Chapter I: Part 1

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Transcriber's Note: The final footnote contains a Greek
passage, which is delimited by '+'.
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THE Philadelphia Magazines AND THEIR CONTRIBUTORS

1741-1850

BY

ALBERT H. SMYTH,

_A. B._, _Johns Hopkins University_,

_Professor of English Literature in the Philadelphia High School; Member of the American Philosophical Society._

PHILADELPHIA: ROBERT M. LINDSAY 1892

TO

J. G. ROSENGARTEN

A TOKEN OF THE GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION OF THE AUTHOR

PREFACE.

This study in the history of the Philadelphia magazines was undertaken at the request of Professor H. B. Adams, and the results were first read at a joint-meeting of the Historical and English Seminaries of the Johns Hopkins University. At a later date they were again read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The subject has been found so rich, and the materials so interesting, that, in spite of my best efforts to be brief, the article has grown into a book. It has been with no little distrust that I have made this wide excursion from my chosen studies, but the generous aid and encouragement of friends, who are learned in our local lore, have given me heart to complete and to publish the results of these researches.

A complete list of the Philadelphia magazines is impossible. Many of them have disappeared and left not a rack behind. The special student of Pennsylvania history will detect some omissions in these pages, for all that has here been done has been done at first hand, and where a magazine was inaccessible to me, I have not attempted to see it through the eyes of a more fortunate investigator. I have done my best to make the story, dull and dreary as it surely is at times, not unworthy of its subject, or of the city that it describes, and of which I grow fonder year by year.

My grateful thanks are due to my friends, Professor H. B. Adams, Dr. James W. Bright, Mr. Charles R. Hildeburn, Professor John Bach McMaster, Hon. S. W. Pennypacker and Mr. F. D. Stone, for thoughtful suggestions and valuable information.

I am deeply indebted to Mr. George W. Childs for his unfailing interest and assistance. To Mr. George R. Graham, Dr. Thomas Dunn English, Mr. John Sartain and Mr. Frank Lee Benedict I owe some of the most important facts in this little volume.

ALBERT H. SMYTH.

_Philadelphia, 5 February, 1892,
126, South Twenty-second Street._

"Sweet Philadelphia! lov'liest of the lawn,"
Where rising greatness opes its pleasing dawn,
Where daring commerce spreads th' advent'rous sail,
Cleaves thro' the wave, and drives before the gale,
Where genius yields her kind conducting lore,
And learning spreads its inexhausted store:--
Kind seat of industry, where art may see
Its labours foster'd to its due degree,
Where merit meets the due regard it claims,
Tho' envy dictates and tho' malice blames:--
Thou fairest daughter of Columbia's train,
The great emporium of the western plain;--
Best seat of science, friend to ev'ry art,
That mends, improves, or dignifies the heart.

_The Philadelphiad_, Vol. I, p. 6, 1784.

INTRODUCTION.

To relate the history of the Philadelphia magazines is to tell the story of Philadelphia literature. The story is not a stately nor a splendid one, but it is exceedingly instructive. It helps to exhibit the process of American literature as an evolution, and it illustrates perilous and important chapters in American history. For a hundred years Pennsylvania was the seat of the ripest culture in America. The best libraries were to be found here, and the earliest and choicest reprints of Latin and English classics were made here. James Logan, a man of gentle nature and a scholar of rare attainments, had gathered at Stenton a library that comprehended books "so scarce that neither price nor prayers could purchase them." John Davis, the satirical English traveller, who said of Princeton that it was "a place more famous for its college than its learning," did justice, despite of his own nature, to Logan and to Philadelphia when he wrote: "The Greek and Roman authors, forgotten on their native banks of the Ilissus and Tiber, delight by the kindness of a Logan the votaries to learning on those of the _Delaware_." The eagerness of Philadelphia social circles for each new thing in literature enabled booksellers to import large supplies from England and to undertake splendid editions of notable books. Dr. Johnson was made to feel amiable for a moment toward America on being presented with a copy of _Rasselas_ bearing a Philadelphia imprint.

The first American editions of Shakespeare and of Milton, of "Pamela" and of "The Vicar of Wakefield" were printed in Philadelphia. In the same city, in 1805, Aristotle's "Ethics" and "Politics" were published for the first time in America. A little later came the costly "Columbiad" and the great volumes of Alexander Wilson. Robert Aitken, at the Pope's Head, issued the first English Bible in America in 1782, and his daughter, Jane, printed Charles Thomson's translation of the Septuagint in four superb volumes in 1808. Robert Bell successfully compiled Blackstone's _Commentaries_ in 1772, "a stupendous enterprise." Bell did much by his good taste and untiring industry to advance the literary culture of the city. "The more books are sold," he declared in one of his broadsides, "the more will be sold, is an established Truth well known to every liberal reader, and to every bookseller of experience. For the sale of one book propagateth the sale of another with as much certainty as the possession of one guinea helpeth to the possession of another."

"The Philadelphiad" (1784) gives us a glimpse of the motley society that loitered in Bell's Third Street shop.

"Just by St. Paul's, where dry divines rehearse,
_Bell_ keeps his store for vending prose and verse,
And books that's neither--for no age nor clime,
Lame, languid prose, begot on hobb'ling ryme.
Here authors meet who ne'er a sprig have got,
The poet, player, doctor, wit and sot;
Smart politicians wrangling here are seen
Condemning Jeffries or indulging spleen,
Reproving Congress or amending laws,
Still fond to find out blemishes and flaws;
Here harmless _sentimental-mongers_ join
To praise some author or his wit refine,
Or treat the mental appetite with lore
From Plato's, Pope's, and Shakespeare's endless store;
Young blushing writers, eager for the bays,
Try here the merit of their new-born lays,
Seek for a patron, follow fleeting fame,
And beg the slut may raise their hidden name."

