The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 Part 4

_The Arminian Magazine_, Vol. I, 1789, pp. 600; Vol. II, 1790, pp. 620, was published by Prichard and Hall, in Market Street, and was edited by John d.i.c.kins, the scholarly pastor of the church that he named the "Methodist Episcopal."

In magazines addressed to women, Philadelphia has always been fertile and successful. "The first attempt of the kind made in this country" was "_The Lady's Magazine and Repository of Entertaining Knowledge_, Vol. I, for 1792. By a Literary Society. Philadelphia: W. Gibbons, North Third Street, No. 144."

The motto chosen by the editors was "the mind t'improve and yet amuse;"

and the fair s.e.x, who are supposed to have received the proposals for the work with "extraordinary marks of applause," are a.s.sured that "the greatest deference shall be paid to their literary communications," and they are promised month by month offerings of "the most _lively prose_ and _pathetic verse_."

The magazine contains anecdotes, poems, female correspondence, similitude between the Egyptians and Abyssinians, manners and customs of the Egyptians, schemes for increasing the power of the fair s.e.x, essays on ladies' feet, etc., etc. It began June, 1792, and lived until May, 1793.

_The Philadelphia Minerva_ was filled with old and new fugitive pieces.

It was published weekly by W. T. Palmer, at No. 18 North Third Street, beginning in 1795 and ceasing in July, 1798.

_The Pennsylvania Magazine_, of the very slightest significance, was issued in 1795, and made one volume.

_The American Monthly Review or Literary Journal_. Jan.-Aug., 1795.

Phila.: S.[amuel] H.[arrison] Smith.

_The American Annual Register, or Historical Memoirs of the United States_, made one volume in 1796.

_The Literary Museum, or Monthly Magazine_. Jan.-June, 1797. "Printed by Derrick and Sharples, and sold by the princ.i.p.al booksellers in Phila.

Price, one quarter of a dollar."

_The Methodist Magazine_ was founded by John d.i.c.kins in January, 1797, and was edited by him until his death, in 1798 (September 27). It was printed by Henry Tuckness. It was chiefly made up of sermons.

_The American Universal Magazine_ consisted chiefly of selections from other periodicals. The first volume began Monday, January 2, 1797, and was completed March 20, 1797. It was embellished with Du Simitiere's portrait of William Penn. It was "printed by S.[amuel] H.[arrison] Smith for Richard Lee, No. 131 Chestnut Street." It was commenced as a weekly journal, but after January 23 it was published biweekly. After February 6 it was printed by Budd and Bartram, and contained frequent articles favoring the abolition of slavery. It was taken in hand by new printers on March 6, and sent out by Snowden and McCorkle.

The second volume ran from April 3 to June 13, and was printed by the proprietor, Richard Lee, at No. 4 Chestnut Street.

The third volume, July 10, to November 15, 1797, informed the patrons of the publication that the editor "would be a.s.sisted by a gentleman whose literary abilities have been frequently sanctioned by public approbation." It was printed by "Samuel H. Smith and Thomas Smith."

The fourth volume, with which the publication ended, lived from December 5, 1797, to March 7, 1798.

Philadelphia, in 1793, had been visited by the terrible scourge of yellow fever. In 1798 the pestilence returned, and repeated in Philadelphia the horrors recorded of London in the previous century.

During this year certain magazines were published in the city that may almost be called journals of the plague.

_The Philadelphia Monthly Magazine, or Universal Repository of Knowledge and Entertainment_, was begun in January, 1798, and printed for Thomas Condie, stationer in Carter's Alley (No. 20). It lasted through the year, and made two volumes. The publishers appended to the second volume "A History of the Pestilence, commonly called Yellow Fever, which almost desolated Philadelphia in the months of August, September and October, 1798. By Thomas Condie and Richard Folwell." The history contains 108 pages, an appendix of 31 pages, and a list of all the names of those who died of the fever--3,521 in all. In the month of September alone 2,004 persons died of the plague, being one in every twenty-five of the total population.

