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 leadership 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 fashion. 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 Shippen at Fourth and Walnut, the Norris family in their home upon the site of the U. S. Bank and Custom House, and in their great mansion at Fair Hill, the Hamiltons at Bush Hill and the Woodlands, dispensed lavish hospitality.

William Bingham, father-in-law of the eminent banker Alexander Baring, who was afterwards Lord Ashburton, entertained in grand style. General Washington 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 spacious 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 furnishing 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 Washington, 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 Linnæus 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 title 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.

His first experience in journalism was as editor of the Tablet in Boston, May 19, 1795. The paper lived just thirteen weeks.

Dennie next tried his Bohemian fortunes in Walpole, N. H., and contributed to the Farmer's Weekly Museum, a good and popular journal that had been founded in 1790, the papers entitled "The Lay Preacher," upon which rests his literary fame. Of this magazine he became editor in 1796, and at once gathered about him a number of noble swelling spirits who contributed racy and original reading to the "Farmer's" subscribers.[10]

The publisher became bankrupt in 1798, and Dennie pilgrimaged to Philadelphia, without fortune and without a patron. His service under Pickering was of short duration.

In connection with Asbury Dickins, a son of John Dickins of the Methodist Magazine, he began, January 3, 1801, the publication of the Port Folio, by Oliver Oldschool, Esq., the best of Philadelphia magazines, which he continued to edit until his death, in 1812. Dennie's strong personality and engaging qualities of mind and heart attracted attention, and made him many friends. With genuine editorial tact and skill he drew to himself all the literary ability of the city, which was then "the largest and most literary and most intellectually accomplished city in the Union," to quote the words of a later editor of the Port Folio, Dr. Charles Caldwell. There was scarcely a more picturesque figure in Philadelphia in the first decade of this century than that presented by the editor of the Port Folio. It would be necessary to go to London and to Oliver Goldsmith to find another to outshine this Oliver Oldschool as Buckingham saw him slipping along Chestnut Street to his office "in a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen small-clothes, white silk stockings and pumps, fastened with silver buckles which covered at least half the foot from the instep to the toe." Dennie was but 44 years of age when he died; Buckingham says he was "a premature victim to social indulgence." Those were the days of hard drinking and of high thinking. Nothing so frugal as a cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg would satisfy Dennie's epicurean soul. He was a social creature, and those noctes ambrosianæ of the Tuesday Club when Tom Moore, who celebrated the club in his eighth epistle, or some other lover of Anacreon was the guest, were often kept up until it was too late to go to bed. Wine songs and Martial-like epigrams of pointed indecencies are correspondingly brisk and plentiful in the pages of the Port Folio.

In the introduction to the magazine Dennie stated that the word Port Folio was not to be found in Johnson's Dictionary, and proceeded to define it as "a portable repository for fugitive papers." "Editors," he continued, slyly satirizing his contemporaries, "ambitious of sonorous or brilliant titles, frequently select a name not intimately connected with the nature of their work. We hear of the Mirror and the Aurora; but what relation has a literary essay with a polished plane of glass, or what has politics to do with the morning?[11]" The editor began with a "lilliputian page" because he was warned by "the waywardness of the time." "A waywardness which," he explains, "alludes to our indifference to elegant letters, the acrimony of our party bickerings, and to the universal eagerness for political texts and their commentary.... Amid such 'wild uproar' the gentle voice of the Muse is scarcely audible." In these early years of the century literature was wretchedly paid. John Davis, the vivacious English writer of travels, offered, in 1801, two novels to any bookseller in the country who would publish them, on the condition of receiving fifty copies. The booksellers of New York could not, he said, undertake them, for they were dead of the fever. It is interesting to find Dennie writing in his introduction, "Literary industry, usefully employed, has a sort of draught upon the bank of opulence, and has the right of entry into the mansion of every Mæcenas.... Authors far elevated above the mire of low avarice have thought it debasement to make literature common and cheap."

The Port Folio at once sprang into popular favor. In the life of Josiah Quincy, by his son, we read, "The Port Folio was very far superior in literary ability to any magazine or periodical ever before attempted in this country. Indeed, it was no whit behind the best English magazines of that day, and would bear no unfavorable comparison with those of the present time on either side of the water. Its influence was greatly beneficial in raising the standard of literary taste in this country, and in creating a demand for a higher order of periodical literature and for more exact and careful editorship."

Dennie was a daring and devoted lover of England. He had no patience with American innovations that, as it seemed to him, were certain to lose history by being severed from the traditions of England. When the doctrine of social equality was flaunted before him, or the glittering clauses of the Declaration of Independence were quoted to him, his indignation forgot all discretion. He was soon bandying hot words with the Aurora, and marking with his scorn every new phase of Americanism. Speaking in his editorial person he declared:

"To gratify the malignancy of fanatics he will not asperse the Government or the Church, the laws or the literature of England. Remembering that we are at peace with that power—that the most wholesome portions of our polity are modelled from hers—that we kneel at shrines and speak a language common to both, he will not flagitiously and foolishly advert to ancient animosities, nor with rash hand attempt to hurl the brand of discord between the nations." In the same connection he attacks Gallic philosophy and the equality of man, the latter of which he styles an "execrable delusion of hair-brained philosophy." Others might speak of "the Republic of letters;" with Dennie it was the Monarchy of letters. Several articles ran through the Port Folio of 1801 on the sentiment and style of the Declaration of Independence, characterizing that famous document as a "false and flatulent and foolish paper." In the same volume (page 215) Dennie, offended by the introduction of some new Americanism into politics, writes:

"Unsatisfied with acting like fools, men begin to enlarge their scheme and talk and write from the vocabulary of folly. All this, however, quadrates with the character of a good republican; as he hates England, why not murder English?" In April, 1803, Dennie denounced Democratic Government, and prophesied that of it would come "civil war, desolation and anarchy." His pranks had now become too broad to bear with, and on the Fourth of July this latest publication of his was condemned as "an inflammatory and seditious libel," and a bill of indictment was found. The case was tried in November, 1805, Ingersoll and Hopkinson appearing for the defence. The verdict reached was "not guilty," and Mr. Joseph Dennie had the triumphant pleasure the next week in his report of the case to define democracy for the benefit of his enemies as "a fiend more horrible than any that the imagination of the classical poets ever conjured up from the vasty deep of their Pagan Hell."

When Dennie learned that a certain Noah Webster was to publish "A Columbian Dictionary" containing "American corrections of the English language," he had a few suggestions to offer. The Columbian language he understood to be an elegant dialect of the English, but, he went on, "there is one remark which I would wish with deference to submit to our great lexicographer before I finish this paper. As his dictionary, I understand, is to be the dictionary of the vulgar tongue in New England, would it not be better to prefix to it the epithet Cabotian instead of Columbian? Sebastian Cabot first discovered these Eastern States, and ought not to be robbed of the honor of giving his name to them. I would, therefore, propose calling New England Cabotia, the other States America, and the Southern continent Columbia." He then proposed, in irony, a list of a few "Cabotian words"—happify, gunning, belittle, quiddle, composuist, sot, etc. Lengthy he stigmatizes as "a foolish, flat, unauthorized, unmusical Indian word."[12] In conclusion (Port Folio, I, page 370), "let then the projected volume of foul and unclean things bear his own Christian name and be called Noah's Ark!"

