Chapter IV: Part 4

"It is usual for one who presents the public with a periodical work like the present, to introduce himself to the notice of his readers by some sort of preface or address. I take up the pen in conformity to this custom, but am quite at loss for topics suitable to so interesting an occasion. I cannot expatiate on the variety of my knowledge, the brilliancy of my wit, the versatility of my talents. To none of these do I lay any claim, and though this variety, brilliancy of solidity, are necessary ingredients in a work of this kind, I trust merely to the zeal and liberality of my friends to supply me with them. I have them not myself, but doubt not of the good offices of those who possess them, and shall think myself entitled to no small praise if I am able to collect into one focal spot the rays of a great number of luminaries. They also may be very unequal to each other in lustre, and some of them may be little better than twinkling and feeble stars of the hundredth magnitude; but what is wanting in individual splendour will be made up by the union of all their beams into one. My province shall be _to hold the mirror up_ so as to assemble all their influence within its verge, and reflect them on the public in such manner as to warm and enlighten.

"As I possess nothing but zeal I can promise to exert nothing else; but my consolation is, that aided by that powerful spirit, many have accomplished things much more arduous than that which I propose to myself.

"Many are the works of this kind which have risen and fallen in America, and many of them have enjoyed but a brief existence. This circumstance has always at first sight given me some uneasiness, but when I come more soberly to meditate upon it my courage revives, and I discover no reason for my doubts. Many works have actually been reared and sustained by the curiosity and favour of the public. They have ultimately declined or fallen, it is true; but why? From no abatement of the public curiosity, but from causes which publishers or editors only are accountable. Those who managed the publication have commonly either changed their principles, remitted their zeal, or voluntarily relinquished their trade, or last of all, and like other men, have died. Such works have flourished for a time, and they ceased to flourish, by the fault or misfortune of the proprietors. The public is always eager to encourage one who devotes himself to their rational amusement, and when he ceases to demand or to deserve their favour they feel more regret than anger in withdrawing it.

"The world--by which I mean the few hundred persons who concern themselves about this work--will naturally inquire who it is that thus addresses them. 'This is somewhat more than a point of idle curiosity,' my reader will say, 'for from my knowledge of the man must I infer how far he will be able or willing to fulfil his promises. Besides, it is great importance to know whether his sentiments on certain subjects be agreeable or not to my own. In politics, for example, he may be a malcontent; in religion an heretic. He may be an ardent advocate for all that I abhor, or he may be a celebrated champion of my favourite opinions. It is evident that these particulars must dictate the treatment you receive from me, and make me either your friend or enemy: your patron or your persecutor. Besides, I am anxious for some personal knowledge of you that I may judge of your literary merits. You may possibly be one of these, who came hither from the old world to seek your fortune; who have handled the pen as others handle the awl or needle; that is, for the sake of a livelihood, and who, therefore, are willing to work on any kind of cloth or leather, and to any model that may be in demand. You may, in the course of your trade, have accommodated yourself to twenty different fashions, and have served twenty classes of customers; have copied at one time a Parisian, at another a London fashion, and have truckled to the humours, now of a precise enthusiast, and now of a smart free-thinker.

"''Tis of no manner of importance what creed you may publicly profess on this occasion, or on what side, religious or political, you may declare yourself enlisted. To judge of the value or sincerity of these professions, to form some notion how far you will faithfully or skilfully perform your part, I must know your character. By that knowledge, I shall regulate myself with more certainty than by any anonymous declaration you may think proper to make.'

"I bow to the reasonableness of these observations, and shall therefore take no pains to conceal my name. Anybody may know it who chooses to ask me or my publisher. I shall not, however, put it at the bottom of this address. My diffidence, as my friends would call it, and my discretion, as my enemies, if I have any, would term it, hinders me from calling out my name in a crowd. It has heretofore hindered me from making my appearance there, when impelled by the strongest of human considerations, and produces, at this time, an insuperable aversion to naming myself to my readers. The mere act of calling out my own name, on this occasion, is of no moment, since an author or editor who takes no pains to conceal himself, cannot fail of being known to as many as desire to know him. And whether my notoriety make for me or against me, I shall use no means to prevent it.

"I am far from wishing, however, that my readers should judge of my exertions by my former ones. I have written much, but take much blame to myself for something which I have written, and take no praise for anything. I should enjoy a larger share of my own respect, at the present moment, if nothing had ever flowed from my pen, the production of which could be traced to me. A variety of causes induces me to form such a wish, but I am principally influenced by the consideration that time can scarcely fail of enlarging and refining the powers of a man, while the world is sure to judge of his capacities and principles at fifty, from what he has written at fifteen.

"Meanwhile, I deem it reasonable to explain the motives of the present publication, and must rely for credit on the good nature of my readers. The project is not a mercenary one. Nobody relies for subsistence on its success, nor does the editor put anything but his reputation at stake. At the same time, he cannot but be desirous of an ample subscription, not merely because pecuniary profit is acceptable, but because this is the best proof which he can receive that his endeavours to amuse and instruct have not been unsuccessful.

"Useful information and rational amusement being his objects, he will not scruple to collect materials from all quarters. He will ransack the newest foreign publications, and extract from them whatever can serve his purpose. He will not forget that a work, which solicits the attention of many readers, must build its claim on the variety as well as copiousness of its contents.

"As to _domestic_ publications, besides extracting from them anything serviceable to the public, he will give a critical account of them, and, in this respect, make his work an American Review, in which the history of our native literature shall be carefully detailed.

"He will pay particular attention to the history of passing events. He will carefully compile the news, foreign and domestic, of the current month, and give, in a precise and systematic order, that intelligence which the common newspapers communicate in a vague and indiscriminate way. His work shall likewise be a repository of all those signal incidents in private life, which mark the character of the age, and excite the liveliest curiosity.