The Philadelphia magazines, from Franklin's to Graham's, furnished ample opportunities for "young blushing writers eager for the bays." Their articles, it is true, were often a kind of yeasty collection of fond and winnowed opinions, but among these shallow fopperies there would at times be heard a strain of higher mood. Nor is the story of these magazines altogether without its pathos. American writers, after the Revolution which lost England her colonies, felt themselves to be under the opprobrium of the literary world. They felt keenly the sneers of English men-of-letters, and winced under injustice and invective that they were not strong enough to resent. The insolence of British travellers was especially provoking. J. N. Williams, a Philadelphian, stung by some offensive criticism by a wandering Englishman, wrote, "America looked not for a spy upon the sanctity of her household gods in the stranger that sat within her gates; she scarce supposed that the hand of a clumsy servant like the claws of the harpies could utterly mar and defile the feast which honest hospitality had provided."

The _Port Folio_, in 1810, was moved indignantly to declare that foreign critics grounded their strictures "upon the tales of some miserable reptiles who, after having abused the hospitality and patience of this country, levy a tax from their own by disseminating a vile mass of falsehood and nonsense under the denomination of Travels through the United States."

Sydney Smith waved American literature contemptuously aside in the _Edinburgh Review_. _The Quarterly_ was brutal in its attacks upon timid transatlantic books. William Godwin reproached American ignorance, and proceeded to locate Philadelphia upon the Chesapeake Bay. No wonder that the _Port Folio_ exclaimed in 1810, "The fastidious arrogance with which the reviewers and magazine makers of Great Britain treat the genius and intellect of this country is equalled by nothing but their profound ignorance of its situation."

The insolence of Great Britain affected American writers in two ways. Some it stung into violent hatred or sullen antagonism, others it coerced into timid imitation and servility. Upon Dennie and his associates it had the latter effect, and the _Port Folio_ vigorously resisted all "Americanisms" in politics and in letters, and sought to conciliate England and to win the coveted stamp of English approbation by unlimited adulation of the favorites of the hour. "To study with a view of becoming an author by profession in America," wrote Dennie, "is a prospect of no less flattering promise than to publish among the Esquimaux an essay on delicacy of taste, or to found an academy of sciences in Lapland."

Upon Brackenridge and Paine the truculent criticisms of England acted as a lively stimulus, and they went profanely to work "to resent the British scoff that when separated from England the colonies would become mere illiterate ourang-outangs."

Thomas Green Fessenden, one of the contributors to the _Farmers' Weekly Museum_, and to Dennie's _Port Folio_, wrote in the preface to his "Original Poems" (Philadelphia, 1806), "Although the war, which terminated in a separation of the two nations, inflicted wounds which, it is to be feared, still rankle, yet the more considerate of both countries have long desired (if I may be allowed a transatlantic simile) that the hatchet of animosity might be buried in the grave of oblivion" (page 6). A little further on he confesses his timidity, when, speaking of the political leaders at home, he says, "I could have enlarged on the demerits of these political impostors, but I feared I might disgust the English reader by such exhibitions of human depravity" (p. 7).

A serener voice is that of John Blair Linn, brother-in-law of Charles Brockden Brown, who was not out of love with his nativity, nor accustomed to disable the benefits of his country. In his "Powers of Genius," which was beautifully reprinted in England, we read:

"I shall not attempt to conceal the enthusiasm which I feel for
meritorious performances of native Americans. Nor can I repress my
indignation at the unjust manner in which they are treated by the
reviewers of England. America, notwithstanding their aspersions,
has attained an eminence in literature, which is, at least,
respectable. Like Hercules in his cradle, she has manifested a
gigantic grasp, and discovered that she will be great. The wisdom,
penetration and eloquence of her statesmen are undoubted--they are
known and acknowledged throughout Europe. The gentlemen of the law,
who fill her benches of justice, and who are heard at the bar, are
eminently distinguished by the powers of reason, and by
plausibility of address.... Our historians have not been numerous.
Some, however, who have unrolled our records of truth claim a
considerable portion of praise.... The prospect before us is now
brightening. Histories have been promised from pens which have
raised our expectations. The death of our great Washington has left
a subject for the American historian which has never been surpassed
in dignity.... From the poems and fictions of the Columbian Muse,
several works might be selected, which deserve high and
distinguishing praise. The poetry of our country has not yet, I
hope, assumed its most elevated and elegant form. Beneath our
skies, fancy neither sickens nor dies. The fire of poetry is
kindled by our storms. Amid our plains, on the banks of our waters,
and on our mountains, dwells the spirit of inventive enthusiasm.

"These regions are not formed only to echo the voice of Europe,
but from them shall yet sound a lyre which shall be the admiration
of the world.

"From the exhibition of American talent I indulge the warmest
expectations. I behold, in imagination, the Newtons, the Miltons
and the Robertsons of this new world, and I behold the sun of
genius pouring on our land his meridian beams.

"In order to concentrate the force of her literature, the genius of
America points to a National University, so warmly recommended, and
remembered in his will, by our deceased friend and father. Such an
establishment, far more than a pyramid that reached the clouds,
would honor the name of Washington" (p. 81).

The Philadelphia writers had their own little thrills, and their own little ambitions, and amid the poverty of their intellectual surroundings they refreshed themselves with visions of the giant things to come at large. James Hall, in his "Letters from the West," wrote: "The vicinity of Pittsburg may one day wake the lyre of the Pennsylvanian bard to strains as martial and as sweet as Scott; ... believe me, I should tread with as much reverence over the mausoleum of a Shawanee chief, as among the catacombs of Egypt, and would speculate with as much delight upon the site of an Indian village as in the gardens of Tivoli, or the ruins of Herculaneum."

