In closing this short list of editors, I feel justified in deviating for a moment in my chronology by a word or two on the character and death of one whom I have ever considered the ablest writer we have had in our public journals. He has been already incidentally mentioned. I allude to James Cheetham. He succeeded as editor of Greenleaf's paper, calling it the American Citizen. Cheetham was an English radical; had left Manchester for this country, and was by trade a hatter. His personal appearance was impressive; tall, athletic, with a martial bearing in his walk, a forehead of great breadth and dimensions, and penetrating gray eyes, he seemed authoritative wherever he might be. He arrived in this country at a period of perplexing excitement in the times of Adams's administration and Jefferson's entrance into the presidency. He found many to countenance his radicalism, as Tennis Wortman, James Dennison, Charles Christian and others—men whom we might call liberals, both in religion and in politics. Accidental circumstances made me well acquainted with him, so early as the summer of 1803. He was then universally known as the champion of Jefferson, of Governor George Clinton, and of De Witt Clinton. He was a most unflinching partisan writer, and with earnestness asserted the advantages arising from the possession of Louisiana, countenanced Blind Palmer, the lecturer on Deism, and congratulated the public on the return to America of Thomas Paine. He ever remained an active advocate of old George Clinton, but his friendship was suddenly turned into hatred of Paine, and his life of that once prominent but wretched individual demonstrates the rancor of his temper. The murderous death of Hamilton, I think, had a strong influence on him. No sooner had he breathed his last than Cheetham extolled him as the greatest of patriots. Many speak of Cheetham as at times holding the pen of Junius—a judgment sustained by some of his political assaults and essays. He possessed a magnificent library, was a great reader, and studied Burke and Shakspeare more than any other authors. I know nothing against his moral character. His death, however, was most remarkable: he had removed with his family to a country residence,[pg 260] some three miles from the city, in the summer of 1809. A few days afterwards he exposed himself to malaria, by walking without a hat, through the fields, under a burning September sun. He was struck with a complication of ills—fever, congestion of the brain, and great cerebral distress. The malignancy of his case soon foretold to his physician, Dr. Hosack, the uncertainty of his recovery. Being at that time a student of medicine, I was requested to watch him; on the second day of his sickness, his fever raging higher, he betrayed a disturbed intellect. On the night of the third day raving mania set in. Incoherently he called his family around him, and addressed his sons as to their peculiar avocations for life, giving advice to one ever to be temperate in all things, and to another urging the importance of knowledge. After midnight he became much worse, and was ungovernable. With herculean strength he now raised himself from his pillow; with eyes of meteoric fierceness, he grasped his bed covering, and in a most vehement but rapid articulation, exclaimed to his sons, "Boys! study Bolingbroke for style, and Locke for sentiment." He spoke no more. In a moment life had departed. His funeral was a solemn mourning of his political friends.
Paine has been referred too. I have often seen him at the different places of his residence in this city, now in Partition-street, now in Broome-street, &c. His localities were not always the most agreeable. In Partition-street, near the market, a portion of his tenement was occupied for the display of wild beasts. Paine generally sat, taking an airing, at the lower front windows, the gazed-at of all passers by. Jarvis, the painter, was often his visitor, and was fortunate enough to secure that inimitable plaster cast of his head and features, which at his request, I deposited with the New-York Historical Society. While at that work, Jarvis exclaimed, "I shall secure him to a nicety, if I am so fortunate as to get plaster enough for his carbuncled nose." Jarvis thought this bust of Paine his most successful undertaking as a sculptor.
I shall trespass some moments by giving a few reminiscences concerning booksellers and publishers. There are many of this professional order, whose character and influence might justly demand a detailed account. Spence himself would find among them anecdotes worthy consideration in the world of letters. I must, however, write within circumscribed limits. The first in my immediate recollection is Everet Duyckinck. He was a middle-aged man, when I, a boy, was occasionally at his store, an ample and old-fashioned building, at the corner of Pearl-street and Old Slip. He was grave in his demeanor, and somewhat taciturn; of great simplicity in dress; accommodating and courteous. He must have been rich in literary recollections. He for a long while occupied his excellent stand for business, and was quite extensively engaged as a publisher and seller. He was a sort of Mr. Newbury, so precious to juvenile memories in the olden times. He largely dealt with that order of books, for elementary instruction, which were popular abroad, just about the close of our revolutionary war and at the adoption of our Constitution—Old Dyche, and his pupil Dilworth, and Perry, and Sheridan. As education and literature advanced, he brought forward, by reprints, Johnson and Chesterfield, and Vicissimus Knox, and a host of others. His store was the nucleus of the Connecticut teachers and intellectual products, and Barlow and Webster, and Morse and Riggs, found in him a patron of their works in poetry and their school books. Bunyan, Young, Watts, Doddridge and Baxter, must have been issued by his enterprise in innumerable thousands throughout the old thirteen States; and the English Primer, now improved into the American Primer, with its captivating emendations, as
The royal oak, it was the tree
That saved his Royal Majesty;
changed to the more simple couplet—
Oak's not as good
As hickory wood;
and the lines—
Whales in the sea