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diff --git a/24303.txt b/24303.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8cdf244 --- /dev/null +++ b/24303.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6379 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Philadelphia Magazines and their +Contributors 1741-1850, by Albert Smyth + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 + +Author: Albert Smyth + +Release Date: January 15, 2008 [EBook #24303] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +********************************************************** + Transcriber's Note: The final footnote contains a Greek + passage, which is delimited by '+'. +********************************************************** + + + + +THE +Philadelphia Magazines +AND THEIR +CONTRIBUTORS + +1741-1850 + +BY + +ALBERT H. SMYTH, + +_A. B._, _Johns Hopkins University_, + +_Professor of English Literature in the Philadelphia High School; +Member of the American Philosophical Society._ + +PHILADELPHIA: +ROBERT M. LINDSAY +1892 + + + + +TO + +J. G. ROSENGARTEN + +A TOKEN OF THE +GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION OF THE +AUTHOR + + + + +PREFACE. + + +This study in the history of the Philadelphia magazines was undertaken +at the request of Professor H. B. Adams, and the results were first read +at a joint-meeting of the Historical and English Seminaries of the Johns +Hopkins University. At a later date they were again read before the +Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The subject has been found so rich, +and the materials so interesting, that, in spite of my best efforts to +be brief, the article has grown into a book. It has been with no little +distrust that I have made this wide excursion from my chosen studies, +but the generous aid and encouragement of friends, who are learned in +our local lore, have given me heart to complete and to publish the +results of these researches. + +A complete list of the Philadelphia magazines is impossible. Many of +them have disappeared and left not a rack behind. The special student of +Pennsylvania history will detect some omissions in these pages, for all +that has here been done has been done at first hand, and where a +magazine was inaccessible to me, I have not attempted to see it through +the eyes of a more fortunate investigator. I have done my best to make +the story, dull and dreary as it surely is at times, not unworthy of its +subject, or of the city that it describes, and of which I grow fonder +year by year. + +My grateful thanks are due to my friends, Professor H. B. Adams, Dr. +James W. Bright, Mr. Charles R. Hildeburn, Professor John Bach McMaster, +Hon. S. W. Pennypacker and Mr. F. D. Stone, for thoughtful suggestions +and valuable information. + +I am deeply indebted to Mr. George W. Childs for his unfailing interest +and assistance. To Mr. George R. Graham, Dr. Thomas Dunn English, Mr. +John Sartain and Mr. Frank Lee Benedict I owe some of the most important +facts in this little volume. + + ALBERT H. SMYTH. + + _Philadelphia, 5 February, 1892, + 126, South Twenty-second Street._ + + + "Sweet Philadelphia! lov'liest of the lawn," + Where rising greatness opes its pleasing dawn, + Where daring commerce spreads th' advent'rous sail, + Cleaves thro' the wave, and drives before the gale, + Where genius yields her kind conducting lore, + And learning spreads its inexhausted store:-- + Kind seat of industry, where art may see + Its labours foster'd to its due degree, + Where merit meets the due regard it claims, + Tho' envy dictates and tho' malice blames:-- + Thou fairest daughter of Columbia's train, + The great emporium of the western plain;-- + Best seat of science, friend to ev'ry art, + That mends, improves, or dignifies the heart. + + _The Philadelphiad_, Vol. I, p. 6, 1784. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +To relate the history of the Philadelphia magazines is to tell the story +of Philadelphia literature. The story is not a stately nor a splendid +one, but it is exceedingly instructive. It helps to exhibit the process +of American literature as an evolution, and it illustrates perilous and +important chapters in American history. For a hundred years Pennsylvania +was the seat of the ripest culture in America. The best libraries were +to be found here, and the earliest and choicest reprints of Latin and +English classics were made here. James Logan, a man of gentle nature and +a scholar of rare attainments, had gathered at Stenton a library that +comprehended books "so scarce that neither price nor prayers could +purchase them." John Davis, the satirical English traveller, who said of +Princeton that it was "a place more famous for its college than its +learning," did justice, despite of his own nature, to Logan and to +Philadelphia when he wrote: "The Greek and Roman authors, forgotten on +their native banks of the Ilissus and Tiber, delight by the kindness of +a Logan the votaries to learning on those of the _Delaware_." The +eagerness of Philadelphia social circles for each new thing in +literature enabled booksellers to import large supplies from England and +to undertake splendid editions of notable books. Dr. Johnson was made to +feel amiable for a moment toward America on being presented with a copy +of _Rasselas_ bearing a Philadelphia imprint. + +The first American editions of Shakespeare and of Milton, of "Pamela" +and of "The Vicar of Wakefield" were printed in Philadelphia. In the +same city, in 1805, Aristotle's "Ethics" and "Politics" were published +for the first time in America. A little later came the costly +"Columbiad" and the great volumes of Alexander Wilson. Robert Aitken, at +the Pope's Head, issued the first English Bible in America in 1782, and +his daughter, Jane, printed Charles Thomson's translation of the +Septuagint in four superb volumes in 1808. Robert Bell successfully +compiled Blackstone's _Commentaries_ in 1772, "a stupendous enterprise." +Bell did much by his good taste and untiring industry to advance the +literary culture of the city. "The more books are sold," he declared in +one of his broadsides, "the more will be sold, is an established Truth +well known to every liberal reader, and to every bookseller of +experience. For the sale of one book propagateth the sale of another +with as much certainty as the possession of one guinea helpeth to the +possession of another." + +"The Philadelphiad" (1784) gives us a glimpse of the motley society that +loitered in Bell's Third Street shop. + + "Just by St. Paul's, where dry divines rehearse, + _Bell_ keeps his store for vending prose and verse, + And books that's neither--for no age nor clime, + Lame, languid prose, begot on hobb'ling ryme. + Here authors meet who ne'er a sprig have got, + The poet, player, doctor, wit and sot; + Smart politicians wrangling here are seen + Condemning Jeffries or indulging spleen, + Reproving Congress or amending laws, + Still fond to find out blemishes and flaws; + Here harmless _sentimental-mongers_ join + To praise some author or his wit refine, + Or treat the mental appetite with lore + From Plato's, Pope's, and Shakespeare's endless store; + Young blushing writers, eager for the bays, + Try here the merit of their new-born lays, + Seek for a patron, follow fleeting fame, + And beg the slut may raise their hidden name." + +The Philadelphia magazines, from Franklin's to Graham's, furnished ample +opportunities for "young blushing writers eager for the bays." Their +articles, it is true, were often a kind of yeasty collection of fond and +winnowed opinions, but among these shallow fopperies there would at +times be heard a strain of higher mood. Nor is the story of these +magazines altogether without its pathos. American writers, after the +Revolution which lost England her colonies, felt themselves to be under +the opprobrium of the literary world. They felt keenly the sneers of +English men-of-letters, and winced under injustice and invective that +they were not strong enough to resent. The insolence of British +travellers was especially provoking. J. N. Williams, a Philadelphian, +stung by some offensive criticism by a wandering Englishman, wrote, +"America looked not for a spy upon the sanctity of her household gods in +the stranger that sat within her gates; she scarce supposed that the +hand of a clumsy servant like the claws of the harpies could utterly mar +and defile the feast which honest hospitality had provided." + +The _Port Folio_, in 1810, was moved indignantly to declare that +foreign critics grounded their strictures "upon the tales of some +miserable reptiles who, after having abused the hospitality and patience +of this country, levy a tax from their own by disseminating a vile mass +of falsehood and nonsense under the denomination of Travels through the +United States." + +Sydney Smith waved American literature contemptuously aside in the +_Edinburgh Review_. _The Quarterly_ was brutal in its attacks upon timid +transatlantic books. William Godwin reproached American ignorance, and +proceeded to locate Philadelphia upon the Chesapeake Bay. No wonder that +the _Port Folio_ exclaimed in 1810, "The fastidious arrogance with which +the reviewers and magazine makers of Great Britain treat the genius and +intellect of this country is equalled by nothing but their profound +ignorance of its situation." + +The insolence of Great Britain affected American writers in two ways. +Some it stung into violent hatred or sullen antagonism, others it +coerced into timid imitation and servility. Upon Dennie and his +associates it had the latter effect, and the _Port Folio_ vigorously +resisted all "Americanisms" in politics and in letters, and sought to +conciliate England and to win the coveted stamp of English approbation +by unlimited adulation of the favorites of the hour. "To study with a +view of becoming an author by profession in America," wrote Dennie, "is +a prospect of no less flattering promise than to publish among the +Esquimaux an essay on delicacy of taste, or to found an academy of +sciences in Lapland." + +Upon Brackenridge and Paine the truculent criticisms of England acted as +a lively stimulus, and they went profanely to work "to resent the +British scoff that when separated from England the colonies would become +mere illiterate ourang-outangs." + +Thomas Green Fessenden, one of the contributors to the _Farmers' Weekly +Museum_, and to Dennie's _Port Folio_, wrote in the preface to his +"Original Poems" (Philadelphia, 1806), "Although the war, which +terminated in a separation of the two nations, inflicted wounds which, +it is to be feared, still rankle, yet the more considerate of both +countries have long desired (if I may be allowed a transatlantic simile) +that the hatchet of animosity might be buried in the grave of oblivion" +(page 6). A little further on he confesses his timidity, when, speaking +of the political leaders at home, he says, "I could have enlarged on the +demerits of these political impostors, but I feared I might disgust the +English reader by such exhibitions of human depravity" (p. 7). + +A serener voice is that of John Blair Linn, brother-in-law of Charles +Brockden Brown, who was not out of love with his nativity, nor +accustomed to disable the benefits of his country. In his "Powers of +Genius," which was beautifully reprinted in England, we read: + + "I shall not attempt to conceal the enthusiasm which I feel for + meritorious performances of native Americans. Nor can I repress my + indignation at the unjust manner in which they are treated by the + reviewers of England. America, notwithstanding their aspersions, + has attained an eminence in literature, which is, at least, + respectable. Like Hercules in his cradle, she has manifested a + gigantic grasp, and discovered that she will be great. The wisdom, + penetration and eloquence of her statesmen are undoubted--they are + known and acknowledged throughout Europe. The gentlemen of the law, + who fill her benches of justice, and who are heard at the bar, are + eminently distinguished by the powers of reason, and by + plausibility of address.... Our historians have not been numerous. + Some, however, who have unrolled our records of truth claim a + considerable portion of praise.... The prospect before us is now + brightening. Histories have been promised from pens which have + raised our expectations. The death of our great Washington has left + a subject for the American historian which has never been surpassed + in dignity.... From the poems and fictions of the Columbian Muse, + several works might be selected, which deserve high and + distinguishing praise. The poetry of our country has not yet, I + hope, assumed its most elevated and elegant form. Beneath our + skies, fancy neither sickens nor dies. The fire of poetry is + kindled by our storms. Amid our plains, on the banks of our waters, + and on our mountains, dwells the spirit of inventive enthusiasm. + + "These regions are not formed only to echo the voice of Europe, + but from them shall yet sound a lyre which shall be the admiration + of the world. + + "From the exhibition of American talent I indulge the warmest + expectations. I behold, in imagination, the Newtons, the Miltons + and the Robertsons of this new world, and I behold the sun of + genius pouring on our land his meridian beams. + + "In order to concentrate the force of her literature, the genius of + America points to a National University, so warmly recommended, and + remembered in his will, by our deceased friend and father. Such an + establishment, far more than a pyramid that reached the clouds, + would honor the name of Washington" (p. 81). + +The Philadelphia writers had their own little thrills, and their own +little ambitions, and amid the poverty of their intellectual +surroundings they refreshed themselves with visions of the giant things +to come at large. James Hall, in his "Letters from the West," wrote: +"The vicinity of Pittsburg may one day wake the lyre of the +Pennsylvanian bard to strains as martial and as sweet as Scott; ... +believe me, I should tread with as much reverence over the mausoleum of +a Shawanee chief, as among the catacombs of Egypt, and would speculate +with as much delight upon the site of an Indian village as in the +gardens of Tivoli, or the ruins of Herculaneum." + +American critics soon caught the contagion of sneering censure, and +caused the _Port Folio_ to say, in 1811: "American critics seem, in +almost all cases, to have entered into a confederacy to exterminate +American poetry. If an individual has the temerity to jingle a couplet, +and to avow himself descended from Americans, the offence is absolutely +unpardonable." When Fenimore Cooper published his first novel, he +suppressed his name and wrote instead, "PRECAUTION, by _an Englishman_." + +Still, a notable feature of the American magazines was a general +insistence upon or, perhaps, a preference for subjects out of American +history, or articles dealing with what might be called American +archaeology--sketches of the life and character of "the ancients of these +lands"--or, at least, contributions that were tricked out in some local +garb or color. The minds of young American writers turned with alacrity +to the subjects that lay nearest to them and which were intimately +connected with the life of the country. A national literature was never +altogether absent from their thoughts, however the fear of English +censure or ridicule may have checked the aspiration. John Webbe, in his +prospectus to the first American magazine, said that the new venture +would be "an attempt to erect on neutral principles a publick theatre in +the centre of the British Empire in America" (_Amer. Weekly Mercury_, +October 30, 1740). + +A discussion of the Philadelphia magazines takes us back to a time when +Philadelphia led all the cities of the country in culture, in commerce, +in statecraft and in authorship. Every new experiment in literature was +first tried in Philadelphia. Her's was the first monthly magazine +(January, 1741), and her's, too, the first daily newspaper (_Amer. Daily +Advertiser_, December 21, 1784). The first religious magazine was +_Sauer's Geistliches Magazien_ (1764)--for which Christopher Sauer cast +his own type, the first made in America--and the first religious weekly +was _The Religious Remembrancer_ (September 4, 1813). Philadelphia led +off with the first penny paper (_The Cent_) in 1830; and the first +mathematical journal (_The Annulus_), and the first _Juvenile Magazine_ +(1802), and the first illustrated comical paper on an original plan, +_The John Donkey_, in 1848, were all Philadelphia adventures. + +There is scarcely a notable name in the literature of America that is +not in some way connected with the Philadelphia magazines. Dennie and +Brown, the first professional men-of-letters on this continent, were +Philadelphia editors. Washington Irving edited the _Analectic Magazine_. +James Russell Lowell, Edgar Allan Poe and Bayard Taylor were editorial +writers on _Graham's Magazine_, and John Greenleaf Whittier edited _The +Pennsylvania Freeman_. + +Bryant and Cooper and Longfellow and Hawthorne and a hundred lesser men +were constant contributors to the Philadelphia journals. + +A striking difference between the older magazines and the recent ones is +the conspicuous absence from the journal of a century ago of what is +commonly called "light literature." Magazines were then conducted by +scholars for scholars. "Popular" essays and silly novels had not yet +depraved the taste of readers who could relish Somerville and Shenstone, +Savage and Johnson. Articles appeared monthly in the _Port Folio_ that +could not by any chance win recognition from an editor of these days. +One of the favorite amusements of the _Port Folio_ gentlemen was the +translation of Mother Goose melodies and alliterative nursery rhymes +into Latin, and especially into Greek. These curious translations, in +which the object was to preserve in the Greek, as far as possible, the +verbal eccentricities of "butter blue beans" and other intricate verses +of infantile memory, are scattered up and down the pages of the _Port +Folio_, together with fresh versions of Horace and dissertations upon +classical rhetoric. + +But the curtain has fallen on all this scholastic bravery. The dust of a +dry antiquity has settled upon the laborious pages of these ragged +tomes, undisturbed save by some "local grubber," or by some +"illustrator" in search of portraits for a rich man's library. + +Magazines increase and fill the demand of the public, but they are not +cut upon the ancient pattern. The gradual accumulation of books about +books, of criticisms on both, of reviews of the critics, of newspaper +accounts of the reviews, of weekly summaries of the newspapers, seems to +be carrying us ever further from the face of reality into a mere +commerce of ideas on which no healthy soul can live. + + + + +THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. + + +The type of the monthly periodical was fixed when Edward Cave, in 1731, +founded in London _The Gentleman's Magazine_. Ten years later, and at +the very time that Samuel Johnson, at St. John's Gate, was preparing for +"Sylvanus Urban, Esq.," the reports of the parliamentary debates, +Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Bradford issued in Philadelphia the first +monthly magazines in America. + +These two magazines appear to have been conceived in jealousy and +brought forth in anger. In the _Philadelphia Weekly Mercury_ of October +30, 1740, is the announcement of a prospective magazine to be edited by +John Webbe and printed by Andrew Bradford, to be issued monthly, to +contain four sheets, and to cost twelve shillings Pennsylvania money a +year. The magazine, it was promised, should contain speeches of +governors, addresses and answers of assemblies, their resolutions and +debates, extracts of laws, with the reasons on which they were founded +and the grievances intended to be remedied by them; accounts of the +climate, soil, productions, trade and manufactures of all the British +plantations, the constitutions of the several colonies with their +respective views and interests; of remarkable trials, civil and +criminal; of the course of exchange and the proportion between sterling +and the several paper currencies, and the price of goods in the +principal trading marts of the plantations. One thing only the new +magazine should not contain: its pages should never be smeared by +falsehood, nor sullied by defamatory libelling. + +In the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ of November 13, 1740, Franklin announced a +monthly magazine to be called _The General Magazine and Historical +Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America_. The price was to +be nine-pence Pennsylvania money, with considerable allowance to shopmen +who should take quantities. The brevity of Franklin's advertisement is +in strong contrast to the learned length of Webbe's pedantic prospectus. +He claims that the idea of the magazine had long been in his mind, and +that Webbe had stolen his plans. Before he had divulged the scheme to +Webbe he had proceeded so far in the matter as to choose his writers and +to buy his small type. + +Webbe wrote a wrathful reply in the _Mercury_ of November 13, and +continued it under the title of "The Detection" through three numbers. +He admitted that Franklin did communicate to him his desire to print a +magazine, and asked him to compose it. But this did not restrain him +from publishing at any other press without Mr. Franklin's leave. In the +third number of "The Detection," Webbe accused Franklin of using his +place of Postmaster to shut the _Mercury_ out of the post, and of +refusing to allow the riders to carry it. Up to this point Franklin had +made no reply to Webbe's abuse, but upon this new attack he dropped the +advertisement of the magazine and put a letter in its stead in the +_Gazette_ of December 11. He acknowledged it to be true that the riders +did not carry Bradford's _Mercury_, but explained that the +Postmaster-General, Colonel Spotswood, had forbidden it because Mr. +Bradford had refused to settle his accounts as late Postmaster at +Philadelphia. + +Webbe had the last word in the controversy in a reply to this letter +(_Mercury_, December 18), in which he showed that Franklin had not +complied with the order of Colonel Spotswood until the personal letters +appeared in the _Mercury_. + +In January of the following year Andrew Bradford published _The American +Magazine; or a Monthly View of the Political State of the British +Colonies_. + +Three days later Franklin issued _The General Magazine and Historical +Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America_. + +Three numbers only of Bradford's periodical appeared, and only one copy +is known to exist. It is lodged in the New York Historical Society. + +Franklin's magazine contained parliamentary proceedings, extracts from +sermons, a bit of verse of more than Franklinian foulness, rhymes +eulogizing Gilbert Tennent, and a manual of arms. The title-page wore +the coronet and plumes of the Prince of Wales. Franklin ridiculed his +rival's magazine in doggerel verse; his own he made no mention of in +his autobiography. Its publication ceased in June, 1741. + +_The General Magazine_ had given accounts of the excited discussion that +followed the visits paid to the colonies by George Whitefield. Tens of +thousands listened to the impressive sermons of the eloquent divine, +delivered from the balcony of the courthouse, which stood then on High +Street, in the centre of the city. There Franklin and Shippen and +Lawrence and Maddox might daily be seen, and there Benjamin Chew and +Tench Francis and John Ross might daily be heard. From that balcony John +Penn, freshly arrived from England, "showed himself to his anxious and +expectant people." One block east of the ancient courthouse was the +London Coffee-house, and there, too, were the publishing houses of those +days. Directly opposite to the Coffee-house, on the north side of High +Street, was the shop of the famous bookseller from London, James +Rivington, whose father in 1741 published Richardson's "Pamela," and +supplied six editions of it in a twelvemonth. Immediately to the west +was Robert Aitken, who published the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ and the +first English Bible in America. And hither, to the old Coffee-house, in +1754, William Bradford removed his famous hereditary press, and three +years later printed the third Philadelphia magazine. + +The first William Bradford arrived in Philadelphia in 1685, and brought +with him the second printing press that was set up in British North +America. Upon it, in the following year, he printed the first Middle +Colony publication, the "Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense." His son, Andrew +Sowle, named after a London printer of Friends' books, to whom the +father had been apprenticed, continued the business, and from 1712 to +1723 was the only printer in Pennsylvania. From his press, at the sign +of the Bible, issued the first American magazine. Andrew's nephew, +William Bradford, grandson of the first William, transferred the +business to the London Coffee-house, and in October, 1757, published the +first number of "_The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for the +British Colonies_. By a Society of Gentlemen. Printed and sold by +William Bradford." The policy of the new magazine was to support the +cause of the crown against France, and the Penns against Franklin and +the Friends. + +The French and Indian war brought the magazine into existence. "That +war," says the editor in his preface, "has rendered this country at +length the object of a very general attention, and it seems now become +as much the mode among those who would be useful or conspicuous in the +state, to seek an acquaintance with the affairs of these colonies, their +constitutions, interests and commerce, as it had been before, to look +upon such matters as things of inferior or secondary consideration." The +editor further relates the origin of the enterprise: "It was proposed by +some booksellers and others in London, soon after the commencement of +the present war, to some persons in this city who were thought to have +abilities and leisure for the work, to undertake a monthly magazine for +the colonies, offering at the same time to procure considerable +encouragement for it in all parts of _Great Britain_ and _Ireland_. + +"The persons to whom the proposal was made, approved of the design, but +gave for answer, that if it was to be a work of general use for all the +_British_ colonies, and not confined to the affairs of a few particular +ones, it could not be carried on without establishing an extensive +correspondence with men of leisure and learning in all parts of +_America_, which would require some time and a considerable expense. +This, however, has at length been happily effected, and proper persons +are now engaged in the design, not only in all the different governments +on this continent, but likewise in most of the _West India_ Islands." + +At the head of each issue of the magazine is a vignette in which the +French and English treatment of the Indian are contrasted. In the middle +of the picture an Indian leans upon his gun; on the left is a Briton +reading from the Bible, beneath his arm is a roll of cloth, symbolizing +the dress and manufactures of civilized life; on the right is a +Frenchman, extravagantly dressed, offering to the savage a tomahawk and +purse of gold. The vignette has the inferior motto: _Praevalebit +aequior_, and the title-page the further legend: _Veritatis cultores, +Fraudis inimici_. + +The first number (October, 1757) gave a variety of pleasing and +extraordinary information to curious readers: Indians, "broods of French +savages;" earthquakes, St. Helmo's fire, phosphorescence, aurora +borealis, mermen and mermaids, sea-snakes, _krakens_, etc., were jostled +together in charming confusion. + +The editor of the new magazine was the Rev. William Smith, first provost +of the College of Philadelphia. He was born near Aberdeen, Scotland, in +1727, and was invited to take charge of the Seminary of Philadelphia in +1752. His personality made the magazine a very fair representative of +the culture and refinement of Philadelphia society, when already through +the influence of the college and library the city was becoming "the +Athens of America," as, at a later date, it was frequently called. + +Smith published in eight successive numbers of the magazine a series of +papers called "The Hermit," and signed "Theodore." He desired these +contributions to be considered in the nature of a monthly sermon.... "In +composing these occasional lectures, I shall be animated with the +thoughts that they are not to be delivered to a single auditory, and in +the presence of persons among whom there might be many of my enemies, +but to this whole continent, and in a manner that can never create +prejudices against my person or performances, as I am to be forever +concealed" (Vol. I, p. 43). + +The earliest reference to the genius of Benjamin West is in the +_American Magazine_, p. 237, where of the 19-year-old Chester County boy +it is said, "We are glad of this opportunity of making known to the +world the name of so extraordinary a genius as Mr. West. He was born in +Chester County, in this province, and, without the assistance of any +master, has acquired such a delicacy and correctness of expression in +his paintings, joined to such a laudable thirst of improvement, that we +are persuaded, when he shall have obtained more experience and proper +opportunities of viewing the productions of able masters, he will become +truly eminent in his profession." This note accompanies a poem upon one +of Mr. West's portraits which, the editor remarks, "We communicate with +particular pleasure, when we consider that the lady who sat, the +painter who guided the pencil, and the poet who so well describes the +whole, are all _natives of this place, and very young_." + +The poet so happily applauded for his skill did indeed turn his verse +and his compliment gracefully. + + "Yet sure his flattering pencil's unsincere, + His fancy takes the place of bashful truth; + And warm imagination pictures here + The pride of beauty and the bloom of youth. + + Thus had I said, and thus, deluded, thought, + Had lovely Stella still remained unseen, + Whose grace and beauty to perfection brought + Make every imitative art look mean." + +The poem was dated Philadelphia, February 15, 1758, and signed +"Lovelace." + +R. W. Griswold, "Poets and Poetry of America" (p. 24) gives Joseph +Shippen (1732-1810) the credit of the lines, and Moses Coit Tyler +assigns them to the same source (History of American Literature, II, +240). Another poem by Shippen, "On the Glorious Victory near Newmark in +Silesia," was contributed to the magazine in March, over the signature +"Annandius." + +Hearty appreciation of earnestness and ability in the young is a +characteristic of this _American Magazine_ and of its editor, who, with +the true teacher's instinct, freely awarded superb and splendid praise +to the humble and obscure for good work done. Among the young men who +received recognition was Francis Hopkinson, whose first poem appeared in +the first number (p. 44), "Ode on Music, written at Philadelphia, by a +young gentleman of seventeen, on his beginning to learn the +harpsichord." In the following month Hopkinson contributed two poems in +imitation of Milton, "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," the first dedicated +to B. C--w, Esq. (Benjamin Chew), under whom the author studied law, and +the latter a tribute of affection to William Smith. + + "And thou, O S--th! my more than friend, + To whom these artless lines I send, + Once more thy wonted candor bring, + And hear the muse you taught to sing; + The muse that strives to win your ear, + By themes your soul delights to hear, + And loves like you, in sober mood, + To meditate of _just_ and _good_. + + Exalted themes! divinest maid! + Sweet Melancholy, raise thy head; + With languid look, oh quickly come, + And lead me to thy _Hermit home_. + + Then let my frequent feet be seen + On yonder steep romantic green, + Along whose yellow gravelly side, + _Schuylkill_ sweeps his gentle tide. + + Rude, rough and rugged rocks surrounding, + And clash of broken waves resounding, + Where waters fall with loud'ning roar + Rebellowing down the hilly shore."[1] + +[1] Alluding to William Smith's home at Falls of Schuylkill. There is a +further description in prose of Smith's summer home upon page 123 of the +magazine. + +The other poems by Hopkinson in the _American Magazine_ are, "Ode on the +Morning" (page 187), "On the taking of Cape Breton" (page 552) and +"Verses inscribed to Mr. Wollaston" (the portrait painter). + +The most remarkable poem in the magazine appeared in March, 1758. It +occupied seven octavo pages, and drew in its wake three closely-printed +pages of learned notes. It set forth its subject "On the Invention of +Letters and the Art of Printing. Addrest to Mr. Richardson, in London, +the Author and Printer of Sir Charles Grandison and other works for the +promotion of Religion, Virtue and Polite Manners, in a corrupted age." +The anonymous author lived in Kent County, Maryland. "His intimacy with +Mr. Pope," he says, "obliged him to tell that great Poet, above twenty +years ago, that it was peculiarly ungrateful in him not to celebrate +such a subject as the INVENTION OF LETTERS, or to suffer it to be +disgraced by a meaner hand." + +It may not be amiss to note that the author credits Koster with the +glory of the invention of printing. + + "Ah! let not Faustus rob great Koster's name + Like him, who since usurp'd Columbus' fame. + Pierian laurels flourish round his tomb; + And ever-living roses breathe your bloom!"