O 
 
 c^> 
 O 
 
 J 
 
 f 
 
av. 
 
THE 
 
 LITERARY HISTORY 
 OF PHILADELPHIA 
 
 BY 
 
 ELLIS PAXSON OBERHOLTZER, Ph. D. (Penna.) 
 
 Author of "Robert Morris, Patriot and Financier," "Abraham 
 
 Lincoln" Editor of the "American Crisis 
 
 Biographies" etc. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
This edition of " The Literary History of Phila 
 delphia" is limited to One Thousand copies, of which 
 this is 
 
 No.. 
 
 Copyright, 1906, by 
 
 GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY, 
 
 Published November, 1906. 
 
TO THE MEMBERS 
 OF 
 
 3be JFranfeltn f nn Club, 
 
 WHO LIVE AND LABOR FOR THEMSELVES, THEIR CRAFT, AND THE LAND 
 WHICH IS HALLOWED BY THE MEMORY OF THEIR LIT 
 ERARY SIRES, THIS VOLUME IS AFFEC 
 TIONATELY INSCRIBED. 
 
 442278 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. As IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING i 
 
 II. THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 34 
 
 III. THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION .... 84 
 
 IV. THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 125 
 
 V. THE PORT FOLIO 168 
 
 VI. IN TRANSITION 189 
 
 VII. LITERARY DEMOCRACY 226 
 
 VIII. GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 263 
 
 IX. " BLACK LETTERS " 310 
 
 X. LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 339 
 
 XI. THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 374 
 
 INDEX 4 J 9 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JAMES LOGAN Facing page 12 
 
 PORTRAITS OF JACOB DUCHE AND FRANCIS HOP- 
 
 KINSON " " 44 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, FROM THE MARTIN PORTRAIT " " 54 
 PORTRAITS OF PROVOST WILLIAM SMITH AND MRS. 
 
 ELIZABETH FERGUSON " " 62 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF DR. SMITH S " AMERICAN MAGAZINE " " " 64 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF THOMAS GODFREY S " COURT OF 
 
 FANCY" " " 70 
 
 A PAGE FROM NATHANIEL EVANS S " POEMS " . . " " 74 
 GRAEME PARK, THE HOME OF MRS. FERGUSON . . " " 76 
 ELIZABETH GRAEME S BOOK PLATE " " 78 
 
 A PAGE FROM MRS. FERGUSON S METRICAL VERSION 
 OF THE PSALMS, IN THE LIBRARY OF THE PENN 
 SYLVANIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY " " 80 
 
 PORTRAITS OF WILLIAM BRADFORD, II, AND JOHN 
 
 DICKINSON " " 88 
 
 THE BARTRAM HOUSE IN BARTRAM S GARDENS AND 
 THE HOUSE AT SEVENTH AND MARKET STREETS, 
 IN WHICH THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
 WAS FRAMED " "104 
 
 PORTRAITS OF THOMAS PAINE AND BENJAMIN RUSH " " no 
 
 PORTRAIT OF PHILIP FRENEAU " " 118 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF JOEL BARLOW S " COLUMBIAD " . . " " 134 
 
 PORTRAIT OF MATHEW CAREY " "136 
 
 FRANKLIN S LIBRARY CHAIR, IN THE ROOMS OF THE 
 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, AND A PIC 
 TURE ILLUSTRATING ALEXANDER WILSON S POEM, 
 " THE FORESTERS " IN THE " PORT FOLIO " . . " " 140 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE FIRST 
 AMERICAN EDITION OF THE " ENCYCLOPEDIA 
 BRITANNICA " Facing page 151 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF REES S " CY 
 CLOPEDIA " " " 153 
 
 PORTRAITS OF JOSEPH HOPKINSON AND WILLIAM 
 
 CLIFFTON (FROM THE "AN ALECTIC MAGAZINE") " " 154 
 
 PORTRAIT OF CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN .... " " 162 
 
 SILHOUETTE OF JOSEPH DENNIE FROM THE " PORT 
 
 FOLIO" " " 168 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE " PORT 
 
 FOLIO" " "170 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH DENNIE " 174 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF A NEW SERIES 
 
 OF THE " PORT FOLIO " " " 180 
 
 TOM MOORE, FROM " GRAHAM S MAGAZINE "... " " 181 
 
 FRONTISPIECE FROM THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF 
 SHAKESPEARE, AND A FRONTISPIECE FROM THE 
 " PORT FOLIO " " " 186 
 
 ROBERT WALSH, FROM A PORTRAIT IN POSSESSION op 
 
 His GRANDSON, J. F. WALSH " " 192 
 
 FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF WALSH S 
 
 "QUARTERLY" " "194 
 
 PORTRAITS OF ALEXANDER WILSON AND JOHN J. 
 
 AUDUBON " "202 
 
 PORTRAITS OF JANE FAIRFIELD AND JAMES MCHENRY, 
 FROM A PICTURE IN POSSESSION OF His GRAND 
 DAUGHTER, MRS. WILLIAM HOWELL, JR. ... " " 214 
 
 FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE " MIRROR 
 
 OF TASTE" . % * ,. ^ " " 220 
 
 FRONTISPIECES FROM THE " ANALECTIC MAGAZINE" " " 222 
 
 COOKE AS KING LEAR, ONE OF CHARLES R. LESLIE S 
 
 DRAWINGS IN THE "MIRROR OF TASTE" ... " " 222 
 
 THE FIRST AMERICAN LITHOGRAPH, FROM THE " AN 
 ALECTIC MAGAZINE," AND AN EARLY WOOD CUT 
 FROM "GRAHAM S MAGAZINE" " "224 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SARAH J. HALE, FROM A PORTRAIT LOANED BY HER 
 
 GRANDDAUGHTER, MARY STOCKTON HUNTER . . Facing page 230 
 
 PORTRAITS OF ELIZA LESLIE AND ALICE B. NEAL . . " " 234 
 
 A FRONTISPIECE FROM " GODEY S LADY S BOOK " . . " " 236 
 
 TYPICAL FASHION PLATE FROM GODEY S MAGAZINE " " 238 
 
 PORTRAIT OF EDWIN FORREST " " 242 
 
 PORTRAITS OF RICHARD PENN SMITH AND ROBERT T. 
 
 CONRAD " "246 
 
 PORTRAIT OF ROBERT MONTGOMERY BIRD .... " " 250 
 PORTRAITS OF T. S. ARTHUR AND GEORGE LIPPARD . " " 258 
 
 FRONTISPIECE FROM THE " CASKET," AND FRONTIS 
 PIECE FROM THE " GENTLEMAN S MAGAZINE " . " " 264 
 
 A TITLE PAGE FROM THE " GENTLEMAN S MAGA 
 ZINE " WHILE POE WAS AN EDITOR .... " "266 
 
 PORTRAITS OF Louis A. GODEY AND GEORGE R. 
 
 GRAHAM " "268 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF " GRAHAM S " WHEN THE MAGAZINE 
 
 WAS AT THE HEIGHT OF ITS GLORY .... " " 270 
 
 A FRONTISPIECE FROM " GRAHAM S MAGAZINE " . . " " 272 
 A FRONTISPIECE FROM " GRAHAM S MAGAZINE " . . " " 276 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN SARTAIN AND A FRONTISPIECE 
 
 FROM " SARTAIN S MAGAZINE " " " 278 
 
 "UNDINE," AN ENGRAVING BY JOHN SARTAIN IN 
 
 "SARTAIN S MAGAZINE" " "280 
 
 A PAGE FROM " SARTAIN S MAGAZINE " ; FIRST PUB 
 LICATION OF " THE BELLS " " "281 
 
 PORTRAITS OF REYNELL COATES AND JOSEPH R. 
 
 CHANDLER 284 
 
 PORTRAIT OF EDGAR ALLAN POE 288 
 
 "THE BELLE OF THE OPERA," CHARACTERISTIC EN 
 GRAVING FROM "GRAHAM S MAGAZINE" ... 292 
 
 A PAGE OF ENGLISH S VERSE FROM THE "GENTLE 
 MAN S MAGAZINE" " 2 94 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "THE BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN," AND "A PICNIC 
 
 ON THE WlSSAHICKON," FROM " GRAHAM S 
 
 MAGAZINE " . Facing page 296 
 
 J. BAYARD TAYLOR, AN EARLY PICTURE IN " GRA 
 HAM S MAGAZINE," AND RUFUS W. GRISWOLD, 
 FROM " GRAHAM S MAGAZINE " " " 298 
 
 PORTRAITS OF JOSEPH C. NEAL AND ROBERT MORRIS " " 302 
 
 " UNDERCLIFF," GEORGE P. MORRIS S HOME ON THE 
 HUDSON RIVER, AND PENNSYLVANIA HALL ON 
 SIXTH STREET .......... " "320 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN GRIGG .......... " "346 
 
 PORTRAIT OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT ....... n " 348 
 
 PORTRAIT OF HENRY C. CAREY, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH 
 
 IN POSSESSION OF MRS. HOWARD GARDINER . . " " 350 
 
 TITLE PAGE, FOURTH EDITION, VOLUME II, OF 
 HENRY C. CAREY S " POLITICAL ECONOMY " IN 
 JAPANESE ............ " "352 
 
 THE ROOM IN WHICH THE CAREY VESPERS WERE 
 HELD, FROM A PAINTING IN POSSESSION OF MR. 
 HENRY CAREY BAIRD " " 356 
 
 PORTRAITS OF HENRY PETERSON AND ELISHA KENT 
 
 KANE " "368 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR, FROM EASTMAN JOHNSON S POR 
 TRAIT IN POSSESSION OF MRS. BAYARD TAYLOR . " " 376 
 
 SONNET TO GEORGE H. BOKER BY BAYARD TAYLOR . " " 380 
 
 " CEDARCROFT," BAYARD TAYLOR S HOME NEAR KEN- 
 
 NETT SQUARE, PA " "382 
 
 GEORGE H. BOKER, FROM A PORTRAIT PRESENTED TO 
 
 THE FRANKLIN INN BY MRS. GEORGE BOKER . " " 388 
 
 A PORTRAIT OF THOMAS BUCHANAN READ, PAINTED 
 BY HIMSELF WHEN ABOUT THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS 
 OF AGE. FRANKLIN INN COLLECTION .... " "394 
 
 CHARLES G. LELAND, FROM A PORTRAIT PRESENTED TO 
 THE FRANKLIN INN BY His SISTER, MRS. JOHN 
 HARRISON " "400 
 
 WALT WHITMAN, FROM A FRANKLIN INN PORTRAIT " " 412 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The old lady of Boston of classical memory, who 
 going a little way afield to be asked by a benighted 
 person what kind of a place Boston was, replied, 
 " Bless you! Boston is not a place; it is a sentiment," 
 might just as well have been nurtured in the proud lap 
 of Philadelphia. There are Brahmins in the Quaker 
 City. Indeed, it is doubtful if there is another place in 
 which sentiment is a stronger force; a place which its 
 people leave with so many pangs and yearn for so 
 deeply while absent, until they can find a way to return 
 to its streets and homes, and its sedate and wholesome 
 pleasures. Afflicted though it be with unclean streets, 
 paved with round stones, now happily a provincialism 
 of the past; vile water and politics; a climate hot and 
 cold, wet and dry, by sudden turns of natural fate, its 
 history and its present state are beloved by its citizens. 
 No community in America has the same compelling 
 power over its inhabitants. Nowhere else does pride 
 of race, family, house, demesne, vocation and religion 
 unto the earliest generations call up such recollec 
 tions, furnish material for so much social converse, or 
 so deeply influence each daily thought and action as in 
 Pennsylvania s great city and the flourishing counties 
 and towns that stretch away on every side. 
 
 Singularly enough, with this pride boasting has 
 never had companionship. There is something of dis 
 dain in the mood of the Philadelphian meeting one 
 
 XI 
 
X il INTRODUCTION 
 
 who docs not know and love his city even as he himself 
 knows and loves it, just as the Englishman in silence 
 scorns a scoffer. The true Philadelphian understands 
 the strength of his attachment for his own little earthly 
 coign; he knows that out of his city have come men 
 great and valuable in the service of the nation and of 
 mankind, in every branch of human doing. The city 
 has had its statesmen, soldiers, jurists, scientists and 
 its literary men poets, philosophers and novelists. 
 It is still contributing its fair portion to the literature 
 of the country. But with the spirit of the place, what 
 its people have done may be forgotten in the rivalries 
 of Boston and Indiana, and Philadelphians themselves, 
 although inwardly convinced of an honorable history, 
 may sometimes lack exact knowledge of the cause of 
 their secret boast. 
 
 It has been my pleasant task in these chapters to in 
 dicate by rather rapid sketches what has been achieved 
 by the writers and publishers, the book writers and 
 book makers, of a city which with its environs in the 
 early time was the seat of so many active dissenting 
 theologies; which for years was the capital of all the 
 American colonies and later of the young states, being 
 the birthplace of two writings that will always rank as 
 the first of national documents the Declaration of 
 Independence and the Constitution of the United 
 States; and which afterward for long was the unques 
 tioned literary centre of the republic. It is every 
 where agreed that Philadelphia was the focus of 
 literary interest in this country during the later colonial 
 time, the Revolutionary period, and subsequently, until 
 the capital was removed to the city of Washington for 
 which axemen had laboriously hewn a place in the 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 new District of Columbia. It is commonly forgotten 
 that in the first half of the nineteenth century, Phila 
 delphia was the principal American publishing centre, 
 both for books and periodicals, if its native writers 
 were fast being eclipsed by those of New York and 
 New England. This was the time when Poe, Whit- 
 tier, Lowell and other authors were led to the city to 
 swell today the interesting memories of its literary 
 past. 
 
 That New England, as is frequently asserted in 
 Pennsylvania, had the important advantage of cohe- 
 siveness which has always been lacking in Philadelphia, 
 it is necessary to admit. The people were more homo 
 geneous than those who followed Penn to his wilder 
 ness. They understood, sympathized and supported 
 each other. In Pennsylvania, on the other hand, 
 there were stubborn and crotchety religionists, not of 
 one but of many kinds, of many races and speaking 
 many tongues. Nothing but Quaker toleration could 
 have kept the colony on the banks of the Delaware and 
 the Schuylkill on an even keel; indeed the peace- 
 loving disposition of this goodly people was at times 
 most sorely tried. From such an admixture of races 
 with their various religions, political notions and social 
 standards, has the Pennsylvanian come, but he has a 
 character today that is all h ls own. The Quakers in 
 their broad brims, and the drab Quakeresses in their 
 long pleat-bonnets and gowns guiltless of ruffle or fur 
 below, are little seen upon the city s streets, even at 
 Yearly Meeting time when the surrounding towns send 
 their delegates to increase its Friendly population. 
 Even in West Chester, Wilmington, Haddonfield and 
 outlying places in which the Quaker long predominated, 
 
XIV 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 he seems to be disappearing to return no more forever. 
 Nevertheless he lives in the hearts and homes of the 
 Pennsylvania people. Fused with the German sec 
 tarians, religious free thinkers and dissidents like the 
 Quakers; the tempery and belligerent Scotch-Irish and 
 others Gaels; the more formal Church of England 
 men there has been developed a type of American 
 who loves his home, cherishes his ideals, writes of 
 what he has seen and learned and lived through in his 
 own neighborhood. He does not look upon the out 
 sider as a barbarian, but he knows that he is where he 
 ought to be and that his traditions are the traditions 
 of his place and his people. 
 
 I have not deceived myself in the thought that I 
 have made a complete record of the literary activity in 
 two centuries and a quarter in and about the city, and 
 names which should have been included may not be 
 found here. The writer of the eighteenth century 
 would not have loomed very prominently in the nine 
 teenth, and conversely those who can receive no men 
 tion in the nineteenth may not have been the inferiors 
 of those who seemed to shine so brilliantly in an earlier 
 age. Achievement is a relative thing and where 
 there are few to write at all, even those who do it ill 
 attain much prominence. 
 
 " As it is the commendation of a good huntsman 
 to find game in a wide wood, so it is no imputation if 
 he hath not caught all," we are told by Plato and 
 this thought may excuse my study for its incomplete 
 ness at many points. Nothing has of course been said 
 of Philadelphia writers who are still living and a full 
 share of attention may not have been given to some 
 recently dead, whose place in our letters is still envel- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 XV 
 
 oped in obscurity. The reader will perhaps agree, 
 however, that enough have been found to create a nu 
 merous galaxy and to establish the city s claim to a 
 higher place in American literature than is usually ac 
 corded it, even in the house of its friends. What its 
 future position may be it is vain to prophesy, but in 
 the echoes and footprints of the past may perhaps be 
 found some augury of returning grandeur. 
 
 The reader will agree, too, if he follow the book 
 to its end, that no local attachment or pride of soil has 
 tempered the writer s criticisms, though these intro 
 ductory words may promise much sounding phrase to 
 the advantage of a particular neighborhood. 
 
 E, P. O. 
 
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 
 
 It is declared by those who have had experience in 
 the writing and publishing of biographies of the 
 Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, that his life is not 
 a matter of marked interest to the present generation 
 of book readers. Philadelphia boasts few recollections 
 of William Penn except as a wealthy lord proprietor of 
 virgin American land which he sold and leased to all 
 men on liberal terms, setting up and administering 
 here what was for its time a most wise and tolerant 
 system of government. We know of the homes in 
 which he dwelt, the barge in which six oarsmen pro 
 pelled him to the city from Pennsbury Manor, his es 
 tate upon the banks of the Delaware five miles above 
 Bristol, and the pomp and display of his life so irre 
 concilable with the social customs and outward forms 
 later observed by the members of his religious sect. 
 We have the streets and squares he gave us and many 
 of the names of our places and thoroughfares are of 
 his selection. His scholarly attainments are recognized 
 ungrudgingly, but few perhaps are ready to believe him 
 a master of a clear, forceful, literary prose style. 
 
 William Penn s writings all taken together, and in- 
 
* : a" : " LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 eluding his letters and public papers, as they have been 
 selected for publication, fill several large volumes. 
 These for the most part have lost their savor, although 
 his " Fruits of Solitude," admirable reflections written 
 out while languishing in an English prison, abundantly 
 deserves the attention of readers today. Robert Louis 
 Stevenson on his way around the world to recover the 
 physical strength needed to keep the lamp of genius 
 burning within his frail frame, carried with him in his 
 pocket all through the streets of San Francisco, this 
 book of Penn s, perusing and re-perusing it in street 
 cars and ferry boats when he was " sick unto death." 
 " While just now we are so busy and intelligent," said 
 Stevenson, " there is not the man living, no, nor recently 
 dead, that could put with so lovely a spirit so much 
 honest kind wisdom into words." * 
 
 " Never marry but for love," wrote Penn, " but see 
 that thou lovest what is lovely. If love be not thy 
 chiefest motive thou wilt soon grow weary of a married 
 state and stray from thy promise to search out thy 
 pleasures in forbidden places. Let not enjoyment 
 lessen, but augment affection; it being the basest of 
 passions to like when we have not what we slight when 
 we possess." 
 
 Of such wisdom and morality, becomingly expressed, 
 are Penn s " Fruits " of a term in an English prison 
 cell. 
 
 Landing with the Quaker founder, or soon after 
 ward, on the present site of Philadelphia, then without 
 a house where a million and a half abide today, Wil 
 liam Bradford was introduced to Penn s colony. Brad 
 ford brought with him a press, type, or " letters " as he 
 
 * Stevenson s Letters, Vol. I, p. 232. 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 3 
 
 called them, and all the apparatus necessary at that 
 day for printing on white paper. He was born in 
 Leicestershire, learning his trade in London with An 
 drew Sowle, a prominent bookseller and publisher dur 
 ing the Commonwealth and the Restoration, and mar 
 ried his employer s daughter in the way of the diligent 
 young man in the Sunday School tale. He came out 
 to America to find fortune, and set up his press in the 
 neighborhood of Philadelphia, Burlington, Byberry 
 or Chester (accounts vary) establishing himself in the 
 city proper about 1688. The first employment for one 
 of his guild in such a colony at such a day, was in 
 printing the proceedings of religious bodies, the tracts 
 of religious controversialists, and the charters and laws 
 of the young government. Bradford was a Quaker 
 and soon made a number of contracts with the Meeting 
 that were lucrative to him, though not without repeat 
 edly threatening to take himself and his press back to 
 England if support were not accorded him more gener 
 ously. He early projected an American edition of the 
 Bible, but most of the Friends, being men of substance 
 had brought this book with them to the colony and 
 gave no encouragement to the undertaking. 
 
 Shortly, he became involved in the unhappy conten 
 tion that arose in the early history of the Society of 
 Friends between George Keith and the other leaders 
 of the Meeting in America. Keith was a Scotchman, 
 brought up a Presbyterian. For some reason he joined 
 the Friends, and came to America to settle first 
 in the Jerseys whence he was called a little later to 
 become head master of a school which the Quakers 
 had recently established in Philadelphia, existing still 
 today in Twelfth Street as the William Penn Charter 
 
4 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 School. He was able and aspiring and it was thought 
 that at George Fox s death in 1690 he desired to wear 
 the founder s mantle. At any rate, some of his ene 
 mies charged him with cherishing such an ambition. 
 Embittered in spirit, he attempted to lead a separatist 
 movement. While the question will always be in dis 
 pute, it will occur to impartial investigators that the 
 schism Keith attempted to create was not very different 
 from that effected by Elias Hicks s exertions in the nine 
 teenth century, a less able but a more sincere man, 
 whereby unhappily the Society was split in twain even 
 as to neighborhoods and families. When Bayard 
 Taylor s Quakeress secured her father s consent to 
 marry her lover 
 
 " Indeed, twas not the least of shocks, 
 For Benjamin was Hicksite and father Orthodox." 
 
