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,