American critics soon caught the contagion of sneering censure, and caused the _Port Folio_ to say, in 1811: "American critics seem, in almost all cases, to have entered into a confederacy to exterminate American poetry. If an individual has the temerity to jingle a couplet, and to avow himself descended from Americans, the offence is absolutely unpardonable." When Fenimore Cooper published his first novel, he suppressed his name and wrote instead, "PRECAUTION, by _an Englishman_."

Still, a notable feature of the American magazines was a general insistence upon or, perhaps, a preference for subjects out of American history, or articles dealing with what might be called American archæology--sketches of the life and character of "the ancients of these lands"--or, at least, contributions that were tricked out in some local garb or color. The minds of young American writers turned with alacrity to the subjects that lay nearest to them and which were intimately connected with the life of the country. A national literature was never altogether absent from their thoughts, however the fear of English censure or ridicule may have checked the aspiration. John Webbe, in his prospectus to the first American magazine, said that the new venture would be "an attempt to erect on neutral principles a publick theatre in the centre of the British Empire in America" (_Amer. Weekly Mercury_, October 30, 1740).

A discussion of the Philadelphia magazines takes us back to a time when Philadelphia led all the cities of the country in culture, in commerce, in statecraft and in authorship. Every new experiment in literature was first tried in Philadelphia. Her's was the first monthly magazine (January, 1741), and her's, too, the first daily newspaper (_Amer. Daily Advertiser_, December 21, 1784). The first religious magazine was _Sauer's Geistliches Magazien_ (1764)--for which Christopher Sauer cast his own type, the first made in America--and the first religious weekly was _The Religious Remembrancer_ (September 4, 1813). Philadelphia led off with the first penny paper (_The Cent_) in 1830; and the first mathematical journal (_The Annulus_), and the first _Juvenile Magazine_ (1802), and the first illustrated comical paper on an original plan, _The John Donkey_, in 1848, were all Philadelphia adventures.

There is scarcely a notable name in the literature of America that is not in some way connected with the Philadelphia magazines. Dennie and Brown, the first professional men-of-letters on this continent, were Philadelphia editors. Washington Irving edited the _Analectic Magazine_. James Russell Lowell, Edgar Allan Poe and Bayard Taylor were editorial writers on _Graham's Magazine_, and John Greenleaf Whittier edited _The Pennsylvania Freeman_.

Bryant and Cooper and Longfellow and Hawthorne and a hundred lesser men were constant contributors to the Philadelphia journals.

A striking difference between the older magazines and the recent ones is the conspicuous absence from the journal of a century ago of what is commonly called "light literature." Magazines were then conducted by scholars for scholars. "Popular" essays and silly novels had not yet depraved the taste of readers who could relish Somerville and Shenstone, Savage and Johnson. Articles appeared monthly in the _Port Folio_ that could not by any chance win recognition from an editor of these days. One of the favorite amusements of the _Port Folio_ gentlemen was the translation of Mother Goose melodies and alliterative nursery rhymes into Latin, and especially into Greek. These curious translations, in which the object was to preserve in the Greek, as far as possible, the verbal eccentricities of "butter blue beans" and other intricate verses of infantile memory, are scattered up and down the pages of the _Port Folio_, together with fresh versions of Horace and dissertations upon classical rhetoric.

But the curtain has fallen on all this scholastic bravery. The dust of a dry antiquity has settled upon the laborious pages of these ragged tomes, undisturbed save by some "local grubber," or by some "illustrator" in search of portraits for a rich man's library.

Magazines increase and fill the demand of the public, but they are not cut upon the ancient pattern. The gradual accumulation of books about books, of criticisms on both, of reviews of the critics, of newspaper accounts of the reviews, of weekly summaries of the newspapers, seems to be carrying us ever further from the face of reality into a mere commerce of ideas on which no healthy soul can live.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

The type of the monthly periodical was fixed when Edward Cave, in 1731, founded in London _The Gentleman's Magazine_. Ten years later, and at the very time that Samuel Johnson, at St. John's Gate, was preparing for "Sylvanus Urban, Esq.," the reports of the parliamentary debates, Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Bradford issued in Philadelphia the first monthly magazines in America.

These two magazines appear to have been conceived in jealousy and brought forth in anger. In the _Philadelphia Weekly Mercury_ of October 30, 1740, is the announcement of a prospective magazine to be edited by John Webbe and printed by Andrew Bradford, to be issued monthly, to contain four sheets, and to cost twelve shillings Pennsylvania money a year. The magazine, it was promised, should contain speeches of governors, addresses and answers of assemblies, their resolutions and debates, extracts of laws, with the reasons on which they were founded and the grievances intended to be remedied by them; accounts of the climate, soil, productions, trade and manufactures of all the British plantations, the constitutions of the several colonies with their respective views and interests; of remarkable trials, civil and criminal; of the course of exchange and the proportion between sterling and the several paper currencies, and the price of goods in the principal trading marts of the plantations. One thing only the new magazine should not contain: its pages should never be smeared by falsehood, nor sullied by defamatory libelling.

In the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ of November 13, 1740, Franklin announced a monthly magazine to be called _The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America_. The price was to be nine-pence Pennsylvania money, with considerable allowance to shopmen who should take quantities. The brevity of Franklin's advertisement is in strong contrast to the learned length of Webbe's pedantic prospectus. He claims that the idea of the magazine had long been in his mind, and that Webbe had stolen his plans. Before he had divulged the scheme to Webbe he had proceeded so far in the matter as to choose his writers and to buy his small type.

