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 BOOK 05 1. SMS IP C.I .,,„^c 
 
 SMYTH # PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES 
 AND THEIR CONTRIBUTORS 174 1-1850 
 
 3 ^153 DD057710 fi 
 
4 
 
 V 
 
 V' \ 
 
THE 
 
 Philadelphia Magazines 
 
 AND THEIR 
 
 CONTRIBUTORS 
 1741-18^0 
 
 BY 
 
 ALBERT H. SMYTH, 
 
 A. B., Johns Hopkins University , 
 
 Professor of English Literature in the Philadelphia High School: 
 Member of the Atnerican Philosophical Society. 
 
 philadelphia : 
 
 Robert M. Lindsay 
 
 1892 
 
Copyrighted, 1892, 
 A. H. SMYTH. 
 
 
so 
 
 TO 
 
 J. G. ROSENGARTEN 
 
 A TOKEN OF THE 
 
 GRATITUDE AND AFFECTTON OF THE 
 AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This study in the history of the Phila- 
 delphia magazines was undertaken at the re- 
 quest 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 in- 
 teresting, 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 maga- 
 zines is impossible. Many of them have dis- 
 appeared and left not a rack behind. The 
 special student of Pennsylvania history will 
 (5) 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 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 sugges- 
 tions 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, j" February , i8g2, 
 
 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, 
 (9) 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 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 Dela- 
 ware!' The eagerness of Philadelphia social 
 circles for each new thing in literature enabled 
 booksellers to import large supplies from Eng- 
 land 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 Philadel- 
 phia. 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 
 Comjneiitaries in 1772, " a stupendous enter- 
 prise." Bell did much by his good taste and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 1 
 
 untiring industry to advance the literary cult- 
 ure of the city. " The more books arc 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 sentirnetital-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.'* 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 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 opin- 
 ions, 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 Eng- 
 land 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 wan- 
 dering Englishman, wrote, " America looked 
 not for a spy upon the sanctity of her house- 
 hold gods in the stranger that sat within her 
 gates ; she scarce supposed that the hand of 
 a clumsy servant like the claws of the har- 
 pies could utterly mar and defile the feast which 
 honest hospitality had provided." 
 
 The Port Folio ^ in 1810, was moved indig- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 3 
 
 nantly to declare that foreign critics grounded 
 their strictures '' upon the tales of some miser- 
 able 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 de- 
 nomination 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 pro- 
 found 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 re- 
 
14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sisted all "Americanisms" in politics and in 
 letters, and sought to conciliate England and 
 to win the coveted stamp of English approba- 
 tion 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 Esqui- 
 maux 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 Eng- 
 land the colonies would become mere illiterate 
 ourang-outangs." 
 
 Thomas Green Fessenden, one of the con- 
 tributors 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 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 5 
 
 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 ex- 
 hibitions 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 enthu- 
 siasm which I feel for meritorious perform- 
 ances of native Americans. Nor can I re- 
 press 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 litera- 
 ture, 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 elo- 
 quence of her statesmen are undoubted — they 
 
1 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 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 ad- 
 dress Our historians have not been nu- 
 merous. Some, however, who have unrolled 
 our records of truth claim a considerable por- 
 tion 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 Wash- 
 ington has left a subject for the American his- 
 torian which has never been surpassed in dig- 
 nity From the poems and fictions of 
 
 the Columbian Muse, several works might 
 be selected, which deserve high and distin- 
 guishing praise. The poetry of our country 
 has not yet, I hope, assumed its most ele- 
 vated 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 en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 "These regions are not formed only to echo 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1/ 
 
 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 be- 
 hold 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 
 
1 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 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 i8ii: "American critics seem, in 
 almost all cases, to have entered into a con- 
 federacy to exterminate American poetry. If 
 an individual has the temerity to jingle a coup- 
 let, and to avow himself descended from Amer- 
 icans, the offence is absolutely unpardonable." 
 When Fenimore Cooper published his first 
 novel, he suppressed his name and wrote in- 
 stead, " Precaution, by a7i Englishman^ 
 
 Still, a notable feature of the American 
 magazines was a general insistence upon or, 
 perhaps, a preference for subjects out of Amer- 
 ican history, or articles dealing with what 
 might be called American archaeology — 
 sketches of the life and character of " the an- 
 cients of these lands " — or, at least, contribu- 
 tions that were tricked out in some local garb 
 or color. The minds of young American writ- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 9 
 
 ers 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 Eng- 
 lish 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 neu- 
 tral 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 com- 
 merce, in statecraft and in authorship. Every 
 new experiment in literature was first tried in 
 Philadelphia. Her's was the first monthly mag- 
 azine (January, 1741), and her's, too, the first 
 daily newspaper (Amer. Daily Advertiser^ De- 
 cember 21, 1784). The first religious maga- 
 zine 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 Remem- 
 brancer (September 4, 18 13). Philadelphia 
 
20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 led off with the first penny paper {The Cent) 
 in 1830; and the first mathematical journal 
 (The Anniilus)^ and the ^x^t 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 lit- 
 erature 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 Ana- 
 lectic Magazine. James Russell Lowell, Edgar 
 Allan Poe and Bayard Taylor were editorial 
 writers on Graham's Magazine^ and John 
 Greenleaf Whittier edited The Pennsylva7iia 
 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 conspic- 
 uous absence from the journal of a century 
 ago of what is commonly called "light litera- 
 ture." Magazines were then conducted by 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 scholars for scholars. '* Popular " essays and 
 silly novels had not yet depraved the taste of 
 readers who could relish Somerville and Shen- 
 stone, Savage and Johnson, Articles ap- 
 peared monthly in the Port Folio that could 
 not by any chance win recognition from an edi- 
 tor of these days. One of the favorite amuse- 
 ments of the Port Folio gentlemen was the 
 translation of Mother Goose melodies and 
 alliterative nursery rhymes into Latin, and 
 especially into Greek. These curious trans- 
 lations, in which the object was to preserve in 
 the Greek, as far as possible, the verbal eccen- 
 tricities of " butter blue beans " and other 
 intricate verses of infantile memory, are scat- 
 tered 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 scholas- 
 tic 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 an- 
 
22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 cient 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 Philadelphia Magazines, 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 The type of the monthly periodical was 
 fixed when Edward Cave, in 173 1, 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 
 (23) 
 
24 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 re- 
 markable trials, civil and criminal ; of the 
 course of exchange and the proportion be- 
 tween sterling and the several paper curren- 
 cies, 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 false- 
 hood, nor sullied by defamatory libelling. 
 
 In the Pennsylvania Gazette of November 
 13, 1740, Franklin announced a monthly mag- 
 azine to be called The General Magazine and 
 Historical Chronicle for all the British Planta- 
 tions in America. The price was to be nine- 
 pence Pennsylvania money, with considerable 
 allowance to shopmen who should take quan- 
 tities. The brevity of Franklin's advertise- 
 ment is in strong contrast to the learned 
 length of Webbe's pedantic prospectus. He 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 2$ 
 
 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 mat- 
 ter as to choose his writers and to buy his 
 small type. 
 
 Webbe wrote a wrathful reply in the Mer- 
 atry of November 13, and continued it under 
 the title of '* The Detection " through three 
 numbers. He admitted that Franklin did com- 
 municate to him his desire to print a maga- 
 zine, 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 Post- 
 master 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 
 
26 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 
 1 8), in which he showed that Franklin had 
 not complied with the order of Colonel Spots- 
 wood 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 TJie Gen- 
 eral Magazine a7id Historical Chronicle for all 
 the British Plantations in America. 
 
 Three numbers only of Bradford's periodi- 
 cal appeared, and only one copy is known to 
 exist. It is lodged in the New York Histori- 
 cal Society. 
 
 Franklin's magazine contained parliamen- 
 tary 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 cor- 
 onet and plumes of the Prince of Wales. 
 Franklin ridiculed his rival's magazine in 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 2/ 
 
 doggerel verse; his own he made no men- 
 tion 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 White- 
 field. Tens of thousands listened to the im- 
 pressive sermons of the eloquent divine, de- 
 livered from the balcony of the courthouse, 
 which stood then on High Street, in the cen- 
 tre 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 anx- 
 ious and expectant people." One block east 
 of the ancient courthouse was the London Cof- 
 fee-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, 
 
28 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 who published the Pennsylvania Magazine 
 and the first English Bible in America. And 
 hither, to the old Coffee-house, in 1754, Wil- 
 liam Bradford removed his famous hereditary- 
 press, and three years later printed the third 
 Philadelphia magazine. 
 
 The first William Bradford arrived in Phila- 
 delphia in 1685, and brought with him the 
 second printing press that was set up in Brit- 
 ish North America. Upon it, in the following 
 year, he printed the first Middle Colony pub- 
 lication, the " Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense." 
 His son, Andrew Sowle, named after a Lon- 
 don 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 Ameri- 
 can magazine. Andrew's nephew, William 
 Bradford, grandson of the first William, trans- 
 ferred 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 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 29 
 
 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 coun- 
 try at length the object of a very general atten- 
 tion, and it seems now become as much the 
 mode among those who would be useful or 
 conspicuous in the state, to seek an acquaint- 
 ance with the affairs of these colonies, their con- 
 stitutions, 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 book- 
 sellers 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 colo- 
 nies, offering at the same time to procure con- 
 siderable 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 
 
30 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 answer, that if it was to be a work of general 
 use for all the British colonies, and not con- 
 fined 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 con- 
 siderable expense. This, however, has at 
 length been happily effected, and proper per- 
 sons are now engaged in the design, not only 
 in all the different governments on this conti- 
 nent, 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 : Prcevalebit ceqiiior, 
 and the title-page the further legend : Veritatis 
 cultores, Fraudis inimici. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 3 1 
 
 The first number (October, 1757) gave a 
 variety of pleasing and extraordinary informa- 
 tion to curious readers : Indians, " broods of 
 French savages ;" earthquakes, St. Helmo's 
 fire, phosphorescence, aurora borealis, mer- 
 men 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 Col- 
 lege of Philadelphia. He was born near Aber- 
 deen, 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 al- 
 ready 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 de- 
 sired 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 
 
32 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 Benja- 
 min 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 be- 
 come 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 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 33 
 
 painter who guided the pencil, and the poet 
 who so well describes the whole, are all natives 
 of this place, and very young T 
 
 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 Amer- 
 ica" (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 abil- 
 ity in the young is a characteristic of this 
 3 
 
34 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 Hopkin- 
 son contributed two poems in imitation of 
 Milton, " L'AUegro " and " II 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 oijust and good. 
 
 Exalted themes ! divinest maid ! 
 Sweet Melancholy, raise thy head ; 
 With languid look, oh quickly come, 
 And lead me to thy Hermit home. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 35 
 
 Then let my frequent feet be seen 
 On yonder steep romantic green, 
 Along whose yellow gravelly side, 
 ScJuiylkill 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. ""^ 
 
 The other poems by Hopkinson in the 
 American Magazine are, " Ode on the Morn- 
 ing" (page 187), "On the taking of Cape 
 Breton" (page 552) and "Verses inscribed to 
 Mr. WoUaston " (the portrait painter). 
 
 The most remarkable poem in the maga- 
 zine 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, Mary- 
 
 * 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. 
 
36 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 land. " His intimacy with Mr. Pope," he says, 
 " obliged him to tell that great Poet, above 
 twenty years ago, that it was peculiarly un- 
 grateful in him not to celebrate such a sub- 
 ject as the Invention of Letters, or to suf- 
 fer 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 Roster's name 
 Like him, who since usurp'd Columbus' fame. 
 Pierian laurels flourish round his tomb ; 
 And ever-living roses breathe your bloom ! " * 
 
 Many wild conjectures have been made as 
 to the identity of the Kentish man who con- 
 tributed this long, careful and learned poem 
 to American literature, but the author has 
 hitherto remained unknown. In the summer 
 of 1 89 1, 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 Philadel- 
 
 ^ 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." 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 37 
 
 phian 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 Hop- 
 kinson, zvhom you will remember in Philadel- 
 phia!' Unfortunately, many of the historical 
 notes have been cut away in the binding of 
 the book. In this volufne the author of the 
 poem in question is named and clearly de- 
 fined. 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 contribu- 
 tions is to be noted " A Pastoral — To his Ex- 
 cellency George Thomas, Esq., formerly Gov- 
 ernor of Pennsylvania, and now General of 
 the Leeward Islands." This poem was written 
 in 1744, on the occasion of the death of Alex- 
 ander Pope, by " one of the first encouragers 
 of this magazine." The Governor saw the 
 manuscript and gave permission for its publi- 
 cation. It is an invitation to the muses to 
 visit these lands : 
 
38 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZLNES. 
 