"This is an imperfect sketch of his work, and to accomplish these ends, he is secure of the liberal aid of many most respectable persons in this city and New York. He regrets the necessity he is under of concealing these names, since they would furnish the public with irresistible inducements to read what, _when_ they had read, they would find sufficiently recommended by its own merits.

"In an age like this, when the foundations of religion and morality have been so boldly attacked, it seems necessary, in announcing a work of this nature, to be particularly explicit as to the path which the editor means to pursue. He, therefore, avows himself to be, without equivocation or reserve, the ardent friend and the willing champion of the Christian religion. Christian piety he reveres as the highest excellence of human beings, and the amplest reward he can seek for his labour is the consciousness of having, in some degree, however inconsiderable, contributed to recommend the practice of religious duties.

"As, in the conduct of this work, a supreme regard will be paid to the interests of religion and morality, he will scrupulously guard against all that dishonours or impairs that principle. Everything that savors of indelicacy or licentiousness will be rigorously proscribed. His poetical pieces may be dull, but they shall, at least, be free from voluptuousness or sensuality, and his prose, whether seconded or not by genius and knowledge, shall scrupulously aim at the promotion of public and private virtue.

"As a political annalist, he will speculate freely on foreign transactions; but in his detail of domestic events he will confine himself as strictly as possible to the limits of a mere historian. There is nothing for which he has a deeper abhorrence than the intemperance of party, and his fundamental rule shall be to exclude from his pages all personal altercation and abuse.

"He will conclude by reminding the public that there is not, at present, any other monthly publication in America; and that a plan of this kind, if well conducted, cannot fail of being highly conducive to amusement and instruction. There are many, therefore, it is hoped, who, when such a herald as this knocks at their door, will open it without reluctance, and admit a visitant who calls only once a month; who talks upon every topic; whose company may be dismissed or resumed, and who may be made to prate or hold his tongue at pleasure; a companion he will be, possessing one companionable property in the highest degree--that is to say, a desire to please.--_Sep. 1, 1803_."

The contents of the magazine corresponded with the contents of the _Port Folio_; there were the same abuse of Wordsworth, criticisms of Milton and Shakespeare, and articles upon "literary resemblances." In November, 1803, Brown began to publish in the magazine his "Memoirs of Carwin, the Biloquist." The following poem, written during the prevalence of the yellow fever, in 1797, appeared in the _Literary Magazine_ for September, 1806.

PHILADELPHIA--AN ELEGY.

Written during the prevalence of the Yellow Fever in 1797.

Imperial daughter of the West,
Why thus in widow'd weeds recline?
With every gift of nature blest,
The empire of a world was thine.

Late brighter than the star that beams
When the soft morning carol flows:
Now mournful as the maniac's dreams,
When melancholy veils his woes.

What foe, with more than Gallic ire,
Has thinned thy city's thronging way,
Bade the sweet breath of youth expire,
And manhood's powerful pulse decay?

No Gallic foe's ferocious band,
Fearful as fate, as death severe,
But the destroying angel's hand,
With hotter rage, with fiercer fear.

I saw thee in thy prime of days,
In glory rich, in beauty fair,
When many a patriot shar'd thy praise,
And nurs'd thee with maternal care.

Columbia's genius, veil thy brow,
Guardian of freedom, hither bend:
The prayer of mercy meets thee now,
With healing energy descend.

Chase far the fiend whose burning tread
Consumes the fairest flower that blows;
Bends the sweet lily's bashful head,
And fades the blushes of the rose.

E'en now ill-omened birds of prey
Through the unpeopled mansions rove:
Quench'd is that eye's inspiring ray,
And lost the breezy lip of love.

Yet guard the FRIEND, who wandering near
Haunts which the loitering Schuylkill laves,
Bestows the tributary tear,
Or fans with sighs the drowsy waves.

And while his mercy-dealing hand
Feeds many a famished child of care,
Wave round his brow thy saving wand,
And breathe thy sweetness through the air;

'Till borne on Health's elastic wing,
Aloft the rapid whirlwind flies;
The coldest gale of Zembla bring,
And brace with frost the dripping skies.

Yet bring the naiads, bring their urns,
Haste, and the marble fount unclose,
Through streets where Syrian summer burns,
'Till all the cool libation flows

Cool as the brook that bathes the heath
When noon unfolds his silent hours,
Refreshing as the morning's breath
Adown the cleansing streamlet pours.

Imperial daughter of the West,
No rival wins thy wreath away;
In all the wealth of nature drest,
Again thy sovereign charms display;

See all thy setting glories rise,
Again thy thronging streets appear;
Thy mart a hundred ports supplies,
Thy harvests feed thy circling year.

The magazine lived five years and made eight volumes octavo.

In 1806 Brown began to edit and John Conrad to publish the _American Register_. It contained abstracts of laws and public proceedings, reviews of literature and of foreign and domestic scientific intelligence, American and foreign State papers, etc. After five volumes had been published, Charles Brockden Brown died in his house at Eleventh and George Streets, on the 19th of February, 1810. It was in this house, which was _not_ upon the east side of Eleventh Street, as Neal asserted in _Blackwood's Magazine_, nor was it "a low, squalid, two-story house," that Thomas Sully saw him, and said: "I saw him a little before his death. I had never known him--never heard of him--never read any of his works. He was in a deep decline. It was in the month of November--our Indian summer, when the air is full of smoke. Passing a window one day, I was caught by the sight of a man with a remarkable physiognomy, writing at a table in a dark room. The sun shone directly upon his head. I never shall forget it. The dead leaves were falling then--it was Charles Brockden Brown."