Webbe wrote a wrathful reply in the _Mercury_ of November 13, and continued it under the title of "The Detection" through three numbers. He admitted that Franklin did communicate to him his desire to print a magazine, and asked him to compose it. But this did not restrain him from publishing at any other press without Mr. Franklin's leave. In the third number of "The Detection," Webbe accused Franklin of using his place of Postmaster to shut the _Mercury_ out of the post, and of refusing to allow the riders to carry it. Up to this point Franklin had made no reply to Webbe's abuse, but upon this new attack he dropped the advertisement of the magazine and put a letter in its stead in the _Gazette_ of December 11. He acknowledged it to be true that the riders did not carry Bradford's _Mercury_, but explained that the Postmaster-General, Colonel Spotswood, had forbidden it because Mr. Bradford had refused to settle his accounts as late Postmaster at Philadelphia.

Webbe had the last word in the controversy in a reply to this letter (_Mercury_, December 18), in which he showed that Franklin had not complied with the order of Colonel Spotswood until the personal letters appeared in the _Mercury_.

In January of the following year Andrew Bradford published _The American Magazine; or a Monthly View of the Political State of the British Colonies_.

Three days later Franklin issued _The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America_.

Three numbers only of Bradford's periodical appeared, and only one copy is known to exist. It is lodged in the New York Historical Society.

Franklin's magazine contained parliamentary proceedings, extracts from sermons, a bit of verse of more than Franklinian foulness, rhymes eulogizing Gilbert Tennent, and a manual of arms. The title-page wore the coronet and plumes of the Prince of Wales. Franklin ridiculed his rival's magazine in doggerel verse; his own he made no mention of in his autobiography. Its publication ceased in June, 1741.

_The General Magazine_ had given accounts of the excited discussion that followed the visits paid to the colonies by George Whitefield. Tens of thousands listened to the impressive sermons of the eloquent divine, delivered from the balcony of the courthouse, which stood then on High Street, in the centre of the city. There Franklin and Shippen and Lawrence and Maddox might daily be seen, and there Benjamin Chew and Tench Francis and John Ross might daily be heard. From that balcony John Penn, freshly arrived from England, "showed himself to his anxious and expectant people." One block east of the ancient courthouse was the London Coffee-house, and there, too, were the publishing houses of those days. Directly opposite to the Coffee-house, on the north side of High Street, was the shop of the famous bookseller from London, James Rivington, whose father in 1741 published Richardson's "Pamela," and supplied six editions of it in a twelvemonth. Immediately to the west was Robert Aitken, who published the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ and the first English Bible in America. And hither, to the old Coffee-house, in 1754, William Bradford removed his famous hereditary press, and three years later printed the third Philadelphia magazine.

The first William Bradford arrived in Philadelphia in 1685, and brought with him the second printing press that was set up in British North America. Upon it, in the following year, he printed the first Middle Colony publication, the "Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense." His son, Andrew Sowle, named after a London printer of Friends' books, to whom the father had been apprenticed, continued the business, and from 1712 to 1723 was the only printer in Pennsylvania. From his press, at the sign of the Bible, issued the first American magazine. Andrew's nephew, William Bradford, grandson of the first William, transferred the business to the London Coffee-house, and in October, 1757, published the first number of "_The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies_. By a Society of Gentlemen. Printed and sold by William Bradford." The policy of the new magazine was to support the cause of the crown against France, and the Penns against Franklin and the Friends.

The French and Indian war brought the magazine into existence. "That war," says the editor in his preface, "has rendered this country at length the object of a very general attention, and it seems now become as much the mode among those who would be useful or conspicuous in the state, to seek an acquaintance with the affairs of these colonies, their constitutions, interests and commerce, as it had been before, to look upon such matters as things of inferior or secondary consideration." The editor further relates the origin of the enterprise: "It was proposed by some booksellers and others in London, soon after the commencement of the present war, to some persons in this city who were thought to have abilities and leisure for the work, to undertake a monthly magazine for the colonies, offering at the same time to procure considerable encouragement for it in all parts of _Great Britain_ and _Ireland_.

"The persons to whom the proposal was made, approved of the design, but gave for answer, that if it was to be a work of general use for all the _British_ colonies, and not confined to the affairs of a few particular ones, it could not be carried on without establishing an extensive correspondence with men of leisure and learning in all parts of _America_, which would require some time and a considerable expense. This, however, has at length been happily effected, and proper persons are now engaged in the design, not only in all the different governments on this continent, but likewise in most of the _West India_ Islands."

At the head of each issue of the magazine is a vignette in which the French and English treatment of the Indian are contrasted. In the middle of the picture an Indian leans upon his gun; on the left is a Briton reading from the Bible, beneath his arm is a roll of cloth, symbolizing the dress and manufactures of civilized life; on the right is a Frenchman, extravagantly dressed, offering to the savage a tomahawk and purse of gold. The vignette has the inferior motto: _Prævalebit æquior_, and the title-page the further legend: _Veritatis cultores, Fraudis inimici_.

The first number (October, 1757) gave a variety of pleasing and extraordinary information to curious readers: Indians, "broods of French savages;" earthquakes, St. Helmo's fire, phosphorescence, aurora borealis, mermen and mermaids, sea-snakes, _krakens_, etc., were jostled together in charming confusion.

The editor of the new magazine was the Rev. William Smith, first provost of the College of Philadelphia. He was born near Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1727, and was invited to take charge of the Seminary of Philadelphia in 1752. His personality made the magazine a very fair representative of the culture and refinement of Philadelphia society, when already through the influence of the college and library the city was becoming "the Athens of America," as, at a later date, it was frequently called.

Smith published in eight successive numbers of the magazine a series of papers called "The Hermit," and signed "Theodore." He desired these contributions to be considered in the nature of a monthly sermon.... "In composing these occasional lectures, I shall be animated with the thoughts that they are not to be delivered to a single auditory, and in the presence of persons among whom there might be many of my enemies, but to this whole continent, and in a manner that can never create prejudices against my person or performances, as I am to be forever concealed" (Vol. I, p. 43).