We meet the first notice of Benjamin West, as a boy of 19 years, in Bradford's second American Magazine. In the first volume of the Port Folio we find the first of a long series of sketches in praise of West's genius and generosity. "It is a melancholy and miraculous circumstance," the satirical writer begins, "that this American artist, after experiencing the good fortune to be born and educated in Pennsylvania, should sullenly retreat to England and exchange the glorious privileges of our happy, tranquil and rising Republic for the smoke and servility of the city of London. It is perfectly inexplicable that he should barter citizenship for knighthood, that he should receive a king's money, and, more provoking still, be soothed by regal praise. What are titles, honours and gold to an independent Republican who, remaining at home, might have had the noblest and amplest opportunities of giving away as many pictures as he pleased."

It is a singular history, that of the boy from Chester County, whom Byron called—

The dotard West,
Europe's worst daub, and poor England's best.

The Archbishop of York, for whom he had painted his "Agrippina landing with the Ashes of Germanicus," presented the young American to George III. "The Departure of Regulus from Rome" won for him the royal favor. In 1768 he was one of the founders of the Royal Academy, and in 1792 he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as President of that institution.

The Port Folio is full of accounts of "Christ Healing the Sick," West's generous gift to the Pennsylvania Hospital, and of his "Death on the Pale Horse," and his "Paul and Barnabas" in the Pennsylvania Academy.

In a letter from West to Charles Willson Peale, dated November 3, 1809, and published in the Port Folio of the following year, reference is made to a young gentleman, studying under his directions, "whose talents only want time to mature them to excellence," and West desires his friends in Philadelphia to procure for the young man the means of studying another year. That rising artist, who had early felt the generous assistance of Benjamin West, was Thomas Sully, who had the honor, in 1837-8, of painting the scene of Queen Victoria's coronation, and his daughter, to save her Majesty fatigue, stood for her, wearing the royal robes.

John Trumbull, son of "Brother Jonathan" the patriot, who painted the famous "Declaration of Independence," was imprisoned for treason in London, and was only released by Benjamin West, to whom he had been introduced by Franklin, becoming his surety. Gilbert Stuart, greatest of American portrait painters, who has graven the face of Washington upon our memories, learned his art and received his earliest encouragement in the English home of Benjamin West. It is a matter of interesting and singular memory that a Boston boy, John Singleton Copley, sent anonymously to West, in 1760, a portrait which at once attracted attention. It was "The Boy and the Flying Squirrel," the boy representing Copley's half-brother, Henry Pelham. Through West's influence the picture was exhibited at Somerset House. Through West again, Copley was elected a fellow of the Society of Artists of Great Britain. When he crossed the ocean to make his home near West, he took with him his Boston-born son, John Singleton, Jr., who became in 1827, the year that the Port Folio suspended, Lord Chancellor of England, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Lyndhurst. To Lyndhurst, as the greatest of orators, Lord Lytton dedicated his St. Stephen's.

The leading article of the Port Folio of May 28, 1803, is devoted to young Leigh Hunt, and treats him as an American poet, and assures the public that he "is a deserving object of patronage." Again, in June 11, 1803, some sonnets and odes are quoted from Hunt's Juvenilia, Hunt being then a lad of 19 years, and the author is said to be a "blossom from our own garden." Although the editor lays claim to Leigh Hunt as a Philadelphian and to his works as American, he is advised to abide in London: "Let him remain in London, 'the metropolis of the civilized world,' and remember with the judicious Sancho that St. Peter is very well at Rome.... It affords the editor the purest pleasure to have it in his power to advance the claims of a child of genius, a nephew of Sir Benjamin West, an honor to that country from which he is descended and to that which protects him."

Isaac Hunt, the father of the author of "The Story of Rimini," and Benjamin West married sisters, daughters of Stephen Shewell, merchant, in Philadelphia. Leigh Hunt, in 1810, writing in the Monthly Mirror, gave an eloquent and tender description of his mother, Mary Shewell, which was reprinted in the Analectic Magazine of Philadelphia, in 1814. "Here, indeed," he exclaimed, "I could enlarge both seriously and proudly; for if any one circumstance of my life could give me cause for boasting, it would be that of having had such a mother. She was indeed a mother in every exalted sense of the word, in piety, in sound teaching, in patient care, in spotless example." The father, Isaac Hunt, came to Philadelphia from the Barbadoes, was graduated at the College of Philadelphia, read law in the city, and was admitted to the bar in 1765. He was an uncompromising Tory. It is said that on one occasion he pointed out to a bookseller a volume of reports of trials for high treason as a proper book for John Adams to read. Alexander Graydon, one of the faithful contributors to the Port Folio, in his "Memoirs of a Life Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania," relates the following incident which, no doubt, led to the accident of Leigh Hunt's birth in England, and to the loss of "Abou ben Adhem" to America: "A few days after the carting of Mr. Kearsley, Mr. Isaac Hunt, the attorney, was treated in the same manner, but he managed the matter much better than his precursor. Instead of braving his conductors, like the Doctor, Mr. Hunt was a pattern of meekness and humility; and at every halt that was made he rose and expressed his acknowledgments to the crowd for their forbearance and civility. After a parade of an hour or two, he was set down at his own door, as uninjured in body as in mind. He soon after removed to one of the islands, if I mistake not, to Barbadoes, where, it is understood, he took orders."

Leigh Hunt was not the only English poet of far-shining fame who was of American origin. Percy Bysshe Shelley was the grandson of a quack doctor in Newark, N. J., who, according to a local tradition, married the widow of a New York miller. Fitz-Greene Halleck lived and died in an old house in Guilford, Connecticut, built upon ground that had belonged to Bysshe Shelley, before he went to England and became master of Castle Goring. Many another great life in England was bound with strands of intimate connection to the history of America. John Keats's brother George made his home in Kentucky, and his descendants are still residents of Philadelphia. Tench Francis, the merchant, who was for many years the agent for the Penns in their domain, and who was the first cashier of the Bank of North America, was a cousin of Sir Philip Francis, the reputed author of the "Junius" letters. Sir Philip wrote to Tench's brother, Turbott, whom he called, familiarly, "Tubby:" "At present I am bound to the Ganges, but who knows whether I may not end my days on the banks of the Ohio? It gives me great comfort to reflect that I have relatives, who are honest fellows, in almost every part of the world. In America the name of Francis flourishes. I don't like to think of the quantity of salt water between us. If it were claret I would drink my way to America." The name of Francis certainly flourishes in Philadelphia. The intricate little settlement of Francisville, within the city, perpetuates the name of the family.

It has always been asserted and believed that Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, of New York, was the first American editor of Shakespeare. A few jottings from the Port Folio will show that he has too rashly been placed upon the pinnacle, and that the honor justly belongs to Joseph Dennie.