 Keith, however, aimed to incline the Society to 
 greater orthodoxy while Hicks used his influence in 
 the other direction. It was charged of Keith that he 
 " preached two Christs," and that he questioned the 
 " sufficiency of the light," the guiding principle in Qua 
 kerism, demanding a " confession of faith " and other 
 religious forms of the older churches. The Quakers 
 of the day would have none of this; they controlled the 
 government of Pennsylvania which was a complete the 
 ocracy, and he was commanded to preach no longer, 
 being formally disowned both in this country and Eng 
 land. Keith carried his controversy to the stage of 
 print and found attention at the hands of Cotton 
 Mather and the New England tractarians as well as in 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 Bradford printed his friend s appeal to the Yearly 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 5 
 
 Meeting, which was declared to be " a malicious and 
 seditious paper." He was clapped into jail, his type 
 was seized and an innkeeper who offered for sale a few 
 copies of the pamphlet was arrested also, quite in the 
 manner of modern Germany. The most opprobrious 
 epithets were uttered upon both sides, by Keithians 
 and anti-Keithians, while Bradford lay for months in 
 his cell, awaiting trial at the hands of Quaker judges 
 and a Quaker jury. 
 
 Prior to this experience, Bradford had incurred the 
 displeasure of the government for publishing Daniel 
 Leeds s almanac which was said to contain " light, fool 
 ish and unsavory paragraphs," not becoming to the 
 colony, and he had been compelled to surrender all 
 unsold copies of the publication for destruction by the 
 authorities, after being paid 4 as a douceur. Now 
 he had very much more painful proof of the illiberality 
 of the government of the Quaker province toward the 
 press, and being released from custody through a 
 change of administration (the jury had disagreed 
 though left for long by the court in a cold room with 
 out food or tobacco) he made his way in good time to 
 New York, where he became crown printer and an 
 honored citizen. So greatly valued were his services 
 that the city to which Philadelphians banished him 
 found the opportunity in the midst of our absorbing 
 Civil War, on May 18, 1863, to celebrate the two hun 
 dredth anniversary of his birth, replacing his old and 
 broken tomb in Trinity church-yard with a new stone, 
 amid ceremonies which included a procession of sur- 
 pliced priests and choir boys, with invocations and a 
 chant at the grave. All traffic ceased for a time in 
 Broadway by order of the city authorities and there 
 
6 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 were orations and receptions, Pennsylvania being repre 
 sented by a suitable delegation sent out by its active and 
 useful Historical Society. 
 
 As for Keith, he went home, joined the Church of 
 England in 1700, and afterward came out to America 
 as a missionary to convert the Quakers to his new 
 faith. In this work he failed and his reward seems 
 to have been about as great as was Benedict Arnold s 
 for another kind of apostasy. 
 
 For a few years after Bradford s departure from an 
 ungrateful community, Philadelphia had no printing 
 press, which the Friends sorely regretted. They soon 
 adopted measures to secure another and one which 
 should be under their own management. They en 
 gaged a Hollander, Reynier Jansen by name, to man 
 age the machinery and type imported from England, 
 but their patronage was not valuable. The Friends 
 were never as disputatious in matters theological as 
 the adherents of many sects; for example, the writers 
 of which the Mathers were the chief in Massachusetts. 
 Nor were they vigorous as missionaries. It was their 
 object to worship in peace in their own way and they 
 sought not to impose their doctrines upon other men 
 unwillingly. The essential feature of their faith being 
 the idea that man could secure all that was good for 
 him to have through an inward flash, they were at first 
 not very friendly to books or schools, and had com 
 plete distrust of hired and ordained ministers learned 
 in theology. Indeed, the scholars among their con 
 verts tried to rid themselves of their knowledge in a 
 curious effort to make themselves " empty vessels," 
 ready to receive the word and do the bidding of the 
 Lord. 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 7 
 
 But the doctrines of George Fox, regarding the in 
 ward light and the need of turning the left cheek to 
 him who should smite the right, were not entirely suf 
 ficient to prevent the writing of tracts and books by 
 the Friends. These were descriptive of the colony, 
 designed to entice others into the Quaker wilderness, 
 and of a religious nature. The most prominent of the 
 early Quaker writers was Caleb Pusey, who wrote de 
 fending the Society of Friends against Keith, and upon 
 other questions. He was a native of Berkshire, Eng 
 land, and originally had been a Baptist. He settled in 
 this country in 1682 and was visited by Penn in his 
 little stone house, still standing on Chester Creek near 
 old Upland, now the city of Chester, the first Quaker 
 settlement on the Delaware. Today in Delaware 
 County, it was earlier in Chester County and from 
 Pusey, literary historians of that county, so prolific 
 of distinguished names in American science and let 
 ters, trace the record of a kind of Athenian grandeur 
 through Benjamin West, Bayard Taylor, Thomas 
 Buchanan Read, George Lippard, Daniel G. Brinton, 
 William Darlington, and other authors and scien 
 tists. He had a prominent part in administering 
 the theocracy created under the Penn charters and died 
 near Kennett Square, in the confines of the Chester 
 County of today, in 1726 at the age of seventy-six. 
 His publications are of no conceivable interest at this 
 day and his chief claim to our attention is the work he 
 performed in assembling much of the material later 
 incorporated in Robert Proud s History of Pennsyl 
 vania. 
 
 Pennsylvania s first contributor of a vital writing to 
 that body of literature which makes up the Quaker 
 
8 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 theology, in so far as the Society can be held to have 
 one, is Thomas Chalkley. He came first to Mary 
 land in 1700, whence after a winter he reached Phila 
 delphia, long his home except for his frequent adven 
 turous, even perilous, journeys by land and sea as a 
 missionary, and his absences in pursuit of his worldly 
 calling as a merchant and ship-captain. He often 
 combined his business with the preaching of the Word 
 of God. He visited the Southern colonies and trav 
 elled unarmed, alone or with but one or two compan 
 ions, among the Indians of New York and New Eng 
 land at the time waging relentless war upon the set 
 tlers. On such occasions he was never molested, being 
 recognized by the savages as one apart from other 
 white men. He visited the Barbadoes and the Ber 
 mudas, and died on the Island of Tortola, one of the 
 Virgin Islands, while engaged in missionary service. 
 His home in the later years of his life was near Frank- 
 ford on the banks of the Delaware. He lived at first 
 in an old-fashioned brick house with a hipped roof on 
 Frankford Creek, then in " Chalkley Hall " nearby, a 
 fine large edifice long occupied by Mrs. Edward Weth- 
 erill until it was despoiled as a country home by the 
 erection of the Pennsylvania Railroad s Delaware River 
 bridge. It was of this " old Abraham of Quakerism," 
 as Whittier called him, that the Quaker poet wrote 
 after visiting the " Hall" in 1838: 
 
 " Far away beneath New England s sky, 
 
 E en when a boy 
 
 Following my plough by Merrimac s green shore, 
 His simple record I have pondered o er 
 With deep and quiet joy." 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 9 
 
 Chalkley s journal, which is an interesting account 
 of his travels, was published with some religious essays 
 in a fat volume, by order of the Philadelphia Monthly 
 Meeting of Friends, by Benjamin Franklin in 1749, 
 and it has been reprinted repeatedly. The moral aus 
 terity of this famous Quaker preacher was not excelled 
 by any of New England s early Puritans. He de 
 nounced the playing cards, which have amused men for 
 so many centuries, as " engines of Satan " and declared 
 with the Waldenses that " as many paces or steps as 
 the man or woman takes in the dance, so many paces 
 or steps they take toward Hell." 
 
 The descriptive writers of most note at this early 
 period were Jonathan Dickenson and Gabriel Thomas. 
 Dickenson s work is strongly religious, as is abundantly 
 indicated by the name of his best known writing, 
 " God s Protecting Providence Man s Surest Help and 
 Defence in Times of the Greatest Difficulty and Most 
 Eminent Danger." He was an English Quaker of parts 
 who sailed with his family and slaves for Pennsylvania 
 by way of Jamaica, being wrecked upon the Florida 
 coasts. He finally reached Philadelphia, himself and 
 retinue intact, escaping the " devouring waves of the 
 sea " and the " devouring jaws of inhumane cannibals," 
 later to become Chief Justice of the province. His 
 moving narrative has been reprinted many times and it 
 has been translated into at least one foreign tongue, 
 the Dutch. 
 
 Gabriel Thomas was the representative of another 
 type of Quaker, not too drab of color, probably the 
 first Pennsylvania humorist. After living in Philadel 
 phia for seventeen years he visited London and pub 
 lished in 1698 "An Historical and Geographical Ac- 
 
io LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 count of the Province and Country of Pennsylvania 
 and of West Jersey." It is a very seductive descrip 
 tion of " this noble spot of earth " to which Penn and 
 his friends had come, where the air was found to be as 
 " delicate, pleasant and wholesome " as in France. 
 Thomas discovered here the bull frog which " makes 
 a roaring noise hardly to be distinguished from that 
 well known of the beast from whom it takes its name;" 
 and " that wonder of stones, the salamander-stone, 
 found near Brandywine River, having cotton veins 
 within it which will not consume in the fire though held 
 there a long time," a bland description of the pecu 
 liar properties of asbestos ore. The social state of the 
 new colony did not escape his attention. " Of lawyers 
 and physicians I shall say nothing," our writer explains, 
 " because this country is very peaceable and healthy. 
 Long may it so continue and never have occasion for 
 the tongue of the one or the pen of the other, both 
 equally destructive of men s estates and lives." 
 
 Of many Englishmen in the colony in the early time 
 whose literary activity was confined to the reading of 
 books, translation from the classics, verse-making and 
 the writing of essays and private journals, there were 
 none so worthy of note as Thomas Lloyd and James 
 Logan. Lloyd was an Oxford graduate and reached 
 Philadelphia in 1683, being Penn s principal repre 
 sentative in the colony for several years. He it was 
 to whom the founder wrote on shipboard, when re 
 turning to England in 1684, this parting message for 
 communication to the colonists: " And thou Philadel 
 phia, the virgin settlement of this province named be 
 fore thou wert born, what love, what care, what service 
 and what travail has there been to bring thee forth and 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 11 
 
 preserve thee from such as would abuse and defile 
 thee." 
 
 Lloyd with Penn had the city s greatest good at 
 heart and combatted all defilement by those not nursed 
 at the breast and baptized in the spirit of the place. 
 He became involved prominently in the proceedings 
 taken against Keith and died in 1694. 
 
 Logan was born in Ireland of Scotch parents and 
 although without the university training of Lloyd, he 
 had been well schooled in Greek, Latin and Hebrew 
 while still a young boy. He came out as Penn s sec 
 retary in 1699, on the founder s second visit to the 
 colony, and was left in charge of the proprietor s in 
 terests in America. Right faithfully and well was his 
 task performed. Logan was entrusted with many high 
 offices by the people of Pennsylvania and he became 
 a citizen of great value to the country. Breaking a 
 thigh bone when still not an old man, he was crippled 
 for life and retired for his literary pursuits to his estate 
 of five hundred acres, five miles outside the town, at 
 Stenton, the mansion upon it near Wayne Junction in 
 Germantown being still today one of the principal points 
 of historical interest in Philadelphia. There he re 
 ceived large deputations of Indians who camped for 
 days at a time upon his estate, made treaties, leased 
 and sold lands, and conferred with his fellow law 
 givers of the province. He corresponded with the 
 principal scholars of Europe in English and Latin inter 
 changeably; accumulated many books, the foundation 
 of the Loganian Library, now a part of the Philadel 
 phia Library; interested himself in the natural sciences; 
 published treatises on serious subjects in America and 
 Europe and translated several classical writings. His 
 
12 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 published work in the classics includes his rather fa 
 mous rendering of Cicero s " Cato Major, or Dis 
 course on Old Age," printed by Franklin, and his 
 translation of " Cato s Moral Distichs " into English 
 verse. Much of his work which was not published has 
 been handed down to us in manuscript. 
 
 His grandson, Dr. George Logan, of Stenton, who 
 was for a term a United States Senator from Pennsyl 
 vania, a sympathizer with the French revolutionists, 
 and a democrat of the most radical and fervent variety, 
 being as much of a people lover as his grandfather 
 was an aristocrat, married Deborah, a granddaughter 
 of Perm s friend, Isaac Norris. It was for Debby 
 Norris that Sally Wister wrote the sprightly and en 
 tertaining journal which is so much enjoyed by readers 
 of this day. 
 
 It was reserved for Deborah Logan to rescue 
 James Logan s letters and manuscripts from rats, the 
 mould and general oblivion. At great pains this re 
 markable woman copied thousands of pages which she 
 found in the cubby-holes and other garret rooms at 
 Stenton, interpolating many personal remarks and ex 
 planations. This manuscript is now in safe keeping 
 in the fireproofs of Philadelphia libraries and is an en 
 during monument to the name of Logan in Pennsyl 
 vania. 
 
 Although we are anticipating, it may here be noted 
 that Mrs. Logan s services as an historian were con 
 siderable, and to verify facts and secure reminiscences 
 of people and events of the past, John F. Watson, the 
 annalist, who lived in Germantown, long made daily 
 visits to the mistress of Stenton, then in the autumn 
 of her life. Deborah Logan wrote some verse which 
 
JAMES LOGAN 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 13 
 
 would have rung well in the century in which her 
 grandfather lived, so little prolific in America of good 
 or even mediocre poetry. She enjoyed the sonnet, a 
 form, however, she remarked, which seemed " to put 
 the muse into corsets." Imitative in her style in a 
 striking degree and without much fancy, this good old 
 Philadelphia Quakeress, gifted in an unusual way with 
 an interest in literary affairs and the love of truth in 
 research, and as a commentator, left much by which she 
 will be remembered in her own city, if not in a larger 
 field.* 
 
 The Quakers, if their leaders really wished to cen- 
 sorize the issues of Bradford s press and drive him to 
 more favoring neighborhoods, were not long to be rid 
 of him, for in 1712 his son Andrew, a young man who 
 had been born in Philadelphia, returned to that city 
 with the encouragement and pecuniary support of his 
 father, setting up a press which enjoyed the direction 
 of members of the Bradford family until we were well 
 forward in the nineteenth century. In addition to the 
 printing and selling of books, pamphlets and tracts 
 Andrew Bradford began in 1719 the publication of the 
 " American Weekly Mercury," the first newspaper to 
 be issued in the Middle Colonies and the third in the 
 British Provinces in America. Andrew Bradford s 
 operations on several occasions were censorized, as his 
 father s had been, and once his home and printing office 
 were searched and he was put into prison for some 
 harmless criticism uttered against the government. 
 
 For a time, near the end of his life, he had associ 
 ated with him in his business his nephew William 
 
 * Mrs. Logan was the first woman to be elected to membership in 
 the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 
 
I 4 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Bradford. The latter s aunt, Andrew Bradford s wife 
 by a second union, was an ambitious matchmaker and 
 desired to marry him to one of her young kinswomen. 
 Such an alliance being against the youth s inclinations, 
 he soon went to England, visiting the Sowles, his rel 
 atives in London, who were still engaged in the pub 
 lishing business, a season of experience and observation 
 of vast value to him in his future career in Philadelphia. 
 This William Bradford became the most prominent 
 and useful of the name in Pennsylvania. His uncle 
 dying, his aunt carried on the business for a time as 
 Cornelia Bradford; but to William the trade of the 
 house descended. His book-shop and printing-office 
 were situated first in Second Street between Chestnut 
 and Market Streets, and then at the corner of Front 
 and Market Streets, opposite that interesting centre of 
 trade, gossip and information, the London Coffee 
 House. In this neighborhood all the printing houses 
 and publishing offices of the time were situated. 
 
 In 1742 Bradford began the publication of the 
 " Pennsylvania Journal," which soon outdistanced 
 Franklin s " Pennsylvania Gazette," already established 
 for thirteen years, both by reason of its quality as a 
 newspaper and the business energy of its editor and 
 proprietor, who numbered among his subscribers be 
 fore and during the Revolution the leading planters, 
 merchants, statesmen, soldiers and literati in all parts 
 of America. This paper in the hands of himself and 
 his descendants lived for nearly sixty years and its pub 
 lication was continued into the nineteenth century by a 
 member of the family as the " True American." 
 
 While the Bradford press secured much Quaker pat 
 ronage, the Society gave not a little of its favor to 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 15 
 
 Samuel Keimer, an odd, adventurous and entirely pre 
 posterous person, who began to print in Philadelphia 
 early in the eighteenth century. By some he is re 
 garded as the city s first publisher, others who preceded 
 him being dismissed as mere printers. He reprinted 
 Steele s " Crisis " and issued a translation of Epictetus 
 on Morals which is thought to have been the first 
 published translation of a classical writing in the col 
 onies. 
 
 The Society of Friends early in the twenties invited 
 Keimer to reprint Sewel s " History of the People Called 
 Quakers " which had just appeared in England. They 
 had first suggested the work to Bradford, but he hesi 
 tated and decided at length to import the book. 
 Keimer meantime received the contract, sought sub 
 scriptions, procured new type and finally, after nearly 
 five years, put his book upon the market to find that 
 Bradford had supplied it with the English edition, that 
 Franklin had maligned and sneered him out of public 
 confidence and respect; wherefore, his money gone, he 
 left the city for the West Indies. Franklin soon pro 
 cured the newspaper Keimer had established in 1728, 
 the " Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences and 
 Pennsylvania Gazette," and converted it into the " Penn 
 sylvania Gazette " to become a better newspaper than 
 the colony had yet known, but one to which he never 
 gave much of himself. For this reason its rivals soon 
 compelled it to occupy a secondary place among the 
 journals of Philadelphia. 
 
 It has not been fair in the past, nor is it just today 
 to leave out of account the intellectual activity of the 
 Germans, who so soon followed the Quakers to Penn 
 sylvania. Through the recent researches of indus- 
 
16 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 trious antiquarians * justice is being done to the mem 
 ory of men like Pastorius, Kelpius, Beissel, Sower and 
 Christopher Dock. They spoke, wrote and printed in 
 another and a despised language. Indeed, many of 
 them were fluent masters of several languages, Latin, 
 Greek, French and other tongues as well as of their 
 own German (they were the flower of the Continental 
 universities) ; wherefore they were not understood by 
 the English colonists, for the most part men of less 
 erudition. There w r as a vast amount of ignorance 
 among the German immigrants, but some of the lead 
 ers of the sects that had come here because of the re 
 ligious freedom to be enjoyed in Pennsylvania, were 
 scholars of uncommon talent. Their interest was 
 chiefly given to hymn books, Bibles and devotional 
 works, but they issued controversial tracts and sermons, 
 and in the development of the printer s and bookbind 
 er s art, were at first not behind their English rivals. 
 Their well-educated leaders died and they later be 
 came a people noted for much stupidity, losing their 
 command of a written language, and indeed being sat 
 isfied to communicate with each other through the me 
 dium of a hybridized German-English dialect; but they 
 began well and by their services to letters in Philadel 
 phia and its neighborhood are entitled to place in any 
 record of the city s literary activities. 
 
 The earliest of the German immigrants, also the 
 most deserving of our remembrance in the history of 
 the city s literary past, was Francis Daniel Pastorius, 
 Whittier s " Pennsylvania Pilgrim," who settled in 
 Germantown soon after the " Welcome " brought the 
 
 *For what is said here about the Pennsylvania Germans, the 
 writer is principally indebted to the studies of Samuel W. Penny- 
 packer, Julius F. Sachse and Oswald Seidensticker. 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 17 
 
 first Quakers up the Delaware. He came hither on 
 the same ship as Thomas Lloyd with whom he con 
 versed in Latin, likewise writing verses which were 
 dedicated to the English Quaker s winsome daughters 
 who accompanied him to America. Beyond question, 
 Pastorius had greater literary attainments than any 
 Englishman who came to settle in the colony at 
 that early day. His grandfather, a man of education 
 and social position, was driven out of Erfurt, Germany, 
 by Gustavus Adolphus, dying of the exposure and 
 brutal flogging administered to him and his family by 
 that Northern crusader. A son, Melchior Adam, the 
 father of Francis Daniel, graduated as a Doctor of 
 Literature in Rome and gave his children the best edu 
 cational opportunities afforded to young men of that 
 day upon the continent. Francis Daniel studied at the 
 Universities of Strasburg, Jena and Basle, graduating 
 in law at Altdorf. He came to Pennsylvania by the 
 usual route via Cologne, Rotterdam and London 
 in 1683 when thirty-two years of age, attracted to the 
 colony by reason of Penn s travels beyond the Rhine. 
 He represented a German land company and was the 
 founder of that actively intellectual and now truly 
 beautiful suburb of Philadelphia, Germantown. That 
 employment being little lucrative and later failing him 
 altogether, he became a conveyancer, legal scrivener 
 and teacher. In 1688, in disgust with his learning 
 and the Philistinism of the world through which he 
 must pursue his way with what often seemed to him 
 to be very useless baggage (it all sounds very modern) 
 he wrote to a friend in Germany: "I myself would 
 give one hundred rix dollars if the time I wasted upon 
 learning the Sperling physic and metaphysics and other 
 
i8 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 unnecessary sophistical argumentationes and argiiitiones, 
 I had devoted to engineer work or to book printing, 
 which would have been useful and valuable to me and 
 to my fellow Christians, rather than to physics, meta 
 physics and Aristotelian Elenchi and Sylochismi by 
 which no savage or heathen can be brought to God, 
 much less a piece of bread can be procured." 
 