The earliest reference to the genius of Benjamin West is in the _American Magazine_, p. 237, where of the 19-year-old Chester County boy it is said, "We are glad of this opportunity of making known to the world the name of so extraordinary a genius as Mr. West. He was born in Chester County, in this province, and, without the assistance of any master, has acquired such a delicacy and correctness of expression in his paintings, joined to such a laudable thirst of improvement, that we are persuaded, when he shall have obtained more experience and proper opportunities of viewing the productions of able masters, he will become truly eminent in his profession." This note accompanies a poem upon one of Mr. West's portraits which, the editor remarks, "We communicate with particular pleasure, when we consider that the lady who sat, the painter who guided the pencil, and the poet who so well describes the whole, are all _natives of this place, and very young_."

The poet so happily applauded for his skill did indeed turn his verse and his compliment gracefully.

"Yet sure his flattering pencil's unsincere,
His fancy takes the place of bashful truth;
And warm imagination pictures here
The pride of beauty and the bloom of youth.

Thus had I said, and thus, deluded, thought,
Had lovely Stella still remained unseen,
Whose grace and beauty to perfection brought
Make every imitative art look mean."

The poem was dated Philadelphia, February 15, 1758, and signed "Lovelace."

R. W. Griswold, "Poets and Poetry of America" (p. 24) gives Joseph Shippen (1732-1810) the credit of the lines, and Moses Coit Tyler assigns them to the same source (History of American Literature, II, 240). Another poem by Shippen, "On the Glorious Victory near Newmark in Silesia," was contributed to the magazine in March, over the signature "Annandius."

Hearty appreciation of earnestness and ability in the young is a characteristic of this _American Magazine_ and of its editor, who, with the true teacher's instinct, freely awarded superb and splendid praise to the humble and obscure for good work done. Among the young men who received recognition was Francis Hopkinson, whose first poem appeared in the first number (p. 44), "Ode on Music, written at Philadelphia, by a young gentleman of seventeen, on his beginning to learn the harpsichord." In the following month Hopkinson contributed two poems in imitation of Milton, "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," the first dedicated to B. C--w, Esq. (Benjamin Chew), under whom the author studied law, and the latter a tribute of affection to William Smith.

"And thou, O S--th! my more than friend,
To whom these artless lines I send,
Once more thy wonted candor bring,
And hear the muse you taught to sing;
The muse that strives to win your ear,
By themes your soul delights to hear,
And loves like you, in sober mood,
To meditate of _just_ and _good_.

Exalted themes! divinest maid!
Sweet Melancholy, raise thy head;
With languid look, oh quickly come,
And lead me to thy _Hermit home_.

Then let my frequent feet be seen
On yonder steep romantic green,
Along whose yellow gravelly side,
_Schuylkill_ sweeps his gentle tide.

Rude, rough and rugged rocks surrounding,
And clash of broken waves resounding,
Where waters fall with loud'ning roar
Rebellowing down the hilly shore."[1]

[1] Alluding to William Smith's home at Falls of Schuylkill. There is a further description in prose of Smith's summer home upon page 123 of the magazine.

The other poems by Hopkinson in the _American Magazine_ are, "Ode on the Morning" (page 187), "On the taking of Cape Breton" (page 552) and "Verses inscribed to Mr. Wollaston" (the portrait painter).

The most remarkable poem in the magazine appeared in March, 1758. It occupied seven octavo pages, and drew in its wake three closely-printed pages of learned notes. It set forth its subject "On the Invention of Letters and the Art of Printing. Addrest to Mr. Richardson, in London, the Author and Printer of Sir Charles Grandison and other works for the promotion of Religion, Virtue and Polite Manners, in a corrupted age." The anonymous author lived in Kent County, Maryland. "His intimacy with Mr. Pope," he says, "obliged him to tell that great Poet, above twenty years ago, that it was peculiarly ungrateful in him not to celebrate such a subject as the INVENTION OF LETTERS, or to suffer it to be disgraced by a meaner hand."

It may not be amiss to note that the author credits Koster with the glory of the invention of printing.

"Ah! let not Faustus rob great Koster's name
Like him, who since usurp'd Columbus' fame.
Pierian laurels flourish round his tomb;
And ever-living roses breathe your bloom!"[2]

[2] Which reminds us of Sandys's translation of a fifteenth century epitaph:

"Let Koster's fame live ever in our hearts
Unshar'd; whose art preserves all other arts."

Many wild conjectures have been made as to the identity of the Kentish man who contributed this long, careful and learned poem to American literature, but the author has hitherto remained unknown. In the summer of 1891, while reading in the British Museum, I found a copy of the _American Magazine_, annotated throughout in a contemporary hand, and apparently the gift of a Philadelphian to an Englishman who had visited the colonies. This would seem to be evident from the character of the notes, which read sometimes like the following:

"This poem was written by Francis Hopkinson, _whom you will remember in Philadelphia_." Unfortunately, many of the historical notes have been cut away in the binding of the book. In this volume the author of the poem in question is named and clearly defined. To James Sterling, the author of "The Parricides" and "The Rival Generals," must be given whatever credit this poem, written in Maryland, can confer upon its author.

Among Sterling's other poetic contributions is to be noted "A Pastoral--To his Excellency George Thomas, Esq., formerly Governor of Pennsylvania, and now General of the Leeward Islands." This poem was written in 1744, on the occasion of the death of Alexander Pope, by "one of the first encouragers of this magazine." The Governor saw the manuscript and gave permission for its publication. It is an invitation to the muses to visit these lands:

"Haste lovely nymphs, and quickly come away,
Our sylvan gods lament your long delay;
The stately oaks that dwell on Delaware
Rear their tall heads to view you from afar.
The Naiads summon all their sealy crew
And at _Henlopen_ anxious wait for you.