The Port Folio of February 11, 1804 (p. 46) advertises "the first complete edition of Shakespeare in this country, from the text of the best editors of Shakespeare. To be published by Hugh Maxwell and Thomas S. Manning." No editor's name is mentioned, but in the following month (March 10, 1804) Dennie tells the whole story: "The editor, having, at the request of his publisher, undertaken to superintend a new edition of the Plays of Shakespeare, is particularly desirous of inspecting the first folio edition. This is probably very scarce, and may be found only in the cabinet of some distant virtuoso. But the owner of this rare book will be very gratefully thanked if the editor can have permission to consult it for a short season." Later on (April 14, p. 119) Dennie confesses some further "wants:" "During some weeks in which the editor has been engaged in researches respecting the text of Shakespeare he has had frequent occasion to acknowledge the kindness of many literary gentlemen who have directed his attention to many books auxiliary to his labors. But notwithstanding his own inquisitiveness and the aid of others, he still has not had the good fortune to find the following, for the whole or any one of which he will be particularly obliged:—'Remarks on Shakespeare's Tempest,' 'An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff, by Mr. Maurice Morgan, 8 vo, 1777,'" etc., etc.

After this there can be no doubt that the useful notes to the 1807 edition, signed "J. D.," are from the pen of Joseph Dennie. Although he edited but one volume, he is the first American editor, and the honors are transferred from New York to Philadelphia.

Charles Brockden Brown was the first man in America to cultivate literature as a profession; Dennie was the second. When inaugurating the Port Folio he wrote of himself: "He has long been urged by a sober wish, or, if the sneering reader will have it so, he has long been deluded by the visionary whim, of making literature the handmaid of fortune, or at least of securing something like independence, by exertion, as a man of letters."

Of course Dennie and his colleagues who drew their poetry from Pope and their prose from Addison had no sympathy with the new romantic poetry that at the time of the birth of the Port Folio was issuing from the English Lakes. "William Wordsworth" said the Port Folio of 1809 "stands among the foremost of those English bards who have mistaken silliness for simplicity, and, with a false and affected taste, filled their papers with the language of children and clowns" (P. F., Vol. VII, p. 256).

The first American edition of Wordsworth was published in Philadelphia in 1802. It is exceedingly rare, and bears the following imprint:

The earliest notice of John Howard Payne is in the Port Folio, new series, Vol. I, p. 101 (1806). Payne was then a lad of fourteen years, and already editor of the Thespian Mirror in New York.

The Port Folio, new series, Vol. II, p. 421, contains an account of the first dramatic performance composed in North Carolina, "Nolens Volens; or, The Biter Bit," written by Everard Hall, a gentleman of North Carolina.

Dennie died January 7, 1812, and was buried in St. Peter's churchyard. A monument was erected to him, and the inscription carved upon it, which errs only in the place of his nativity, was written by his friend, John Quincy Adams:

Joseph Dennie,
Born at Lexington, Massachusetts,
August 30, 1768;
Died at Philadelphia, January 7, 1812;
Endowed with talents and qualified by education
To adorn the senate and the bar;
But following the impulse of a genius
Formed for converse with the muses
He devoted his life to the literature of his country.
As author of "The Lay Preacher,"
And as first editor of the Port Folio,
He contributed to chasten the morals, and to
Refine the taste of this nation.
To an imagination lively, not licentious,
A wit sportive, not wanton,
And a heart without guile, he
United a deep sensibility, which endeared
Him to his friends, and an ardent piety,
Which we humbly trust recommended him
to his God.
Those friends have erected this tribute of their
Affection to his memory;
To the mercies of that God is their resort
For themselves and for him.
MDCCCXIX.

John Quincy Adams, who wrote the lines upon the monument, was an old and valued friend of Dennie's, and one of the earliest contributors to the Port Folio.

His "Tour Through Silesia," afterward reprinted in London in two octavo volumes, first appeared in the Port Folio in 1801. He also contributed to the first number of the magazine a version of the thirteenth satire of Juvenal, and intended to continue the translation of Juvenal, but abandoned the project when Gifford's work was announced. A brother of John Quincy Adams, who was a resident of Philadelphia, had been a fellow-student with Dennie at Harvard.

The obituary notice of Dennie in the Port Folio of February, 1812, did not satisfy his friends. His life was related at greater length, accompanied by a silhouette, in May, 1816 (Port Folio, page 361). This time the affection and admiration for the man found right expression. It was said that Dennie had "erected the first temple to the muses on his natal shore;" and "when the Muse of History shall hereafter narrate the story of our rapid progress from ignorance, poverty and feebleness, to knowledge, splendor and strength, the name of Dennie will be inscribed among the most worthy of those who laboured to procure these invaluable blessings" (page 170).

A complete list of the contributors to the Port Folio would be the history of literature in Philadelphia for the first quarter of this century. The articles were almost never signed, and while the thin disguises of assumed names are in most cases easily penetrable, some that occur infrequently are only identified with much difficulty.

The last editor of the Port Folio, Mr. John E. Hall, published in 1826 "The Philadelphia Souvenir, a collection of fugitive pieces from the Philadelphia press, with biographical and explanatory notes." The book was intended to be "a sort of cairn to the memory of the circle of friends which Mr. Moore has commemorated in his immortal poems." The commemoration to which Mr. Hall refers is found in Moore's "eighth epistle," addressed "To the Honourable W. R. Spencer:"

Yet, yet forgive me, oh you sacred few,
Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew;
Whom, known and lov'd through many a social eve,
'Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave.
Not with more joy the lonely exile scann'd
The writing traced upon the desert sand,
Where his lone breast but little hop'd to find
One trace of life, one stamp of human kind,
Than did I hail the pure, th' enlightened zeal,
The strength to reason and the warmth to feel,
The manly polish and the illumin'd taste,
Which,—'mid the melancholy, heartless waste
My foot has travers'd,—oh you sacred few!
I found by Delaware's green banks with you.

The only pleasant memories of America that Thomas Moore carried back with him to England were of the "nights of mirth and mind" spent "where Schuylkill winds his way through banks of flowers." He was in Philadelphia in the autumn of 1804, and was lionized by the Port Folio; the eighth epistle in the "Poems Relating to America," from which the lines above are quoted, was written at Buffalo, and it was from Buffalo also that Moore sent to Dennie the manuscript of the beautiful "Lines on Leaving Philadelphia," which was published in the Port Folio of August 31, 1805 (Vol. V, p. 271), and reprinted in Brockden Brown's Literary Magazine, January, 1806 (Vol. III, p. 27).

LINES WRITTEN ON LEAVING PHILADELPHIA.

Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer rov'd,
And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;
But far, very far were the friends that he lov'd,
And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh.
O Nature, though blessed and bright are thy rays,
O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown,
Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays
In a smile from the heart that is fondly our own!
Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain
Unblest by the smile that he languished to meet;
Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again,
Till the threshold of home had been prest by his feet.
But the lays of his boyhood had stol'n to their ear,
And they lov'd what they knew of so humble a name;
And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear,
That they found in his heart something better than fame.
Nor did woman—O woman! whose form and whose soul
Are the spell and the light of each path we pursue;
Whether sunn'd in the tropics or chill'd at the pole,
If a woman be there, there is happiness too.
Nor did she her enamouring magic deny,—
That magic his heart had relinquished so long,—
Like eyes he had loved was her eloquent eye,
Like them did it soften and weep at his song.
Oh, blest be the tear, and in memory oft
May its sparkle be shed o'er the wanderer's dream;
Thrice blest be that eye, and may passion as soft,
As free from a pang, ever mellow its beam!
The stranger is gone—but he will not forget,
When at home he shall talk of the toils he has known,
To tell with a sigh what endearments he met,
As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone.

It is interesting to remember that the woman in the poem,

Like eyes he had loved was her eloquent eye,

was the wife of Joseph Hopkinson, the author of "Hail Columbia," whose house at Fourth and Chestnut Streets was the resort of Dennie and the wits.

Moore also contributed to the Port Folio "When Time who steals our Hearts Away," "Dear, in Pity do not Speak," "Good-night, Good-night, and is it so?" "When the Heart's Feeling," "Loud sung the Wind," and "The Sorrow long has worn my Heart."

Among the Port Folio gentlemen who may have met "Anacreon" Moore, and who were Dennie's faithful coadjutors, were John Blair Linn, John Shaw, Francis Cope, Robert H. Rose, Thomas I. Wharton, Charles J. Ingersoll and his brother Edward, Condy Raguet, Robert Walsh, John Sanderson, John Syng Dorsey, Royall Tyler, Robert Hare, Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, Alexander Graydon, Josiah Quincy, John Leeds Bozman, William B. Wood, General Thomas Cadwalader, Philip Hamilton, Richard Rush, Richard Peters, Gouverneur Morris, Joseph Hopkinson, Horace Binney, Alexander Wilson, Charles Brockden Brown and Samuel Ewing. To this list must be added the bright names of Sarah Hall, Mrs. Elizabeth Ferguson and Harriet Fenno.

The editors and editorial helpers of the Port Folio from the death of Dennie until 1827, when the magazine finally ceased, were Paul Allen, Nicholas Biddle, Dr. Charles Caldwell, Thomas Cooper, Judge Workman, John Elihu Hall, and his three brothers James, Thomas Mifflin, and Harrison.

John Blair Linn (1777-1804), the author of the "Powers of Genius" (1801), a popular work which was splendidly reprinted in London,[13] was the son of Dr. William Linn, of Shippensburg, who presided successively over the destinies of three colleges—Washington, Rutgers and Union—and was for many years a regent of a fourth—the University of the State of New York. John Blair was graduated from Columbia, read law with Alexander Hamilton, wrote an unsuccessful drama, "Bourville Castle," and on June 13, 1799, was installed as joint-pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. He engaged in controversy with Joseph Priestley, but his best achievements were "Valerian," a narrative poem, and "The Death of Washington" (1800). John Blair Linn was a brother-in-law of Charles Brockden Brown. A biographical sketch of him was written for the Port Folio in 1809 (page 21), and again in 1811 (89-97). Brown also published a review of his life and work in the Literary Magazine, Vol. II, page 554.

John Shaw (1778-1809) was born in Annapolis, May 4, 1778, and lost at sea January 10, 1809. He studied medicine in the University of Pennsylvania, and visited Algiers as a ship-surgeon in 1798. He died on a voyage to the Bahama Islands.

The best poem that he contributed to the Port Folio was:

Who has robbed the ocean cave,
To tinge thy lips with coral hue?
Who from India's distant wave
For thee those pearly treasures drew?
Who, from yonder Orient sky,
Stole the morning of thine eye?
Thousand charms thy form to deck,
From sea, and earth, and air are born;
Roses bloom upon thy cheek,
On thy breath their fragrance borne.
Guard thy bosom from the day,
Lest thy snows should melt away.
But one charm remains behind,
Which mute earth can ne'er impart;
Nor in ocean wilt thou find,
Nor in the circling air, a heart.
Fairest! wouldst thou perfect be,
Take, oh take that heart from me.

All his offerings to the Port Folio were signed "Ithacus." His poems were collected and published in 1810, together with a memoir and extracts from his foreign correspondence.

Francis Cope contributed essays to the Port Folio in 1812. He was an occasional writer for several years, signing his papers with the initials "C. F."

Robert H. Rose is the author of the "Sketches in Verse," published in 1810, nearly all of which had previously appeared in the Port Folio, where the "Sketches" were termed "a kind of chalk drawings." One of them, "To a Market Street Gutter," was a parody of the "Ode to the Raritan," and was the cause of John Davis writing the "Pursuits of Philadelphia Literature."[14]

The Port Folio of May, 1816 (page 361), has a frontispiece engraving of "Silver Lake," the seat of Robert Rose, in Susquehanna County, on the New York line.

ODE TO A MARKET STREET GUTTER.

A Specimen of Local Description.

O sweetest Gutter! though a clown,
I love to see thee running down;
Or mark thee stop awhile, then free
From ice, jog on again, like me;
Or like the lasses whom I meet,
Who, sauntering, stray along the street,
As if they had nowhere to go!
At times, so rapid is thy flow,
That did the cits not wish in vain
Thou wouldst be in the pumps again,
But like a pig, whose fates deny
To find again his wonted sty,
You turn, and stop, and run, and turn,
Yet ne'er shall find your "native urn."
How oft has rolled down thy stream
Things which in song not well would seem,
Ere scavengers their scrapers plied
To drag manure from out thy tide,
Or hydrants bade thy scanty rill
Desert its banks and cellars fill.
Last Thursday morn, so very cold,
A morn not better felt than told,
Then first in all its bright array,
Did I thy "frozen form" survey;
And, goodness! what a great big steeple!
What sights of houses! and such people!!
And then I thought, did I not stutter,
But verse could, like some poets, utter,
How much I'd praise thee, sweetest Gutter!

After the publication of this parody John Davis printed "The Philadelphia Pursuits of Literature. By Juvenal Junius of New Jersey. Phila.: John Davis, 1805."

"Then Muses aid me! and I'll fain review
The Philadelphia lounging scribbling crew."

Davis had met the gentlemen of the Port Folio and had all the information necessary for stinging satire of the Mutual Admiration Society that met at Meredith's and Hopkinson's or at Dennie's office. In his "Travels" (p. 203), he writes: "At Philadelphia I found Mr. Brown (C. B.), who felt no remission of his literary diligence by a change of abode (from New York). He was ingratiating himself into the favor of the ladies by writing a new novel, and rivalling Lopez de Vega by the multitude of his works. Mr. Brown introduced me to Mr. (Asbury) Dickins, and Mr. Dickins to Mr. Dennie; Mr. Dennie presented me to Mr. Wilkins, and Mr. Wilkins to the Rev. Mr. Abercrombie; a constellation of American geniuses, in whose blaze I was almost consumed.... Rev. Mr. Abercrombie was impatient of every conversation that did not relate to Dr. Johnson, of whom he could detail every anecdote from the time he trod on a duck till he purchased an oak-stick to repulse Macpherson."[15]

In the "Philadelphia Pursuits" Davis wrote of Dennie:

"There's no clown from Walpole to Hell-Gate,
But ribaldry from him has learned to prate."