Of the obscure ground in which the body of this literary pioneer was laid George Lippard wrote in the _Nineteenth Century_ (p. 27):

"The time has come when the authors of America, the men who view with pride the growth of a pure and elevated National literature, should go to the Quaker graveyard and bear the bones of Brockden Brown to that Laurel Hill which he loved in his boyhood; yes, let the remains of the martyr author sleep beneath the shadow of some dark pine, whose evergreen boughs, swaying to the winter wind, bend over the rugged cliff and sweep the waters of the Schuylkill as it rolls on amid its hilly shores, like an image of the rest which awaits the blessed in a better world. Then a solitary column of white marble, rising like a form of snow among the green boughs, shall record the neglect and woe and glory of the author's life, in a single name--Charles Brockden Brown."

"Wieland," the most powerful of Brown's novels, was published in Philadelphia in 1798. It was followed by "Ormond, or the Secret Witness" (1799), "Arthur Mervyn" (1799), "Edgar Huntley, or the Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker" (1801), "Clara Howard" and "Jane Talbot" (1801). All these romances dealt with sombre and mysterious or terrible subjects. "Wieland" was a story of monstrous crime occasioned through the agency of ventriloquism. "Arthur Mervyn" contained vivid descriptions of the yellow fever pestilence in Philadelphia in 1793. "Edgar Huntley" followed the fortunes of a somnambulist in the mountain fastnesses of Western Pennsylvania.

When Brown began to write "the churchyard romance" was in fashion, and novelists revelled in tales of horror and of terror, dwelling long and painfully upon the most loathsome details of some ghastly bit of fancy. It was the time of Lewis's "Tales of Terror," of Walpole's "Castle of Otranto," of Beckford's "Vathek," and of Mrs. Radcliffe's "Mysteries of Udolpho" and Mrs. Shelley's "Frankenstein." William Godwin, too, wrote ghostly stories of crime and supernatural agencies, and from Godwin, Charles Brockden Brown caught his style. The influence of Godwin is noticeable in Brown's first work, "Alcuin, a Dialogue on the Rights of Women" (1797). Godwin's "Falkland" and "Caleb Williams" are the models of "Wieland" and "Ormond."

It is interesting to find young Percy Bysshe Shelley confessing his obligations to the Philadelphia novelist, and saying that Brown's novels had influenced him beyond any other books. Traces of "Wieland" are to be found deeply stamped upon "Zastrozzi" and "St. Irvyne." It is a singular chapter of literary history that records the progress of William Godwin's social theories and tales of horror across the Atlantic to an obscure house in Philadelphia and their return in a new literary form into the hands of William Godwin's son-in-law, Percy Bysshe Shelley, himself a poet of American descent.

The British magazines of 1804 contain flattering notices of Brown, and his novels were reprinted and read with interest and critical approval in England. At home he has fallen into undeserved oblivion, and the attempts in 1857 and 1887 to revive the interest in his works proved fruitless. His style had in it no elements of permanent life, but he was the first to discover the capabilities of romance in America, and used in all his books American characters and scenery.

Sir Walter Scott so greatly admired the works of the American novelist that he named the hero of Guy Mannering after him and gave to another of the characters of the same story the familiar name of "Arthur Mervyn."

Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815), a nephew of David Rittenhouse, and the successor of Benjamin Rush as professor of the theory and practice of medicine in the University of Pennsylvania, edited the _Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal_ from November 1, 1804, to May, 1807. It was published irregularly by J. Conrad and Co.

The _Evening Fireside, or Literary Miscellany_, Philadelphia, 1805-1806, was established by a literary club, and published by Joseph Rakestraw. The second volume, which began January 4, 1806, completed the work.

DRAMATIC MAGAZINES.

Notes on the stage and criticism of the drama had frequently been given place in the _Port Folio_, and Brown's _Literary Magazine_ had published a farcical account of a "Theatrical Campaign" by Dick Buckram (Vol. I, p. 222), but the first magazine in America that attempted to take the theatre for its province was the _Theatrical Censor_, By a Citizen, first published in Philadelphia, December 9, 1805, and continued until November 17, 1806.

It was succeeded by the _Theatrical Censor and Critical Miscellany_, by Gregory Gryphon, Esq., Philadelphia, Saturday, October 11, 1806. Both these periodicals were issued during the theatrical season only, and the latter one was published in the interest of the theatres of Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Charleston. It was published on Saturdays, and made sixteen pages octavo.

The second _Theatrical Censor_ was followed by the _Thespian Mirror_, in New York, edited by John Howard Payne, then a youth of fourteen years. Still later came the _Boston Magazine_ and the _Polyanthus_.

Matthew Carey introduced the third theatrical journal to the Philadelphians. It was the _Thespian Monitor and Dramatick Miscellany_, by Barnaby Bangbar, Esq. (1809). It was begun Saturday, November 25, 1809. There is but a single issue of this publication in the British Museum, and its contents are almost entirely biographical. This copy was the property of John Howard Payne.

In 1810 Samuel T. Bradford was the most enterprising publisher in Philadelphia. With his partner, Inskeep, he printed in 1812 the _Port Folio_. With the same partner he issued in January, 1810, the _Mirror of Taste and Dramatic Censor_. The editor was Stephen Cullen Carpenter, an Irishman, who had entered the East India service, where he remained fourteen years, retired with the rank of major, and returned to England. He wrote political pamphlets at the commencement of the French Revolution, and was made reporter of Debates in Commons by Edmund Burke. He reported the trial of Hastings, and came to America about 1800, and edited a magazine in South Carolina until he was engaged by Bradford and Inskeep to conduct the _Mirror of Taste_.

The magazine was of small octavo size, each number contained about one hundred pages, and was illustrated with a fine portrait of an actor or actress. The regular performances at the theatres were criticised with a good deal of pungency and acumen. It is said in the preface that "London boasts several periodical publications founded on the _Drama_ alone. In America there has not yet been one of that description." In January, 1811, the magazine changed hands, and was published by Thomas Barton Zantzinger & Co., in the Shakespeare Buildings at Sixth and Chestnut Streets.