* * * * *

But hark, they come! The _Dryads_ crowd the shore,
The waters rise, I hear the billows roar!
Hoarse Delaware the joyful tidings brings,
And all his swans, transported, clap their wings."

The author's apologetic introduction of these enthusiastic verses to the editor is worth preserving:

"As this _poetical brat_ was conceived in _North America_, you may, if you please, suffer it to give its first squeak in the world through the channel of the _American Magazine_. But if it should appear of a _monstrous_ nature, stifle the wretch by all means in the birth, and throw it into the river _Delaware_, from whence, you will observe, it originally sprung. The parent, I can assure you, will shed no tears at the funeral. If _Saturn_ presided at its formation instead of _Apollo_, it will want no _lead_ to make it sink, but fall quickly to the bottom by its own natural heaviness, as I doubt not many other modern productions, both in prose and verse,

('Sinking from thought to thought--a vast profound')

would have done, had they been put to the trial."

The last of Sterling's contributions to the _American Magazine_ was an "Epitaph on the late Lord Howe:"

Patriots and chiefs! Britannia's mighty dead,
Whose wisdom counsel'd, and whose valor bled,
With gratulations, 'midst your radiant host,
Receive to _glory_ Howe's heroic ghost;
Who self severe, in Honor's cause expir'd,
By native worth and your example fir'd,
In foreign fields, like Sidney, young and brave,
Doom'd to an early not untimely grave.
Death flew commission'd by celestial love,
And, scourging earth, improv'd the joys above.

Impassive to low pleasure's baneful charm,
Inur'd to gen'rous toils, and nerv'd for arms,
He saw, indignant, our worst foes advance
With strides gigantic--_Luxury_ and _France_!
A martial spirit emulous to raise,
He fought, as soldiers fought, in Marlbro's days.
His country call'd--the noble talents given,
'Twas his t'exert--success belonged to heaven!
High o'er his standard and the crimson shore
Plum'd victory hover'd, till he breathed no more.
'Midst piles of slaughter'd foes--"_French_ slaves, he cry'd,"
"My _Britons_ will revenge"--then smil'd and dy'd!

The unknown annotator of the British Museum copy writes against these lines, "I cannot yet learn who was the author of this noble epitaph." But it is clearly by Sterling. In the letter that accompanies the poem he writes: "Please to know that the grandfather of the late Lord Howe, when in a high employment in the reign of Queen Anne, was a generous patron to the father of the author of these lines, by presenting to her Majesty a memorial of his long services in the wars of Ireland, Spain and Flanders, and by farther promoting his pretensions to an honourable post in the army, of which he would have been deprived by a court-interest in favour of a younger and unexperienced officer." This letter is written from Maryland. It corresponds with all that we know of Sterling's life. His gratitude was unfailing to those who had helped the advancement of his father. In his dedication of "The Rival Generals" (London, 1722), Sterling, addressing himself to William Conolly, Lord Justice of Ireland, wrote: "Nor can I omit this occasion of testifying my gratitude to your Excellency, who so generously contributed, in the First Session of this Parliament, to do my Father that Justice in his Pretensions which was deny'd him in a late reign."

In July, 1758, _The American Magazine_ published James Logan's letters to Edmund Halley establishing Thomas Godfrey's claim to the invention of "Hadley's quadrant." Thomas Godfrey, a glazier by trade, was one of the original members of Franklin's "Junto," and boarded in Franklin's house on High Street. He was born in Bristol, Pa., in 1704. While working for James Logan, at Stenton, he accidentally discovered the principle upon which he constructed his improvement upon Davis's quadrant. The new instrument was first used in Delaware Bay by Joshua Fisher, of Lewes. "Mr. Godfrey then sent the instrument to be tried at sea by an acquaintance of his, an ingenious navigator, in a voyage to Jamaica, who showed it to a captain of a ship there just going for England, by which means it came to the knowledge of Mr. Hadley" (_American Magazine_, p. 476). The Royal Society of England, after hearing James Logan's communication, decided that both Godfrey and Hadley were entitled to the honor of the invention, and sent to Godfrey household goods to the value of two hundred dollars.

In spite of the clearest facts and undoubted dates, the quadrant is still persistently miscalled by the name of its English appropriator.[3]

[3] The remains of Thomas Godfrey were removed by John Watson from the neglected spot where they were laid to Laurel Hill Cemetery, and in 1843 a monument was erected over them by the Mercantile Library Company of Philadelphia. Near by, and close to the river, is the grave of Charles Thomson, "the man of truth," the Sam. Adams, of Philadelphia, marked by an Egyptian obelisk of granite.

"Junius" is the signature to a neat poem called "The Invitation" in the _American Magazine_ for January, 1758, and appended to it is the following editorial note: "This little poem was sent to us by an unknown hand, and seems dated as an original. If it be so, we think it does honor to our city; but of this we are not certain. All we can say is that we do not recollect to have seen it before." This poem, which William Smith thought to be an honor to Philadelphia, was the composition of Thomas Godfrey the younger, then a youth of twenty-one years. Editorial encouragement won from him an "Ode on Friendship" in August, and an "Ode on Wine" in September. Young Godfrey was apprenticed to a watchmaker, but through the friendly influence of the Provost of the College he obtained a lieutenant's commission in the provincial forces raised against Fort Du Quesne. He died of fever when only twenty-seven years of age, and his poems, with an "account of T. Godfrey," were published by Nathaniel Evans in 1767.