 " 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 forma- 
 tion 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 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 39 
 
 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 
 Icte Lord Howe : " 
 
 Patriots and chiefs ! Britannia's mighty dead, 
 Wioce wisdom counsel'd, and whose valor bled, 
 With gratulations, 'midst your radiant host, 
 Receive to ^/(3ry 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, 
 DoDm'd to an early not untimely grave. 
 Death flew commission'd by celestial love, 
 Ard, scourging earth, improv'd the joys above. 
 
 Impassive to low pleasure's baneful charm, 
 
 Inir'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! 
 
40 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 The unknown annotator of the British Mu- 
 seum copy writes against these lines, " I can- 
 not yet learn who was the author of this noble 
 epitaph." But it is clearly by Sterling. In 
 the letter that accompanies the poem ha 
 writes ; '* Please to know that the grandfather 
 of the late Lord Howe, when in a high em- 
 ployment in the reign of Queen Anne, was a 
 generous patron to the father of the author d^ 
 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." Ttis 
 letter is written from Maryland. It corre- 
 sponds 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 " (Lon- 
 don, 1722), Sterling, addressing himself to 
 William Conolly, Lord Justice of Ireland, 
 wrote : " Nor can I omit this occasion of tes- 
 tifying my gratitude to your Excellency, who 
 so generously contributed, in the First Session 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 4I 
 
 of this Parliament, to do my Father that Jus- 
 tice in his Pretensions which was deny'd him 
 in a late reign." 
 
 In July, 1758, The American Magazine pub- 
 lished James Logan's letters to Edmund Hal- 
 ley 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 acci- 
 dentally 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 So- 
 ciety of England, after hearing James Logan's 
 communication, decided that both Godfrey and 
 Hadley were entitled to the honor of the in- 
 
42 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 vention, 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 mis- 
 called by the name of its English appropria- 
 tor.* 
 
 "Junius" is the signature to a neat poem 
 called " The Invitation " in the American Mag- 
 azine 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 encourage- 
 ment won from him an " Ode on Friendship " 
 
 * The remains of Thomas Godfrey were removed by John 
 Watson from the neglected spot where they were laid to Lau- 
 rel 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 Thom- 
 son, "the man of truth," the Sam. Adams, of Philadelphia, 
 marked by an Egyptian obelisk of granite. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 43 
 
 in August, and an " Ode on Wine " in Sep- 
 tember. Young Godfrey was apprenticed to 
 a watchmaker, but through the friendly influ- 
 ence 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 fiow'ry banks a ravish'd ear, 
 Such notes as may dehght 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." 
 
44 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Godfrey's chief claim to recognition in the 
 history of American Hterature is his author- 
 ship of the '* Prince of Parthia," the first dra- 
 matic 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 Eng- 
 lish 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.* 
 " Thomas Coombe, assistant minister of Christ 
 Church, translated some of Beveridge's Latin 
 poems, and was himself the author of *' The 
 
 * <' 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, 175S), unanimously to appoint him Professor of 
 Languages and Master of the Latin School, in the room of 
 Mr. Paul Jackson " {Afnerican Magazine, p. 437). 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 45 
 
 Peasant of Auburn ; or, the Emigrant," pub- 
 lished 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 Han- 
 over County, Virginia, who made use of the 
 pseudonym *' Virginianus Hanoverensis." 
 
 Davies accompanied Gilbert Tennent to Eng- 
 land 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 in- 
 vitation being repeated he accepted, and pre- 
 sided over the college for eighteen months. 
 In a note to one of his sermons occurs the fol- 
 lowing : ** That heroic youth. Colonel Wash- 
 ington, 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, Hymenseus Phiz and the like. 
 
 Gait, in his life of Benjamin West (p. JJ^, 
 
46 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 con- 
 siderable 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 Ameri- 
 can Philosophical Society, the oldest learned 
 society in America, was formed by merging 
 into one organization the "American Philo- 
 sophical 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 Philadel- 
 phia, 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 So- 
 ciety, having been elected to membership 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 4/ 
 
 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 17 17. 
 He served in the English army, but in 1766 
 resigned his commission, emigrated to Amer- 
 ica, 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 cu- 
 rious engraving, the only one in all the issues 
 of the magazine, representing the manner of 
 fowling in Norway. The engraver is un- 
 known. 
 
 The price of the magazine was 13 shillings, 
 Pennsylvania currency. It was suspended in 
 September, 1769. 
 
48 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 " TJie Pennsylvania Magazine^ 07" 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 prepara- 
 tions for war. The publisher apologized for 
 lack of variety in the year's work, by saying 
 that we in America "are deprived of one con- 
 siderable fund of entertainment which contrib- 
 utes largely to the embellishment of the 
 magazines in Europe, viz., discoveries of cu- 
 rious 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 strug- 
 gle for American Liberty." 
 
 Thomas Paine arrived in Philadelphia in 
 1775, with letters from Franklin, and was im- 
 mediately employed by Aitken as editor of 
 the Pennsylvania Magazine, with a salary of 
 £2^, currency, a year. In his preface to the 
 first number, January 24, 1775, Paine wrote: 
 "We presume it is unnecessary to inform our 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 49 
 
 friends that we encounter all the inconveni- 
 ences 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 neces- 
 sary aids. Thus encompassed with difficul- 
 ties, the first number of the Pennsylvania 
 Magazine entreats a favorable reception; of 
 which we shall only say, like the early snow- 
 drop, it comes forth in a barren season, and 
 contents itself with modestly foretelling that 
 choicer flowers are preparing to appear." 
 
 The vignette of the Pen7tsylvania 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 : 
 4 
 
50 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 " Com- 
 morf 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 convic- 
 tion, 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 Maga- 
 zine^ called " Monthly Intelligence," reported 
 the progress of the war, and furnished engrav- 
 ings 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 sec- 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 5 I 
 
 ond volume began In January, 1776, and 
 ended in July, 1776. The last number con- 
 tained the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 Phillis Wheatley, negro servant to Mr. John 
 Wheatley, of Boston, and daughter of an Af- 
 rican slave, published her only volume of 
 poems, dedicated to the Countess of Hunting- 
 don, in 1773. The best, if the word may be 
 applied to such performances, of her occa- 
 sional poems, published after 1773, and which 
 have never been collected into a volume, was 
 a poem "To his Excellency Gen. Washing- 
 ton," 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 man- 
 ner 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 
 
52 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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.* 
 
 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 
 
 * " 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 hor conceptions are often lofty, and her 
 versification often surprises with unexpected refinement. 
 Ladd, the Carolhia 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 im- 
 agination 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). 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 53 
 
 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 eccen- 
 tric 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 Prince- 
 ton College in 1 771, 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 Amer- 
 ica," 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 Maga- 
 zine ; a Repository of History, Politics and Lit- 
 erature." " Our attempt," said the editor, "is 
 
54 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 to paint the graces on the front of war, and 
 invite the muses to our countryy 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 im- 
 mediately 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.* 
 
 "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 
 
 * William Cliffton (1772-1799) was the son of a black- 
 smith in Southwark. His poem "The Group" (1793) was 
 written in ridicule of the Commissioners of Southwark. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 55 
 
 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 im- 
 provement." 
 
 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 collec- 
 tion of curiosities he opened to the public 
 under the name of " The American Museum." 
 
 The first number of this magazine contained 
 
56 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 certain verses in explanation of the emblem- 
 atic 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 con- 
 tained Witherspoon's delightful satire upon 
 James Rivington, the Royal Printer, of New 
 York. It was a parody of Rivington's " Peti- 
 tion to Congress/' and was called " The Hum- 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 5/ 
 
 ble 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 dur- 
 ing his year's editorship with many a sly sar- 
 casm and bit of grave philosophy. 
 
 ** The Cornwalliad, an Heroic Comic Poem," 
 was begun in March, 1779, and was continued 
 through several numbers. It described vari- 
 ous incidents in the British retreat to New 
 York after the battles of Trenton and Prince- 
 ton. 
 
 In the January number was begun a series 
 of articles under the title of " The Cave of 
 Vanhest," concerning which the following let- 
 ter 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 per- 
 
58 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 formance, and may like to see what it is ; be- 
 sides, its want of entertainment may induce 
 you to send something that may make the 
 poor man's magazine more useful and pleas- 
 ing. 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 be- 
 tween 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 grow- 
 ing 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 pub- 
 lished in the Pennsylvania Advei'tiser an angry 
 letter upon " the impertinence and stupidity 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 59 
 
 of the compiler of that wretched performance 
 with the pompous title of the magazine of the 
 United States." In reply, Brackenridge com- 
 pared Lee, as usual, to his favorite ourang- 
 outang, and added : " You are neither Christian, 
 Jew, Turk nor Infidel, but a metenipsychosist ! 
 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 fol- 
 lowed. General Lee " knocked at the door, 
 while Mr. Brackenridge, looking out of the 
 upper-story window, inquired what was want- 
 ing. ' 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 Consti- 
 tution 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 imi- 
 tation of Psalm 137, with the foot-note, "by a 
 
60 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES, 
 
 young gentleman to whom, in the course of 
 this work, we are greatly indebted," brings for 
 the first time into notice, if not into promi- 
 nence, a writer destined to display the finest 
 sense of poetic form and the nicest delicacy 
 of poetic sentiment to be found among his con- 
 temporaries 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 Phila- 
 delphia. The first edition of his poems was 
 prepared in Philadelphia by Francis Bailey, 
 the publisher of TJie 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 Bury- 
 
THE EIGHTEExNTH CENTURY. 6 1 
 
 ing 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 " un- 
 dertaken at a time w^hen it was hoped the war 
 would be of short continuance, and the money, 
 which had continued to depreciate, would be- 
 come 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 pos- 
 sible 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 Lon- 
 don Magazine, began its career. It was the 
 most am.bitious enterprise of the kind that had 
 yet been undertaken in America. The printing 
 
62 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 facilities were still very limited, and the sub- 
 scription lists for all publications small. In 
 1 786 there was one daily paper printed in Phila- 
 delphia, and but three or four weekly ones. 
 In the same year four printers after much de- 
 liberation agreed to print a small edition of 
 the New Testament. " Before the Revolu- 
 tion 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 Coliunbiad was magnifi- 
 cently printed in Philadelphia, and the great 
 undertakings of Rees' " Cyclopaedia " and Wil- 
 son's " Ornithology " entered upon. The 
 monthly expense of printing the Colmnbian 
 was said to be i^ioo, which was paid to me- 
 chanics 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" 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 63 
 
 (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 pub- 
 lished Paine's " Crisis " — " These are the times 
 that try men's souls." He died in Phijadel- 
 phia, 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 ap- 
 prentice, to return with him to America. In 
 this country Fox became an actor, and for 
 him Joseph Hopkinson wrote " Hail Colum- 
 bia." 
 
 " The Foresters, an American Tale," was 
 
64 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 Gen- 
 tlemen." 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 " Chemi- 
 cal 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 re- 
 ceived his earliest education near London 
 from James Elphinstone, through whom he 
 became acquainted with Dr. Johnson and Dr. 
 Franklin. He became a citizen of Philadel- 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 65 
 
 phia in 1785, studied law, edited the Cohan- 
 bian, 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 Cohimbian, became Vice- 
 President of the United States under President 
 Polk. His commencement oration at Prince- 
 ton, in 1809, 01^ the "Moral Influence of 
 Memory," is printed in the Port Folio of that 
 year (Vol. II, p. 396*). Two members of the 
 
 * 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. 
 
 5 
 
66 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 famil}^, Rev. A. R. C. Dallas, son of Robert 
 Charles, and his cousin, Rev. Charles Dallas, 
 served at Waterloo, and were afterward pronrii- 
 nent in philanthropic work. 
 
 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 Cohnnbian 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 suspen- 
 sion, the editors declared, '' is to be found in 
 the present law respecting the establishment 
 of the post office, which totally prohibits the 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 6/ 
 
 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 Musetim, or Universal 
 Asyhim: John Parker, Phila." The only 
 number that I have seen contains sixty pages. 
 In January, 1787, or one month after with- 
 drawing from the management of The Colum- 
 bian Magazine^ Matthew Carey published the 
 first number of The American Museum, or 
 Repository of Ancieitt and Modern Fugitive 
 Pieces, etc., Prose and Poetical, which proved 
 to be the first really successful literary un- 
 dertaking 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 eveiy 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 
 
68 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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,"* 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 fur- 
 nish them the whole of the numbers." 
 
