The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 Part 2

Impa.s.sive to low pleasure's baneful charm, Inur'd to gen'rous toils, and nerv'd for arms, He saw, indignant, our worst foes advance With strides gigantic--_Luxury_ and _France_!

A martial spirit emulous to raise, He fought, as soldiers fought, in Marlbro's days.

His country call'd--the n.o.ble talents given, 'Twas his t'exert--success belonged to heaven!

High o'er his standard and the crimson sh.o.r.e Plum'd victory hover'd, till he breathed no more.

'Midst piles of slaughter'd foes--"_French_ slaves, he cry'd,"

"My _Britons_ will revenge"--then smil'd and dy'd!

The unknown annotator of the British Museum copy writes against these lines, "I cannot yet learn who was the author of this n.o.ble epitaph."

But it is clearly by Sterling. In the letter that accompanies the poem he writes: "Please to know that the grandfather of the late Lord Howe, when in a high employment in the reign of Queen Anne, was a generous patron to the father of the author of these lines, by presenting to her Majesty a memorial of his long services in the wars of Ireland, Spain and Flanders, and by farther promoting his pretensions to an honourable post in the army, of which he would have been deprived by a court-interest in favour of a younger and unexperienced officer." This letter is written from Maryland. It corresponds with all that we know of Sterling's life. His grat.i.tude was unfailing to those who had helped the advancement of his father. In his dedication of "The Rival Generals"

(London, 1722), Sterling, addressing himself to William Conolly, Lord Justice of Ireland, wrote: "Nor can I omit this occasion of testifying my grat.i.tude to your Excellency, who so generously contributed, in the First Session of this Parliament, to do my Father that Justice in his Pretensions which was deny'd him in a late reign."

In July, 1758, _The American Magazine_ published James Logan's letters to Edmund Halley establishing Thomas G.o.dfrey's claim to the invention of "Hadley's quadrant." Thomas G.o.dfrey, a glazier by trade, was one of the original members of Franklin's "Junto," and boarded in Franklin's house on High Street. He was born in Bristol, Pa., in 1704. While working for James Logan, at Stenton, he accidentally discovered the principle upon which he constructed his improvement upon Davis's quadrant. The new instrument was first used in Delaware Bay by Joshua Fisher, of Lewes.

"Mr. G.o.dfrey then sent the instrument to be tried at sea by an acquaintance of his, an ingenious navigator, in a voyage to Jamaica, who showed it to a captain of a ship there just going for England, by which means it came to the knowledge of Mr. Hadley" (_American Magazine_, p.

476). The Royal Society of England, after hearing James Logan's communication, decided that both G.o.dfrey and Hadley were ent.i.tled to the honor of the invention, and sent to G.o.dfrey household goods to the value of two hundred dollars.

In spite of the clearest facts and undoubted dates, the quadrant is still persistently miscalled by the name of its English appropriator.[3]

[3] The remains of Thomas G.o.dfrey were removed by John Watson from the neglected spot where they were laid to Laurel Hill Cemetery, and in 1843 a monument was erected over them by the Mercantile Library Company of Philadelphia. Near by, and close to the river, is the grave of Charles Thomson, "the man of truth," the Sam. Adams, of Philadelphia, marked by an Egyptian obelisk of granite.

"Junius" is the signature to a neat poem called "The Invitation" in the _American Magazine_ for January, 1758, and appended to it is the following editorial note: "This little poem was sent to us by an unknown hand, and seems dated as an original. If it be so, we think it does honor to our city; but of this we are not certain. All we can say is that we do not recollect to have seen it before." This poem, which William Smith thought to be an honor to Philadelphia, was the composition of Thomas G.o.dfrey the younger, then a youth of twenty-one years. Editorial encouragement won from him an "Ode on Friendship" in August, and an "Ode on Wine" in September. Young G.o.dfrey was apprenticed to a watchmaker, but through the friendly influence of the Provost of the College he obtained a lieutenant's commission in the provincial forces raised against Fort Du Quesne. He died of fever when only twenty-seven years of age, and his poems, with an "account of T.