[2] + +[2] Which reminds us of Sandys's translation of a fifteenth century +epitaph: + + "Let Koster's fame live ever in our hearts + Unshar'd; whose art preserves all other arts." + +Many wild conjectures have been made as to the identity of the Kentish +man who contributed this long, careful and learned poem to American +literature, but the author has hitherto remained unknown. In the summer +of 1891, while reading in the British Museum, I found a copy of the +_American Magazine_, annotated throughout in a contemporary hand, and +apparently the gift of a Philadelphian to an Englishman who had visited +the colonies. This would seem to be evident from the character of the +notes, which read sometimes like the following: + +"This poem was written by Francis Hopkinson, _whom you will remember in +Philadelphia_." Unfortunately, many of the historical notes have been +cut away in the binding of the book. In this volume the author of the +poem in question is named and clearly defined. To James Sterling, the +author of "The Parricides" and "The Rival Generals," must be given +whatever credit this poem, written in Maryland, can confer upon its +author. + +Among Sterling's other poetic contributions is to be noted "A +Pastoral--To his Excellency George Thomas, Esq., formerly Governor of +Pennsylvania, and now General of the Leeward Islands." This poem was +written in 1744, on the occasion of the death of Alexander Pope, by "one +of the first encouragers of this magazine." The Governor saw the +manuscript and gave permission for its publication. It is an invitation +to the muses to visit these lands: + + "Haste lovely nymphs, and quickly come away, + Our sylvan gods lament your long delay; + The stately oaks that dwell on Delaware + Rear their tall heads to view you from afar. + The Naiads summon all their sealy crew + And at _Henlopen_ anxious wait for you. + + * * * * * + + But hark, they come! The _Dryads_ crowd the shore, + The waters rise, I hear the billows roar! + Hoarse Delaware the joyful tidings brings, + And all his swans, transported, clap their wings." + +The author's apologetic introduction of these enthusiastic verses to the +editor is worth preserving: + +"As this _poetical brat_ was conceived in _North America_, you may, if +you please, suffer it to give its first squeak in the world through the +channel of the _American Magazine_. But if it should appear of a +_monstrous_ nature, stifle the wretch by all means in the birth, and +throw it into the river _Delaware_, from whence, you will observe, it +originally sprung. The parent, I can assure you, will shed no tears at +the funeral. If _Saturn_ presided at its formation instead of _Apollo_, +it will want no _lead_ to make it sink, but fall quickly to the bottom +by its own natural heaviness, as I doubt not many other modern +productions, both in prose and verse, + + ('Sinking from thought to thought--a vast profound') + +would have done, had they been put to the trial." + +The last of Sterling's contributions to the _American Magazine_ was an +"Epitaph on the late Lord Howe:" + + Patriots and chiefs! Britannia's mighty dead, + Whose wisdom counsel'd, and whose valor bled, + With gratulations, 'midst your radiant host, + Receive to _glory_ Howe's heroic ghost; + Who self severe, in Honor's cause expir'd, + By native worth and your example fir'd, + In foreign fields, like Sidney, young and brave, + Doom'd to an early not untimely grave. + Death flew commission'd by celestial love, + And, scourging earth, improv'd the joys above. + + Impassive to low pleasure's baneful charm, + Inur'd to gen'rous toils, and nerv'd for arms, + He saw, indignant, our worst foes advance + With strides gigantic--_Luxury_ and _France_! + A martial spirit emulous to raise, + He fought, as soldiers fought, in Marlbro's days. + His country call'd--the noble talents given, + 'Twas his t'exert--success belonged to heaven! + High o'er his standard and the crimson shore + Plum'd victory hover'd, till he breathed no more. + 'Midst piles of slaughter'd foes--"_French_ slaves, he cry'd," + "My _Britons_ will revenge"--then smil'd and dy'd! + +The unknown annotator of the British Museum copy writes against these +lines, "I cannot yet learn who was the author of this noble epitaph." +But it is clearly by Sterling. In the letter that accompanies the poem +he writes: "Please to know that the grandfather of the late Lord Howe, +when in a high employment in the reign of Queen Anne, was a generous +patron to the father of the author of these lines, by presenting to her +Majesty a memorial of his long services in the wars of Ireland, Spain +and Flanders, and by farther promoting his pretensions to an honourable +post in the army, of which he would have been deprived by a +court-interest in favour of a younger and unexperienced officer." This +letter is written from Maryland. It corresponds with all that we know of +Sterling's life. His gratitude was unfailing to those who had helped the +advancement of his father. In his dedication of "The Rival Generals" +(London, 1722), Sterling, addressing himself to William Conolly, Lord +Justice of Ireland, wrote: "Nor can I omit this occasion of testifying +my gratitude to your Excellency, who so generously contributed, in the +First Session of this Parliament, to do my Father that Justice in his +Pretensions which was deny'd him in a late reign." + +In July, 1758, _The American Magazine_ published James Logan's letters +to Edmund Halley establishing Thomas Godfrey's claim to the invention of +"Hadley's quadrant." Thomas Godfrey, a glazier by trade, was one of the +original members of Franklin's "Junto," and boarded in Franklin's house +on High Street. He was born in Bristol, Pa., in 1704. While working for +James Logan, at Stenton, he accidentally discovered the principle upon +which he constructed his improvement upon Davis's quadrant. The new +instrument was first used in Delaware Bay by Joshua Fisher, of Lewes. +"Mr. Godfrey then sent the instrument to be tried at sea by an +acquaintance of his, an ingenious navigator, in a voyage to Jamaica, who +showed it to a captain of a ship there just going for England, by which +means it came to the knowledge of Mr. Hadley" (_American Magazine_, p. +476). The Royal Society of England, after hearing James Logan's +communication, decided that both Godfrey and Hadley were entitled to the +honor of the invention, and sent to Godfrey household goods to the +value of two hundred dollars. + +In spite of the clearest facts and undoubted dates, the quadrant is +still persistently miscalled by the name of its English appropriator.[3] + +[3] The remains of Thomas Godfrey were removed by John Watson from the +neglected spot where they were laid to Laurel Hill Cemetery, and in 1843 +a monument was erected over them by the Mercantile Library Company of +Philadelphia. Near by, and close to the river, is the grave of Charles +Thomson, "the man of truth," the Sam. Adams, of Philadelphia, marked by +an Egyptian obelisk of granite. + +"Junius" is the signature to a neat poem called "The Invitation" in the +_American Magazine_ for January, 1758, and appended to it is the +following editorial note: "This little poem was sent to us by an unknown +hand, and seems dated as an original. If it be so, we think it does +honor to our city; but of this we are not certain. All we can say is +that we do not recollect to have seen it before." This poem, which +William Smith thought to be an honor to Philadelphia, was the +composition of Thomas Godfrey the younger, then a youth of twenty-one +years. Editorial encouragement won from him an "Ode on Friendship" in +August, and an "Ode on Wine" in September. Young Godfrey was apprenticed +to a watchmaker, but through the friendly influence of the Provost of +the College he obtained a lieutenant's commission in the provincial +forces raised against Fort Du Quesne. He died of fever when only +twenty-seven years of age, and his poems, with an "account of T. +Godfrey," were published by Nathaniel Evans in 1767. + +Nathaniel Evans knits together, in a manner, this _American Magazine_ +and the _Port Folio_, as he was the biographer of Godfrey, who was a +contributor to the former, and the Petrarch-lover of Elizabeth Graeme or +Mrs. Ferguson, a helper of the latter. That he was hopeful of his city's +future is evident from the following prophecy, which makes a part of his +"Ode on the Prospect of Peace," 1761: + + "To such may Delaware, majestic flood, + Lend from his flow'ry banks a ravish'd ear, + Such notes as may delight the wise and good, + Or saints celestial may induce to hear! + For if the Muse can aught of time descry + Such notes shall sound thy crystal waves along, + Thy cities fair with glorious Athens rise, + Nor pure Ilissus boast a nobler song." + +Godfrey's chief claim to recognition in the history of American +literature is his authorship of the "Prince of Parthia," the first +dramatic work produced in America. It was written in 1758, and acted at +the new theatre in Southwark, Philadelphia, April 24, 1767. + +Several of the contributors to the magazine were members of the faculty +of the college. Ebenezer Kinnersley, chief master of the English School, +summarized the month's progress in philosophy; John Beveridge supplied +the readers of the magazine with Latin poems, which were too lightly +timbered for the loud praise of William Smith, who pronounced them of +equal merit with the choicest Latinity of Buchanan, Erasmus and +Addison.[4] + +[4] "The Trustees of the College of this city, who have never spared +either pains or expense to supply every vacancy in the institution with +able masters and professors, having been informed of Mr. Beveridge's +capacity, experience and fidelity, were pleased at a full meeting, on +the 13th of this month (June, 1758), unanimously to appoint him +Professor of Languages and Master of the Latin School, in the room of +Mr. Paul Jackson" (_American Magazine_, p. 437). + +Thomas Coombe, assistant minister of Christ Church, translated some of +Beveridge's Latin poems, and was himself the author of "The Peasant of +Auburn; or, the Emigrant," published in 1775, and intended as a +continuation of "The Deserted Village." + +A collection of poems came from distant Virginia from the pen of Mr. +Samuel Davies (1724-1761), the dissenting minister in Hanover County, +Virginia, who made use of the pseudonym "Virginianus Hanoverensis." + +Davies accompanied Gilbert Tennent to England in 1753, and successfully +solicited funds for the College of New Jersey. He at first declined to +succeed Jonathan Edwards as President of Princeton College, but on the +invitation being repeated he accepted, and presided over the college for +eighteen months. In a note to one of his sermons occurs the following: +"That heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope +Providence has preserved in so signal a manner for some important +service to his country." + +The magazine also contained the usual number of miscellaneous articles +signed with the alliterative and indicative names that were then in +vogue--Timothy Timbertoe, Richard Dimple, Hymenaeus Phiz and the like. + +Galt, in his life of Benjamin West (p. 77), says that "Dr. Smith +largely contributed to elevate the taste, the sentiment and topics of +conversation in Philadelphia." He certainly conducted the _American +Magazine_ to a considerable literary and financial success; and the +magazine came abruptly to an end on the completion of its first year in +consequence of Dr. Smith's visit to England, where his worth was +recognized and rewarded with honorary degrees from Oxford, Aberdeen and +Dublin. + +On the 2d of January, 1769, the American Philosophical Society, the +oldest learned society in America, was formed by merging into one +organization the "American Philosophical Society" and the "American +Society held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge." Benjamin +Franklin was chosen president. In this month and year, January, 1769, a +new magazine appeared in Philadelphia, printed at the press of the +Bradfords, as we learn from Hall and Sellers' _Pennsylvania Gazette_ of +January 12, 1769, which continued the title of _The American Magazine_. +The editor and proprietor, Mr. Lewis Nicola, was a member of the +American Philosophical Society, having been elected to membership April +8, 1768, and held the office of curator for 1769. + +In a certain sense his magazine became the voice of the Society; for +each number, except the first, contained an appendix of sixteen pages +made up of the Society's publications. Nicola was born in Dublin, +Ireland, in 1717. He served in the English army, but in 1766 resigned +his commission, emigrated to America, and settled in Philadelphia. + +He was town-major of Philadelphia during the Revolution, wrote several +military works, but is chiefly remembered for his letter to General +Washington in May, 1783, asking him to accept the title of King of the +United States. + +The magazine contained various practical articles and sketches of +American occurrences. In the February number was a large and curious +engraving, the only one in all the issues of the magazine, representing +the manner of fowling in Norway. The engraver is unknown. + +The price of the magazine was 13 shillings, Pennsylvania currency. It +was suspended in September, 1769. + +"_The Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Monthly Museum_, Vol. I, 1775, +Philadelphia, printed and sold by R. Aitken, printer and bookseller, +opposite the London Coffee-house, Front Street," was published amidst +preparations for war. The publisher apologized for lack of variety in +the year's work, by saying that we in America "are deprived of one +considerable fund of entertainment which contributes largely to the +embellishment of the magazines in Europe, viz., discoveries of curious +remains of antiquity.... We can look no further back than to the rude +manners and customs of the savage aborigines of North America ... but +the principal difficulty in our way is the present importunate situation +of public affairs ... every heart and hand seems to be engaged in the +interesting struggle for American Liberty." + +Thomas Paine arrived in Philadelphia in 1775, with letters from +Franklin, and was immediately employed by Aitken as editor of the +_Pennsylvania Magazine_, with a salary of L25, currency, a year. In his +preface to the first number, January 24, 1775, Paine wrote: "We presume +it is unnecessary to inform our friends that we encounter all the +inconveniences which a magazine can possibly start with. Unassisted by +imported materials we are destined to create what our predecessors in +this walk had only to compile; and the present perplexities of affairs +have rendered it somewhat difficult for us to procure the necessary +aids. Thus encompassed with difficulties, the first number of the +_Pennsylvania Magazine_ entreats a favorable reception; of which we +shall only say, like the early snowdrop, it comes forth in a barren +season, and contents itself with modestly foretelling that _choicer +flowers_ are preparing to appear." + +The vignette of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ represents the Goddess of +Liberty, with a pole and a liberty-cap, holding a shield with the +Pennsylvania arms. On the right of the figure is a mortar inscribed "The +Congress." In the foreground is a plan of fortifications with cannon +balls. In the background are cannon with battle-axes and pikes. A gorget +with "Liberty" upon it is hanging on a tree, and beneath it the motto + + "Juvat in Sylvis habitare." + +The magazine had numerous illustrations: a portrait of Goldsmith, plans +of a threshing machine, an electrical machine, Donaldson's dredging +machine, etc., etc. + +Francis Hopkinson and Witherspoon were among the earliest contributors. +William Smith and Provost Ewing assisted in later numbers. Benjamin Rush +and Sergeant and Hutchinson imparted to Paine, in their walks in State +House yard the suggestions of "Common Sense," the pamphlet which "had a +greater run than any other ever published in our country," and which, as +Elkanah Watson said, "passed through the continent like an electric +spark. It everywhere flashed conviction, and aroused a determined +spirit, which resulted in the Declaration of Independence, upon the 4th +of July ensuing. The name of Paine was precious to every Whig heart, and +had resounded throughout Europe." + +A department of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_, called "Monthly +Intelligence," reported the progress of the war, and furnished +engravings of the battles, and of General Gage's lines. It was the first +illustrated magazine published in the city. It was also the first that +made more than one volume. The second volume began in January, 1776, +and ended in July, 1776. The last number contained the Declaration of +Independence. + +Phillis Wheatley, negro servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston, and +daughter of an African slave, published her only volume of poems, +dedicated to the Countess of Huntingdon, in 1773. The best, if the word +may be applied to such performances, of her occasional poems, published +after 1773, and which have never been collected into a volume, was a +poem "To his Excellency Gen. Washington," in the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ +of April, 1776: + + "Celestial choir! enthron'd in realms of light, + Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I write." + +The poem was dated October 26, 1775, and sent with a letter to +Washington, who replied (Feb. 2, 1776): + +"However undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style +and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents; in honor +of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the +poem had I not been apprehensive that while I only meant to give the +world this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the +imputation of vanity. This, and nothing less, determined me not to give +it place in the public prints." + +Another President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, with less +urbanity, but more acumen, said of these verses that they were beneath +criticism.[5] + +[5] "It is true that Mr. Jefferson has pronounced the poems of Phillis +Wheatley below the dignity of criticism, and it is seldom safe to differ +in judgment from the author of 'Notes on Virginia,' but her conceptions +are often lofty, and her versification often surprises with unexpected +refinement. Ladd, the Carolina poet, in enumerating the laurels of his +country, dwells with encomium on 'Wheatley's polished verse;' nor is his +praise undeserved, for often it will be found to glide in the stream of +melody. Her lines on imagination have been quoted with rapture by Imlay, +of Kentucky, and Steadman, the Guiana traveller, but I have ever thought +her happiest production the 'Goliah of Gath'" (John Davis, p. 87). + +Paine himself printed some virile verses in the magazine, notably the +lines "On the Death of Wolfe" (though not published for the first time), +signed "Atlanticus," "Reflections on the Death of Clive," and "The +Liberty Tree." + +Bradford's magazines had failed because of the imperfect communication +between the colonies. Aitken's magazine, throughout its life of +eighteen months, is overshadowed by the war, and the grave news +successively reported from both sides of the ocean. + +The next Philadelphia editor was the eccentric social wit, Hugh Henry +Brackenridge, the author of the capital political satire, "Modern +Chivalry" (1792), the first satirical novel written in America. He was a +native of Scotland, born in 1748, but was only five years of age when +his father settled in York County, Pennsylvania. He was graduated from +Princeton College in 1771, in the same class with Philip Freneau, in +conjunction with whom he delivered, at the commencement, a poem in +dialogue upon "The Rising Glory of America," which was published by +Robert Aitken in 1772. + +Francis Bailey was the publisher who had the courage to undertake +another monthly magazine in the midst of the war, and with Brackenridge +as editor, which insured some pungent writing, he issued in January, +1779, the first number of "_The United States Magazine_; a Repository of +History, Politics and Literature." "Our attempt," said the editor, "is +to paint the graces on the front of war, and _invite the muses to our +country_." This, it will be noticed, is the second express invitation to +the Maids of Parnassus to "migrate from Greece and Ionia," and to "cross +out those immensely overpaid accounts." The first was extended during +the French and Indian war, and the second in the very aim and flash of +the Revolution. That the muses did not immediately accept the +invitation, and "placard 'Removed' and 'To Let' on the rocks of their +snowy Parnassus," we are reminded by the opening lines of the "Epistle +to W. Gifford," written by another Philadelphia poet, William Cliffton, +at the very close of the century.[6] + +[6] William Cliffton (1772-1799) was the son of a blacksmith in +Southwark. His poem "The Group" (1793) was written in ridicule of the +Commissioners of Southwark. + + "In these cold shades, beneath these shifting skies, + Where fancy sickens, and where genius dies; + Where few and feeble are the muse's strains, + And no fine frenzy riots in the veins." + +The editor, in his preface to the reader, asks the very pertinent +question, "For what is man without taste, and the acquirements of +genius? An ourang-outang with the human shape and the soul of a beast." +His excuse for the magazine is that it is started to refute the British +scoff, that when separated from England, the colonies would become mere +"illiterate ourang-outangs," and proceeds to the axioms that "We are +able to cultivate the belles-lettres, even disconnected with Great +Britain;" and that "Liberty is of so noble and energetic a quality, as +even from the bosom of a war to call forth the powers of human genius in +every course of literary fame and improvement." + +The vignette for the magazine was made by Pierre E. Du Simitiere +(P. E. D.), who also made the one that adorned the _Pennsylvania +Magazine_. It represented a triumphal arch with a corridor of thirteen +columns, the arch decorated with thirteen stars, symbolizing the States, +Pennsylvania being the Keystone. Under the arch is the figure of Fame, +with cap of liberty and trumpet. + +The artist was a native of Switzerland, who arrived in Philadelphia in +1766. His collection of curiosities he opened to the public under the +name of "The American Museum." + +The first number of this magazine contained certain verses in +explanation of the emblematic vignette: + + "The arch high bending doth convey, + In a hieroglyphic way, + What in noble style like this + Our united empire is! + The pillars, which support the weight, + Are, each of them, a mighty State; + Thirteen and more the vista shows, + As to vaster length it grows; + For new States shall added be, + To the great confederacy, + And the mighty arch shall rise + From the cold Canadian skies, + And shall bend through heaven's broad way + To the noble Mexic Bay! + In the lofty arch are seen + Stars of lucid ray--thirteen! + When other States shall rise, + Other stars shall deck these skies, + There, in wakeful light to burn + O'er the hemisphere of morn." + +As might be expected from Brackenridge's management, the magazine was +full of wit and scurrility. The January (1779) number contained +Witherspoon's delightful satire upon James Rivington, the Royal Printer, +of New York. It was a parody of Rivington's "Petition to Congress," and +was called "The Humble Representation and Earnest Supplication of J. R., +Printer and Bookseller in New York--To his Excellency Henry Laurens, +Esq." And Dr. Witherspoon, who was President of Princeton College when +Brackenridge was a student there, supplied his former pupil during his +year's editorship with many a sly sarcasm and bit of grave philosophy. + +"The Cornwalliad, an Heroic Comic Poem," was begun in March, 1779, and +was continued through several numbers. It described various incidents in +the British retreat to New York after the battles of Trenton and +Princeton. + +In the January number was begun a series of articles under the title of +"The Cave of Vanhest," concerning which the following letter was written +October 2, 1779, by Mrs. Sarah Bache to Benjamin Franklin: "The +publisher of _The United States Magazine_ wrote to you some time ago to +desire you would send him some newspapers, and sent you some of his +first numbers. I suppose you never received them. I now send six, not +that I think you will find much entertainment in them, but you may have +heard that there was such a performance, and may like to see what it +is; besides, its want of entertainment may induce you to send something +that may make the poor man's magazine more useful and pleasing. Tell +Temple 'The Cave of Vanhest' is a very romantic description of Mr. and +Mrs. Blair's house and family; the young ladies that the traveller +describes and is in love with are children, one seven months younger +than our Benjamin, and the Venus just turned of five." + +The most amusing episode in the history of the magazine was the quarrel +that arose between its editor and General Charles Lee. Brackenridge +published in full, in Vol. I, p. 141, a letter written by "an officer of +high rank in the American service to Miss F----s (Franks), a young lady +of this city." The letter contained a humorous challenge growing out of +a merry war in which Miss F. had said that "he wore green breeches +patched with leather," and the writer declared that he wore "true sherry +vallies," that is, trousers reaching to the ankle with strips of leather +on the inside of the thigh. Lee immediately published in the +_Pennsylvania Advertiser_ an angry letter upon "the impertinence and +stupidity of the compiler of that wretched performance with the pompous +title of the magazine of the United States." In reply, Brackenridge +compared Lee, as usual, to his favorite ourang-outang, and added: "You +are neither Christian, Jew, Turk nor Infidel, but a _metempsychosist_! +You have been heard to say that you expect when you die to transmigrate +to a Siberian fox-hound, and to be messmate to Spado." Upon this Lee, in +a rage, called at the office with the intention of assaulting the +editor. Brackenridge's son cleverly relates what followed. General Lee +"knocked at the door, while Mr. Brackenridge, looking out of the +upper-story window, inquired what was wanting. 'Come down,' said he, +'and I'll give you as good a horse-whipping as any rascal ever +received.' 'Excuse me, General,' said the other, 'I would not go down +for two such favors.'" + +Besides the publication of the State Constitution and a windy war over +female head-dress and hard money, there is little else to say of _The +United States Magazine_. But near the close of the volume the appearance +of an imitation of Psalm 137, with the foot-note, "by a young gentleman +to whom, in the course of this work, we are greatly indebted," brings +for the first time into notice, if not into prominence, a writer +destined to display the finest sense of poetic form and the nicest +delicacy of poetic sentiment to be found among his contemporaries in +America, and who, through his opposition to Hamilton and the +Federalists, should win from Washington the epithet of "that rascal +FRENEAU." + +Philip Freneau was born in New York in 1752; he had been a classmate at +Princeton of James Madison and Brackenridge, and on his return from the +Bermudas in 1779, he assisted the latter in his editorial work in +Philadelphia. The first edition of his poems was prepared in +Philadelphia by Francis Bailey, the publisher of _The United States +Magazine_, in 1786. + +Freneau was one of the first American poets to be read and appreciated +in England. At the time when Byron was making merry with the notion of +an American poet bearing the name of Timothy (Dwight), Campbell was +appropriating a line, "The hunter and the deer--a shade" from Freneau's +"Indian Burying Ground," and knitting it into "O'Connor's Child," and +Sir Walter Scott in "Marmion," by altering a single word, was +transparently concealing his theft from "The Heroes of Eutaw." + +In December, 1779, the suspension of the magazine was announced, the +editor declaring in explanation that the publication was "undertaken at +a time when it was hoped the war would be of short continuance, and the +money, which had continued to depreciate, would become of proper value. +But these evils having continued to exist through the whole year, it has +been greatly difficult to carry on the publication; and we shall now be +under the necessity of suspending it for some time--until an established +peace and a fixed value of the money shall render it convenient or +possible to take it up again." + +For seven years no one attempted another magazine, and then in +September, 1786, by a combination of publishers, _The Columbian +Magazine, or Monthly Miscellany_, modelled upon the _Gentleman's +Magazine_ and the _London Magazine_, began its career. It was the most +ambitious enterprise of the kind that had yet been undertaken in +America. The printing facilities were still very limited, and the +subscription lists for all publications small. In 1786 there was one +daily paper printed in Philadelphia, and but three or four weekly ones. +In the same year four printers after much deliberation agreed to print a +small edition of the New Testament. "Before the Revolution a +spelling-book, impressed upon brown paper, with the interesting figure +of Master Dilworth as a frontispiece, was the extent of American skill +in printing and engraving." Improvements came very rapidly, and before +the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century Barlow's +_Columbiad_ was magnificently printed in Philadelphia, and the great +undertakings of Rees' "Cyclopaedia" and Wilson's "Ornithology" entered +upon. The monthly expense of printing the _Columbian_ was said to be +L100, which was paid to mechanics and manufacturers of the United +States. The magazine was inaugurated by Matthew Carey, T. Siddons, C. +Talbot, W. Spotswood and J. Trenchard. + +Carey published, in the first number, "The Life of General Greene," +whose portrait was the first in the volume. He also contributed "The +Shipwreck," "A Philosophical Dream" (a vision of 1850), and "Hard +Times." In the "Philosophical Dream" Carey made the first suggestion of +a canal to unite the waters of the Delaware and Ohio. He withdrew from +the _Columbian Magazine_ in December, 1786, finding that the quintuple +team could not work well together. + +Charles Cist, another of the combination, was born at St. Petersburg, +August 15, 1738, was graduated at Halle, and, upon coming to +Philadelphia in 1773, entered into partnership with Melchior Steiner, +with whom he published Paine's "Crisis"--"These are the times that try +men's souls." He died in Philadelphia, December 2, 1805. + +John Trenchard became sole proprietor of the publication in January, +1789. He was an engraver by profession, having studied under James +Smithers, and engraved most of the plates for the magazine. His son, +Edward Trenchard, entered the navy, visited England and induced Gilbert +Fox, then a 'graver's apprentice, to return with him to America. In this +country Fox became an actor, and for him Joseph Hopkinson wrote "Hail +Columbia." + +"The Foresters, an American Tale," was written for the _Columbian_ by +Jeremy Belknap, who sought to portray humorously in it the history of +the country and the formation of the Constitution. + +The _Columbian_ of May, 1789, gave an elaborate account of Washington's +progress to New York, with the notable receptions at Gray's Ferry and at +Trenton. + +In July, 1790, the name of the magazine was changed to "The Universal +Asylum and Columbian Magazine, by a Society of Gentlemen." Benjamin Rush +was one of its most faithful contributors. A number of the engravings +and several of the articles illustrated the agricultural improvements of +the times. John Penington contributed in 1790 "Chemical and Economical +Essays to Illustrate the Connection between Chemistry and the Arts." The +editor of the _Columbian Magazine_ for nearly three years was Alexander +James Dallas, a sketch of whose life is to be found in a later magazine, +the _Port Folio_, of March, 1817. Dallas was born in Jamaica, but +received his earliest education near London from James Elphinstone, +through whom he became acquainted with Dr. Johnson and Dr. Franklin. He +became a citizen of Philadelphia in 1785, studied law, edited the +_Columbian_, held various offices of trust in the State, and became +successively Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of War for the +United States. Robert Charles Dallas, brother of the editor, author of +the "History of the Maroons" and a score of other works, is best known +as the friend and counsellor of Lord Byron. His last work was his +"Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron from 1808 to 1814." It was at +his request that Byron published "Childe Harold," and to him Byron gave +the profits arising from that and four other of his poems. Dallas was +related to Lord Byron through the marriage of his sister with the poet's +uncle. George Mifflin Dallas, son of the editor of the _Columbian_, +became Vice-President of the United States under President Polk. His +commencement oration at Princeton, in 1809, on the "Moral Influence of +Memory," is printed in the _Port Folio_ of that year (Vol. II, p. +396[7]). Two members of the family, Rev. A. R. C. Dallas, son of Robert +Charles, and his cousin, Rev. Charles Dallas, served at Waterloo, and +were afterward prominent in philanthropic work. + +[7] John Quincy Adams' commencement oration "On the Importance and +Necessity of Public Faith to the Well-being of a Government," was +inserted in the _Columbian Magazine_ (1787) by Jeremy Belknap. + +A. J. Dallas reported for the _Herald_ and for the _Columbian_ the +debates of the State Convention until the Federalists, annoyed by the +publications, withdrew their subscriptions from the _Columbian_, which +led Benjamin Rush to write to Noah Webster (February 13, 1788): "From +the impudent conduct of Mr. Dallas in misrepresenting the proceedings +and speeches in the Pennsylvania Convention, as well as from his +deficiency of matter, the _Columbian Magazine_, of which he is editor, +is in the decline." + +Nevertheless the _Columbian_ continued to prosper. The circulation at +times made necessary a second edition, which was reset at considerable +expense, and often contained additional articles. + +The final number appeared in December, 1792. The principal motive for +the suspension, the editors declared, "is to be found in the present law +respecting the establishment of the post-office, which totally prohibits +the circulation of monthly publications through that channel on any +other terms than that of paying the highest postage on private letters +or packages." A futile attempt was made to continue the magazine in +January, 1793, under the title, "_The Columbian Museum, or Universal +Asylum_: John Parker, Phila." The only number that I have seen contains +sixty pages. + +In January, 1787, or one month after withdrawing from the management of +_The Columbian Magazine_, Matthew Carey published the first number of +_The American Museum, or Repository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive +Pieces, etc., Prose and Poetical_, which proved to be the first really +successful literary undertaking of the kind in America. General +Washington said of it in a letter dated June 25, 1788: "No more useful +literary plan has ever been undertaken in America." John Dickinson in +the same year also commended it. Governor Wm. Livingstone wrote: "It far +exceeds in my opinion every attempt of the kind which from any other +American press ever came into my hands." Among others who swelled the +chorus of praise were Governor Randolph of Virginia, Ezra Stiles of +Yale, Timothy Dwight, Francis Hopkinson and Provost Ewing. "Citizen" +Brissot, in his "New Travels in the United States" (1788), considered +Carey's _Museum_ to be "equal to the best periodical published in +Europe." The first number attracted great attention; Franklin furnished +the first article, "Consolation for America;" Benjamin Rush followed +with an "Address to the People of the United States",[8] the burden of +which was that the "Revolution is not over;" already the cry was going +up for civil service reform to deliver the country from the oppression +of politics. The edition--one thousand copies--was soon exhausted. "I +had not means," said Carey, "to reprint it. This was a very serious +injury, many persons who intended to subscribe declining because I could +not furnish them the whole of the numbers." + +[8] Benjamin Rush's papers in the _Museum_ and in the _Columbian_ were +printed in book form, "Essays--Literary, Moral and Philosophical," 1798. + +The work of editorship was no novelty to Matthew Carey. He had had full +and fiery experience in both Ireland and America. He was born in Ireland +in 1760, and became acquainted with Dr. Franklin in Paris while living +there to avoid prosecution at home. He was imprisoned for the +publication of the _Volunteer's Journal_ in Dublin. He arrived in +Philadelphia, November 15, 1784, and in the following January began to +publish the _Pennsylvania Evening Herald_, the first newspaper in the +United States to furnish accurate reports of legislative debates. He was +wretchedly poor, but Lafayette laid the foundation of his fortune by a +generous gift of four hundred dollars in notes of the Bank of North +America. The first pamphlet that Carey published in Ireland was a +treatise on duelling. Soon after his arrival in America he gave a +practical illustration of the text by engaging in a duel with Colonel +Oswald, in which he received a wound that stayed him at home for more +than a year. + +_The American Museum_ was the first magazine in Philadelphia to reflect +faithfully the internal state of America. Bradford's magazines, +intensely loyal, looked across the ocean and saw little at home worthy +of record. Paine and Brackenridge expended their erratic genius in +abusive satire upon the Tories; the _Columbian Magazine_ avoided the +serious political problems of the times, and granted much of its space +to agricultural improvements and the beginnings of manufactures. + +In almost every page, however, of the _Museum_ the reader catches +glimpses of the anxieties and disorders of the critical years of party +strife that attended the making and adoption of the Constitution. The +social order was weak, there was a general revolt against taxation. "I +am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the war," wrote Jay to +Washington, June 27, 1786. David Humphreys, one of the "Hartford Wits," +who came into prominence at the close of the war, and who at this time +(1786) was engaged in the composition of the _Anarchiad_ and other +satirical verse, aimed at the disorder of the time, contributed to _The +Museum_ his poem on the "Happiness of America." Francis Hopkinson's +gentle prose satires and his poems of revolutionary incidents reappeared +in its pages. Anthony Benezet uttered his oft-repeated protest against +the iniquity of slavery. Philip Freneau's odes found place almost +monthly in the poet's corner. Through several numbers ran a series of +articles, though not for the first time published, "On the Character of +Philadelphians," signed Tamoc Caspipina, the pseudonym of the Rev. Jacob +Duche, brother-in-law of Francis Hopkinson, and derived from the initial +letters of his title as "the assistant minister of Christ's Church and +St. Peter's in Philadelphia, in North America." + +I cull from volume five a few specimen articles to illustrate the wealth +of local and national history embedded in this popular periodical: + +VOL. V, p. 185.--Report on the petition of Hallam and Henry to license a +theatre in Philadelphia. + +P. 197.--Account of the battle of Bunker Hill. + +P. 220.--Letters of "James Littlejohn"--_i.e._, Timothy Dwight. + +P. 233.--Franklin on food. + +P. 235.--Duche's Description of Philadelphia. + +P. 263.--Insurrection in New Hampshire. + +P. 293.--Dr. Franklin's Prussian Edict. + +P. 295.--Impartial Chronicle, by W. Livingstone. + +P. 300.--Poetical address to Washington, by Governor Livingstone. + +P. 363.--Earthquake in New England. + +P. 400.--Battle of Long Island. + +P. 473.--Franklin's idea of an English school. + +P. 488.--"How to Conduct a Newspaper,"--Dr. Rush. + +The same cause that led to the suspension of the _Columbian Magazine_ +put a period also to the _American Museum_, and in the same month. On +December 31, 1792, Matthew Carey, in bidding farewell to the public that +had supported his undertaking, ascribed its failure to "the +construction, whether right or wrong, of the late Post-Office law, by +which the postmaster here has absolutely refused to receive the _Museum_ +into the Post-Office on any terms." Although the circulation of the +magazine had been large for those days, the publisher had derived small +profit from his venture. The subscription price, $2.40 per annum for two +volumes, making together more than one thousand pages, was too low; and +during the six years, between 1786 and 1792, Carey was always poor, and +in his _Autobiography_ declares that during those years he was never at +any one time the possessor of four hundred dollars. But in those years +of personal penury and public turmoil, Matthew Carey laid the foundation +of the American system of social science. + +Six years after the suspension of the magazine, Carey attempted to +re-animate it, and published _The American Museum, or Annual Register of +Fugitive Pieces, Ancient and Modern_, for the year 1798, printed for +Matthew Carey. Philadelphia: W. & R. Dickson, Lancaster. Matthew Carey, +whose introduction was dated June 20, 1799, wrote of the renascent +publication, "If this _coup d'essai_ be favorably received, I shall +publish a continuation of it yearly." No other volume was ever issued. + +_The Medical Examiner_ was published in 1787, and made one volume octavo +of 424 pages. It was edited by J. B. Biddle. + +_The Philadelphia Magazine_, the first that ever bore the name of the +city, made two volumes. The first volume extended from February to +December, 1788, and contained 448 pages. The second volume began in +January, 1789, and closed in November of the same year (416 pages). The +magazine is said to have been edited by Elhanan Winchester. His +"Lectures on Prophecies" are bound up with the second volume of the +periodical. The lectures were originally issued in each volume. + +_The Arminian Magazine_, Vol. I, 1789, pp. 600; Vol. II, 1790, pp. 620, +was published by Prichard and Hall, in Market Street, and was edited by +John Dickins, the scholarly pastor of the church that he named the +"Methodist Episcopal." + +In magazines addressed to women, Philadelphia has always been fertile +and successful. "The first attempt of the kind made in this country" was +"_The Lady's Magazine and Repository of Entertaining Knowledge_, Vol. I, +for 1792. By a Literary Society. Philadelphia: W. Gibbons, North Third +Street, No. 144." + +The motto chosen by the editors was "the mind t'improve and yet amuse;" +and the fair sex, who are supposed to have received the proposals for +the work with "extraordinary marks of applause," are assured that "the +greatest deference shall be paid to their literary communications," and +they are promised month by month offerings of "the most _lively prose_ +and _pathetic verse_." + +The magazine contains anecdotes, poems, female correspondence, +similitude between the Egyptians and Abyssinians, manners and customs of +the Egyptians, schemes for increasing the power of the fair sex, essays +on ladies' feet, etc., etc. It began June, 1792, and lived until May, +1793. + +_The Philadelphia Minerva_ was filled with old and new fugitive pieces. +It was published weekly by W. T. Palmer, at No. 18 North Third Street, +beginning in 1795 and ceasing in July, 1798. + +_The Pennsylvania Magazine_, of the very slightest significance, was +issued in 1795, and made one volume. + +_The American Monthly Review or Literary Journal_. Jan.-Aug., 1795. +Phila.: S.[amuel] H.[arrison] Smith. + +_The American Annual Register, or Historical Memoirs of the United +States_, made one volume in 1796. + +_The Literary Museum, or Monthly Magazine_. Jan.-June, 1797. "Printed by +Derrick and Sharples, and sold by the principal booksellers in Phila. +Price, one quarter of a dollar." + +_The Methodist Magazine_ was founded by John Dickins in January, 1797, +and was edited by him until his death, in 1798 (September 27). It was +printed by Henry Tuckness. It was chiefly made up of sermons. + +_The American Universal Magazine_ consisted chiefly of selections from +other periodicals. The first volume began Monday, January 2, 1797, and +was completed March 20, 1797. It was embellished with Du Simitiere's +portrait of William Penn. It was "printed by S.[amuel] H.[arrison] Smith +for Richard Lee, No. 131 Chestnut Street." It was commenced as a weekly +journal, but after January 23 it was published biweekly. After February +6 it was printed by Budd and Bartram, and contained frequent articles +favoring the abolition of slavery. It was taken in hand by new printers +on March 6, and sent out by Snowden and McCorkle. + +The second volume ran from April 3 to June 13, and was printed by the +proprietor, Richard Lee, at No. 4 Chestnut Street. + +The third volume, July 10, to November 15, 1797, informed the patrons of +the publication that the editor "would be assisted by a gentleman whose +literary abilities have been frequently sanctioned by public +approbation." It was printed by "Samuel H. Smith and Thomas Smith." + +The fourth volume, with which the publication ended, lived from December +5, 1797, to March 7, 1798. + +Philadelphia, in 1793, had been visited by the terrible scourge of +yellow fever. In 1798 the pestilence returned, and repeated in +Philadelphia the horrors recorded of London in the previous century. + +During this year certain magazines were published in the city that may +almost be called journals of the plague. + +_The Philadelphia Monthly Magazine, or Universal Repository of Knowledge +and Entertainment_, was begun in January, 1798, and printed for Thomas +Condie, stationer in Carter's Alley (No. 20). It lasted through the +year, and made two volumes. The publishers appended to the second volume +"A History of the Pestilence, commonly called Yellow Fever, which +almost desolated Philadelphia in the months of August, September and +October, 1798. By Thomas Condie and Richard Folwell." The history +contains 108 pages, an appendix of 31 pages, and a list of all the names +of those who died of the fever--3,521 in all. In the month of September +alone 2,004 persons died of the plague, being one in every twenty-five +of the total population. + +This magazine contained the first long biographical sketch of +Washington. The "Memoirs of George Washington, Esq., Late President of +the U. S.," ran through the months of January, February, March, May and +June, 1798. + +It is in this magazine that we find the earliest notice of Mrs. Merry, +who was the first eminent actress that crossed the ocean. "Biographical +Anecdotes of Mrs. Merry of the theatre, Philadelphia, by Thomas Condie," +April, 1798 (Vol. I, p. 187). With a reputation in England second only +to Mrs. Siddons, this brilliant actress was added to the American stage +by Mr. Wignal, of the Philadelphia Theatre, who had gone abroad in 1796 +to recruit his company and, if possible, to engage some first-rate +actors in London. Mrs. Merry arrived at New York in October, 1796, and +made her first appearance in the Western World in December in the +character of _Juliet_. She was the daughter of John Brunton, of the +Norwich Theatre, and the wife of "Della Crusca" Merry, the well-known +playwright and author. + +_The Weekly Magazine of Original Essays, Fugitive Pieces and Interesting +Intelligence_, was begun February 3, 1798. It was conducted by James +Watters, of Willing's Alley, a young man who was the manager for +Dobson's American edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The first +article in the periodical introduces us to the first professional man of +letters in America. It is "The Man at Home," by Charles Brockden Brown. +Although unsigned, no one familiar with Brown's style could read a page +without discerning him in the short snap-shot sentences of the story. On +page 228 of the first volume three pages of the "Sky-Walk" are +"extracted from Brown's MSS." The singular title of this unfinished +story, which was afterward woven into the web of "Edgar Huntley," seems +to have been as puzzling to readers then as now, and it is explained in +a stray note on page 318 of the magazine as "a popular corruption of +Ski-Wakkee, or Big Spring, the name given by the Lenni Lennaffee (sic) +or Delaware Indians to the district where the principal scenes of this +novel are transacted." "The Man at Home" ran through thirteen numbers of +the first volume, which closed on April 28. + +In the second volume (page 193) Brown commenced the publication of his +first important novel, "Arthur Mervyn, or Memoirs of the Year 1793," the +first chapter of which appeared June 16, 1798. It contained vivid +descriptions of the scenes during the pestilence of 1793-8. Brown's +genius naturally dealt with weird and sombre subjects and extraordinary +passions and experiences. While occupied with this romantic narrative of +the horrors of the plague, his intimate friend, Elihu Hubbard Smith, who +had introduced him to the "Friendly Club," in New York, died of the +fever, and his own life was for a time in danger by it. + +The third volume of the magazine (August 4, 1798-April 6, 1799) was +printed by Ezekiel Forman, the young and gifted editor, James Watters, +having died of the fever. A commemorative note of the stricken editor is +to be found in the number bearing date February 2, 1799 (page 129). + +In consequence of Watters' death, no number of the magazine was +published between August 25, 1798, and February 9, 1799. The property +was then bought from the late editor's mother, and was continued until +June 1, 1799, when it came abruptly to an end, leaving the fourth volume +unfinished and with only 256 pages. + +_The Weekly Magazine_ had carried upon its covers in 1798 a proposal to +publish the novel, "Sky Walk, or the Man Unknown to Himself," a few +pages of which had been given in the magazine. The manuscript was known +to be with James Watters, but its fate is unknown; it probably was +destroyed with the rest of the unfortunate editor's papers. + +One other Philadelphia publication was terminated in consequence of the +plague, which, although properly classified as a newspaper, is yet of so +much literary and historical interest that it would seem to deserve a +place in this narrative. _Porcupine's Gazette and United States Daily +Advertiser_ was published by William Cobbett on Second Street, opposite +Christ Church. It was first issued on Saturday evening, March 4, 1797. +Up to that time no such cut and thrust weapon had been seen in America, +and no such truculent foul-mouthed editor had plucked a pen out of his +pilcher by the ears on this side of the Atlantic. We had known editors +who were learned in profanity and gifted in vulgarity, but none that had +just such a bitter trick of invective as William Cobbett, or "Peter +Porcupine," as he was pleased to call himself. He was born at Farnham, +in Surrey, in 1762, within a stone's throw of Sir William Temple's Moor +Park, where lived for ten years the greatest master of virile and +virulent English in all the long annals of our literature. It is a +curious coincidence that the first book that fell into the well-nigh +penniless hands of Cobbett was "The Tale of a Tub," and in it he +discovered and appropriated the secret of Jonathan Swift's burning +English. + +In Philadelphia, Cobbett advocated the extremest Tory principles, and +requested the contributors to his paper, "whether they write on their +business or mine, to pay the postage, and place it to my account. This +is a regulation I have been obliged to adopt to disappoint certain +Democratic blackguards, who, to gratify their impotent malice and put me +to expense, send me loving epistles full of curses and bawdry." + +During the prevalence of the plague, Cobbett ejected his venomous +superfluity upon Dr. Benjamin Rush, comparing him to Doctor Sangrado, in +Gil Blas, because he advocated blood-letting as a remedy for the fever. +Rush, stung into retaliation, sued Cobbett, and recovered from him five +thousand dollars. This, together with an additional three thousand +dollars, the cost of the suit, ruined Cobbett, and he removed to +Bustleton, August 29, 1799, where he continued for a short time to +publish his "_Gazette_," weekly. The last barbed arrow, quivering with +scorn, was fired from Bustleton, January 13, 1800, and the author +returned to England. + +Cobbett also published, in Philadelphia, _The Political Censor_, or +_Monthly Review_, which lasted from March, 1796, to March, 1797. + +A German magazine was published in Philadelphia, in 1798: +_Philadelphisches Magazin fuer die deutschen in Amerika_. Philadelphia: +H. and J. R. Kaemmerer. + +_The Dessert to the True American_ measures a year from July, 1798 to +July, 1799. + +The last magazine published in Philadelphia in the eighteenth century +was the _Philadelphia Magazine and Review, or Monthly Repository of +Information and Amusement_. It was begun in January, 1799, and printed +for Benjamin Davies, 68 High Street. In announcing this work, the editor +alluded to the unsuccess that had attended all efforts to establish +magazines in Philadelphia, and he believed the cause to be the spurious +patriotism that led the editors to reject whatever was not of native +production. The magazine was strongly "anti-Gallican" in character. It +closed its career with its first volume. + +I have made no mention in this necessarily incomplete enumeration of the +eighteenth century magazines of an early religious publication, _The +Royal Spiritual Magazine_, by Joseph Crukshank, 8vo, 1771. A few stray +numbers exist, but I have never seen a copy of it. How long it was +published I do not know. + +Christopher Sauer printed, at irregular intervals, in 1764, the +_Geistliches Magazien_. There are fifty numbers in the first volume. +Sauer cast his own type, and this magazine is therefore printed, as he +himself says on page 136 of the second volume, with the first type made +in America. + + + + +THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. + +THE PORT FOLIO. + + +At the beginning of this century Philadelphia was the most attractive +city in America to a young man of brains and ambition. It was the seat +of an active social, political and literary life. Poet George Webbe +noticed in 1728 the leadership of Philadelphia in all matters pertaining +to the higher life of the country, and prophesied: + + Rome shall lament her ancient fame declined, + And Philadelphia be the _Athens_ of mankind. + +General Lee might petulantly exclaim in 1779, "Philadelphia is not an +Athens," and Neal might write in _Blackwood's Magazine_ that the +Philadelphians were "mutton-headed Athenians," but the name became a +favorite one with which to characterize the thriving Pennsylvania town +which exercised such sovereign sway and masterdom over its sister +cities. Benjamin West, in a letter to Charles Willson Peale (September +19, 1809), predicts that Philadelphia will in time "become the seat of +refinement in all accomplishments ... the _Athens_ of the Western +Empire." Harrison Hall and the gentlemen who published and maintained +the _Port Folio_ always styled Philadelphia the "_Athens_ of America." + +As the capital of the government it was the centre of wealth and +fashion. Fine old mansions and gardens adorned Chestnut and High +Streets; Judge Tilghman in the Carpenter Mansion, Israel Pemberton in +Clarke Hall, Thomas Willing, the merchant prince, at Third and Walnut, +and his partner, Robert Morris, at Sixth and High Streets, Edward +Shippen at Fourth and Walnut, the Norris family in their home upon the +site of the U. S. Bank and Custom House, and in their great mansion at +Fair Hill, the Hamiltons at Bush Hill and the Woodlands, dispensed +lavish hospitality. + +William Bingham, father-in-law of the eminent banker Alexander Baring, +who was afterwards Lord Ashburton, entertained in grand style. General +Washington drove out from the Morris mansion along the unpaved streets +south of Chestnut Street in a coach drawn by six horses and attended by +two footmen. In his stables on Minor Street was a stud of twelve or +fourteen horses. General John Cadwallader, father-in-law of the second +Lord Erskine, in his great house at Second and Spruce, made liberal use +of his immense fortune. + +In the first year of this century the University of Pennsylvania, which +had played so great a part in the Revolution, and to which Louis XVI +had, in 1786, made so generous a donation, was removed to its new home +in the spacious buildings erected for the executive mansion. The +Philadelphia Library, which had been Franklin's first scheme for public +improvement, and which had been enriched by the generous gifts of James +Logan, was furnishing such opportunities for literary work as were +unknown elsewhere. John Quincy Adams sought in vain to cultivate in +Boston the "Wistar parties" that Caspar Wistar had made so famous in +Philadelphia. One hundred years ago there was only one scientific +foundation within this Republic that was not in Philadelphia, and that +was the American Academy in Boston. The American Philosophical Society +in its venerable hall in State House Yard numbered Presidents +Washington, Jefferson and Adams among its members. The best scholars of +Europe and America read its "Transactions" or contributed to its +"Proceedings." From his private observatory David Rittenhouse made the +earliest astronomical observations in this country, and rested his +transit instrument upon the ancient stanchions that still maintain their +place in the Philosophical Society window looking out upon the fine old +trees planted by the father of John Vaughan, secretary and librarian of +the society. The only Natural History Museum in this country was opened +in 1802 at Third and Lombard by Charles Willson Peale; and far out on +the Schuylkill at Gray's Ferry, John Bartram, whom Linnaeus called "the +greatest natural botanist of the world," had planted the first botanic +garden. + +The number of foreign exiles who at this time were moving in +Philadelphia society gave a cosmopolitan character to the city, and lent +to it the air of foreign capitals. Talleyrand, Beaumais, Vicomte de +Noailles and his brother-in-law Lafayette, Volney, the Duc de +Liancourt, and General Moreau, and at a later date Joseph Bonaparte and +Murat, were but a few of the distinguished members of the "French +colony." + +JOSEPH DENNIE, the most interesting figure among American editors, came +to Philadelphia in 1799 as clerk to Timothy Pickering, who was then +Secretary of State, and his brilliant social qualities soon won him +recognition in the city. "The American Addison" he was called then, a +title he had won by the easy grace and pleasing melody of his style.[9] +He was born in Boston, August 30, 1768, and was sent to Harvard College, +where he proved a jibbing pupil, and was rusticated for a term of six +months. He industriously read all the books that were proscribed by the +Faculty, and ignored those studies that were recommended to him. His was +a brilliant but undisciplined mind, strongly independent, impetuous, +fond of contradiction, full of surprises, "studious of change and fond +of novelty," as he often defined himself. Soon after beginning the study +of law, Dennie wrote, "In the infancy of a profession 'tis chimerical to +talk of undeviating integrity. Let hair-brained enthusiasts prate in +their closets as loudly as they please to the contrary, a young +adventurer in any walk of life must take advantage of the events and +weaknesses of his fellow-mortals, or be content to munch turnip in a +cell amidst want and obscurity." Of course, all this is very outrageous, +but altogether what we should expect from such "unimproved mettle, hot +and full." He abandoned the law, and was among the first men in America +to devote himself to literature. + +[9] When British reviewers styled Dennie "the American Addison," the +_Aurora Gazette_ broke forth into the following horse-laugh: "Exult, ye +white hills of New Hampshire, redoubtable Monadnock and Tuckaway! Laugh, +ye waters of the Winiseopee and Umbagog Lakes! Flow smooth in heroic +verse, ye streams of Amorioosack and Androscoggin, Cockhoko and +Coritocook! And you, merry Merrimack, be now more merry!" + +His first experience in journalism was as editor of the _Tablet_ in +Boston, May 19, 1795. The paper lived just thirteen weeks. + +Dennie next tried his Bohemian fortunes in Walpole, N. H., and +contributed to the _Farmer's Weekly Museum_, a good and popular journal +that had been founded in 1790, the papers entitled "The Lay Preacher," +upon which rests his literary fame. Of this magazine he became editor +in 1796, and at once gathered about him a number of noble swelling +spirits who contributed racy and original reading to the "Farmer's" +subscribers.[10] + +[10] Dennie always remained faithful to his New England friends. T. G. +Fessenden had been one of the contributors to the _Farmer's Museum_; +when his "Terrible Tractoration" appeared, Dennie wrote to the _Port +Folio_, "To Connecticut men studious either of Hudibrastic or solemn +poetry, we look with eager eyes for the most successful specimens of the +inspiration of the Muse." Fessenden was the last to maintain the fame of +the "Hartford Wits;" and the glory of "McFingal," and "The Conquest of +Canaan" and the "Anarchiad," and the "Political Green house" and "The +Echo" faded with the failing of the _Farmer's Museum_. + +The publisher became bankrupt in 1798, and Dennie pilgrimaged to +Philadelphia, without fortune and without a patron. His service under +Pickering was of short duration. + +In connection with Asbury Dickins, a son of John Dickins of the +_Methodist Magazine_, he began, January 3, 1801, the publication of the +_Port Folio_, by Oliver Oldschool, Esq., the best of Philadelphia +magazines, which he continued to edit until his death, in 1812. Dennie's +strong personality and engaging qualities of mind and heart attracted +attention, and made him many friends. With genuine editorial tact and +skill he drew to himself all the literary ability of the city, which was +then "the largest and most literary and most intellectually accomplished +city in the Union," to quote the words of a later editor of the _Port +Folio_, Dr. Charles Caldwell. There was scarcely a more picturesque +figure in Philadelphia in the first decade of this century than that +presented by the editor of the _Port Folio_. It would be necessary to go +to London and to Oliver Goldsmith to find another to outshine this +Oliver Oldschool as Buckingham saw him slipping along Chestnut Street to +his office "in a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen small-clothes, +white silk stockings and pumps, fastened with silver buckles which +covered at least half the foot from the instep to the toe." Dennie was +but 44 years of age when he died; Buckingham says he was "a premature +victim to social indulgence." Those were the days of hard drinking and +of high thinking. Nothing so frugal as a cup of Madeira and a cold +capon's leg would satisfy Dennie's epicurean soul. He was a social +creature, and those _noctes ambrosianae_ of the Tuesday Club when Tom +Moore, who celebrated the club in his eighth epistle, or some other +lover of Anacreon was the guest, were often kept up until it was too +late to go to bed. Wine songs and Martial-like epigrams of pointed +indecencies are correspondingly brisk and plentiful in the pages of the +_Port Folio_. + +In the introduction to the magazine Dennie stated that the word _Port +Folio_ was not to be found in Johnson's Dictionary, and proceeded to +define it as "a portable repository for fugitive papers." "Editors," he +continued, slyly satirizing his contemporaries, "ambitious of sonorous +or brilliant titles, frequently select a name not intimately connected +with the nature of their work. We hear of the _Mirror_ and the _Aurora_; +but what relation has a literary essay with a _polished plane of glass_, +or what has politics to do with the _morning_?[11]" The editor began with +a "lilliputian page" because he was warned by "the waywardness of the +time." "A waywardness which," he explains, "alludes to our indifference +to elegant letters, the acrimony of our party bickerings, and to the +universal eagerness for political texts and their _commentary_.... Amid +such 'wild uproar' the gentle voice of the Muse is scarcely audible." In +these early years of the century literature was wretchedly paid. John +Davis, the vivacious English writer of travels, offered, in 1801, two +novels to any bookseller in the country who would publish them, on the +condition of receiving fifty copies. The booksellers of New York could +not, he said, undertake them, for they were dead of the fever. It is +interesting to find Dennie writing in his introduction, "Literary +industry, usefully employed, has a sort of draught upon the bank of +opulence, and has the right of entry into the mansion of every +Maecenas.... Authors far elevated above the mire of low avarice have +thought it debasement to make literature common and cheap." + +[11] The editor of the _Aurora_ retorted in kind, and dubbed the _Port +Folio_ "Portable Foolery." + +The _Port Folio_ at once sprang into popular favor. In the life of +Josiah Quincy, by his son, we read, "The _Port Folio_ was very far +superior in literary ability to any magazine or periodical ever before +attempted in this country. Indeed, it was no whit behind the best +English magazines of that day, and would bear no unfavorable comparison +with those of the present time on either side of the water. Its +influence was greatly beneficial in raising the standard of literary +taste in this country, and in creating a demand for a higher order of +periodical literature and for more exact and careful editorship." + +Dennie was a daring and devoted lover of England. He had no patience +with American innovations that, as it seemed to him, were certain to +lose history by being severed from the traditions of England. When the +doctrine of social equality was flaunted before him, or the glittering +clauses of the Declaration of Independence were quoted to him, his +indignation forgot all discretion. He was soon bandying hot words with +the _Aurora_, and marking with his scorn every new phase of Americanism. +Speaking in his editorial person he declared: + +"To gratify the malignancy of fanatics he will not asperse the +Government or the Church, the laws or the literature of England. +Remembering that we are _at peace_ with that power--that the most +wholesome portions of our polity are modelled from hers--that we kneel +at shrines and speak a language common to both, he will not flagitiously +and foolishly advert to ancient animosities, nor with rash hand attempt +to hurl the brand of discord between the nations." In the same +connection he attacks Gallic philosophy and the equality of man, the +latter of which he styles an "execrable delusion of hair-brained +philosophy." Others might speak of "the _Republic_ of letters;" with +Dennie it was the _Monarchy_ of letters. Several articles ran through +the _Port Folio_ of 1801 on the sentiment and style of the Declaration +of Independence, characterizing that famous document as a "false and +flatulent and foolish paper." In the same volume (page 215) Dennie, +offended by the introduction of some new Americanism into politics, +writes: + +"Unsatisfied with _acting_ like fools, men begin to enlarge their scheme +and talk and write from the vocabulary of folly. All this, however, +quadrates with the character of a good republican; as he hates England, +why not murder _English_?" In April, 1803, Dennie denounced Democratic +Government, and prophesied that of it would come "civil war, desolation +and anarchy." His pranks had now become too broad to bear with, and on +the Fourth of July this latest publication of his was condemned as "an +inflammatory and seditious libel," and a bill of indictment was found. +The case was tried in November, 1805, Ingersoll and Hopkinson appearing +for the defence. The verdict reached was "not guilty," and Mr. Joseph +Dennie had the triumphant pleasure the next week in his report of the +case to define democracy for the benefit of his enemies as "a fiend more +horrible than any that the imagination of the classical poets ever +conjured up from the vasty deep of their Pagan Hell." + +When Dennie learned that a certain Noah Webster was to publish "A +Columbian Dictionary" containing "American corrections of the English +language," he had a few suggestions to offer. The Columbian language he +understood to be an elegant dialect of the English, but, he went on, +"there is one remark which I would wish with deference to submit to our +great lexicographer before I finish this paper. As his dictionary, I +understand, is to be the dictionary of the vulgar tongue in New England, +would it not be better to prefix to it the epithet _Cabotian_ instead of +Columbian? Sebastian Cabot first discovered these Eastern States, and +ought not to be robbed of the honor of giving his name to them. I would, +therefore, propose calling New England Cabotia, the other States +America, and the Southern continent Columbia." He then proposed, in +irony, a list of a few "Cabotian words"--happify, gunning, belittle, +quiddle, composuist, sot, etc. _Lengthy_ he stigmatizes as "a foolish, +flat, unauthorized, unmusical Indian word".[12] In conclusion (_Port +Folio_, I, page 370), "let then the projected volume of _foul and +unclean_ things bear his own Christian name and be called NOAH'S ARK!" + +[12] "Lengthy" is the American for long. It is frequently used by the +_classical_ writers of the New World.--(John Davis' "Travels in the +United States," page 126.) + +We meet the first notice of Benjamin West, as a boy of 19 years, in +Bradford's second _American Magazine_. In the first volume of the _Port +Folio_ we find the first of a long series of sketches in praise of +West's genius and generosity. "It is a melancholy and miraculous +circumstance," the satirical writer begins, "that this American artist, +after experiencing the good fortune to be born and educated in +Pennsylvania, should sullenly retreat to England and exchange the +glorious privileges of our happy, tranquil and rising Republic for the +smoke and servility of the city of London. It is perfectly inexplicable +that he should barter citizenship for knighthood, that he should receive +a king's money, and, more provoking still, be soothed by regal praise. +What are titles, honours and gold to an independent Republican who, +remaining at home, might have had the noblest and amplest opportunities +of _giving away_ as many pictures as he pleased." + +It is a singular history, that of the boy from Chester County, whom +Byron called-- + + The dotard West, + Europe's worst daub, and poor England's best. + +The Archbishop of York, for whom he had painted his "Agrippina landing +with the Ashes of Germanicus," presented the young American to George +III. "The Departure of Regulus from Rome" won for him the royal favor. +In 1768 he was one of the founders of the Royal Academy, and in 1792 he +succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as President of that institution. + +The _Port Folio_ is full of accounts of "Christ Healing the Sick," +West's generous gift to the Pennsylvania Hospital, and of his "Death on +the Pale Horse," and his "Paul and Barnabas" in the Pennsylvania +Academy. + +In a letter from West to Charles Willson Peale, dated November 3, 1809, +and published in the _Port Folio_ of the following year, reference is +made to a young gentleman, studying under his directions, "whose talents +only want time to mature them to excellence," and West desires his +friends in Philadelphia to procure for the young man the means of +studying another year. That rising artist, who had early felt the +generous assistance of Benjamin West, was Thomas Sully, who had the +honor, in 1837-8, of painting the scene of Queen Victoria's coronation, +and his daughter, to save her Majesty fatigue, stood for her, wearing +the royal robes. + +John Trumbull, son of "Brother Jonathan" the patriot, who painted the +famous "Declaration of Independence," was imprisoned for treason in +London, and was only released by Benjamin West, to whom he had been +introduced by Franklin, becoming his surety. Gilbert Stuart, greatest of +American portrait painters, who has graven the face of Washington upon +our memories, learned his art and received his earliest encouragement in +the English home of Benjamin West. It is a matter of interesting and +singular memory that a Boston boy, John Singleton Copley, sent +anonymously to West, in 1760, a portrait which at once attracted +attention. It was "The Boy and the Flying Squirrel," the boy +representing Copley's half-brother, Henry Pelham. Through West's +influence the picture was exhibited at Somerset House. Through West +again, Copley was elected a fellow of the Society of Artists of Great +Britain. When he crossed the ocean to make his home near West, he took +with him his Boston-born son, John Singleton, Jr., who became in 1827, +the year that the _Port Folio_ suspended, Lord Chancellor of England, +and was raised to the peerage as Baron Lyndhurst. To Lyndhurst, as the +greatest of orators, Lord Lytton dedicated his _St. Stephen's_. + +The leading article of the _Port Folio_ of May 28, 1803, is devoted to +young Leigh Hunt, and treats him as an American poet, and assures the +public that he "is a deserving object of patronage." Again, in June 11, +1803, some sonnets and odes are quoted from Hunt's _Juvenilia_, Hunt +being then a lad of 19 years, and the author is said to be a "blossom +from our own garden." Although the editor lays claim to Leigh Hunt as a +Philadelphian and to his works as American, he is advised to abide in +London: "Let him remain in London, 'the metropolis of the civilized +world,' and remember with the judicious Sancho that St. Peter is very +well at Rome.... It affords the editor the purest pleasure to have it in +his power to advance the claims of a child of genius, a nephew of Sir +Benjamin West, an honor to that country from which he is descended and +to that which protects him." + +Isaac Hunt, the father of the author of "The Story of Rimini," and +Benjamin West married sisters, daughters of Stephen Shewell, merchant, +in Philadelphia. Leigh Hunt, in 1810, writing in the _Monthly Mirror_, +gave an eloquent and tender description of his mother, Mary Shewell, +which was reprinted in the _Analectic Magazine_ of Philadelphia, in +1814. "Here, indeed," he exclaimed, "I could enlarge both seriously and +proudly; for if any one circumstance of my life could give me cause for +boasting, it would be that of having had such a mother. She was indeed a +mother in every exalted sense of the word, in piety, in sound teaching, +in patient care, in spotless example." The father, Isaac Hunt, came to +Philadelphia from the Barbadoes, was graduated at the College of +Philadelphia, read law in the city, and was admitted to the bar in 1765. +He was an uncompromising Tory. It is said that on one occasion he +pointed out to a bookseller a volume of reports of trials for high +treason as a proper book for John Adams to read. Alexander Graydon, one +of the faithful contributors to the _Port Folio_, in his "Memoirs of a +Life Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania," relates the following incident +which, no doubt, led to the accident of Leigh Hunt's birth in England, +and to the loss of "Abou ben Adhem" to America: "A few days after the +carting of Mr. Kearsley, Mr. Isaac Hunt, the attorney, was treated in +the same manner, but he managed the matter much better than his +precursor. Instead of braving his conductors, like the Doctor, Mr. Hunt +was a pattern of meekness and humility; and at every halt that was made +he rose and expressed his acknowledgments to the crowd for their +forbearance and civility. After a parade of an hour or two, he was set +down at his own door, as uninjured in body as in mind. He soon after +removed to one of the islands, if I mistake not, to Barbadoes, where, it +is understood, he took orders." + +Leigh Hunt was not the only English poet of far-shining fame who was of +American origin. Percy Bysshe Shelley was the grandson of a quack doctor +in Newark, N. J., who, according to a local tradition, married the widow +of a New York miller. Fitz-Greene Halleck lived and died in an old house +in Guilford, Connecticut, built upon ground that had belonged to Bysshe +Shelley, before he went to England and became master of Castle Goring. +Many another great life in England was bound with strands of intimate +connection to the history of America. John Keats's brother George made +his home in Kentucky, and his descendants are still residents of +Philadelphia. Tench Francis, the merchant, who was for many years the +agent for the Penns in their domain, and who was the first cashier of +the Bank of North America, was a cousin of Sir Philip Francis, the +reputed author of the "Junius" letters. Sir Philip wrote to Tench's +brother, Turbott, whom he called, familiarly, "Tubby:" "At present I am +bound to the Ganges, but who knows whether I may not end my days on the +banks of the Ohio? It gives me great comfort to reflect that I have +relatives, who are honest fellows, in almost every part of the world. In +America the name of Francis flourishes. I don't like to think of the +quantity of salt water between us. If it were claret I would drink my +way to America." The name of Francis certainly flourishes in +Philadelphia. The intricate little settlement of Francisville, within +the city, perpetuates the name of the family. + +It has always been asserted and believed that Gulian Crommelin +Verplanck, of New York, was the first American editor of Shakespeare. A +few jottings from the _Port Folio_ will show that he has too rashly been +placed upon the pinnacle, and that the honor justly belongs to Joseph +Dennie. + +The _Port Folio_ of February 11, 1804 (p. 46) advertises "the first +complete edition of Shakespeare in this country, from the text of the +best editors of Shakespeare. To be published by Hugh Maxwell and Thomas +S. Manning." No editor's name is mentioned, but in the following month +(March 10, 1804) Dennie tells the whole story: "The editor, having, at +the request of his publisher, undertaken to superintend a new edition of +the Plays of Shakespeare, is particularly desirous of inspecting the +first folio edition. This is probably very scarce, and may be found only +in the cabinet of some distant virtuoso. But the owner of this rare book +will be very gratefully thanked if the editor can have permission to +consult it for a short season." Later on (April 14, p. 119) Dennie +confesses some further "wants:" "During some weeks in which the editor +has been engaged in researches respecting the text of Shakespeare he +has had frequent occasion to acknowledge the kindness of many literary +gentlemen who have directed his attention to many books auxiliary to his +labors. But notwithstanding his own inquisitiveness and the aid of +others, he still has not had the good fortune to find the following, for +the whole or any one of which he will be particularly obliged:--'Remarks +on Shakespeare's Tempest,' 'An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir +John Falstaff, by Mr. Maurice Morgan, 8 vo, 1777,'" etc., etc. + +After this there can be no doubt that the useful notes to the 1807 +edition, signed "J. D.," are from the pen of Joseph Dennie. Although he +edited but one volume, he is the first American editor, and the honors +are transferred from New York to Philadelphia. + +Charles Brockden Brown was the first man in America to cultivate +literature as a profession; Dennie was the second. When inaugurating the +_Port Folio_ he wrote of himself: "He has long been urged by a sober +wish, or, if the sneering reader will have it so, he has long been +deluded by the visionary whim, of making literature the handmaid of +fortune, or at least of securing something like independence, by +exertion, as a man of letters." + +Of course Dennie and his colleagues who drew their poetry from Pope and +their prose from Addison had no sympathy with the new romantic poetry +that at the time of the birth of the _Port Folio_ was issuing from the +English Lakes. "William Wordsworth" said the _Port Folio_ of 1809 +"stands among the foremost of those English bards who have mistaken +silliness for simplicity, and, with a false and affected taste, filled +their papers with the language of children and clowns" (_P. F._, Vol. +VII, p. 256). + +The first American edition of Wordsworth was published in Philadelphia +in 1802. It is exceedingly rare, and bears the following imprint: + +LYRICAL BALLADS, | with | other poems: | In Two Volumes. | By W. +WORDSWORTH. | [Motto] Quam nihil ad genium, papiniane, tuum! | Vol. I. | +From the London Second Edition. | PHILADELPHIA: | _Printed and sold by +James Humphreys,--At the N. W. Corner of Walnut and Dock street, 1802._ +2 _vols._ 120. VOL. I, _pp._ xxii-159. VOL. II, _pp._ 172. + +The earliest notice of John Howard Payne is in the _Port Folio_, new +series, Vol. I, p. 101 (1806). Payne was then a lad of fourteen years, +and already editor of the _Thespian Mirror_ in New York. + +The _Port Folio_, new series, Vol. II, p. 421, contains an account of +the first dramatic performance composed in North Carolina, "NOLENS +VOLENS; or, _The Biter Bit_," written by Everard Hall, a gentleman of +North Carolina. + +Dennie died January 7, 1812, and was buried in St. Peter's churchyard. A +monument was erected to him, and the inscription carved upon it, which +errs only in the place of his nativity, was written by his friend, John +Quincy Adams: + + Joseph Dennie, + Born at Lexington, Massachusetts, + August 30, 1768; + Died at Philadelphia, January 7, 1812; + Endowed with talents and qualified by education + To adorn the senate and the bar; + But following the impulse of a genius + Formed for converse with the muses + He devoted his life to the literature of his country. + As author of "The Lay Preacher," + And as first editor of the _Port Folio_, + He contributed to chasten the morals, and to + Refine the taste of this nation. + To an imagination lively, not licentious, + A wit sportive, not wanton, + And a heart without guile, he + United a deep sensibility, which endeared + Him to his friends, and an ardent piety, + Which we humbly trust recommended him + to his God. + Those friends have erected this tribute of their + Affection to his memory; + To the mercies of that God is their resort + For themselves and for him. + MDCCCXIX. + +John Quincy Adams, who wrote the lines upon the monument, was an old and +valued friend of Dennie's, and one of the earliest contributors to the +_Port Folio_. + +His "Tour Through Silesia," afterward reprinted in London in two octavo +volumes, first appeared in the _Port Folio_ in 1801. He also contributed +to the first number of the magazine a version of the thirteenth satire +of Juvenal, and intended to continue the translation of Juvenal, but +abandoned the project when Gifford's work was announced. A brother of +John Quincy Adams, who was a resident of Philadelphia, had been a +fellow-student with Dennie at Harvard. + +The obituary notice of Dennie in the _Port Folio_ of February, 1812, did +not satisfy his friends. His life was related at greater length, +accompanied by a silhouette, in May, 1816 (_Port Folio_, page 361). This +time the affection and admiration for the man found right expression. It +was said that Dennie had "erected the first temple to the muses on his +natal shore;" and "when the Muse of History shall hereafter narrate the +story of our rapid progress from ignorance, poverty and feebleness, to +knowledge, splendor and strength, the name of Dennie will be inscribed +among the most worthy of those who laboured to procure these invaluable +blessings" (page 170). + +A complete list of the contributors to the _Port Folio_ would be the +history of literature in Philadelphia for the first quarter of this +century. The articles were almost never signed, and while the thin +disguises of assumed names are in most cases easily penetrable, some +that occur infrequently are only identified with much difficulty. + +The last editor of the _Port Folio_, Mr. John E. Hall, published in 1826 +"The Philadelphia Souvenir, a collection of fugitive pieces from the +Philadelphia press, with biographical and explanatory notes." The book +was intended to be "a sort of _cairn_ to the memory of the circle of +friends which Mr. Moore has commemorated in his immortal poems." The +commemoration to which Mr. Hall refers is found in Moore's "eighth +epistle," addressed "To the Honourable W. R. Spencer:" + + Yet, yet forgive me, oh you sacred few, + Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew; + Whom, known and lov'd through many a social eve, + 'Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave. + Not with more joy the lonely exile scann'd + The writing traced upon the desert sand, + Where his lone breast but little hop'd to find + One trace of life, one stamp of human kind, + Than did I hail the pure, th' enlightened zeal, + The strength to reason and the warmth to feel, + The manly polish and the illumin'd taste, + Which,--'mid the melancholy, heartless waste + My foot has travers'd,--oh you sacred few! + I found by Delaware's green banks with you. + +The only pleasant memories of America that Thomas Moore carried back +with him to England were of the "nights of mirth and mind" spent "where +Schuylkill winds his way through banks of flowers." He was in +Philadelphia in the autumn of 1804, and was lionized by the _Port +Folio_; the eighth epistle in the "Poems Relating to America," from +which the lines above are quoted, was written at Buffalo, and it was +from Buffalo also that Moore sent to Dennie the manuscript of the +beautiful "Lines on Leaving Philadelphia," which was published in the +_Port Folio_ of August 31, 1805 (Vol. V, p. 271), and reprinted in +Brockden Brown's _Literary Magazine_, January, 1806 (Vol. III, p. 27). + + +LINES WRITTEN ON LEAVING PHILADELPHIA. + + Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer rov'd, + And bright were its flowery banks to his eye; + But far, very far were the friends that he lov'd, + And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh. + + O Nature, though blessed and bright are thy rays, + O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown, + Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays + In a smile from the heart that is fondly our own! + + Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain + Unblest by the smile that he languished to meet; + Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again, + Till the threshold of home had been prest by his feet. + + But the lays of his boyhood had stol'n to their ear, + And they lov'd what they knew of so humble a name; + And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear, + That they found in his heart something better than fame. + + Nor did woman--O woman! whose form and whose soul + Are the spell and the light of each path we pursue; + Whether sunn'd in the tropics or chill'd at the pole, + If a woman be there, there is happiness too. + + Nor did she her enamouring magic deny,-- + That magic his heart had relinquished so long,-- + Like eyes he had loved was _her_ eloquent eye, + Like them did it soften and weep at his song. + + Oh, blest be the tear, and in memory oft + May its sparkle be shed o'er the wanderer's dream; + Thrice blest be that eye, and may passion as soft, + As free from a pang, ever mellow its beam! + + The stranger is gone--but he will not forget, + When at home he shall talk of the toils he has known, + To tell with a sigh what endearments he met, + As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone. + +It is interesting to remember that the woman in the poem, + + Like eyes he had loved was her eloquent eye, + +was the wife of Joseph Hopkinson, the author of "Hail Columbia," whose +house at Fourth and Chestnut Streets was the resort of Dennie and the +wits. + +Moore also contributed to the _Port Folio_ "When Time who steals our +Hearts Away," "Dear, in Pity do not Speak," "Good-night, Good-night, and +is it so?" "When the Heart's Feeling," "Loud sung the Wind," and "The +Sorrow long has worn my Heart." + +Among the _Port Folio_ gentlemen who may have met "Anacreon" Moore, and +who were Dennie's faithful coadjutors, were John Blair Linn, John Shaw, +Francis Cope, Robert H. Rose, Thomas I. Wharton, Charles J. Ingersoll +and his brother Edward, Condy Raguet, Robert Walsh, John Sanderson, John +Syng Dorsey, Royall Tyler, Robert Hare, Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, Alexander +Graydon, Josiah Quincy, John Leeds Bozman, William B. Wood, General +Thomas Cadwalader, Philip Hamilton, Richard Rush, Richard Peters, +Gouverneur Morris, Joseph Hopkinson, Horace Binney, Alexander Wilson, +Charles Brockden Brown and Samuel Ewing. To this list must be added the +bright names of Sarah Hall, Mrs. Elizabeth Ferguson and Harriet Fenno. + +The editors and editorial helpers of the _Port Folio_ from the death of +Dennie until 1827, when the magazine finally ceased, were Paul Allen, +Nicholas Biddle, Dr. Charles Caldwell, Thomas Cooper, Judge Workman, +John Elihu Hall, and his three brothers James, Thomas Mifflin, and +Harrison. + +JOHN BLAIR LINN (1777-1804), the author of the "Powers of Genius" +(1801), a popular work which was splendidly reprinted in London,[13] was +the son of Dr. William Linn, of Shippensburg, who presided successively +over the destinies of three colleges--Washington, Rutgers and Union--and +was for many years a regent of a fourth--the University of the State of +New York. John Blair was graduated from Columbia, read law with +Alexander Hamilton, wrote an unsuccessful drama, "Bourville Castle," and +on June 13, 1799, was installed as joint-pastor of the First +Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. He engaged in controversy with Joseph +Priestley, but his best achievements were "Valerian," a narrative poem, +and "The Death of Washington" (1800). John Blair Linn was a +brother-in-law of Charles Brockden Brown. A biographical sketch of him +was written for the _Port Folio_ in 1809 (page 21), and again in 1811 +(89-97). Brown also published a review of his life and work in the +_Literary Magazine_, Vol. II, page 554. + +[13] The Powers of Genius, a poem in three parts, by John Blair Linn, +A.M. Albion Press. Printed by J. Cundee, Ivy Lane, for F. Williams, +Stationers' Court, and T. Hurst, Paternoster Row, 1804. + +JOHN SHAW (1778-1809) was born in Annapolis, May 4, 1778, and lost at +sea January 10, 1809. He studied medicine in the University of +Pennsylvania, and visited Algiers as a ship-surgeon in 1798. He died on +a voyage to the Bahama Islands. + +The best poem that he contributed to the _Port Folio_ was: + + Who has robbed the ocean cave, + To tinge thy lips with coral hue? + Who from India's distant wave + For thee those pearly treasures drew? + Who, from yonder Orient sky, + Stole the morning of thine eye? + + Thousand charms thy form to deck, + From sea, and earth, and air are born; + Roses bloom upon thy cheek, + On thy breath their fragrance borne. + Guard thy bosom from the day, + Lest thy snows should melt away. + + But one charm remains behind, + Which mute earth can ne'er impart; + Nor in ocean wilt thou find, + Nor in the circling air, a heart. + Fairest! wouldst thou perfect be, + Take, oh take that heart from me. + +All his offerings to the _Port Folio_ were signed "Ithacus." His poems +were collected and published in 1810, together with a memoir and +extracts from his foreign correspondence. + +FRANCIS COPE contributed essays to the _Port Folio_ in 1812. He was an +occasional writer for several years, signing his papers with the +initials "C. F." + +ROBERT H. ROSE is the author of the "Sketches in Verse," published in +1810, nearly all of which had previously appeared in the _Port Folio_, +where the "Sketches" were termed "a kind of chalk drawings." One of +them, "To a Market Street Gutter," was a parody of the "Ode to the +Raritan," and was the cause of John Davis writing the "Pursuits of +Philadelphia Literature".[14] + +[14] There is no mention of Robert Rose in Duyckinck, or Allibone, in +Appleton's Encyclopaedia of American Biography, or in the admirable +Stedman-Hutchinson Library of American Literature. + +The _Port Folio_ of May, 1816 (page 361), has a frontispiece engraving +of "Silver Lake," the seat of Robert Rose, in Susquehanna County, on the +New York line. + + +ODE TO A MARKET STREET GUTTER. + +_A Specimen of Local Description._ + + O sweetest Gutter! though a clown, + I love to see thee running down; + Or mark thee stop awhile, then free + From ice, jog on again, like me; + Or like the lasses whom I meet, + Who, sauntering, stray along the street, + As if they had nowhere to go! + At times, so rapid is thy flow, + That did the cits not wish in vain + Thou wouldst be in the pumps again, + But like a pig, whose fates deny + To find again his wonted sty, + You turn, and stop, and run, and turn, + Yet ne'er shall find your "native urn." + How oft has rolled down thy stream + Things which in song not well would seem, + Ere scavengers their scrapers plied + To drag manure from out thy tide, + Or hydrants bade thy scanty rill + Desert its banks and cellars fill. + Last Thursday morn, so very cold, + A morn _not_ better felt than told, + Then first in all its bright array, + Did I thy "frozen form" survey; + And, goodness! what a great big steeple! + What sights of houses! and such people!! + And then I thought, did I not stutter, + But verse could, like _some poets_, utter, + How much I'd praise thee, sweetest Gutter! + +After the publication of this parody John Davis printed "The +Philadelphia Pursuits of Literature. By Juvenal Junius of New Jersey. +Phila.: John Davis, 1805." + + "Then Muses aid me! and I'll fain review + The Philadelphia lounging scribbling crew." + +Davis had met the gentlemen of the _Port Folio_ and had all the +information necessary for stinging satire of the Mutual Admiration +Society that met at Meredith's and Hopkinson's or at Dennie's office. In +his "Travels" (p. 203), he writes: "At Philadelphia I found Mr. Brown +(C. B.), who felt no remission of his literary diligence by a change of +abode (from New York). He was ingratiating himself into the favor of the +ladies by writing a new novel, and rivalling Lopez de Vega by the +multitude of his works. Mr. Brown introduced me to Mr. (Asbury) Dickins, +and Mr. Dickins to Mr. Dennie; Mr. Dennie presented me to Mr. Wilkins, +and Mr. Wilkins to the Rev. Mr. Abercrombie; a constellation of +American geniuses, in whose blaze I was almost consumed.... Rev. Mr. +Abercrombie was impatient of every conversation that did not relate to +Dr. Johnson, of whom he could detail every anecdote from the time he +trod on a duck till he purchased an oak-stick to repulse +Macpherson."[15] + +[15] Abercrombie's prospectus for a new edition of Johnson's Works--"to +be comprised in fourteen octavo volumes, with new designs and plates. +Phila.: 1811"--is contained in the _Port Folio_, Vol. VI, p. 98. + +In the "Philadelphia Pursuits" Davis wrote of Dennie: + + "There's no clown from Walpole to Hell-Gate, + But ribaldry from him has learned to prate." + +And again: + + "Such is our Dennie! high exalted name, + Eager alike for dollars and for fame." + +Two Philadelphians only escaped the sting of the adder: + + "With Clifton, Nature's poet, who shall vie? + Though low he lies, his works shall never die. + And Linn, distinguish'd for his moral lays, + Shall, by his strain, Columbia's triumph raise." + +"The Sketches in Verse" was magnificently printed for C. and A. Conrad +by Smith and Maxwell in 1810. + +To "a pastoral love-ditty" that began-- + + "Where Schuylkill o'er his rocky bed + Roars, like a bull in battle"-- + +Rose appended the note: + + "Our American names, although some of them are truly savage, are + not much worse than many of those with which we might be furnished + by other nations in abundance; and Schuylkill would not have + offended the ears of Boileau more than the Whal and the Leck, the + Issel and the Zuiderzee." + +THOMAS I. WHARTON (1791-1856), a distinguished Philadelphia lawyer, was +a frequent contributor, and for a time was editor of the _Analectic +Magazine_. + +CHARLES J. INGERSOLL, the author of "Inchiquin the Jesuit's Letters on +American Literature and Politics," was born in Philadelphia, October 3, +1782, and died there May 14, 1862. His first boyish composition is in +the _Port Folio_ of October 24, 1801. It is entitled "Chiomara," and is +introduced by the editor as the work of a "youth ambitious of the fame +of Chatterton." Chiomara is a Gaul, who kills a Roman in defence of her +honor. + +EDWARD INGERSOLL, a younger brother of Charles, wrote poems for the +_Port Folio_ on the events of the times, and named them "Horace in +Philadelphia." All his poems, of whatever nature, were signed "Horace." + +CONDY RAGUET (1784-1842) published in the _Port Folio_ some interesting +letters on the "Massacre of St. Domingo." He had gone as supercargo to +Hayti, and lived there during the exciting scenes of the Revolution. He +also contributed numerous papers to the _Port Folio_ upon "Free Trade." + +JOHN SANDERSON (1783-1844) was professor of Greek and Latin in the +Philadelphia Central High School. He wrote, at the suggestion of +Theodore Hook, a capital volume of Parisian sketches, called the +"American in Paris," which Jules Janin translated into French. Portions +of his "American in London" appeared in the _Knickerbocker Magazine_. He +successfully opposed, in a pamphlet signed "Riberjot," the plan of +excluding the classical languages from Girard College. He was an +intimate friend of John E. Hall, and contributed to the _Port Folio_. + +JOHN SYNG DORSEY (1783-1818) succeeded Dr. Wistar as professor of +anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania. He published an edition of +Cooper's "Surgery," and "Elements of Surgery," the latter of which was +adopted as the text-book in Edinburgh. + +ROYALL TYLER was born in Boston, near Faneuil Hall, July 18, 1757. He +studied law under John Adams, was made a judge of the Supreme Court in +1794, and, in 1800, became chief justice. He was one of the closest +friends of Joseph Dennie, and when the latter became editor of the +_Farmer's Weekly Museum_ he wrote for him a medley of verse and social +and political skits under the general title "From the Shop of Messrs. +Colon and Spondee." + +These papers he continued to write for the _Port Folio_. They "are +divided between Federal politics, attacks on French democracy, the Della +Cruscan literature, and the fashionable frivolities of the day." He also +wrote for the _Port Folio_, in 1801, a series of similarly varied +articles, richly reminiscent, entitled "An Author's Evenings." + +ROBERT HARE (1781-1858), father of Judge J. I. C. Hare, who was +professor of chemistry and natural philosophy in William and Mary +College, and, later, professor of chemistry in the University of +Pennsylvania, published a number of moral essays in the _Port Folio_ +under the pen-name of "Eldred Grayson." + +DR. NATHANIEL CHAPMAN (1783-1850) used the pen-name of "Falkland." + +ALEXANDER GRAYDON (1752-1818), a man of elegant manners and author of a +useful and entertaining volume of "Memoirs of a Life chiefly passed in +Pennsylvania within the last Sixty Years," published, in the _Port +Folio_, in 1813-14, a series of chatty paragraphs styled "Notes of a +Desultory Reader." He lived in the "Slate-Roof House," at Second Street +and Norris' Alley, where he had an opportunity of meeting men of rank +and fame. + +JOSIAH QUINCY (1772-1864), whose opinion of the _Port Folio_ has been +already quoted, contributed to it a series of articles, beginning +January 28, 1804, in the style of Swift, and signed "Climenole".[16] + +[16] The name of the flappers, employed by the inhabitants of Laputa to +arouse them from their scientific reveries. + +JOHN LEEDS BOZMAN (1757-1823) studied at the University of Pennsylvania, +and read law in the Middle Temple, London. He contributed both prose +and verse to the _Port Folio_. + +GENERAL THOMAS CADWALADER (1779-1841) furnished the magazine with +translations of Horace. + +RICHARD RUSH (1780-1859) was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1800, +and successfully defended William Duane, of the _Aurora_, on a charge of +libelling Gov. Thomas McKean. He occasionally contributed official and +personal anecdotes to the _Port Folio_. + +RICHARD PETERS (1744-1828), the witty judge of Belmont, extended +princely hospitality at his country seat. His association with the most +distinguished men of Europe and America stored his memory with the +choicest bits of political and personal history. These odd old ends, +stolen out of the secret chronicles of the time, and decked with his +rare wit, were given upon irregular occasions to the _Port Folio_. + +GOUVERNEUR MORRIS (1752-1816) contributed political satires in both +prose and verse to Dennie and his confreres. + +JOSEPH HOPKINSON (1770-1842), whose authorship of "Hail Columbia" has +been already referred to, wrote the articles upon Shakespeare that +appeared in the _Port Folio_ between 1801 and 1806. His house at Fourth +and Chestnut Streets was a favorite meeting-place for Dennie and the +wits. + +HORACE BINNEY (1780-1875), one of the most distinguished lawyers at a +time when a Philadelphia lawyer was a synonym for skill and cleverness, +wrote in moments, snatched from a busy and almost breathless profession, +some of the clearest and most careful sketches of classical literature, +as well as the shrewdest of political satires to be found in the early +volumes of the _Port Folio_. + +HARRIET FENNO, daughter of John Ward Fenno, founder and editor of the +_United States Gazette_, signed her verses "Violetta." + +MRS. ELIZABETH FERGUSON was the woman who carried to Washington the +letter written by Dr. Duche urging concessions to the British as the +only means of saving the country from spoliation and ruin. She was a +daughter of Dr. Thomas Graeme, a Scottish physician, and granddaughter +of Sir William Keith. Father and daughter lived for a time in the +Slate-Roof House, then in the Carpenter mansion at Sixth and Chestnut, +and finally at Graeme Hall in Montgomery County. Her life was written in +the _Port Folio_ of 1809 (Page 524). Letters from her appear in various +numbers of that magazine, always signed "Laura." Nathaniel Evans wooed +Miss Graeme as "Laura" in true Petrarchan fashion. The Philadelphia +Library possesses the MS. of a translation of Fenelon by Mrs. Ferguson. + +She visited Europe in company with Dr. Richard Peters, of Philadelphia, +and everywhere her brilliant conversation and refined manners won her +recognition and applause in literary society. Laurence Sterne was +fascinated by her. "She took a seat upon the same stage with him at the +York races. While bets were making upon different horses, she selected a +small horse that was in the rear of the coursers as the subject of a +trifling wager. Upon being asked the reason for doing so, she said 'the +race was not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong.' Mr. +Sterne, who stood near to her, was struck with this reply, and turning +hastily toward her begged for the honor of her acquaintance. They soon +became sociable, and a good deal of pleasant conversation took place +between them to the great entertainment of the surrounding company" +(Knapp, "Female Biography," page 217). + +She wrote a parody upon Pope which was printed with Nathaniel Evans' +poems (1772): + + How happy is the country parson's lot! + Forgetting bishops, as by them forgot; + Tranquil of spirit, with an easy mind, + To all his vestry's votes he sits resigned. + Of manners gentle and of temper even, + He jogs his flocks, with easy pace, to heaven. + In Greek and Latin pious books he keeps, + And, while his clerk sings psalms, he--soundly sleeps. + His garden fronts the sun's sweet orient beams, + And fat church-wardens prompt his golden dreams. + The earliest fruit in his fair orchard blooms, + And cleanly pipes pour out tobacco fumes. + From rustic bridegroom oft he takes the ring, + And hears the milkmaid plaintive ballads sing. + Back-gammon cheats whole winter nights away, + And Pilgrim's Progress helps a rainy day. + +ALEXANDER WILSON was born in Paisley, Scotland, July 6, 1766, and died +in Philadelphia, August 23, 1813. "The Poems and Literary Prose of +Alexander Wilson" was edited by A. B. Grosart, and published at Paisley +in 1876. "With the exception of Allen Ramsay, Ferguson and Burns, none +of our Scottish vernacular poets have been so continuously kept in print +as Alexander Wilson" (Grosart). Seven biographies of him attest the +lively interest felt in his personality and his work. In Scotland he was +apprenticed to a weaver, and, after serving his time, he continued to +work at the loom for four years more. He published "Watty and Meg" in +1792, an anonymous poem, the authorship of which was commonly ascribed +to Robert Burns. He came to America in 1794, worked for a year at his +trade, and subsequently taught at various schools in Pennsylvania and +New Jersey. In 1802 he settled at Kingsessing, now in the city of +Philadelphia, close by the home of Bartram, the botanist. Here he taught +the "Union" School. It was in a picturesque spot. Before its doors were +cedars and "stripling poplars planted in a row, and old gray white +oaks." + +But birds were more attractive to him than boys. They commanded him, as +the nightingale did the gypsy steward, and he followed them into +untrodden wildernesses. Thomas Bradford undertook to publish Wilson's +colossal "Ornithology." It was to be distinctly an "American" work. It +was to be printed on American paper; and Amies, the paper-maker, even +declared that he would use only "American" rags in making it. Seven +volumes appeared during the author's life, or between 1808 and 1813. + +Wilson published the "Rural Walk" in Brown's _Literary Magazine_ of +August, 1804, and the "Solitary Tutor" in the same publication, October, +1804. The former poem was reprinted in the _Port Folio_ of April 27, +1805. Dennie was charmed with the poem, and explained that he reprinted +it because the author "delights in pictures of American scenery and +landscape, and wisely therefore leaves to European poets their +nightingales and skylarks, and their _dingles_ and _dells_. He makes no +mention of yews and myrtles, nor echoes a single note of either +bullfinch or chaffinch, but faithfully describes American objects, +though not entirely in the American idiom." The following four stanzas +from the "Rural Walk" may give a conception of Wilson's close +observation and nice fidelity to nature. + + "Down to the left was seen afar + The whitened spire of sacred name,[17] + And ars'nal, where the god of war + Has hung his spears of bloody fame. + + "There upward where it (Schuylkill) gently bends, + And Say's red fortress tow'rs in view,[18] + The floating bridge its length extends-- + A lively scene forever new. + + "There market-maids in lively rows, + With wallets white, were riding home, + And thundering gigs, with powdered beaux, + Through Gray's green festive shades to roam. + + "Sweet flows the Schuylkill's winding tide + By Bartram's green emblossom'd bowers, + Where nature sports in all her pride + Of choicest plants and fruits and flowers." + +[17] Christ Church. + +[18] Dr. Benjamin Say's house at Gray's Ferry. + +Wilson, in 1804, undertook a journey to Niagara. The adventures by the +way and the sight of the stupendous cataract supply the theme of his +longest and most ambitious poem, "The Foresters." It was published with +illustrations in successive numbers of the _Port Folio_ of 1809, Volumes +I, II and III. The entire poem contained 2,000 lines. The _Literary +Magazine_ contains a part of the poem. This appearance, I believe, has +never been noted. It is to be found in Volume IV, page 155. The lines +were written August 12, 1805, and were published in the same month. In +the literary intelligence of the same month the future publication of +"The Foresters" is glanced at. + +A prose letter and a poem, "The Pilgrim," by Wilson, are in the _Port +Folio_, June, 1809, page 499. Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon +met in Louisville, Ky., whither the latter had gone after disposing of +his farm upon the Perkiomen Creek, near Philadelphia. Wilson conceived a +dislike for Audubon, and wrote to the _Port Folio_ concerning +Louisville, "Science or literature has not one friend in this place." +Audubon, into whose mind no thought of publishing his own fine drawings +had yet come, refused out of jealousy to add his name to the +subscription list for Wilson's "American Ornithology." Robert Buchanan +wrote, "If Audubon had one marked fault it was vanity; he was a queer +compound of Actaeon and Narcissus--having a gun in one hand and +flourishing a looking-glass in the other." Grosart is much too severe +when he styles Audubon "a great dilettante impostor." + +After Wilson's death three supplementary volumes to his "Ornithology" +were added by Charles Lucien Bonaparte, and it was Lucien Bonaparte's +son, Prince Canino, who first suggested to Audubon the publication of +his collections. + +One of Wilson's most intimate friends was the engraver Alexander Lawson, +with whom he became acquainted through William Bartram, and from whom he +learned to draw. Lawson was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, December 19, +1772. He came to Philadelphia in 1792, engraved four plates for +Thomson's "Seasons" for Thomas Dobson, and died in 1846. His daughter, +Mary Lockhart, was a contributor to _Graham's Magazine_. + +It was Wilson's wish that he should be buried "in some rural spot where +the birds might sing over his grave." His wish was fulfilled, and his +body was laid away in the quiet old-world burial ground of old Swedes' +Church. + +SAMUEL EWING was born in Philadelphia August 16, 1776. He was placed in +the counting house of John Swanwick. Upon the failure of his employer, +Ewing studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1800. He was a +contributor to the _Port Folio_ from the first. He wrote for it a series +of articles, entitled "Reflections in Solitude." All his contributions +were signed "Jacques." + +In 1809 he founded _The Select Reviews and Spirit of the Foreign +Magazines_, which he edited for three years, until it was sold to Mr. +Thomas and the title changed to the _Analectic_, when the editorship +passed into the hands of Washington Irving. Samuel Ewing helped to +establish the _Athenaeum_ in Philadelphia, and was for a time +vice-president of that institution. He died in Philadelphia, February 8, +1825. Samuel Ewing's father was the Rev. Dr. John Ewing, Provost of the +University of Pennsylvania, whose contributions have been noted in the +earlier magazines. A short account of his life is prefixed to his +lectures on natural philosophy, "A Plain Elementary and Practical System +of Natural Experimental Philosophy. By the late Rev. John Ewing. +Philadelphia, 1809. Revised by Robert Patterson." John Ewing was born +June 22, 1732, in Nottingham, Cecil County, Maryland; was graduated +from Princeton 1752; received the degree of D.D. from Edinburgh; enjoyed +the friendship of Robertson, the historian, and died in Philadelphia, +September 8, 1802. An interesting anecdote is related in the life of Dr. +Ewing (page 16). In 1773 he dined at Dilly's with Dr. Johnson. He +remembered the silence that fell when Johnson entered the room. "He +attended to nothing but his plate; ... having eaten voraciously, he +raised his head slowly, and looking round the table surveyed the guests +for the first time." The conversation turning upon America, Ewing +defended the colonies. "What do you know, sir, on the subject?" Johnson +demanded. Ewing had been cautioned to avoid contradiction, but the +warning was forgotten. "Sir, what do you know in America; you never +read; you have no books there," thundered on the "great cham." "Pardon +me, sir," blandly replied the Philadelphian, "we have read the +'Rambler.'" This civility instantly pacified him. + +This anecdote reminds us that the Americans did not always fall their +crests when in the presence of Dr. Johnson. It is a familiar story that +when Johnson demanded of Gilbert Stuart, "Sir, where did you learn +English?" the ready-witted young artist replied, "Out of your +dictionary, sir." Bishop William White, first Bishop of Pennsylvania, +has left, in a letter to Bishop Hobart, his memory of an interview with +"that giant of genius and literature, Dr. Samuel Johnson." "Having dined +in company with him in Kensington, at the house of Mr. Elphinstone, well +known to scholars of that day, and returning in the stage-coach with the +doctor, I mentioned to him there being a Philadelphia edition of his +'Prince of Abyssinia.' He expressed a wish to see it. I promised to send +him a copy on my return to Philadelphia, and did so. He returned a +polite answer, which I printed in Mr. Boswell's second edition of his +'Life of the Doctor.'" Richard Rush relates in the _Port Folio_ that +when his father, Dr. Benjamin Rush, attended a meeting of "The Club" in +London, Goldsmith asked him a question about the North American Indians, +when Johnson remarked that there was not an Indian in North America +foolish enough to ask such a question. Whereupon Goldsmith retorted, +"There is not a savage in America, sir, rude enough to make such a +speech to a gentleman." + +Dr. Ewing's daughter, Sarah, born in Philadelphia October 30, 1761, +married John Hall, of Baltimore, the son of a Maryland planter. In +January, 1824, she contributed to the _Port Folio_ "A Picture of +Philadelphia as it is." In a letter to a Scotchwoman (1821) she wrote: +"Your flattering inquiry about my literary career may be answered in a +word. Literature has no career in America. It is like wine, which we are +told must cross the ocean to make it good." Sarah Hall died in +Philadelphia April 8, 1830. + +Her eldest son, John Elihu Hall, was born in Philadelphia December 27, +1783; studied law, and edited the _American Law Journal_ 1808-1817. He +was for a time professor of rhetoric in the University of Maryland. In +the _Port Folio_ of March, 1806, encouraged by Thomas Moore, he +commenced the publication of the "Memoirs of Anacreon," but suspended +the work after a few instalments had appeared. In 1820 (Vol. IX, p. +401), he resumed the articles. Most of the Anacreontic odes occur, and +the "biographical tissue" gave the papers a resemblance to Hardwicke's +"Athenian Letters" and to the "Anacharsis" of Abbe Barthelemy. "Sedley" +was the signature used by J. E. Hall in his _Port Folio_ papers. In 1812 +he published serially in that magazine his literary miscellany, entitled +"Adversaria." + +His brother, James, born in Philadelphia August 19, 1793, died near +Cincinnati, July 15, 1868, published in the _Port Folio_ of 1821 his +"Letters from the West," afterward published in book form by John Elihu. +Another brother, Thomas Mifflin Hall (1798-1828), wrote several poems +for the magazine. Harrison Hall (1785-1866), a third brother, published +the _Port Folio_ and wrote a book on "Distillation," which went through +several editions here, and was reprinted in England. + +JOHN ELIHU HALL became editor of the _Port Folio_ in February, 1816. Its +history up to that time may be briefly stated. It was at first a weekly +quarto, printed by H. Maxwell and sold by William Fry, opposite Christ +Church. In 1806 the quarto size was changed to octavo. In 1809 the +magazine appeared monthly instead of weekly, and continued from that +time to be a monthly publication. In the prospectus issued at the time +of this change the magazine was said to be "edited by Oliver Oldschool, +assisted by a confederacy of men of letters." In its new dress it +"cherished the hope that it might bear a comparison with any of the +foreign journals." In 1804 the price had been raised to six dollars. The +issue of July 21, 1804, was in deep black lines, in mourning for +Alexander Hamilton. The issue of July 23, 1808, was a memorial number to +Fisher Ames. The "Oliver Oldschool" figurehead was abandoned in January, +1811, and "conducted by Jos. Dennie, Esq.," took its place; for, the +editor explained, "Since the magazine is no longer _political_, the +appellation of Oliver Oldschool is no longer expedient or necessary." +During Dennie's last illness his place in the editorial chair was taken +by Paul Allen (1775-1826), who wrote poems, and prepared the "Travels of +Lewis and Clarke" for the press, and who must not be confounded with +another eccentric Bohemian, James Allen, brother to the Sheriff of +Suffolk, who wrote under the inspiration of the West Indian +muses--sugar, rum and lemon-juice--who "wore ruffles--and they hung in +tatters about his knuckles." + +January, 1812, told of Dennie's death and "that the confederacy of +scholars disbanded almost as soon as it was formed." At this time the +_Port Folio_ was the oldest literary journal in America. + +NICHOLAS BIDDLE became the next editor. He supplied the magazine with a +number of articles upon paintings, old and new, and resigned his charge +early in 1812. Dr. Charles Caldwell was requested to succeed him. "I +accepted the proposal," he says, in his "Autobiography," "in less than a +minute, and in less than one hour began to prepare for the performance +of the duty it enjoined" (_Autobiography_, page 322). Caldwell entered +upon his task under an engagement to furnish ninety-eight pages of +matter for each number, and this matter would have to be to a great +extent original. In six months Caldwell increased the number of +subscribers twenty-five per cent. The war naturally became the theme of +greatest interest. General Brown declared that "he reported himself, and +ordered his officers to report themselves in their connection with all +interesting events of the army, as regularly to the editor of the _Port +Folio_ as they did to him, or as he did to the Secretary of War." In +this way the magazine obtained some interesting and valuable +biographical notes of military and naval officers. Dr. Caldwell employed +as assistant editor the famous and versatile THOMAS COOPER. Cooper was +an Englishman, who was born in London in 1759, and had been a member of +the National Assembly of France. He quarrelled with Robespierre, and +challenged him to a duel. Robespierre swore revenge, and Cooper, knowing +that flight alone could save him from the Jacobin Club, returned to +England. He was censured by Burke, and replied in a bitter and abusive +pamphlet. He followed his intimate friend, Mr. Priestley, to America and +lived with him at Northumberland, where Coleridge and Southey dreamed of +establishing an Eden of Pantisocracy. When Cooper came to Philadelphia, +Washington and Jefferson and Jay and Madison were there. Cooper lent his +pen to Jefferson and the Democrats, and was paid by them. He was +appointed to a judgeship, but soon removed. He was elected professor of +chemistry and moral philosophy in Dickinson College, and from there he +went to the chair of chemistry in Columbia College, South Carolina. He +left Philadelphia in 1819, and died in the South in 1840. + +JUDGE WORKMAN was a second assistant writer. The most extensive +contributions that Dr. Caldwell made to the magazine were his reviews of +"An Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and Figure of the +Human Species," by Samuel Stanhope Smith, President of Princeton +College. The reviews covered ninety pages and dealt with a philosophical +and experimental examination of the strange case of Henry Moss, a +Maryland negro, whose name, as Dr. Caldwell says, is as well known to +the readers of periodicals as was that of John Adams or Thomas Jefferson +or James Madison. Moss was a full-blooded African, whose skin, save in a +few spots, turned white. Caldwell's critiques appeared in the _Port +Folio_, 1814, pp. 8 and 457, and also in the _American Review_, II, 128, +166. + +Dr. Caldwell at this time edited _Delaplaine's Repository_, and Smith +had his revenge in a telling criticism of that work in the _Analectic +Magazine_, to which Caldwell replied in 1816. To finish the story, there +is to be found in the _Port Folio_ of 1820, page 153, an article on S. S. +Smith, with portrait, which is as ample in praise of the essay as +Caldwell was liberal in detraction. Caldwell resigned his editorship in +1816. In the next month Oliver Oldschool the Fourth made his appearance +in the person of John Elihu Hall. + +The magazine was still well manned and well maintained. Philadelphia +still kept her leadership in culture and literary production. In 1814 +only twenty new books were annually put forth in America, and yet in +April of that year the _Port Folio_ declared, "From facts within our own +knowledge, we fearlessly assert that Philadelphia contains scholars not +a few whom Europe herself would be proud to acknowledge." In 1817 the +_London Monthly Magazine_ began to copy from the _Port Folio_. + +But about 1820 the prestige of Philadelphia begins to fade and her +ancient influences to hang about her "like a giant's robe upon a +dwarfish thief." In this year (_Port Folio_, page 463) is heard the +first note of alarm. New England is gaining; "with such rivalry +Philadelphia must yield the proud title which she has borne, or rouse +from the withering lethargy in which she slumbers." New York jealousy is +increasing. In 1820 Salmagundi says that "one of the editors of the +_Port Folio_ was discharged--for writing common-sense." These trifles +indicate a shifting of the balance of power. Three years more, and the +cry of discontent and peevish querulousness reaches its height. + +"With the exception of some scores of verses 'tempered with lovers' +sighs' and oozing from the brains of 'lunatics, lovers and poets,' the +last volume contains very few communications from any friend to us and +our cause. In the days of our first predecessors such was the number and +zeal of contributors that the editor was obliged to exchange the labor +of composition for that of selection, and he often expatiated with +gratitude upon the learning, the liberality and the industry of his +voluntary assistants. Although they wore their visors up before the +public, most of them are now known to us, and we can recognize many of +them at home and abroad, pushing their fortunes at the bar, in the desk +or the academy, or serving their country in high and honorable stations. +They were all quickened with the fervid spirit of enterprise and +adventure. They combined learning and wit and genius with industry, +perseverance and ambition. They laid the foundation of a work which has +outlived all its rivals and contemporaries; but they have left few to +inherit and emulate their disinterested devotion to the cause of +letters.... England, that detestable country where _everyone_ has been +starving for the last century, where _everyone_ has been crushed by the +load of taxes, and _everyone_ has been flying from home to avoid the +oppressions of the Ministry, prints several thousand copies of a +magazine, and the whole edition is sold and paid for in twenty-four +hours. These matters are ordered differently here. Instead of +_purchasing_ our newspapers and magazines we subscribe for them." + +Alack-a-day! the world went very well in the consulship of Plancus! No +doubt even in the best and soundest of their times the magazines did +suffer by the subscription plan. The remaining stock of the _Analectic +Magazine_ was sold for seven cents a volume in sheets, and the stock of +the _Literary Gazette_, its successor, brought but six and a quarter +cents per pound. + +Hall took the opportunity presented by the publication of "The Lives of +the Signers," by his friend and contributor, John Sanderson, to trouble +the deaf public again with his bootless cries: + +"Oh! that we could boast a reading public; and that we could say, with +truth, that any other books than a few novels and poems and, generally, +an elegant folio Bible, kept for ornament and family dignity, were to be +found in half the splendid mansions of Philadelphia. But 'we can procure +the book at the Philadelphia Library.' Yes, and the author of an +excellent work must be left to beg and starve, and his wife and children +must be doomed to penury because their natural protector was a literary +man and an author, who conferred honour on his species. _Burn_ the +Philadelphia Library, we say. Aye! _burn_ it! if this must be its +influence, to deprive meritorious authors and enterprising artists of +their sustenance and of the means of continuing their labours. Let those +who cannot afford to purchase valuable works, who wish to peruse scarce +tomes, the work of former generations, resort to the library; but let +our rich merchants, our thrifty lawyers and the elegantly neat Quaker +proprietors of the soil of this city, who have sons and daughters to be +educated for usefulness and happiness, be ashamed to creep into the +repository of rare, ancient and learned volumes, and ask in a soft voice +of the librarian, '_Is Sanderson's Biography in?_' and to add, '_My +daughters wish to see it._'" + +In 1822 the _Port Folio_ was reduced to making selections from the +literary and political journals of Europe after the manner of _The +Select Reviews_ which Ewing had edited. + +The final suspension of the _Port Folio_ was preceded by an +international quarrel. John Neal was in England in 1834, and his offer +to write for _Blackwood's Magazine_ in that year a series of sketches of +"American writers" was accepted, and the first instalment appeared in +_Blackwood's_ of September, 1824, page 305. The author could name only +three writers "who would not pass just as readily for an English writer +as for an American." The trio consisted of Paulding, Neal and Brown. The +article was signed "X. Y. Z." and was written in the favorite +_Blackwood's_ "bludgeon" style. Neal says of himself, "He is undeniably +the most original writer that America has produced--thinks himself the +cleverest fellow in America, and does not scruple to say so--he is in +Europe now." When he approached the date of the _Port Folio_, Neal paid +his compliments, displaying unmistakable malice, to John E. Hall. "Hall +had the misfortune, some years ago, to fall acquainted with Mr. Thomas +Moore, the poet, while Mr. Moore was 'trampoosing' over America. It +spoilt poor Hall--turned his brain. He has done little or nothing since +but make-believe about criticism, talk dawdle-poetry with a lisp, write +irresistible verses under the name of 'Sedley' in his own magazine, +twitter sentimentally about 'little Moore,' his 'dear little +Moore'--puffing himself all the time anonymously in the newspaper, +while he is damning himself, with unmistakable sincerity, twelve times a +year in his own magazine. We do not think very highly of the +mutton-headed Athenians at Philadelphia; but we do think, nevertheless, +that Mr. John E. Hall is a little too much of a blockhead even for their +meridian." + +Hall published a scathing review in the _Port Folio_, December, 1824, of +the author of "Logan" and "Randolph," the Baltimorean who was writing +for _Blackwood's_. In volume 19 (1825, p. 78) this "nauseous reptile" is +still further reviewed. Neal is quoted as saying, "Dennie is dead, John +E. Hall is alive; Dennie was a gentleman, John E. Hall is a blackguard;" +and Hall retorts that Neal is a "liar of the first magnitude," who +prefers "English guineas to Baltimore horsewhips." + +The _Port Folio_ was now making a desperate struggle for life. Its +publication was suspended from January to July, 1826, and again from +January to July, 1827. Its budget was finally closed in December, 1827. + + +FROM THE PORT FOLIO TO GRAHAM'S. + +The _Ladies' Museum_ was commenced in February, 1800, and made five +numbers. + +The _Philadelphia Repository and Weekly Register_ was commenced in 1801. +It was edited and published by David Hogan, and later by John W. Scott. +It was popular and original. + +The first magazine published in America for children appeared in +Philadelphia in 1802--the _Juvenile Magazine, or Miscellaneous +Repository of Useful Information_, Phila., 1802, printed for Benjamin +Johnson and Jacob Johnston. + +It was followed by the _Juvenile Olio_ in the same year. This magazine +was edited by "Amyntor" a citizen of Philadelphia, and was published by +David Hogan. + +Charles Brockden Brown, the most important of Philadelphia writers, the +first professional man-of-letters in America, and the predecessor of all +cis-Atlantic novelists, was born in Philadelphia, January 17, 1771, and +in that city he founded, in 1803-4, the _Literary Magazine and American +Register_. + +Brown had been educated until his sixteenth year in the school of Robert +Proud, the historian of Pennsylvania. He then studied law with Alexander +Wilcox, of Philadelphia. His health, which had been ever poor, suffered +still further from enthusiastic attention to the needs of a +belles-lettres club of nine members, and to the law society of his +native city. The _Columbian Magazine_ of August, 1789, contained his +first published article. It was entitled "The Rhapsodist," and was +continued through several numbers of the magazine. + +A close friendship sprang up between Brown and Elihu Hubbard Smith, and +Brown made his home in New York, where Smith introduced him to "The +Friendly Club." After the plague visited New York and Smith died of the +fever, Brown returned to Philadelphia to spend the remainder of his +life. + +The first number of the _Literary Magazine and American Register_ was +published by John Conrad, who had made a liberal arrangement with the +editor, on Saturday, October 1, 1803. Brown's prospectus, which filled +the first three pages, is so characteristic of the author, and so +interesting as a contemporary comment upon magazines and their purposes, +as to admit of complete quotation. + + +_The Editor's Address to the Public:_ + +"It is usual for one who presents the public with a periodical work like +the present, to introduce himself to the notice of his readers by some +sort of preface or address. I take up the pen in conformity to this +custom, but am quite at loss for topics suitable to so interesting an +occasion. I cannot expatiate on the variety of my knowledge, the +brilliancy of my wit, the versatility of my talents. To none of these do +I lay any claim, and though this variety, brilliancy of solidity, are +necessary ingredients in a work of this kind, I trust merely to the zeal +and liberality of my friends to supply me with them. I have them not +myself, but doubt not of the good offices of those who possess them, and +shall think myself entitled to no small praise if I am able to collect +into one focal spot the rays of a great number of luminaries. They also +may be very unequal to each other in lustre, and some of them may be +little better than twinkling and feeble stars of the hundredth +magnitude; but what is wanting in individual splendour will be made up +by the union of all their beams into one. My province shall be _to hold +the mirror up_ so as to assemble all their influence within its verge, +and reflect them on the public in such manner as to warm and enlighten. + +"As I possess nothing but zeal I can promise to exert nothing else; but +my consolation is, that aided by that powerful spirit, many have +accomplished things much more arduous than that which I propose to +myself. + +"Many are the works of this kind which have risen and fallen in America, +and many of them have enjoyed but a brief existence. This circumstance +has always at first sight given me some uneasiness, but when I come more +soberly to meditate upon it my courage revives, and I discover no reason +for my doubts. Many works have actually been reared and sustained by the +curiosity and favour of the public. They have ultimately declined or +fallen, it is true; but why? From no abatement of the public curiosity, +but from causes which publishers or editors only are accountable. Those +who managed the publication have commonly either changed their +principles, remitted their zeal, or voluntarily relinquished their +trade, or last of all, and like other men, have died. Such works have +flourished for a time, and they ceased to flourish, by the fault or +misfortune of the proprietors. The public is always eager to encourage +one who devotes himself to their rational amusement, and when he ceases +to demand or to deserve their favour they feel more regret than anger in +withdrawing it. + +"The world--by which I mean the few hundred persons who concern +themselves about this work--will naturally inquire who it is that thus +addresses them. 'This is somewhat more than a point of idle curiosity,' +my reader will say, 'for from my knowledge of the man must I infer how +far he will be able or willing to fulfil his promises. Besides, it is +great importance to know whether his sentiments on certain subjects be +agreeable or not to my own. In politics, for example, he may be a +malcontent; in religion an heretic. He may be an ardent advocate for all +that I abhor, or he may be a celebrated champion of my favourite +opinions. It is evident that these particulars must dictate the +treatment you receive from me, and make me either your friend or enemy: +your patron or your persecutor. Besides, I am anxious for some personal +knowledge of you that I may judge of your literary merits. You may +possibly be one of these, who came hither from the old world to seek +your fortune; who have handled the pen as others handle the awl or +needle; that is, for the sake of a livelihood, and who, therefore, are +willing to work on any kind of cloth or leather, and to any model that +may be in demand. You may, in the course of your trade, have +accommodated yourself to twenty different fashions, and have served +twenty classes of customers; have copied at one time a Parisian, at +another a London fashion, and have truckled to the humours, now of a +precise enthusiast, and now of a smart free-thinker. + +"''Tis of no manner of importance what creed you may publicly profess +on this occasion, or on what side, religious or political, you may +declare yourself enlisted. To judge of the value or sincerity of these +professions, to form some notion how far you will faithfully or +skilfully perform your part, I must know your character. By that +knowledge, I shall regulate myself with more certainty than by any +anonymous declaration you may think proper to make.' + +"I bow to the reasonableness of these observations, and shall therefore +take no pains to conceal my name. Anybody may know it who chooses to ask +me or my publisher. I shall not, however, put it at the bottom of this +address. My diffidence, as my friends would call it, and my discretion, +as my enemies, if I have any, would term it, hinders me from calling out +my name in a crowd. It has heretofore hindered me from making my +appearance there, when impelled by the strongest of human +considerations, and produces, at this time, an insuperable aversion to +naming myself to my readers. The mere act of calling out my own name, on +this occasion, is of no moment, since an author or editor who takes no +pains to conceal himself, cannot fail of being known to as many as +desire to know him. And whether my notoriety make for me or against me, +I shall use no means to prevent it. + +"I am far from wishing, however, that my readers should judge of my +exertions by my former ones. I have written much, but take much blame to +myself for something which I have written, and take no praise for +anything. I should enjoy a larger share of my own respect, at the +present moment, if nothing had ever flowed from my pen, the production +of which could be traced to me. A variety of causes induces me to form +such a wish, but I am principally influenced by the consideration that +time can scarcely fail of enlarging and refining the powers of a man, +while the world is sure to judge of his capacities and principles at +fifty, from what he has written at fifteen. + +"Meanwhile, I deem it reasonable to explain the motives of the present +publication, and must rely for credit on the good nature of my readers. +The project is not a mercenary one. Nobody relies for subsistence on its +success, nor does the editor put anything but his reputation at stake. +At the same time, he cannot but be desirous of an ample subscription, +not merely because pecuniary profit is acceptable, but because this is +the best proof which he can receive that his endeavours to amuse and +instruct have not been unsuccessful. + +"Useful information and rational amusement being his objects, he will +not scruple to collect materials from all quarters. He will ransack the +newest foreign publications, and extract from them whatever can serve +his purpose. He will not forget that a work, which solicits the +attention of many readers, must build its claim on the variety as well +as copiousness of its contents. + +"As to _domestic_ publications, besides extracting from them anything +serviceable to the public, he will give a critical account of them, and, +in this respect, make his work an American Review, in which the history +of our native literature shall be carefully detailed. + +"He will pay particular attention to the history of passing events. He +will carefully compile the news, foreign and domestic, of the current +month, and give, in a precise and systematic order, that intelligence +which the common newspapers communicate in a vague and indiscriminate +way. His work shall likewise be a repository of all those signal +incidents in private life, which mark the character of the age, and +excite the liveliest curiosity. + +"This is an imperfect sketch of his work, and to accomplish these ends, +he is secure of the liberal aid of many most respectable persons in this +city and New York. He regrets the necessity he is under of concealing +these names, since they would furnish the public with irresistible +inducements to read what, _when_ they had read, they would find +sufficiently recommended by its own merits. + +"In an age like this, when the foundations of religion and morality have +been so boldly attacked, it seems necessary, in announcing a work of +this nature, to be particularly explicit as to the path which the editor +means to pursue. He, therefore, avows himself to be, without +equivocation or reserve, the ardent friend and the willing champion of +the Christian religion. Christian piety he reveres as the highest +excellence of human beings, and the amplest reward he can seek for his +labour is the consciousness of having, in some degree, however +inconsiderable, contributed to recommend the practice of religious +duties. + +"As, in the conduct of this work, a supreme regard will be paid to the +interests of religion and morality, he will scrupulously guard against +all that dishonours or impairs that principle. Everything that savors of +indelicacy or licentiousness will be rigorously proscribed. His poetical +pieces may be dull, but they shall, at least, be free from +voluptuousness or sensuality, and his prose, whether seconded or not by +genius and knowledge, shall scrupulously aim at the promotion of public +and private virtue. + +"As a political annalist, he will speculate freely on foreign +transactions; but in his detail of domestic events he will confine +himself as strictly as possible to the limits of a mere historian. There +is nothing for which he has a deeper abhorrence than the intemperance of +party, and his fundamental rule shall be to exclude from his pages all +personal altercation and abuse. + +"He will conclude by reminding the public that there is not, at present, +any other monthly publication in America; and that a plan of this kind, +if well conducted, cannot fail of being highly conducive to amusement +and instruction. There are many, therefore, it is hoped, who, when such +a herald as this knocks at their door, will open it without reluctance, +and admit a visitant who calls only once a month; who talks upon every +topic; whose company may be dismissed or resumed, and who may be made to +prate or hold his tongue at pleasure; a companion he will be, possessing +one companionable property in the highest degree--that is to say, a +desire to please.--_Sep. 1, 1803_." + +The contents of the magazine corresponded with the contents of the _Port +Folio_; there were the same abuse of Wordsworth, criticisms of Milton +and Shakespeare, and articles upon "literary resemblances." In November, +1803, Brown began to publish in the magazine his "Memoirs of Carwin, the +Biloquist." The following poem, written during the prevalence of the +yellow fever, in 1797, appeared in the _Literary Magazine_ for +September, 1806. + + +PHILADELPHIA--AN ELEGY. + +Written during the prevalence of the Yellow Fever in 1797. + + Imperial daughter of the West, + Why thus in widow'd weeds recline? + With every gift of nature blest, + The empire of a world was thine. + + Late brighter than the star that beams + When the soft morning carol flows: + Now mournful as the maniac's dreams, + When melancholy veils his woes. + + What foe, with more than Gallic ire, + Has thinned thy city's thronging way, + Bade the sweet breath of youth expire, + And manhood's powerful pulse decay? + + No Gallic foe's ferocious band, + Fearful as fate, as death severe, + But the destroying angel's hand, + With hotter rage, with fiercer fear. + + I saw thee in thy prime of days, + In glory rich, in beauty fair, + When many a patriot shar'd thy praise, + And nurs'd thee with maternal care. + + Columbia's genius, veil thy brow, + Guardian of freedom, hither bend: + The prayer of mercy meets thee now, + With healing energy descend. + + Chase far the fiend whose burning tread + Consumes the fairest flower that blows; + Bends the sweet lily's bashful head, + And fades the blushes of the rose. + + E'en now ill-omened birds of prey + Through the unpeopled mansions rove: + Quench'd is that eye's inspiring ray, + And lost the breezy lip of love. + + Yet guard the FRIEND, who wandering near + Haunts which the loitering Schuylkill laves, + Bestows the tributary tear, + Or fans with sighs the drowsy waves. + + And while his mercy-dealing hand + Feeds many a famished child of care, + Wave round his brow thy saving wand, + And breathe thy sweetness through the air; + + 'Till borne on Health's elastic wing, + Aloft the rapid whirlwind flies; + The coldest gale of Zembla bring, + And brace with frost the dripping skies. + + Yet bring the naiads, bring their urns, + Haste, and the marble fount unclose, + Through streets where Syrian summer burns, + 'Till all the cool libation flows + + Cool as the brook that bathes the heath + When noon unfolds his silent hours, + Refreshing as the morning's breath + Adown the cleansing streamlet pours. + + Imperial daughter of the West, + No rival wins thy wreath away; + In all the wealth of nature drest, + Again thy sovereign charms display; + + See all thy setting glories rise, + Again thy thronging streets appear; + Thy mart a hundred ports supplies, + Thy harvests feed thy circling year. + +The magazine lived five years and made eight volumes octavo. + +In 1806 Brown began to edit and John Conrad to publish the _American +Register_. It contained abstracts of laws and public proceedings, +reviews of literature and of foreign and domestic scientific +intelligence, American and foreign State papers, etc. After five volumes +had been published, Charles Brockden Brown died in his house at Eleventh +and George Streets, on the 19th of February, 1810. It was in this house, +which was _not_ upon the east side of Eleventh Street, as Neal asserted +in _Blackwood's Magazine_, nor was it "a low, squalid, two-story house," +that Thomas Sully saw him, and said: "I saw him a little before his +death. I had never known him--never heard of him--never read any of his +works. He was in a deep decline. It was in the month of November--our +Indian summer, when the air is full of smoke. Passing a window one day, +I was caught by the sight of a man with a remarkable physiognomy, +writing at a table in a dark room. The sun shone directly upon his head. +I never shall forget it. The dead leaves were falling then--it was +Charles Brockden Brown." + +Of the obscure ground in which the body of this literary pioneer was +laid George Lippard wrote in the _Nineteenth Century_ (p. 27): + +"The time has come when the authors of America, the men who view with +pride the growth of a pure and elevated National literature, should go +to the Quaker graveyard and bear the bones of Brockden Brown to that +Laurel Hill which he loved in his boyhood; yes, let the remains of the +martyr author sleep beneath the shadow of some dark pine, whose +evergreen boughs, swaying to the winter wind, bend over the rugged cliff +and sweep the waters of the Schuylkill as it rolls on amid its hilly +shores, like an image of the rest which awaits the blessed in a better +world. Then a solitary column of white marble, rising like a form of +snow among the green boughs, shall record the neglect and woe and glory +of the author's life, in a single name--Charles Brockden Brown." + +"Wieland," the most powerful of Brown's novels, was published in +Philadelphia in 1798. It was followed by "Ormond, or the Secret Witness" +(1799), "Arthur Mervyn" (1799), "Edgar Huntley, or the Memoirs of a +Sleep-Walker" (1801), "Clara Howard" and "Jane Talbot" (1801). All these +romances dealt with sombre and mysterious or terrible subjects. +"Wieland" was a story of monstrous crime occasioned through the agency +of ventriloquism. "Arthur Mervyn" contained vivid descriptions of the +yellow fever pestilence in Philadelphia in 1793. "Edgar Huntley" +followed the fortunes of a somnambulist in the mountain fastnesses of +Western Pennsylvania. + +When Brown began to write "the churchyard romance" was in fashion, and +novelists revelled in tales of horror and of terror, dwelling long and +painfully upon the most loathsome details of some ghastly bit of fancy. +It was the time of Lewis's "Tales of Terror," of Walpole's "Castle of +Otranto," of Beckford's "Vathek," and of Mrs. Radcliffe's "Mysteries of +Udolpho" and Mrs. Shelley's "Frankenstein." William Godwin, too, wrote +ghostly stories of crime and supernatural agencies, and from Godwin, +Charles Brockden Brown caught his style. The influence of Godwin is +noticeable in Brown's first work, "Alcuin, a Dialogue on the Rights of +Women" (1797). Godwin's "Falkland" and "Caleb Williams" are the models +of "Wieland" and "Ormond." + +It is interesting to find young Percy Bysshe Shelley confessing his +obligations to the Philadelphia novelist, and saying that Brown's novels +had influenced him beyond any other books. Traces of "Wieland" are to be +found deeply stamped upon "Zastrozzi" and "St. Irvyne." It is a singular +chapter of literary history that records the progress of William +Godwin's social theories and tales of horror across the Atlantic to an +obscure house in Philadelphia and their return in a new literary form +into the hands of William Godwin's son-in-law, Percy Bysshe Shelley, +himself a poet of American descent. + +The British magazines of 1804 contain flattering notices of Brown, and +his novels were reprinted and read with interest and critical approval +in England. At home he has fallen into undeserved oblivion, and the +attempts in 1857 and 1887 to revive the interest in his works proved +fruitless. His style had in it no elements of permanent life, but he was +the first to discover the capabilities of romance in America, and used +in all his books American characters and scenery. + +Sir Walter Scott so greatly admired the works of the American novelist +that he named the hero of Guy Mannering after him and gave to another of +the characters of the same story the familiar name of "Arthur Mervyn." + +Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815), a nephew of David Rittenhouse, and +the successor of Benjamin Rush as professor of the theory and practice +of medicine in the University of Pennsylvania, edited the _Philadelphia +Medical and Physical Journal_ from November 1, 1804, to May, 1807. It +was published irregularly by J. Conrad and Co. + +The _Evening Fireside, or Literary Miscellany_, Philadelphia, 1805-1806, +was established by a literary club, and published by Joseph Rakestraw. +The second volume, which began January 4, 1806, completed the work. + + +DRAMATIC MAGAZINES. + +Notes on the stage and criticism of the drama had frequently been given +place in the _Port Folio_, and Brown's _Literary Magazine_ had published +a farcical account of a "Theatrical Campaign" by Dick Buckram (Vol. I, +p. 222), but the first magazine in America that attempted to take the +theatre for its province was the _Theatrical Censor_, By a Citizen, +first published in Philadelphia, December 9, 1805, and continued until +November 17, 1806. + +It was succeeded by the _Theatrical Censor and Critical Miscellany_, by +Gregory Gryphon, Esq., Philadelphia, Saturday, October 11, 1806. Both +these periodicals were issued during the theatrical season only, and the +latter one was published in the interest of the theatres of +Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Charleston. It was published on +Saturdays, and made sixteen pages octavo. + +The second _Theatrical Censor_ was followed by the _Thespian Mirror_, in +New York, edited by John Howard Payne, then a youth of fourteen years. +Still later came the _Boston Magazine_ and the _Polyanthus_. + +Matthew Carey introduced the third theatrical journal to the +Philadelphians. It was the _Thespian Monitor and Dramatick Miscellany_, +by Barnaby Bangbar, Esq. (1809). It was begun Saturday, November 25, +1809. There is but a single issue of this publication in the British +Museum, and its contents are almost entirely biographical. This copy was +the property of John Howard Payne. + +In 1810 Samuel T. Bradford was the most enterprising publisher in +Philadelphia. With his partner, Inskeep, he printed in 1812 the _Port +Folio_. With the same partner he issued in January, 1810, the _Mirror of +Taste and Dramatic Censor_. The editor was Stephen Cullen Carpenter, an +Irishman, who had entered the East India service, where he remained +fourteen years, retired with the rank of major, and returned to England. +He wrote political pamphlets at the commencement of the French +Revolution, and was made reporter of Debates in Commons by Edmund Burke. +He reported the trial of Hastings, and came to America about 1800, and +edited a magazine in South Carolina until he was engaged by Bradford and +Inskeep to conduct the _Mirror of Taste_. + +The magazine was of small octavo size, each number contained about one +hundred pages, and was illustrated with a fine portrait of an actor or +actress. The regular performances at the theatres were criticised with a +good deal of pungency and acumen. It is said in the preface that "London +boasts several periodical publications founded on the _Drama_ alone. In +America there has not yet been one of that description." In January, +1811, the magazine changed hands, and was published by Thomas Barton +Zantzinger & Co., in the Shakespeare Buildings at Sixth and Chestnut +Streets. + +At the close of the first year of the magazine a dramatic event occurred +that caused unusual excitement in Philadelphia, and led to important +consequences. The great tragedian, George Frederick Cooke, whom Edmund +Kean pronounced "the greatest of all actors, Garrick alone excepted," +arrived in New York and appeared on 21st October, 1810, as _Richard III_ +before two thousand spectators in the Park Theatre. + +It was then that he requested the great audience to stand while "God +Save the King" should be played, and during the storm that followed +calmly took snuff until the audience acceded to his demand. + +From New York he proceeded to Philadelphia. No such acting had been seen +in America. The excitement among play-going people was extraordinary. +"He was to play _Richard_ on a Monday night, and on Sunday evening the +steps of the theatre were covered with groups of porters, and other men +of the lower orders, prepared to spend the night there, that they might +have the first chance of taking places in the boxes. I saw some take +their hats off and put on night-caps. At ten o'clock the next morning +the door was opened to them, and at that time the street in front of the +theatre was impassable. When the rush took place, I saw a man spring up +and catch hold of the iron which supported a lamp on one side of the +door, by which he raised himself so as to run over the heads of the +crowd into the theatre. Some of these fellows were hired by gentlemen to +secure places, and others took boxes on speculation, sure of selling +them at double or treble the regular prices. When the time came for +opening the doors in the evening, the crowd was so tumultuous that it +was evident there was little certainty that the holders of box tickets +would obtain their places, and for ladies the attempt would be +dangerous. A placard was therefore displayed, stating that all persons +who had tickets would be admitted at the stage door before the front +doors were opened. This notice soon drew such a crowd to the back of the +theatre that when Cooke arrived he could not get in. He was on foot with +Dunlap, one of the New York managers, and he was obliged to make himself +known before he could be got through the press. 'I am like the man going +to be hanged,' he said, 'who told the crowd they would have no fun +unless they made way for him.'" + +The writer of these lines was Charles Robert Leslie, who, on the night +in question, occupied a place in the flies, and from that aerial station +"first saw George Frederick Cooke, the best _Richard_ since Garrick, and +who has not been surpassed even by Edmund Kean" (Autobiography of C. R. +Leslie, p. 18). Soon after this memorable night Leslie made a likeness +of Cooke which attracted Bradford's attention, and a fund was speedily +raised by subscription to enable the young artist to study painting two +years in Europe. Armed with letters to English artists, Leslie sailed +from New York on the 11th of November, 1811, in company with Mr. +Inskeep. So slight a circumstance gained for him an introduction into +the great world of West and Allston, and Landseer and Fuseli, and Samuel +Taylor Coleridge, and gave to England and the world the treasures of the +Vernon and the Sheepshank's collections. + +In the preface to the _Mirror of Taste_ (Vol. IV) the editors recognize +the importance to them of the visit of Cooke. The magazine "rose into +estimation just at that singular crisis when a great theatrical +character unexpectedly visiting this country held a new light to the +stage, and, pointing out the true dramatic representation, opened to our +people a new train of thought, gave to the public mind a new spring, and +imparted an impulse before unfelt, with a just and elegant direction to +the general taste, roused the feelings and perceptions from listlessness +and sloth, and infused into the best bosoms of the nation a generous +spirit, which gave new life to the arts, quickened them into action and +effect, called forth the infant genius of a LESLIE to the public view, +and bade breathing portraits start from the canvas of a Sully."[19] + +[19] Sully's painting of Cooke as _Richard III_ in the Philadelphia +Academy of the Fine Arts. + +The father of Charles Robert Leslie was Robert Leslie, who had been a +watchmaker at Elktown, Md., and had removed to Philadelphia in 1786. He +was a member of the American Philosophical Society and a friend of Rush +and Barton and Wistar and Physick. It was while residing in London that +Charles Robert was born, October 19, 1794. An elder sister, Eliza, was +born in 1787 in Philadelphia. She won a prize for a story, "Mrs. +Washington Potts," in _Godey's Lady's Book_, and afterwards edited the +_Gift_, an annual, and _Miss Leslie's Magazine_, a monthly publication +(1843). + +_Blackwood's Magazine_ in 1824 congratulated America on C. R. Leslie's +success. He never lost his profound respect and affection for Samuel +Bradford, and named his second son after him. In the second year (1813) +of Leslie's residence in London, Washington Allston's health became +seriously affected, and he resolved to visit Bristol. Coleridge, who was +affectionately attached to Allston, followed him thither. "The house was +so full," writes Leslie, in his autobiographical recollections, "that +the poet was obliged to share a double-bedded room with me. We were kept +up late in consequence of the critical condition of Allston, and when we +retired Coleridge, seeing a copy of Knickerbocker's History of New York +which I had brought with me, lying on the table, took it up and began +reading. I went to bed, and think he must have sat up the greater part +of the night, for the next day he had nearly got through Knickerbocker. +This was many years before it was published in England, and the work +was, of course, entirely new to him. He was delighted with it" (p. 23). + +THE ANALECTIC.--Washington Irving, who had met Allston in Rome in 1804, +and who was for a time almost swerved from his literary purpose by his +desire to become a painter, and with whose first literary triumph +Coleridge thus became familiar, was also a Philadelphia editor. In 1809 +E. Bronson and others began to print upon their Lorenzo press _The +Select Reviews and Spirit of the Foreign Magazines_, edited by Samuel +Ewing. The magazine was bought by Moses Thomas, in 1812, who changed its +name to the _Analectic_. Irving was its editor in 1813-14. He +contributed to it some of the essays of the "Sketch Book," "Traits of +Indian Character," and "Philip of Pokanoket." He reviewed Robert Treat +Paine, E. C. Holland, Paulding and Lord Byron, and wrote for it +biographies of Lawrence, Burrows, Perry and Porter.[20] + +[20] It is not a little remarkable that the list of Washington Irving's +contributions to the _Analectic Magazine_ should have come to me in an +Athenian newspaper. + ++To 1813 ho Erbing anelabe ten syntaxin tou periodikou +"Anakletik', hekdidomenou kata mena en Philadelpheia. En auno egrapse +pollas biographias ton periphanesteron andron, hon hai kyrioterai eisin +hai ton Amerikanon Porter kai Mporros kai ton Anglon poieton Byronos, +Mouar kai Kampellou."--EBLOMAS.+ December 1, 1890. + +Paulding and Verplanck wrote for the magazine, signing their articles +"P." and "V." + +William Darlington (1782-1863), Pennsylvanian, after whom was named the +Darlingtonica California (a species of pitcher-plant), went to India as +ship's surgeon in 1806, and published in the _Analectic Magazine_ a +sketch of his voyage called "Letters from Calcutta." + +The _Analectic_ contains a number of valuable portraits. The first +lithograph ever made in America is in this magazine for July 1819. It +represents a woodland scene--a flowing stream and a single house upon +the bank. It was made by Bass Otis, who followed the suggestions of +Judge Cooper and Dr. Brown, of Alabama. The drawing was made upon a +stone from Munich, presented to the American Philosophical Society by +Mr. Thomas Dobson, of Philadelphia. The _Analectic Magazine_ was finally +converted into the _Literary Gazette_ and died one year later (December, +1821).[21] + +[21] "I observe," said a gentleman at the Athenaeum, "that the form of +the _Analectic Magazine_ was changed on the first of this month." "No," +replied his friend, "it has been _weakly_ for some time past." + + +WITTY AND SATIRICAL MAGAZINES. + +The _Tickler_ was edited by George Helmbold, and was first issued, +September 16, 1807, under the pen-name of "Toby Scratch 'Em." It had for +its motto: + + "Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, + That tends to make one worthy man my foe, + Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear, + Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear."--_Pope._ + +It was to be issued every Wednesday morning, at the price of four +dollars per annum, from 131 South Front Street. The first volume of +fifty-two numbers was not completed until February 8, 1809. Helmbold +enlisted in the army and was promoted to a lieutenancy at Lundy's Lane. +After the war he kept the Minerva Tavern at Sixth and Sansom Streets. He +afterward edited the _Independent Balance_. + +The _Trangram, or Fashionable Trifler_, by "Christopher Crag, Esq., his +Grandmother and Uncle," was published in Philadelphia by George E. Blake +in 1809. It foreshadowed its wit and its satire in its introductory +parody of _Macbeth_: + + "How now, ye cunning, sharp and secret wags, + What is't ye do? + A deed with a double name." + +In the first number was an address by "The Publisher to the +Purchaser.... The conductors of this paper, being a kind of whimsical +and negligent gentry of easy habits and inconstant disposition, its +continuation will not so much depend upon the patronage that may be +given to it as upon their own humours and caprices. It is, as Johnson +says of its title--'Trangram--an odd, intricately-contrived thing,' and, +therefore, in its appearance will be as irregular in its size or +proportions as unequal, and in its pecuniary value as unstated, though +always as reasonable, as any other oddly-contrived thing ever was, or +is, or ought to be." The publisher, George Blake, was a Yorkshireman and +a music dealer in South Fifth Street. He told William Duane that the +editors were Mordecai M. Noah, Alexander F. Coxe, a son of Tench Coxe, +and in 1814 a member of the bar, and a third person "whose name he +seemed unwilling to mention" (Duane). Only three numbers were printed, +the triple team quarrelled, and the publication ceased. + +Mordecai Noah was born in Philadelphia, July 14, 1785. After his removal +to New York, about 1816, he became the owner or editor of a number of +magazines and newspapers. + +The _Trangram_ is full of local gossip and scandal cleverly concealed. +Andrew Hamilton figures in it as "Dapper Dumpling." J. N. Barker, the +author of "Superstition," is "Billy Mushroom." Joseph Dennie is +nicknamed "Oliver Crank." William Warren is dubbed "the tun-bellied +manager." + +The account of a walk through the city streets ends with "the +description of the defence of his friend would doubtless have continued +until we reached the end of our journey had we not by this time arrived, +where mathematicians never could arrive, at the Square Circle,"--that +is, at Centre Square, Broad and Market Streets. + +The third number, February 1, 1810, contains accounts of "Jeremy +Corsica" (Jerome Bonaparte) and his visit to Philadelphia, and to +"Bangilore" (Baltimore), and his acquaintance with Miss "Cornelia +Pattypan," or Patterson. + +The _Beacon, erected and supported by Lucidantus and his Thirteen +Friends_, was published by W. Brown, and began its course Wednesday, +Nov. 27, 1811. It aimed to surpass _The Spirit of the Reviews_, the +_Dramatic Censor_ and the _Port Folio_, but it is believed to have made +only two numbers. The purpose of the magazine was defined in the second +number, December 11, 1811: "We propose to develop to our readers the +machinery and composition of our Philadelphia Society." + +The _Luncheon_ was a monthly satirical paper "boiled for people about +six feet high by Simon Pure." Its first appearance was in July, 1815. +The second number contained an abusive article upon William McCorkle. In +January, 1816, Lewis P. Franks, the editor of the _Luncheon_, confessed +himself the author of the libel and declared that the alleged biography +of McCorkle was false, and that the journal would be discontinued. + +The _Independent Balance_ was published weekly by "Democritus the +Younger, a lineal descendant of the Laughing Philosopher." It was +established, March 20, 1817, by George Helmbold, the first editor of the +_Tickler_ and late of the United States Army. + +The second volume had a vignette of a sportsman shooting a bird, with +the motto: + + "Whene'er we court the tuneful nine, + Or plainer prose suits our design, + Then fools may sneer and critics frown + At every corner of the town,-- + Condemn our paper or commend; + One aim is ours, our chiefest end: + With well-poised gun and surest eyes + To shoot at Folly as it flies." + +Helmbold died in Philadelphia, December 28, 1821. The magazine, after +passing through several hands, finally became the property of L. P. +Franks, who published it at "No. 1 Paradise Alley, back of 171 Market +Street, between Fourth and Fifth Streets." At this time it was edited by +"Simon Spunkey, Esq., duly commissioned and sworn regulator, +weigh-master and Inspector General." Its motto proclaimed its purpose to +anatomize the wise man's folly as plain as way to parish church: + + "I claim as large a charter as the wind + To blow on whom I please." + +The _Critic_, by Geoffrey Juvenile, Esq., No. 1, January 29, 1820. + +Every number of the _Critic_ contains some quip or satire at the expense +of James Kirke Paulding, and his "Backwoodsman" is particularly levelled +at. Paulding is dubbed "The Cabbage Bard," and the caustic reviewer +proceeds to write: "We _had_ a Dennie and a Clifton, yet the classical +elegance of the one has not availed to preserve his countrymen from +being intoxicated by the quaintness and affectation of the Salmagundi +school, and the purity and wit of the other have as little proved +powerful to save his work from being deserted for the bathos and +silliness of the 'Backwoodsman.' I remember them both. In private life +they united qualities which are seldom found together, brilliancy of +conversation and modesty of deportment. In their writings they were +chaste without being tame, and elevated without being extravagant. Alas! +I little thought to have lived until their light should be hidden by a +cloud of delirious bats who had left their native obscurity and madly +rushed to uncongenial day, vermin which are likely to be of direful omen +to our country unless the land be speedily cleansed of them." + +The greatness of Philadelphia is the inspiration and the pride of the +_Critic_. "Having often heard Philadelphia called the 'Athens of the +United States,' 'the birthplace of American literature,' I was naturally +delighted at the prospect of a visit to so celebrated a city" (p. 14). +And again: "Philadelphia with all its faults and follies is, in a +literary and scientific point of view, the first city of the Empire" (p. +20). The _Critic_ fired its last arrow May 10, 1820. + +Dennie's _Port Folio_ continued to be the admiration and the despair of +contemporary editors and authors. In 1821 appeared the _Post-Chaise +Companion or Magazine of Wit_. By Carlo Convivio Socio, Junior Fellow of +the Royal Academy of Humorists. It was begun in January, 1821, and was +issued from 15 North Front Street. In its first "leader" it deprecated +comparison with the favorites of the hour: "With the venerable Mr. +Oldschool, who for almost twenty years has delighted or instructed the +'mind of desultory man,' I would not presume to enter into a +competition, still less should it be provoked with the profound labours +of the editor of the _Analectic Magazine_ and his host of 'the most +eminent literary men' who promised to eclipse the dissertations of the +famous Northern lights" (p. 3). + +The little paper contains a long article on Mr. Kean's acting (pages +37-51). + +The _Philadelphia Medical Museum_ was conducted by John Redman Coxe for +five years, from 1805 to 1810, and was published by A. Bartram. + +The _Eye_, by Obadiah Optic, was published every Thursday by John W. +Scott, from January to December, 1808, at three dollars a year. It was +filled with odd, historical and alliterative articles. + +The _Philadelphia Repertory_, a weekly literary journal, was published +in 1810 by Dennis Hart. + +The _Eclectic Repertory and Analytic Review, Medical and Philosophical_, +was commenced in October, 1811, and continued until October, 1820. It +was published quarterly, and edited by an association of physicians, and +published by T. Dobson and Son. + +It was continued in January, 1821, as the _Journal of Foreign Medical +Science and Literature_, conducted by S. Emlen, Jr., and William Price, +and published by Eliakim Littell. It finally ceased October, 1824. + +The _Freemason's Magazine and General Miscellany_ was published from +1810-1812 (?). It was edited by George Richards, a school-master and +clergyman of the Revolution. He was the author of "An Historical +Discourse on the Death of General Washington" (Portsmouth, 1800), and of +a number of patriotic poems of the Revolution. + +ROBERT WALSH began, in 1811, the publication of the first quarterly that +was issued in the United States. It was the _American Review of History, +of Politics, and General Repository of Literature and State Papers_, and +was published for two years, in four volumes, by Farrand and Nichols. + +Walsh was born in Baltimore in 1784. He was educated in Catholic schools +in Baltimore, and at the Jesuit College at Georgetown. While at college, +in 1796, he delivered a political address before General Washington. He +began the practice of law in Philadelphia. In 1817-18 he edited the +_American Register_. + +The _National Gazette_, a daily newspaper, was established by him in +Philadelphia in 1819, and his connection with it did not cease until he +sold it, in 1836, to William Fry. + +The _Philadelphia Register_ had been a weekly paper, the title of which +was changed, in 1819, to the _National Recorder_. It was founded in 1818 +by E. Littell and S. Norris Henry. In July, 1821, it changed its name +for the second time, and became the _Saturday Magazine_. De Quincey's +"Confessions of an English Opium Eater" and the essays of Charles Lamb +were published for the first time in America in the pages of the +_Saturday Magazine_. In the following year (1822) the magazine became a +monthly publication, and was called the _Museum of Foreign Literature +and Science_. In this year (1822) it was edited by Robert Walsh. Toward +the close of 1823 the proprietor gave notice that Mr. Walsh was no +longer connected with the _Museum_. It was then conducted by Eliakim and +Squier Littell. In 1843 the publication office was removed to New York, +and the magazine was called the _Eclectic Museum of Foreign Literature +and Science_. Littell had no connection with the magazine in this phase +of its history. He went to Boston, and in 1844 established _Littell's +Living Age_, of which he remained the proprietor until his death, May +17, 1870. + +After retiring from the editorial chair of the _Museum_, Walsh +successfully resuscitated the _American Quarterly Review_, which he +published from March, 1827, to 1837. + +The _Review_ was published by Carey, Lea and Carey. It appeared in +March, June, September and December. Each number contained two hundred +and fifty pages, and the subscription price was five dollars per annum. +Some of Walsh's original works had met with approval in England. His +"Letter on the Genius and Disposition of the French Government" passed +through four editions in England, and was commended by Lord Jeffrey in +the _Edinburgh Review_ (Vol. XVI, p. 1). The _American Quarterly Review_ +did not share the same happy fate. The _Monthly Review_ said of it, "It +is as dull a work of the kind as any that we know of. It is heavier even +than the _Westminster_ when burthened by the lucubrations of Jeremy +Bentham." Neal, in _Blackwood's_ (XVI, 634), sarcastically styled Walsh +"The Jupiter of the American Olympus." + +Walsh was United States Consul at Paris from 1845-1851, and remained in +France until his death, February 7, 1859. + +Joseph Delaplaine, in April, 1812, respectfully solicited the patronage +of the public to the _Emporium of Arts and Sciences_, "conducted by John +Redman Coxe, M.D., professor of chemistry in the University of +Pennsylvania." The magazine was published monthly, beginning in May, +1812. It made three volumes, but two volumes only were published in +Philadelphia. The second volume was conducted by Thomas Cooper, who, in +1813, removed the magazine to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where it was +printed by Kimber and Richardson. + +The _Religious Remembrancer_ was begun by John Welwood Scott on the 4th +of September, 1813. It was the first religious weekly published in the +United States, and was three years in advance of Willis's _Boston +Recorder_. + +Two children's papers publishing about this time were: the _Juvenile +Magazine--Religious, Moral, and Entertaining Pieces in Prose and Verse_, +"compiled by Arthur Donaldson," Philadelphia, 1811, published monthly, +twelve and a half cents per number. The _Juvenile Port Folio_, a weekly +miscellany, was published by Thomas G. Condie, Jr., 22 Carter's Alley, +in 1813. + +A French weekly was started in 1815, _L'Abeille Americaine, Journal +Historique, Politique, et Litteraire a Philadelphie_, A. J. Blocquerst, +130 South Fifth Street. Matthew Carey took subscriptions for the work, +which continued several years. + +The _Parterre: by a Trio_ (Cora and Charles Chandler), 1816, printed by +Probasco and Justice, 350 North Second Street. This worthless little +weekly was begun June 15, 1816, and ended June 28, 1817. + +The _American Register, or Summary Review of History, Politics and +Literature_--Phila.: Thos. Dobson, 1817-1818--made two volumes. + +The _American Medical Recorder_ appeared in 1818, supported by a number +of physicians. It was a quarterly publication. The title was changed in +1824 to the _Medical Recorder of Original Papers and Intelligence on +Medicine and Surgery_. It was merged in 1829 into the _American Journal +of the American Sciences_. + +The _Ladies' and Gentlemen's Weekly Literary Museum and Musical +Magazine_ was a weekly publication begun, January 1, 1819, by H. C. +Lewis, No. 164 South Eleventh Street. + +Washington Irving's first literary adventure was the publication of +_Salmagundi_. It was begun in New York, January 14, 1807, by Irving and +James Kirke Paulding. The origin of the venture is not quite clear, but +it was an outcome of the alert and gay society in New York, of which +Brevoort and Paulding and the Irvings were conspicuous members. + +Mr. Paulding said of the enterprise, "It was when fairly initiated into +the mysteries of the town that Washington Irving and myself commenced +the publication of _Salmagundi_, an irregular issue, the object of which +was to ridicule the follies and foibles of the fashionable world. Though +we had not anticipated anything beyond a local circulation, the work +soon took a wider sphere; gradually extended throughout the United +States, and acquired great popularity. It was, I believe, the first of +its kind in this country; produced numerous similar publications, none +of which, however, extended beyond a few numbers and formed somewhat of +an era in our literature. It reached two volumes, and we could easily +have continued it indefinitely, but the publisher, with that liberality +so characteristic of these modern Maecenases, declined to concede to us a +share of the profits, which had become considerable, and the work was +abruptly discontinued. It was one of those productions of youth that +wise men--or those who think themselves wise--are very apt to be ashamed +of when they grow old." + +In 1819 Paulding attempted to revive _Salmagundi_, and a "second series" +was published fortnightly in Philadelphia, 108 Chestnut Street, by Moses +Thomas, from May 30, 1819, to August 19, 1820. Evert A. Duyckinck, in +his preface to the latest issue of the first series, writes, "Some ten +years or more after the conclusion of _Salmagundi_, Paulding ventured +alone upon a second series. Washington Irving was in Europe, and the +muse of Pindar Cockloft was silent. It was a dangerous undertaking, for +the very essence of a _Salmagundi_ is the combination of choice +ingredients--a product of many minds.... Yet it contains many delightful +pages." + +The publication is referred to by Paulding in a letter to Washington +Irving, January 20, 1820: "I must now make two or three explanations +concerning myself and proceedings. Hearing last winter from William +Irving that you had finally declined coming home, and finding my leisure +time a little heavy, I set to work and prepared several numbers of a +continuation of our old joint production. At that time and subsequently, +until Gouverneur Kemble brought your first number [of the Sketch Book] +down to Washington with him, I was entirely ignorant that you +contemplated anything of the kind. But for an accidental delay my first +number would have got the start of yours. As it happened, however, it +had the appearance of taking the field against you, a thing which +neither my head nor heart will sanction. I believe my work has not done +you any harm in the way of rivalship, for it has been soundly abused by +many persons and compared with the first part with many degrading +expressions. It has sold tolerably, but I shall discontinue it shortly, +as I begin to grow tired, and I believe the public has got the start of +me. It was owing to Moses that I did not commence an entire new work." + +The reputation of the periodical in Fashion's choicest circle is hinted +at in Halleck's "Fanny:" + + "And though by no means a _bas bleu_, she had + For literature a most becoming passion; + Had skimm'd the latest novels, good and bad, + And read the Croakers, when they were in fashion; + And Dr. Chalmers' Sermons, of a Sunday; + And Wordsworth's Cabinet, and _the new Salmagundi_." + +In closing his introduction to the new series, Paulding alluded +gracefully and affectionately to his tried and generous friend and +former fellow-worker, Washington Irving. "The reader will not fail of +hearing, in good time, all about the worthy Cockloft family; the learned +Jeremy, and the young ladies who are still young in spite of the lapse +of ten years and more. Above a dozen years are past since we first +introduced these excellent souls to our readers, and in that time many a +gentle tie has been broken, and many friends separated, some of them +forever. Among those we most loved and admired, we have to regret the +long absence of one who was aye the delight of his friends, and who, if +he were with us, would add such charms of wit and gayety to this little +work that the young and the aged would pore over it with equal delight." + +The Protestant Episcopal Church established the _Episcopal Magazine_ in +January, 1820. It was conducted by Rev. C. H. Wharton and Rev. George +Boyd. The former editor, Charles Henry Wharton, was born in St. Mary's +County, Maryland, June 5, 1748. Notley Hall, the family estate, was +presented to the family by Lord Baltimore. Wharton was educated in +Jesuit schools and ordained a deacon and a priest of the Roman Catholic +Church. In the last years of the Revolution he was chaplain to the Roman +Catholics in Worcester, England, to whom, in 1784, after joining the +Church of England, he addressed his celebrated "Letter." He was a member +of the American Philosophical Society, and for a short time President of +Columbia College. In 1813-14 he was co-editor with Dr. Abercrombie of +the _Quarterly Theological Magazine and Religious Repository_. + +The _Episcopal Magazine_ was published by S. Potter & Co. and printed by +J. Maxwell. + +The _Rural Magazine and Literary Evening Fireside_, a monthly +publication by Richards and Caleb Johnson, was begun in January, 1820. +Its purpose was to give correct views of the science of agriculture. It +also contained articles on slavery, a sketch of Benezet, etc. But the +farmers were not inclined to write out their ideas of agriculture, and +the bucolic journal, after binding its monthly sheaves into a single +volume, asked its own _conge_. + +Nathaniel Chapman was the only begetter of the _American Journal of the +Medical Sciences_, which, in its seventy years of history, has known the +touch of so many skilful editorial hands. Chapman issued it as a +quarterly from the publishing house of M. Carey and Son. It was then +called the _Philadelphia Journal of the Medical Sciences_. + +In 1825 Dr. Williams P. Dewees and John D. Godman were associated with +Dr. Chapman in the editorship. Dr. Isaac Hays was added to the staff in +February, 1827, and in November the name of the magazine was changed to +the _American Journal of the Medical Sciences_, and Dr. Isaac Hays +became sole editor, to be in turn succeeded by his son, Dr. I. Minis +Hays. The history of its changes and extension would take us far beyond +the chronological boundary of this book. Nearly every physician of note +in America has contributed at some time to its pages, and nearly every +notable triumph of American medicine has found fitting record somewhere +in its multitudinous numbers. + +The _Reformer_ was a monthly religious and ethical publication issued in +1820. + +Robert S. Coffin, who had written popular verses under the name of the +"Boston Bard" while a compositor in the office of the _Village Record_, +at West Chester, Pa., came to Philadelphia in 1821 and began a literary +paper, which he called the _Bee_. Not more than two hundred subscribers +were secured, and Coffin sold the unsuccessful paper to Charles +Alexander, who had formerly been employed upon Poulson's _Daily +Advertiser_. On the 4th of August, 1821, Atkinson and Alexander, in the +office once occupied by Benjamin Franklin, back of No. 53 Market Street, +began the publication of the Philadelphia _Saturday Evening Post_. T. +Cottrell Clarke was appointed editor. He retired in 1826 and founded the +_Ladies' Album_, a weekly literary paper, which ultimately merged into +the _Pennsylvania Inquirer_. Morton McMichael succeeded Clarke in the +editorial chair of the _Post_, and, when he too resigned, became the +first editor of the _Saturday Courier_. Other editors of the _Post_ at +various times were Benjamin Mathias, founder of the _Saturday +Chronicle_, Charles J. Peterson, Rufus W. Griswold, H. Hastings Weld and +Henry Peterson. The _Post_ had few important rivals among the family +newspapers and it absorbed a number of the young literary journals. The +_Saturday News_, the _Saturday Bulletin_ and the _Saturday Chronicle_ +were merged into the _Post_. Mrs. Henry Wood's early novels, written in +her obscure days before the time of "East Lynne," were published in it. + +The _Episcopal Recorder_, established in 1822, and edited by Rev. B. B. +Smith, Bishop of the P. E. Church in the United States, has always +admitted into its pages articles by leading clergymen of whatever sect +or creed. + +The _Erin_, a weekly paper containing Irish news, was published in +August, 1822, by Hart & Co., No. 117 South Fifth Street. + +Rev. G. T. Bedell, who had established the _Episcopal Recorder_, was +also the editor of the _Philadelphia Recorder_ (1823), likewise a +religious weekly published in the interest of the Protestant Episcopal +Church. + +The _Arcadian_, a literary periodical, of the year 1823, was published +by A. Potter and Co. + +The _American Monthly Magazine_, January, 1824, to June, 1824, was +edited by James McHenry and published by Job Palmer. + +The _Medical Review and Analectic Journal_ was edited by Dr. John Eberle +and Dr. George McClellan and published quarterly between June, 1824, and +August, 1826. + +The _AEsculapian Register_ was published from June 17, 1824, to December +8, 1834. Several physicians united in its editorship, and R. Desilver, +of 110 Walnut Street, was its publisher; its motto: "Ars longa, vita +brevis." + +The _American Sunday School Magazine_ (1824-1831) was the first +Sunday-school-teacher's journal issued in America. + +_La Corbeille_, a weekly journal published in 1824. The editor was a +gallant Cavalier, who warns the ladies in the first number that novel +reading "induces a sickly diathesis of the mind, or mental marasmus." + +In June, 1824, there were published in Philadelphia the _Port Folio_, +the _Museum_, the _American Monthly_ and nine other magazines, four +religious, three medical and two political. It was in this year that +_Blackwood's Magazine_ congratulated America on Charles Robert Leslie's +success in art. + +The _Reformer_, published in 1824, by Theophilus R. Gates, aimed to +"expose the clerical schemes and pompous undertakings of the present day +under the pretence of religion, and to show that they are irreconcilable +with the spirit and principle of the Gospel." + +The _Christian_ was a weekly paper of 1824. + +The _Philadelphian_, a large folio sheet, containing religious articles, +was founded in May, 1825, by S. B. Ludlow, and published weekly at No. +59 Locust Street. William F. Geddes and Dr. Ezra Styles Ely were among +its editors. + +The _North American Medical and Surgical Journal_, January, 1826, to +October, 1831, was published quarterly. + +The _Album and Ladies Weekly Gazette_, begun June 7, 1826, by T. C. +Clarke, changed its name to the _Philadelphia Album and Ladies' Literary +Port Folio_, and was edited by Robert Morris after consolidation with +the _Ladies' Literary Port Folio_. + +The _Casket, Flowers of Literature, Wit and Sentiment_ was a magazine +published in newspaper form. It was made out of the _Saturday Evening +Post_, and was first issued by Samuel Coate Atkinson, at No. 36 Carter's +Alley, January 1, 1827. Elizabeth Margaret Chandler (1807-1834) won a +prize for the "Slave Ship" offered by the proprietor of the _Casket_. + +Charles Alexander, the well-known publisher, solicited William E. Burton +to establish a literary journal in Philadelphia, and Burton, who was +sympathetic yet dogmatic, possessed of excellent literary taste, but +never more positive than when in error, founded in July, 1837, the +_Gentleman's Magazine_. The fifth and sixth volumes, 1839, were +conducted by Burton and by Poe. The seventh volume, 1840, was conducted +by George R. Graham. The poetry of Burton's was painfully bad, redeemed +only in the faintest degree by the verses of J. H. Ingraham and C. West +Thomson. + +Elwood Walter began and Edmund Morris continued the _Ariel_, a +fortnightly literary journal, first issued from No. 71 Market Street, +May 5, 1827. + +The _Philadelphia Monthly Journal of Medicine and Surgery_ was published +by R. H. Small and edited by Dr. N. R. Smith from June, 1827, until +February, 1828. + +The _Friend_, a weekly periodical begun October 13, 1827, was published +in the interest of the Orthodox Quakers. + +The _Philadelphia Monthly Magazine_, October, 1827-September, 1829; +published by J. Dobson, 108 Chestnut Street. The magazine was projected +by Dr. Isaac Clarkson Snowden. It was to give information on the fine +arts, sciences and literature, and contained frequent articles on +American literature. Snowden was born at Princeton, 31st of December, +1791. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and lived in Bucks +County in ill-health. He conceived the plan of the magazine in the +spring of 1827. At his death the magazine passed into the hands of B. R. +Evans and was enlarged eight pages. A series of good articles began +November, 1828, and ran through five numbers, on the History of +Literature in Pennsylvania, by R. P. S. (Richard Penn Smith). + +The _Ladies' Literary Port Folio_ was begun December 10, 1828. It was +published in quarto form by Thomas C. Clarke, No. 67 Arcade. + +An association of physicians published every fortnight after September +9, 1829, the _Journal of Health_. Henry H. Porter, at No. 108 Chestnut +Street, was the publisher of this sixteen page magazine, whose motto was +"Health--the poor man's riches, the rich man's bliss." + +The _Banner of the Constitution_ was a weekly journal of New York City, +from December, 1829, to May, 1831. In the latter month it was +transferred to Philadelphia, because, as the editor explained, "As +Pennsylvania is without a single paper bold enough to speak out the +language of truth in the strong terms befitting the actual crisis of +affairs, we have resolved to transfer our establishment to Philadelphia +and to resume our old position on the field of battle." + +The _Protestant Episcopalian and Church Register_ was "devoted to the +interests of religion in the Protestant Episcopal Church." It was begun +in January, 1830, became the property of John S. Littell in 1838, and on +January 5, 1839, appeared in a fresh guise as the _Banner of the Cross_. + +_Godey's Lady's Book_ was the chief financial success among the +Philadelphia magazines, and, after the _Port Folio_, enlisted the +services of the greatest number of the best writers. The circulation, +largely due to its popular colored fashion plates, increased to 150,000 +a month. It was begun in July, 1830, by Louis A. Godey, who continued to +direct his continuously prosperous journal until 1877. Some of the +earliest compositions of Longfellow, Holmes, Poe, Bayard Taylor, Lydia +H. Sigourney, Frances Osgood and Harriet Beecher Stowe appeared in this +magazine. + +For many years the _Lady's Book_ was edited by Sarah Josepha Hale. She +was born in Newport, New Hampshire, 24th October, 1788, and died in +Philadelphia 30th April, 1879. From 1828 to 1837 she edited, in Boston, +the _Ladies' Magazine_. When that magazine was united in 1837 with +_Godey's Lady's Book_, Mrs. Hale became editor of the latter periodical, +and made her home in Philadelphia in 1841. She was the originator of the +Seamen's Aid Society. She organized the fair whereby the fund for the +completion of the Bunker Hill monument was raised. It was through her +zealous insistence that Thanksgiving Day was made a national holiday. +She published many books in prose and verse, and some fugitive poems, +"Mary's Lamb," "It Snows," and "The Light of Home," that were everywhere +known. + +Another ladies' magazine was the _Ladies' Garland_, published by John +Libby, April 15, 1837-June, 1838. + +The _Herald of Truth_, a liberal religious weekly, was published by +M. T. C. Gould, No. 6 North Eighth Street, for a short time after +January, 1831. + +The _Presbyterian_ was begun February 16, 1831. + +The _Lutheran Observer_ was also commenced in 1831. It was a +continuation of the _Lutheran Intelligencer_, founded in March, 1826, +which was the first Lutheran periodical issued in America. + +The _Philadelphia Liberalist_, edited by Rev. Zelotes Fuller, was issued +weekly after June 9, 1832. + +The _Atlantic Journal and Friend of Knowledge_ was edited in +Philadelphia in 1832 by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. The editor was a +celebrated botanist, who was born in Constantinople in 1784, and died in +Philadelphia, September 14, 1842. His father had been a Philadelphia +merchant. Rafinesque became professor of botany in Transylvania +University, Lexington, Ky. Eight numbers only of the _Atlantic Journal_ +appeared. + +The _Cholera Gazette_, July 11, 1832-November 21, 1832, a weekly paper, +was published by Carey, Lea and Blanchard. It was edited by George +Washington Dickson, a popular negro minstrel, who published in New York, +in 1839, another weekly called the _Polyanthus_. + +The _North American Quarterly Magazine_ was begun in Philadelphia, in +1833, by Sumner Lincoln Fairfield, the author of "The Cities of the +Plain." Fairfield was born in Warwick, Mass., June 25, 1803. The sad +story of his life of sickness and distress was told by his wife (Jane +Frazee) in 1846. She collected the money that made the existence of the +magazine possible, and her pertinacity and courage kept the magazine +alive for five years. Concerning the origin of the enterprise she +writes: + +"I returned to my home after having obtained the number of eight +signatures, amounting to forty dollars. My husband took little notice of +my success for a time. I paid the house rent and secured the comforts of +a home. Each day I set apart for my visits five or six hours. In this +way I soon laid aside the means sufficient to issue the first number of +the _North American Quarterly Magazine_. When I had accumulated the sum +of seven hundred dollars I gave it into the hands of Mr. Fairfield. He +seemed amazed at my success. He found a dwelling to rent on Tenth, near +Chestnut Street. To this pleasant abode we immediately repaired. In a +very short time the work was out, and once more my heart rejoiced" +(Autobiography of Jane Fairfield, p. 97). + +Fairfield always contended that Bulwer stole from him the plot of his +"Last Days of Pompeii." The story as told by Mrs. Fairfield is as +follows: "His great poem, 'The Last Night of Pompeii,' was finished in +1830, and soon after its publication my husband sent copies to England, +to Bulwer. He also wrote him a very long letter, but never received +either an acknowledgment of the poem or the letter. Bulwer's novel of a +similar title appeared about two years afterward, and, it is only +_justice to the poet_ to say, was in _every_ respect an entire and most +flagrant plagiarism. The Argument, the Introduction of the Two Lovers, +Converted Christians, Forebodings of the Destruction, The Picture of +Pompeii in Ruins, The Forum of Pompeii, The Manners and Morals of +Campania Portrayed, Diomede, the Praetor, The Night Storm, Vesuvius +Threatening, Dialogue of the Christians--the scenes of the _whole plot_, +even the names of characters, _were all taken from this most grand and +sublime poem_" (Autobiography of Jane Fairfield, p. 90). + +The _North American Quarterly Magazine_ ceased in 1838. + +_Waldie's Select Circulating Library_, furnishing the best popular +literature, price five dollars for fifty-two numbers, containing matter +equal to fifty London duodecimo volumes; printed and published weekly by +Adam Waldie, No. 6 North Eighth Street, Philadelphia. It was begun +January 15, 1833, and was edited by John Jay Smith (1798-1881). Smith +had been the editor of the _Saturday Bulletin_, 1830-32, _Littell's +Museum_, _Walsh's National Gazette_ and the _Daily Express_. The +magazine reprinted standard works and published original reviews and +literary notes. + +The _American Lancet_, edited by F. S. Beattie, began February 23, 1833, +and was published fortnightly by Turner and Son. + +The _Spy in Philadelphia and Spirit of the Age_, a weekly journal +advocating purity in politics, censured the vices of the time for a few +weeks after July 6, 1833. + +The _Advocate of Science and Annals of Natural History_ was conducted by +W. P. Gibbons, 1834-5. + +The _Gentleman's Vade-Mecum, or the Sporting and Dramatic +Companion_, January 1, 1835-June 25, 1836, contained original dramas and +musical compositions, fast heats and pictures of celebrated racers. +Charles Alexander, its publisher, sold it to Louis A. Godey, Joseph C. +Neal and Morton McMichael, who made out of it the _Saturday News and +Literary Gazette_, which began its course July 2, 1836, and ultimately +became a part of the _Saturday Evening Post_. The editor of both +publications was Joseph Clay Neal (1807-1847), who also edited the +_Pennsylvanian_, a Democratic daily newspaper, from 1831 to 1844, +succeeding James Gordon Bennett in the editorial chair. At the time of +his death he owned the _Saturday Gazette_, which he and Morton McMichael +had established. His "Charcoal Sketches" (Philadelphia, 1837), which +Charles Dickens republished in London, were originally contributed to +the _Pennsylvanian_ under the title, "City Worthies." His wife, Alice +Bradley Haven (1828-1863), contributed, while a school-girl, several +sketches under the name of Alice G. Lee to the _Saturday Gazette_. She +was generally known as "Cousin Alice," and under this name assumed +editorial charge of the _Gazette_ after her husband's death. + +The _Radical Reformer and Workingman's Advocate_ was published weekly +after June 13, 1835, by Thomas Bro., at No. 124 South Front Street. In +October it was issued fortnightly. + +The _Botanic Sentinel and Literary Gazette_ (August 12, 1835-June 15, +1840), published weekly by J. Coates. + +The _Independent Weekly Press_, "upholding the right of free discussion, +given to us by our God and guarded by the laws of our country," was +published December 5, 1835. It hoped and intended to be a literary +paper, but the quality of its literature is inferior even to that of its +infantile contemporaries. + +_Every Bodie's Album_ was a monthly miscellany of "humorous tales, +essays, anecdotes and facetiae," and the other symptoms of albuminous +fever. It was begun July 1, 1836. It was a large magazine, containing a +number of absurd engravings. Charles Alexander, the publisher of the +_Vade-Mecum_, issued this magazine also. + +The _Eclectic Journal of Medicine_ (November, 1836-October, 1840) was +published monthly by Barrington and Haswell, and edited by John Bell. + +_Saturday Chronicle_ was published weekly by Matthias and Taylor, +Number 84 South Second Street, from 1836 until 1840. + +The _Weekly Messenger_ was published from 1836 to 1848. + +Adam Waldie built up a lumbering weekly journal, January 6, 1837, which +he called _Waldie's Literary Omnibus_. This carry-all was devoted to +"news, books entire, sketches, reviews, tales, and miscellaneous +intelligence." + +The _Philadelphia Visitor and Parlor Companion_, a fortnightly journal, +published from March, 1837, by W. B. Rogers, Number 49 Chestnut Street, +and edited by H. N. Moore, was filled with toys of fashion and shreds of +social folly. + +The _American Journal of Homoeopathy_, a bi-monthly publication, was +begun August, 1838, by W. L. J. Kiderlen & Co. + +The _United States Magazine and Democratic Review_ was started some time +in 1838 and published until 1840. + + +GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE. + +"My name has figured, I assure you, on the covers of Graham and Godey, +making as respectable an appearance, for aught I could see, as any of +the canonized bead-roll with which it was associated." + +So Holgrave tells Miss Phoebe Pyncheon in the "House of Seven Gables," +and voices Hawthorne's and New England's appreciation of the merit and +supremacy of the two Philadelphia magazines which in the middle of this +century engaged the services and elicited the abilities of the best +American writers. + +Mr. George R. Graham, whose name was once known wherever books were read +in America, and whose intimate relations with American literature seemed +"too intrinse t'unloose," has quite outlived the memories of his +countrymen. Few are aware that the generous and able publisher who gave +employment to young James Russell Lowell, who awarded the prize for the +"Gold-Bug" to Edgar Allan Poe, and who was almost the first to pay +American authors for their work, is still living in Orange, New Jersey. +He has outlived health and fortune as well as fame. And now, rich only +in memory, and the precious store of reminiscences of nearly four-score +years, he lies in the Memorial Hospital at Orange contentedly awaiting +the end, neither anxious to go nor eager to remain. + +His few personal wants and the necessary comforts of his age are fully +provided by Mr. George W. Childs, whose liberal hand, prompted by his +generous heart, never wearies in doing deeds of generosity. + +Mr. Graham has told me in detail the story of his magazine. He was the +owner and editor of _Atkinson's Casket_, when, in 1841, William E. +Burton, the actor, came to him with the request that he should buy the +_Gentleman's Magazine_, of which Burton had been the proprietor for four +years. Burton explained that money was needed for his new theatre, that +the magazine must be sold, that it numbered thirty-five hundred +subscribers, and that it would be sold outright for thirty-five hundred +dollars. Graham, who at that time had fifteen hundred subscribers to his +own magazine, accepted the offer, and the _Gentleman's Magazine_ was +transferred to him. "There is one thing more," said Burton, "I want you +to take care of my young editor." That "young editor," who in this +manner entered the employ of George Graham, was Edgar Allan Poe. Mr. +Graham bears clear and willing testimony to the efficient service +rendered by Poe to the new magazine, which, now combined with the +_Casket_, took the name of its new owner. He found little in Poe's +conduct to reprove, nor does he remember any cause beyond envy and +malice for Griswold's truculent slanders. A quarrel of an hour led to +Poe's dismissal, but the friendly relations between the wayward poet and +his former employer remained unsevered. From New York, Poe sent Graham +the manuscript of a story for which he asked and received fifty dollars. +The story remained unpublished for a year, when Poe again appeared in +the editorial room and begged for the return of the manuscript, that he +might try with it for the prize of one hundred dollars offered for the +best prose tale. Graham showed his "love and friending" for the author +by surrendering the story, and the judges awarded to Edgar Poe the prize +for the "Gold-Bug." + +After the dismissal of Poe, the magazine, still under Graham's +management, was edited by Ann Stephens and Charles J. Peterson, until +Rufus Wilmot Griswold sat in the responsible chair. James Russell Lowell +was a subordinate editor of the magazine as early as 1843, and in April +of that year communicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne the desire of the +editor, Edgar Allan Poe, that he too should become a contributor. In +1845 Lowell was married and continued to reside with his wife in +Philadelphia. The following letter was the first written by Mrs. Lowell +from Philadelphia to her friend Mrs. Hawthorne: + + PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 16, 1845. + + MY DEAR SOPHIA:--I wished to write to you before I left home, but + in the hurry of those last hours I had no time, and instead of + delicate sentiments could only send you gross plum-cake, which I + must hope you received. We are most delightfully situated here in + every respect, surrounded with kind and sympathizing friends, yet + allowed by them to be as quiet and retired as we choose; but it is + always a pleasure to know you can have society if you wish for it, + by walking a few steps beyond your own door. + + We live in a little chamber on the third story, quite low enough to + be an attic, so that we feel classical in our environment; and we + have one of the sweetest and most motherly of Quaker women to + anticipate all our wants, and make us comfortable outwardly as we + are blest inwardly. James's prospects are as good as an author's + _ought_ to be, and I begin to fear we shall not have the + satisfaction of being so _very_ poor after all. But we are, in + spite of this disappointment of our expectations, the happiest of + mortals or spirits, and cling to the skirts of every passing hour, + although we know the next will bring us still more joy. + + Your most happy and affectionate + + MARIA LOWELL. + +"Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife," Vol. I, p. 283. + +The house so happily described, and in which Lowell so pleasantly lived +while he wrote for _Graham's_ and won a high place on its "canonized +bead-roll," was the old house, still standing at the northeast corner of +Fourth and Arch Streets, which had been built for the residence of +William Smith, editor of the _American Magazine_ (1757-8). + +Griswold introduced James Fenimore Cooper to Mr. Graham in the editorial +sanctum, and Graham bought from him his lives of the naval commanders, +and engaged him to write a serial story. Cooper wrote "The Isles of the +Gulf," afterward known as "Jack Tier," and received eighteen hundred +dollars for it; "though," says Graham, "the money might as well have +been thrown into the sea, for it never brought me a new subscriber." + +Longfellow's "Spanish Student" appeared for the first time in _Graham's +Magazine_, and Longfellow also contributed "Nuremberg" (June, 1844), +"The Arsenal at Springfield" (May, 1844), "Dante's Divina Commedia" +(June, 1850), "Childhood" (March, 1844), "Belfry of Bruges" (Vol. 22). + +Poe published here "The Murders of the Rue Morgue," three chapters on +Autography (Nov., Dec., 1841-Jan., 1842), a review of Horne's "Orion" +(March, 1844), "Dreamland" (June, 1844), "To Helen," "Israfel," "A Few +Words about Brainard," "Life in Death," "The Mask of the Red Death" +(May, 1842), numerous reviews of new books, and "The Conqueror Worm" +(Vol. 22). + +After Griswold left the _Magazine_ Mr. Graham assumed more of the +literary management, and engaged E. P. Whipple to write the editorial +reviews of the more important books, which he continued to do until +1854. + +Nathaniel Hawthorne included many of his early contributions to this +magazine in his "Twice-Told Tales." "The Earth's Holocaust" appeared in +May, 1844. + +George D. Prentice wrote verses. "Fanny Forester" (Mrs. Judson) sent +some brilliant sketches, and Phoebe and Alice Cary, and Grace +Greenwood were faithful correspondents. From the South came verses and +prose tales by William Gilmore Simms. Other captain jewels in Graham's +carcanet were the gifts of Miss Sedgwick, Frances S. Osgood, N. P. +Willis ("it was very comfortable that there should have been a Willis"), +James K. Paulding, Park Benjamin, W. W. Story, Geo. W. Bethune, Mary +Lockhart Lawson, Charles Fenno Hoffman, Alfred B. Street and Albert +Pike. + +Among the Philadelphians who rendered frequent aid to the editor were +Joseph C. Neal, Richard Penn Smith, Dr. J. K. Mitchell, Robert Morris +and Thomas Dunn English, the author of "Ben Bolt," who would seem to +have tasted the fountain of eternal youth, and has gone to Congress in +1890 a jolly, thriving candidate. + +William Henry Herbert (Frank Forester) furnished a number of sporting +sketches and other articles. + +The circulation of _Graham's Magazine_ when at the top of popularity was +thirty-five or thirty-seven thousand. Mr. Graham sold out in 1848, but +bought back the property in 1849. He finally parted with it in 1854. + +Washington Irving alone, among the far-shining men of letters in the +country, had no connection with _Graham's_. The _Knickerbocker Magazine_ +of New York found place for all that the facility of his pen could +create, and guarded jealously the productions of their "crack writer." + +_Graham's Magazine_ began with volume eighteen, being the addition of +the ten volumes of Atkinson's _Casket_, and the seven volumes of +Burton's _Gentleman's Magazine_. This first volume, 1841, contained +Poe's "Descent into a Maelstrom" and his "Murders in the Rue Morgue." + +The twenty-first volume, 1842, presents the name of Rufus W. Griswold +upon the cover. The thirtieth volume was edited by Graham alone; the +thirty-second by Graham and Robert T. Conrad; the thirty-fifth by +Graham, Joseph R. Chandler and Bayard Taylor; the fiftieth by Charles +Godfrey Leland. On the first of January, 1859, _Graham's Magazine_ +became the _American Monthly_. + +On March 15, 1838, John Greenleaf Whittier became editor of the +_Pennsylvania Freeman_, published at 31 North Fifth Street. He was +successor to Benjamin Lundy. + +Graham's particular patent of nobility is the fact that he was the first +of American publishers to pay fair prices to American authors. + +The _Lady's Amaranth_ was another venture of 1838, and was issued from +No. 274 Market Street. + +Adam Waldie was the publisher of the _American Phrenological Journal and +Miscellany_, begun in November, 1838. + +The _Philadelphia Reporter_ was called into being in 1838, at No. 45 +North Sixth Street, but no physic could prolong its sickly days, and it +was discontinued in a few months' time. + +The _Christian Observer_ was a weekly Presbyterian journal commenced in +1838, and was for many years published from No. 134 Chestnut Street. + +The _Baptist Record_ was a religious publication continued from 1838 to +1857. + +The _American Phrenological Journal_ was issued from No. 46 Carpenter +Street from 1838 to 1841. + +The _Farmer's Cabinet_, devoted to agriculture, was published from 1838 +to 1850. + +The _Ladies' Companion_ was published by Orrin Rodgers for two years +following 1838. + +Rodgers also published the _Medico-Chirurgical Review_, about 1838. Its +life, however, was short. + +_Peterson's Ladies' National Magazine_.--It was George R. Graham who +first suggested to his friend, Charles J. Peterson, then editor of the +_Saturday Evening Post_, the publication of a fashion journal, patterned +upon the popular French periodicals. _Peterson's Magazine_ is now (1891) +in its fiftieth year, and is still the best and most popular publication +of its class. Its circulation has been as high as one hundred and +sixty-five thousand. It is to-day a stock company, of which Mrs. C. J. +Peterson is President. The same glittering row of writers who +contributed to _Graham's_ helped also in the making of _Peterson's_. + +Frances Hodgson Burnett published her first story, "Ethel's Sir +Lancelot," in _Peterson's_ for November, 1868. The story filled five +pages. Mrs. Frank Leslie thinks that Mrs. Burnett's first literary work +was for Frank Leslie in 1867 or 1868, and that she received her first +check in payment for an article in _Frank Leslie's Magazine_. Mrs. +Leslie says that Mrs. Burnett was then living in Knoxville with her +brother who was a civil engineer. + +Mr. Peterson died March 4, 1887. The following editorial note appeared +in _The Philadelphia Inquirer_ of Monday, March 7, 1887: + + +CHARLES J. PETERSON. + +"No man was ever more beloved by his friends--and among them were those +who were great and good in all that constitutes intellectual greatness +and moral goodness--than Charles J. Peterson, whose death occurred on +Friday night last. He was one of that group of men who half a century +ago began to make Philadelphia famous as the literary centre of the +country. Liberally educated, trained to the law, he turned naturally to +literature, to which his brilliant mind, his ripe scholarship, his +fervid imagination, his refined taste directed and impelled him. He +survived nearly all of those who had but a brief while before or after +him entered upon the world of letters in this city. At that time the +best literary thought of the nation was expressed through the medium of +_Graham's Magazine_, of which Mr. Peterson was the editor. Among his +learned and brilliant associates were James Russell Lowell, Edgar Allan +Poe, Dr. Rufus Griswold, Dr. Bird, Richard Penn Smith, Professor J. K. +Mitchell, Judge Conrad, Morton McMichael and Louis A. Godey. Of all +these men with whom Mr. Peterson worked and lived upon the most intimate +terms of literary companionship Mr. Lowell now alone survives. Fifty +years ago they were the names which gave to American literature +distinction, and made Philadelphia the most prominent centre of genius +and talent. Among his contemporaries Mr. Peterson held distinguished +rank, and had he continued his literary career there can be no doubt +that he would have continued to hold it even in the army of writers who +in recent years have become so famous. + +"But Mr. Peterson put aside writing to become a publisher, in which he +achieved remarkable and deserved success, and subsequently he wrote but +infrequently, and then only brief brochures intended solely for private +circulation among his friends, but which showed the fertility of his +mind, his rare fancy, fine taste and ripe judgment. + +"But while Mr. Peterson was commonly known as an author, editor and +publisher, he was best known by those who enjoyed the happiness and +privilege of his acquaintanceship, friendship or more affectionate +relations, as a man of the noblest character, the tenderest +sensibilities, the most refined and gentle qualities. Advancing age, a +great and sorrowful loss, that of an only son by sudden death, induced +him to withdraw from the society that had always welcomed his presence, +but in his seclusion he did not grow misanthropical or morbid. His faith +in God and men seemed to grow stronger and greater the nearer he +approached the end, and in dying he was close to both. His nature was +most generous and affectionate; and age, which so often dulls and +hardens the finest characters, left his brilliant and gentle to the +end. He was a man of large benevolence, giving largely to those who in +his wise judgment were worthy, and his bounty to authors and old +associates who had struggled and fallen by the way was measured only by +their needs. He was a good citizen and a good man; those who knew him +best loved him best. We can speak of him only as he was in that part of +his daily life with which all who happily knew him were familiar. His +life within his own home, which was his own, and into which we would not +intrude, was noblest of all, full of refinement, love and chivalric +devotion. His loss will most be felt there, though there is no friend +who shared his friendship upon whom it will not fall heavily and +sorrowfully." + +The _Botanic Medical Reformer and Home Physician_ was published monthly +by H. Hollemback and Co., and edited by Dr. Thomas Cooke. It was begun +May 7, 1840. + +The _Philadelphia Repository_ (1840-1852) was begun by William Henry +Gilder (1812-1864) father of Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the +_Century Magazine_. The first William Henry, grandfather of Richard +Watson, laid the corner-stone of Girard College. William Henry the +second continued to edit the _Repository_ about one year; he +subsequently published in Philadelphia the _Literary Register_, a +quarterly review. + +The _Literalist_ was published from 1840 to 1842 at No. 67 South Second +Street. James Rees edited the _Dramatic Mirror and Literary Companion_, +August 14, 1841, at No. 15 North Sixth Street. + +The _Young People's Book_ (September, 1841-August, 1842) was published +at No. 101 Chestnut Street, and was edited by John Frost, professor of +history in the Central High School. + +It was the _Dollar Magazine_, commenced January 25, 1843, that offered +the prize in June, 1843, for the best story, and, as already related, +Edgar Allan Poe entered the lists of fame, and drew the prize in the +lottery with the "Gold-Bug." Hawthorne published here, in 1851, "The +Unpardonable Sin." The publishers of the _Dollar Newspaper_ were the +publishers of the _Ledger_. When Mr. George W. Childs purchased the +_Ledger_ he bought also the _Dollar Magazine_, and changed its name to +the _Home Weekly and Household Newspaper_. + +The _Occident and American Jewish Advocate_ was published monthly by +Isaac Leeser from No. 118 South Fourth Street, and was continued from +1843 to 1847. + +The _Legal Intelligencer_ began December 2, 1843, and, published weekly +from that time to the present, is the oldest law journal in the United +States. It was founded by Henry E. Wallace, and has been edited by J. +Hubley Ashton, Dallas Sanders and Henry C. Titus. + +Miss Eliza Leslie, sister to Charles Robert Leslie, after winning her +first literary distinction with her story, "Mrs. Washington Potts," in +_Godey's Lady's Book_, began, with the aid of T. S. Arthur, the +publication in January, 1843, of _Miss Leslie's Magazine_. In the +address of "The Publisher to the Public" the new venture is thus +introduced and commended: "_Miss Leslie's Magazine_! There is something +in the very name that foretokens a prosperous career. It is a name +associated with the pleasantest passages of our current American +literature--with the most brilliant triumphs of our most brilliant +periodicals. Who does not remember 'Mrs. Washington Potts' and that +exquisite tease, 'Old Aunt Quinby,' and the 'Miss Vanlears,' and their +pseudo-French gallant; and 'Mrs. Woodbridge,' and her economical mamma, +and the thousand other creations of Miss Leslie's admirable pencil; and +remembering these, who would not venture to predict that her magazine +must be eminently successful? _We_ know that it will be." The first +number contained contributions by T. S. Arthur, Mrs. Anna Bache, N. P. +Willis, Virginia Murray, John Bouvier, Mrs. L. H. Sigourney, Morton +McMichael and Mrs. S. C. Hall. + +Again, in February, the publisher advanced before the public with a +modest little speech: "We foresaw that our magazine would create a +sensation, but we had no idea that it would produce such a commotion as +it has done. Everybody is in rapture with it, and the whole town has +been crowding to get a peep at it--for, to say the truth, such has been +the demand that we could not possibly keep pace with it.... We have +already received a larger number of actual subscriptions than were ever +before obtained for any periodical in the same period; and we do not +hazard anything in predicting that before the expiration of our first +year we shall have a greater circulation than any other monthly +publication.... And then our contributors are all persons of genuine +merit--men and women who write understandingly, and who know how to +mingle entertainment with profit. No mawkish sentimentality--no diluted +commonplaces--no pompous parade of swollen words--no tumid prosiness can +find admission into our columns, for we shall avoid alike the hackneyed +author whose reputation takes the place of ability, and the unfledged +scribbler whose crudities are utter abominations. We care nothing for +mere names, though a good deed is none the worse for coming from a good +hand; but the small fry of literature--the lackadaisical +geniuses--Heaven bless the mark--who, scum-like, float upon the surface, +soiling what they touch and disturbing by their presence what, but for +them, might be free from offence--we hold in utter abhorrence." + +In _Miss Leslie's Magazine_ for April, 1843, appeared the first specimen +of lithotinting that had been attempted in America. It was the work of +an artist named Richards, who had seen several productions of Mr. +Hullmandel, of London, who had been experimenting in this style. + +The first illustrated comic paper on an original plan published in +America was the _John Donkey_. The editors of the paper were G. G. +(Gaslight) Foster and Thomas Dunn English. Foster was a reporter on the +_North American_ who had written sketches of New York, notably the +account of the illuminated clock of the Seward House, and who had been +brought to Philadelphia by Morton McMichael. English was born in +Philadelphia, June 29, 1819, and in his seventeenth year was a +contributor to Philadelphia newspapers. He was graduated in medicine at +the University of Pennsylvania in 1839, and after studying law was +admitted to the bar in 1842. His famous song, "Ben Bolt" first appeared +in the _New York Mirror_ in 1843. + +The first illustrated comic paper in America, the _Lantern_, was started +by John Brougham. "This paper," said Foster and English, "professes to +be funny. Let us make a paper that professes to be stupid"--and the +_John Donkey_ was published monthly by G. B. Zieber at Third and +Chestnut Streets, and Zieber and Foster and English shared regularly in +the profits. Nearly all the articles were written by English. The artist +of the magazine was Felix O. C. Darley; Henry L. Stephens designed many +of the prints, and Hinckley was the engraver of the magazine. Barnet +Phillips, the author of the _Struggle_, a journalist born in +Philadelphia, November 9, 1828, helped in the composition of the _John +Donkey_. The circulation rose to twelve thousand, when Zieber failed, +and Foster went out, and the circulation dropped to three thousand. The +first volume was completed in June, 1848, and only a few numbers of the +second volume were issued. + +_Metcalfe's Miscellany_ was begun in March, 1841, and edited by Dr. +Thomas Dunn English. The contents were "entirely original," both stories +and verse. The subscription price, one dollar per year, in advance. +English was invited to edit the magazine by Metcalfe, who had been a +printer in the office of _Poulson's Daily Advertiser_, and who knew that +English wrote editorials for that paper. J. Ross Browne, author of the +_California Sketches_, wrote Oriental sketches for Metcalfe's. + +The _Nineteenth Century_ was begun in January, 1848. It was published by +G. B. Zieber and Co., and edited by C. Chauncey Burr. The first volume +was embellished with a steel engraving of Horace Greeley, and the second +volume with an engraving of John Sartain. The motto upon the title-page +was Goethe's famous "Light, more light still." + +The first number was dedicated to Douglas Jerrold. "The Heart Broken," a +story of Brockden Brown's life, death and burial, was contributed by +George Lippard: "He became an--author! Yes, a miserable penster, a +scribbler, a fellow who spills ink for bread! For a career like this he +forsook the brilliant prospects of the bar. Yes, he set himself down in +the prime of his young manhood to make his bread by his pen. At that +time the cow with seven horns, or the calf with two heads and five legs, +exhibited in some mountebank's show, was not half so rare a curiosity +as--an American author!" + +Among the contributors to the magazine were Mrs. Sigourney, T. B. Read, +Bayard Taylor and Dr. Furness. + +The _Friends' Review_ was the creation of the Orthodox Friends, in +1847. Its first editor was the mathematician, Enoch Lewis, who continued +to direct it until his death, in 1856. A remarkable literary incident is +associated with the issue of January, 1848. In that month Elizabeth +Lloyd (Howell), widow of Robert Howell, of Philadelphia, contributed +anonymously to the _Review_ a poem, entitled "Milton's Prayer for +Patience," in which the Miltonic manner was so deftly imitated, that +even the very elect in criticism were deceived by it, and the poem was +actually printed in the Oxford edition of Milton as Milton's own lament +for his loss of sight. + +Most of the Philadelphia magazines of the last fifty years have been +enriched by the busy hand of Mr. John Sartain, and two of the most +interesting of the city's periodicals were owned and edited by him. Mr. +Sartain, who has won the highest place in the history of American +engraving, was born in London, England, October 24, 1808. He came to +America in 1830, and settled in Philadelphia at the persuasion of Thomas +Sully. No living engraver has accomplished as much work as this untiring +and skilful artist. But it is not as an artist or an interpreter of art +alone that he has won high honor; his literary labors, though less +conspicuous and less splendid, are significant and interesting. + +_Campbell's Foreign Monthly Magazine_ began September 1, 1843. It was +published monthly for one year by James M. Campbell, of 98 Chestnut +Street, when it was bought outright by Mr. John Sartain, who changed the +title to _Campbell's Foreign Semi-Monthly, or Select Miscellany of +European Literature and Art_ (September, 1843, to September, 1844). +Sartain engraved a plate for each number, and compiled a laborious +miscellany of the latest intelligence in art, science and letters. Many +famous bits of literature appeared for the first time in America in this +magazine. "The Bridge of Sighs," "The Song of the Shirt" (Vol. V, p. +211), "The Haunted House" (Hood), "The Pauper's Funeral" and "The Drop +of Gin" (Vol. V, p. 138) were first published in these pages. + +In 1848 Mr. Sartain purchased the _Union Magazine of Literature and +Art_, edited in New York by Caroline Matilda Kirkland, the American Miss +Mitford. The name of the magazine was changed, and _Sartain's Union +Magazine_ appeared in January, 1849, edited by Mrs. Kirkland and +Professor John S. Hart, of the Central High School. For a few months Dr. +Reynell Coates acted as editor, but in the third year of its history Mr. +Sartain assumed complete charge of his magazine. In 1852 it again +returned to New York, when it was merged into the _National Magazine_. + +Longfellow contributed frequently to the magazine. His translation of +"The Blind Girl of Castel Cuille" appeared here in January, 1850. Poe +contributed "The Bells" (November, 1849) and his "Poetic Principle" +(October, 1850). Harriet Martineau wrote for _Sartain's_ her "Year at +Ambleside," which ran through the year 1850, and T. Buchanan Read, +George Henry Boker and Frederika Bremer were frequently in the pages of +the magazine. + + + + +POSTSCRIPT. + + +Since the final revision of these pages I have learned that Samuel +Stearns was the editor of the second volume (1789) of the _Philadelphia +Magazine_. He was a physician and astronomer, born in Bolton, Mass., in +1747, and died in Brattleborough, Vt., in 1819. He made the calculations +for the first nautical almanac in this country, which he published in +New York, December 20, 1782. Twenty-eight years of his life were spent +upon a "Medical Dispensatory," which he left unfinished at his death. + +Of one publication of the eighteenth century, the _Philadelphia Nimrod_ +(1798), I have made no mention. Although for a long time a hot questrist +after it, I have not been fortunate enough to come by a copy, and of its +history I am mainly ignorant. + +My list of the medical, theological and scientific periodicals of the +present century is by no means complete, but it may be serviceable for +future correction and extension. + +There was a publication in Philadelphia, in 1811, entitled the _Cynic_, +"by Growler Gruff, Esquire, aided by a Confederacy of Lettered Dogs." It +wore the motto: + + We'll snarl, and bite, and play the dog, + For dogs are honest. + +It was published weekly from September 21 to December 12. The principal +purpose of the little paper was to censure and abuse the theatrical +managers of the city for abolishing the old theatre boxes. + +A dramatic review which has a station in the file, and not i' the worst +rank either, is the _Whim_, published by John Bioren, No. 88 Chestnut +Street, at twenty cents a number. It was a small paper issued during the +theatrical season and for sale at the Falstaff tavern. The editor, James +Fennell, was born in London in 1766, and died in Philadelphia, June 14, +1816. He came to America in 1793 and made his first appearance in +Philadelphia. He published "The Wheel of Truth," a comedy; "Picture of +Paris;" "Linden and Clara," a comedy; and "Apology for My Life," +Philadelphia, 1814. The first number of the _Whim_ appeared Saturday, +May 14, 1814. The argument for the publication was founded upon the +pre-eminence of Philadelphia among the cities of the nation, "The city +of Philadelphia professedly and avowedly declaring itself the _Athens of +the United States_" (p. 8). The journal ceased, I believe, with the +tenth number, dated July 16, 1814. + +It has been no part of my task to discover and describe the early +magazines of the State, though that had been an attractive piece of +literary exposition--to the expounder, at least. In conclusion, however, +it may not be amiss to recite a few of the earlier examples of +provincial editing. + +The first magazine west of the mountains was the _Huntingdon Literary +Museum and Monthly Miscellany_. It was edited by William Rudolph Smith, +a grandson of Dr. William Smith, of the _American Magazine_ (1757-8), +and Moses Canan. It was printed by John McCahan and published in 1810. +Its editors defined it to be "the first asylum for the varieties of +literature that ever had been published west of the Susquehannah" (p. +576). The magazine ceased in December, 1810, with the complaint that +"with the exception of some pieces of poetry from several gentlemen in +Philadelphia, and an essay on the early 'Poetick Writers,' the editors +have received no _original_ matter." + +A still earlier periodical was the _Gleaner_, "a monthly magazine, +containing original and selected essays in prose and verse," Stacy +Potts, Jr., editor, Lancaster, 1808-9. + +Carlisle possessed two religious magazines of early date--the _Religious +Instructor_, "under ministers of the Presbyterian Church, Carlisle, +1810;" and the _Magazine of the German Reformed Church_, edited by Rev. +L. Mayer, and continued by Rev. Daniel Young, begun in 1828, and making +three volumes. + +Another semi-religious periodical was the _Literary and Evangelical +Register_, "containing scientifical, evangelical, statistical and +political essays and facts, together with missionary intelligence and +miscellaneous articles, interspersed with poetry." This magazine was +edited by Eugenio Kincaid and published at Milton, Pennsylvania. It was +begun in July, 1826, and continued until June, 1827. + +The _Village Museum_, "conducted by an association of young men" (Vol. +I, 1819-20), was published by Gemmill and Lewis at York, Pennsylvania. +It bore for its motto: + + Along the cool-sequestered vale of life + We keep the noiseless tenor of our way. + +The magazine is full of the neighborhood and gay with local color. It +ceased in July, 1820. + + + + +INDEX. + + Abeille Americaine, L', 193 + + Abercrombie, James, 122, 198 + + Adams, John, 144 + + Adams, John Quincy, his commencement oration, 65; 88-9; + his epitaph on Joseph Dennie, 110-11 + + Advocate of Science, The, 212 + + AEsculapian Register, The, 202 + + Aitken, Jane, 10 + + Aitken, Robert, 10, 27, 48 + + Album, The, 205, 206 + + Alexander, Charles, 200, 214 + + Allen, James, 141 + + Allen, Paul, 117, 141 + + Allston, W., 178 + + "American Addison, The" (Joseph Dennie), 90 + + American Annual Register, The, 75 + + American Journal of Homoeopathy, The, 215 + + American Journal of the Medical Sciences, The, 199 + + American Lancet, The, 202 + + American Magazine, The (No. 1), 26, 28 + + American Magazine, The (No. 2), 28, 34, 35, 39, 41, 43, 46, 220, 242 + + American Magazine, The (No. 3), 46, 47 + + American Medical Recorder, The, 193 + + American Monthly Magazine, The, 202 + + American Monthly Review, The, 75 + + American Museum, The, 67-73 + + American Phrenological Journal, The, 224-225 + + American Philosophical Society, 46, 89, 177, 180, 198 + + American Quarterly Review, 191 + + American Register, 166; (Dobson's), 193 + + American Review (Walsh's), 189 + + American Sunday School Magazine, The, 202 + + American University Magazine, The, 76 + + Analectic Magazine, 123, 145, 178-180, 188 + + "Anarchiad, The," 70 + + "Annandius" (pen-name of Joseph Shippen), 33 + + Annulus, The, 20 + + Arcadian, The, 202 + + Aristotle, 10 + + Arminian Magazine, The, 74 + + Arthur, T. S., 232 + + "Arthur Mervyn" (memoirs of the year 1793), 80 + + Ashburton, Lord, 87 + + Atkinson's "Casket," 217, 223 + + "Atlanticus" (pen-name of Thomas Paine), 52 + + Atlantic Journal and Friend of Knowledge, 209 + + Audubon, John James, 134, 135 + + Aurora, The, 94, 127 + + + Bache, Mrs. Anna, 232 + + Bailey, Francis (publisher), 53, 60 + + Banner of the Constitution, 206 + + Banner of the Cross, 207 + + Baptist Record, 225 + + Barker, J. N., 183 + + Baring, Alexander, 87 + + Barlow, Joel, 10, 62 + + Bartram, John, (his botanical garden), 89; 131 + + Barton, Benjamin Smith, 170, 177 + + Beacon, The, 184 + + Bedell, Rev. G. T., 202 + + Bennett, James Gordon, 213 + + Benjamin, Park, 222 + + Bethune, Geo. W., 222 + + "Ben Bolt," 222, 234 + + Bentham, Jeremy, 191 + + Bell, Robert, 10; + his Third Street shop, 11 + + Beveridge, John, 44 + + Belknap, Jeremy, 64, 65 + + Benezet, Anthony, 70, 199 + + Biddle, J.B., editor of Medical Examiner, 73 + + Biddle, N., 117, 142 + + Binney, Horace, 116, 128 + + Bingham, William, 87 + + Bioren, John, 232 + + Bird, R. M., 227 + + Blackwood's Magazine, 177, 191, 203 + + Blake, Geo., 182 + + Blackstone, publication of his "Commentaries," 10 + + Boston Magazine, 171 + + Botanic Sentinel, 214 + + Boker, Geo. H., 239 + + Botanic Medical Reformer, 229 + + Bouvier, John, 232 + + Bonaparte, Charles L., 135 + + Bonaparte, Jerome, 183 + + Bozman, John Leeds, 116, 126-7 + + Brougham, John, 234 + + Brown, J. Ross, 235 + + Bremer, Frederika, 239 + + Brackenridge, H. H., 14, 53-60, 69 + + Bradford, Andrew, 23, 26, 28, 69 + + Bradford, Samuel, 172, 177 + + Bradford, William, 28 + + Brissot, "Citizen," 68 + + Brown, Charles Brockden, 15, 20, 79-80; 108, 114, 116, 117, 121, + 150, 152-170, 236 + + Bryant, William Cullen, 20 + + Bulwer, his plagiarism of "Last Days of Pompeii," 210, 211 + + Burton, Wm. E., 217, 223 + + Burnett, Frances Hodgson, her first story, 226 + + Burr, C. Chauncey, 236 + + Buckingham, J. S., 93 + + Burns, Robert, 131 + + Burke, Edmund, 143, 172 + + Byron, Lord, 65, 100, 179 + + + Casket, The, 218, 223 + + Cary, Phoebe and Alice, 222 + + Campbell's Foreign Magazine, 238 + + "Cabotia" (New England), 99 + + Cadwalader, John, 88 + + Cadwalader, Thos., 116, 127 + + Caldwell, Dr. Charles, 93, 117, 142, 143 + + Carpenter, Stephen C., 172 + + Carey, Mathew, 62, 63, 67-73; 172 + + Cave, Edward, founder of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 23 + + Cent, The, the first penny paper, 20 + + Childs, Geo. W., 217, 230 + + Chandler, Jos. R., 224 + + Christian Observer, The, 224 + + Christian, The, 203 + + Chapman, Dr. N., 116, 126, 199 + + "Chiomara" (Ingersoll), 123 + + "Climenole" (pen-name of Jos. Quincey), 126 + + Chew, Benjamin, 27, 34 + + Cholera Gazette, The, 209 + + Cist, Charles, 63 + + Clarke, T. Cottrell, 200 + + Cliffton, William, 54, 122, 186 + + Coffin, R. S., 200 + + Cooper, Thomas, 117, 143, 192 + + Cooke, Geo. F., his visit to America, 177 + + Coxe, Alexander F., 182 + + Coxe, John R., 188, 192 + + "Cousin Alice" (pen-name of Alice Haven), 213 + + Conrad, Robert T., 224, 227 + + Coates, Reynell, 239 + + Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 143, 176; + introduction to Irving, 178 + + Cobbett, William, 82, 83 + + Condie, Thomas (History of the Plague in Philadelphia), 77-8; + his biography of Mrs. Merry, 78 + + Copley, John Singleton, 102 + + "Columbiad, The," 10, 62 + + Columbian Magazine, The, 61-67, 153 + + Cope, Francis, 116, 119 + + "Common Sense," origin of the pamphlet, 50 + + Coombe, Thos., 44 + + Cooper, James Fenimore, his publication of "Precaution," 18; 20, 220, + 221 + + Corbeille, La, 202 + + Cynic, The, 241 + + "Crisis, The," publication of, 63 + + Crukshank, Joseph, 84 + + Critic, The, 185, 187 + + + Dallas, A. J., 64-67 + + Dallas, G. M., 65 + + Dallas, Robert C., 65 + + Davies, Samuel, 45 + + Davis, John, 9, 52, 95; + his "Pursuits of Philadelphia Literature," 119-122 + + Darley, F. O. C., 235 + + Darlington, Wm., 180 + + De Quincey, Thomas, first publication in America of "Confessions of + an English Opium Eater," 190 + + Delaplaine's Repository, 144 + + Delaplaine, Joseph, 192 + + Dennie, Joseph, 13, 14, 20, 90-99; + the first American edition of Shakespeare, 107-108; + his opinion of Wordsworth, 109; + his death, 110-112; 122, 125, 132, 141, 151, 183, 186 + + Dessert to the True American, 84 + + Dickson, Geo. W., 209 + + Dickens, Charles, reprints "Charcoal Sketches" in London, 213 + + Dickins, John, 74, 76, 92 + + Dickins, Asbury, 92, 121 + + Dollar Magazine, 230 + + Dorsey, John Syng, 116, 124-5 + + Dramatic Mirror, 230 + + Duche, Jacob, 71, 128 + + Duane, William, 127 + + Dwight, Timothy, 68, 71 + + + Eclectic Journal of Medicine, The, 214 + + Ely, Ezra Styles, 203 + + Elphinstone, James, 64 + + "Eldred Grayson" (Robert Hare), 126 + + Emporium of Arts and Sciences, The, 192 + + English, Thomas Dunn, 222, 234-235 + + Episcopal Magazine, The, 198 + + Episcopal Recorder, 201 + + Erin, The, 201 + + Everybodie's Album, 214 + + Evans, Nathaniel, 43, 130 + + Erskine, Lord, 88 + + Evening Fireside, The, 170 + + Ewing, Provost, 50, 68, 136, 137 + + Ewing, Samuel, 116, 135-136, 179 + + Eye, The, 188 + + + "Falkland" (pen-name of Dr. Chapman), 126 + + Farmer's Cabinet, 225 + + Farmer's Weekly Museum, 14, 91, 92, 125 + + Fairfield, Sumner Lincoln, 209 + + Fennel, James, 241 + + Fenno, Harriet, 116, 128 + + Ferguson, Mrs. (Elizabeth Graeme), 43; 116, 128 + + Fessenden, Thos. Green, 14, 92 + + First Dramatic Writing in North Carolina, 110 + + First Religious Weekly in America, 142 + + "Forester, Frank" (pen-name of W. H. Herbert), 223 + + Foster, Geo. G., 234 + + "Foresters, The" (by Jeremy Belknap), 64 + + Fox, Gilbert, 63 + + Francis, Tench, 27 + + Francis, Sir Philip, his Philadelphia associations, 106 + + Franklin, Benjamin, 12, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 41, 46, 57, 65, 68, + 69, 71, 72, 88, 200 + + French Colony, The, 89-90 + + Freneau, Philip, 53, 59-61, 70 + + Franks, Lewis P., 184, 185 + + Freemason's Magazine, 189 + + Friends' Review, 236-237 + + Fuller, Zelotes, 209 + + Furness, Dr. W. H., 236 + + + "General Magazine," the second in America, 24, 26, 27 + + _Geistliches Magazien_, 19, 85 + + Gentleman's Magazine (London), 23 + + Gentleman's Magazine (Burton's), 217 + + Gentleman's Vade-Mecum, 212 + + Gilder, W. H., 229 + + Girard College, laying of the corner-stone, 230 + + Gift, The, 177 + + Gleaner, The, 243 + + Griswold, Rufus W., 201, 218, 223, 227 + + Godwin, William, 13, 168-169 + + Godfrey, Thomas, his invention of the quadrant, 41, 42 + + Godfrey, Thomas, the younger, 42-44 + + Graham, Geo. R., 215-225 + + Graham's Magazine, 12, 26, 215-224 + + Graydon, Alexander, his account of the "carting" of Isaac Hunt, 105; + 116, 126 + + Graeme, Dr. Thos., 128 + + Graeme, Miss (Mrs. Ferguson), 129 + + Goldsmith, Oliver, 138 + + Godey's Lady's Book, 177, 207-208 + + Godey, Louis A., 207, 213, 227 + + Greeley, Horace, 236 + + + Hadley, his right to the invention of the quadrant, 41 + + Hale, Sarah Josepha, 207-208 + + Hall, Everard, author of "Nolens Volens," 110 + + Hall, Harrison, 87, 117, 140 + + Hall, James, 17, 117, 140 + + Hall, John E., 113, 117, 124, 139, 140-141, 148 + + Hall, Sarah, 116, 139 + + Hall, Mrs. S. C., 232 + + Halleck, Fitz Greene, 105 + + Hamilton, Philip, 116 + + Hamilton, Andrew, 183 + + Hare, Robert, 116, 125-6 + + Hart, John S., 239 + + Hays, Dr. I., 199 + + Haven, Alice Bradley, 213 + + Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 20, 216, 219, 230 + + Herald of Truth, 208 + + Helmbold, Geo., 181, 184, 185 + + Herbert, W. H., 223 + + Hoffman, Charles Fenno, 222 + + Holmes, O. W., 207 + + Home Weekly and Household Newspaper, 231 + + Hood, Thomas, first appearance of his poems in America, 238 + + Hook, Theo., 124 + + "Horace in Philadelphia," 124 + + Hopkinson, Francis, his first poem, 34; 35, 50, 68, 70 + + Hopkinson, Joseph, origin of "Hail Columbia," 63; 98, 115, 116, 127, + 128 + + Humphreys, David, 76 + + Hunt, Leigh, his Philadelphia origin, 103-5 + + Huntingdon Literary Museum, 242-3 + + + Irving, Washington, 20, 178-179, 194, 223 + + Ingersoll, C. J., 98, 116, 123 + + Ingersoll, Edward, 116, 124 + + "Ithacus" (pen-name of John Shaw), 119 + + Independent Balance, 181, 184 + + Independent Weekly Press, 214 + + "It Snows," 205 + + + Jay, John, 70, 143 + + Jefferson, Thomas, 52, 89, 143, 144 + + Jerrold, Douglas, 236 + + John Donkey, The, 20, 234-235 + + Johnson, Samuel, his "Rasselas" printed in Philadelphia, 10; 23, 64, + 94, 137-138 + + Journal of Health, 206 + + Juvenile Magazine, 20, 152, 192 + + Juvenile Port Folio, 193 + + Juvenile Olio, 152 + + "Junius" (signature of T. Godfrey), 42 + + + Kean, Edmund, 173, 188 + + Keats, John, 106 + + Keith, Sir Wm., 128 + + Kirkland, Caroline M., 238-9 + + Kincaid, Eugenio, 243 + + Kinnersley, Ebenezer, 44 + + Knickerbocker Magazine, 223 + + Koster, the inventor of printing, 36 + + + Ladies' Album, 201 + + Ladies' and Gentlemen's Literary Museum, 193 + + Ladies' Companion, 225 + + Ladies' Garland, 208 + + Ladies' Literary Port Folio, 206 + + Ladies' Museum, The, 152 + + Lady's Amaranth, 224 + + Lady's Magazine, The, 74-5 + + Lafayette, 69 + + Lantern, 234 + + Lawson, Alex., 135 + + Lawson, Mary Lockhart, 135, 222 + + Lee, Gen. Charles, his quarrel with Brackenridge, 58-9; 86 + + Legal Intelligencer, 231 + + Leland, Chas. Godfrey, 224 + + Leslie, Mrs. Frank, 226 + + Leslie, Charles Robert, 175-178, 203, 231 + + Leslie, Eliza, 177, 231 + + Lines Written on Leaving Philadelphia (T. Moore), 114-115 + + Linn, John Blair, 15, 116-118, 122 + + Lippard, George, 167 + + Literalist, 230 + + Literary and Evangelical Register, 243 + + Literary Magazine, 132-153, 171 + + Literary Museum, 75-6 + + Literary Register, 230 + + Lithograph, the first American, 180 + + Littell, E., 189-191 + + Littell's Living Age, 191 + + Livingstone, Governor, 67, 71-2 + + Lloyd, Elizabeth, her poem on Milton, 237 + + Logan, James, his library at Stenton, 9; + his letters to Halley, 41; + his gifts to the Philadelphia Library, 88 + + Longfellow, H. W., 20, 207; + first appearance of noted poems, 221; 239 + + Lowell, James Russell, 20, 216, 218-219, 227 + + Lundy, Benj., 224 + + Lutheran Observer, The, 208 + + Luncheon, The, 184 + + Lytton, Lord, 103 + + Lyndhurst, Baron, 102-103 + + + Madison, James, 143, 144 + + Magazine, the first monthly, 19, 28; + the first religious, 19; + the first mathematical, 20; + the first juvenile, 20; + the first humorous, 20 + + Magazine of the German Reformed Church, The, 243 + + Martineau, Harriet, 239 + + "Mary's Lamb," 208 + + Matthias, Benjamin, 201 + + McHenry, James, 202 + + McMichael, Morton, 201, 213, 227, 232, 234 + + Medico-Chirurgical Review, The, 225 + + Medical Examiner, The, 73 + + Medical Review and Analectic Journal, 202 + + Merry, Mrs., 78-79 + + Metcalfe's Miscellany, 235 + + Methodist Magazine, The, 76, 92 + + Milton, John, first American edition of, 10; 163 + + Mirror of Taste and Dramatic Censor, 172, 184 + + Miss Leslie's Magazine, 177, 231-234 + + Mitchell, Dr. J. K., 222, 227 + + Moore, Thomas, 94, 113-116, 139, 150 + + Morris, Gouverneur, 116, 127 + + Morris, Robert, 87 + + Morris, Robert (poet), 222 + + Moss, Henry, 144 + + Murray, Virginia, 232 + + + National Gazette, The, 189-191 + + National Recorder, The, 190 + + Neal, John, 149-151, 166, 191 + + Neal, Joseph, 86, 213, 222 + + Newspaper, the first daily, 19; + the first penny, 20 + + Nicola, Lewis, 46, 47 + + Noah, Mordecai M., editor of "Trangram," 182 + + North American Medical and Surgical Journal, The, 203 + + North American Quarterly Magazine, The, 209-211 + + + Occident and American Jewish Advocate, The, 231 + + "Ode to a Market Street Gutter," 120-1 + + "Oldschool, Oliver," see Joseph Dennie. + + "Optic, Obadiah," 188 + + Osgood, Frances, 207, 222 + + Otis, Bass, 180 + + + Paine, Thomas, 48, 50, 52, 63, 69 + + "Pamela," first American edition, 10; 27 + + Parterre, The, 193 + + Paulding, James Kirke, 150, 179, 186, 194, 222 + + Payne, John Howard, earliest reference to, 110 (editor of the + Thespian Mirror), 171 + + Peale, Charles Willson, 87, 89, 101 + + Pemberton, Israel, 87 + + Penn, John, 27 + + Penington, John, 64 + + Pennsylvanian, The, 213 + + Pennsylvania Evening Herald, The, 69 + + Pennsylvania Freeman, The, 20, 224 + + Pennsylvania Magazine, The, 28, 48-53, 55, 75 + + Peters, Richard, 116, 127, 129 + + Peterson, Charles J., 201, 218, 225, 226-229 + + Peterson's Ladies' National Magazine, 225 + + "Philadelphiad, The," quoted, 11 + + "Philadelphia--An Elegy," 164 + + Philadelphia Liberalist, 209 + + Philadelphia Library, 88 + + Philadelphia Magazine, The, 73-4, 240 + + Philadelphisches Magazin, 84 + + Philadelphia Minerva, 75 + + Philadelphia Monthly Magazine, 77 + + Philadelphia Magazine and Review, 84 + + Philadelphia Medical Museum, 188 + + Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, 170 + + Philadelphia Nimrod, 240 + + Philadelphia Repository, The, 229 + + Philadelphia Repository and Weekly Register, 152 + + Philadelphia Register, 190 + + Philadelphia Repertory, 188 + + Philadelphia Recorder, 202 + + Philadelphia Visitor, 215 + + Phillips, Barnet, 235 + + Physick, Dr., 177 + + Pike, Albert, 222 + + Pickering, Timothy, 90, 92 + + Poe, Edgar Allan, 20, 207, 216-223, 227, 230, 239 + + Polyanthus, The, 171, 209 + + Political Censor, The, 83 + + Pope, A., 109 + + Porcupine's Gazette, 82-3 + + Port Folio, The, 12, 13, 14, 18, 21, 43, 64, 87, 92-151, 163, 171, + 184, 203 + + Post-Chaise Companion, The, 187 + + Potts, Mrs. Washington, 177, 231 + + Potts, Stacy, Jr., 243 + + Poulson's Daily Advertiser, 235 + + Prentice, George D., 222 + + Presbyterian, The, 208 + + Priestley, Joseph, 117, 143 + + "Prince of Parthia," first American Drama, 44 + + Protestant Episcopalian, The, 207 + + + Quarterly Theological Magazine, The, 198 + + Quincey, Josiah, 95, 116, 126 + + + Radical Reformer, The, 213-214 + + Rafinesque, C. S., 209 + + Raguet, Condy, 116, 124 + + Rakestraw, Joseph, 170 + + Randolph, Governor, 67 + + Read, T. B., 236, 239 + + Rees, James, 230 + + Rees' Cyclopaedia, 62 + + Reformer, The, 200, 203 + + Religious Instructor, The, 243 + + Religious Remembrancer, The, the first religious weekly, 19; 192 + + Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 101 + + Richards, George, 189 + + Rittenhouse, David, 89, 170 + + Rivington, James, 27, 56-7 + + Robespierre, 143 + + Rose, Robert H., 116, 119-123 + + Ross, John, 27 + + Royal Spiritual Magazine, 84 + + Rural Magazine, 179 + + Rush, Benjamin, 50, 64, 66, 68, 72, 83, 170, 177 + + Rush, Richard, 116, 127, 138 + + + Salmagundi, 146, 194-195 + + Sanderson, John, 116, 124, 148 + + Sartain, John, 236-239 + + Saturday Chronicle, 215 + + Saturday Evening Post, 200-201, 225 + + Saturday Magazine, 190 + + Sauer, C., 19, 85 + + Scott, Sir Walter, 17, 61, 170 + + Sedgwick, Miss, 222 + + "Sedley" (pen-name of J. E. Hall), 140, 150 + + Select Reviews and Spirit of the Foreign Magazines, The, 179, 184 + + Sigourney, L. H., 207, 232, 236 + + Simitiere, Pierre E. Du, 55, 76 + + Simms, William Gilmore, 222 + + Shaw, John, 116, 118-119 + + Shakespeare, first American edition of, 17; 163 + + Shelley, Percy Bysshe, his American origin, 105, 169 + + Shewell, Mary, mother of Leigh Hunt, 104 + + Shippen, Edward, 87 + + Shippen, Joseph, 33 + + "Sketches in Verse," 119 + + Smith, Rev. B. B., 201 + + Smith, Elihu Hubbard, 113 + + Smith, G. H., 75, 76-77 + + Smith, John Jay, 212 + + Smith, Richard Penn, 206, 222, 227 + + Smith, Sydney, 13 + + Smith, Samuel Stanhope, 144 + + Smith, Dr. Wm., editor of The American Magazine, 31; + poem to, 34; + his home at the Falls, 35; 42, 44, 46, 50, 220, 242 + + Smith, William R., 242 + + Southey, Robert, 143 + + Spy in Philadelphia and Spirit of the Age, The, 212 + + Stephens, Mrs. Anne, 218 + + Stephens, H. L., 235 + + Sterling, James, 37, 40 + + Sterne, Lawrence, 129 + + Stearns, Samuel, 240 + + Stiles, Ezra, 67 + + Story, W. W., 222 + + Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 207 + + Street, Alfred B., 222 + + Stuart, Gilbert, 138 + + Sully, Thomas, 101, 166, 177, 237 + + Swift, Jonathan, 82 + + + "Tamoc Caspipna" (pseudonym of Jacob Duche), 71 + + Taylor, Bayard, 20, 207, 224, 236 + + Temple, Sir William, 82 + + Tennent, Gilbert, 26, 45 + + Thanksgiving Bay (made a National Holiday through Mrs. Sara Josepha + Hale), 208 + + Theatrical Censor (first dramatic magazine in America), 171 + + Theatrical Censor and Critical Miscellany, 171 + + Thespian Mirror, 171 + + Thespian Monitor and Dramatick Miscellany, 172 + + Thomson, Charles, 10, 42 + + Thomas, Moses, 12, 195 + + Tickler, The, 181 + + Tilghman, Judge, 87 + + "Toby Scratch 'Em" (pen-name of George Helmbold), 181 + + Trangram, The, 181-183 + + Trenchard, John and Edward, 63 + + Trumbull, John, 102 + + Tuesday Club, The, 94 + + Tyler, Royall, 116, 125 + + + United States Magazine, The, 53-61 + + United States Magazine and Democratic Review, The, 215 + + + Vaughan, John, 89 + + Verplanck, G. C., his edition of Shakespeare, 107-8 + + Vicar of Wakefield, 10 + + Village Museum, 243-4 + + "Violetta" (pen-name of Harriet Fenno), 128 + + Waldie, Adam, 211, 215, 224 + + Waldie's Select Circulating Library, 211-212 + + Waldie's Literary Omnibus, 215 + + Wallace, Henry E., 231 + + Walsh, Robert, 116, 189-192 + + Washington, George, 16, 17, 45, 47, 51, 52, 64, 67, 70, 72, 78, 87, + 89, 117, 143, 189 + + Watson, Elkanah, quoted, 50 + + Watters, James, 79-81 + + Webbe, Geo., 86 + + Webbe, John, 19, 24, 25 + + Webster, Noah, 66, 98-99 + + Weekly Magazine, The, 79-81 + + Weekly Messenger, The, 215 + + West, Benjamin, earliest reference to, 32; 45, 86, 99-103, 176 + + Wharton, C. H., 198 + + Wharton, Thomas, 116, 123 + + Wheatley, Phillis, 51, 52 + + Whim, The, 241 + + Whipple, E. P., 221 + + Whitfield, George, 27 + + White, Bishop William, 138 + + Whittier, J. G., 20, 224 + + "Who has robbed the Ocean Cave?" 118 + + Willing, Thos., 87 + + Williams, J. N., 12 + + Willis, N. P., 222, 232 + + Wilson, Alexander, 10, 62, 116, 130, 135 + + Winchester, Elhanan, 74 + + Wistar Parties, 88, 117 + + Witherspoon, Dr., 50, 56-57 + + Wood, Wm. B., 116 + + Wood, Mrs. Henry, 201 + + Wordsworth, the first American edition of, 109-10; 163 + + Workman, Judge, 117, 144 + + + Young People's Book, The, 230 + + + Zieber, G. B., 235, 236 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Philadelphia Magazines and their +Contributors 1741-1850, by Albert Smyth + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES *** + +***** This file should be named 24303.txt or 24303.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/3/0/24303/ + +Produced by Annie McGuire and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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