Nathaniel Evans knits together, in a manner, this _American Magazine_ and the _Port Folio_, as he was the biographer of Godfrey, who was a contributor to the former, and the Petrarch-lover of Elizabeth Graeme or Mrs. Ferguson, a helper of the latter. That he was hopeful of his city's future is evident from the following prophecy, which makes a part of his "Ode on the Prospect of Peace," 1761:

"To such may Delaware, majestic flood,
Lend from his flow'ry banks a ravish'd ear,
Such notes as may delight the wise and good,
Or saints celestial may induce to hear!
For if the Muse can aught of time descry
Such notes shall sound thy crystal waves along,
Thy cities fair with glorious Athens rise,
Nor pure Ilissus boast a nobler song."

Godfrey's chief claim to recognition in the history of American literature is his authorship of the "Prince of Parthia," the first dramatic work produced in America. It was written in 1758, and acted at the new theatre in Southwark, Philadelphia, April 24, 1767.

Several of the contributors to the magazine were members of the faculty of the college. Ebenezer Kinnersley, chief master of the English School, summarized the month's progress in philosophy; John Beveridge supplied the readers of the magazine with Latin poems, which were too lightly timbered for the loud praise of William Smith, who pronounced them of equal merit with the choicest Latinity of Buchanan, Erasmus and Addison.[4]

[4] "The Trustees of the College of this city, who have never spared either pains or expense to supply every vacancy in the institution with able masters and professors, having been informed of Mr. Beveridge's capacity, experience and fidelity, were pleased at a full meeting, on the 13th of this month (June, 1758), unanimously to appoint him Professor of Languages and Master of the Latin School, in the room of Mr. Paul Jackson" (_American Magazine_, p. 437).

Thomas Coombe, assistant minister of Christ Church, translated some of Beveridge's Latin poems, and was himself the author of "The Peasant of Auburn; or, the Emigrant," published in 1775, and intended as a continuation of "The Deserted Village."

A collection of poems came from distant Virginia from the pen of Mr. Samuel Davies (1724-1761), the dissenting minister in Hanover County, Virginia, who made use of the pseudonym "Virginianus Hanoverensis."

Davies accompanied Gilbert Tennent to England in 1753, and successfully solicited funds for the College of New Jersey. He at first declined to succeed Jonathan Edwards as President of Princeton College, but on the invitation being repeated he accepted, and presided over the college for eighteen months. In a note to one of his sermons occurs the following: "That heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country."

The magazine also contained the usual number of miscellaneous articles signed with the alliterative and indicative names that were then in vogue--Timothy Timbertoe, Richard Dimple, Hymenæus Phiz and the like.

Galt, in his life of Benjamin West (p. 77), says that "Dr. Smith largely contributed to elevate the taste, the sentiment and topics of conversation in Philadelphia." He certainly conducted the _American Magazine_ to a considerable literary and financial success; and the magazine came abruptly to an end on the completion of its first year in consequence of Dr. Smith's visit to England, where his worth was recognized and rewarded with honorary degrees from Oxford, Aberdeen and Dublin.

On the 2d of January, 1769, the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in America, was formed by merging into one organization the "American Philosophical Society" and the "American Society held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge." Benjamin Franklin was chosen president. In this month and year, January, 1769, a new magazine appeared in Philadelphia, printed at the press of the Bradfords, as we learn from Hall and Sellers' _Pennsylvania Gazette_ of January 12, 1769, which continued the title of _The American Magazine_. The editor and proprietor, Mr. Lewis Nicola, was a member of the American Philosophical Society, having been elected to membership April 8, 1768, and held the office of curator for 1769.

In a certain sense his magazine became the voice of the Society; for each number, except the first, contained an appendix of sixteen pages made up of the Society's publications. Nicola was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1717. He served in the English army, but in 1766 resigned his commission, emigrated to America, and settled in Philadelphia.

He was town-major of Philadelphia during the Revolution, wrote several military works, but is chiefly remembered for his letter to General Washington in May, 1783, asking him to accept the title of King of the United States.

The magazine contained various practical articles and sketches of American occurrences. In the February number was a large and curious engraving, the only one in all the issues of the magazine, representing the manner of fowling in Norway. The engraver is unknown.

The price of the magazine was 13 shillings, Pennsylvania currency. It was suspended in September, 1769.

"_The Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Monthly Museum_, Vol. I, 1775, Philadelphia, printed and sold by R. Aitken, printer and bookseller, opposite the London Coffee-house, Front Street," was published amidst preparations for war. The publisher apologized for lack of variety in the year's work, by saying that we in America "are deprived of one considerable fund of entertainment which contributes largely to the embellishment of the magazines in Europe, viz., discoveries of curious remains of antiquity.... We can look no further back than to the rude manners and customs of the savage aborigines of North America ... but the principal difficulty in our way is the present importunate situation of public affairs ... every heart and hand seems to be engaged in the interesting struggle for American Liberty."

Thomas Paine arrived in Philadelphia in 1775, with letters from Franklin, and was immediately employed by Aitken as editor of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_, with a salary of £25, currency, a year. In his preface to the first number, January 24, 1775, Paine wrote: "We presume it is unnecessary to inform our friends that we encounter all the inconveniences which a magazine can possibly start with. Unassisted by imported materials we are destined to create what our predecessors in this walk had only to compile; and the present perplexities of affairs have rendered it somewhat difficult for us to procure the necessary aids. Thus encompassed with difficulties, the first number of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ entreats a favorable reception; of which we shall only say, like the early snowdrop, it comes forth in a barren season, and contents itself with modestly foretelling that _choicer flowers_ are preparing to appear."