 Pastorius composed verses in Latin, German and 
 English, and it is said could also speak, read and write 
 Greek, French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish. Before 
 the Friends in Philadelphia had yet become aroused 
 to the evils of slavery he, with some of his neighbors 
 in Germantown, protested against the " traffick of 
 mens-body," especially as it concerned the selling of 
 Indians to planters in the Barbadoes. Pastorius left 
 in all seven printed writings, among them a primer, the 
 first school book to be prepared by an American writer 
 and published in the colonies. His unpublished works 
 numbered forty-three, including the manuscript of the 
 famous " Alvearium " or " Bee Hive," a vast encyclo 
 pedic collection of matter in many languages, compiled 
 for the benefit of his children, of which Whittier 
 wrote : 
 
 " At evening, while his wife put on her look 
 Of love s endurance, from its niche he took 
 The written pages of his ponderous book. 
 
 " And read in half the languages of man 
 His Rusca Apium, which with bees began 
 And through the gamut of creation ran." 
 
 This work is still in the hands of his descendants, 
 having lately been deposited with the University of 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 19 
 
 Pennsylvania, and local historians have suggested the 
 printing of it in a number of volumes. " Honey is 
 money/ Pastorius said, for which reason he committed 
 the writing to the attention and reading of his chil 
 dren, observing that " a bee may gather honey and 
 spider poison from the same flower"; that " the drip 
 pings of the house eaves in time make a hole in a hard 
 stone," and that " it is very bad cloath that by often 
 dipping will take no colour." This book is a proof of 
 the industry and diligence of the author, if it testify 
 little as to the literary value of his work. He was, 
 however, a strong and forceful writer upon many sub 
 jects. He was observant; he had humor, sincerity and 
 remarkable range. The feeling and strength which he 
 could impart when upon a religious subject is evi 
 denced by an extract from a letter to a friend he had 
 left behind him in Germany. After describing some 
 of the discomforts of life in the wilderness as compared 
 with the pleasure of stone houses and the " agreeable 
 food and drink " of Germany, he continued : 
 
 "If these above-mentioned considerations do not 
 seem too hard to you, then go, the sooner the better, 
 out of the European Sodom and think then of Lot s 
 wife who indeed went forward with her feet but left 
 behind her heart and inclinations. Oh, worthy friend, 
 I wish indeed that with this eagle s plume [he wrote 
 with a quill from an American eagle] I could express 
 to you the love I feel for you and indeed convince you 
 that it is not a mere lip-love but one which wishes 
 more good to you than to myself. My heart is bound 
 unto yours in a bond of love. Let us now grow to 
 gether like trees which the right hand of God has 
 planted by streams of water so that we bjing forth not 
 
20 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 only leaves but fruit at the proper time the fruit of 
 repentance, the fruit of peace, the fruit of justice. 
 For of what advantage is such a useless tree ? Although 
 the Gardener spares it for some years longer, digs and 
 works about it with all care, he at last, when it shows 
 no improvement, cuts it down and casts it into the 
 fire." 
 
 Pastorius was a vigorous advocate of his " German- 
 opolis," as he called his settlement in the new world, 
 and looked not back as did the wife of Lot. He had 
 left the " German land " with others, as he wrote in 
 Latin in the Germantown Grund und Lager-Buch, 
 Whittier translating it: 
 
 " And where the wild beast roams 
 
 In patience planned 
 New forest homes beyond the mighty sea, 
 
 There undisturbed and free 
 To live as brothers of one family." 
 
 Two of the noblest architectural monuments of col 
 onial Philadelphia, Old Swedes* Church (Gloria Dei), 
 overlooking the shores and wharves of the Delaware in 
 a southern portion of the city, long ago abandoned as 
 a place of residence by the intellectual and the fash 
 ionable; and Christ Church on Second Street, near Mar 
 ket Street, are remarkable today for their great age. 
 When Evangeline landed in Philadelphia 
 
 " Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry of 
 
 Christ Church, 
 While intermingled with these across the meadows were 
 
 wafted 
 
 Sounds of psalms that were sung by the Swedes in their 
 church at Wicaco." 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 21 
 
 But those edifices had not yet been built and there 
 were only Quaker meetings in Philadelphia when a 
 number of oddly clad Germans in long coarse robes, 
 leaning upon their pilgrim staffs, appeared in the 
 streets of the city. They were objects of a vast amount 
 of curiosity. Their leader, Zimmerman, had died be 
 fore they had embarked for America and Johannes 
 Kelpius became their maglster. Proceeding to Ger- 
 mantown they found Pastorius and his settlers too 
 worldly for their tastes and sought homes among the 
 steep cliffs and dark glades overstrewn with boulders 
 and upgrown with hemlocks, in the valley of the Wissa- 
 hickon, now penetrated by the most beautiful public 
 drive in the environs of any city in the world. The pil 
 grims found their tastes gratified here in the wildest 
 solitude 
 
 " Where thy sweetly murm ring river 
 
 In its glad play 
 
 To the woods that round thee quiver 
 Weaves a fond lay. 
 
 " Where the wild bird loves to listen 
 
 On its still wing 
 As thy silvery waters glisten, 
 And sweetly sing." * 
 
 These Germans called themselves " The Contented 
 of the God Fearing Soul " and were usually known to 
 other men as " The Society of the Woman in the Wil 
 derness," a name which was derived from the twelfth 
 chapter of Revelation. They reached Philadelphia in 
 1694 and confidently awaited the Millennium, which 
 
 *Miss Waterman on "Revisiting the Wissahickon " in "Gentle 
 man s Magazine " Vol. Ill, p. 166. 
 
22 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 they believed would arrive in 1700. These German 
 mystics, Kelpius, Koster, the Falkners, Dr. Christopher 
 Witt and others, for a time had a kind of cloister or 
 tabernacle upon the western bank of the Wissahickon in 
 what they already called u Rocksborrow." 
 
 " A mound-like hill covered with a strange edifice 
 built of stone with steep roofs and many windows and 
 a garden blooming far down into the glen. That is 
 the monastery in which the monks of Wissahikon long 
 ago worshipped God without a creed." Thus in " The 
 Rose of Wissahikon " wrote George Lippard, the 
 novelist, who used to wander lovingly over the ruins 
 of this strange house. Leaving their cloister the pil 
 grims repaired often to caves and cabins where in 
 prayerful solitude and some physical suffering they 
 awaited manifestations of the Divine will. From 
 Whittier we hear of 
 
 " Painful Kelpius, from his hermit den 
 By Wissahickon, maddest of good men." 
 
 But Kelpius may not have been as mad as he seemed, 
 since he and many of his associates were men of uni 
 versity training and great erudition. They knew sev 
 eral languages and experimented in the sciences. 
 Their folly was religious and the Pietists were but a 
 few degrees farther advanced on the way of strange 
 worship than the members of other sects that arose in 
 such numbers in Europe, rapidly to send their repre 
 sentatives to the shores of America. The Wissa 
 hickon mystics cultivated herbs in their gardens, 
 practiced medicine, experimented in alchemy, seeking 
 an elixir of life, studied mathematics and astronomy, 
 and, without cost, imparted education to the children 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 23 
 
 of Germantown. Kelpius died at thirty-five, having 
 contracted consumption while seeking communion with 
 God in his cold cave. The community was dispersed, 
 a few members continuing for years to occupy their 
 lonely cabins and becoming widely known among un 
 believers as the " Hermits of the Ridge." One of their 
 number, Dr. Christopher Witt, removed to German- 
 town, where he planted a botanical garden, enjoying 
 the friendship of John Bartram, and noted botanists in 
 Europe. He also manufactured clocks, viewed the 
 stars through a telescope and cured disease with his 
 herbs and quicksets. Unlike Kelpius, the regimen 
 seemed to favor him and this old ascetic lived to be 
 ninety years old. 
 
 When the effects of these curious men were distrib 
 uted, many of their old tomes upon ancient and me 
 diaeval learning found their way to Christ Church, where 
 they are still to be seen in a room in the tower, having 
 survived the search for gun wadding by British and 
 Revolutionists and the insects that in other centuries as 
 in this have been no respecters of books. 
 
 A rival body of German mystics, seceders from the 
 Dunker church, early established a community at Eph- 
 rata in Lancaster County. These men, led by Conrad 
 Beissel, an ignorant man (he had been a journeyman 
 baker in a small town in Germany), sought spiritual 
 regeneration in monkish life in what they called " The 
 Community of the Solitary." Beissel, whatever his 
 limitations, had the power to lead, preach and write, 
 and he numbered in his group hymnists, linguists, 
 printers and bookbinders. A cloister was built, the 
 remains of which are still to be seen, and the religious 
 experiment concerns this narrative only as it served to 
 
24 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 develop literary interest on this continent both inde 
 pendently and in connection with the leaders at Ger- 
 mantcma. A friend of Beissel s in Germany, Christo 
 pher Saur (soon spelled Saucr and later Sower), had 
 come to this country and after briefly visiting Phila 
 delphia, also settled in Lancaster County, where he be 
 came a farmer. Sower s wife left him to join Beissel s 
 mystics, who were of both sexes, and deprived of her 
 aid, he gave up the life of a frontier husbandman, re 
 moving in 1731 with his ten-year-old son Christopher 
 to Germantown, to earn his living at a trade. He be 
 came a dockmaker, but had various vocations, as the 
 place was then too small well to support him at a single 
 pursuit. He affiliated with the Dunkers in whose little 
 fftmg house on the Main Street a brass tablet to the 
 memory of the first and second Christopher Sower was 
 placed in 1899. ^ s religious friends urged him to 
 set up a printing press. He procured type in Europe 
 for a German 4i Buchdruckery n and was soon well 
 fiinMJM*! with the facilities for publishing tracts, al 
 manacs, newspapers and books. The Sowers became 
 to the Germans what the Bradfords had been and still 
 were to the FugliA colonists. 
 
 On account of his relations with the Ephrata com 
 munity, the Gennantown printer was commissioned to 
 publish a collection of 650 hymns, many of them com 
 posed by Beissel and the Ephrata brethren, and chris 
 tened incomprehensibly (to all Englishmen at least) 
 the "Weyrauchs Hugel " (literally Mountain of 
 Prayer). This work was successfully accomplished, 
 though not without unhappy disagreements, since 
 Sower thus early attempted to exercise the publisher s 
 privilege of censorizing his author s manuscript, the 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 15 
 
 beginning of a dispute that led to the establishment of 
 a separate press at Ephrata. 
 
 Sower, following the example of the English pub 
 lishers, soon had his almanac, and on August 20, 1739, 
 began to issue the first successful German newspaper in 
 America, a small publication of four pages, " Der 
 Hoch Deutsch Pensylvanische Geschicht-Schreiber," a 
 name afterward changed to the " Pensylvanische Be- 
 richte," and still later " Die Germantauner Zeitung/ 
 Franklin had started a German paper in 1732, but 
 the undertaking failed, like many of the enterprises of 
 so active a projector and organizer, although today we 
 are prone to suppose that his association with any 
 movement meant its imtiuidiatg success. This paper, 
 called i% Die Philadelphische Zeitung," was to be an 
 edited translation of Franklin s Fngjish paper, the 
 " Gazette," by Louis Timothee, afterward the first 
 librarian of the Philadelphia Library. It had a very 
 brief life and the field was ripe for the harvest when 
 Sower, seven years later, asked the support of the Ger 
 man colonists for his joumaL 
 
 Sower s greatest performance, however, was his 
 Bible. He issued three editions, in 1743, 1763 and 
 1776, before there was another reprint of the Scrip 
 tures in any European language upon this mniingnt. 
 Then in 1782 Robert Aitken, also a Philadelphia pub 
 lisher, issued the first American edition in the English 
 tongue. It is true that William Bradford, as early as 
 in 1687, had proposed an edition to the Friends; but 
 his suggestion came to naught, and to Sower must the 
 credit be given for what was, for the time, a very im 
 portant achievement in publishing. He advertised his 
 undertaking in his almanac and newspaper, and spread 
 
26 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 prospectuses through the country by the teamsters, as 
 they travelled the Pennsylvania roads past the German 
 farmhouses. Each subscriber was to pay a half crown 
 in advance, since because of a lack of capital he was 
 compelled to " borrow," as he expressed it, to carry on 
 his ambitious work. He explained that the paper 
 alone would cost seven shillings six pence for each 
 Bible. The book when completed would be sold at 
 twelve shillings, unbound, with an extra charge for the 
 binding, according to the kind of leather used and the 
 quality of the workmanship. Bradford, it is to be 
 noted, had proposed to sell his Bible at twenty shillings 
 to subscribers and twenty-six shillings to other pur 
 chasers. 
 
 Sower began printing in 1742, having imported 
 much new type from Frankfort-on-the-Main. The 
 work was carried on, it is said, in a building behind his 
 home on the site now occupied by a house numbered 
 5253 Main Street. The paper, which was an item of 
 cost of so much importance, was at the time difficult 
 to procure. There were but two or three paper mills 
 in the colony, the oldest of these having been es 
 tablished by William Ryttinghuisen, a Mennonite 
 preacher from Holland and the grandfather of David 
 Rittenhouse, the ingenious inventor and astronomer of 
 the Revolutionary period. It stood in a little glade, 
 the path of a rivulet called " Paper Mill Run " that 
 trickles into the Wissahickon through what is now a 
 part of Germantown and near the spot where the her 
 mits had their caves, but upon the other bank of the 
 stream. Each sheet of paper must be made separately 
 from rags pounded to a pulp by trip hammers in stone 
 mortars. Three men in a day could produce only four 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 27 
 
 and a half reams of sheets measuring twenty by thirty 
 inches. Being scarce, Franklin not seldom monopo 
 lized the supply and other printers must pay him an 
 exorbitant price. Sower, it is said, solicited rags from 
 the people for at least some of the paper needed for 
 his Bible. He made the ink from linseed oil expressed 
 at Ephrata, which was mixed with soot from the chim 
 neys of Germantown, boiling the ingredients in a vat 
 in a meadow where the fumes would not offend the 
 sense of smell of the citizens. Four pages were 
 laboriously printed at a time upon a handpress, the 
 paper being then hung from poles to dry. The work 
 was a quarto of 1267 pages and it was finished in one 
 year and a half. As he saw his work ended, it is said 
 that the pious old Dunker publisher crossed his hands 
 over his breast, raised his eyes, and exclaimed, " Thank 
 God, it is finished. 7 
 
 The book was no sooner completed than Henry Mel- 
 chior Muhlenberg, the prominent Lutheran leader, sent 
 out from Halle, usually called the " Patriarch " to dis 
 tinguish him from his three sons who were also well- 
 known divines, attacked it, charging that Sower had 
 interpolated a number of theological observations of 
 his own. This dispute raged hotly and it was nineteen 
 years before the first edition of 1200 copies was sold. 
 The first Christopher Sower was then five years dead 
 and ensuing issues were made by his only son Christo 
 pher Sower 2d. 
 
 Soon the Sowers printed in the English language, as 
 well as in German. They made a reprint in 1749 of 
 Thomas a Kempis. The motto of the house, " To the 
 Glory of God and for the Good of Mankind," appeared 
 upon many publications, and its service to American 
 
28 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 letters in the eighteenth century in Pennsylvania is not 
 to be estimated lightly. 
 
 The Dunkers were non-combatants and their course 
 in the Revolutionary War caused them to be regarded 
 with suspicion by zealous patriots. Christopher Sower 
 2d, who was a bishop of the church, was arrested as a 
 spy in 1778, smeared with paint, prodded with bayo 
 nets and taken before the Provost Guard. His life 
 was spared him only because of the intercession of 
 General Washington, his property was confiscated, and 
 he died in poverty, a dependent upon the charity of his 
 friends, near Norristown, Pa. His sons followed the 
 British army upon its departure from Philadelphia, 
 Christopher Sower 3d becoming for a time a king s 
 printer in England, and later enjoying a lucrative office 
 in connection with the post-office in Nova Scotia. After 
 the war the house was reorganized and Charles G. 
 Sower, in the direct line in the fifth generation, in 1844 
 entered the business. As Sower and Barnes, Sower, 
 Barnes and Company, Sower, Barnes and Potts, Sower, 
 Potts and Company, and since 1888 the Christopher 
 Sower Company, under which name the business is still 
 conducted at 614 Arch Street, the firm gained much 
 repute in the school-book trade. It is held to be the 
 oldest publishing house in America. 
 
 Many of the Ephrata brethren lived for long periods 
 in Germantown while Sower was issuing the great 
 Hymn Book. They supplied some of the paper for the 
 Sower Bible and bound many copies of the book for 
 subscribers in Lancaster County. Because of disputes, 
 however, and for other reasons, Beissel and his monks 
 determined to establish a printery of their own. It was 
 about 1740 that they set up in their cloister a press 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 29 
 
 adapted to the use of both German and English types 
 and added a paper-mill and a book-bindery to their 
 little group of industries. Their issues are now the 
 most valuable of all American imprints. The largest 
 of the undertakings of these Lancaster County mystics 
 was " Der Blutige Schauplatz oder Martyrer Spiegel," 
 the great Martyr Book compiled by Van Bragt, a Dutch 
 theologian. It was a more or less complete and en 
 tirely horrible record of the devastations committed 
 upon Christians by flame, knife, rack, pinion, screw and 
 other instruments of torture. In the moral view of the 
 time of Mennonites and Bunkers, the young were im 
 proved by a reading of such literature, and the Ephrata 
 brethren determined to translate the book from the 
 Dutch into High German. Fifteen monks under 
 Beissel s direction were assigned to the task and the 
 work of translation, printing, binding and sale was 
 performed in about three years. The book was pub 
 lished in 1748 and 1749. There was an edition of 
 some 1 200 or 1300 copies and it was finished as a 
 massive folio of 1512 pages on thick paper in large 
 type. This was a greater achievement than Sower s 
 printing of the Bible, and altogether the most note 
 worthy performance in the early history of publishing 
 on the continent. The Martyr Book was not only the 
 largest book published up to that time in America; it 
 was the largest to make its appearance until after the 
 Revolution. 
 
 In still another field were the Germans of Philadel 
 phia and its neighborhood pioneers. They have to 
 their credit the first book upon the subject of education. 
 It is entitled " Schulordnung " or " School Manage 
 ment," and was written by Christopher Dock, the 
 
3 o LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 schoolmaster of the Skippack. Dock, a pious Men- 
 nonite, came to America about 1714 and opened a 
 school on the Skippack in what is now Montgomery 
 County, teaching too for a time in Germantown. The 
 treatise was written in 1750, but through delays occa 
 sioned by the author s aversion to having it printed and 
 the publisher s misfortune in losing or mislaying the 
 manuscript, it was not issued until 1769. The essay 
 was several times reprinted, as recently as in 1861. 
 This little work, together with some articles upon the 
 same subject in Sower s magazine, affords interesting 
 insight into the system of school-keeping in vogue at 
 the time among Pennsylvania s " back inhabitants. " 
 The rules of conduct for Dock s children may be read 
 to-day with unalloyed delight, both for their practical 
 shrewdness, and the quaint mode in which they are 
 expressed. Some of them follow: 
 
 " Dear child, accustom yourself to awaken at the 
 right time in the morning without being called, and as 
 soon as you are awake get out of bed without delay." 
 
 " The bones or what remains over do not throw 
 under the table; do not put them on the table cloth, but 
 let them lie on the edge of the plate." 
 
 " Picking the teeth with the knife or fork does not 
 look well and is injurious to the gums." 
 
 " It is not well to put back on the dish what you have 
 once had on your plate." 
 
 u Do not stick the remaining bread in your pocket, 
 but let it lie on the table." 
 
 " Learn not to be delicate and overnice or to imagine 
 that you cannot eat this or that thing. Many must 
 learn to eat among strangers what they would not eat 
 at home." 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 31 
 
 The leaders of the Moravians, who came first to 
 Philadelphia and later settled at Bethlehem, Nazareth 
 and other places in the interior, were men of large intel 
 lectual endowments and they had a zeal for their work 
 in excess of anything that had been seen in the colony 
 up to the time of their arrival. They found Pennsyl 
 vania full of " infidels, scoffers and self-righteous 
 saints," and under Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg, for 
 a time a professor in the University of Halle, and 
 Count Nicholas Louis von Zinzendorf, upon whose 
 estate in Saxony the Moravian refugees had congre 
 gated for their migration and who came out to America 
 himself in 1741, a new and fiery zeal was lent to re 
 ligious discussion in Pennsylvania. Zinzendorf, of a 
 prominent noble German family, wealthy and of good 
 repute, soon put himself at the head of the sect in 
 Germany. He was radical to unwisdom and was ban 
 ished from his home to become a missionary of more 
 energy than efficiency. Arriving in Philadelphia incog 
 nito, it was soon discovered that he was no other than 
 the famous German reformer. He then determined to 
 change his name by legal process. After a hearing 
 before Governor Thomas, to whom he made his appli 
 cation in Latin, in the presence of James Hamilton, 
 William Allen, William Peters, Benjamin Franklin, 
 Charles Willing and other prominent officers and citi 
 zens, he received the privilege of using the name of 
 Lewis von Thiirnstein. It was his desire to unite all 
 the German sects in America upon common ground, on 
 the theory, however, that " your doxy must be my 
 doxy," if it were to be anything like orthodoxy. He 
 called and presided over a number of general meetings 
 or synods, most of which were held in Germantown, 
 
32 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 with a diminishing representation from other churches 
 when his designs were fully comprehended. In a little 
 while he became the pastor of a Lutheran congregation, 
 founded in Philadelphia in 1730, which met in a barn 
 in Arch Street. The leaders at Halle, learning of the 
 havoc he was making among their people in America, 
 sent out the first Muhlenberg, who vigorously denied 
 the Count s right to act as one of them and take charge 
 of Lutheran flocks. 
 
