mirror" column that inspired the suit was that Poe was guilty of forgery. English never said what Poe supposedly forged, and so far as we know, the issue was never clarified during the trial.This makes no sense. One cannot simply call someone "a forger" without giving some sort of specifics about what the person supposedly forged. Yet this most central and obvious information was left unstated. Why?

*In English's deposition, he claimed that Poe told him that an ironworks merchant named Edward Thomas had told Frances S. Osgood that Poe was a forger. English said Poe asserted that Thomas wished to seduce Osgood, was jealous of Poe's influence with her, and so told her this slander in order to alienate her from someone he assumed was a rival.

There are many problems with this story. At the time in question, Thomas and Poe were complete strangers. As Thomas did not even know Poe, how could he see him as potential competition for Osgood's bed? As Poe did not know Thomas, how could he know what his defamer's motives may have been? He could not have heard the tale from Mrs. Osgood herself. Frances was never known for her discretion, but it is still highly improbable that she would tell Poe a story that not only disparaged her ally, Thomas, but portrayed herself as a woman whose acquaintances saw her as immoral enough to be capable of adultery. If Thomas felt jealousy for anyone, would not his obvious target be Mr. Osgood? At this date, Thomas had been friends with the Osgood family for at least a few years. If he ever had had amorous intentions towards Frances, would they not have surfaced a long time before this?

The little we know about Thomas indicates that he was a friend--nothing more--to both the Osgoods. (Samuel Osgood even sought to borrow money from him around that time.) Thomas' two extant letters to Frances are full of cordiality towards both her and Samuel, but are hardly romantic. In his letter to her from March 1847, Thomas discussed the aftermath of the lawsuit. He referred to Poe in a condescending, but not unsympathetic manner: "Poor Poe--he has lost his wife--his home--may the folly of the past make him contrite for the future--may he live to be what he can be if he has but the will." He made an oblique reference to his relief that Frances' actual name had been redacted during trial testimony, as he had feared it "would come out under English's affidavit in a way I would not like." His comments appeared to blame English--not Poe--for the unflattering story English told about him. His letter assumed that Frances herself was unaware of this story of his alleged immoral intentions towards her, and, rather oddly, Thomas appeared to think having it related in court would reflect poorly on her, rather than himself. (Most curiously, Thomas also commented that he was unsurprised about the outcome of the suit, as he had always believed the forgery charges were untrue.) The letter made it clear that he never, at any time, saw Poe as a romantic rival--in fact, its tone conveyed a belief that Mrs. Osgood was never any closer to the poet than Thomas himself had been.

English's deposition, as the trial would show, contained many lies, and all the evidence indicates this story was merely one more of them. It was his way of insulting not only Poe, but Osgood (whom he disliked,) and Thomas (the chief witness against his side,) as well. The fact that Thomas knew before the trial had even begun that English was likely to include this tale in his deposition indicates that English had, in his dealings with Thomas, already threatened to relate this highly embarrassing anecdote if he took the stand. Likely, this was part of some sort of intimidation tactic he was using. (Poe himself described English as behaving like a "bully" towards the merchant.) Why? What was the true story that English was trying to hide?

*That leads to another puzzle--why did English involve himself in Thomas' forgery scandal in the first place? Poe indicated that English, for unknown reasons, volunteered to act as Poe's envoy in his dealings with the merchant. So far as we know, English did not know Thomas, and these vague and seemingly trivial allegations against Poe were certainly no concern of his. What was his motivation for inserting himself in the middle of the dispute? English was positively eager for Poe to sue Thomas. According to Poe, when Thomas wrote him a letter retracting the forgery charge, English advised him to pretend this apology was never sent, and to take the merchant to court anyway. Why was it so important to him that this lawsuit take place?

*Thomas claimed to have heard the "forgery" tale from someone else--a someone who, when Thomas later asked him about the matter, denied ever having made such a statement. This person was never named. Why? Did he even exist? But why would Thomas invent from whole cloth a tale of forgery to discredit a man he did not know, and that--assuming he invented the charge--could be so easily disproved?

*Why do we not have a transcript of the trial--or even any sort of comprehensive description of what both sides said?

*When English wrote his libelous attack on Poe, he knew that Thomas had retracted the forgery allegation. Why, then, did he revive the charge, considering that its original source would no longer support the story? English had to assume that Poe might very well sue him for insisting that Poe was a forger--after all, Poe would have sued Thomas if the merchant had not apologized. Why risk making an allegation he could not prove? Did English believe at the time that he could get--or manufacture--other evidence incriminating Poe? Or was he just a hot-headed imbecile?

In Part Two: Hiram Fuller steps before the footlights...In the role of Cassandra.

(Image of TD English via NYPL Digital Gallery.)