This magazine contained the first long biographical sketch of Was.h.i.+ngton. The "Memoirs of George Was.h.i.+ngton, Esq., Late President of the U. S.," ran through the months of January, February, March, May and June, 1798.

It is in this magazine that we find the earliest notice of Mrs. Merry, who was the first eminent actress that crossed the ocean. "Biographical Anecdotes of Mrs. Merry of the theatre, Philadelphia, by Thomas Condie,"

April, 1798 (Vol. I, p. 187). With a reputation in England second only to Mrs. Siddons, this brilliant actress was added to the American stage by Mr. Wignal, of the Philadelphia Theatre, who had gone abroad in 1796 to recruit his company and, if possible, to engage some first-rate actors in London. Mrs. Merry arrived at New York in October, 1796, and made her first appearance in the Western World in December in the character of _Juliet_. She was the daughter of John Brunton, of the Norwich Theatre, and the wife of "Della Crusca" Merry, the well-known playwright and author.

_The Weekly Magazine of Original Essays, Fugitive Pieces and Interesting Intelligence_, was begun February 3, 1798. It was conducted by James Watters, of Willing's Alley, a young man who was the manager for Dobson's American edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The first article in the periodical introduces us to the first professional man of letters in America. It is "The Man at Home," by Charles Brockden Brown.

Although unsigned, no one familiar with Brown's style could read a page without discerning him in the short snap-shot sentences of the story. On page 228 of the first volume three pages of the "Sky-Walk" are "extracted from Brown's MSS." The singular t.i.tle of this unfinished story, which was afterward woven into the web of "Edgar Huntley," seems to have been as puzzling to readers then as now, and it is explained in a stray note on page 318 of the magazine as "a popular corruption of Ski-Wakkee, or Big Spring, the name given by the Lenni Lennaffee (sic) or Delaware Indians to the district where the princ.i.p.al scenes of this novel are transacted." "The Man at Home" ran through thirteen numbers of the first volume, which closed on April 28.

In the second volume (page 193) Brown commenced the publication of his first important novel, "Arthur Mervyn, or Memoirs of the Year 1793," the first chapter of which appeared June 16, 1798. It contained vivid descriptions of the scenes during the pestilence of 1793-8. Brown's genius naturally dealt with weird and sombre subjects and extraordinary pa.s.sions and experiences. While occupied with this romantic narrative of the horrors of the plague, his intimate friend, Elihu Hubbard Smith, who had introduced him to the "Friendly Club," in New York, died of the fever, and his own life was for a time in danger by it.

The third volume of the magazine (August 4, 1798-April 6, 1799) was printed by Ezekiel Forman, the young and gifted editor, James Watters, having died of the fever. A commemorative note of the stricken editor is to be found in the number bearing date February 2, 1799 (page 129).

In consequence of Watters' death, no number of the magazine was published between August 25, 1798, and February 9, 1799. The property was then bought from the late editor's mother, and was continued until June 1, 1799, when it came abruptly to an end, leaving the fourth volume unfinished and with only 256 pages.

_The Weekly Magazine_ had carried upon its covers in 1798 a proposal to publish the novel, "Sky Walk, or the Man Unknown to Himself," a few pages of which had been given in the magazine. The ma.n.u.script was known to be with James Watters, but its fate is unknown; it probably was destroyed with the rest of the unfortunate editor's papers.

One other Philadelphia publication was terminated in consequence of the plague, which, although properly cla.s.sified as a newspaper, is yet of so much literary and historical interest that it would seem to deserve a place in this narrative. _Porcupine's Gazette and United States Daily Advertiser_ was published by William Cobbett on Second Street, opposite Christ Church. It was first issued on Sat.u.r.day evening, March 4, 1797.