 Zinzendorf, before his return to Germany in 1743, 
 made a number of trips into the wilderness to convert 
 the Indians and was involved in many religious contro 
 versies, wherein unfortunate language was employed 
 upon both sides, the warfare being particularly active 
 between him and the Calvinists. He published a number 
 of tracts on Philadelphia presses which called out other 
 broadsides in reply. Failing to unite the sects his own 
 became a distinct and separate establishment, organized 
 upon an odd communal plan, the tasks of the sisters 
 being made easy by the poetry of Spangenberg: 
 
 " Spin and weave, compelled by love; 
 
 Sew and wash with fervor, 
 And the Saviour s grace will make 
 His servants glad forever." 
 
 They were reconciled to their sufferings for lack of 
 sufficient food by the muse of their leader also : 
 
 "If we can serve our Lord and King 
 E en in the very meanest thing, 
 It is indeed to us so sweet 
 That we do feel it drink and meat 1 
 
 " Nowhere else," wrote Spangenberg of the Morav 
 ians in America, " have been composed such beautiful 
 
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 33 
 
 and edifying hymns for shepherds, ploughers, threshers, 
 reapers, spinners, knitters, washers, sewers and others as 
 among them and by them. They would fill a whole 
 farmers hymn book." 
 
 The intellectual influence of the Germans in Pennsyl 
 vania now begins to wane. Many of their leaders are 
 dead; others have returned to Europe. The children 
 of the ablest and most talented have learned the English 
 language to take a part with credit in the general devel 
 opment of Pennsylvania as an English province, in that 
 manner always in the past and still today characteristic 
 of the German when he meets the Anglo-Saxon in a 
 contest for racial supremacy. His absorption began in 
 the first half of the eighteenth century and was soon 
 put in the way of becoming definitive and complete. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 As the eighteenth century advanced and the people 
 of Pennsylvania entered its second half, a very material 
 change came over the thought, the intellectual interests, 
 the writings, and the issues of the printing houses of the 
 colonists. Angry religious disputants, although of 
 these Pennsylvania never had a large or even her full 
 share, were passing out of the range of popular atten 
 tion, the uncompromising advocates of theological doc 
 trine having their views fused and modified in a crux 
 of generous dimensions. Broad, catholic and receptive 
 was this meltery and the spirit which permeated the 
 entire mass when the colony had passed through this 
 intellectual change was more liberal than that reigning 
 in any other American colony, and without a counter 
 part anywhere in the world except in France at the 
 height of the political frenzy which brought on the 
 Revolution. Fortunately the time was passing when 
 calumny of one religious sect by the adherents of an 
 other was the predominating note in the output of the 
 Philadelphia presses. It needed the absorbing issues 
 of the War of Independence to make an end to this 
 most unchristian literary exercise, but already the joy in 
 common abuse and scurrility was diminishing among 
 writers of the king s English in Pennsylvania. 
 
 There were to be several powerful pulpit orators and 
 religious writers in Philadelphia before the Revolution 
 
 34 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 35 
 
 broke over the heads of the colonists, albeit they were 
 for the most part larger minded and more liberal men 
 than the sectarian leaders who preceded them. Zin- 
 zendorf, the Moravian, had come and gone. It re 
 mains for us to mention George Whitefield (pronounced 
 Whit-field), who visited Philadelphia six or seven times 
 beginning with 1739, preaching to multitudes from the 
 Court House steps, from balconies in Germantown, and 
 in the fields and forests, one of the most powerful of 
 eighteenth century evangelists. A crowd followed him 
 from place to place, denominated by Dr. William Smith 
 as " Whitefield s mob." David Hume after listening 
 to a discourse by the great preacher said it was worth 
 while to go twenty miles to hear him. Many in Penn 
 sylvania went even farther, and in the neighborhood of 
 Harrisburg he had such an influence over the farmers 
 that they neglected their crops to attend his meetings, 
 thereby suffering severe pecuniary distress that called 
 for charitable relief the next winter. At some places 
 thousands sat on horseback in the rain to listen to 
 Whitefield s sermons. 
 
 This remarkable preacher by his persuasive manner 
 and resounding voice could bring vast audiences, esti 
 mated sometimes to contain 25,000 people, to any im 
 provised rostrum from which he chose to speak, pack 
 ing the streets, windows and housetops in all directions. 
 Once at the Court House at Second and Market Streets 
 the assembly stretched away to the river-side and many 
 listened from boats on the Delaware River. In his 
 first sermon in England (he preached no less than 
 18,000 during the thirty-four years of his ministry) 
 complaint was made to the bishop that he had driven 
 fifteen people mad. That churchly man in a manner 
 
36 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 suggestive of Lincoln s later remark concerning General 
 Grant, expressed the hope that their madness would not 
 abate until the next following Sunday. 
 
 Whitefield knew no sect, although he had begun as 
 an Episcopalian. In a sermon preached in Market 
 Street he cried out: " Father Abraham, whom have 
 you in Heaven? Any Episcopalians? 4 No. * Any 
 Presbyterians? No. Any Baptists? No. 1 
 4 Have you any Methodists there? * No. Any in 
 dependents or seceders? * No, no. Why, whom 
 have you there? * We don t know those names here. 
 All that are here are Christians believers in Christ 
 men who have been overcome by the blood of the Lamb 
 and the word of his testimony. * Oh, is this the case? 
 Then God help me, God help us all to forget party 
 names and to become Christians in deed and in truth. 
 
 Whitefield s hearers were often melted to tears and 
 many had the experience of Franklin, never accused of 
 being a sentimental man. " I silently resolved he should 
 get nothing from me," he relates in his " Autobiogra 
 phy." " I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, 
 three or four silver dollars and five pistoles in gold. 
 As he proceeded I began to soften and concluded to 
 give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made 
 me ashamed of that and determined me to give the 
 silver and he finished so admirably that I emptied my 
 pocket wholly into the collector s dish, gold and all." 
 
 Franklin published a number of the great evangelist s 
 sermons which also found their way into German, 
 through Christopher Sower. 
 
 Henry Melchior Muhlenberg came out in 1742 to 
 take his place at the head of the Lutheran Church, 
 leading a useful life in Philadelphia and its neighbor- 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 37 
 
 hood, principally at the Trappe in Montgomery County, 
 where his old church still stands and where his three 
 distinguished sons were born. They were educated 
 together at the German universities, returning to 
 America to become preachers little less renowned than 
 their father. The eldest, Peter, declaring when the war 
 broke out that " there is a time for all things, a time to 
 preach and a time to pray; but there is also a time to 
 fight and that time has now come," joined the Conti 
 nental Army, to return to civil life as a major-general. 
 His brother, Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg, 
 abandoned pastoral for political life, becoming the first 
 Speaker of the national House of Representatives. 
 
 The third brother, Gotthilf Henry Ernest, preached 
 for many years in Philadelphia, and attained interna 
 tional distinction as a botanist, his life coming to an end 
 in 1815 while he was in charge of a Lutheran church 
 in Lancaster, Pa. 
 
 A family of theologians little less remarkable than 
 the Muhlenbergs was that of the Tennents, so long and 
 prominently identified with the Presbyterian Church. 
 The first of the name in this country was William Ten-* 
 nent, an Irishman, a graduate of the University of Dub 
 lin, who arrived in this country in 1718, being attracted 
 here, it would seem, by James Logan, whose kinsman 
 he was. For twenty years, or from 1726 to 1746, he 
 lived at Neshaminy in Bucks County, about twenty 
 miles north of Philadelphia, where he established his 
 famous Log College, by some regarded as the starting 
 point of Princeton University. At this academy, vis 
 ited by Whitefield, to whom it seemed to resemble " the 
 school of the old prophets, for their habitations were 
 mean," many preachers of great eminence in the church 
 
38 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 were imbued with its master s zealous spirit. It is 
 sometimes called " the cradle of the Presbyterian 
 Church in America." While no trace of the college 
 remained, the anniversary of its foundation was cele 
 brated in an open field on the old William Tennent 
 farm near the village of Hartsville on September 5, 
 1889, in the presence of President Benjamin Harrison, 
 who, to attend the ceremonies, was driven under arches 
 and past hurrahing crowds which lined the wayside, the 
 occasion leading to expressions of much interest and en 
 thusiasm. 
 
 William Tennent had three sons in the Presbyterian 
 ministry: Gilbert Tennent, the best known of all of the 
 name, who long occupied the pulpit of the Second Pres 
 byterian Church in Philadelphia and wrote many dis 
 quisitions on religious subjects; John Tennent, who 
 died at the age of twenty-six while a pastor at Free 
 hold, N. J. ; and William Tennent, Jr., who succeeded 
 his brother at Freehold, where he preached for forty- 
 four years, widely known for a cataleptic fit or trance 
 described in a memoir by Elias Boudinot. Narrowly 
 escaping burial alive, he was at length resuscitated to 
 return to consciousness in the ignorance of a child. 
 Even his letters he was obliged to learn anew, and while 
 in his fit it always seemed to him as though he had been 
 for that time enjoying the glories of Heaven. 
 
 Gilbert Tennent was a touring preacher in America, 
 especially in his youth, of little less power than White- 
 field, assisting that man in one of the greatest revivalistic 
 movements which ever swept over the country. White- 
 field after hearing him said: "Never before heard I 
 such a searching sermon. He went to the bottom and 
 did not daub with untempered mortar. . . . 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 39 
 
 Hypocrites must either soon be converted or enraged at 
 his preaching. He is a son of thunder and does not 
 regard the face of man." Dr. William Smith called 
 him " Hellfire " Tennent and this was the name by 
 which he was long popularly known. Because of the 
 famous Nottingham sermon in 1739, in which he casti 
 gated his fellow ministers who went not outside their 
 own congregations to save men s souls, calling them 
 " caterpillars who labor and devour every green thing," 
 he was compelled to leave the regular synod with a 
 group of his radical friends called the " New Lights." 
 Such preaching as Tennent s made a great sensation 
 and his sermons were printed and circulated up and 
 down the colonies. In " A Passionate Perswasive to a 
 Marriage with the Lamb of God," a sermon first 
 preached at New Brunswick in 1735, this daring re 
 vivalist said: 
 
 " Those that are rich are wont to be coy in courtship. 
 But what madness is it for you sinners to be coy when 
 the rich and all sufficient Jesus makes court to you who 
 are as poor and beggarly as sin and death can make 
 you. Would not you count it a piece of unaccountable 
 rudeness and folly if a beggarly scullion girl who had 
 scarce clothes to her back would show much coyness and 
 backwardness when a great prince of noble blood and 
 great wealth made repeated earnest suit to her, offered 
 to advance her to royal dignity and clothe her with 
 cloth of gold? O unhappy sinners, this is your foolish 
 practice. Christ offers you great things on your com 
 pliance with the terms of marriage. Though ye have 
 lain among the smutty pots of sin yet if ye will be 
 espoused to Jesus you may be clothed with gold of 
 Ophir and all your garments made to smell of myrrh, 
 
40 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces. You may be 
 adorned like the dove whose wings are covered with 
 silver and her feathers with yellow gold." 
 
 Later he burst out into a most violent assault upon 
 the tepid and but half redeemed in his audience as fol 
 lows : 
 
 * You halvers in Christianity, who do something and 
 suffer something but not enough, ye first or second table 
 Christians w r ho cry up the positive duties of 
 Divine worship and in the meantime for all your phari- 
 saical show, grimace and ceremony, neglect morality 
 and the duties you owe to your neighbor. For all your 
 show of Christianity you would bite and cheat your 
 neighbors if you could do it handsomely so as to escape 
 discredit. O ye wretched, fair-faced, smooth-tongued 
 but foul, false-hearted hypocrites, you are the bane and 
 pest of Christianity. O ye whited sepulchres. It s you 
 who under a pretense of friendship wound religion to 
 the heart and leave it bleeding and gasping for life. 
 Pull off your paint and masks, ye hypocrites, and appear 
 like what ye are, incarnate devils; it s better for the 
 people of God to have roaring raging devils than devils 
 in disguise; what can such as ye expect but to be cut 
 asunder by the sword of God s justice and sunk in the 
 damnation of hell? " 
 
 These extracts fairly well illustrate the literary, or it 
 should be said, unliterary manner of Gilbert Tennent, 
 when he was a young man in the revival meeting. 
 After he settled in Philadelphia at his new church at 
 Third and Mulberry (Arch) Streets, he composed his 
 sermons deliberately. They were more polished in style 
 and were often read from the prepared manuscript, 
 which led at least one who sat in judgment to say that 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 41 
 
 Mr. Tennent " was never worth anything after he 
 came to Philadelphia." 
 
 In 1753 this vigorous preacher went to England 
 with Rev. Samuel Davies to seek pecuniary aid for 
 Princeton College. It is very likely that Davies was the 
 most brilliant pulpit orator of his day in America. 
 Well educated, polished, rhetorical and eloquent, he 
 was a force of value in the Presbyterian Church. He 
 received his classical training at Samuel Blair s famous 
 school at Fogg s Manor in Chester County, but early 
 left Philadelphia and its environs for Virginia, where 
 his fame resounded over the country. In 1759, while 
 still but thirty-six years old, he succeeded Jonathan 
 Edwards as President of Princeton College, although 
 he lived to occupy that office only two years. His ser 
 mons fill three large volumes and they are reprinted and 
 read to this day. In the pulpit it is said that " he 
 looked like the ambassador of some great king." Most 
 carefully prepared, for he would not " speak nonsense 
 in the name of God," his discourses were manifestly for 
 declamation rather than for quiet reading at the fireside 
 in unimpassioned print. It is the orator rather than 
 the writer whose presence is felt in these passages from 
 his sermon on " The General Resurrection " : 
 
 " They shall come forth. Now methinks I see, I 
 hear, the earth heaving, charnel houses rattling, tombs 
 bursting, graves opening. Now the nations under 
 ground begin to stir. There is a noise and a shaking 
 among the dry bones. The dust is all alive and in 
 motion and the globe breaks and trembles, as with an 
 earthquake, while this vast army is working its way 
 through and bursting into life. The ruins of human 
 bodies are scattered far and wide and have passed 
 
42 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 through many and surprising transformations. A limb 
 in one country and another in another; here the head 
 and there the trunk and the ocean rolling between. 
 Multitudes have sunk in a watery grave, been swal 
 lowed up by the monsters of the deep and transformed 
 into a part of their flesh. Multitudes have been eaten 
 by beasts and birds of prey and incorporated with them; 
 and some have been devoured by their fellow men in the 
 rage of desperate hunger or of unnatural cannibal appe 
 tite and digested into a part of them. Multitudes have 
 mouldered into dust and this dust has been blown about 
 by winds and washed away with water, or it has petri 
 fied into stone or been burnt into brick to form dwellings 
 for their posterity; or it has grown up in grain, trees, 
 plants, and other vegetables which are the support of 
 man and beast and are transformed into their flesh and 
 blood. But through all these various transformations 
 and changes not a particle that was essential to one 
 human body has been lost, or incorporated with another 
 human body so as to become an essential part of it. 
 The omniscient God knows how to collect, 
 distinguish, and compound all those scattered and 
 mingled seeds of our mortal bodies. And now at the 
 sound of the trumpet they shall all be collected wher 
 ever they were scattered ; all properly sorted and united, 
 however they were confused, atom to its fellow atom, 
 bone to its fellow bone. Now methinks you may see 
 the air darkened with fragments of bodies flying from 
 country to country to meet and join their proper parts. 
 Then, my brethren, your dust and mine shall be reani 
 mated and organized." 
 
 Divines much calmer in their outlook upon life were 
 the leaders of the Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania, 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 43 
 
 such as Dr. William Smith, Dr. Richard Peters, and 
 Rev. Jacob Duche (pronounced Dou-shay), and some 
 of the Quaker preachers and writers, foremost among 
 them being John Woolman, the author of a journal. 
 
 Dr. William Smith, who was a more actively intel 
 lectual factor in the Philadelphia of his time than any 
 one except Franklin, though in an opposite sense, may 
 better be considered as a writer upon general subjects, 
 and as the distinguished patron of literature in the 
 colony that he was, rather than in any narrower theo 
 logical connection. 
 
 Dr. Richard Peters, an Englishman, who had taken 
 orders after studying law, came to this country in 1735 
 when about thirty years of age. While very young he 
 had been married unhappily and sought comfort of 
 mind in a new land. For a little while he was assistant 
 rector of Christ Church but soon resigned to accept an 
 office under the proprietary government. His brother, 
 William Peters, whose mansion at Belmont was long a 
 brilliant social centre in the colony, and William s son, 
 Judge Richard Peters, also honored the name in Phila 
 delphia. In 1762 Rev. Richard Peters returned to the 
 ministry as rector of Christ Church, dying in July, 
 1776, a few days after Independence was proclaimed. 
 His whole life, says an admiring student of his career, 
 seems to have been " a series of kind, hospitable, and 
 beneficent acts to people around and about him." For 
 years he was President of the Board of Trustees of the 
 college which later became the University of Pennsyl 
 vania, active in the spread of Christian charity that 
 knew no congregational bounds and in the encourage 
 ment of education, art, science and poetry. 
 
 First an assistant rector to Dr. Peters and then his 
 
44 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 successor, Jacob Duche, of Huguenot stock, though a 
 native of Philadelphia and a classmate at the College 
 of Philadelphia of Francis Hopkinson (whose sister he 
 married), was known as a polished preacher and writer 
 and the maker of the opening prayer in the first Conti 
 nental Congress in Philadelphia in 1774, for which he 
 was publicly thanked, and of which John Adams wrote 
 to his wife that even his Boston minister had " never 
 prayed with such fervor, such ardor, such earnestness 
 and pathos and in language so elegant and sublime." 
 Afterward he was known to fame principally as the 
 author of a letter to General Washington in 1777, 
 urging him to seek a reconciliation with England, which 
 was misunderstood by the Pennsylvania Jacobins and 
 led to a confiscation of his estates and his prolonged 
 exile in England. As a writer, Duche should be better 
 known than he is at this day through his " Caspipina s 
 Letters," published first in America and later in Eng 
 land polished, clean, entertaining comment in epis 
 tolary form, by one " Tamoc Caspipina,"* upon Phila 
 delphia and Philadelphians. To a correspondent in 
 Oxford, England, he writes that " the new world is 
 indeed launched forth and has proceeded more than half 
 way to meet the old." " I am now sitting in a win 
 dow," he continues, " that overlooks the majestic Dela 
 ware, compared with which our Isis and Cherwell, 
 though immortalized in song, would appear but little 
 babbling brooks. The woods along the opposite shore 
 of New Jersey are clothed in their brightest verdure 
 and afford a pleasing rest and refreshment to the eye 
 
 *The first letters of the words composing the title of his religious 
 office, " The assistant minister of Christ Church and St. Peter s in 
 Philadelphia in North America," 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 45 
 
 after it hath glanced across the watry mirror. Whilst 
 I am writing this three topsail vessels wafted along by 
 a gentle southern breeze are passing by my window. 
 The voice of industry perpetually resounds along the 
 shore; and every wharf within my view is surrounded 
 with groves of masts and heaped with commodities 
 of every kind from almost every quarter of the globe." 
 
 John Woolman was a minister among Friends, self- 
 instructed but of rare natural gifts. The " Journal " 
 of his life and travels has been published many times, 
 being edited affectionately in 1871 by the poet Whittier, 
 to revive the interest in a piece of remarkably simple and 
 lucid writing. Admired by all English critics, to some, 
 as to Robert Louis Stevenson, it made the warmest 
 appeal. Charles Lamb recommended everyone " to get 
 the writings of John Woolman by heart." An illiter 
 ate tailor, " his religion was love," as one admirer ex 
 plains. " His whole existence and all his passions 
 were love." 
 
 He was born in Burlington County, N. J., in 1720, 
 and while employed in Mount Holly as a clerk to a 
 shopkeeper, who asked him to write out a bill of sale 
 for a negro woman, made his vows against slavery. 
 Dressed in undyed homespun he preached Abolition 
 upon his journeys made on foot through the Southern 
 states. At the monthly and yearly meetings in Phila 
 delphia and its neighboring counties, he industriously 
 bore testimony against the " dark gloominess overhang 
 ing the land." He lived while at home in a small two- 
 story, white-washed wooden house in Mount Holly and 
 died in 1772, in Yorkshire, England, whither he had 
 gone on a religious visit, being buried in Friends 
 ground in York. 
 
46 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 While religious discussion was continued actively, the 
 leaders were being chastised by the rod of a larger 
 world, their religious tempers were being sweetened, 
 and their opinions of other men liberalized by contact 
 and experience. Peters and Duche marked a great ad 
 vance over George Keith; Woolman over Thomas 
 Chalkley; Muhlenberg, Davies and even Gilbert Ten- 
 nent over Kelpius, Conrad Beissel and the early sec 
 tarians and priests. Now there were printed and 
 offered for sale such works as " The honor of the gout, 
 or a rational discourse demonstrating that the gout is 
 one of the greatest blessings which can befall mortal 
 man, that all gentlemen who are weary of it are their 
 own enemies, that those practitioners who offer at the 
 cure are the vainest and most mischievous cheats in 
 nature "; and " The temporal interest of North Amer 
 ica, showing the causes and cure of the many distrac 
 tions, wants, poverty and ill-will to each other which we 
 are exposed to in a country wherein we might live as 
 happily as any people in the world if it were not our 
 own fault." 
 