 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 ac- 
 
 * Benjamin Rush's papers in the Museum and in the 
 Columbian were printed in book form, " Essays — Literary, 
 Moral and Philosophical," 1798. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 6g 
 
 quainted with Dr. Franklin in Paris while 
 living there to avoid prosecution at home. 
 He was imprisoned for the publication of the 
 Volunteer' s Journal \xi Dublin. He arrived in 
 Philadelphia, November 15, 1784, and in the 
 following January began to publish the Penn- 
 sylvania Eveiiing Herald, the first newspaper 
 in the United States to furnish accurate re- 
 ports of legislative debates. He was wretch- 
 edly poor, but Lafayette laid the foundation 
 of his fortune by a generous gift of four hun- 
 dred dollars in notes of the Bank of North 
 America. The first pamphlet that Carey pub- 
 lished in Ireland was a treatise on duelling. 
 Soon after his arrival in America he eave 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 maga- 
 zine in Philadelphia to reflect faithfully the 
 internal state of America. Bradford's maga- 
 zines, 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 
 
70 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Columbia7i Magazhie avoided the serious po- 
 litical problems of the times, and granted 
 much of its space to agricultural improve- 
 ments 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 appre- 
 hensive, 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 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 7 1 
 
 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 Philadel- 
 phia. 
 
 P. 263. — Insurrection in New Hampshire. 
 
 P. 293. — Dr. Franklin's Prussian Edict. 
 
 P. 295. — Impartial Chronicle, by W. Liv- 
 ingstone. 
 
72 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 Musetim 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 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 73 
 
 A2itolfW£-rap/iy 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 maga- 
 zine, Carey attempted to re-animate it, and 
 published T/ie A7Herican Mziseiim, 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 publica- 
 tion, ** If this coup d'essai be favorably re- 
 ceived, 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 
 
74 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 Anninian 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, Phila- 
 delphia has always been fertile and success- 
 ful. " 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. Phila- 
 delphia :* 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 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 75 
 
 literary communications," and they are prom- 
 ised 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 in- 
 creasing 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 Lit- 
 erary Journal. Jan.-Aug., 1795. Phila. : 
 S.[amuel] H.[arrison] Smith. 
 
 The American Annual Register, or Historical 
 Memoirs of the U?tited States, made one volume 
 in 1796. 
 
 The Literary Museum^ or Monthly Magazine. 
 Jan.-June, 1797. "Printed by Derrick and 
 
76 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Sharpies, and sold by the principal book- 
 sellers in Phila. Price, one quarter of a 
 dollar." 
 
 The Methodist Magazine was founded by- 
 John Dickinsin January, 1797, and was edited 
 by him until his death, in 1 798 (September 27). 
 It was printed by Henry Tuckness. It was 
 chiefly made up of sermons. 
 
 The Americari Universal Magazine con- 
 sisted chiefly of selections from other peri- 
 odicals. The first volume began Monday, 
 January 2, 1797, and was completed March 
 20, 1797. It was embellished with Du Simi- 
 tiere'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 favor- 
 ing 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 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. JJ 
 
 The third volume, July lo, to November 
 15, 1797, informed the patrons of the publica- 
 tion 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 publica- 
 tion 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 Phila- 
 delphia 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 Uni- 
 versal Repository of Knowledge and Entertain- 
 me7it, 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, 
 
78 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 which ahiiost desolated Philadelphia in the 
 months of August, September and October, 
 1798. By Thomas Condie and Richard Fol- 
 well." The history contains 108 pages, an 
 appendix of 3 1 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 bio- 
 graphical sketch of Washington. The " Me- 
 moirs 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 reputa- 
 tion in England second only to Mrs. Siddons, 
 this brilliant actress was added to the Ameri- 
 can stage by Mr. Wignal, of the Philadelphia 
 Theatre, who had gone abroad in 1796 to re- 
 cruit his company and, if possible, to engage 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 79 
 
 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 " Delia 
 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 con- 
 ducted by James Watters, of Willing's Alley, 
 a young man who was the manager for Dob- 
 son'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 un- 
 signed, 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 
 
80 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 im- 
 portant 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 extraor- 
 dinary passions and experiences. While oc- 
 cupied with this romantic narrative of the 
 horrors of the plague, his intimate friend, 
 EHhu 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 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 8 1 
 
 Forman, the young and gifted editor, James 
 Watters, having died of the fever. A com- 
 memorative note of the stricken editor is to 
 be found in the number bearing date February 
 2, 1/99 (page 129). 
 
 In consequence of Watters' death, no num- 
 ber of the magazine was published between 
 August 25, 1798, and February 9, 1799. The 
 property was then bought from the late edi- 
 tor's mother, and was continued until June i, 
 1799, when it came abruptly to an end, leav- 
 ing 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 Unknov/n to Him- 
 self," a few pages of which had been given in 
 the magazine. The manuscript was known 
 to be with James Watters, but its fate is un- 
 known ; it probably was destroyed with the 
 rest of the unfortunate editor's papers. 
 
 One other Philadelphia publication was ter- 
 minated in consequence of the plague, which, 
 although properly classified as a newspaper, 
 is yet of so much literary and historical in- 
 terest that it would seem to deserve a place in 
 6 
 
82 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 this narrative. Porcttpine's Gazette and United 
 States Daily Advertiser ^ixs published by Will- 
 iam Cobbett on Second Street, opposite Christ 
 Church. It was first issued on Saturday even- 
 ing, 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 pro- 
 fanity 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 coin- 
 cidence 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 ex- 
 tremest Tory principles, and requested the 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. S^ 
 
 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 regu- 
 lation I have been obliged to adopt to disap- 
 point 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, Cob- 
 bctt ejected his venomous superfluity upon 
 Dr. Benjamin Rush, comparing him to Doc- 
 tor Sangrado, in Gil Bias, because he advo- 
 cated 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 thou- 
 sand dollars, the cost of the suit, ruined Cob- 
 bett, 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 au- 
 thor returned to England. 
 
 Cobbett also published, in Philadelphia, The 
 Political Censor, or MontJily Review, which 
 lasted from March, 1796, to March, 1797. 
 
84 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 A German magazine was published in Phil- 
 adelphia, in 1798: PJiiladelphisches Magazin 
 fur die deiitschen in Amerika. Philadelphia : 
 H. and J. R. Kammerer. 
 
 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 ajid Reviezv, or Monthly Repository 
 of hiformation 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 produc- 
 tion. The magazine was strongly "anti-Galli- 
 can " in character. It closed its career with 
 its first volume. 
 
 I have made no mention in this necessarily 
 incomplete enumeration of the eighteenth cent- 
 ury magazines of an early religious publica- 
 tion, 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. 
 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 85 
 
 Christopher Sauer printed, at irregular in- 
 tervals, 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 Philadel- 
 phia 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 
 Hterary Hfe. Poet George Webbe noticed in 
 1728 the leadership of Philadelphia in all mat- 
 ters pertaining to the higher life of the coun- 
 try, and prdphesied : 
 
 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 Athe- 
 nians," but the name became a favorite one 
 with which to characterize the thriving Penn- 
 sylvania town which exercised such sovereign 
 sway and masterdom over its sister cities. 
 Benjamin West, in a letter to Charles Willson 
 (86) 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 8/ 
 
 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 Phila- 
 delphia the ''Athens of America." 
 
 As the capital of the government it was the 
 centre of wealth and fashion. Fine old man- 
 sions 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 
 JMorris, 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 hos- 
 pitality. 
 
 William Bingham, father-in-law of the emi- 
 nent banker Alexander Baring, who was after- 
 wards Lord Ashburton, entertained in grand 
 style. General Washington drove out from 
 the Morris mansion along the unpaved streets 
 
8 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 Cadwalla- 
 der, 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 Univer- 
 sity of Pennsylvania, which had played so great 
 a part in the Revolution, and to which Louis 
 XVI had, in 1786, made so generous a dona- 
 tion, was removed to its new home in the spa- 
 cious buildings erected for the executive man- 
 sion. The Philadelphia Library, which had 
 been Franklin's first scheme for public im- 
 provement, and which had been enriched by 
 the generous gifts of James Logan, was fur- 
 nishing 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 hun- 
 dred 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 Philosoph- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 89 
 
 ical Society in its venerable hall in State 
 House Yard numbered Presidents Washing- 
 ton, Jefferson and Adams among its members. 
 The best scholars of Europe and America read 
 its ** Transactions " or contributed to its *' Pro- 
 ceedings." From his private observatory 
 David Rittenhouse made the earliest astronom- 
 ical observations in this country, and rested 
 his transit instrument upon the ancient stanch- 
 ions 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. Talley- 
 rand, Beaumais, Vicomte de Noailles and his 
 brother-in-law Lafayette, Volney, the Due de 
 
90 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 Philadel- 
 phia in 1799 as clerk to Timothy Pickering, 
 who was then Secretary of State, and his bril- 
 liant social qualities soon won him recogni- 
 tion 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.* 
 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 
 
 * 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, re- 
 doubtable Monadnock and Tuckaway ! Laugh, ye waters 
 of the Winiseopee and LTmbagog Lakes ! Flow smooth in 
 heroic verse, ye streams of Amorioosack and Androscoggin, 
 Cockhoko and Coritocook ! And you, merry Merrimack, be 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 9 1 
 
 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 undevi- 
 ating integrity. Let hair-brained enthusiasts 
 prate in tJicir 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. 
 
 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 Farm- 
 er's Weekly Miisettin^ a good and popular 
 journal that had been founded in 1790, the 
 papers entitled '* The Lay Preacher," upon 
 
92 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 which rests his literary fame. Of this maga- 
 zine he became editor in 1796, and at once 
 gathered about him a number of noble swel- 
 ling spirits who contributed racy and original 
 reading to the " Farmer's " subscribers.* 
 
 The publisher became bankrupt in 1798, 
 and Dennie pilgrimaged to Philadelphia, with- 
 out fortune and without a patron. His ser- 
 vice under Pickering was of short duration. 
 
 In connection with Asbury Dickins, a son of 
 John Dickins of the MetJiodist Magazine^ he 
 began, January 3, 1801, the publication of the 
 Port Folio, by Oliver Oldschool, Esq., the best 
 of Philadelphia magazines, which he contin- 
 ued to edit until his death, in 18 12. Dennie's 
 strong personality and engaging qualities ot 
 mind and heart attracted attention, and made 
 
 * 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 Tractora- 
 tion" appeared, Dennie wrote to the Port Folio, " To Con- 
 necticut 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 Greenhouse" and "The 
 Echo " faded with the failing of the Farmer'' s Museum. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 93 
 
 him many friends. With genuine editorial 
 tact and skill he drew to himself all the liter- 
 ary ability of the city, which was then '* the 
 largest and most literary and most intellectu- 
 ally 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 pre- 
 sented 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, nan- 
 keen 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 nodes ambrosiance of the 
 
94 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Tuesday Club when Tom Moore, who cele- 
 brated 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, " ambi- 
 tious 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 liter- 
 ary essay with a polished plane of glass, or what 
 has politics to do with the w<?r;^?>2^.^ * The 
 editor began with a ** lilliputian page " be- 
 cause he was warned by ** the waywardness 
 of the time." ** A waywardness which," he 
 explains, " alludes to our indifference to ele- 
 
 * The editor of the Aurora retorted in kind, and dubbed 
 the Port Folio " Portable Foolery." 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 95 
 
 gant letters, the acrimony of our party bicker- 
 ings, 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, " Liter- 
 ary 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 de- 
 basement to make literature common and 
 cheap." 
 
 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 coun- 
 
96 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 try. 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 Amer- 
 ican 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 Declar- 
 ation of Independence were quoted to him, his 
 indignation forgot all discretion. He was soon 
 bandying hot words with the Aurora, and mark- 
 ing with his scorn every new phase of Amer- 
 icanism. 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 97 
 
 power — that the most wholesome portions of 
 our polity are modelled from hers — that we 
 kneel at shrines and speak a language com- 
 mon 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 
 Rep2iblic of letters ; " with Dennie it was the 
 Monarchy of letters. Several articles ran 
 through \hQ Port Folio of 1801 on the senti- 
 ment and style of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, 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, 
 
98 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 pub- 
 lication of his was condemned as "an in- 
 flammatory 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 Dic- 
 tionary " containing " American corrections 
 of the English language," he had a few sug- 
 gestions to offer. The Columbian language 
 he understood to be an elegant dialect of the 
 English, but, he went on, " there is one re- 
 mark which I would wish with deference to 
 submit to our great lexicographer before I 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 99 
 
 finish this paper. As his dictionary, I under- 
 stand, is to be the dictionary of the vulgar 
 tongue in New England, would it not be 
 better to prefix to it the epithet Cabotiatt in- 
 stead 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 Colum- 
 bia." 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.* In conclusion {Port 
 Folio, I, page 370), '' let then the projected 
 volume of fold and unclean things bear his 
 own Christian name and be called Noah's 
 Ark!" 
 
 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 
 
 * " 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.) 
 
f 
 
 lOO PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 sketches in praise of West's genius and gen- 
 erosity. ** 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 Eng- 
 land 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 pro- 
 voking still, be soothed by regal praise. 
 What are titles, honours and gold to an inde- 
 pendent Republican who, remaining at home, 
 might have had the noblest and amplest op- 
 portunities 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURV. 1 01 
 
 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 suc- 
 ceeded 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 Bar- 
 nabas " 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 de- 
 sires 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 Vic- 
 toria's coronation, and his daughter, to save 
 her Majesty fatigue, stood for her, wearing 
 the royal robes. 
 