At the close of the first year of the magazine a dramatic event occurred that caused unusual excitement in Philadelphia, and led to important consequences. The great tragedian, George Frederick Cooke, whom Edmund Kean pronounced "the greatest of all actors, Garrick alone excepted," arrived in New York and appeared on 21st October, 1810, as _Richard III_ before two thousand spectators in the Park Theatre.

It was then that he requested the great audience to stand while "God Save the King" should be played, and during the storm that followed calmly took snuff until the audience acceded to his demand.

From New York he proceeded to Philadelphia. No such acting had been seen in America. The excitement among play-going people was extraordinary. "He was to play _Richard_ on a Monday night, and on Sunday evening the steps of the theatre were covered with groups of porters, and other men of the lower orders, prepared to spend the night there, that they might have the first chance of taking places in the boxes. I saw some take their hats off and put on night-caps. At ten o'clock the next morning the door was opened to them, and at that time the street in front of the theatre was impassable. When the rush took place, I saw a man spring up and catch hold of the iron which supported a lamp on one side of the door, by which he raised himself so as to run over the heads of the crowd into the theatre. Some of these fellows were hired by gentlemen to secure places, and others took boxes on speculation, sure of selling them at double or treble the regular prices. When the time came for opening the doors in the evening, the crowd was so tumultuous that it was evident there was little certainty that the holders of box tickets would obtain their places, and for ladies the attempt would be dangerous. A placard was therefore displayed, stating that all persons who had tickets would be admitted at the stage door before the front doors were opened. This notice soon drew such a crowd to the back of the theatre that when Cooke arrived he could not get in. He was on foot with Dunlap, one of the New York managers, and he was obliged to make himself known before he could be got through the press. 'I am like the man going to be hanged,' he said, 'who told the crowd they would have no fun unless they made way for him.'"

The writer of these lines was Charles Robert Leslie, who, on the night in question, occupied a place in the flies, and from that aerial station "first saw George Frederick Cooke, the best _Richard_ since Garrick, and who has not been surpassed even by Edmund Kean" (Autobiography of C. R. Leslie, p. 18). Soon after this memorable night Leslie made a likeness of Cooke which attracted Bradford's attention, and a fund was speedily raised by subscription to enable the young artist to study painting two years in Europe. Armed with letters to English artists, Leslie sailed from New York on the 11th of November, 1811, in company with Mr. Inskeep. So slight a circumstance gained for him an introduction into the great world of West and Allston, and Landseer and Fuseli, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and gave to England and the world the treasures of the Vernon and the Sheepshank's collections.

In the preface to the _Mirror of Taste_ (Vol. IV) the editors recognize the importance to them of the visit of Cooke. The magazine "rose into estimation just at that singular crisis when a great theatrical character unexpectedly visiting this country held a new light to the stage, and, pointing out the true dramatic representation, opened to our people a new train of thought, gave to the public mind a new spring, and imparted an impulse before unfelt, with a just and elegant direction to the general taste, roused the feelings and perceptions from listlessness and sloth, and infused into the best bosoms of the nation a generous spirit, which gave new life to the arts, quickened them into action and effect, called forth the infant genius of a LESLIE to the public view, and bade breathing portraits start from the canvas of a Sully."[19]

[19] Sully's painting of Cooke as _Richard III_ in the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts.

The father of Charles Robert Leslie was Robert Leslie, who had been a watchmaker at Elktown, Md., and had removed to Philadelphia in 1786. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society and a friend of Rush and Barton and Wistar and Physick. It was while residing in London that Charles Robert was born, October 19, 1794. An elder sister, Eliza, was born in 1787 in Philadelphia. She won a prize for a story, "Mrs. Washington Potts," in _Godey's Lady's Book_, and afterwards edited the _Gift_, an annual, and _Miss Leslie's Magazine_, a monthly publication (1843).

_Blackwood's Magazine_ in 1824 congratulated America on C. R. Leslie's success. He never lost his profound respect and affection for Samuel Bradford, and named his second son after him. In the second year (1813) of Leslie's residence in London, Washington Allston's health became seriously affected, and he resolved to visit Bristol. Coleridge, who was affectionately attached to Allston, followed him thither. "The house was so full," writes Leslie, in his autobiographical recollections, "that the poet was obliged to share a double-bedded room with me. We were kept up late in consequence of the critical condition of Allston, and when we retired Coleridge, seeing a copy of Knickerbocker's History of New York which I had brought with me, lying on the table, took it up and began reading. I went to bed, and think he must have sat up the greater part of the night, for the next day he had nearly got through Knickerbocker. This was many years before it was published in England, and the work was, of course, entirely new to him. He was delighted with it" (p. 23).

THE ANALECTIC.--Washington Irving, who had met Allston in Rome in 1804, and who was for a time almost swerved from his literary purpose by his desire to become a painter, and with whose first literary triumph Coleridge thus became familiar, was also a Philadelphia editor. In 1809 E. Bronson and others began to print upon their Lorenzo press _The Select Reviews and Spirit of the Foreign Magazines_, edited by Samuel Ewing. The magazine was bought by Moses Thomas, in 1812, who changed its name to the _Analectic_. Irving was its editor in 1813-14. He contributed to it some of the essays of the "Sketch Book," "Traits of Indian Character," and "Philip of Pokanoket." He reviewed Robert Treat Paine, E. C. Holland, Paulding and Lord Byron, and wrote for it biographies of Lawrence, Burrows, Perry and Porter.[20]

[20] It is not a little remarkable that the list of Washington Irving's contributions to the _Analectic Magazine_ should have come to me in an Athenian newspaper.

+Tô 1813 ho Erbing anelabe tên syntaxin tou periodikou "Anakletik', hekdidomenou kata mêna en Philadelpheia. En aunô egrapse pollas biographias tôn periphanesterôn andrôn, hôn hai kyriôterai eisin hai tôn Amerikanon Pôrter kai Mporrôs kai tôn Anglôn poiêtôn Byrônos, Mouar kai Kampellou."--EBLOMAS.+ December 1, 1890.

Paulding and Verplanck wrote for the magazine, signing their articles "P." and "V."

William Darlington (1782-1863), Pennsylvanian, after whom was named the Darlingtonica California (a species of pitcher-plant), went to India as ship's surgeon in 1806, and published in the _Analectic Magazine_ a sketch of his voyage called "Letters from Calcutta."

The _Analectic_ contains a number of valuable portraits. The first lithograph ever made in America is in this magazine for July 1819. It represents a woodland scene--a flowing stream and a single house upon the bank. It was made by Bass Otis, who followed the suggestions of Judge Cooper and Dr. Brown, of Alabama. The drawing was made upon a stone from Munich, presented to the American Philosophical Society by Mr. Thomas Dobson, of Philadelphia. The _Analectic Magazine_ was finally converted into the _Literary Gazette_ and died one year later (December, 1821).[21]

[21] "I observe," said a gentleman at the Athenæum, "that the form of the _Analectic Magazine_ was changed on the first of this month." "No," replied his friend, "it has been _weakly_ for some time past."

WITTY AND SATIRICAL MAGAZINES.

The _Tickler_ was edited by George Helmbold, and was first issued, September 16, 1807, under the pen-name of "Toby Scratch 'Em." It had for its motto:

"Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear."--_Pope._

It was to be issued every Wednesday morning, at the price of four dollars per annum, from 131 South Front Street. The first volume of fifty-two numbers was not completed until February 8, 1809. Helmbold enlisted in the army and was promoted to a lieutenancy at Lundy's Lane. After the war he kept the Minerva Tavern at Sixth and Sansom Streets. He afterward edited the _Independent Balance_.

The _Trangram, or Fashionable Trifler_, by "Christopher Crag, Esq., his Grandmother and Uncle," was published in Philadelphia by George E. Blake in 1809. It foreshadowed its wit and its satire in its introductory parody of _Macbeth_:

"How now, ye cunning, sharp and secret wags,
What is't ye do?
A deed with a double name."

In the first number was an address by "The Publisher to the Purchaser.... The conductors of this paper, being a kind of whimsical and negligent gentry of easy habits and inconstant disposition, its continuation will not so much depend upon the patronage that may be given to it as upon their own humours and caprices. It is, as Johnson says of its title--'Trangram--an odd, intricately-contrived thing,' and, therefore, in its appearance will be as irregular in its size or proportions as unequal, and in its pecuniary value as unstated, though always as reasonable, as any other oddly-contrived thing ever was, or is, or ought to be." The publisher, George Blake, was a Yorkshireman and a music dealer in South Fifth Street. He told William Duane that the editors were Mordecai M. Noah, Alexander F. Coxe, a son of Tench Coxe, and in 1814 a member of the bar, and a third person "whose name he seemed unwilling to mention" (Duane). Only three numbers were printed, the triple team quarrelled, and the publication ceased.

Mordecai Noah was born in Philadelphia, July 14, 1785. After his removal to New York, about 1816, he became the owner or editor of a number of magazines and newspapers.

The _Trangram_ is full of local gossip and scandal cleverly concealed. Andrew Hamilton figures in it as "Dapper Dumpling." J. N. Barker, the author of "Superstition," is "Billy Mushroom." Joseph Dennie is nicknamed "Oliver Crank." William Warren is dubbed "the tun-bellied manager."

The account of a walk through the city streets ends with "the description of the defence of his friend would doubtless have continued until we reached the end of our journey had we not by this time arrived, where mathematicians never could arrive, at the Square Circle,"--that is, at Centre Square, Broad and Market Streets.

The third number, February 1, 1810, contains accounts of "Jeremy Corsica" (Jerome Bonaparte) and his visit to Philadelphia, and to "Bangilore" (Baltimore), and his acquaintance with Miss "Cornelia Pattypan," or Patterson.

The _Beacon, erected and supported by Lucidantus and his Thirteen Friends_, was published by W. Brown, and began its course Wednesday, Nov. 27, 1811. It aimed to surpass _The Spirit of the Reviews_, the _Dramatic Censor_ and the _Port Folio_, but it is believed to have made only two numbers. The purpose of the magazine was defined in the second number, December 11, 1811: "We propose to develop to our readers the machinery and composition of our Philadelphia Society."

The _Luncheon_ was a monthly satirical paper "boiled for people about six feet high by Simon Pure." Its first appearance was in July, 1815. The second number contained an abusive article upon William McCorkle. In January, 1816, Lewis P. Franks, the editor of the _Luncheon_, confessed himself the author of the libel and declared that the alleged biography of McCorkle was false, and that the journal would be discontinued.

The _Independent Balance_ was published weekly by "Democritus the Younger, a lineal descendant of the Laughing Philosopher." It was established, March 20, 1817, by George Helmbold, the first editor of the _Tickler_ and late of the United States Army.

The second volume had a vignette of a sportsman shooting a bird, with the motto:

"Whene'er we court the tuneful nine,
Or plainer prose suits our design,
Then fools may sneer and critics frown
At every corner of the town,--
Condemn our paper or commend;
One aim is ours, our chiefest end:
With well-poised gun and surest eyes
To shoot at Folly as it flies."

Helmbold died in Philadelphia, December 28, 1821. The magazine, after passing through several hands, finally became the property of L. P. Franks, who published it at "No. 1 Paradise Alley, back of 171 Market Street, between Fourth and Fifth Streets." At this time it was edited by "Simon Spunkey, Esq., duly commissioned and sworn regulator, weigh-master and Inspector General." Its motto proclaimed its purpose to anatomize the wise man's folly as plain as way to parish church:

"I claim as large a charter as the wind
To blow on whom I please."

The _Critic_, by Geoffrey Juvenile, Esq., No. 1, January 29, 1820.

Every number of the _Critic_ contains some quip or satire at the expense of James Kirke Paulding, and his "Backwoodsman" is particularly levelled at. Paulding is dubbed "The Cabbage Bard," and the caustic reviewer proceeds to write: "We _had_ a Dennie and a Clifton, yet the classical elegance of the one has not availed to preserve his countrymen from being intoxicated by the quaintness and affectation of the Salmagundi school, and the purity and wit of the other have as little proved powerful to save his work from being deserted for the bathos and silliness of the 'Backwoodsman.' I remember them both. In private life they united qualities which are seldom found together, brilliancy of conversation and modesty of deportment. In their writings they were chaste without being tame, and elevated without being extravagant. Alas! I little thought to have lived until their light should be hidden by a cloud of delirious bats who had left their native obscurity and madly rushed to uncongenial day, vermin which are likely to be of direful omen to our country unless the land be speedily cleansed of them."

The greatness of Philadelphia is the inspiration and the pride of the _Critic_. "Having often heard Philadelphia called the 'Athens of the United States,' 'the birthplace of American literature,' I was naturally delighted at the prospect of a visit to so celebrated a city" (p. 14). And again: "Philadelphia with all its faults and follies is, in a literary and scientific point of view, the first city of the Empire" (p. 20). The _Critic_ fired its last arrow May 10, 1820.

Dennie's _Port Folio_ continued to be the admiration and the despair of contemporary editors and authors. In 1821 appeared the _Post-Chaise Companion or Magazine of Wit_. By Carlo Convivio Socio, Junior Fellow of the Royal Academy of Humorists. It was begun in January, 1821, and was issued from 15 North Front Street. In its first "leader" it deprecated comparison with the favorites of the hour: "With the venerable Mr. Oldschool, who for almost twenty years has delighted or instructed the 'mind of desultory man,' I would not presume to enter into a competition, still less should it be provoked with the profound labours of the editor of the _Analectic Magazine_ and his host of 'the most eminent literary men' who promised to eclipse the dissertations of the famous Northern lights" (p. 3).

The little paper contains a long article on Mr. Kean's acting (pages 37-51).

The _Philadelphia Medical Museum_ was conducted by John Redman Coxe for five years, from 1805 to 1810, and was published by A. Bartram.

The _Eye_, by Obadiah Optic, was published every Thursday by John W. Scott, from January to December, 1808, at three dollars a year. It was filled with odd, historical and alliterative articles.

The _Philadelphia Repertory_, a weekly literary journal, was published in 1810 by Dennis Hart.

The _Eclectic Repertory and Analytic Review, Medical and Philosophical_, was commenced in October, 1811, and continued until October, 1820. It was published quarterly, and edited by an association of physicians, and published by T. Dobson and Son.

It was continued in January, 1821, as the _Journal of Foreign Medical Science and Literature_, conducted by S. Emlen, Jr., and William Price, and published by Eliakim Littell. It finally ceased October, 1824.

The _Freemason's Magazine and General Miscellany_ was published from 1810-1812 (?). It was edited by George Richards, a school-master and clergyman of the Revolution. He was the author of "An Historical Discourse on the Death of General Washington" (Portsmouth, 1800), and of a number of patriotic poems of the Revolution.

ROBERT WALSH began, in 1811, the publication of the first quarterly that was issued in the United States. It was the _American Review of History, of Politics, and General Repository of Literature and State Papers_, and was published for two years, in four volumes, by Farrand and Nichols.

Walsh was born in Baltimore in 1784. He was educated in Catholic schools in Baltimore, and at the Jesuit College at Georgetown. While at college, in 1796, he delivered a political address before General Washington. He began the practice of law in Philadelphia. In 1817-18 he edited the _American Register_.

The _National Gazette_, a daily newspaper, was established by him in Philadelphia in 1819, and his connection with it did not cease until he sold it, in 1836, to William Fry.

The _Philadelphia Register_ had been a weekly paper, the title of which was changed, in 1819, to the _National Recorder_. It was founded in 1818 by E. Littell and S. Norris Henry. In July, 1821, it changed its name for the second time, and became the _Saturday Magazine_. De Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" and the essays of Charles Lamb were published for the first time in America in the pages of the _Saturday Magazine_. In the following year (1822) the magazine became a monthly publication, and was called the _Museum of Foreign Literature and Science_. In this year (1822) it was edited by Robert Walsh. Toward the close of 1823 the proprietor gave notice that Mr. Walsh was no longer connected with the _Museum_. It was then conducted by Eliakim and Squier Littell. In 1843 the publication office was removed to New York, and the magazine was called the _Eclectic Museum of Foreign Literature and Science_. Littell had no connection with the magazine in this phase of its history. He went to Boston, and in 1844 established _Littell's Living Age_, of which he remained the proprietor until his death, May 17, 1870.

After retiring from the editorial chair of the _Museum_, Walsh successfully resuscitated the _American Quarterly Review_, which he published from March, 1827, to 1837.

The _Review_ was published by Carey, Lea and Carey. It appeared in March, June, September and December. Each number contained two hundred and fifty pages, and the subscription price was five dollars per annum. Some of Walsh's original works had met with approval in England. His "Letter on the Genius and Disposition of the French Government" passed through four editions in England, and was commended by Lord Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_ (Vol. XVI, p. 1). The _American Quarterly Review_ did not share the same happy fate. The _Monthly Review_ said of it, "It is as dull a work of the kind as any that we know of. It is heavier even than the _Westminster_ when burthened by the lucubrations of Jeremy Bentham." Neal, in _Blackwood's_ (XVI, 634), sarcastically styled Walsh "The Jupiter of the American Olympus."