 In truth, the city had entered the age of Franklin, 
 when men were ready to renounce the prudery of their 
 fathers, see some brightness and joy in the world that 
 God had spread out about them, and with a little 
 humorous honesty attribute to their own mistakes the 
 evils and misfortunes they were earlier prone to explain 
 by some austere reading of the Scriptures. If the reac 
 tion were too great, as many believed, and Franklin s 
 influence was distinctly atheistical, the transition was 
 not immediate, nor was it ever complete. 
 
 Franklin s fame seems to grow and extend as each 
 generation of birthdays passes over the stone that marks 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 47 
 
 his last resting place in the little acre of God at Fifth 
 and Arch Streets in Philadelphia. 
 
 We read his bland account of the " errata " of his 
 life in his " Autobiography," his half-proud allusions to 
 his love intrigues that attest to the immorality of his 
 youth, and his foolish fondness for adulation in his old 
 age, not without blushes for the honor of our eighteenth 
 century civilization, if he be set up as its highest type. 
 We know of his duplicity in his business and political 
 relations and couple his name with that of some of the 
 vulgar masters of party management in modern Amer 
 ica. To this day there are probably Philadelphians 
 who would disown Franklin and let him revert to the 
 New England from which he came. 
 
 His shrewdness is said to be Yankee; but it is as 
 distinctly German or recreant Quaker. Franklin might 
 not have been else than what he was in any other sur 
 roundings, but it is very clear that he was deeply influ 
 enced by the life he faced in Pennsylvania, and he is a 
 product of the conditions existing in the city which he 
 entered by way of Market Street at seventeen years of 
 age with a bread roll under each arm, while munching 
 a third to relieve the hunger he had accumulated on his 
 journey from Boston by way of New York, a runaway 
 printer s apprentice. Think and say what we will, his 
 fame is secure and his hold upon the age in which he 
 lived was firm. He was a patriot, but so were two 
 other Philadelphians, Robert Morris and James Wil 
 son, about whom infinitely less is known, although in 
 statecraft they were as sound as Burke, while Franklin 
 was almost as wrong as Paine and Mirabeau. He 
 founded a college, a library, a newspaper, a magazine, a 
 learned society, a hospital, a fire company, and designed 
 
48 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 a new stove and the lightning rod; but it is for his 
 literary services and his philosophy that his career is to 
 be examined in this volume. It is for what he wrote 
 and for the spirit which his work breathed that he is 
 to be considered in this record of Philadelphia s intel 
 lectual life. 
 
 If we are asked exactly to state what Franklin did 
 to lead David Hume to declare him the first writer in 
 America to attain an international reputation and to be 
 honored in France beyond Voltaire, Rousseau and 
 Turgot, the task is not an easy one. We are referred 
 to the incomplete autobiography which has been printed 
 in so many languages (a translation into the Servian 
 recently coming into the possession of the Franklin Inn) , 
 remarkable alike for its lucidity and its humor. We 
 are also urged to consider the wise saws of Poor 
 Richard. 
 
 The almanac very early made its appearance in Penn 
 sylvania, and Philadelphia in the eighteenth century 
 was the principal centre in America for the publication 
 and circulation of these indispensable household com 
 panions of the poorest colonists. What a magazine is 
 to a modern publishing house, the almanac was to the 
 printer of that day, a medium for the advertisement of 
 his business. In truth, it was an annual magazine and 
 it was hung in the chimney corner in January to be 
 thumb-marked and dog-eared by much reading and con 
 sultation until the next December. The almanac-mak 
 ers not only supplied the public with the calendar of 
 months, weeks and days; they added a vast amount of 
 more or less wise information about the motions of 
 planetary bodies, the time of the sun s rising and set 
 ting, the rising, setting and southing of the moon, with 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 49 
 
 many prognostications as to the probable state of the 
 weather upon distant dates, based upon popular experi 
 ence with the equinoxes and other not too reliable de- 
 terminators. This information was greatly valued by 
 men and women who sowed and garnered their grains, 
 planted herbs, gelded and sheared sheep and were them 
 selves purged and bled according to astrological "signs." 
 In addition, there were tables of kings, curious direc 
 tions for curing many common kinds of disease with 
 simples and other natural medicines, the dates of county 
 fairs and the meetings of courts; while other matter 
 useful or perhaps only entertaining was introduced at 
 the will of the compiler. From the earliest times 
 verses, and maxims, and wise sayings were inserted in 
 the almanacs at the convenience of the editor and the 
 printer. 
 
 The leading almanac in the field in Pennsylvania be 
 fore Franklin entered it with " Richard Saunders " was 
 undoubtedly Leeds s, first conducted by Daniel Leeds, 
 then by his son Titan. Afterward there were a host, 
 among them Taylor s, Birkett s, Jerman s, Poor Will s, 
 Poor Robin s, Thomas More s, Thomas Godfrey s, 
 Matthew Boucher s, Grew s, Andrew Aguecheek s and 
 the almanac of A. Weatherwise, Gent., sometimes 
 called Father Abraham s. 
 
 It was a tradition very well established that the cal 
 endar for each month should be set under a number of 
 original, that is to say, bad verses. In 1718 Titan 
 Leeds remarked in his almanac: 
 
 " Because tis common to put verses on the top of the 
 months therefore many people expect it; yet if I knew 
 whether the major number of votes would be against it 
 I would insert other things more useful to some," 
 
50 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 A slave to the system, the almanac-maker wrote for 
 May, 1727: * 
 
 " Now the pleasant time approaches ; 
 Gentlemen do ride in coaches, 
 But poor men they don t regard 
 That to maintain them labor hard. 
 Birds do sit on every splinter 
 Singing as twould ne er be winter. 
 If lawyers pleading should refrain 
 A little while, they ll to t again ; 
 Let what weather come what will, 
 Strife brings grist unto their mill." 
 
 Franklin first issued his " Poor Richard s " Almanac 
 in 1733, introducing some innovations and improve 
 ments that soon developed into marked literary origi 
 nalities. The verse is better: 
 
 " She that will eat her breakfast in her bed, 
 And spend the morn in dressing of her head, 
 And sit at dinner like a maiden bride, 
 And talk of nothing all day but of pride ; 
 God in his mercy may do much to save her, 
 But what a case is he in that shall have her." 
 
 The maxims for which " Poor Richard " became 
 famous were not slow to make their appearance. The 
 first issue of the Almanac brought forth many that have 
 long been identified with the name of their author: 
 
 " A fat kitchen, a lean will." 
 
 " He that drinks fast pays slow." 
 
 " Take counsel in wine but rejoice afterwards in 
 water." 
 
 * Jerman s. 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 51 
 
 " He s the best physician that knows the worthless- 
 ness of the most medicines." 
 
 " He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with 
 fleas." 
 
 " Keep your mouth wet, feet dry." 
 
 " Tongue double brings trouble." 
 
 Occasionally " Richard " abandoned the maxim in 
 favor of some other medium, as when he told his read 
 ers what were " the mental and personal qualifications 
 for a wife " : 
 
 " A good person but not perfectly beautiful. 
 
 " With regard to complexion not quite fair but a 
 little brown. 
 
 " Young by all means. 
 
 " Old by no means. 
 
 " In spelling a little becoming deficiency; and in the 
 doctrine of punctuation (or what is generally called 
 stopping) by no means conversant. 
 
 "A proper knowledge of accounts and arithmetic; 
 but no sort of skill in fractions. 
 
 " No enthusiasm for the guitar. 
 
 " To tea and coffee no objection. 
 
 " An acquaintance with domestic news, but no ac 
 quaintance with foreign. 
 
 " Decently but not affectedly silent." 
 
 Franklin s position as a literary man was gained by 
 and rests to-day upon no one specific writing. It is rath 
 er the general result of a vast variety of activities, epis 
 tolary and pamphletary, in the proceedings of learned 
 societies, parliamentary records, in newspapers, maga 
 zines and almanacs a sum that is large as we know 
 from the voluminous editions of his works. In all that 
 he did he breathed a new spirit that caught hold of the 
 
52 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 fancy of men long held in the strait jacket of absolutism 
 in their politics and morality. As the living type and 
 a prophet of a newer and happier philosophy, honors 
 were showered upon him at home that were accorded 
 him the more gracefully and unquestioningly when it 
 was seen what a veritable demi-god he was become 
 abroad, especially in France, where the Mississippi 
 Bubble and Mesmer dethroned men s reasons in a 
 scarcely more remarkable way. To no man was the 
 rise and peculiar vogue of Franklin in this country and 
 Europe, both insular and continental, so puzzling as to 
 John Adams, and few were better entitled to a judg 
 ment on a question so generally interesting. " His rep 
 utation," says Adams, " was more universal than that 
 of Leibnitz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire, and his 
 character more beloved and esteemed than any or all 
 of them. Newton had astonished perhaps forty or 
 fifty men in Europe; for not more than that number 
 probably at any one time had read him and understood 
 him by his discoveries and demonstrations. And these 
 being held in admiration in their respective countries, 
 as at the head of the philosophers, had spread among 
 scientific people a mysterious wonder at the genius of 
 this, perhaps the greatest man, that ever lived. But 
 this fame was confined to men of letters. The common 
 people knew little and cared nothing about such a re 
 cluse philosopher. Leibnitz s name was more confined 
 still. Frederick was hated by more than half of 
 Europe, as much as Louis the Fourteenth was, and as 
 Napoleon is. Voltaire, whose name was more univer 
 sal than any of those before mentioned, was considered 
 as a vain profligate and not much esteemed or beloved 
 by anybody, though admired by all who knew his works. 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 53 
 
 But Franklin s fame was universal. His name was 
 familiar to government and people, to kings, courtiers, 
 nobility, clergy and philosophers as well as plebeians to 
 such a degree that there was scarcely a peasant or a 
 citizen, a valet de chambre, coachman or footman, a 
 lady s chambermaid or a scullion in a kitchen who was 
 not familiar with it and who did not consider him a 
 friend to human kind. When they spoke of him they 
 seemed to think he was to restore the golden age. 
 . . . He was considered as a citizen of the world, a 
 friend of all men and an enemy to none. His rigorous 
 taciturnity was very favorable to this singular felicity. 
 He conversed only with individuals and freely only with 
 confidential friends. In company he was totally silent. 
 Throughout his whole life he courted and was 
 courted by the printers, editors and correspondents of 
 reviews, magazines, journals, pamphleteers and those 
 little busy meddling scribblers that are always buzzing 
 about the press in America, England, France and Hol 
 land. . . . If a collection could be made of all the 
 gazettes of Europe for the latter half of the eighteenth 
 century a greater number of panegyrical paragraphs 
 upon le grand Franklin would appear, it is believed, 
 than upon any other man that ever lived." 
 
 Adams, never very friendly, continuing, observes 
 that Franklin was of all religions to all men, Roman 
 Catholic, Church of England, Presbyterian, while the 
 Friends thought him a kind of wet Quaker. His light 
 ning rods stuck their iron points into the sky to com 
 memorate his name wherever there were shrinking 
 women and timorous children. Adams ended by con 
 fessing that he was totally unable " to develop the 
 complication of causes which conspired to produce so 
 
54 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 singular a phenomenon," and expressed the opinion that 
 it would require a complete history of the philosophy 
 and politics of the eighteenth century which if it should 
 ever be written would be a more important book than 
 " The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." 
 
 From his first coming to Philadelphia, Franklin had 
 been given to the democratic association with other men, 
 displaying a distinct talent for organization and leader 
 ship. He stood aghast before no higher presence and 
 early started on his way to make himself the great man 
 of the province. His interests were as infinite as the 
 stars above his head and the blades of grass beneath his 
 feet. About them all he inquired and reasoned accord 
 ing to his lights. At an early age he was revising the 
 Lord s Prayer. For u give us this day our daily bread, 
 and forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors " he 
 proposed to substitute, " provide for us this day as thou 
 hast hitherto daily done. Forgive our trespasses and 
 enable us to forgive those that offend us." He per 
 formed this task with the same unruffled temper with 
 which many years later he permitted the women of 
 France to place laurel wreaths upon his brow at Ver 
 sailles. 
 
 He was early known as the friend of the common 
 man, with whom he esteemed himself not too good to 
 associate or sympathize. His first companions were 
 Charles Osborne and Joseph Watson, who were clerks 
 in the law and conveyancing office of Charles Brockden; 
 and James Ralph, employed in a mercantile house. 
 With these young men Franklin spent his Sundays 
 among the trees on the sloping banks of the Schuylkill, 
 where with heads on mossy hillocks or fallen logs, they 
 read to one another from books, composed doggerel 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 
 
 From the Martin portrait 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 55 
 
 odes, and argued momentous questions of literature and 
 statecraft. Ralph went to London with Franklin to 
 live for a while on the young Pennsylvania printer s 
 money and to become in the end a poet, playwright, 
 satirist and pamphleteer on Grub Street, his chief dis 
 tinction coming from a two-volume " History of Eng 
 land during the Reigns of William, Anne and George 
 I," of some real value, and the verses dedicated to him 
 by Pope in " The Dunciad " : 
 
 " Silence, ye wolves, while Ralph to Cynthia howls 
 And makes night hideous. Answer him, ye owls! " 
 
 After his return to Philadelphia and his entrance 
 upon life in serious earnest, Franklin in 1727 formed 
 the Junto, an organization which for nearly forty years 
 met about at the houses of its members and in the city 
 inns and coffee-houses to discuss curious questions after 
 the manner of a village debating society, and of which 
 Franklin did not hesitate to say that it was u the best 
 school of philosophy, morality and politics that then 
 existed in the province." To the meetings of the Junto 
 came Joseph Breintnal, who wrote bad verse; Thomas 
 Godfrey, a glazier, with whom Franklin boarded for a 
 time, the future inventor of the mariner s quadrant; 
 William Parsons, William Coleman and other young 
 men as ambitious and inquisitive as Franklin himself. 
 They solemnly asked one another whether " elementary 
 fire " and the electric fluid were one and the same thing, 
 what becomes of all the water that flows into the Medi 
 terranean Sea, and many other questions not now re 
 membered. 
 
 While in association with these men Franklin origi 
 nated many of his humanitarian projects. One, the 
 
5 6 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned so 
 ciety in the country, was the direct outgrowth of the 
 Junto. Its hall, filled with books, manuscripts, pictures 
 and relics, is situated behind the State House on Fifth 
 Street. The society was formed in 1743 when Frank 
 lin was thirty-seven years old. Conceived in his prac 
 tical spirit " for promoting useful knowledge among the 
 British plantations in America," it was to be a kind of 
 clearing house for information about plants, animals, 
 stoves, plows and phosphates. The president was 
 Thomas Hopkinson, a lawyer and an experimenter in 
 electricity (like Franklin and Ebenezer Kinnersley) the 
 father of Francis Hopkinson, the Revolutionary poet 
 and the grandfather of Joseph Hopkinson, who wrote 
 " Hail Columbia. " Franklin himself was the secre 
 tary and a number of men were delegated to take charge 
 of the different departments into which it was conceived 
 at the time that philosophy might be divided. John 
 Bartram was to serve as botanist, Thomas Godfrey as 
 mathematician, Dr. Thomas Bond as physician, Samuel 
 Rhoads as mechanician, William Parsons as geographer, 
 and Dr. Phineas Bond as general natural philosopher. 
 Of these Bartram and Godfrey gained the distinction 
 of having their names remembered in another century. 
 As early as 1728 Bartram, whom Linnaeus described as 
 the greatest natural botanist of the age, had begun his 
 garden, which is still preserved, though in some dilapi 
 dation, on the west side of the Schuylkill near Gray s 
 Ferry. He travelled from the Great Lakes to Florida, 
 studying and collecting slips and seeds of all kinds of 
 indigenous trees which he described for the advantage 
 of the botanists of Europe. It is said of him, too, that 
 he built three houses with his own hands, even blasting 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 57 
 
 and hewing the rock, sometimes being seen at work in 
 the moonlight. He died a few days before the battle 
 of Brandywine, in fear that the British army would lay 
 waste to his beloved gardens. 
 
 Thomas Godfrey was a natural genius of another 
 kind. He was a glazier, of a humble position in the 
 world, which is not exalted very greatly by Watson s 
 reminding us that glaziers of the time did not fit glass 
 panes into wooden sash, but soldered them into leaden 
 frames. To the editors of the " American Magazine " 
 he seemed to be u one of the most singular phenomena 
 that ever appeared in the learned world." One day, 
 while at work at his trade in Mulberry Street, a young 
 girl came to a pump and filled a pail with water, which 
 was left upon the sidewalk. The sun s rays were re 
 flected from Godfrey s pane to the pail of water and 
 then to his eye, thus completing a triangle, which is said 
 to have suggested to the glazier s mind the idea that 
 in 1730 became the basis for the double reflecting sea 
 quadrant. Prior to this time English mariners had 
 been using Davis s Bow to ascertain their latitude and 
 longitude while at sea, but it could not be adjusted in a 
 storm. Godfrey gave the subject his careful study, 
 taught himself Latin in order to read Newton s " Prin- 
 cipia," which he borrowed from James Logan, and 
 endeavored with the latter s assistance to have the value 
 of his invention recognized in England. Meantime he 
 determined to have the device tested on a ship bound 
 for the West Indies where, in Jamaica, it was exhibited 
 or presented to an English sea captain. Thus the 
 important discovery came into the possession of Hadley, 
 a mathematical instrument maker in London, whose 
 name it usually bears, in spite of the prolonged exertions 
 
5 8 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 of influential Americans in the eighteenth century tor 
 have Godfrey s claims established and honored. 
 
 But with all these men in his group, Franklin s Phil 
 osophical Society failed like his German newspaper, his 
 magazine and his first plans for the establishment of a 
 college. Twenty-five years passed before the sugges 
 tion bore important fruit, w r hen two rival societies en 
 tered the field, being consolidated fortunately in 1769 
 under the presidency of Dr. Franklin. For twenty-one 
 years, or until his death in 1790, he continued to hold 
 the office and the Transactions of this old society of 
 philosophers, then only another name for the curious 
 regarding all subjects, are an expression of that prac 
 tical, utilitarian and inquiring spirit which is typical of 
 Franklin and his age. The scientist to-day chuckles at 
 such science, but the association soon numbered among 
 its members Americans eminent in many fields, while its 
 president s growing reputation in France brought it dis 
 tinguished correspondents in Europe and spread its fame 
 widely. Franklin himself, while coming home from 
 France, was diverted in calm weather by writing his 
 letter to the philosophers " on the causes and cure of 
 smoky chimneys," which he explains are chimneys that 
 instead of " carrying up all the smoke discharge a part 
 of it into the room, offending the eyes and damaging the 
 furniture." He also describes in the Transactions of 
 the society a new stove for burning pit coal, while 
 Thomas Jefferson s interest in husbandry is evidenced 
 by his model of " a hand threshing machine," invented 
 by a Virginian, and his communication in regard to a 
 new plow-share. 
 
 Natural history had many devoted students. Amer 
 ica was a great boneyard which, before the fertilizer 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 59 
 
 companies despatched their agents everywhere, afforded 
 much that was of curious concern to naturalists. Skele 
 tons of strange animals, tusks, antlers and " grinders " 
 came pouring into the society s museum. Jefferson de 
 scribed " certain bones of a quadruped of the clawed 
 kind," found in western Virginia. Another member 
 offered an Indian legend about " the big naked bear." 
 He reported that the bear, naked all over except for a 
 spot of white hair upon its back, was the most ferocious 
 of American animals. It devoured man and beast and 
 was so large that an Indian or a common bear served 
 it for but a single meal. Its heart was so small that the 
 arrow could seldom find it. It could be slain only by a 
 blow deftly dealt upon its backbone, and many who 
 went forth to hunt this terror of the forest primeval did 
 not return. 
 
 Other philosophers interested themselves in living 
 objects and we have luminous accounts of " amphibious 
 serpents," " one partridge with two hearts," " the numb 
 fish or torporific eel " and " a living snake in a living 
 horse s eye." This horse had been placed on exhibition 
 in Philadelphia by a free negro who endeavored to 
 profit by the popular curiosity for disagreeable sights. 
 
 More scientific and more useful were the society s 
 services in encouraging silk worm culture, in surveying 
 a route for a canal which should join the bays of Dela 
 ware and Chesapeake, and best of all were the observa 
 tions of the transit of Venus it so successfully made 
 through telescopes mounted in the State House yard 
 and at David Rittenhouse s near Norristown, which 
 called out the warm praises of European astronomers. 
 At all times it was the embodiment of practicality, an 
 agency hostile to aristocracy in government, finality in 
 
60 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 religion, art, science and invention indeed, to settled 
 tradition in any field. After Franklin s death, in the 
 hands of David Rittenhouse, Thomas Jefferson and 
 Peter S. Duponceau, it was still a centre of radical ex 
 pression, and it is for its part in interpreting the domi 
 nating spirit of the age that it deserves such extended 
 consideration in this connection. 
 