102 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 John Trumbull, son of " Brother Jonathan " 
 the patriot, who painted the famous " Declara- 
 tion of Independence," was imprisoned for trea- 
 son in London, and was only released by Ben- 
 jamin 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 interest- 
 ing 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 Somer- 
 set House. Through West again, Copley 
 twas 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 Lynd- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. IO3 
 
 hurst. 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 ob- 
 ject of patronage." Again, in June ii, 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 ad- 
 vised 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 pleas- 
 ure 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 
 
I04 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 Shew- 
 ell, which was reprinted in \\\^ Analectic Mag- 
 azifte of Philadelphia, in 18 14. ** Here, in- 
 deed," he exclaimed, " I could enlarge both 
 seriously and proudly ; for if any one circum- 
 stance 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 Col- 
 lege 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 vol- 
 ume of reports of trials for high treason as a 
 proper book for John Adams to read. Alex- 
 ander Graydon, one of the faithful contribu- 
 tors 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 Eng- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. TO5 
 
 land, 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 conduct- 
 ors, like the Doctor, Mr. Hunt was a pattern 
 of meekness and humility; and at every halt 
 that was made he rose and expressed his ac- 
 knowledgments to the crowd for their for- 
 bearance 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, i( I 
 mistake not, to Barbadoes, where, it is under- 
 stood, 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, Connecti- 
 cut, built upon ground that had belonged to 
 Bysshe Shelley, before he went to England 
 and became master of Castle Goring. Many 
 
I06 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 descend- 
 ants 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 quan- 
 tity of salt water between us. If it were claret 
 I would drink my way to America." The 
 name of Francis certainly flourishes in Phila- 
 delphia. The intricate little settlement o 
 Francisville, within the city, perpetuates the 
 name of the family. 
 
 It has always been asserted and believed 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 10/ 
 
 that Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, of New 
 York, was the first American editor of Shake- 
 speare. 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 1 1, 1804 (p. 46) 
 advertises "the first complete edition of 
 Shakespeare in this country, from the text of 
 the best editors of Shakespeare. To be pub- 
 lished 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, under- 
 taken 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 per- 
 mission 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 re- 
 
I08 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 searches 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 
 Falstafif, 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 profes- 
 sion ; Dennie was the second. When inau- 
 gurating 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. IO9 
 
 making literature the handmaid of fortune, or 
 at least of securing something like independ- 
 ence, 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 1 809 " 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. /^, 
 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. IV. Corner of Walnut and Dock street, 
 
no PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 1802. 2 vols. 120. VOL. I, //. Xxii-159. 
 VOL. 11,//. 172. 
 
 The earliest notice of John Howard Payne 
 is in the Poj^t Folio, new series, Vol. I, p. loi 
 (1806). Payne was then a lad of fourteen 
 years, and already editor of the Thespian Mir- 
 ror in New York. 
 
 The Port Folio, new series, Vol. II, p. 421, 
 contains an account of the first dramatic per- 
 formance composed in North Carolina, 
 " Nolens Volens ; or. The Biter Bit',' written 
 by Everard Hall, a gentleman of North Caro- 
 lina. 
 
 Dennie died January 7, 181 2, and was 
 buried in St. Peter's churchyard. A monu- 
 ment was erected to him, and the inscrip- 
 tion 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, 1 768 ; 
 
 Died at Philadelphia, January 7, 181 2; 
 
 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I I I 
 
 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 vi^anton, 
 
 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 Hnes 
 upon the monument, was an old and valued 
 friend of Dennie's, and one of the earliest con- 
 tributors to the Port Folio. 
 
 His " Tour Through Silesia," afterward re- 
 printed in London in two octavo volumes, 
 first appeared in the Port Folio m 1801. He 
 also contributed to the first number of the 
 magazine a version of the thirteenth satire of 
 Juvenal, and intended to continue the transla- 
 tion of Juvenal, but abandoned the project 
 when Gifford's work was announced. A 
 
112 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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, 18 16 
 (Port Folio, page 361). This time the affection 
 and admiration for the man found right ex- 
 pression. 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 feeble- 
 ness, 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 as- 
 sumed names are in most cases easily pene- 
 trable, some that occur infrequently are only 
 identified with rrfuch difficulty. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. II3 
 
 The last editor of the Port Folio, Mr. John 
 E. Hail, 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 com- 
 memorated 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 
 8 
 
114 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES, 
 
 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 
 pubhshed in the Port Folio of August 31, 1805 
 (Vol. V, p. 271), and reprinted in Brockden 
 Brown's Literary Magazine, January, 1806 
 (Vol. Ill, 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. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. IIJ 
 
 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 rehnquished 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 wo- 
 man 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. 
 
Il6 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 L Wharton, Charles J. In- 
 gersoU and his brother Edward, Condy Ra- 
 guet, 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, Hor- 
 ace Binney, Alexander Wilson, Charles Brock- 
 den 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 11/ 
 
 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 (i 777-1804), the author 
 of the " Powers of Genius " (1801), a popular 
 work which was splendidly reprinted in Lon- 
 don,* 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 gradu- 
 ated 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 Presby- 
 terian Church, Philadelphia. He engaged in 
 controversy with Joseph Priestley, but his best 
 achievements were ** Valerian," a narrative 
 poem, and " The Death of Washington " 
 
 * 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, Pat- 
 ernoster Row, 1804. 
 
Il8 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 (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 18 ii (89-97). 
 Brown also published a review of his life and 
 work in the Literary Magazine^ Vol. II, page 
 
 554- 
 
 John Shaw (1778- 1809) was born in An- 
 napolis, May 4, 1778, and lost at sea January 
 10, 1809. He studied medicine in the Uni- 
 versity 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 hps 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. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 19 
 
 But one charm remains behind, 
 
 Which mute earth can ne'er impart ; 
 Nor in ocean wilt thou find, 
 Nor in the circhng air, a heart. 
 Fairest ! wouldst thou perfect be. 
 Take, oh take that heart from me. 
 
 All his offerings to the Fori 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 
 Fort Folio in 18 12. 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 18 10, 
 nearly all of which had previously appeared 
 in the Fort Folio, where the " Sketches " were 
 termed "a kind of chalk drawings." One of 
 them, " To a Market Street Gutter," was a par- 
 ody of the "Ode to the Raritan," and was the 
 cause of John Davis writing the " Pursuits of 
 Philadelphia Literature."* 
 
 * There is no mention of Robert Rose in Duyckinck, or 
 Anibone,in Appleton's Encyclopaedia of American Biography, 
 or in the admirable Stedman-Hutchinson Library of American 
 Literature. 
 
120 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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. 
 
 SWEETEST Gutter ! though a clown, 
 
 1 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; 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 121 
 
 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 sorne 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 Jer- 
 sey. 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 Hopkin- 
 son'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 him- 
 self into the favor of the ladies by writing a 
 new novel, and rivalling Lopez de Vega by the 
 multitude of his works. Mr. Brown intro- 
 duced me to Mr. (Asbury) Dickins, and Mr. 
 Dickins to Mr. Dennie ; Mr. Dennie pre- 
 sented me to Mr. Wilkins, and Mr. Wilkins 
 
122 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 to the Rev. Mr. Abercrombie ; a constellation 
 of American geniuses, in whose blaze I was 
 almost consumed. . . . Rev. Mr. Aber- 
 crombie 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." * 
 
 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 magnifi- 
 
 * Abercrombie's prospectus for a new edition of Johnson's 
 Works — "to be comprised in fourteen octavo volumes, with 
 new designs and plates. Phila. : l8ii " — is contained in the 
 /"or/ Fo/io, Vol. VI, p. 98. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 23 
 
 cently 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 Leek, 
 the Issel and the Zuiderzee." 
 
 Thomas I. Wharton (1791-1856), a distin- 
 guished Philadelphia lawyer, was a frequent 
 contributor, and for a time was editor of the 
 Analectic Magazine. 
 
 Charles J. Ingersoll, the author of "In- 
 chiquin the Jesuit's Letters on American 
 Literature and Politics," was born in Phila- 
 delphia, October 3, 1782, and died there May 
 14, 1862. His first boyish composition is in 
 the Port Folio of October 24, 1801. It is en- 
 titled "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. 
 
124 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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- 1 842) pubHshed 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 (i 783-1 844) was profes- 
 sor of Greek and Latin in the Philadelphia 
 Central High School. He wrote, at the sug- 
 gestion 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 Lon- 
 don " 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 contrib- 
 uted to the Port Folio, 
 
 John Syng Dorsey (1783-18 18) succeeded 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 125 
 
 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 i8, 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 Mii- 
 seimi 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 Fed- 
 eral politics, attacks on French democracy, 
 the Delia Cruscan literature, and the fashion- 
 able 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 (i 781- 185 8), father of Judge 
 J. I. C. Hare, who was professor of chemistry 
 
126 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 un- 
 der the pen-name of " Eldred Grayson." 
 
 Dr. Nathaniel Chapman (i 783-1 850) used 
 the pen-name of** Falkland." 
 
 Alexander Graydon (175 2-1 8 18), 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 18 1 3-14, 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 op- 
 portunity of meeting men of rank and fame. 
 
 JosiAH QuiNCY (1772- 1 864), 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.* 
 
 John Leeds Bozman (175 7- 1823) studied 
 at the University of Pennsylvania, and read 
 
 * The name of the flappers, employed by the inhabitants of 
 Laputa to arouse them from their scientific reveries. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 12/ 
 
 law in the Middle Temple, London. He con- 
 tributed both prose and verse to the Port 
 Folio. 
 
 General Thomas Cadwalader (1779- 
 1841) furnished the magazine with transla- 
 tions of Horace. 
 
 Richard Rush (i 780-1 859) was admitted 
 to the Philadelphia bar in 1800, and success- 
 fully defended William Duane, of the Anro7'a, 
 on a charge of libelling Gov. Thomas McKean. 
 He occasionally contributed official and per- 
 sonal anecdotes to the Port Folio. 
 
 Richard Peters (1744- 1828), the witty 
 judge of Belmont, extended princely hos- 
 pitality 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 (175 2-1 8 16) contrib- 
 uted political satires in both prose and 
 verse to Dennie and his confreres. 
 
 Joseph Hopkinson (1770- 1842), whose 
 
128 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 authorship of *' Hail Columbia" has been 
 already referred to, wrote the articles upon 
 Shakespeare that appeared in the Port-Folio 
 between 1 80 1 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- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 12^ 
 
 Roof House, then in the Carpenter mansion at 
 Sixth and Chestnut, and finally at Graeme 
 Hall in Montgomery County. Her life was 
 written in XhQ 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 every- 
 where her brilliant conversation and refined 
 manners won her recognition and applause in 
 literary society. Laurence Sterne was fas- 
 cinated 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 be- 
 9 
 
130 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 came sociable, and a good deal of pleasant 
 conversation took place between them to the 
 great entertainment of the surrounding com- 
 pany " (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 bis 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 Philadel- 
 phia, August 23, 1 8 13. " The Poems and 
 Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson " was 
 edited by A. B. Grosart, and published at 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I3I 
 
 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 Wil- 
 son " (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 pic- 
 turesque 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 nightin- 
 gale did the gypsy steward, and he followed 
 them into untrodden wildernesses. Thomas 
 
132 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Bradford undertook to publish Wilson's 
 colossal " Ornithology." It was to be dis- 
 tinctly 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 18 13. 
 
 Wilson published the ''Rural Walk" in 
 Brown's Literary Magazine of August, 1804, 
 and the " Solitary Tutor " in the same publi- 
 cation, October, 1804. The former poem was 
 reprinted in the Port Folio oi K'^xW 27, 1805. 
 Dennie was charmed with the poem, and ex- 
 plained 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 sky- 
 larks, 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 ob- 
 servation and nice fidelity to nature. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I 33 
 
 *' Down to the left was seen afar 
 
 The whitened spire of sacred name,* 
 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,! 
 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." 
 
 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 
 
 * Christ Church. 
 
 f Dr. Benjamin Say's house at Gray's Ferry. 
 
134 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Literary Magazme 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 
 Actseon and Narcissus — having a gun in one 
 hand and flourishing a looking-glass in the 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 35 
 
 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 Lu- 
 cien 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 Bar- 
 tram, and from whom he learned to draw. 
 Lawson was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, 
 December 19, 1772. He came to Philadel- 
 phia in 1792, engraved four plates for Thom- 
 son'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 
 
136 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 contribu- 
 tions 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 AtheiicBum in Philadelphia, 
 and was for a time vice-president of that insti- 
 tution. 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 ac- 
 count 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 Pat- 
 terson." John Ewing was born June 22, 
 1732, in Nottingham, Cecil County, Maryland ; 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 3/ 
 
 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 contra- 
 diction, 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 Ameri- 
 cans did not always fall their crests when in 
 the presence of Dr. Johnson. It is a familiar 
 
138 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 
 Por^ 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 39 
 
 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 Phila- 
 delphia October 30, 1 761, 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 Philadel- 
 phia April 8, 1830. 
 
