Metcalfe's Miscellany was begun in March, 1841, and edited by Dr. Thomas Dunn English. The contents were "entirely original," both stories and verse. The subscription price, one dollar per year, in advance. English was invited to edit the magazine by Metcalfe, who had been a printer in the office of Poulson's Daily Advertiser, and who knew that English wrote editorials for that paper. J. Ross Browne, author of the California Sketches, wrote Oriental sketches for Metcalfe's.
The Nineteenth Century was begun in January, 1848. It was published by G. B. Zieber and Co., and edited by C. Chauncey Burr. The first volume was embellished with a steel engraving of Horace Greeley, and the second volume with an engraving of John Sartain. The motto upon the title-page was Goethe's famous "Light, more light still."
The first number was dedicated to Douglas Jerrold. "The Heart Broken," a story of Brockden Brown's life, death and burial, was contributed by George Lippard: "He became an—author! Yes, a miserable penster, a scribbler, a fellow who spills ink for bread! For a career like this he forsook the brilliant prospects of the bar. Yes, he set himself down in the prime of his young manhood to make his bread by his pen. At that time the cow with seven horns, or the calf with two heads and five legs, exhibited in some mountebank's show, was not half so rare a curiosity as—an American author!"
Among the contributors to the magazine were Mrs. Sigourney, T. B. Read, Bayard Taylor and Dr. Furness.
The Friends' Review was the creation of the Orthodox Friends, in 1847. Its first editor was the mathematician, Enoch Lewis, who continued to direct it until his death, in 1856. A remarkable literary incident is associated with the issue of January, 1848. In that month Elizabeth Lloyd (Howell), widow of Robert Howell, of Philadelphia, contributed anonymously to the Review a poem, entitled "Milton's Prayer for Patience," in which the Miltonic manner was so deftly imitated, that even the very elect in criticism were deceived by it, and the poem was actually printed in the Oxford edition of Milton as Milton's own lament for his loss of sight.
Most of the Philadelphia magazines of the last fifty years have been enriched by the busy hand of Mr. John Sartain, and two of the most interesting of the city's periodicals were owned and edited by him. Mr. Sartain, who has won the highest place in the history of American engraving, was born in London, England, October 24, 1808. He came to America in 1830, and settled in Philadelphia at the persuasion of Thomas Sully. No living engraver has accomplished as much work as this untiring and skilful artist. But it is not as an artist or an interpreter of art alone that he has won high honor; his literary labors, though less conspicuous and less splendid, are significant and interesting.
Campbell's Foreign Monthly Magazine began September 1, 1843. It was published monthly for one year by James M. Campbell, of 98 Chestnut Street, when it was bought outright by Mr. John Sartain, who changed the title to Campbell's Foreign Semi-Monthly, or Select Miscellany of European Literature and Art (September, 1843, to September, 1844). Sartain engraved a plate for each number, and compiled a laborious miscellany of the latest intelligence in art, science and letters. Many famous bits of literature appeared for the first time in America in this magazine. "The Bridge of Sighs," "The Song of the Shirt" (Vol. V, p. 211), "The Haunted House" (Hood), "The Pauper's Funeral" and "The Drop of Gin" (Vol. V, p. 138) were first published in these pages.
In 1848 Mr. Sartain purchased the Union Magazine of Literature and Art, edited in New York by Caroline Matilda Kirkland, the American Miss Mitford. The name of the magazine was changed, and Sartain's Union Magazine appeared in January, 1849, edited by Mrs. Kirkland and Professor John S. Hart, of the Central High School. For a few months Dr. Reynell Coates acted as editor, but in the third year of its history Mr. Sartain assumed complete charge of his magazine. In 1852 it again returned to New York, when it was merged into the National Magazine.
Longfellow contributed frequently to the magazine. His translation of "The Blind Girl of Castèl Cuillè" appeared here in January, 1850. Poe contributed "The Bells" (November, 1849) and his "Poetic Principle" (October, 1850). Harriet Martineau wrote for Sartain's her "Year at Ambleside," which ran through the year 1850, and T. Buchanan Read, George Henry Boker and Frederika Bremer were frequently in the pages of the magazine.