 In this strong current of materialism, there were left 
 by good fortune a few insular points at which beauty 
 and sentiment still reigned. Idealism could thrive only 
 sparingly; it was remarkable that it prospered at all. 
 Franklin had originally intended that the college he had 
 it in his mind to establish should be in charge of Rev. 
 Richard Peters, who was then out of employment. 
 Mr. Peters had other plans for himself, and at length 
 two or three useful masters were secured. The Acad 
 emy, for at first it was not more than this, found a 
 home in a great building which had been erected in 
 Fourth Street, near Mulberry Street, as a meeting place 
 for the crowds that came to hear Whitefield preach. It 
 was used by the great evangelist while yet there was no 
 roof over it, and at his going it was appropriated for the 
 purposes of the school. In 1751 a young Scotchman, 
 William Smith, lately graduated at Aberdeen, came to 
 America as the tutor of two boys who had been travel 
 ing in England and were returning to their home on 
 Long Island. Upon arriving in New York he published 
 a pamphlet entitled " A General Idea of the College of 
 Mirania," an idealistic plan for a seat of learning which 
 he hoped might be established in that city. Copies of 
 this publication falling into the hands of Richard Peters 
 and Benjamin Franklin, the latter wrote to Smith that 
 they had in Philadelphia the Mirania; their task now 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 61 
 
 was to find the Aratus, the fictitious personage whom 
 Smith had named as the head of his college. The young 
 Scotchman was soon invited to come to Philadelphia, but 
 first returned to England late in 1753 to take holy or 
 ders in the Episcopal Church, being inducted as Provost 
 of the Academy, which became a college with the power 
 to grant degrees in May, 1754, the beginning of a long 
 period of loyal service to the intellectual interests of the 
 colony. 
 
 Smith s relations with the educational centres of 
 Great Britain were close, as was shown by his soon 
 receiving the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Aber 
 deen, Oxford and Dublin. He made himself a tower 
 of influence in a great variety of ways, moral, social, 
 political, scientific and pedagogical, and as a patron of 
 belles lettres. He was the intimate companion of his 
 pupils as well as their teacher, and was soon graduating 
 such boys as Jacob Duche, Francis Hopkinson, Paul 
 Jackson and Nathaniel Evans, who had a new under 
 standing of the meaning of life. John Adams de 
 scribed Dr. Smith as " soft, polite, insinuating, adulat 
 ing, sensible, learned, industrious, indefatigable." He 
 was also a man of the most decided opinions upon the 
 greatest variety of subjects, and belligerent to a fault 
 when he believed his cause was just. The press in 
 Pennsylvania was not yet free. William Bradford had 
 felt the force of public displeasure and his son Andrew 
 was severely admonished in 1721 for printing a para 
 graph in the " Mercury " as seemingly innocent as the 
 following: " The prodigious fall of South Sea stock has 
 ruined thousands. Several gentlemen who kept their 
 coaches before they dipt into South Sea are now forced 
 to walk on foot. By the same turn of Fortune s wheel 
 
62 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 footmen and cookmaids loll in their gilded chariots and 
 smile at the fate of their quondam masters." 
 
 In 1758 William Smith, taking sides against the 
 Quakers in their attitude of non-resistance, while Ger 
 mans and Presbyterians were being scalped by Indians 
 on the frontiers, was conducted to the Walnut Street 
 prison for publishing in the newspaper with which he 
 aimed to instruct the German inhabitants of Pennsyl 
 vania, the address of William Moore of Moore Hall, 
 Chester County, harshly criticizing the Assembly which 
 had prepared and published " a most virulent and slan 
 derous address," as Moore alleged, charging him " in 
 the bitterest terms with divers misdemeanors and corrupt 
 practices." The document forming the basis for the 
 legal attack upon Smith stated that the address against 
 which the appeal was directed appeared " to agree well 
 enough with the motives of its authors, and abettors. 
 It is from beginning to end one continued string of the 
 severest calumny and most rancorous epithets, conceived 
 in all the terms of malice and party rage exaggerated 
 and heaped upon one another in the most lavish man 
 ner." For causing such language to be published Smith 
 was sent to prison, where he continued to teach his 
 pupils who went thither to receive his instruction, and 
 later he took passage for England to enter an appeal in 
 his own behalf before the higher British authorities. 
 He married the daughter of Mr. Moore of Moore Hall 
 on the strength of an acquaintance so oddly begun and 
 had a number of children, one of whom, Williamina, 
 remained in the city during British occupancy with her 
 aunt, Mrs. Phineas Bond, being one of the young ladies 
 greatly admired by Major Andre and the British officers 
 at the famous Meschianza ball; while the rest of the 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 63 
 
 family resided on Barbadoes Island in the Schuylkill 
 opposite Norristown, within sight of Washington s 
 army at Valley Forge, a picturesquely situated piece of 
 land lately taken by the Philadelphia and Reading 
 Railroad for the piers of a steel bridge. He returned 
 to the city upon its evacuation by the British and re 
 opened his college. 
 
 Suspected of Tory sympathies, which he no doubt 
 felt, Dr. Smith was hotly pursued by the Pennsylvania 
 Dantons and Robespierres. Accused of disloyalty to 
 the cause of independence and of servility to the Church 
 of England, the school was closed in 1779, to make way 
 for a new institution called the University of Pennsyl 
 vania, and after twenty-six years residence in the city 
 he was obliged to betake himself and his large family 
 to Maryland, where he assumed the charge of a parish 
 for six hundred bushels of wheat per annum. In 1789 
 he returned to Pennsylvania and succeeded in getting 
 back the charter and estates of the College, which two 
 years later was united with the University, still the ob 
 ject of general ridicule, as an educational establishment, 
 the University of Pennsylvania of to-day being the di 
 rect descendant of the union. 
 
 Smith had not long been Provost when his practical 
 interest in intellectual affairs in the colony was mani 
 fested in an effort to found a literary review called 
 " The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for 
 the British Colonies." It was printed by the Brad- 
 fords, presumably for " a society of gentlemen," which 
 in truth consisted of Dr. Smith and several of his pupils 
 in the College. Pennsylvania had not yet had a suc 
 cessful magazine. Franklin had proposed one in 1740 
 with John Webbe as the editor. Before it appeared, 
 
64 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Webbe carried the idea to the Bradfords and in Febru 
 ary, 1741, the first number of " The American Maga 
 zine or a Monthly View of the Political State of the 
 British Colonies " made its appearance in the field. 
 Franklin, not to be outdone, put on sale three days later 
 his " General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for 
 all the British Plantations of America." Neither of 
 these periodicals lived long or had cause for existence. 
 Bradford s was published for about three months and 
 Franklin s for six. They contained little that was not 
 given in the newspapers, chiefly excerpts from the En 
 glish parliamentary debates in regard to America, and 
 poems and articles reprinted from British reviews or 
 perhaps extracted from editions of the works of British 
 authors. 
 
 Smith s " American Magazine " made its first ap 
 pearance in October, 1757, and continued for a year, 
 when it was given up, less, it seems, because of its 
 unprofitableness than because of its editor s dispute with 
 the Assembly, which sent him first to prison and then to 
 England. It had the distinct stamp of America, being 
 filled with original material, poems, essays, scientific 
 articles, etc., written by Smith himself or by the young 
 men whom he drew about him at the College. In this 
 magazine many of the poems of Thomas Godfrey, Jr., 
 were printed, to be copied appreciatively by the British 
 reviews, and substantial support was given to a group 
 of truly sincere literary people of much poetic feeling 
 and of lofty intellectual aim, the chief of whom after 
 Mr. Godfrey were Nathaniel Evans and Elizabeth 
 Graeme Ferguson. 
 
 It may be said unequivocally that Pennsylvania had 
 no poets prior to the appearance on the scene of this 
 
THE 
 
 AMERICAN MAGAZINE, 
 
 VALEB IT^/E QTJI OH- 
 
 R 
 
 MONTHLY CHRONICLEfof the BRITISH Colonies. 
 NM- Vol. I. FOR OCTOBER 
 
 C O 
 
 T A 1 
 
 I N 
 
 I. The GENERAL PREFACE. 
 tl. EUROPEAN AFFAIRS, 
 JII.ACCOUNT of the NORTH- 
 
 AMERICAN INDIANS. 
 IV. The PHILOSOPHICAL MISCEL* 
 
 LANY. 
 
 V, MONTHLY ESSAYS: viz. 
 Tht Planted N". I. Tit Htfmit. 
 POETICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 VI. MONTHLY CHRONICLE of 
 AMERICAN AFFAIRS. 
 
 To be continued (Price One Shilling Ptnnfjfoania Currency each Month) 
 By aSQCIETYof Gentlemen, 
 
 "" V entatis cultorc*, Freudis in!mic>< 
 
 Primd artd Sold by WIILIAM BRADFORD^ at the Corner-Houfe o^ 
 front and Mfirkt-Strettt. 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF DR. SMITH S " AMERICAN MAGAZINE 
 
66 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 interesting group.* Antiquarians have found several 
 claimants, such as Taylor the almanac-maker; Breintnal 
 of the Junto; and Keimer, the long-bearded printer who 
 anticipated the poet of this day whose muse sometimes 
 works at the typewriter. He was composing verses 
 at his case without the medium of pen or paper when 
 Franklin stopped in to ask for employment at the print 
 ing trade. The subject of Keimer s poetic interest was 
 an elegy to Aquila Rose, who was clerk of the Assem 
 bly, a reputed poet and the proprietor of a ferry across 
 the Schuylkill River at Market Street In the spring 
 of 1723, the waters being high, he lost his boat and 
 waded in the " chilling flood " when " a cold ill humor 
 mingled with his blood." Death resulted from this 
 experience, the young man being greatly mourned by 
 the citizens, who attended his funeral numerously on 
 foot and horse. Keimer wrote : 
 
 " In sable characters the news is read, 
 Our Rose is withered and our Eagle s fled 
 In this that our Aquila Rose is dead." 
 
 While it was further said of Rose that he was 
 
 " A lively poet whose sweet, fragrant name 
 Will last till circling years shall cease to be 
 And sink in vast, profound eternity," 
 
 we have little to remember him by today except the 
 slender volume published in 1740 by his son, Joseph 
 Rose, who laments that by this time many of his father s 
 " best pieces " have been u lent out " by his mother " to 
 
 * See the articles by Joshua Francis Fisher and Francis Howard 
 Williams in the Publications of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 67 
 
 persons who have forgot to return them." With char 
 ity for those that were not in the editor s hands, it may 
 be said of the verse included in the little volume that it 
 does not attest very highly to Rose s character as a 
 poet, or to the critical sense of the people of that 
 age in Philadelphia by whom it was so cordially ad 
 mired. 
 
 Thomas Godfrey, Jr., had few more cultural oppor 
 tunities than his father, the glazier, who invented the 
 mariner s quadrant. The two, the younger man s 
 friend Nathaniel Evans said, are " to be ranked among 
 the natural curiosities of Pennsylvania." Thomas 
 Godfrey, Jr., born in 1736, had no education that he 
 did not gain in the common schools, but he early read 
 the English poets industriously and aspired to portrait 
 painting. Unable to indulge his tastes in that direc 
 tion, he was apprenticed to a watchmaker, but was soon 
 cultivating the muse. A poem called " Invitation," 
 which was sent to the " American Magazine," met the 
 editor s favor, and Dr. Smith drew the young man into 
 his circle, introducing him to Francis Hopkinson and 
 Benjamin West. To the latter Godfrey was much 
 attracted because of his own natural interest in art. 
 West had just come up to the city from Chester County 
 to be pronounced by Smith in the magazine " an ex 
 traordinary genius " who unaided had acquired " such 
 a delicacy and correctness of expression in his paintings, 
 joined to such laudable thirst of improvement that we 
 are persuaded when he shall have more experience, and 
 proper opportunities of viewing the works of able mas 
 ters he will become truly eminent in his profession." 
 Godfrey and West wandered together on the banks of 
 the Schuylkill or angled in the pools formed by the 
 
68 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 windings of the river. They could enjoy the meaning 
 of Evans s lines: 
 
 " Often with care opprest, I pensive stray 
 Where Schuylkill winds her solitary way. 
 Beneath some mountain s wild, romantic brow, 
 Whose pendent cliffs alarm the flood below, 
 I lay me down t indulge the solemn hour 
 And yield myself to contemplation s pow r." 
 
 It was through Provost Smith s influence that God 
 frey in 1758 secured a lieutenant s commission for the 
 expedition against Fort Duquesne, returning from 
 which he went to North Carolina, where he found com 
 mercial employment for three years. There, while still 
 only twenty-three years old, he finished " The Prince of 
 Parthia," a poetic tragedy of lively promise which was 
 acted on April 24, 1767, by the stock company then 
 playing at the new South Street Theatre in Philadel 
 phia. This was the first play by an American writer 
 to be presented on any American stage, and it was " no 
 inconsiderable effort," said his friend Evans, " towards 
 one of the sublimest species of poetry." Upon the 
 death of his employer in the South, Godfrey came back 
 to Philadelphia, but was soon away again with some 
 commissions to be executed in the island of New Prov 
 idence. After a few months he determined to return 
 to his home, but first stopped with his friends in North 
 Carolina, where, taking a ride in the country on a hot 
 day in August, 1763, he contracted a fever, of which 
 he died after but a short illness. 
 
 His friend and fellow poet, Nathaniel Evans, and 
 his patron, Dr. Smith, edited his writings which were 
 published in 1765, most of the prominent men of the 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 69 
 
 city being numbered among the subscribers Governor 
 John Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Galloway, Rob 
 ert Morris, Professor Kinnersley, Richard Peters, Ben 
 jamin Rush, the Aliens, Bonds, Hopkinsons and Chews. 
 Dr. Smith, as well as other critics of the time, found in 
 Godfrey a deficiency of classical learning, a rather im 
 portant item in the equipment of a poet who was so 
 fond of classical themes. Many of the Provost s objec 
 tions seem trivial and hypercritical, however, as when 
 complaint is made of these lines in " The Prince of 
 Parthia": 
 
 " Droop, droop, ye groves; ye plains in silence mourn, 
 Let nought be gay till Alexis return." 
 
 The accent is not thrown upon the proper syllable 
 in the word Alexis, but the mistake, small at most, 
 seems the more forgivable when it is known that the 
 word is rightly accented elsewhere. What prevents 
 Godfrey from being an American Keats is no such im 
 perfection in poetic craftsmanship, but a lack, when his 
 work is taken in the large, of original fancy, a defect 
 which it is reasonable to suppose might have been over 
 come had his life been prolonged past the years that 
 to other men are usually a period of apprenticeship to 
 literature. In " The Court of Fancy," in which the 
 " American Magazine " said that he " shone in all the 
 spirit of true creative poetry," may be found much of 
 Godfrey s best writing. Here he says : 
 
 " Astronomy with proud, aspiring eye 
 Gaz d on the glowing beauties of the sky. 
 Her vest with glitt ring stars was spangled o er 
 And in her hand a telescope she bore; 
 
70 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 With this she marks the rolling planet s way 
 Or where portentous comets dreadful stray." 
 
 In the same poem appears a description of the vanity 
 and emptiness of fashionable life: 
 
 " The next to her approach d a reverend dame, 
 In trophies great, from insects torn, she came; 
 With stately step she trod the plain along 
 And threw her treasure mid th admiring throng. 
 Forward with joy each curious mortal sprang, 
 This caught a gaudy wing and that a pointed fang." 
 
 Godfrey could also tread a lighter measure, as in his 
 " verses to a young lady asking for a cure for love " : 
 
 ".From me, my dear, O! seek not to receive 
 What e en deep-read experience cannot give. 
 We may indeed from the physician s skill 
 Some med cine find to cure the body s ill, 
 But whoe er found the physic for the soul ? " 
 
 He continues: 
 
 " Reason, tis true, may point the rocky shore, 
 And shew the danger, but can serve no more; 
 From wave to wave the wretched wreck is tos t, 
 And reason s in th impetuous torrent lost." 
 
 His lines " To Sylvia " begin: 
 
 " Then hear me, proud Sylvia, nor boast your bright charms, 
 Which ev ry fond bosom so pow rfully warms [sic], 
 While thus like an image of life, but a show, 
 You re swayed by no passion, no pleasure you ll know." 
 
 It has been said that he correctly expressed the judg 
 ment on his own career in " The Court of Fancy " : 
 
 " Bold Fancy s hand th amazing pile uprears, 
 In every part stupendous skill appears; 
 
THE 
 
 COURT OF FANCY; 
 
 POEM. 
 
 BT THOMAS GODFREY. 
 
 And as Imagination Mies forth 
 We Forms of Things unknown ; the Poefs Pen 
 Turns tbem to Sbapc, and gives to airy Nothing 
 A local Habitation* and a Name. 
 
 SHAKESPEAR. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 Printed and Sold by WILLIAM DUNLAP, M,DCC,LXIL 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF THOMAS GODFREY S " COURT OF FANCY" 
 
72 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 In beautiful disorder, yet compleat, 
 The structure shines irregularly great." 
 
 Nathaniel Evans had more classical polish and more 
 reason for it, but he undoubtedly possessed less natural 
 genius than Godfrey. He also died very young, be 
 fore he could exhibit his art at its best. He was born 
 in Philadelphia in 1742, being therefore six years the 
 junior of his friend. He was the son of a merchant, 
 and after six years in the Academy, where he endeared 
 himself to Provost Smith, he was put into a counting- 
 house. This life being uncongenial to him, he returned 
 to the College, where, in 1765, he got his A.M. without 
 having previously taken his bachelor s degree. Going 
 to London, he received holy orders in the Church of 
 England and returned to become a missionary to 
 Gloucester County, New Jersey, his home being at 
 Haddonfield. He was to continue at his post only two 
 years, for in 1767 he died of consumption in the twen 
 ty-sixth year of his age. 
 
 In 1772 Provost Smith edited Evans s poems, which 
 like Godfrey s, were sold by subscription to the patrons 
 of literature and the public-spirited merchants in Phil 
 adelphia. " He was my pupil," said the Provost in 
 his preface to the book, " and truly dear and affection 
 ate to me in his whole demeanor." Pecuniary assur 
 ances were also received from other quarters, since 
 fifty copies went to a bookseller in Charleston, S. C, 
 fifty copies to New York, twenty-five copies to Quebec 
 and thirty to the Barbadoes, while the name of Oliver 
 Goldsmith appears upon the list of subscribers. 
 
 This volume presupposes a comical ignorance among 
 those into whose hands it might come, founded perhaps 
 upon its editor s experience with poetry in America. 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 73 
 
 When the poet speaks of " the unerring archer blind " 
 we are bade to look down the page and learn that Cupid 
 is intended. Again, a star to the line, " O Wolfe on 
 Abram s purpled plain," calls our attention to the fact 
 that Wolfe routed the French on a battlefield called the 
 Plains of Abraham, near Quebec. 
 
 Philadelphia s literary men of that early day made 
 a commendable effort to utilize the scenes that lay near 
 to their hands, and loyally sought to encourage and 
 support each other. Evans was a boy of only sixteen 
 when he wrote his " Pastoral Eclogue," beginning with 
 these lines: 
 
 " Shall fam d Arcadia own the tuneful choir 
 And fair Sicilia boast the matchless lyre ? 
 Shall Gallia s groves resound with heav nly lays, 
 And Albion s poets claim immortal bays? 
 And this new world ne er feel the muse s fire ; 
 No beauties charm us, or no deeds inspire? 
 O Pennsylvania, shall no son of thine 
 Glow with the raptures of the sacred nine?" 
 
 Proceeding the young poet wrote : 
 
 " Fired with the thought, I court the sylvan muse, 
 Her magic influence o er me to diffuse, 
 Whilst I aspire to wake the rural reed 
 And sing of swains whose snowy lambkins feed 
 On Schuylkill s banks with shady walnuts crown d, 
 And bid the vales with music melt around." 
 
 In this poem one of young Evans s shepherd swains 
 declares: 
 
 " The breeze that shakes the spangl d dew-drops round, 
 The swelling flootls that burst the meadows bound, 
 
74 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Are not more wav ring than the female mind! 
 Wild as the waves, unstable as the wind." 
 
 These young poets of the eighteenth century in Amer 
 ica felt that they were singing to a cold and unappre- 
 ciative audience. In an ode Evans writes: 
 
 " Let wretched misers clasp their ore, 
 And vulgar breasts in sense delight ; 
 The muse shall purer joys explore, 
 And wing a more exalted flight." 
 
 To Godfrey he wrote when his friend was afar off, 
 fortune hunting: 
 
 " While you, dear Tom, are forc d to roam 
 In search of fortune, far from home, 
 
 O er bogs, o er seas and mountains; 
 I, too, debar d the soft retreat 
 Of shady groves and murmurs sweet 
 
 Of silver prattling fountains, 
 Must mingle with the bustling throng 
 And bear my load of cares along, 
 
 Like any other sinner; 
 For where s the ecstasy in this, 
 To loiter in poetic bliss 
 
 And go without a dinner? " 
 
 He argues that poetry might have had appreciation 
 in another land, in another age: 
 
 " But, dearest Tom, these days are past 
 And we are in a climate cast 
 
 Where few the muse can relish; 
 Where all the doctrine now that s told 
 Is that a shining heap of gold 
 Alone can man embellish." 
 
<*&&J&*^^ 
 
 DAPHNIS AND MENALCAS, 
 
 PASTORAL 
 ECLOGUE. 
 
 WRITTEN 1758. 
 
 SHALL fam d Arcadia own the tuneful choir, 
 And fair Sicilia boaft the matchlefs lyre ? 
 Shall Gallia s groves refound with heav nly lays, 
 And Albion s poets claim immortal bays ? 
 And this new world ne er feel the mufe s fire* 
 No beauties charm us, or no deeds infpire ? 
 O Pennfylvania ! fhall no fon of thine 
 Glow with the raptures of the facred nine ? 
 
 A PAGE FROM NATHANIEL EVANS S " POEMS " 
 
76 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Evans had the most exalted ideals for poetry. 
 " There is," said he, " a pleasing je ne scay [sic] quoi 
 in the productions of poetic genius which is easier felt 
 than described. It is the voice of nature in the poet, 
 operating like a charm on the soul of the reader. It is 
 the marvellous conception, the noble wildness, the lofty 
 sentiment, the fire and enthusiasm of spirit, the living 
 imagery, the requisite choice of words, the variety, the 
 sweetness, the majesty of numbers, and the irresistible 
 magic of expression." 
 