 Her eldest son, John Elihu Hall, was born 
 in Philadelphia December 27, 1783; studied 
 law, and edited the American Law Journal 
 1 808-1 8 1 7. 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 publica- 
 tion of the ''Memoirs of Anacreon," but sus- 
 pended the work after a few instalments had 
 appeared. In 1820 (Vol. IX, p. 401), he re- 
 sumed the articles. Most of the Anacreontic 
 
140 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 pub- 
 lished in book form by John Elihu. An- 
 other 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, 18 16. Its history up 
 to that time may be briefly stated. It was at 
 first a weekly quarto, printed by H, Max- 
 well 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 con- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I4I 
 
 tinued from that time to be a monthly publi- 
 cation. 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, 181 1, 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 (i 775-1 826), 
 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 
 
142 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 re- 
 signed his charge early in 18 12. Dr. Charles 
 Caldwell was requested to succeed him. " I 
 accepted the proposal," he says, in his ''Au- 
 tobiography," "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 en- 
 tered 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 or- 
 dered his officers to report themselves in their 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 43 
 
 connection with all intenesting 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 maga- 
 zine obtained some interesting and valuable 
 biographical notes of military and naval offi- 
 cers. 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 chal- 
 lenged him to a duel. Robespierre swore re- 
 venge, 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 Northumber- 
 land, where Coleridge and Southey dreamed 
 of establishing an Eden of Pantisocracy. 
 When Cooper came to Philadelphia, Wash- 
 ington and Jefferson and Jay and Madison 
 were there. Cooper lent his pen to Jeffer- 
 son and the Democrats, and was paid by them. 
 He was appointed to a judgeship, but soon re- 
 
144 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 moved. He was elected professor of chem- 
 istry 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 philo- 
 sophical 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, 1 8 14, pp. 8 and 457, and also in the 
 American Review^ H, 128, 166. 
 
 Dr. Caldwell at this time edited Delaplaine's 
 Repository, and Smith had his revenge in a 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I 45 
 
 telling criticism of that work in the Analectic 
 Magazine, \.o 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 1 8 16. 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 1 8 14 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 1 8 1 7 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 
 
146 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 463) is heard the first note of alarm. New- 
 England is gaining ; " with such rivalry Phil- 
 adelphia must yield the proud title which she 
 has borne, or rouse from the withering leth- 
 argy 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 com- 
 munications 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 47 
 
 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 quick- 
 ened 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 con- 
 temporaries ; 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 
 
148 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 in the best and soundest of their times the 
 magazines did suffer by the subscription plan. 
 The remaining stock of the Analectic Maga- 
 zine 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 Sander- 
 son, 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 or- 
 nament and family dignity, were to be found 
 in half the splendid mansions of Philadelphia. 
 But 'we can procure the book at the Phila- 
 delphia 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I49 
 
 Library, we say. Aye ! biwn 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 val- 
 uable 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 useful- 
 ness 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 Smiderson's Biography in? ' and 
 to add, ' My daughters wish to see it' " 
 
 In 1822 the Port Folio was reduced to mak- 
 ing 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'* 
 
150 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 pro- 
 duced — 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 compli- 
 ments, 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 ' tram- 
 poosing ' over America. It spoilt poor Hall — 
 turned his brain. He has done little or noth- 
 ing since but make-believe about criticism, 
 talk dawdle-poetry with a lisp, write irresist- 
 ible verses under the name of ' Sedley ' in his 
 own magazine, twitter sentimentally about 
 ' little Moore,' his ' dear little Moore ' — puffing 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I5I 
 
 himself all the time anonymously in the news- 
 paper, while he is damning himself, with un- 
 mistakable 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. jZ) 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 w^as now making a desperate 
 struggle for life. Its publication was sus- 
 pended from January to July, 1826, and again 
 from January to July, 1827. Its budget was 
 finally closed in December, 1827. 
 
152 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 FROM THE PORT FOLIO TO GRAHAM'S. 
 
 The Ladies' Muse2iin 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 impor- 
 tant of Philadelphia writers, the first profes- 
 sional man-of-letters in America, and the pre- 
 decessor of all cis-Atlantic novelists, was born 
 in Philadelphia, January 17, 1771, and in that 
 city he founded, in 1803-4, the Literary Maga- 
 zine and American Register. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I53 
 
 Brown had been educated until his six- 
 teenth year in the school of Robert Proud, 
 the historian of Pennsylvania. He then 
 studied law with Alexander Wilcox, of Phila- 
 delphia. 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 Cohmtbian 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 Philadel- 
 phia to spend the remainder of his life. 
 
 The first number of the Literary Magazine 
 and A^nerican Register was published by John 
 Conrad, who had made a liberal arrangement 
 with the editor, on Saturday, October i, 1803. 
 Brown's prospectus, which filled the first three 
 
154 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 pages, is so characteristic of the author, and 
 so interesting as a contemporary comment 
 upon magazines and their purposes, as to ad- 
 mit 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 in- 
 troduce 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 neces- 
 sary 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I55 
 
 be very unequal to each other in lustre, and 
 some of them may be little better than twink- 
 ling and feeble stars of the hundredth mag- 
 nitude ; 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 prom- 
 ise 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 
 
156 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 volun- 
 tarily 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 pro- 
 prietors. 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 hun- 
 dred persons who concern themselves about 
 this work — will naturally inquire who it is 
 that thus addresses them. ' This is some- 
 what 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I 5/ 
 
 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. Be- 
 sides, I am anxious for some personal knowl- 
 edge 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 de- 
 mand. You may, in the course of your trade, 
 have accommodated yourself to twenty differ- 
 ent fashions, and have served twenty classes of 
 customers ; have copied at one time a Parisian, 
 at another a London fashion, and have truck- 
 led to the humours, now of a precise enthu- 
 siast, and now of a smart free-thinker. 
 
 **"Tis of no manner of importance what 
 
158 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 creed you may publicly profess on this occa- 
 sion, 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 obser- 
 vations, 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 ene- 
 mies, 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 ap- 
 pearance there, when impelled by the strong- 
 est 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 59 
 
 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 some- 
 thing which I have written, and take no 
 praise for anything. I should enjoy a larger 
 share of my own respect, at the present mo- 
 ment, 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. 
 
l60 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 nor does the editor put anything but his repu- 
 tation 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 endeavuors to amuse and in- 
 struct 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 <^^;;^^.f/^^ publications, besides extract- 
 ing from them anything serviceable to the 
 public, he will give a critical account of them, 
 and, in this respect, make his work an Ameri- 
 can Review, in which the history of our native 
 literature shall be carefully detailed. 
 
 " He will pay particular attention to the his- 
 tory of passing events. He will carefully 
 compile the news, foreign and domestic, of 
 the current month, and give, in a precise and 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. l6l 
 
 systematic order, that intelligence which the 
 common newspapers communicate in a vague 
 and indiscriminate way. His work shall like- 
 wise be a repository of all those signal inci- 
 dents 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 suffi- 
 ciently recommended by its own merits. 
 
 " In an age like this, when the foundations of 
 religion and morality have been so boldly at- 
 tacked, it seems necessary, in announcing a 
 work of this nature, to be particularly ex- 
 plicit 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 Chris- 
 tian religion. Christian piety he reveres as 
 the highest excellence of human beings, and 
 the amplest reward he can seek for his labour 
 
1 62 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 is the consciousness of having, in some degree, 
 however inconsiderable, contributed to recom- 
 mend the practice of rehgious 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 prin- 
 ciple. 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 scru- 
 pulously aim at the promotion of public and 
 private virtue. 
 
 "As a political annalist, he will speculate 
 freely on foreign transactions ; but in his de- 
 tail 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 alterca- 
 tion and abuse. 
 
 " He will conclude by reminding the public 
 that there is not, at present, any other monthly 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 63 
 
 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, v/hen 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, possess- 
 ing one companionable property in the high- 
 est degree — that is to say, a desire to please. 
 —Sep. 7, 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, 1 806. 
 
64 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA— AN ELEGY. 
 
 Written during the prevalence of the Yellow Fever in 
 
 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. 
 
 W^hat 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 bluslies of the rose. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. i6K 
 
 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 bums, 
 
 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 ; 
 
l66 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 pro- 
 ceedings, reviews of literature and of foreign 
 and domestic scientific intelligence, American 
 and foreign State papers, etc. After five vol- 
 umes had been published, Charles Brockden 
 Brown died in his house at Eleventh and 
 George Streets, on the 19th of February, 
 1 8 10. 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 In- 
 dian summer, when the air is full of smoke. 
 Passing a window one day, I was caught by 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 6/ 
 
 the sight of a man with a remarkable physi- 
 ognomy, 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 liter- 
 ature, should go to the Quaker graveyard 
 and bear the bones of Brockden Brown to 
 that Laurel Hill which he loved in his boy- 
 hood ; 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." 
 
l68 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 "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 mon- 
 strous crime occasioned through the agency 
 of ventriloquism. " Arthur Mervyn " con- 
 tained vivid descriptions of the yellow fever 
 pestilence in Philadelphia in 1793. "Edgar 
 Huntley " followed the fortunes of a somnam- 
 bulist in the mountain fastnesses of Western 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 When Brown began to write "the church- 
 yard romance " was in fashion, and novelists 
 revelled in tales of horror and of terror, dwell- 
 ing long and painfully upon the most loath- 
 some details of some ghastly bit of fancy. 
 It was the time of Lewis's *' Tales of Terror " 
 of Walpole's " Castle of Otranto," of Beck- 
 ford's "VatHek," and of Mrs. Radcliffe's 
 " Mysteries of Udolpho " and Mrs. Shelley's 
 " Frankenstein." William Godwin, too, wrote 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 69 
 
 ghostly stories of crime and supernatural 
 agencies, and from Godwin, Charles Brock- 
 den Brown caught his style. The influence 
 of Godwin is noticeable in Brown's first work, 
 " Alcuin, a Dialogue on the Rights of Wo- 
 men " (1797). Godwin's ''Falkland" and 
 ** Caleb Williams " are the models of " Wie- 
 land " and " Ormond." 
 
 It is interesting to find young Percy Bysshe 
 Shelley confessing his obligations to the Phila- 
 delphia 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 flat- 
 tering notices of Brown, and his novels were 
 reprinted and read with interest and critical 
 approval in England. At home he has fallen 
 
170 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 (1766-18 15), a 
 nephew of David Rittenhouse, and the succes- 
 sor of Benjamin Rush as professor of the 
 theory and practice of medicine in the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania, edited the Philadelphia 
 Medical and Physical Journal from November 
 1 , 1 804, to May, 1 807. It was published irreg- 
 ularly by J. Conrad and Co. 
 
 The Evening Fireside, or Literary Miscellany, 
 Philadelphia, 1 805-1 806, was established by 
 a literary club, and published by Joseph 
 Rakestraw. The second volume, which began 
 January 4, 1806, completed the work. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I/I 
 
 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 '* Theat- 
 rical 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 Ce?isor, 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 Miscella7iy, 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 Charles- 
 ton. 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 four- 
 teen years. Still later came the Boston Mag- 
 azine and the Polyanthus. 
 
172 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZLXES. 
 
 Matthew Carey introduced the third theatri- 
 cal journal to the Philadelphians. It was the 
 Thespian Monitor mid Dramatick Miscellany ^hy 
 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 1 8 10 Samuel T. Bradford was the most 
 enterprising publisher in Philadelphia. With 
 his partner, Inskeep, he printed in 18 12 the 
 Port Folio. With the same partner he issued 
 in January, 18 10, the Mirror of Taste and 
 Dramatic Censor. The editor was Stephen 
 Cullen Carpenter, an Irishman, who had en- 
 tered 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 Brad- 
 ford and Inskeep to conduct the Mirror of 
 Taste, 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1/3 
 
 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 peri- 
 odical 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 pub- 
 lished by Thomas Barton Zantzinger & Co., in 
 the Shakespeare Buildings at Sixth and Chest- 
 nut Streets. 
 
 At the close of the first year of the maga- 
 zine a dramatic event occurred that caused 
 unusual excitement in Philadelphia, and led to 
 important consequences. The great trage- 
 dian, George Frederick Cooke, whom Ed- 
 mund Kean pronounced " the greatest of all 
 actors, Garrick alone excepted," arrived in 
 New York and appeared on 21st October, 
 1 8 10, as Richard III before two thousand 
 spectators in the Park Theatre. 
 
 It was then that he requested the great au- 
 dience to stand while " God Save the King " 
 
1/4 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 should be played, and during the storm that 
 followed calmly took snuft' until the audience 
 acceded to his demand. 
 