G.o.dfrey," were published by Nathaniel Evans in 1767.

Nathaniel Evans knits together, in a manner, this _American Magazine_ and the _Port Folio_, as he was the biographer of G.o.dfrey, who was a contributor to the former, and the Petrarch-lover of Elizabeth Graeme or Mrs. Ferguson, a helper of the latter. That he was hopeful of his city's future is evident from the following prophecy, which makes a part of his "Ode on the Prospect of Peace," 1761:

"To such may Delaware, majestic flood, Lend from his flow'ry banks a ravish'd ear, Such notes as may delight the wise and good, Or saints celestial may induce to hear!

For if the Muse can aught of time descry Such notes shall sound thy crystal waves along, Thy cities fair with glorious Athens rise, Nor pure Ilissus boast a n.o.bler song."

G.o.dfrey's chief claim to recognition in the history of American literature is his authorship of the "Prince of Parthia," the first dramatic work produced in America. It was written in 1758, and acted at the new theatre in Southwark, Philadelphia, April 24, 1767.

Several of the contributors to the magazine were members of the faculty of the college. Ebenezer Kinnersley, chief master of the English School, summarized the month's progress in philosophy; John Beveridge supplied the readers of the magazine with Latin poems, which were too lightly timbered for the loud praise of William Smith, who p.r.o.nounced them of equal merit with the choicest Latinity of Buchanan, Erasmus and Addison.[4]

[4] "The Trustees of the College of this city, who have never spared either pains or expense to supply every vacancy in the inst.i.tution with able masters and professors, having been informed of Mr. Beveridge's capacity, experience and fidelity, were pleased at a full meeting, on the 13th of this month (June, 1758), unanimously to appoint him Professor of Languages and Master of the Latin School, in the room of Mr. Paul Jackson" (_American Magazine_, p. 437).

Thomas Coombe, a.s.sistant minister of Christ Church, translated some of Beveridge's Latin poems, and was himself the author of "The Peasant of Auburn; or, the Emigrant," published in 1775, and intended as a continuation of "The Deserted Village."

A collection of poems came from distant Virginia from the pen of Mr.

Samuel Davies (1724-1761), the dissenting minister in Hanover County, Virginia, who made use of the pseudonym "Virginia.n.u.s Hanoverensis."

Davies accompanied Gilbert Tennent to England in 1753, and successfully solicited funds for the College of New Jersey. He at first declined to succeed Jonathan Edwards as President of Princeton College, but on the invitation being repeated he accepted, and presided over the college for eighteen months. In a note to one of his sermons occurs the following: "That heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country."

The magazine also contained the usual number of miscellaneous articles signed with the alliterative and indicative names that were then in vogue--Timothy Timbertoe, Richard Dimple, Hymenaeus Phiz and the like.

Galt, in his life of Benjamin West (p. 77), says that "Dr. Smith largely contributed to elevate the taste, the sentiment and topics of conversation in Philadelphia." He certainly conducted the _American Magazine_ to a considerable literary and financial success; and the magazine came abruptly to an end on the completion of its first year in consequence of Dr. Smith's visit to England, where his worth was recognized and rewarded with honorary degrees from Oxford, Aberdeen and Dublin.

On the 2d of January, 1769, the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in America, was formed by merging into one organization the "American Philosophical Society" and the "American Society held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge." Benjamin Franklin was chosen president. In this month and year, January, 1769, a new magazine appeared in Philadelphia, printed at the press of the Bradfords, as we learn from Hall and Sellers' _Pennsylvania Gazette_ of January 12, 1769, which continued the t.i.tle of _The American Magazine_.

The editor and proprietor, Mr. Lewis Nicola, was a member of the American Philosophical Society, having been elected to membership April 8, 1768, and held the office of curator for 1769.