And again:

"Such is our Dennie! high exalted name,
Eager alike for dollars and for fame."

Two Philadelphians only escaped the sting of the adder:

"With Clifton, Nature's poet, who shall vie?
Though low he lies, his works shall never die.
And Linn, distinguish'd for his moral lays,
Shall, by his strain, Columbia's triumph raise."

"The Sketches in Verse" was magnificently printed for C. and A. Conrad by Smith and Maxwell in 1810.

To "a pastoral love-ditty" that began—

"Where Schuylkill o'er his rocky bed
Roars, like a bull in battle"—

Rose appended the note:

"Our American names, although some of them are truly savage, are not much worse than many of those with which we might be furnished by other nations in abundance; and Schuylkill would not have offended the ears of Boileau more than the Whal and the Leck, the Issel and the Zuiderzee."

Thomas I. Wharton (1791-1856), a distinguished Philadelphia lawyer, was a frequent contributor, and for a time was editor of the Analectic Magazine.

Charles J. Ingersoll, the author of "Inchiquin the Jesuit's Letters on American Literature and Politics," was born in Philadelphia, October 3, 1782, and died there May 14, 1862. His first boyish composition is in the Port Folio of October 24, 1801. It is entitled "Chiomara," and is introduced by the editor as the work of a "youth ambitious of the fame of Chatterton." Chiomara is a Gaul, who kills a Roman in defence of her honor.

Edward Ingersoll, a younger brother of Charles, wrote poems for the Port Folio on the events of the times, and named them "Horace in Philadelphia." All his poems, of whatever nature, were signed "Horace."

Condy Raguet (1784-1842) published in the Port Folio some interesting letters on the "Massacre of St. Domingo." He had gone as supercargo to Hayti, and lived there during the exciting scenes of the Revolution. He also contributed numerous papers to the Port Folio upon "Free Trade."

John Sanderson (1783-1844) was professor of Greek and Latin in the Philadelphia Central High School. He wrote, at the suggestion of Theodore Hook, a capital volume of Parisian sketches, called the "American in Paris," which Jules Janin translated into French. Portions of his "American in London" appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine. He successfully opposed, in a pamphlet signed "Riberjot," the plan of excluding the classical languages from Girard College. He was an intimate friend of John E. Hall, and contributed to the Port Folio.

John Syng Dorsey (1783-1818) succeeded Dr. Wistar as professor of anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania. He published an edition of Cooper's "Surgery," and "Elements of Surgery," the latter of which was adopted as the text-book in Edinburgh.

Royall Tyler was born in Boston, near Faneuil Hall, July 18, 1757. He studied law under John Adams, was made a judge of the Supreme Court in 1794, and, in 1800, became chief justice. He was one of the closest friends of Joseph Dennie, and when the latter became editor of the Farmer's Weekly Museum he wrote for him a medley of verse and social and political skits under the general title "From the Shop of Messrs. Colon and Spondee."

These papers he continued to write for the Port Folio. They "are divided between Federal politics, attacks on French democracy, the Della Cruscan literature, and the fashionable frivolities of the day." He also wrote for the Port Folio, in 1801, a series of similarly varied articles, richly reminiscent, entitled "An Author's Evenings."

Robert Hare (1781-1858), father of Judge J. I. C. Hare, who was professor of chemistry and natural philosophy in William and Mary College, and, later, professor of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, published a number of moral essays in the Port Folio under the pen-name of "Eldred Grayson."

Dr. Nathaniel Chapman (1783-1850) used the pen-name of "Falkland."

Alexander Graydon (1752-1818), a man of elegant manners and author of a useful and entertaining volume of "Memoirs of a Life chiefly passed in Pennsylvania within the last Sixty Years," published, in the Port Folio, in 1813-14, a series of chatty paragraphs styled "Notes of a Desultory Reader." He lived in the "Slate-Roof House," at Second Street and Norris' Alley, where he had an opportunity of meeting men of rank and fame.

Josiah Quincy (1772-1864), whose opinion of the Port Folio has been already quoted, contributed to it a series of articles, beginning January 28, 1804, in the style of Swift, and signed "Climenole."[16]

John Leeds Bozman (1757-1823) studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and read law in the Middle Temple, London. He contributed both prose and verse to the Port Folio.

General Thomas Cadwalader (1779-1841) furnished the magazine with translations of Horace.

Richard Rush (1780-1859) was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1800, and successfully defended William Duane, of the Aurora, on a charge of libelling Gov. Thomas McKean. He occasionally contributed official and personal anecdotes to the Port Folio.

Richard Peters (1744-1828), the witty judge of Belmont, extended princely hospitality at his country seat. His association with the most distinguished men of Europe and America stored his memory with the choicest bits of political and personal history. These odd old ends, stolen out of the secret chronicles of the time, and decked with his rare wit, were given upon irregular occasions to the Port Folio.

Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816) contributed political satires in both prose and verse to Dennie and his confrères.

Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842), whose authorship of "Hail Columbia" has been already referred to, wrote the articles upon Shakespeare that appeared in the Port Folio between 1801 and 1806. His house at Fourth and Chestnut Streets was a favorite meeting-place for Dennie and the wits.

Horace Binney (1780-1875), one of the most distinguished lawyers at a time when a Philadelphia lawyer was a synonym for skill and cleverness, wrote in moments, snatched from a busy and almost breathless profession, some of the clearest and most careful sketches of classical literature, as well as the shrewdest of political satires to be found in the early volumes of the Port Folio.

Harriet Fenno, daughter of John Ward Fenno, founder and editor of the United States Gazette, signed her verses "Violetta."

Mrs. Elizabeth Ferguson was the woman who carried to Washington the letter written by Dr. Duché urging concessions to the British as the only means of saving the country from spoliation and ruin. She was a daughter of Dr. Thomas Graeme, a Scottish physician, and granddaughter of Sir William Keith. Father and daughter lived for a time in the Slate-Roof House, then in the Carpenter mansion at Sixth and Chestnut, and finally at Graeme Hall in Montgomery County. Her life was written in the Port Folio of 1809 (Page 524). Letters from her appear in various numbers of that magazine, always signed "Laura." Nathaniel Evans wooed Miss Graeme as "Laura" in true Petrarchan fashion. The Philadelphia Library possesses the MS. of a translation of Fénelon by Mrs. Ferguson.

She visited Europe in company with Dr. Richard Peters, of Philadelphia, and everywhere her brilliant conversation and refined manners won her recognition and applause in literary society. Laurence Sterne was fascinated by her. "She took a seat upon the same stage with him at the York races. While bets were making upon different horses, she selected a small horse that was in the rear of the coursers as the subject of a trifling wager. Upon being asked the reason for doing so, she said 'the race was not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong.' Mr. Sterne, who stood near to her, was struck with this reply, and turning hastily toward her begged for the honor of her acquaintance. They soon became sociable, and a good deal of pleasant conversation took place between them to the great entertainment of the surrounding company" (Knapp, "Female Biography," page 217).

She wrote a parody upon Pope which was printed with Nathaniel Evans' poems (1772):

How happy is the country parson's lot!
Forgetting bishops, as by them forgot;
Tranquil of spirit, with an easy mind,
To all his vestry's votes he sits resigned.
Of manners gentle and of temper even,
He jogs his flocks, with easy pace, to heaven.
In Greek and Latin pious books he keeps,
And, while his clerk sings psalms, he—soundly sleeps.
His garden fronts the sun's sweet orient beams,
And fat church-wardens prompt his golden dreams.
The earliest fruit in his fair orchard blooms,
And cleanly pipes pour out tobacco fumes.
From rustic bridegroom oft he takes the ring,
And hears the milkmaid plaintive ballads sing.
Back-gammon cheats whole winter nights away,
And Pilgrim's Progress helps a rainy day.

Alexander Wilson was born in Paisley, Scotland, July 6, 1766, and died in Philadelphia, August 23, 1813. "The Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson" was edited by A. B. Grosart, and published at Paisley in 1876. "With the exception of Allen Ramsay, Ferguson and Burns, none of our Scottish vernacular poets have been so continuously kept in print as Alexander Wilson" (Grosart). Seven biographies of him attest the lively interest felt in his personality and his work. In Scotland he was apprenticed to a weaver, and, after serving his time, he continued to work at the loom for four years more. He published "Watty and Meg" in 1792, an anonymous poem, the authorship of which was commonly ascribed to Robert Burns. He came to America in 1794, worked for a year at his trade, and subsequently taught at various schools in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 1802 he settled at Kingsessing, now in the city of Philadelphia, close by the home of Bartram, the botanist. Here he taught the "Union" School. It was in a picturesque spot. Before its doors were cedars and "stripling poplars planted in a row, and old gray white oaks."

But birds were more attractive to him than boys. They commanded him, as the nightingale did the gypsy steward, and he followed them into untrodden wildernesses. Thomas Bradford undertook to publish Wilson's colossal "Ornithology." It was to be distinctly an "American" work. It was to be printed on American paper; and Amies, the paper-maker, even declared that he would use only "American" rags in making it. Seven volumes appeared during the author's life, or between 1808 and 1813.

Wilson published the "Rural Walk" in Brown's Literary Magazine of August, 1804, and the "Solitary Tutor" in the same publication, October, 1804. The former poem was reprinted in the Port Folio of April 27, 1805. Dennie was charmed with the poem, and explained that he reprinted it because the author "delights in pictures of American scenery and landscape, and wisely therefore leaves to European poets their nightingales and skylarks, and their dingles and dells. He makes no mention of yews and myrtles, nor echoes a single note of either bullfinch or chaffinch, but faithfully describes American objects, though not entirely in the American idiom." The following four stanzas from the "Rural Walk" may give a conception of Wilson's close observation and nice fidelity to nature.

"Down to the left was seen afar
The whitened spire of sacred name,[17]
And ars'nal, where the god of war
Has hung his spears of bloody fame.
"There upward where it (Schuylkill) gently bends,
And Say's red fortress tow'rs in view,[18]
The floating bridge its length extends—
A lively scene forever new.
"There market-maids in lively rows,
With wallets white, were riding home,
And thundering gigs, with powdered beaux,
Through Gray's green festive shades to roam.
"Sweet flows the Schuylkill's winding tide
By Bartram's green emblossom'd bowers,
Where nature sports in all her pride
Of choicest plants and fruits and flowers."

Wilson, in 1804, undertook a journey to Niagara. The adventures by the way and the sight of the stupendous cataract supply the theme of his longest and most ambitious poem, "The Foresters." It was published with illustrations in successive numbers of the Port Folio of 1809, Volumes I, II and III. The entire poem contained 2,000 lines. The Literary Magazine contains a part of the poem. This appearance, I believe, has never been noted. It is to be found in Volume IV, page 155. The lines were written August 12, 1805, and were published in the same month. In the literary intelligence of the same month the future publication of "The Foresters" is glanced at.

A prose letter and a poem, "The Pilgrim," by Wilson, are in the Port Folio, June, 1809, page 499. Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon met in Louisville, Ky., whither the latter had gone after disposing of his farm upon the Perkiomen Creek, near Philadelphia. Wilson conceived a dislike for Audubon, and wrote to the Port Folio concerning Louisville, "Science or literature has not one friend in this place." Audubon, into whose mind no thought of publishing his own fine drawings had yet come, refused out of jealousy to add his name to the subscription list for Wilson's "American Ornithology." Robert Buchanan wrote, "If Audubon had one marked fault it was vanity; he was a queer compound of Actæon and Narcissus—having a gun in one hand and flourishing a looking-glass in the other." Grosart is much too severe when he styles Audubon "a great dilettante impostor."

After Wilson's death three supplementary volumes to his "Ornithology" were added by Charles Lucien Bonaparte, and it was Lucien Bonaparte's son, Prince Canino, who first suggested to Audubon the publication of his collections.

One of Wilson's most intimate friends was the engraver Alexander Lawson, with whom he became acquainted through William Bartram, and from whom he learned to draw. Lawson was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, December 19, 1772. He came to Philadelphia in 1792, engraved four plates for Thomson's "Seasons" for Thomas Dobson, and died in 1846. His daughter, Mary Lockhart, was a contributor to Graham's Magazine.

It was Wilson's wish that he should be buried "in some rural spot where the birds might sing over his grave." His wish was fulfilled, and his body was laid away in the quiet old-world burial ground of old Swedes' Church.

Samuel Ewing was born in Philadelphia August 16, 1776. He was placed in the counting house of John Swanwick. Upon the failure of his employer, Ewing studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1800. He was a contributor to the Port Folio from the first. He wrote for it a series of articles, entitled "Reflections in Solitude." All his contributions were signed "Jacques."