The vignette of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ represents the Goddess of Liberty, with a pole and a liberty-cap, holding a shield with the Pennsylvania arms. On the right of the figure is a mortar inscribed "The Congress." In the foreground is a plan of fortifications with cannon balls. In the background are cannon with battle-axes and pikes. A gorget with "Liberty" upon it is hanging on a tree, and beneath it the motto

"Juvat in Sylvis habitare."

The magazine had numerous illustrations: a portrait of Goldsmith, plans of a threshing machine, an electrical machine, Donaldson's dredging machine, etc., etc.

Francis Hopkinson and Witherspoon were among the earliest contributors. William Smith and Provost Ewing assisted in later numbers. Benjamin Rush and Sergeant and Hutchinson imparted to Paine, in their walks in State House yard the suggestions of "Common Sense," the pamphlet which "had a greater run than any other ever published in our country," and which, as Elkanah Watson said, "passed through the continent like an electric spark. It everywhere flashed conviction, and aroused a determined spirit, which resulted in the Declaration of Independence, upon the 4th of July ensuing. The name of Paine was precious to every Whig heart, and had resounded throughout Europe."

A department of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_, called "Monthly Intelligence," reported the progress of the war, and furnished engravings of the battles, and of General Gage's lines. It was the first illustrated magazine published in the city. It was also the first that made more than one volume. The second volume began in January, 1776, and ended in July, 1776. The last number contained the Declaration of Independence.

Phillis Wheatley, negro servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston, and daughter of an African slave, published her only volume of poems, dedicated to the Countess of Huntingdon, in 1773. The best, if the word may be applied to such performances, of her occasional poems, published after 1773, and which have never been collected into a volume, was a poem "To his Excellency Gen. Washington," in the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ of April, 1776:

"Celestial choir! enthron'd in realms of light,
Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I write."

The poem was dated October 26, 1775, and sent with a letter to Washington, who replied (Feb. 2, 1776):

"However undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents; in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the poem had I not been apprehensive that while I only meant to give the world this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. This, and nothing less, determined me not to give it place in the public prints."

Another President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, with less urbanity, but more acumen, said of these verses that they were beneath criticism.[5]

[5] "It is true that Mr. Jefferson has pronounced the poems of Phillis Wheatley below the dignity of criticism, and it is seldom safe to differ in judgment from the author of 'Notes on Virginia,' but her conceptions are often lofty, and her versification often surprises with unexpected refinement. Ladd, the Carolina poet, in enumerating the laurels of his country, dwells with encomium on 'Wheatley's polished verse;' nor is his praise undeserved, for often it will be found to glide in the stream of melody. Her lines on imagination have been quoted with rapture by Imlay, of Kentucky, and Steadman, the Guiana traveller, but I have ever thought her happiest production the 'Goliah of Gath'" (John Davis, p. 87).

Paine himself printed some virile verses in the magazine, notably the lines "On the Death of Wolfe" (though not published for the first time), signed "Atlanticus," "Reflections on the Death of Clive," and "The Liberty Tree."

Bradford's magazines had failed because of the imperfect communication between the colonies. Aitken's magazine, throughout its life of eighteen months, is overshadowed by the war, and the grave news successively reported from both sides of the ocean.

The next Philadelphia editor was the eccentric social wit, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, the author of the capital political satire, "Modern Chivalry" (1792), the first satirical novel written in America. He was a native of Scotland, born in 1748, but was only five years of age when his father settled in York County, Pennsylvania. He was graduated from Princeton College in 1771, in the same class with Philip Freneau, in conjunction with whom he delivered, at the commencement, a poem in dialogue upon "The Rising Glory of America," which was published by Robert Aitken in 1772.

Francis Bailey was the publisher who had the courage to undertake another monthly magazine in the midst of the war, and with Brackenridge as editor, which insured some pungent writing, he issued in January, 1779, the first number of "_The United States Magazine_; a Repository of History, Politics and Literature." "Our attempt," said the editor, "is to paint the graces on the front of war, and _invite the muses to our country_." This, it will be noticed, is the second express invitation to the Maids of Parnassus to "migrate from Greece and Ionia," and to "cross out those immensely overpaid accounts." The first was extended during the French and Indian war, and the second in the very aim and flash of the Revolution. That the muses did not immediately accept the invitation, and "placard 'Removed' and 'To Let' on the rocks of their snowy Parnassus," we are reminded by the opening lines of the "Epistle to W. Gifford," written by another Philadelphia poet, William Cliffton, at the very close of the century.[6]

[6] William Cliffton (1772-1799) was the son of a blacksmith in Southwark. His poem "The Group" (1793) was written in ridicule of the Commissioners of Southwark.

"In these cold shades, beneath these shifting skies,
Where fancy sickens, and where genius dies;
Where few and feeble are the muse's strains,
And no fine frenzy riots in the veins."

The editor, in his preface to the reader, asks the very pertinent question, "For what is man without taste, and the acquirements of genius? An ourang-outang with the human shape and the soul of a beast." His excuse for the magazine is that it is started to refute the British scoff, that when separated from England, the colonies would become mere "illiterate ourang-outangs," and proceeds to the axioms that "We are able to cultivate the belles-lettres, even disconnected with Great Britain;" and that "Liberty is of so noble and energetic a quality, as even from the bosom of a war to call forth the powers of human genius in every course of literary fame and improvement."

The vignette for the magazine was made by Pierre E. Du Simitiere (P. E. D.), who also made the one that adorned the _Pennsylvania Magazine_. It represented a triumphal arch with a corridor of thirteen columns, the arch decorated with thirteen stars, symbolizing the States, Pennsylvania being the Keystone. Under the arch is the figure of Fame, with cap of liberty and trumpet.

The artist was a native of Switzerland, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1766. His collection of curiosities he opened to the public under the name of "The American Museum."

The first number of this magazine contained certain verses in explanation of the emblematic vignette: