The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 Part 3

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

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

"The arch high bending doth convey, In a hieroglyphic way, What in n.o.ble style like this Our united empire is!

The pillars, which support the weight, Are, each of them, a mighty State; Thirteen and more the vista shows, As to vaster length it grows; For new States shall added be, To the great confederacy, And the mighty arch shall rise From the cold Canadian skies, And shall bend through heaven's broad way To the n.o.ble Mexic Bay!

In the lofty arch are seen Stars of lucid ray--thirteen!

When other States shall rise, Other stars shall deck these skies, There, in wakeful light to burn O'er the hemisphere of morn."

As might be expected from Brackenridge's management, the magazine was full of wit and scurrility. The January (1779) number contained Witherspoon's delightful satire upon James Rivington, the Royal Printer, of New York. It was a parody of Rivington's "Pet.i.tion to Congress," and was called "The Humble Representation and Earnest Supplication of J. R., Printer and Bookseller in New York--To his Excellency Henry Laurens, Esq." And Dr. Witherspoon, who was President of Princeton College when Brackenridge was a student there, supplied his former pupil during his year's editors.h.i.+p with many a sly sarcasm and bit of grave philosophy.

"The Cornwalliad, an Heroic Comic Poem," was begun in March, 1779, and was continued through several numbers. It described various incidents in the British retreat to New York after the battles of Trenton and Princeton.

In the January number was begun a series of articles under the t.i.tle of "The Cave of Vanhest," concerning which the following letter was written October 2, 1779, by Mrs. Sarah Bache to Benjamin Franklin: "The publisher of _The United States Magazine_ wrote to you some time ago to desire you would send him some newspapers, and sent you some of his first numbers. I suppose you never received them. I now send six, not that I think you will find much entertainment in them, but you may have heard that there was such a performance, and may like to see what it is; besides, its want of entertainment may induce you to send something that may make the poor man's magazine more useful and pleasing. Tell Temple 'The Cave of Vanhest' is a very romantic description of Mr. and Mrs. Blair's house and family; the young ladies that the traveller describes and is in love with are children, one seven months younger than our Benjamin, and the Venus just turned of five."

The most amusing episode in the history of the magazine was the quarrel that arose between its editor and General Charles Lee. Brackenridge published in full, in Vol. I, p. 141, a letter written by "an officer of high rank in the American service to Miss F----s (Franks), a young lady of this city." The letter contained a humorous challenge growing out of a merry war in which Miss F. had said that "he wore green breeches patched with leather," and the writer declared that he wore "true sherry vallies," that is, trousers reaching to the ankle with strips of leather on the inside of the thigh. Lee immediately published in the _Pennsylvania Advertiser_ an angry letter upon "the impertinence and stupidity of the compiler of that wretched performance with the pompous t.i.tle of the magazine of the United States." In reply, Brackenridge compared Lee, as usual, to his favorite ourang-outang, and added: "You are neither Christian, Jew, Turk nor Infidel, but a _metempsychosist_!

You have been heard to say that you expect when you die to transmigrate to a Siberian fox-hound, and to be messmate to Spado." Upon this Lee, in a rage, called at the office with the intention of a.s.saulting the editor. Brackenridge's son cleverly relates what followed. General Lee "knocked at the door, while Mr. Brackenridge, looking out of the upper-story window, inquired what was wanting. 'Come down,' said he, 'and I'll give you as good a horse-whipping as any rascal ever received.' 'Excuse me, General,' said the other, 'I would not go down for two such favors.'"

Besides the publication of the State Const.i.tution and a windy war over female head-dress and hard money, there is little else to say of _The United States Magazine_. But near the close of the volume the appearance of an imitation of Psalm 137, with the foot-note, "by a young gentleman to whom, in the course of this work, we are greatly indebted," brings for the first time into notice, if not into prominence, a writer destined to display the finest sense of poetic form and the nicest delicacy of poetic sentiment to be found among his contemporaries in America, and who, through his opposition to Hamilton and the Federalists, should win from Was.h.i.+ngton the epithet of "that rascal FRENEAU."

Philip Freneau was born in New York in 1752; he had been a cla.s.smate at Princeton of James Madison and Brackenridge, and on his return from the Bermudas in 1779, he a.s.sisted the latter in his editorial work in Philadelphia. The first edition of his poems was prepared in Philadelphia by Francis Bailey, the publisher of _The United States Magazine_, in 1786.

Freneau was one of the first American poets to be read and appreciated in England. At the time when Byron was making merry with the notion of an American poet bearing the name of Timothy (Dwight), Campbell was appropriating a line, "The hunter and the deer--a shade" from Freneau's "Indian Burying Ground," and knitting it into "O'Connor's Child," and Sir Walter Scott in "Marmion," by altering a single word, was transparently concealing his theft from "The Heroes of Eutaw."

In December, 1779, the suspension of the magazine was announced, the editor declaring in explanation that the publication was "undertaken at a time when it was hoped the war would be of short continuance, and the money, which had continued to depreciate, would become of proper value.

But these evils having continued to exist through the whole year, it has been greatly difficult to carry on the publication; and we shall now be under the necessity of suspending it for some time--until an established peace and a fixed value of the money shall render it convenient or possible to take it up again."

For seven years no one attempted another magazine, and then in September, 1786, by a combination of publishers, _The Columbian Magazine, or Monthly Miscellany_, modelled upon the _Gentleman's Magazine_ and the _London Magazine_, began its career. It was the most ambitious enterprise of the kind that had yet been undertaken in America. The printing facilities were still very limited, and the subscription lists for all publications small. In 1786 there was one daily paper printed in Philadelphia, and but three or four weekly ones.

In the same year four printers after much deliberation agreed to print a small edition of the New Testament. "Before the Revolution a spelling-book, impressed upon brown paper, with the interesting figure of Master Dilworth as a frontispiece, was the extent of American skill in printing and engraving." Improvements came very rapidly, and before the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century Barlow's _Columbiad_ was magnificently printed in Philadelphia, and the great undertakings of Rees' "Cyclopaedia" and Wilson's "Ornithology" entered upon. The monthly expense of printing the _Columbian_ was said to be 100, which was paid to mechanics and manufacturers of the United States. The magazine was inaugurated by Matthew Carey, T. Siddons, C.

Talbot, W. Spotswood and J. Trenchard.

Carey published, in the first number, "The Life of General Greene,"

whose portrait was the first in the volume. He also contributed "The s.h.i.+pwreck," "A Philosophical Dream" (a vision of 1850), and "Hard Times." In the "Philosophical Dream" Carey made the first suggestion of a ca.n.a.l to unite the waters of the Delaware and Ohio. He withdrew from the _Columbian Magazine_ in December, 1786, finding that the quintuple team could not work well together.

Charles Cist, another of the combination, was born at St. Petersburg, August 15, 1738, was graduated at Halle, and, upon coming to Philadelphia in 1773, entered into partners.h.i.+p with Melchior Steiner, with whom he published Paine's "Crisis"--"These are the times that try men's souls." He died in Philadelphia, December 2, 1805.

John Trenchard became sole proprietor of the publication in January, 1789. He was an engraver by profession, having studied under James Smithers, and engraved most of the plates for the magazine. His son, Edward Trenchard, entered the navy, visited England and induced Gilbert Fox, then a 'graver's apprentice, to return with him to America. In this country Fox became an actor, and for him Joseph Hopkinson wrote "Hail Columbia."

"The Foresters, an American Tale," was written for the _Columbian_ by Jeremy Belknap, who sought to portray humorously in it the history of the country and the formation of the Const.i.tution.

The _Columbian_ of May, 1789, gave an elaborate account of Was.h.i.+ngton's progress to New York, with the notable receptions at Gray's Ferry and at Trenton.

In July, 1790, the name of the magazine was changed to "The Universal Asylum and Columbian Magazine, by a Society of Gentlemen." Benjamin Rush was one of its most faithful contributors. A number of the engravings and several of the articles ill.u.s.trated the agricultural improvements of the times. John Penington contributed in 1790 "Chemical and Economical Essays to Ill.u.s.trate the Connection between Chemistry and the Arts." The editor of the _Columbian Magazine_ for nearly three years was Alexander James Dallas, a sketch of whose life is to be found in a later magazine, the _Port Folio_, of March, 1817. Dallas was born in Jamaica, but received his earliest education near London from James Elphinstone, through whom he became acquainted with Dr. Johnson and Dr. Franklin. He became a citizen of Philadelphia in 1785, studied law, edited the _Columbian_, held various offices of trust in the State, and became successively Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of War for the United States. Robert Charles Dallas, brother of the editor, author of the "History of the Maroons" and a score of other works, is best known as the friend and counsellor of Lord Byron. His last work was his "Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron from 1808 to 1814." It was at his request that Byron published "Childe Harold," and to him Byron gave the profits arising from that and four other of his poems. Dallas was related to Lord Byron through the marriage of his sister with the poet's uncle. George Mifflin Dallas, son of the editor of the _Columbian_, became Vice-President of the United States under President Polk. His commencement oration at Princeton, in 1809, on the "Moral Influence of Memory," is printed in the _Port Folio_ of that year (Vol. II, p.

396[7]). Two members of the family, Rev. A. R. C. Dallas, son of Robert Charles, and his cousin, Rev. Charles Dallas, served at Waterloo, and were afterward prominent in philanthropic work.

[7] John Quincy Adams' commencement oration "On the Importance and Necessity of Public Faith to the Well-being of a Government," was inserted in the _Columbian Magazine_ (1787) by Jeremy Belknap.

A. J. Dallas reported for the _Herald_ and for the _Columbian_ the debates of the State Convention until the Federalists, annoyed by the publications, withdrew their subscriptions from the _Columbian_, which led Benjamin Rush to write to Noah Webster (February 13, 1788): "From the impudent conduct of Mr. Dallas in misrepresenting the proceedings and speeches in the Pennsylvania Convention, as well as from his deficiency of matter, the _Columbian Magazine_, of which he is editor, is in the decline."

Nevertheless the _Columbian_ continued to prosper. The circulation at times made necessary a second edition, which was reset at considerable expense, and often contained additional articles.

The final number appeared in December, 1792. The princ.i.p.al motive for the suspension, the editors declared, "is to be found in the present law respecting the establishment of the post-office, which totally prohibits the circulation of monthly publications through that channel on any other terms than that of paying the highest postage on private letters or packages." A futile attempt was made to continue the magazine in January, 1793, under the t.i.tle, "_The Columbian Museum, or Universal Asylum_: John Parker, Phila." The only number that I have seen contains sixty pages.

In January, 1787, or one month after withdrawing from the management of _The Columbian Magazine_, Matthew Carey published the first number of _The American Museum, or Repository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive Pieces, etc., Prose and Poetical_, which proved to be the first really successful literary undertaking of the kind in America. General Was.h.i.+ngton said of it in a letter dated June 25, 1788: "No more useful literary plan has ever been undertaken in America." John d.i.c.kinson in the same year also commended it. Governor Wm. Livingstone wrote: "It far exceeds in my opinion every attempt of the kind which from any other American press ever came into my hands." Among others who swelled the chorus of praise were Governor Randolph of Virginia, Ezra Stiles of Yale, Timothy Dwight, Francis Hopkinson and Provost Ewing. "Citizen"

Brissot, in his "New Travels in the United States" (1788), considered Carey's _Museum_ to be "equal to the best periodical published in Europe." The first number attracted great attention; Franklin furnished the first article, "Consolation for America;" Benjamin Rush followed with an "Address to the People of the United States",[8] the burden of which was that the "Revolution is not over;" already the cry was going up for civil service reform to deliver the country from the oppression of politics. The edition--one thousand copies--was soon exhausted. "I had not means," said Carey, "to reprint it. This was a very serious injury, many persons who intended to subscribe declining because I could not furnish them the whole of the numbers."

[8] Benjamin Rush's papers in the _Museum_ and in the _Columbian_ were printed in book form, "Essays--Literary, Moral and Philosophical," 1798.

The work of editors.h.i.+p was no novelty to Matthew Carey. He had had full and fiery experience in both Ireland and America. He was born in Ireland in 1760, and became acquainted with Dr. Franklin in Paris while living there to avoid prosecution at home. He was imprisoned for the publication of the _Volunteer's Journal_ in Dublin. He arrived in Philadelphia, November 15, 1784, and in the following January began to publish the _Pennsylvania Evening Herald_, the first newspaper in the United States to furnish accurate reports of legislative debates. He was wretchedly poor, but Lafayette laid the foundation of his fortune by a generous gift of four hundred dollars in notes of the Bank of North America. The first pamphlet that Carey published in Ireland was a treatise on duelling. Soon after his arrival in America he gave a practical ill.u.s.tration of the text by engaging in a duel with Colonel Oswald, in which he received a wound that stayed him at home for more than a year.

_The American Museum_ was the first magazine in Philadelphia to reflect faithfully the internal state of America. Bradford's magazines, intensely loyal, looked across the ocean and saw little at home worthy of record. Paine and Brackenridge expended their erratic genius in abusive satire upon the Tories; the _Columbian Magazine_ avoided the serious political problems of the times, and granted much of its s.p.a.ce to agricultural improvements and the beginnings of manufactures.

In almost every page, however, of the _Museum_ the reader catches glimpses of the anxieties and disorders of the critical years of party strife that attended the making and adoption of the Const.i.tution. The social order was weak, there was a general revolt against taxation. "I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the war," wrote Jay to Was.h.i.+ngton, June 27, 1786. David Humphreys, one of the "Hartford Wits,"

who came into prominence at the close of the war, and who at this time (1786) was engaged in the composition of the _Anarchiad_ and other satirical verse, aimed at the disorder of the time, contributed to _The Museum_ his poem on the "Happiness of America." Francis Hopkinson's gentle prose satires and his poems of revolutionary incidents reappeared in its pages. Anthony Benezet uttered his oft-repeated protest against the iniquity of slavery. Philip Freneau's odes found place almost monthly in the poet's corner. Through several numbers ran a series of articles, though not for the first time published, "On the Character of Philadelphians," signed Tamoc Caspipina, the pseudonym of the Rev. Jacob d.u.c.h.e, brother-in-law of Francis Hopkinson, and derived from the initial letters of his t.i.tle as "the a.s.sistant minister of Christ's Church and St. Peter's in Philadelphia, in North America."

I cull from volume five a few specimen articles to ill.u.s.trate the wealth of local and national history embedded in this popular periodical:

VOL. V, p. 185.--Report on the pet.i.tion of Hallam and Henry to license a theatre in Philadelphia.

P. 197.--Account of the battle of Bunker Hill.

P. 220.--Letters of "James Littlejohn"--_i.e._, Timothy Dwight.

P. 233.--Franklin on food.

P. 235.--d.u.c.h.e's Description of Philadelphia.

P. 263.--Insurrection in New Hamps.h.i.+re.

P. 293.--Dr. Franklin's Prussian Edict.

P. 295.--Impartial Chronicle, by W. Livingstone.

P. 300.--Poetical address to Was.h.i.+ngton, by Governor Livingstone.

P. 363.--Earthquake in New England.

P. 400.--Battle of Long Island.

P. 473.--Franklin's idea of an English school.

P. 488.--"How to Conduct a Newspaper,"--Dr. Rush.

The same cause that led to the suspension of the _Columbian Magazine_ put a period also to the _American Museum_, and in the same month. On December 31, 1792, Matthew Carey, in bidding farewell to the public that had supported his undertaking, ascribed its failure to "the construction, whether right or wrong, of the late Post-Office law, by which the postmaster here has absolutely refused to receive the _Museum_ into the Post-Office on any terms." Although the circulation of the magazine had been large for those days, the publisher had derived small profit from his venture. The subscription price, $2.40 per annum for two volumes, making together more than one thousand pages, was too low; and during the six years, between 1786 and 1792, Carey was always poor, and in his _Autobiography_ declares that during those years he was never at any one time the possessor of four hundred dollars. But in those years of personal penury and public turmoil, Matthew Carey laid the foundation of the American system of social science.

Six years after the suspension of the magazine, Carey attempted to re-animate it, and published _The American Museum, or Annual Register of Fugitive Pieces, Ancient and Modern_, for the year 1798, printed for Matthew Carey. Philadelphia: W. & R. d.i.c.kson, Lancaster. Matthew Carey, whose introduction was dated June 20, 1799, wrote of the renascent publication, "If this _coup d'essai_ be favorably received, I shall publish a continuation of it yearly." No other volume was ever issued.

_The Medical Examiner_ was published in 1787, and made one volume octavo of 424 pages. It was edited by J. B. Biddle.

_The Philadelphia Magazine_, the first that ever bore the name of the city, made two volumes. The first volume extended from February to December, 1788, and contained 448 pages. The second volume began in January, 1789, and closed in November of the same year (416 pages). The magazine is said to have been edited by Elhanan Winchester. His "Lectures on Prophecies" are bound up with the second volume of the periodical. The lectures were originally issued in each volume.