In a certain sense his magazine became the voice of the Society; for each number, except the first, contained an appendix of sixteen pages made up of the Society's publications. Nicola was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1717. He served in the English army, but in 1766 resigned his commission, emigrated to America, and settled in Philadelphia.

He was town-major of Philadelphia during the Revolution, wrote several military works, but is chiefly remembered for his letter to General Washington in May, 1783, asking him to accept the t.i.tle of King of the United States.

The magazine contained various practical articles and sketches of American occurrences. In the February number was a large and curious engraving, the only one in all the issues of the magazine, representing the manner of fowling in Norway. The engraver is unknown.

The price of the magazine was 13 shillings, Pennsylvania currency. It was suspended in September, 1769.

"_The Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Monthly Museum_, Vol. I, 1775, Philadelphia, printed and sold by R. Aitken, printer and bookseller, opposite the London Coffee-house, Front Street," was published amidst preparations for war. The publisher apologized for lack of variety in the year's work, by saying that we in America "are deprived of one considerable fund of entertainment which contributes largely to the embellishment of the magazines in Europe, viz., discoveries of curious remains of antiquity.... We can look no further back than to the rude manners and customs of the savage aborigines of North America ... but the princ.i.p.al difficulty in our way is the present importunate situation of public affairs ... every heart and hand seems to be engaged in the interesting struggle for American Liberty."

Thomas Paine arrived in Philadelphia in 1775, with letters from Franklin, and was immediately employed by Aitken as editor of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_, with a salary of 25, currency, a year. In his preface to the first number, January 24, 1775, Paine wrote: "We presume it is unnecessary to inform our friends that we encounter all the inconveniences which a magazine can possibly start with. Una.s.sisted by imported materials we are destined to create what our predecessors in this walk had only to compile; and the present perplexities of affairs have rendered it somewhat difficult for us to procure the necessary aids. Thus encompa.s.sed with difficulties, the first number of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ entreats a favorable reception; of which we shall only say, like the early snowdrop, it comes forth in a barren season, and contents itself with modestly foretelling that _choicer flowers_ are preparing to appear."

The vignette of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ represents the G.o.ddess of Liberty, with a pole and a liberty-cap, holding a shield with the Pennsylvania arms. On the right of the figure is a mortar inscribed "The Congress." In the foreground is a plan of fortifications with cannon b.a.l.l.s. In the background are cannon with battle-axes and pikes. A gorget with "Liberty" upon it is hanging on a tree, and beneath it the motto

"Juvat in Sylvis habitare."

The magazine had numerous ill.u.s.trations: a portrait of Goldsmith, plans of a threshing machine, an electrical machine, Donaldson's dredging machine, etc., etc.

Francis Hopkinson and Witherspoon were among the earliest contributors.

William Smith and Provost Ewing a.s.sisted in later numbers. Benjamin Rush and Sergeant and Hutchinson imparted to Paine, in their walks in State House yard the suggestions of "Common Sense," the pamphlet which "had a greater run than any other ever published in our country," and which, as Elkanah Watson said, "pa.s.sed through the continent like an electric spark. It everywhere flashed conviction, and aroused a determined spirit, which resulted in the Declaration of Independence, upon the 4th of July ensuing. The name of Paine was precious to every Whig heart, and had resounded throughout Europe."

A department of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_, called "Monthly Intelligence," reported the progress of the war, and furnished engravings of the battles, and of General Gage's lines. It was the first ill.u.s.trated magazine published in the city. It was also the first that made more than one volume. The second volume began in January, 1776, and ended in July, 1776. The last number contained the Declaration of Independence.

Phillis Wheatley, negro servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston, and daughter of an African slave, published her only volume of poems, dedicated to the Countess of Huntingdon, in 1773. The best, if the word may be applied to such performances, of her occasional poems, published after 1773, and which have never been collected into a volume, was a poem "To his Excellency Gen. Washington," in the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ of April, 1776:

"Celestial choir! enthron'd in realms of light, Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I write."