 The prose writer, he said, might " warm his reader, 
 but the poet s it is to wrap him in a flame, to dissolve 
 him as it were in his own rapturous blaze." 
 
 From Evans it is an easy step to Miss Graeme, after 
 wards Mrs. Ferguson, his " Laura." She resided, in 
 summer at least, at Graeme Park. Sir William Keith, 
 a Scotchman, who was the Governor of Pennsylvania 
 from 1716 to 1726, purchased an estate of 1,200 acres 
 for 500 in a forest near the Old York Road in Hor- 
 sham township, about three miles above Hatboro, and 
 built upon it a fine manor house, today one of the most 
 interesting of the state s colonial landmarks. Keith 
 married a widow, Ann Diggs, whose daughter Ann, the 
 belle of his household, became the wife of Dr. Thomas 
 Graeme, a very distinguished leech in Philadelphia in 
 his day, Port Physician, and Justice of the Supreme 
 Court. To Graeme the Horsham estate finally passed 
 and it was laid out with parks, lakes and vistas of shrub 
 bery and trees, being stocked with birds, fish, flocks of 
 sheep and wild game animals until it suggested the 
 country seat of an English nobleman. The most im 
 portant folk of the time visited at Graeme Park, and 
 the Doctor s daughter, Elizabeth, enjoyed social op- 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 77 
 
 portunities denied to most other women of the period. 
 Fragile, reflective and romantic, the girl very early had 
 an unfortunate love affair and was sent to England in 
 the care of Dr. Richard Peters for a change of scene. 
 That goodly man introduced her to the King and to 
 many of the leading personages in the London of that 
 day, from whom she received much deserved attention. 
 Returning she was the companion on shipboard of 
 young Nathaniel Evans, who seems to have been the 
 means of causing her to forget some of the bitterness 
 of her unhappy romance, though they scarcely were 
 lovers, despite a common belief. They addressed 
 verses to each other upon their return home, he to live 
 in Haddonfield, N. J., in the midst of his flock, and 
 she at Graeme Park. Under the name of " Laura " 
 she had written a parody upon one of his poems. He 
 replied : 
 
 " If the happiness, fair maid, 
 That soothes me in the silent shade 
 Should in your eye appear too great, 
 Come take it all, and share my fate." 
 
 To this sally, so plainly in the spirit of fun, Miss 
 Graeme answered: 
 
 " While youthful joys around you shine, 
 Haste not to bend to Hymen s shrine; 
 Let friendship, gen rous friendship, be 
 The bond to fetter you and me, 
 Vestal, platonic what you will, 
 So virtue reigns with freedom still." 
 
 Evans, with a philosophy that scarcely indicates the 
 disappointed swain, wrote : 
 
 " None, I trust, shall e er discover 
 In me aught like the whimp ring lover; 
 
78 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 The falt ring voice, the sigh of care, 
 The languid look, the dying air. 
 When abject thus behaves the muse, 
 May I kind Laura s friendship lose." 
 
 Elizabeth Graeme at thirty-three yielded to the en 
 treaties of a young Scottish adventurer ten years her 
 junior, Hugh Henry Ferguson. It is said that they 
 were married secretly. At any rate the husband was 
 unworthy and remained with her no long time. He 
 joined the British forces in the Revolution, and, making 
 his way at last to Flanders, where he fought in the wars, 
 rendered to her no future account of his movements. 
 Unheard like many another humane, poetic, cultivated, 
 reasoning mind, she was condemned as a Tory by the 
 radicals of Pennsylvania because of the course her hus 
 band had taken and the ill fortune she had to be an in 
 termediary on two unhappy occasions: once in bearing 
 the Rev. Jacob Duche s letter to Washington, urging the 
 commander-in-chief to use his influence in favor of peace 
 and save himself, probably, from the hanging reserved 
 for traitors to the crown; again in delivering to Gov 
 ernor Joseph Reed of Pennsylvania an offer from the 
 British peace commissioners, which afforded him the 
 opportunity to utter his famous boast that the King of 
 England was not rich enough to buy him and shake 
 his fealty to his country. 
 
 Mrs. Ferguson, often called Lady Ferguson, because 
 of the favor accorded her by the King while in London, 
 had a kind of salon at her winter home in Philadelphia. 
 On Saturday evenings men and women of an exclusive 
 literary refinement gathered about her, when " her body 
 seemed to evanish and she appeared to be all mind." 
 While at Graeme Park she lived closely with nature 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 
 
 79 
 
 and was an indefatigable pedestrian, frequently walk 
 ing the eighteen miles which separated that handsome 
 estate from the city. She died at the age of sixty in a 
 farm-house near her beloved Graeme Park, and was 
 buried in Christ Church-yard in Philadelphia. This 
 extraordinary woman, it is said, transcribed the Bible 
 from end to end to impress it upon her memory. 
 
 One of her most interesting works is a poetical version 
 of the Psalms. This 
 was a labor of conso 
 lation and love which 
 was begun in 1766. 
 Almost overwhelmed 
 with grief by the death 
 of her mother and 
 sister, she retired to 
 Graeme Park, believ 
 ing that the writing 
 11 might prove both a 
 rational and pious 
 service to a pensive 
 mind; for I had long 
 known," she observes, 
 
 ELIZABETH GRAEME S BOOK-PLATE 
 
 that, " the mind was never so wretched as without a 
 pursuit and a prey to unavailing sorrow." By way of 
 explanation of her interest in the work she says: 
 
 The Psalms of David have ever been a very fa 
 vorite subject of my meditations. When I was very 
 young my worthy mother frequently made me read the 
 Psalms to her, and I so early imbibed a fondness for 
 them that like all other first impressions they are like to 
 be lasting, for there appears to me as great a difference 
 between scenes laid in youth and maturity as between 
 
80 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 painting in crayons and carving in sculpture. The 
 statuary s stroke of chisel no length of time can efface, 
 while the chalky pencil flies off at every brush and 
 touch." 
 
 The volume containing the Psalms, which is in man 
 uscript in the Library of the Historical Society of Penn 
 sylvania, is dedicated to Dr. Richard Peters, with many 
 warm expressions of friendship and gratitude for his 
 favors and kindnesses, among them being his conduct 
 ing her to England. " Did you not by a thousand kind 
 and attentive acts/ she asks, " make me think light of 
 those inconveniences which must have been the result 
 of a young woman leaving her native country and 
 friends had she gone unaccompanied, by such a guide 
 as you were to me? " 
 
 The ninth verse of the Fifth Psalm, " For there is 
 no faithfulness in their mouth, their inward part is very 
 wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre, they flat 
 ter with their tongue," Mrs. Ferguson rendered as fol 
 lows : 
 
 " Far, far from truth my foes are fled, 
 To every sweet instruction dead ; 
 For sin makes its supream abode 
 Where man s a stranger to his God. 
 
 " As yawning graves vile dust contain 
 Tho o er them polished stone remain, 
 So they false character convey; 
 They smile, deceive, and last they slay." 
 
 She also translated Fenelon s " Telemaque " into 
 pleasing English verse, the manuscript of which, in two 
 thick volumes bound in red leather, is preserved in the 
 
A \ 1^. 
 
 ttttix Ar* fayfjk* * u tfr 
 
 
 9l c\y y 
 ff 
 
 f^. 
 
 *n\/ Ott 
 
 /M /not 
 
 " ff 
 
 , M, 
 
 A PAGE FROM MRS. FERGUSON S METRICAL VERSION OF THE PSALMS, 
 IN THE LIBRARY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
 
82 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Philadelphia Library. In her preface to this work she 
 explains that " Telemachus " was a favorite book with 
 her from childhood, and she " having a little turn 
 to rhyme entertained herself with endeavoring at a 
 translation of it from the French into English heroic 
 verse." This was a monumental work. It was begun 
 in 1769 and the metrical narrative opens as follows: 
 
 " No dawn of comfort could Calypso find, 
 No balm to soften her distracted mind; 
 Eternal life her tortur d bosom pain d 
 And immortality her anguish chain d. 
 A length of years appeared a train of woe, 
 A dreadful channel for her griefs to flow. 
 Ulysses gone, no place affords delight, 
 The absent hero haunts her anxious sight. 
 Her voice mellifluous echo d not around, 
 No floating air return d the silver sound. 
 In solemn silence her fair band attend, 
 And slowly at an awful distance bend. 
 Alone and pensive she oft trod the ground 
 Where the green turf her sea-girt island bound." 
 
 Mrs. Ferguson wrote in 1787 upon hearing of a new 
 stellar discovery by Sir William Herschel: 
 
 " Whether the optic s piercing eye 
 
 Has introduced to view 
 A distant planet in the sky, 
 Bright, wonderful and new? 
 
 "Or whether we are nearer thrown 
 
 To the great fount of light, 
 And from that source each mist be flown 
 That wrapt that star in night? " 
 
THE AGE OF FRANKLIN 83 
 
 The poetess was also an adept in satire when her 
 aristocratic sentiments were outraged by the revolution 
 ary expressions of Thomas Paine, for instance, and 
 other violent men of her own country and of France. 
 She wrote verses on the massacre of priests in the Abbe 
 at Paris in September, 1792, which began: 
 
 " Down with the Bastile ! Tis too small a place, 
 For we ll imprison half the Gallic race. 
 Since the sovereign people rule the land 
 And deal forth justice with unerring hand, 
 Be those first slaughtered who re most fit to die." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 The literary development of the country, as a matter 
 if course, was rudely interrupted and very disastrously 
 .ffected by the dispute between the mother country and 
 icr colonies which soon reached the stage of war. 
 That the taste for good reading and the appreciation 
 of literature of greater value than that which reached 
 the people through the newspaper and the almanac 
 were growing is clearly indicated by the changes ef 
 fected in the character of the publishing trade in Phil 
 adelphia. Franklin, Bradford and the other printers 
 of newspapers, pamphlets and almanacs, rarely issued 
 a work that might be held to possess true literary merit. 
 With the addition of Robert Bell, James Humphreys, 
 Andrew Steuart and Robert Aitken to Philadelphia s 
 group of publishers, the situation in a literary way 
 underwent a marked improvement. 
 
 Bell, who was a Scotchman, was a particularly valu 
 able acquisition to the list, being incessant in his activity 
 in reprinting for distribution in the colonies works of 
 proven success in England. In 1768 he brought out 
 Johnson s " Rasselas," which was followed by Robert 
 son s "History of Charles V in three volumes; 
 Blackstone s " Commentaries " in four volumes; Sterne s 
 " Sentimental Journey," " Paradise Lost," Lady Mon 
 tagu s " Letters and Poems," " Robinson Crusoe," 
 Adam Ferguson s " Essay on the History of Civil So- 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 85 
 
 ciety," and many popular English novels. Even while 
 the war was in progress he was enabled to reprint Vol 
 taire, De Rochefoucauld s " Maxims," Young s " Night 
 Thoughts," and other standard works. He was " al 
 ways attentive to the desire of the public and ever 
 willing to gratify the growing taste for the advance 
 ment of literature in America," said Bell. His doc 
 trine was that " the more books are sold the more will 
 be sold," and this he declared was " an established 
 truth well known to every liberal reader and to every 
 bookseller of experience." With this object in view, 
 he conducted book auctions in Philadelphia. " After 
 waiting two or three years for the expected purchas 
 ers," he said, in justifying himself as an auctioneer, 
 " the bookseller is convinced he was mistaken in the 
 calculation of his customers, and then he determineth, 
 according to the mode practised in all other countries 
 when an edition hath been overprinted, to sell them by 
 auction to those inhabitants who choose to purchase in 
 that way. These sales by auction, although at an un 
 der price, realizeth dead stock into live cash and will 
 sooner enable him to repair with ready money to the 
 paper manufacturer in order to make another attempt 
 upon some celebrated author, whose sublime works 
 might diffuse universal knowledge to every corner of 
 the American continent." 
 
 Later, during the war, Bell travelled from Charles 
 ton to Boston, holding his auctions in many cities. He 
 became quite celebrated as a bookseller and died in 
 Richmond in 1784 while on a business trip to South 
 Carolina. 
 
 It was said at the time that nearly as many copies of 
 Blackstone were sold in America as in England, and 
 
86 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 English authors witnessed with dismay the popularity 
 their pirated works enjoyed in the colonies. 
 
 At least two more experiments in magazine editing 
 were made in Philadelphia before the Revolution. 
 John Webbe s (Bradford s), Franklin s, and Dr. Wil 
 liam Smith s failing, Lewis Nicola, in 1769, issued his 
 " American Magazine," the third to bear that name in 
 Pennsylvania. Nicola was born in France and edu 
 cated in Ireland. He contributed to the proceedings 
 of the American Philosophical Society, wrote military 
 treatises, and later attained some eminence in the Con 
 tinental Army. In his salutatory to the public he dis 
 cussed the relative merits of newspapers and magazines. 
 " Magazines," said he, u as their names import, may 
 justly be considered as store-houses wherein are depos 
 ited such pieces of humor, short tracts on various sub 
 jects, etc., as from their size could not be easily con 
 veyed to the public, nor expect a long existence in flying 
 sheets; but here, like the bundle of twigs, they acquire 
 strength by their union and mutually support each 
 other." 
 
 Nicola seems very well to have lived up to the stand 
 ards which he set for magazine editors. The choice 
 of his articles displays a tenderness of feeling toward 
 science, but some poetry taken from the British reviews 
 was inserted, and he gave each month a summary of 
 " Foreign Intelligence," strongly suggestive of the 
 same department in the weekly newspapers. Nicola s 
 monthly ceased to appear after an existence of about a 
 year and Philadelphia was again without a magazine 
 until Robert Aitken, the publisher and bookseller, be 
 gan his u Pennsylvania Magazine and American 
 Monthly Museum," usually called the " Museum." It 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 87 
 
 had a number of excellent writers among its contrib 
 utors, and no periodical of the kind previously pub 
 lished in the colony was so deserving of success. Not 
 seldom the pages were illustrated in a creditable way. 
 Appearing first with the year 1775, its fortunes were 
 ill starred. " Those whose leisure and abilities might 
 lead them to a successful application to the muses," 
 said Mr. Aitken, " now turn their attention to the rude; 
 preparations for war. Every heart and hand seems toj 
 be engaged in the interesting struggle for American! 
 liberty. Till this important point is settled the pen of j 
 the poet and the books of the learned must be in a great) 
 measure neglected. The arts and sciences are not cul-j 
 tivated to advantage but in the fruitful soil of peace. 1 ) 
 For this reason the publisher was compelled to discon 
 tinue his magazine in 1776 and in its fate we have the 
 index of the course of literature during the period now 
 under review. 
 
 To the list of newspapers published in Philadelphia 
 three rather notable additions were made by the estab 
 lishment of the " Pennsylvania Chronicle, 11 the " Penn 
 sylvania Packet or the General Advertiser," and the 
 " Pennsylvania Evening Post. 11 
 
 The " Post " was published three times in the week, 
 on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, by Benjamin 
 Towne, beginning in 1775. It was the first evening 
 paper to be issued in Pennsylvania. The editor led an 
 unusually varied life in that he was Whiggish before 
 the war, a Tory while the British occupied the city, and 
 again a Whig afterward. By his political tergiversa 
 tions he was enabled to continue the publication of his 
 paper until 1782. 
 
 The " Packet" was founded in 1771 by John Dun- 
 
88 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 lap, an Irishman, a nephew of William Dunlap, a Phil 
 adelphia bookseller, to whose business he succeeded 
 when his uncle took holy orders and settled as the 
 rector of a parish in Virginia. He had a most exem 
 plary reputation as a journalist. After the war he es 
 tablished a partnership with David C. Claypoole, who 
 looked like and was said to be descended from Oliver 
 Cromwell. The " Packet" appeared daily after 1784. 
 It was the first daily newspaper in the colonies, acquir 
 ing much celebrity in the eighteenth century as " Clay- 
 poolers American Daily Advertiser " and subsequently 
 for nearly forty years as " Poulson s Daily Advertiser " 
 under Zachariah Poulson, the son of a Dane who had 
 learned the printing trade with Christopher Sower. At 
 length it was merged with the " North American " and 
 came into the hands of Morton McMichael, one of the 
 ablest and most useful journalists which the city has 
 produced. 
 
 The publication of the " Pennsylvania Chronicle " 
 was begun in 1767 by William Goddard, a New Eng- 
 lander who came to Philadelphia in the preceding year. 
 It lived until 1773 and was the best newspaper issued 
 in Pennsylvania prior to the Revolutionary War. It 
 performed a very notable service in introducing to the 
 public the first great political writer of the period of 
 literary rank, John Dickinson. His " Farmer Letters " 
 began to appear on December 2, 1767, and were pub 
 lished weekly for fourteen weeks. 
 
 Dickinson came of a Quaker family and was born 
 on his father s plantation of Croisia-dore in Maryland 
 in 1732. Removing to Delaware, he was educated 
 under private tutors, later studying law in Philadelphia 
 and London. He settled in Philadelphia in 1757 and 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 89 
 
 soon became closely involved in the politics of Penn 
 sylvania and the three lower counties of Delaware, on 
 the conservative side. Like Dr. William Smith, he was 
 the opposite of Franklin in his political views, but he 
 was aroused upon the great tax question, and in the dis 
 cussion of the legal aspects of the contest between Eng 
 land and her American colonies displayed the depth of 
 his learning and his cogency in written argument. He 
 knew English history and English law and believed in 
 them, unlike the uneducated and visionary in political 
 philosophy, who were ready to sweep away all tradition 
 and precedent. The letters, for the soundness of their 
 learning, suggest Burke, and they won attention in 
 stantly. 
 
 " I am a farmer settled after a variety of fortunes 
 near the banks of the river Delaware in the province 
 of Pennsylvania," the first letter began. " I received 
 a liberal education and have been engaged in the busy 
 scenes of life; but am now convinced that a man may be 
 as happy without bustle as with it. My farm is small ; 
 my servants are few, and good; I have a little money 
 at interest; I wish for no more; my employment in my 
 own affairs is easy; and with a contented, grateful mind 
 (undisturbed by worldly hopes or fears relating to my 
 self) I am completing the number of days allotted to 
 me by Divine Goodness. Being generally master of 
 my time I spend a good deal of it in my library, which 
 I think the most valuable part of my small estate; and 
 being acquainted with two or three gentlemen of abil 
 ities and learning who honor me with their friendship, 
 I have acquired, I believe, a greater knowledge in his 
 tory and the laws and constitution of my country than 
 is generally attained by men of my class." 
 
90 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 An example of Mr. Dickinson s style when in some 
 heat, omitting the italics, capitals and double caps in 
 which he so freely indulged, is found in the concluding 
 passages of his seventh letter: "These duties which 
 will inevitably be levied upon us which are now levy 
 ing upon us are expressly laid for the sole purpose 
 of taking money. This is the true definition of taxes. 
 They are therefore taxes. This money is to be taken 
 from us. We are therefore taxed. Those who are 
 taxed without their own consent expressed by them 
 selves or their representatives are slaves. We are 
 taxed without our own consent expressed by ourselves or 
 our representatives. We are therefore slaves. 
 
 Miserable vulgus. 
 A miserable tribe." 
 
 As soon as they appeared in the " Chronicle/ the 
 letters were reprinted in the other Philadelphia news 
 papers; in fact, in all the journals published in the col 
 onies except four. They were at once issued in pam 
 phlet form in Pennsylvania, passing through a number 
 of editions. They were thus printed, too, in New 
 York and Boston and there was an edition for France, 
 the translation being made by Franklin s friend Du- 
 bourg. Dickinson s recognition was immediate. He 
 was thanked by a Boston town meeting and he received 
 an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Princeton 
 College, being called the " Pennsylvania Farmer " in 
 his diploma. He was regarded by the liberals of 
 America and France as one of them, and great was their 
 disappointment when they discovered that his motto 
 was " defence not defiance," in relation to the events 
 which followed each other so rapidly, leading up to a 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 91 
 
 declaration of independence and a war for separate 
 national existence. Dickinson opposed the radicals 
 who took control of the government in Pennsylvania. 
 He refused to sign the Declaration of Independence, 
 but followed the majority, if a little tardily and re 
 luctantly, in forwarding the war. 
 
 " Tall and spare, his hair white as snow, his face, 
 uniting with the severe simplicity of his sect, a neatness 
 and elegance peculiarly in keeping with it; his manners 
 a beautiful emanation of the great Christian principle 
 of love," as an admirer described Dickinson, in his last 
 years, he was active in works of philanthropy. He was I 
 th_J.oi]nder an d-aJarge benefactor of Dickinson Col- , 
 lege at Carlisle, Pa. r when the College of Philadelphia 
 was under a cloud which it seemed might never pass. 
 He offered money to the Society of Friends with which 
 to establish the rather famous secondary school still in 
 existence at Westtown in Chester County, and died at 
 Wilmington, Del., in 1808, to be buried in the Friends 
 graveyard in that city. 
 
 No conservative influence could prevail to retard the 
 movement which Franklin had led against intellectual 
 absolutism. From a narrow, uncomfortable religion, 
 a devotion to kingly and other ancient forms, the pen 
 dulum was swinging widely to the other extreme, and 
 nowhere so widely as in Pennsylvania and France. 
 There was no stopping it. What Rousseau had begun 
 with his philosophy, which pleaded for " a return to 
 nature/ was bearing fruit full of vast meaning for the 
 world. In France there was Voltaire, the chief of all the 
 liberals in literature in Europe. Around him revolved 
 lesser men, steeped in the same philosophy of protest and 
 revolution, Condorcet, Turgot, Dubourg, Le Veil- 
 
92 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 lard, Philip Mazzei, Abbe Raynal, the Duke de La 
 Rochefoucauld, Diderot, D Alembert and the Encyclo 
 pedists; Dr. Quesnay, the elder Mirabeau, and the 
 members of that curious sect, the Economistes. What 
 Voltaire was to the movement in France, Franklin was 
 considered to be in America, and his influence was great 
 est in his own city and state. 
 