Walsh was United States Consul at Paris from 1845-1851, and remained in France until his death, February 7, 1859.

Joseph Delaplaine, in April, 1812, respectfully solicited the patronage of the public to the _Emporium of Arts and Sciences_, "conducted by John Redman Coxe, M.D., professor of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania." The magazine was published monthly, beginning in May, 1812. It made three volumes, but two volumes only were published in Philadelphia. The second volume was conducted by Thomas Cooper, who, in 1813, removed the magazine to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where it was printed by Kimber and Richardson.

The _Religious Remembrancer_ was begun by John Welwood Scott on the 4th of September, 1813. It was the first religious weekly published in the United States, and was three years in advance of Willis's _Boston Recorder_.

Two children's papers publishing about this time were: the _Juvenile Magazine--Religious, Moral, and Entertaining Pieces in Prose and Verse_, "compiled by Arthur Donaldson," Philadelphia, 1811, published monthly, twelve and a half cents per number. The _Juvenile Port Folio_, a weekly miscellany, was published by Thomas G. Condie, Jr., 22 Carter's Alley, in 1813.

A French weekly was started in 1815, _L'Abeille Americaine, Journal Historique, Politique, et Litteraire a Philadelphie_, A. J. Blocquerst, 130 South Fifth Street. Matthew Carey took subscriptions for the work, which continued several years.

The _Parterre: by a Trio_ (Cora and Charles Chandler), 1816, printed by Probasco and Justice, 350 North Second Street. This worthless little weekly was begun June 15, 1816, and ended June 28, 1817.

The _American Register, or Summary Review of History, Politics and Literature_--Phila.: Thos. Dobson, 1817-1818--made two volumes.

The _American Medical Recorder_ appeared in 1818, supported by a number of physicians. It was a quarterly publication. The title was changed in 1824 to the _Medical Recorder of Original Papers and Intelligence on Medicine and Surgery_. It was merged in 1829 into the _American Journal of the American Sciences_.

The _Ladies' and Gentlemen's Weekly Literary Museum and Musical Magazine_ was a weekly publication begun, January 1, 1819, by H. C. Lewis, No. 164 South Eleventh Street.

Washington Irving's first literary adventure was the publication of _Salmagundi_. It was begun in New York, January 14, 1807, by Irving and James Kirke Paulding. The origin of the venture is not quite clear, but it was an outcome of the alert and gay society in New York, of which Brevoort and Paulding and the Irvings were conspicuous members.

Mr. Paulding said of the enterprise, "It was when fairly initiated into the mysteries of the town that Washington Irving and myself commenced the publication of _Salmagundi_, an irregular issue, the object of which was to ridicule the follies and foibles of the fashionable world. Though we had not anticipated anything beyond a local circulation, the work soon took a wider sphere; gradually extended throughout the United States, and acquired great popularity. It was, I believe, the first of its kind in this country; produced numerous similar publications, none of which, however, extended beyond a few numbers and formed somewhat of an era in our literature. It reached two volumes, and we could easily have continued it indefinitely, but the publisher, with that liberality so characteristic of these modern Mæcenases, declined to concede to us a share of the profits, which had become considerable, and the work was abruptly discontinued. It was one of those productions of youth that wise men--or those who think themselves wise--are very apt to be ashamed of when they grow old."

In 1819 Paulding attempted to revive _Salmagundi_, and a "second series" was published fortnightly in Philadelphia, 108 Chestnut Street, by Moses Thomas, from May 30, 1819, to August 19, 1820. Evert A. Duyckinck, in his preface to the latest issue of the first series, writes, "Some ten years or more after the conclusion of _Salmagundi_, Paulding ventured alone upon a second series. Washington Irving was in Europe, and the muse of Pindar Cockloft was silent. It was a dangerous undertaking, for the very essence of a _Salmagundi_ is the combination of choice ingredients--a product of many minds.... Yet it contains many delightful pages."

The publication is referred to by Paulding in a letter to Washington Irving, January 20, 1820: "I must now make two or three explanations concerning myself and proceedings. Hearing last winter from William Irving that you had finally declined coming home, and finding my leisure time a little heavy, I set to work and prepared several numbers of a continuation of our old joint production. At that time and subsequently, until Gouverneur Kemble brought your first number [of the Sketch Book] down to Washington with him, I was entirely ignorant that you contemplated anything of the kind. But for an accidental delay my first number would have got the start of yours. As it happened, however, it had the appearance of taking the field against you, a thing which neither my head nor heart will sanction. I believe my work has not done you any harm in the way of rivalship, for it has been soundly abused by many persons and compared with the first part with many degrading expressions. It has sold tolerably, but I shall discontinue it shortly, as I begin to grow tired, and I believe the public has got the start of me. It was owing to Moses that I did not commence an entire new work."

The reputation of the periodical in Fashion's choicest circle is hinted at in Halleck's "Fanny:"

"And though by no means a _bas bleu_, she had
For literature a most becoming passion;
Had skimm'd the latest novels, good and bad,
And read the Croakers, when they were in fashion;
And Dr. Chalmers' Sermons, of a Sunday;
And Wordsworth's Cabinet, and _the new Salmagundi_."

In closing his introduction to the new series, Paulding alluded gracefully and affectionately to his tried and generous friend and former fellow-worker, Washington Irving. "The reader will not fail of hearing, in good time, all about the worthy Cockloft family; the learned Jeremy, and the young ladies who are still young in spite of the lapse of ten years and more. Above a dozen years are past since we first introduced these excellent souls to our readers, and in that time many a gentle tie has been broken, and many friends separated, some of them forever. Among those we most loved and admired, we have to regret the long absence of one who was aye the delight of his friends, and who, if he were with us, would add such charms of wit and gayety to this little work that the young and the aged would pore over it with equal delight."