The poem was dated October 26, 1775, and sent with a letter to Washington, who replied (Feb. 2, 1776):

"However undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents; in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the poem had I not been apprehensive that while I only meant to give the world this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. This, and nothing less, determined me not to give it place in the public prints."

Another President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, with less urbanity, but more ac.u.men, said of these verses that they were beneath criticism.[5]

[5] "It is true that Mr. Jefferson has p.r.o.nounced the poems of Phillis Wheatley below the dignity of criticism, and it is seldom safe to differ in judgment from the author of 'Notes on Virginia,' but her conceptions are often lofty, and her versification often surprises with unexpected refinement. Ladd, the Carolina poet, in enumerating the laurels of his country, dwells with encomium on 'Wheatley's polished verse;' nor is his praise undeserved, for often it will be found to glide in the stream of melody. Her lines on imagination have been quoted with rapture by Imlay, of Kentucky, and Steadman, the Guiana traveller, but I have ever thought her happiest production the 'Goliah of Gath'" (John Davis, p. 87).

Paine himself printed some virile verses in the magazine, notably the lines "On the Death of Wolfe" (though not published for the first time), signed "Atlanticus," "Reflections on the Death of Clive," and "The Liberty Tree."

Bradford's magazines had failed because of the imperfect communication between the colonies. Aitken's magazine, throughout its life of eighteen months, is overshadowed by the war, and the grave news successively reported from both sides of the ocean.

The next Philadelphia editor was the eccentric social wit, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, the author of the capital political satire, "Modern Chivalry" (1792), the first satirical novel written in America. He was a native of Scotland, born in 1748, but was only five years of age when his father settled in York County, Pennsylvania. He was graduated from Princeton College in 1771, in the same cla.s.s with Philip Freneau, in conjunction with whom he delivered, at the commencement, a poem in dialogue upon "The Rising Glory of America," which was published by Robert Aitken in 1772.

Francis Bailey was the publisher who had the courage to undertake another monthly magazine in the midst of the war, and with Brackenridge as editor, which insured some pungent writing, he issued in January, 1779, the first number of "_The United States Magazine_; a Repository of History, Politics and Literature." "Our attempt," said the editor, "is to paint the graces on the front of war, and _invite the muses to our country_." This, it will be noticed, is the second express invitation to the Maids of Parna.s.sus to "migrate from Greece and Ionia," and to "cross out those immensely overpaid accounts." The first was extended during the French and Indian war, and the second in the very aim and flash of the Revolution. That the muses did not immediately accept the invitation, and "placard 'Removed' and 'To Let' on the rocks of their snowy Parna.s.sus," we are reminded by the opening lines of the "Epistle to W. Gifford," written by another Philadelphia poet, William Cliffton, at the very close of the century.[6]

[6] William Cliffton (1772-1799) was the son of a blacksmith in Southwark. His poem "The Group" (1793) was written in ridicule of the Commissioners of Southwark.

"In these cold shades, beneath these shifting skies, Where fancy sickens, and where genius dies; Where few and feeble are the muse's strains, And no fine frenzy riots in the veins."

The editor, in his preface to the reader, asks the very pertinent question, "For what is man without taste, and the acquirements of genius? An ourang-outang with the human shape and the soul of a beast."

His excuse for the magazine is that it is started to refute the British scoff, that when separated from England, the colonies would become mere "illiterate ourang-outangs," and proceeds to the axioms that "We are able to cultivate the belles-lettres, even disconnected with Great Britain;" and that "Liberty is of so n.o.ble and energetic a quality, as even from the bosom of a war to call forth the powers of human genius in every course of literary fame and improvement."

The vignette for the magazine was made by Pierre E. Du Simitiere (P. E. D.), who also made the one that adorned the _Pennsylvania Magazine_. It represented a triumphal arch with a corridor of thirteen columns, the arch decorated with thirteen stars, symbolizing the States, Pennsylvania being the Keystone. Under the arch is the figure of Fame, with cap of liberty and trumpet.