"I claim as large a charter as the wind
To blow on whom I please."
The Critic, by Geoffrey Juvenile, Esq., No. 1, January 29, 1820.
Every number of the Critic contains some quip or satire at the expense of James Kirke Paulding, and his "Backwoodsman" is particularly levelled at. Paulding is dubbed "The Cabbage Bard," and the caustic reviewer proceeds to write: "We had a Dennie and a Clifton, yet the classical elegance of the one has not availed to preserve his countrymen from being intoxicated by the quaintness and affectation of the Salmagundi school, and the purity and wit of the other have as little proved powerful to save his work from being deserted for the bathos and silliness of the 'Backwoodsman.' I remember them both. In private life they united qualities which are seldom found together, brilliancy of conversation and modesty of deportment. In their writings they were chaste without being tame, and elevated without being extravagant. Alas! I little thought to have lived until their light should be hidden by a cloud of delirious bats who had left their native obscurity and madly rushed to uncongenial day, vermin which are likely to be of direful omen to our country unless the land be speedily cleansed of them."
The greatness of Philadelphia is the inspiration and the pride of the Critic. "Having often heard Philadelphia called the 'Athens of the United States,' 'the birthplace of American literature,' I was naturally delighted at the prospect of a visit to so celebrated a city" (p. 14). And again: "Philadelphia with all its faults and follies is, in a literary and scientific point of view, the first city of the Empire" (p. 20). The Critic fired its last arrow May 10, 1820.
Dennie's Port Folio continued to be the admiration and the despair of contemporary editors and authors. In 1821 appeared the Post-Chaise Companion or Magazine of Wit. By Carlo Convivio Socio, Junior Fellow of the Royal Academy of Humorists. It was begun in January, 1821, and was issued from 15 North Front Street. In its first "leader" it deprecated comparison with the favorites of the hour: "With the venerable Mr. Oldschool, who for almost twenty years has delighted or instructed the 'mind of desultory man,' I would not presume to enter into a competition, still less should it be provoked with the profound labours of the editor of the Analectic Magazine and his host of 'the most eminent literary men' who promised to eclipse the dissertations of the famous Northern lights" (p. 3).
The little paper contains a long article on Mr. Kean's acting (pages 37-51).
The Philadelphia Medical Museum was conducted by John Redman Coxe for five years, from 1805 to 1810, and was published by A. Bartram.
The Eye, by Obadiah Optic, was published every Thursday by John W. Scott, from January to December, 1808, at three dollars a year. It was filled with odd, historical and alliterative articles.
The Philadelphia Repertory, a weekly literary journal, was published in 1810 by Dennis Hart.
The Eclectic Repertory and Analytic Review, Medical and Philosophical, was commenced in October, 1811, and continued until October, 1820. It was published quarterly, and edited by an association of physicians, and published by T. Dobson and Son.