 From New York he proceeded to Philadel- 
 phia. 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 even- 
 ing 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 him- 
 self 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 sell- 
 ing them at double or treble the regular prices. 
 When the time came for opening the doors in 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 75 
 
 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 v/ith Dunlap, one of the New York 
 managers, and he was obliged to make him- 
 self 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, occu- 
 pied 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. i8). Soon 
 after this memorable night Leslie made a 
 likeness of Cooke which attracted Bradford's 
 
176 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 nth of November, 
 181 1, in company with Mr. Inskeep. So 
 slight a circumstance gained for him an intro- 
 duction into the great world of West and 
 AUston, 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 unex- 
 pectedly visiting this country held a new 
 light to the stage, and, pointing out the true 
 dramatic representation, opened to our peo- 
 ple 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 77 
 
 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."* 
 
 The father of Charles Robert Leslie was 
 Robert Leslie, who had been a watchmaker 
 at Elktown, Md., and had removed to Phila- 
 delphia 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 borii in 1787 in Philadelphia. 
 She won a prize for a story," Mrs. Washing- 
 ton Potts," in Godefs Lady's Book, and 
 afterwards edited the Gift, an annual, and 
 Miss Leslie's Magazine, a monthly publication 
 
 (1843.) 
 
 Blackwood's Magazine in 1824 congratu- 
 lated America on C. R. Leshe's success. He 
 never lost his profound respect and affection 
 for Samuel Bradford, and named his second 
 son after him. In the second year (18 13) of 
 
 * Sully's painting of Cooke as Richard III in the Philadel- 
 phia Academy of the Fine Arts. 
 
1/8 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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, fol- 
 lowed him thither. " The house was so full," 
 writes Leslie, in his autobiographical recollec- 
 tions, " that the poet was obliged to share a 
 double-bedded room with me. We were kept 
 up late in consequence of the critical condi- 
 tion of Allston, and when we retired Cole- 
 ridge, seeing a copy of Knickerbocker's His- 
 tory 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I79 
 
 Philadelphia editor. In 1809 E. Bronson and 
 others began to print upon their Lorenzo 
 press TJie Select Reviews and Spirit of the 
 Foreign Magazines, edited by Samuel Evving. 
 The magazine was bought by Moses Thomas, 
 in 1 8 12, who changed its name to the Aiialec- 
 tic. Irving was its editor in 18 13-14. 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."^ 
 
 Paulding and Verplanck wTote for the mag- 
 azine, signing their articles " P." and " V." 
 
 *It is not a little remarkable that the list of Washing- 
 ton Irving' s contributions to the Analectic Magazine should 
 have come to me in an Athenian newspaper. 
 
 To) 1813 o'Yjpoiv^ dveXaoe rrjv avvra^LV rov 
 TrepioStfcov ** 'A.vaK\erlfc'\ efcSiSofjievov Kara firjva 
 €v ^L\a8e\(f)eia. 'Ev avvw eypayjre ttgWcl^ 
 ^LoypacfiLa^ rcov Trepccpavea-repav avSp:ov, olv al 
 KupicoTepat eldlv at T'jjv 'Afxepi/capcJi' TLcoprep 
 Kal MttojOjOO}? /cal rcov " XyyXcov Troir/ruJi^ Bi/jOO)- 
 z^09, Mo'jap Kal KafJiTreWov." — EBA0MA2, 
 December i, 1890. 
 
t8o PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 William Darlington (1782-1863), a Pennsyl- 
 vanian, after whom was named the Darling- 
 tonica California (a species of pitcher-plant), 
 went to India as ship's surgeon in 1806, and 
 published in the Analeciic Magazine a sketch 
 of his voyage called " Letters from Calcutta." 
 
 The Analectic contains a number of valu- 
 able portraits. The first lithograph ever made 
 in America is in this magazine for July 18 19. 
 It represents a woodland scene — a flowing 
 stream and a single house upon the bank. It 
 was made by Bass Otis, who followed the sug- 
 gestions of Judge Cooper and Dr. Brown, of 
 Alabama. The drawing was made upon a 
 stone from Munich, presented to the Ameri- 
 can Philosophical Society by Mr. Thomas 
 Dobson, of Philadelphia. The Analectic Mag- 
 azine was finally converted into the Literary 
 Gazette and died one year later (December, 
 1821).* 
 
 * " 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." 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. l8l 
 
 WITTY AND SATIRICAL MAGAZINES. 
 
 The Tickler was edited by George Helm- 
 bold, and was first issued, September i6, 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 morn- 
 ing, at the price of four dollars per annum, 
 from 131 South Front Street. The first vol- 
 ume of fifty-two numbers was not completed 
 until February 8, 1809. Helmbold enlisted 
 in the army and was promoted to a lieuten- 
 ancy 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 : 
 
1 82 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 " 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 con- 
 ductors of this paper, being a kind of whim- 
 sical 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 un- 
 equal, and in its pecuniary value as unstated, 
 though always as reasonable, as any other 
 oddly-contrived thing ev^er 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. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 83 
 
 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 news- 
 papers. 
 
 The Trangrafn is full of local gossip and 
 scandal cleverly concealed. Andrew Hamil- 
 ton figures in it as *' Dapper Dumpling." 
 J. N. Barker, the author of " Superstition," is 
 " Billy Mushroom." Joseph Dennie is nick- 
 named '' Oliver Crank." William Warren is 
 dubbed " the tun-beliied manager." 
 
 The account of a walk through the city 
 streets ends with " the description of the de- 
 fence of his friend would doubtless have con- 
 tinued until we reached the end of our journey 
 had we not by this time arrived, where mathe- 
 maticians never could arrive, at the Square 
 Circle," — that is, at Centre Square, Broad and 
 Market Streets. 
 
 The third number, February i, 18 10, con- 
 tains accounts of *' Jeremy Corsica" (Jerome 
 Bonaparte) and his visit to Philadelphia, and 
 to " Bangilore " (Baltimore), and his acquaint- 
 ance with Miss " Cornelia Pattypan," or Pat- 
 terson. 
 
184 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 The Beacon^ erected and supported by 
 Lticida7itus and his Thirteen Friends, was 
 published by W. Brown, and began its course 
 Wednesday, Nov. 27, 18 11. It aimed to sur- 
 pass Tlie 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, 
 181 5. The second number contained an 
 abusive article upon William McCorkle. In 
 January, 18 16, Lewis P. Franks, the editor of 
 the Luncheojt, confessed himself the author of 
 the libel and declared that the alleged biog- 
 graphy of McCorkle was false, and that the 
 journal would be discontinued. 
 
 The Indepe^ident Balance was published 
 weekly by " Democritus the Younger, a lineal 
 descendant of the Laughing Philosopher." It 
 was established, March 20, 18 17, by George 
 Helmbold, the first editor of the Tickler and 
 late of the United States Army. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 85 
 
 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, 1 82 1 . The magazine, after passing through 
 several hands, finally became the property of 
 L. P. Franks, who published it at " No. i 
 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. 
 I, January 29, 1820. 
 
1 86 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Every number of the Critic contains some 
 quip or satire at the expense of James Kirke 
 Paulding, and his '' Backwoodsman " is par- 
 ticularly 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 * Back- 
 woodsman.' I remember them both. In pri- 
 vate life they united qualities which are sel- 
 dom found together, brilliancy of conversation 
 and modesty of deportment. In their writ- 
 ings 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 NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 8/ 
 
 The greatness of Philadelphia is the inspi- 
 ration and the pride of the Critic. " Having 
 often heard Philadelphia called the ^Athens of 
 the United States,' * the birthplace of Ameri- 
 can 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 scien- 
 tific point of view, the first city of the Em- 
 pire " (p. 20). The Critic fired its last arrow 
 May 10, 1820. 
 
 Dennie's Port Folio continued to be the ad- 
 miration and the despair of contemporary ed- 
 itors and authors. In 1 82 1 appeared the P.^i'/- 
 Chaise Companion or Magazine of Wit. By 
 Carlo Convivio Socio, Junior Fellow of 
 the Royal Academy of Humorists. It was 
 begun in January, 182 1, 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 in- 
 structed 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 Maga- 
 
1 88 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 zine and his host of 'the most eminent literary- 
 men ' who promised to eclipse the disserta- 
 tions 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 Museiim was con- 
 ducted by John Redman Coxe for five years, 
 from 1805 to 1 8 10, and was published by A. 
 Bartram. 
 
 The Eye, by Obadiah Optic, was pub- 
 lished 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 liter- 
 ary journal, was published in 1810 by Dennis 
 Hart. 
 
 The Eclectic Repertory and Analytic Review, 
 Medical a7id Philosophical, was commenced in 
 October, 1 8 II, 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 Liter- 
 ature, conducted by S. Emlen, Jr., and Wil- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 89 
 
 liam Price, and published by Eliakim Littell. 
 It finally ceased October, 1824. 
 
 The Freemason's Magazine and General 
 7lf2><;^//^;^jK 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 " (Ports- 
 mouth, 1800), and of a number of patriotic 
 poems of the Revolution. 
 
 Robert Walsh began, in 181 1, the publi- 
 cation of the first quarterly that was issued in 
 the United States. It was the American Re- 
 viezv of History, of Politics, and General Repos- 
 itory 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 Balti- 
 more, and at the Jesuit College at George- 
 town. While at college, in 1796, he delivered 
 a political address before General Washing- 
 ton. He began the practice of law in Phila- 
 delphia. In 1 8 17-18 he edited the American 
 Register. 
 
 The National Gazette, a daily newspaper, 
 
1 90 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 was established by him in Philadelphia in 
 1 8 19, 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 18 19, 
 to the Natio7ial Recorder. It was founded in 
 18 1 8 by E. Littell and S. Norris Henry. In. 
 July, 1 82 1, it changed its name for the second 
 time, and became the Saturday Magazine. 
 De Quiricey'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 Mu- 
 seum of Foreign Literature and Science. In 
 this year (1822) it was edited by Robert 
 Walsh. Toward the close of 1823 the pro- 
 prietor 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 a7id 
 Science. Littell had no connection with the 
 magazine in this phase of its history. He 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. I9I 
 
 went to Boston, and in 1844 established Lit- 
 tclVs Living Age, of which he remained the 
 proprietor until his death, May 17, 1870. 
 
 After retiring from the editorial chair of the 
 Musetim, Walsh successfully resuscitated the 
 American Quarterly Review^ which he pub- 
 lished from March, 1827, to 1837. 
 
 The Reviezv was published by Carey, Lea 
 and Carey. It appeared in March, June, Sep- 
 tember and December. Each number con- 
 tained 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 Gov- 
 ernment " passed through four editions in 
 England, and was commended by Lord Jeffrey 
 in the Edinburgh Reviezv (Vol. XVI, p. i). The 
 American Quarterly Reviezv did not share the 
 same happy fate. The Monthly Reviezv 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 lucubra- 
 tions of Jeremy Bentham." Neal, in Black- 
 zjuood's (XVI, 634), sarcastically styled Walsh 
 " The Jupiter of the American Olympus." 
 
192 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Walsh was United States Consul at Paris 
 from 1845-185 1, and remained in France until 
 his death, February 7, 1859. 
 
 Joseph Delaplaine, in April, 18 12, respect- 
 fully solicited the patronage of the public to 
 the Emporium of Arts and Sciences^ *' con- 
 ducted by John Redman Coxe, M.D., profes- 
 sor of chemistry in the University of Pennsyl- 
 vania." The magazine was published monthly, 
 beginning in May, 18 12. It made three vol- 
 umes, but two volumes only were published 
 in Philadelphia. The second volume was 
 conducted by Thomas Cooper, who, in 1813, 
 removed the magazine to Carlisle, Pennsyl- 
 vania, 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 pub- 
 lished 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, 18 11, published monthly, twelve 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 93 
 
 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 181 5, 
 LAbeille Americaine, Journal Historique, Poli- 
 tique, et Litteraire a Philadelphie , A. J. Bloc- 
 querst, 130 South Fifth Street. Matthew 
 Carey took subscriptions for the work, which 
 continued several years. 
 
 The Parterre : by a Trio (Cora and Charles 
 Chandler), 18 16, 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 Re- 
 view of History, Politics and Literature — Phila. : 
 Thos. Dobson, 1 8 1 7-1 8 1 8 — made two volumes. 
 
 The American Medical Recorder appeared 
 in 1 8 18, 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 
 13 
 
194 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Museum and Musical Magazine was a weekly 
 publication begun, January i, 1 8 19, 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 Paul- 
 ding and the Irvings were conspicuous mem- 
 bers. 
 
 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 fashion- 
 able world. Though we had not anticipated any- 
 thing 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 numer- 
 ous similar publications, none of which, how- 
 ever, extended beyond a few numbers and 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 95 
 
 formed somewhat of an era in our literature. 
 It reached two volumes, and, we could easily 
 have continued it indefinitely, but the pub- 
 lisher, with that liberality so characteristic of 
 these modern Maecenases, declined to concede 
 to us a share of the profits, which had be- 
 come considerable, and the work was abruptly 
 discontinued. It was one of those produc- 
 tions of youth that wise men — or those who 
 think themselves wise — are very apt to be 
 ashamed of when they grow old." 
 