Up to that time no such cut and thrust weapon had been seen in America, and no such truculent foul-mouthed editor had plucked a pen out of his pilcher by the ears on this side of the Atlantic. We had known editors who were learned in profanity and gifted in vulgarity, but none that had just such a bitter trick of invective as William Cobbett, or "Peter Porcupine," as he was pleased to call himself. He was born at Farnham, in Surrey, in 1762, within a stone's throw of Sir William Temple's Moor Park, where lived for ten years the greatest master of virile and virulent English in all the long annals of our literature. It is a curious coincidence that the first book that fell into the well-nigh penniless hands of Cobbett was "The Tale of a Tub," and in it he discovered and appropriated the secret of Jonathan Swift's burning English.

In Philadelphia, Cobbett advocated the extremest Tory principles, and requested the contributors to his paper, "whether they write on their business or mine, to pay the postage, and place it to my account. This is a regulation I have been obliged to adopt to disappoint certain Democratic blackguards, who, to gratify their impotent malice and put me to expense, send me loving epistles full of curses and bawdry."

During the prevalence of the plague, Cobbett ejected his venomous superfluity upon Dr. Benjamin Rush, comparing him to Doctor Sangrado, in Gil Blas, because he advocated blood-letting as a remedy for the fever.

Rush, stung into retaliation, sued Cobbett, and recovered from him five thousand dollars. This, together with an additional three thousand dollars, the cost of the suit, ruined Cobbett, and he removed to Bustleton, August 29, 1799, where he continued for a short time to publish his "_Gazette_," weekly. The last barbed arrow, quivering with scorn, was fired from Bustleton, January 13, 1800, and the author returned to England.

Cobbett also published, in Philadelphia, _The Political Censor_, or _Monthly Review_, which lasted from March, 1796, to March, 1797.

A German magazine was published in Philadelphia, in 1798: _Philadelphisches Magazin fur die deutschen in Amerika_. Philadelphia: H. and J. R. Kammerer.

_The Dessert to the True American_ measures a year from July, 1798 to July, 1799.

The last magazine published in Philadelphia in the eighteenth century was the _Philadelphia Magazine and Review, or Monthly Repository of Information and Amus.e.m.e.nt_. It was begun in January, 1799, and printed for Benjamin Davies, 68 High Street. In announcing this work, the editor alluded to the unsuccess that had attended all efforts to establish magazines in Philadelphia, and he believed the cause to be the spurious patriotism that led the editors to reject whatever was not of native production. The magazine was strongly "anti-Gallican" in character. It closed its career with its first volume.

I have made no mention in this necessarily incomplete enumeration of the eighteenth century magazines of an early religious publication, _The Royal Spiritual Magazine_, by Joseph Crukshank, 8vo, 1771. A few stray numbers exist, but I have never seen a copy of it. How long it was published I do not know.

Christopher Sauer printed, at irregular intervals, in 1764, the _Geistliches Magazien_. There are fifty numbers in the first volume.

Sauer cast his own type, and this magazine is therefore printed, as he himself says on page 136 of the second volume, with the first type made in America.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

THE PORT FOLIO.

At the beginning of this century Philadelphia was the most attractive city in America to a young man of brains and ambition. It was the seat of an active social, political and literary life. Poet George Webbe noticed in 1728 the leaders.h.i.+p of Philadelphia in all matters pertaining to the higher life of the country, and prophesied:

Rome shall lament her ancient fame declined, And Philadelphia be the _Athens_ of mankind.

General Lee might petulantly exclaim in 1779, "Philadelphia is not an Athens," and Neal might write in _Blackwood's Magazine_ that the Philadelphians were "mutton-headed Athenians," but the name became a favorite one with which to characterize the thriving Pennsylvania town which exercised such sovereign sway and masterdom over its sister cities. Benjamin West, in a letter to Charles Willson Peale (September 19, 1809), predicts that Philadelphia will in time "become the seat of refinement in all accomplishments ... the _Athens_ of the Western Empire." Harrison Hall and the gentlemen who published and maintained the _Port Folio_ always styled Philadelphia the "_Athens_ of America."