The Protestant Episcopal Church established the _Episcopal Magazine_ in January, 1820. It was conducted by Rev. C. H. Wharton and Rev. George Boyd. The former editor, Charles Henry Wharton, was born in St. Mary's County, Maryland, June 5, 1748. Notley Hall, the family estate, was presented to the family by Lord Baltimore. Wharton was educated in Jesuit schools and ordained a deacon and a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. In the last years of the Revolution he was chaplain to the Roman Catholics in Worcester, England, to whom, in 1784, after joining the Church of England, he addressed his celebrated "Letter." He was a member of the American Philosophical Society, and for a short time President of Columbia College. In 1813-14 he was co-editor with Dr. Abercrombie of the _Quarterly Theological Magazine and Religious Repository_.

The _Episcopal Magazine_ was published by S. Potter & Co. and printed by J. Maxwell.

The _Rural Magazine and Literary Evening Fireside_, a monthly publication by Richards and Caleb Johnson, was begun in January, 1820. Its purpose was to give correct views of the science of agriculture. It also contained articles on slavery, a sketch of Benezet, etc. But the farmers were not inclined to write out their ideas of agriculture, and the bucolic journal, after binding its monthly sheaves into a single volume, asked its own _congé_.

Nathaniel Chapman was the only begetter of the _American Journal of the Medical Sciences_, which, in its seventy years of history, has known the touch of so many skilful editorial hands. Chapman issued it as a quarterly from the publishing house of M. Carey and Son. It was then called the _Philadelphia Journal of the Medical Sciences_.

In 1825 Dr. Williams P. Dewees and John D. Godman were associated with Dr. Chapman in the editorship. Dr. Isaac Hays was added to the staff in February, 1827, and in November the name of the magazine was changed to the _American Journal of the Medical Sciences_, and Dr. Isaac Hays became sole editor, to be in turn succeeded by his son, Dr. I. Minis Hays. The history of its changes and extension would take us far beyond the chronological boundary of this book. Nearly every physician of note in America has contributed at some time to its pages, and nearly every notable triumph of American medicine has found fitting record somewhere in its multitudinous numbers.

The _Reformer_ was a monthly religious and ethical publication issued in 1820.

Robert S. Coffin, who had written popular verses under the name of the "Boston Bard" while a compositor in the office of the _Village Record_, at West Chester, Pa., came to Philadelphia in 1821 and began a literary paper, which he called the _Bee_. Not more than two hundred subscribers were secured, and Coffin sold the unsuccessful paper to Charles Alexander, who had formerly been employed upon Poulson's _Daily Advertiser_. On the 4th of August, 1821, Atkinson and Alexander, in the office once occupied by Benjamin Franklin, back of No. 53 Market Street, began the publication of the Philadelphia _Saturday Evening Post_. T. Cottrell Clarke was appointed editor. He retired in 1826 and founded the _Ladies' Album_, a weekly literary paper, which ultimately merged into the _Pennsylvania Inquirer_. Morton McMichael succeeded Clarke in the editorial chair of the _Post_, and, when he too resigned, became the first editor of the _Saturday Courier_. Other editors of the _Post_ at various times were Benjamin Mathias, founder of the _Saturday Chronicle_, Charles J. Peterson, Rufus W. Griswold, H. Hastings Weld and Henry Peterson. The _Post_ had few important rivals among the family newspapers and it absorbed a number of the young literary journals. The _Saturday News_, the _Saturday Bulletin_ and the _Saturday Chronicle_ were merged into the _Post_. Mrs. Henry Wood's early novels, written in her obscure days before the time of "East Lynne," were published in it.

The _Episcopal Recorder_, established in 1822, and edited by Rev. B. B. Smith, Bishop of the P. E. Church in the United States, has always admitted into its pages articles by leading clergymen of whatever sect or creed.

The _Erin_, a weekly paper containing Irish news, was published in August, 1822, by Hart & Co., No. 117 South Fifth Street.

Rev. G. T. Bedell, who had established the _Episcopal Recorder_, was also the editor of the _Philadelphia Recorder_ (1823), likewise a religious weekly published in the interest of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

The _Arcadian_, a literary periodical, of the year 1823, was published by A. Potter and Co.

The _American Monthly Magazine_, January, 1824, to June, 1824, was edited by James McHenry and published by Job Palmer.

The _Medical Review and Analectic Journal_ was edited by Dr. John Eberle and Dr. George McClellan and published quarterly between June, 1824, and August, 1826.

The _Æsculapian Register_ was published from June 17, 1824, to December 8, 1834. Several physicians united in its editorship, and R. Desilver, of 110 Walnut Street, was its publisher; its motto: "Ars longa, vita brevis."

The _American Sunday School Magazine_ (1824-1831) was the first Sunday-school-teacher's journal issued in America.

_La Corbeille_, a weekly journal published in 1824. The editor was a gallant Cavalier, who warns the ladies in the first number that novel reading "induces a sickly diathesis of the mind, or mental marasmus."

In June, 1824, there were published in Philadelphia the _Port Folio_, the _Museum_, the _American Monthly_ and nine other magazines, four religious, three medical and two political. It was in this year that _Blackwood's Magazine_ congratulated America on Charles Robert Leslie's success in art.

The _Reformer_, published in 1824, by Theophilus R. Gates, aimed to "expose the clerical schemes and pompous undertakings of the present day under the pretence of religion, and to show that they are irreconcilable with the spirit and principle of the Gospel."

The _Christian_ was a weekly paper of 1824.