 In 1 8 19 Paulding attempted to revive Sal- 
 magundi, and a "second series" was pub- 
 lished fortnightly in Philadelphia, io8 Chest- 
 nut Street, by Moses Thomas, from May 30, 
 1 8 19, to August 19, 1820. Evert A. Duyc- 
 kinck, 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. Wash- 
 ington Irving was in Europe, and the muse of 
 Pindar Cockloft was silent. It was a danger- 
 ous undertaking, for the very essence of a 
 Salmagundi is the combination of choice in- 
 gredients — a product of many minds. . . 
 Yet it contains many delightful pages." 
 
196 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 The publication is referred to by Paulding 
 in a letter to Washington Irving, January 20, 
 1820 : " I must now make two or three ex- 
 planations 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 con- 
 tinuation 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 per- 
 sons 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 97 
 
 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 Hterature a most becoming passion ; 
 
 Had skimm'd the latest novels, good and bad, 
 
 Arid read the Croakers, when they were in fashion; 
 
 And Dr. Chalmers' Sermons, of a Sunday ; 
 
 And Wordsworth's Cabinet, and the new Sahiiagundi.'''' 
 
 In closing his introduction to the new- 
 series, Paulding alluded gracefully and affec- 
 tionately 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 
 
198 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 de- 
 hght." 
 
 The Protestant Episcopal Church established 
 \\\Q 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 Col- 
 lege. In i8i3-i4hewas co-editor with Dr. 
 Abercrombie of the Quarterly Theological Mag- 
 azine and Religions Repository. 
 
 The Episcopal Magazine was published by 
 S. Potter & Co. and printed by J. Maxwell. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 1 99 
 
 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 ar- 
 ticles 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 J otirnal 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. Chap- 
 man 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 Med- 
 ical Sciences, and Dr. Isaac Hays became sole 
 editor, to be in turn succeeded by his son, Dr. 
 
200 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 I. Minis Hays. The history of its changes and 
 extension would take us far beyond the chro- 
 nological boundary of this book. Nearly 
 every physician of note in America has con- 
 tributed at some time to its pages, and nearly 
 every notable triumph of American medicine 
 has found fitting record somewhere in its mul- 
 titudinous 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 Philadel- 
 phia in 1 82 1 and began a literary paper, which 
 he called the Bee, Not more than two hun- 
 dred subscribers were secured, and Coffin sold 
 the unsuccessful paper to Charles Alexander, 
 who had formerly been employed upon Poul- 
 son's- Daily Advertiser. On the 4th of Aug- 
 ust, 1 82 1, Atkinson and Alexander, in the 
 office once occupied by Benjamin Franklin, 
 back of No. 5 3 Market Street, began the pub- 
 lication of the Philadelphia Saturday Evening 
 Post. T. Cottrell Clarke was appointed editor. 
 He retired in 1826 and founded the Ladies' 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 201 
 
 Album, a weekly literary paper, which ulti- 
 mately 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 Satur- 
 day Courier. Other editors of the Post at 
 various times were Benjamin Mathias, founder 
 of the Sattirday Chronicle, Charles J. Peter- 
 son, Rufus W. Griswold, H. Hastings Weld 
 and Henry Peterson. The Post had few im- 
 portant rivals among the family newspapers 
 and it absorbed a number of the young lit- 
 erary journals. The Saturday News, the Sat- 
 urday Bulletin and the Saturday Chronicle were 
 merged into the Post. Mrs. Henry Wood's 
 early novels, written in her obscure days be- 
 fore the time of '' East Lynne," were pub- 
 lished 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. 
 
202 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Rev. G. T. Bedell, who had established the 
 Episcopal Recorder, was also the editor of the 
 Philadelphia Recorder (1823), likewise a relig- 
 ious 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 Mc- 
 Henry 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 yEsctdapian Register was published 
 from June 17, 1824, to December 8, 1834. 
 Several physicians united in its editorship, 
 and R. Desilver, of 1 10 Walnut Street, was 
 its publisher ; its motto : " Ars longa, vita 
 brevis." 
 
 The American Sunday School Magazi^ie 
 (1824-183 1) was the first Sunday-school- 
 teacher's journal issued in America. 
 
 La Cordeille, 3i weekly journal published in 
 1824. The editor was a gallant Cavalier, who 
 warns the ladies in the first number that novel 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 203 
 
 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 polit- 
 ical. 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 irreconcil- 
 able with the spirit and principle of the Gospel." 
 
 The Christian was a weekly paper of 1824. 
 
 The Philadelphian, a large folio sheet, con- 
 aining 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, be- 
 
204 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 gun June 7, 1826, by T. C. Clarke, changed its 
 name to the Philadelphia Alburn 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 news- 
 paper form. It was made out of the Satur- 
 day Evening Post, and was first issued by 
 Samuel Coate Atkinson, at No. 36 Carter's 
 Alley, January i, 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 pub- 
 lisher, 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 20 5 
 
 verses of J. H. Ingraham and C. West Thom- 
 son. 
 
 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 Medi- 
 ci7ie 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 Oc- 
 tober 13, 1827, was published in the interest 
 of the Orthodox Quakers. 
 
 The Philadelphia Monthly Magazine, Octo- 
 ber, 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, 
 1 79 1. He studied at the University of Penn- 
 sylvania, and lived in Bucks County in ill- 
 health. He conceived the plan of the mag- 
 azine in the spring of 1827. At his death 
 the magazine passed into the hands of B. R. 
 
206 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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. (Rich- 
 ard 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 bhss." 
 
 The Banner of the Constitution was a v/eekly 
 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 Phila- 
 delphia and to resume our old position on 
 the field of battle." 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 20/ 
 
 The Protestant Episcopalian and Church Reg- 
 ister 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. 
 
 Godefs Lady's Book was the chief finan- 
 cial success among the Philadelphia maga- 
 zines, 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 mag- 
 azine. 
 
 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 
 
208 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Boston, the Ladies' Magazine. When that 
 magazine was united in 1837 with Godefs 
 Lady's Book, Mrs. Hale became editor of the 
 latter periodical, and made her home in Phila- 
 delphia in 1 84 1. 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 holi- 
 day. 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 1 83 1. It was a continuation of the Lutheran 
 Intelligencer, founded in March, 1826, which 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 2O9 
 
 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 Knowl- 
 edge 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 Philadel- 
 phia, 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. 
 
 T\\^ Cholera Gazette, ]\x\y 11, 1832-Novem- 
 ber 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 Sum- 
 ner Lincoln Fairfield, the author of " The 
 Cities of the Plain." Fairfield was born in 
 Warwick, Mass., June 25, 1803. The sad 
 14 
 
2IO PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 enter- 
 prise she writes : 
 
 *' I returned to my home after having ob- 
 tained the number of eight signatures, amount- 
 ing 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 Mag- 
 azine. When I had accumulated the sum of 
 seven hundred dollars I gave it into the hands 
 of Mr. Fairfield. He %eemed 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 211 
 
 stole from him the plot of his " Last Days of 
 Pompeii." The story as told by Mrs. Fair- 
 field 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 ^ furnish- 
 
212 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 ing 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 (i 798-1 881). Smith had 
 been the editor of the Saturday Bulletin, 
 1830-32, LitteWs Museum, Walsh's National 
 Gazette and the Daily Express. The magazine 
 reprinted standard works and published origi- 
 nal reviews and literary notes. 
 
 The American Lancet, edited by F. S. Beattie, 
 began February 23, 1833, ^^<i ^^^ 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 ajid Annals of 
 Natural History was conducted by W. P. Gib- 
 bons, 1834-5. 
 
 The Gentleman^ s Vade-Mecum, or the Sport- 
 ing and Dramatic Companion, ]3.nua.ry i, 1835- 
 June 25, 1836, contained original dramas and 
 musical compositions, fast heats and pictures 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 21 3 
 
 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), ^^^ ^^^ 
 edited the Pemisylvanian^ 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 Satur- 
 day Gazette, which he and Morton McMichael 
 had established. His " Charcoal Sketches " 
 (Philadelphia, 1837), which Charles Dickens 
 republished in London, were originally con- 
 tributed to the Pennsylvanian under the title, 
 "City Worthies." His wife, Alice Bradley 
 Haven (i 828-1 863), 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 v/eekly after June 13, 
 
214 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 i835> by Thomas Bro., at No. 124 South 
 Front Street. In October it was issued fort- 
 nightly. 
 
 The Botanic Senti?iel and Literary Gazette 
 (August 12, 1835-June 15, 1840), published 
 weekly by J. Coates. 
 
 The hidependent Weekly Press, " upholding 
 the right of free discussion, given to us by our 
 God and guarded by the laws of our coun- 
 try," 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 miscel- 
 lany of " humorous tales, essays, anecdotes 
 and facetise," and the other symptoms of al- 
 buminous fever. It was begun July I, 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 215 
 
 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 
 Waldies Literary Omnibus. This carry-all 
 was devoted to " news, books entire, sketches, 
 reviews, tales, and miscellaneous intelligence." 
 
 The Philadelphia Visitor and Parlor Com- 
 panio7i, 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 Ajnerican 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 
 
2l6 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 Phila- 
 delphia 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 em- 
 ployment 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 pre- 
 cious 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. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 21/ 
 
 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^ Avhen, in 1841, 
 William E. Burton, the actor, came to him 
 with the request that he should buy the Gen- 
 tleman's Magazine, of which Burton had been 
 the proprietor for four years. Burton ex- 
 plained 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 Gen- 
 tleman'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 en- 
 tered the employ of George Graham, was 
 Edgar Allan Poe. Mr. Graham bears clear 
 and willing testimony to the efficient service 
 
2l8 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 rendered by Poe to the new magazine, which, 
 now combined with the Casket, took the 
 name of its new owner. He found Httle in 
 Poe's conduct to reprove, nor does he remem- 
 ber any cause beyond envy and maUce 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 surrender- 
 ing the story, and the judges awarded to Ed- 
 gar Poe the prize for the "<jold-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 subordi- 
 nate editor of the magazine as early as 1843, 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 2I9 
 
 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 Phila- 
 delphia. 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 sym- 
 pathizing 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 so- 
 ciety if you wish f6r 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 
 
230 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 Gi^aham'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 sanc- 
 tum, and Graham bought from him his lives 
 of the naval commanders, and engaged him 
 to write a serial story. Cooper wrote " The 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 2^1 
 
 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 
 Home's "Orion" (March, 1844), "Dream- 
 land" (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 manage- 
 ment, and engaged E. P. Whipple to write 
 the editorial reviews of the more important 
 books, which he continued to do until 1854. 
 
222 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne included many of his 
 early contributions to this magazine in his 
 " Twice-Told Tales." " The Earth's Holo- 
 caust " appeared in May, 1844. 
 
 George D. Prentice wrote verses. '* Fanny 
 Forester" (Mrs. Judson) sent some brill- 
 iant sketches, and Phoebe and Alice Gary, 
 and Grace Greenwood were faithful corre- 
 spondents. 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. Mitch- 
 ell, Robert Morris and Thomas Dunn Eng- 
 lish, 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. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 223 
 
 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 Knicker- 
 bocker 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 vol- 
 umes of Atkinson's Casket, and the seven vol- 
 umes of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. 
 This first volume, 1841, contained Poe's 
 " Descent into a Maelstrom " and his " Mur- 
 ders 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 Rob- 
 
224 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 ert 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 GreenleafWhittier 
 became editor of the Perinsylvania Freeman, 
 published at 31 North Fifth Street. He was 
 successor to Benjamin Lundy. 
 
 Graham's particular patent of nobility is the 
 tact that he was the first of American pub- 
 lishers to pay fair prices to American authors. 
 
 The Lady's A^naranth was another venture 
 of 1838, and was issued from No. 274 Market 
 Street. 
 
 Adam Waldie was the publisher of the 
 Americayi 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 Pres- 
 byterian journal commenced in 1838, and was 
 for many years published from No. 1 34 Chest- 
 nut Street. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 225 
 
 The Baptist Record was a religious publica- 
 tion continued from 1838 to 1857. 
 
 The American Phrenological Journal was 
 issued from No. 46 Carpenter Street from 1838 
 to 1 84 1. 
 
 The Farmer's Cabinet, devoted to agricult- 
 ure, was published from 1838 to 1850. 
 
 The Ladies' Companion was published by 
 Orrin Rodgers for two years following 1838. 
 
 Rodgers also published the Medico- Chirnr- 
 gical 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 pop- 
 ular French periodicals. Peterson's Magazine 
 is now ( 1 891) in its fiftieth year, and is still the 
 best and most popular pubHcation 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. 
 15 
 
226 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 Frances Hodgson Burnett published her 
 first story, " Ethel's Sir Lancelot," in Peter- 
 son'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 ar- 
 ticle 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 fol- 
 lowing editorial note appeared in The Phila- 
 delphia Inquirer of Monday, March 7, 1 887 : 
 
 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 in- 
 tellectual 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 22/ 
 
 which his brilliant mind, his ripe scholarship, 
 his fervid imagination, his refined taste di- 
 rected 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, Mor- 
 ton 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 distin- 
 guished rank, and had he corttinued his liter- 
 ary 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 be- 
 come so famous. 
 
228 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 "But Mr. Peterson put aside writing to be- 
 come a publisher, in which he achieved re- 
 markable and deserved success, and subse- 
 quently he wrote but infrequently, and then 
 only brief brochures intended solely for pri- 
 vate 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 acquaintance- 
 ship, friendship or more affectionate relations, 
 as a man of the noblest character, the tender- 
 est sensibilities, the most refined and gentle 
 qualities. Advancing age, a great and sor- 
 rowful loss, that of an only son by sudden 
 death, induced him to withdraw from the so- 
 ciety that had always welcomed his presence, 
 but in his seclusion he did not grow misan- 
 thropical 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. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 229 
 
 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. Hol- 
 lemback 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 (181 2- 
 1864) father of Richard Watson Gilder, editor 
 of the Century Magazine. The first William 
 Henry, grandfather of Richard Watson, laid 
 
230 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 the corner-stone of Girard College. William 
 Henry the second continued to edit the Re- 
 pository about one year ; he subsequently pub- 
 lished in Philadelphia the Literary Register, a 
 quarterly review. 
 
 The Literalist was published from 1840 to 
 1842 at No. 6^ South Second Street. James 
 Rees edited the Dramatic Mirror and Literary 
 Companion, August 14, 1 841, at No. 15 North 
 Sixth Street. 
 
 The K??///^ /^^//^'^ ^^^/^ (September, 1841- 
 August, 1842) was published at No. 10 1 
 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, ^^^ offered the prize in 
 June, 1843, f"^^ 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 185 1, "The Unpardonable Sin." The pub- 
 lishers of the Dollar Newspaper were the pub- 
 lishers 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 NINETEENTH CENTURY. 23 1 
 
 The Occident and American Jewish Advocate 
 was published monthly by Isaac Leeser from 
 No. 118 South Fourth Street, and was contin- 
 ued from 1 843 to 1 847. 
 
 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 distinc- 
 tion 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 ven- 
 ture is thus introduced and commended : 
 " Miss Leslie's Magazine ! There is something 
 in the very name that foretokens a prosper- 
 ous 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 
 
232 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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 ven- 
 ture to predict that her magazine must be emi- 
 nently 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 de- 
 mand 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 expira- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 233 
 
 tion of our first year we shall have a greater 
 circulation than any other monthly publica- 
 tion 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 common- 
 places — no pompous parade of swollen words 
 — no tumid prosiness can find admission into 
 our columns, for we shall avoid alike the hack- 
 neyed 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 abhor- 
 rence." 
 
 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 
 
234 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 had seen several productions of Mr. Hull- 
 mandel, of London, who had been experi- 
 menting in this style. 
 
 The first illustrated comic paper on an orig- 
 inal plan published in America was \ki^ Johi 
 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, nota- 
 bly 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, 1 8 19, 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, " pro- 
 fesses to be funny. Let us make a paper that 
 professes to be stupid " — and Xh.Q John Donkey 
 was published monthly by G. B. Zieber at 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 235 
 
 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 de- 
 signed many of the prints, and Hinckley was 
 the engraver of the magazine. Barnet Phillips, 
 the author of the St^niggle, a journalist born in 
 Philadelphia, November 9, 1828, helped in the 
 composition of the John Donkey. The circula- 
 tion 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 , 
 1 841, and edited by Dr. Thomas Dunn Eng- 
 lish. The contents were " entirely original," 
 both stories and verse. The subscription 
 price, one dollar per year, in advance. Eng- 
 lish was invited to edit the magazine by Met- 
 calfe, 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 Califoriiia 
 Sketches, \wxotG. Oriental sketches for Metcalfe's. 
 
236 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 The Ninetee7itJi Century was begun in Jan- 
 uary, 1848. It was published by G. B. Zieber 
 and Co., and edited by C. Chauncey Burr. The 
 first volume was embellished with a steel en- 
 graving 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 mounte- 
 bank'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 ' Reviezv was the creation of the 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 23/ 
 
 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 Revieiv 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 
 
238 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 it is not as an artist or an interpreter of art 
 alone that he has won high honor ; his liter- 
 ary labors, though less conspicuous and less 
 splendid, are significant and interesting. 
 
 CampbelVs Foreign Monthly Magazijie began 
 September i , 1 843. 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, 18/14). Sar- 
 tain 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 pub- 
 lished 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 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 239 
 
 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. Sar- 
 tain assumed complete charge of his maga- 
 zine. In 1852 it again returned to New York, 
 when it was merged into the National Mag- 
 azine. 
 
 Longfellow contributed frequently to the 
 magazine. His translation of *' The Blind 
 Girl of Castel Cuille " appeared here in Jan- 
 uary, 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 18 19. 
 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 unfin- 
 ished at his death. 
 
 Of one publication of the eighteenth cent- 
 ury, the Philadelphia Nimrod (1798), I have 
 made no mention. Although for a long time 
 a hot questrist after it, I have not been fortu- 
 nate enough to come by a copy, and of its his- 
 tory I am mainly ignorant. 
 
 My list of the medical, theological and sci- 
 entific periodicals of the present century is by 
 no means complete, but it may be serviceable 
 for future correction and extension. 
 (240) 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 24 I 
 
 There was a publication in Philadelphia, in 
 181 1, 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. Z% 
 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 pub- 
 lished "The Wheel of Truth," a comedy; 
 "Picture of Paris;" ''Linden and Clara," a 
 comedy ; and " Apology for My Life," Phila- 
 delphia, 1 8 14. The first number of the Whim 
 appeared Saturday, May 14, 18 14. The ar- 
 16 
 
242 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 gument 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 jour- 
 nal ceased, I believe, with the tenth number, 
 dated July i6, 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 pro- 
 vincial 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 18 10. Its editors 
 defined it to be "the first asylum for the 
 varieties of literature that ever had been pub- 
 lished west of the Susquehannah " (p. 576). 
 The magazine ceased in December, 18 10, with 
 the complaint that ''with the exception of 
 
THE NINETEENTH CExNTURY. 243 
 
 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 Religions Instructor, " under 
 ministers of the Presbyterian Church, Carlisle, 
 1 8 10;" and the Magasi7ie of the German Re- 
 formed 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 in- 
 telligence and miscellaneous articles, inter- 
 spersed 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 as- 
 sociation of young men " (Vol. I, 18 19-20), was 
 
244 PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINES. 
 
 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, iio-ii 
 Advocate of Science, The, 212 
 ^sculapian Register, The, 202 
 Aitken, Jane, 10 
 Aitken, Robert, 10, 27, 48 
 Album, The, 205, 206 
 x^lexander, 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. i), 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 
 
 (245) 
 
246 INDEX. 
 
 American Museum, The, 67-73 
 
 American Phrenological Journal, The, 224-225 
 
 American Philosophical Society, 46, 89, 177, 180, k 
 
 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 
 
 Bailej^, 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 
 
INDEX. 247 
 
 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 
 
248 INDEX. 
 
 Bremer, Frederika, 239 
 
 Brackenridge, H. H., 14, 53-60, 69 
 
 Bradford, Andrew, 23, 26, 28, 69 i 
 
 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. K-, 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; ^72 
 Cave, Edward, founder of the Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine, 23 
 Cent, The, the first penny paper, 20 
 Childs, Geo. W., 217, 230 
 
INDEX. 249 
 
 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 Philadel- 
 phia), 77-8 ; his biography of Mrs. Merry, 78 
 
 Copley, John Singleton, 102 
 
 "Columbiad, The," 10, 62 
 
 Columbian Magazine, The, 61-67, I53 
 
 Cope, Francis, 116, 119 
 
 " Common Sense," origin of the pamphlet, 50 
 
 Coombe, Thos., 44 
 
 Cooper, James Fenimore, his publication of "Pre- 
 caution," 18; 20, 220, 221 
 
250 INDEX. 
 
 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," 1 19-122 
 Darley, F. O. C, 235 
 Darlington, Wm., 180 
 De Ouincey, 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 
 
INDEX. 25 I 
 
 Duane, William, 127 
 Dwight, Timothy, 68, 71 
 
 Eclectic Journal of Medicine, The, 214 
 
 El}', Ezra Styles, 203 
 
 Eiphinstone, James, 64 
 
 " Eldred Grayson " (Robert Hare), 126 
 
 Emporium of Arts and Sciences, The, 192 
 
 English, Thomas Dunn, 222, 234-235 
 
 Episcopal Magazine, The, 19S 
 
 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, no 
 
 First Religious Weekly in America, 142 
 
 "Forester, Frank" (pen-name of W. H. Herbert), 223 
 
 Foster, Geo. G., 234 
 
252 INDEX. 
 
 " Foresters, The " (by Jeremy Belknap), 64 
 
 Fox, Gilbert, 63 
 
 Francis, Tench, 27 
 
 Francis, Sir Philip, his Philadelphia associations, ic6 
 
 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 
 
 Godfre}^, 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 
 
 Gray don, Alexander, his account of the " carting "of 
 
 Isaac Hunt, 105 ; 116, 126 
 Graeme, Dr. Thos., 128 
 
INDEX. 253 
 
 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, 207-20S 
 
 Hall, Kverard, author of "Nolens Volens," no 
 
 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 
 
254 INDEX. 
 
 Hopkinson, Frauds, 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 Philadel- 
 phia, 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., 23S-9 
 Kincaid, Eugenio, 243 
 
INDEX. 255 
 
 Kinnersley, Ebenezer, 44 
 Knickerbocker Magazine, 223 
 
 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, 116-11S, 122 
 Lippard, George, 167 
 Literalist, 230 
 
 Literary and Evangelical Register, 243 
 Literary Magazine, 132-153, 171 
 Literary Museum, 75-6 
 Literary Register, 230 
 
256 INDEX. 
 
 Lithograph, the first American, 180 
 
 Littell, Em 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 
 
INDEX. 257 
 
 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, Gouvemeur, 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 
 
258 INDEX. 
 
 Payne, John Howard, earliest reference to, no (editor 
 
 of the Thespian Mirror), 171 
 Peale, Charles Willson, 87, 89, loi 
 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 Minerv^a, 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, t88 
 Philadelphia Recorder, 202 
 Philadelphia Visitor, 215 
 Phillips, Barnet. 235 
 
INDEX. 259 
 
 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 
 
26o INDEX. 
 
 Religious Instructor, The, 243 
 
 Religious Remembrancer, The, the first religious 
 
 weekly, 19 ; 192 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, loi 
 Richards, George, 189 
 Rittenhouse, David, 89, 170 
 Rivington, James, 27, 56-7 
 Robespierre, 143 
 Rose, Robert H., 116, 1 19-123 
 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, 11 8-1 19 
 Shakespeare, first American edition of, 17 ; 163 
 
INDEX. 261 
 
 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 
 Steams, Samuel, 240 
 Stiles, Ezra, 67 
 Story, W. W., 222 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 207 
 Street, Alfred B., 222 
 Stuart, Gilbert, 138 
 Sully, Thomas, loi, 166, 177, 237 
 Swift, Jonathan, 82 
 
 "Tamoc Caspipna " (pseudonym of Jacob Duche), 71 
 
262 INDEX. 
 
 Taylor, Bayard, 20, 207, 224, 236 
 
 Temple, Sir William, 82 
 
 Tennent, Gilbert, 26, 45 
 
 Thanksgiving Day (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-S 
 
 Vicar of Wakefield, 10 
 
 Village Museum, 243-4 
 
 " Violetta " (pen-name of Harriet Fenno), 128 
 
INDEX. 263 
 
 Waldie, Adam, 211, 215, 224 
 
 Waldie's Select Circulating Ivibrary, 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, Klkanah, 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 
 " AVho has robbed the Ocean Cave ? " 118 
 Willing, Thos., 87 
 Williams, J. N., 12 
 Willis, N. P., 222, 232 
 Wilson, Alexander, lo, 62, 116, 130, 135 
 Winchester, Elhanan, 74 
 Wistar Parties, 88, 117 
 Witherspoon, Dr., 50, 56-57 
 
264 INDEX. 
 
 Wood, Wm. B., 116 
 
 Wood, Mrs. Henry, 201 
 
 Wordsworth, the first American edition of, 109-10; 163 
 
 Workman, Judge, 117, 144 • 
 
 Yonng People's Book, The, 230 
 
 Zieber, G. B., 235, 236 
 
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