In 1809 he founded The Select Reviews and Spirit of the Foreign Magazines, which he edited for three years, until it was sold to Mr. Thomas and the title changed to the Analectic, when the editorship passed into the hands of Washington Irving. Samuel Ewing helped to establish the Athenæum in Philadelphia, and was for a time vice-president of that institution. He died in Philadelphia, February 8, 1825. Samuel Ewing's father was the Rev. Dr. John Ewing, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, whose contributions have been noted in the earlier magazines. A short account of his life is prefixed to his lectures on natural philosophy, "A Plain Elementary and Practical System of Natural Experimental Philosophy. By the late Rev. John Ewing. Philadelphia, 1809. Revised by Robert Patterson." John Ewing was born June 22, 1732, in Nottingham, Cecil County, Maryland; was graduated from Princeton 1752; received the degree of D.D. from Edinburgh; enjoyed the friendship of Robertson, the historian, and died in Philadelphia, September 8, 1802. An interesting anecdote is related in the life of Dr. Ewing (page 16). In 1773 he dined at Dilly's with Dr. Johnson. He remembered the silence that fell when Johnson entered the room. "He attended to nothing but his plate; ... having eaten voraciously, he raised his head slowly, and looking round the table surveyed the guests for the first time." The conversation turning upon America, Ewing defended the colonies. "What do you know, sir, on the subject?" Johnson demanded. Ewing had been cautioned to avoid contradiction, but the warning was forgotten. "Sir, what do you know in America; you never read; you have no books there," thundered on the "great cham." "Pardon me, sir," blandly replied the Philadelphian, "we have read the 'Rambler.'" This civility instantly pacified him.

This anecdote reminds us that the Americans did not always fall their crests when in the presence of Dr. Johnson. It is a familiar story that when Johnson demanded of Gilbert Stuart, "Sir, where did you learn English?" the ready-witted young artist replied, "Out of your dictionary, sir." Bishop William White, first Bishop of Pennsylvania, has left, in a letter to Bishop Hobart, his memory of an interview with "that giant of genius and literature, Dr. Samuel Johnson." "Having dined in company with him in Kensington, at the house of Mr. Elphinstone, well known to scholars of that day, and returning in the stage-coach with the doctor, I mentioned to him there being a Philadelphia edition of his 'Prince of Abyssinia.' He expressed a wish to see it. I promised to send him a copy on my return to Philadelphia, and did so. He returned a polite answer, which I printed in Mr. Boswell's second edition of his 'Life of the Doctor.'" Richard Rush relates in the Port Folio that when his father, Dr. Benjamin Rush, attended a meeting of "The Club" in London, Goldsmith asked him a question about the North American Indians, when Johnson remarked that there was not an Indian in North America foolish enough to ask such a question. Whereupon Goldsmith retorted, "There is not a savage in America, sir, rude enough to make such a speech to a gentleman."

Dr. Ewing's daughter, Sarah, born in Philadelphia October 30, 1761, married John Hall, of Baltimore, the son of a Maryland planter. In January, 1824, she contributed to the Port Folio "A Picture of Philadelphia as it is." In a letter to a Scotchwoman (1821) she wrote: "Your flattering inquiry about my literary career may be answered in a word. Literature has no career in America. It is like wine, which we are told must cross the ocean to make it good." Sarah Hall died in Philadelphia April 8, 1830.

Her eldest son, John Elihu Hall, was born in Philadelphia December 27, 1783; studied law, and edited the American Law Journal 1808-1817. He was for a time professor of rhetoric in the University of Maryland. In the Port Folio of March, 1806, encouraged by Thomas Moore, he commenced the publication of the "Memoirs of Anacreon," but suspended the work after a few instalments had appeared. In 1820 (Vol. IX, p. 401), he resumed the articles. Most of the Anacreontic odes occur, and the "biographical tissue" gave the papers a resemblance to Hardwicke's "Athenian Letters" and to the "Anacharsis" of Abbé Barthelemy. "Sedley" was the signature used by J. E. Hall in his Port Folio papers. In 1812 he published serially in that magazine his literary miscellany, entitled "Adversaria."

His brother, James, born in Philadelphia August 19, 1793, died near Cincinnati, July 15, 1868, published in the Port Folio of 1821 his "Letters from the West," afterward published in book form by John Elihu. Another brother, Thomas Mifflin Hall (1798-1828), wrote several poems for the magazine. Harrison Hall (1785-1866), a third brother, published the Port Folio and wrote a book on "Distillation," which went through several editions here, and was reprinted in England.

John Elihu Hall became editor of the Port Folio in February, 1816. Its history up to that time may be briefly stated. It was at first a weekly quarto, printed by H. Maxwell and sold by William Fry, opposite Christ Church. In 1806 the quarto size was changed to octavo. In 1809 the magazine appeared monthly instead of weekly, and continued from that time to be a monthly publication. In the prospectus issued at the time of this change the magazine was said to be "edited by Oliver Oldschool, assisted by a confederacy of men of letters." In its new dress it "cherished the hope that it might bear a comparison with any of the foreign journals." In 1804 the price had been raised to six dollars. The issue of July 21, 1804, was in deep black lines, in mourning for Alexander Hamilton. The issue of July 23, 1808, was a memorial number to Fisher Ames. The "Oliver Oldschool" figurehead was abandoned in January, 1811, and "conducted by Jos. Dennie, Esq.," took its place; for, the editor explained, "Since the magazine is no longer political, the appellation of Oliver Oldschool is no longer expedient or necessary." During Dennie's last illness his place in the editorial chair was taken by Paul Allen (1775-1826), who wrote poems, and prepared the "Travels of Lewis and Clarke" for the press, and who must not be confounded with another eccentric Bohemian, James Allen, brother to the Sheriff of Suffolk, who wrote under the inspiration of the West Indian muses—sugar, rum and lemon-juice—who "wore ruffles—and they hung in tatters about his knuckles."

January, 1812, told of Dennie's death and "that the confederacy of scholars disbanded almost as soon as it was formed." At this time the Port Folio was the oldest literary journal in America.

Nicholas Biddle became the next editor. He supplied the magazine with a number of articles upon paintings, old and new, and resigned his charge early in 1812. Dr. Charles Caldwell was requested to succeed him. "I accepted the proposal," he says, in his "Autobiography," "in less than a minute, and in less than one hour began to prepare for the performance of the duty it enjoined" (Autobiography, page 322). Caldwell entered upon his task under an engagement to furnish ninety-eight pages of matter for each number, and this matter would have to be to a great extent original. In six months Caldwell increased the number of subscribers twenty-five per cent. The war naturally became the theme of greatest interest. General Brown declared that "he reported himself, and ordered his officers to report themselves in their connection with all interesting events of the army, as regularly to the editor of the Port Folio as they did to him, or as he did to the Secretary of War." In this way the magazine obtained some interesting and valuable biographical notes of military and naval officers. Dr. Caldwell employed as assistant editor the famous and versatile Thomas Cooper. Cooper was an Englishman, who was born in London in 1759, and had been a member of the National Assembly of France. He quarrelled with Robespierre, and challenged him to a duel. Robespierre swore revenge, and Cooper, knowing that flight alone could save him from the Jacobin Club, returned to England. He was censured by Burke, and replied in a bitter and abusive pamphlet. He followed his intimate friend, Mr. Priestley, to America and lived with him at Northumberland, where Coleridge and Southey dreamed of establishing an Eden of Pantisocracy. When Cooper came to Philadelphia, Washington and Jefferson and Jay and Madison were there. Cooper lent his pen to Jefferson and the Democrats, and was paid by them. He was appointed to a judgeship, but soon removed. He was elected professor of chemistry and moral philosophy in Dickinson College, and from there he went to the chair of chemistry in Columbia College, South Carolina. He left Philadelphia in 1819, and died in the South in 1840.