As the capital of the government it was the centre of wealth and fas.h.i.+on. Fine old mansions and gardens adorned Chestnut and High Streets; Judge Tilghman in the Carpenter Mansion, Israel Pemberton in Clarke Hall, Thomas Willing, the merchant prince, at Third and Walnut, and his partner, Robert Morris, at Sixth and High Streets, Edward s.h.i.+ppen at Fourth and Walnut, the Norris family in their home upon the site of the U. S. Bank and Custom House, and in their great mansion at Fair Hill, the Hamiltons at Bush Hill and the Woodlands, dispensed lavish hospitality.

William Bingham, father-in-law of the eminent banker Alexander Baring, who was afterwards Lord Ashburton, entertained in grand style. General Was.h.i.+ngton drove out from the Morris mansion along the unpaved streets south of Chestnut Street in a coach drawn by six horses and attended by two footmen. In his stables on Minor Street was a stud of twelve or fourteen horses. General John Cadwallader, father-in-law of the second Lord Erskine, in his great house at Second and Spruce, made liberal use of his immense fortune.

In the first year of this century the University of Pennsylvania, which had played so great a part in the Revolution, and to which Louis XVI had, in 1786, made so generous a donation, was removed to its new home in the s.p.a.cious buildings erected for the executive mansion. The Philadelphia Library, which had been Franklin's first scheme for public improvement, and which had been enriched by the generous gifts of James Logan, was furnis.h.i.+ng such opportunities for literary work as were unknown elsewhere. John Quincy Adams sought in vain to cultivate in Boston the "Wistar parties" that Caspar Wistar had made so famous in Philadelphia. One hundred years ago there was only one scientific foundation within this Republic that was not in Philadelphia, and that was the American Academy in Boston. The American Philosophical Society in its venerable hall in State House Yard numbered Presidents Was.h.i.+ngton, Jefferson and Adams among its members. The best scholars of Europe and America read its "Transactions" or contributed to its "Proceedings." From his private observatory David Rittenhouse made the earliest astronomical observations in this country, and rested his transit instrument upon the ancient stanchions that still maintain their place in the Philosophical Society window looking out upon the fine old trees planted by the father of John Vaughan, secretary and librarian of the society. The only Natural History Museum in this country was opened in 1802 at Third and Lombard by Charles Willson Peale; and far out on the Schuylkill at Gray's Ferry, John Bartram, whom Linnaeus called "the greatest natural botanist of the world," had planted the first botanic garden.

The number of foreign exiles who at this time were moving in Philadelphia society gave a cosmopolitan character to the city, and lent to it the air of foreign capitals. Talleyrand, Beaumais, Vicomte de Noailles and his brother-in-law Lafayette, Volney, the Duc de Liancourt, and General Moreau, and at a later date Joseph Bonaparte and Murat, were but a few of the distinguished members of the "French colony."

JOSEPH DENNIE, the most interesting figure among American editors, came to Philadelphia in 1799 as clerk to Timothy Pickering, who was then Secretary of State, and his brilliant social qualities soon won him recognition in the city. "The American Addison" he was called then, a t.i.tle he had won by the easy grace and pleasing melody of his style.[9]

He was born in Boston, August 30, 1768, and was sent to Harvard College, where he proved a jibbing pupil, and was rusticated for a term of six months. He industriously read all the books that were proscribed by the Faculty, and ignored those studies that were recommended to him. His was a brilliant but undisciplined mind, strongly independent, impetuous, fond of contradiction, full of surprises, "studious of change and fond of novelty," as he often defined himself. Soon after beginning the study of law, Dennie wrote, "In the infancy of a profession 'tis chimerical to talk of undeviating integrity. Let hair-brained enthusiasts prate in their closets as loudly as they please to the contrary, a young adventurer in any walk of life must take advantage of the events and weaknesses of his fellow-mortals, or be content to munch turnip in a cell amidst want and obscurity." Of course, all this is very outrageous, but altogether what we should expect from such "unimproved mettle, hot and full." He abandoned the law, and was among the first men in America to devote himself to literature.