Judge Workman was a second assistant writer. The most extensive contributions that Dr. Caldwell made to the magazine were his reviews of "An Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and Figure of the Human Species," by Samuel Stanhope Smith, President of Princeton College. The reviews covered ninety pages and dealt with a philosophical and experimental examination of the strange case of Henry Moss, a Maryland negro, whose name, as Dr. Caldwell says, is as well known to the readers of periodicals as was that of John Adams or Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. Moss was a full-blooded African, whose skin, save in a few spots, turned white. Caldwell's critiques appeared in the Port Folio, 1814, pp. 8 and 457, and also in the American Review, II, 128, 166.

Dr. Caldwell at this time edited Delaplaine's Repository, and Smith had his revenge in a telling criticism of that work in the Analectic Magazine, to which Caldwell replied in 1816. To finish the story, there is to be found in the Port Folio of 1820, page 153, an article on S. S. Smith, with portrait, which is as ample in praise of the essay as Caldwell was liberal in detraction. Caldwell resigned his editorship in 1816. In the next month Oliver Oldschool the Fourth made his appearance in the person of John Elihu Hall.

The magazine was still well manned and well maintained. Philadelphia still kept her leadership in culture and literary production. In 1814 only twenty new books were annually put forth in America, and yet in April of that year the Port Folio declared, "From facts within our own knowledge, we fearlessly assert that Philadelphia contains scholars not a few whom Europe herself would be proud to acknowledge." In 1817 the London Monthly Magazine began to copy from the Port Folio.

But about 1820 the prestige of Philadelphia begins to fade and her ancient influences to hang about her "like a giant's robe upon a dwarfish thief." In this year (Port Folio, page 463) is heard the first note of alarm. New England is gaining; "with such rivalry Philadelphia must yield the proud title which she has borne, or rouse from the withering lethargy in which she slumbers." New York jealousy is increasing. In 1820 Salmagundi says that "one of the editors of the Port Folio was discharged—for writing common-sense." These trifles indicate a shifting of the balance of power. Three years more, and the cry of discontent and peevish querulousness reaches its height.

"With the exception of some scores of verses 'tempered with lovers' sighs' and oozing from the brains of 'lunatics, lovers and poets,' the last volume contains very few communications from any friend to us and our cause. In the days of our first predecessors such was the number and zeal of contributors that the editor was obliged to exchange the labor of composition for that of selection, and he often expatiated with gratitude upon the learning, the liberality and the industry of his voluntary assistants. Although they wore their visors up before the public, most of them are now known to us, and we can recognize many of them at home and abroad, pushing their fortunes at the bar, in the desk or the academy, or serving their country in high and honorable stations. They were all quickened with the fervid spirit of enterprise and adventure. They combined learning and wit and genius with industry, perseverance and ambition. They laid the foundation of a work which has outlived all its rivals and contemporaries; but they have left few to inherit and emulate their disinterested devotion to the cause of letters.... England, that detestable country where everyone has been starving for the last century, where everyone has been crushed by the load of taxes, and everyone has been flying from home to avoid the oppressions of the Ministry, prints several thousand copies of a magazine, and the whole edition is sold and paid for in twenty-four hours. These matters are ordered differently here. Instead of purchasing our newspapers and magazines we subscribe for them."

Alack-a-day! the world went very well in the consulship of Plancus! No doubt even in the best and soundest of their times the magazines did suffer by the subscription plan. The remaining stock of the Analectic Magazine was sold for seven cents a volume in sheets, and the stock of the Literary Gazette, its successor, brought but six and a quarter cents per pound.

Hall took the opportunity presented by the publication of "The Lives of the Signers," by his friend and contributor, John Sanderson, to trouble the deaf public again with his bootless cries:

"Oh! that we could boast a reading public; and that we could say, with truth, that any other books than a few novels and poems and, generally, an elegant folio Bible, kept for ornament and family dignity, were to be found in half the splendid mansions of Philadelphia. But 'we can procure the book at the Philadelphia Library.' Yes, and the author of an excellent work must be left to beg and starve, and his wife and children must be doomed to penury because their natural protector was a literary man and an author, who conferred honour on his species. Burn the Philadelphia Library, we say. Aye! burn it! if this must be its influence, to deprive meritorious authors and enterprising artists of their sustenance and of the means of continuing their labours. Let those who cannot afford to purchase valuable works, who wish to peruse scarce tomes, the work of former generations, resort to the library; but let our rich merchants, our thrifty lawyers and the elegantly neat Quaker proprietors of the soil of this city, who have sons and daughters to be educated for usefulness and happiness, be ashamed to creep into the repository of rare, ancient and learned volumes, and ask in a soft voice of the librarian, 'Is Sanderson's Biography in?' and to add, 'My daughters wish to see it.'"

In 1822 the Port Folio was reduced to making selections from the literary and political journals of Europe after the manner of The Select Reviews which Ewing had edited.

The final suspension of the Port Folio was preceded by an international quarrel. John Neal was in England in 1834, and his offer to write for Blackwood's Magazine in that year a series of sketches of "American writers" was accepted, and the first instalment appeared in Blackwood's of September, 1824, page 305. The author could name only three writers "who would not pass just as readily for an English writer as for an American." The trio consisted of Paulding, Neal and Brown. The article was signed "X. Y. Z." and was written in the favorite Blackwood's "bludgeon" style. Neal says of himself, "He is undeniably the most original writer that America has produced—thinks himself the cleverest fellow in America, and does not scruple to say so—he is in Europe now." When he approached the date of the Port Folio, Neal paid his compliments, displaying unmistakable malice, to John E. Hall. "Hall had the misfortune, some years ago, to fall acquainted with Mr. Thomas Moore, the poet, while Mr. Moore was 'trampoosing' over America. It spoilt poor Hall—turned his brain. He has done little or nothing since but make-believe about criticism, talk dawdle-poetry with a lisp, write irresistible verses under the name of 'Sedley' in his own magazine, twitter sentimentally about 'little Moore,' his 'dear little Moore'—puffing himself all the time anonymously in the newspaper, while he is damning himself, with unmistakable sincerity, twelve times a year in his own magazine. We do not think very highly of the mutton-headed Athenians at Philadelphia; but we do think, nevertheless, that Mr. John E. Hall is a little too much of a blockhead even for their meridian."

Hall published a scathing review in the Port Folio, December, 1824, of the author of "Logan" and "Randolph," the Baltimorean who was writing for Blackwood's. In volume 19 (1825, p. 78) this "nauseous reptile" is still further reviewed. Neal is quoted as saying, "Dennie is dead, John E. Hall is alive; Dennie was a gentleman, John E. Hall is a blackguard;" and Hall retorts that Neal is a "liar of the first magnitude," who prefers "English guineas to Baltimore horsewhips."

The Port Folio was now making a desperate struggle for life. Its publication was suspended from January to July, 1826, and again from January to July, 1827. Its budget was finally closed in December, 1827.