 In this country appeared a host of men more or less 
 possessed of the same views, such as Thomas Jefferson, 
 Samuel Adams, and in Pennsylvania Thomas Paine, 
 David Rittenhouse, George Bryan, Timothy Matlack, 
 and many others whose names are unrecognizable at 
 this day. The step is not long from Rousseau and 
 Voltaire to Danton and Robespierre; from Franklin to 
 liberty-crazed fellows who tarred and feathered Tories 
 on circumstantial evidence, engaged in the Fort Wilson 
 riot, attacked Robert Morris for selling merchandise at 
 ruling market prices, and later danced about liberty 
 poles, wore the cockade, mobbed the British consulate 
 in Philadelphia, and aimed to involve the republic in 
 a sympathetic war with the revolutionists of France 
 against England. It is not far from liberty to license, 
 from liberalism to illiberalism and tyranny, and in Phil 
 adelphia events led inevitably from tolerance of view 
 to violence of word and action. 
 
 The state had its bitter factional disputes, which 
 were largely due to the tripartite character of the pop 
 ulation. The Quakers had settled in Philadelphia and 
 the southeastern counties; the Germans in the north and 
 northwest, chiefly in the hills, while to the west toward 
 the Susquehanna lay a country more recently occupied 
 by a hot-headed and belligerent body of emigrants from 
 the north of Ireland. Beyond the river were wild In- 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 93 
 
 dians, inflamed by the constant encroachments upon 
 their ancient domain. At this time, perhaps not more 
 than a fourth part of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania 
 were Quakers, nearly one-half Germans, and the other 
 fourth Scotch-Irish. 
 
 The Quakers had a secure hold of the government 
 through restrictions upon the suffrage and an apportion 
 ment of representatives in the legislature which was 
 made before the Germans and Irish had come to the 
 state. The Germans for the most part were peace- 
 loving, and their favor was eagerly sought in the polit 
 ical contest which soon ensued between the Scotch-Irish 
 in the west, who by reason of their geographical situa 
 tion and their racial temperament, sought military pro 
 tection, and the Quakers who wished to live at peace 
 with the Indians. 
 
 Once in 1763 the feeling rose to such a height that a 
 mob of westerners led by the " Paxton Boys," who had 
 killed in cold blood, in Lancaster, several Indians under 
 the care of the Moravian missionaries, marched upon 
 Philadelphia to attack other members of the tribe, re 
 moved for safety to the city, and seize the symbols of 
 the government. The Quakers for once buckled on 
 their swords and the dispute threatened to assume grave 
 dimensions before it was composed. 
 
 In this situation it was easy for a few eager spirits 
 to overset the aristocratic proprietary Quaker govern 
 ment, as soon as the difficulty with Great Britain reached 
 the stage of war. Associators, minute men and mem 
 bers of self-constituted committees called a convention 
 in 1776, extending the franchise without legal author 
 ity. The war fervor and the popular sentiment in fa 
 vor of liberty were depended on to justify all things. 
 
94 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 The convention chose Franklin as its president and 
 adopted a constitution. This instrument of govern 
 ment, fantastic and weird to the last degree, had the 
 doubtful advantage of originality. Its authors, said to 
 have been Thomas Paine, George Bryan and James 
 Cannon, who were not members of the convention, and 
 Franklin, to whom the credit for the work was univer 
 sally given without his denial of the impeachment, were 
 restrained by no precedents. They would have a pres 
 ident and no governor, since that name smacked of 
 monarchy. They would have but one house of legisla 
 ture, which should appoint the judges of the courts and 
 exercise other dangerous powers without hindrance, 
 other than that which might come from the unrestricted 
 suffrage of members of the war party and the action of 
 the Council of Censors to meet every seven years to 
 consider the acts of the legislature and reprimand it in 
 gentleness for any violation of the charter of its author 
 ity. 
 
 The government was with difficulty organized under 
 
 uch a constitution. Against it were arrayed all the 
 men of substance and of conservative learning in the 
 
 olony, such as James Wilson, Robert Morris, Thomas 
 Willing, Thomas McKean, F. A. Muhlenberg, George 
 
 Ilymer and John Dickinson; and many times in the 
 
 hirteen years during which it was in force, bloodshed 
 was narrowly averted. 
 
 This constitution is worthy of attention because it 
 was at once heralded in Europe as Franklin s, and as 
 the new world s practical experiment with Jean Jacques s 
 philosophy. To Voltaire Pennsylvania was the hope 
 of the human race, and in the intellectual orgies of the 
 time, when men wished to abolish their ancestry and 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 95 
 
 live according to new rules of their own making, Frank 
 lin and his constitution were the centre of interest and 
 discussion. 
 
 At home, where our investigation now confines us, 
 the most violent of the literary representatives of the 
 new philosophy was Thomas Paine. He had come to 
 America from England through Franklin s instrumen 
 tality, just as that man had taken James Ralph to Eng 
 land fifty years before to lead more or less the same 
 kind of a life in London that Paine was destined to live 
 in Philadelphia, as a pamphleteer for statesmen and 
 ministries and a general literary starveling and handy 
 man. The advantage on balance is not great on either 
 side. By admirers Paine has been called the " Great 
 Commoner." He arrived in Philadelphia in 1774 in 
 the nick of time and almost immediately found employ 
 ment on the " Pennsylvania Magazine," for which Ait- 
 ken, its publisher, was to have much difficulty in secur 
 ing the material that he had engaged the Englishman 
 to furnish him. He used to relate that Paine could 
 never write except with a decanter of brandy beside 
 him. The first glass warmed him, the second illumi 
 nated his intellectual system, and when he had taken 
 the third glass it is said that he wrote " with great 
 rapidity, intelligence and precision, his ideas appearing 
 to flow faster than he could commit them to paper." 
 The time was ripe for one of his radical views, and his 
 cleverness in composition was evidenced early in 1776 
 by the astonishing success gained by his pamphlet, 
 " Common Sense," which was published by Robert 
 Bell, who could not secure paper to print it fast enough 
 to supply the demand. It was a vehement plea for in 
 dependence, even at the price of war, and was reprinted 
 
9 6 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 and discussed in all parts of America and Europe, bring 
 ing its author votes of thanks and compliments of many 
 kinds, suggestive of the public uprising which ensued 
 upon the issue of the " Farmer Letters " eight years 
 before. There was thi difference: one was an histor 
 ical and legal argument, the other empty rhetoric; one 
 was addressed to men s reason, the other to their pas 
 sions; one was the work of a substantial citizen of Penn 
 sylvania of deep and sound learning, with a sense of 
 responsibility for his utterances, the other of an intel 
 lectual adventurer. 
 
 Paine stated in his pamphlet that before the battle 
 of Lexington he had warmly wished for a reconcilia 
 tion. Afterward, said he, " I rejected the hardened, 
 sullen-tempered Pharaoh of England forever; and dis 
 dain the wretch that with the pretended title of Father 
 of his people can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter 
 and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul." 
 He concluded with this appeal : " O ye that love man 
 kind ! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but 
 the tyrant, stand forth! Every sport of the old world 
 is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been 
 hunted around the globe. Asia and Africa have long 
 expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger and 
 England hath given her warning to depart. O ! receive 
 the fugitive and prepare in time an asylum for man 
 kind." 
 
 Throughout the war Paine issued " The Crisis," a 
 pamphlet published from time to time to invigorate the 
 people and forward the contest. He was frequently a 
 supplicant for office and often smote the hand which 
 gave him bread, including General Washington and 
 Robert Morris. After the war he found his way to 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 97 
 
 Europe. In England he published his " Rights of 
 Man," a revolutionary writing in which he attacked 
 Burke and for which he was outlawed and pursued by 
 the British government. In France he was almost can 
 onized by the revolutionists, but, falling athwart the 
 way of Robespierre, he languished for nearly a year in 
 the Luxembourg prison, awaiting his summons to the 
 guillotine. There he employed his time writing his 
 atheistical work, " The Age of Reason," and coming 
 back to America, died in New York in 1809, aged 
 seventy-two years. He was buried upon his farm at 
 New Rochelle, West Chester County, N. Y., and on 
 his grave rests a stone bearing the words : u Thomas 
 Paine, Author of * Common Sense. A consistent 
 radical, his doctrines and deeds will never be admired 
 by those who have a different philosophy. As a writer, 
 however, he was unquestionably facile and the master 
 of a pure and forceful style. 
 
 In Paine s group of philosophers who looked to 
 Franklin as their patron even while he was afar off, 
 appear the names of few writers. Numerous as they 
 were, none had literary gifts, or the leisure in time of 
 action to put their theories into writing, although many 
 advocates came forward at a later day. 
 
 Timothy Matlack, a Free or Fighting Quaker who 
 wore his sword in the streets, as he explained, to defend 
 his liberties, which otherwise he surmised would not be 
 secure, wrote for the newspapers articles of a violently 
 democratic tendency. Born at Haddonfield, N. J., in 
 1730, this old Spartan lived nearly one hundred years. 
 His death did not occur until 1829, near Holmesburg, 
 Pa. 
 
 George Bryan was an Irishman, to which fact some 
 
9 8 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 of his antipathy to the English form of government 
 with its three separately constituted departments, exec 
 utive, legislative and judicial, and its two houses of 
 parliament, has been attributed. He came to Phila 
 delphia as a lad, followed mercantile life and failed in 
 business, afterward feeling himself antagonistic to the 
 existing social system. He was active in endeavoring 
 to administer the odd government of Pennsylvania 
 which he had helped to establish, occupying a number 
 of offices under it. Consistent to the end, he opposed 
 the adoption of the Constitution of the United States 
 of 1787, seeing in it many imaginary restrictions and 
 tyrannies. He was a man of much reading and his 
 temperament made him one of the most determined of 
 the very democratic spirits in the Pennsylvania groujx- 
 
 James Cannon, a pamphleteer, a teacher in the Col 
 lege of Philadelphia, and one of the framers of the 
 Constitution of Pennsylvania, was a typical represent 
 ative of the new philosophy. In addressing a public 
 meeting, it is reported that he denounced " all learning 
 as an artificial constraint on the human understanding: 
 he had done with it, and advised our sovereign lords, 
 the people, to choose no lawyers or other professional 
 characters called educated or learned, but to select men 
 uneducated, with unsophisticated understandings. He 
 should be glad to forget the trumpery which had occu 
 pied so much of his life." 
 
 Arrayed against this Gallo-American philosophy, 
 born of Rousseau and first realized in Pennsylvania, 
 accounts of the remarkable success of the experiment 
 being carried back to France, where what they were 
 pleased to regard as God s government in the new 
 world was apotheosized and made the model for the 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 99 
 
 revolutionists, were some of the most substantial char 
 acters which our American political civilization has ever 
 developed, the chief among them for our purposes be 
 ing John Dickinson, Robert Morris and James Wilson. 
 
 John Dickinson began the contest by proposing, in 
 the first legislature elected under the Constitution, of 
 which he was a member, that they call another conven 
 tion to prepare a frame of government in harmony with 
 the traditions and precedents of the English people. 
 Failing in this, he and his friends withdrew from the 
 body. Some officers were finally installed and a par 
 tial organization was effected, which was interrupted 
 by the British army coming to occupy the city, leaving 
 it in the hands of the lords of misrule, when the at 
 tempt to adopt a suitable constitution was resumed. 
 
 Mobs of men, calling themselves Constitutionalists, 
 or partisans of the old constitution of 1776, swarmed 
 the streets. The houses of Tories, or those suspected 
 of Toryism, who sufficed quite as well to satisfy the 
 savage thirst for remedy and vengeance, were attacked ; 
 men were taken out of the hands of legally appointed 
 officers and hanged on the commons; outlaws infested 
 the country roads and property owners and patriots 
 of established character were warned to flee the city if 
 they valued their lives. In connection with their other 
 vagaries, the radicals were firm advocates of unlimited 
 issues of paper money. Its value fell constantly and 
 the prices of all commodities rose proportionately. The 
 misery of the people was real; their wrath not unnat 
 ural. Price conventions were held; mobs presumed to 
 fix the prices at which merchandise should be sold, 
 prescribing penalties for those who exacted higher 
 rates; and the loudest threats were uttered against mer- 
 
ioo LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 chants who it was supposed were forestalling or monop 
 olizing the supplies of goods, later to take advantage of 
 the people s necessities. 
 
 As one of the largest merchants in the city, the pop 
 ular madness found vent against Robert Morris. Com 
 ing to Philadelphia from England as a lad, Morris 
 was a self-made man in the best sense. He early en 
 tered the old mercantile house of Willing and with 
 his partner, Thomas Willing, had for years imported 
 and exported more largely perhaps than any one in the 
 city, if not in the colonies. Though a conservative 
 from disposition and interest, he early embraced the 
 American cause and performed indispensable service in 
 1776 and 1777 before the British had yet occupied the 
 city. The victories at Trenton Washington freely as 
 cribed to Morris s timely aid in supplying him with a 
 large sum of hard money. This and other patriotic acts 
 were now forgotten, and a group of men, with Paine 
 at their head, denounced Morris in a town meeting 
 w r hich was attended by an excited crowd. General 
 John Cadwalader, who attempted to speak in Morris s 
 behalf, was attacked by a hundred men with clubs, and 
 a committee was sent to wait upon the great merchant 
 and ask him why he did not sell a cargo of flour which 
 he had just received at a price arbitrarily fixed by them. 
 The tyrannies and proscriptions made life and property 
 in the city highly insecure for the Anti-constitutional 
 ists, or Republicans, as they were called, to distinguish 
 them from the direct government democrats. 
 
 Against James Wilson the mob s rage also found ex 
 pression. His patriotism was no whit more open to 
 question than Robert Morris s. He was born in Scot 
 land, where he was educated at the universities. He 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 101 
 
 reached Philadelphia in 1766. At first a tutor in Latin 
 in the College, he later studied law with John Dickin 
 son and began his practise in Reading, Pa. His re 
 moval to Carlisle, Pa., soon followed. He signed the 
 Declaration of Independence and rendered important 
 services in Congress, returning to Philadelphia to make 
 it his permanent abode after the British evacuated the 
 city. An abler jurist the times did not supply, and 
 because of his respect for the regular course of legal 
 procedure in the trial of men accused of Toryism, he 
 became the object of the most bitter hatreds. He re 
 sided in a brick house at the southwest corner of Third 
 and Walnut Streets when, on the 4th of October, 1779, 
 with a number of his friends, including Robert Morris, 
 George Clymer, Sharp Delaney and General Mifflin, 
 he sought refuge from a mob of Constitutionalists. 
 The rioters numbered perhaps 200 men and had two 
 pieces of cannon, which they set up to bear upon the 
 house, ever afterward known as " Fort Wilson." The 
 garrison barricaded the doors, returning the fire from 
 the windows and other vantage points. The mob 
 forced the door with sledges and bars and there was a 
 struggle on the stairs. Two were killed in the street 
 crowd and one in the house, while a number were 
 wounded, especially after the arrival of the City Troop, 
 whose members drew their swords as they rode through 
 the mob. There was a real reign of terror for several 
 days and Wilson absented himself from the city until 
 order w r as in some degree restored and the wild spirit 
 of the people was mollified. 
 
 Both Morris and Wilson were by good fortune re 
 served for greater services than any it had yet fallen in 
 their way to perform. Morris, in 1781, when the 
 
102 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 country s money affairs were at the lowest point, be 
 came Superintendent of the United States finances, and 
 for four years with the greatest skill performed the al 
 most impossible task of raising the funds necessary to 
 keep Washington s army in the field and successfully 
 terminate the war. Later in 1787, he served in the 
 Constitutional Convention, and for six years was the 
 strong pillar of President Washington s administration 
 as a senator from Pennsylvania, succumbing in the end, 
 after playing the role for a long time of the rich man 
 of America, in gigantic private speculations in virgin 
 lands, being permitted to remain for three years, six 
 months and ten days in the debtors apartments in the 
 old Prune Street Prison at Sixth and Locust Streets. 
 He died broken in spirit as in fortune in 1806 in this 
 city, being buried in Christ Church-yard in the family 
 tomb. 
 
 Morris s writings were probably more voluminous 
 than those of any other public man of his day and they 
 are as trenchant and incisive in manner and as sound 
 in substance as the famous papers of Hamilton, Mad 
 ison and Jay in the " Federalist." It was Morris who 
 framed these maxims for later generations of Amer 
 icans: 
 
 " Men are less ashamed to do wrong than vexed to 
 be told of it." 
 
 " I hope the people will at length distinguish between 
 those who admonish them to their good, and those who 
 flatter them to their destruction." 
 
 " Difficulties are always to be distinguished from pos 
 sibilities. After endeavoring by your utmost exertions 
 to surmount them, you will be able to determine which 
 of them are insurmountable." 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 103 
 
 " Men are more apt to trust one whom they can call 
 to account than three who may not hold themselves ac 
 countable, or three and thirty who may appoint those 
 three." 
 
 Wilson s most important service was performed in 
 the Convention of 1787, and he is regarded by students 
 of the Constitution as perhaps the most important man 
 in that body. An inflexible Federalist, learned in the 
 practical principles of government, he was an influen 
 tial force in disposing of sentimental theories, and in 
 giving the government of the United States a form 
 which has enabled it to endure. Appointed a Justice 
 of the Supreme Court by President Washington, he 
 served in this office until his death in 1798 at Edenton, 
 N. C., while absent from home on circuit duty. He 
 was an impressive orator. Wilson s published works 
 are chiefly his lectures delivered at the College of Phil 
 adelphia, where he was the first to hold a professorship 
 of law. His writings are a reflection of the man as he 
 was, learned and practical in all things, with but a 
 small tincture of the imaginative quality, which we do 
 not expect in the papers of statesmen, though it be 
 sometimes added to enliven their work. In concluding 
 the oration which he delivered at the celebration in 
 Philadelphia on July 4, 1788 in honor of the adoption 
 of the Constitution, James Wilson said: 
 
 " The commencement of our government has been 
 eminently glorious : let our progress in every excellence 
 be proportionately great. It will it must be so. 
 What an enrapturing prospect opens on the United 
 States. Placid husbandry walks in front attended by 
 the venerable plough. Lowing herds adorn our val 
 leys; bleating flocks spread over our hills; verdant 
 
104 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 meadows, enamelled pastures, yellow harvests, bending 
 orchards, rise in rapid succession from east to west. 
 Plenty with her copious horn sits easy, smiling, and in 
 conscious complacency enjoys and presides over the 
 scenes. Commerce next advances in all her splendid 
 and embellished forms. The rivers and lakes and seas 
 are crowded with ships. Their shores are covered with 
 cities. The cities are filled with inhabitants. The arts 
 decked with elegance, yet with simplicity, appear in 
 beautiful variety and well-adjusted arrangement. 
 Around them are diffused in rich abundance the neces 
 saries, the decencies and the ornaments of life. With 
 heartfelt contentment industry beholds his honest labors 
 flourishing and secure. Peace walks serene and un- 
 alarmed over all the unmolested regions, while liberty, 
 virtue and religion go hand in hand, harmoniously pro 
 tecting, enlivening and exalting all." 
 
 Philadelphia was the seat of government of the col 
 onies. It had enjoyed this distinction ever since the 
 first Continental Congress had assembled here in 1774, 
 except for an enforced removal to Baltimore and York, 
 Pa., when the British threatened and then occupied the 
 city. Later, for a while New York was its meeting- 
 place, but pending the preparations for building a cap 
 ital city on the banks of the Potomac, Robert Morris, 
 in 1790, brought the government back to Philadelphia, 
 where it remained through Washington s two adminis 
 trations and into the midst of John Adams s. It was 
 central geographically, a matter of the greatest mo 
 ment when delegates to Congress must ride on horse 
 back or in stage coaches over unimproved roads. It 
 was a compromise between Virginia and Massachusetts. 
 Hither came Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James 
 
THE BARTRAM HOUSE 
 
 In Bartram s Gardens (See page 56.) 
 
 SEVENTH AND MARKET STREETS 
 
 House in which the Declaration of Independence was framed 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 105 
 
 Madison and all the Southerners; Hamilton and Jay 
 of New York; John Adams and the New England lead 
 ers. Hither, too, came the foreign legates and attaches, 
 together with the place-seekers, bounty claimants, tour 
 ists and sight-seers who are the necessary trappings of 
 the seat of government of any country, however small 
 its size or mean its prerogatives and powers. 
 
 Nearly all the Revolutionary Fathers lived in lodg 
 ing or boarding houses situated east of the State House 
 and between Arch and Pine Streets. Some viewed 
 the Delaware River and its shipping from their cham 
 ber windows. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of In 
 dependence, the document so forcibly voicing the pop 
 ular conviction in regard to liberty and equality, and 
 the other tenets of the new philosophy, in the lodgings 
 he had taken in the second story of a new brick house 
 belonging to a young German bricklayer named Graff. 
 This building, situated at the southwest corner of Sev 
 enth and Market Streets, was then almost the last house 
 in the city to the westward. The site is now occupied 
 by a bank, upon whose granite walls a tablet commem 
 orates the event. The Constitution of the United 
 States was framed in the State House in 1787, and with 
 its adoption expired the hopes of the Pennsylvania rad 
 icals. There was still to be expressed only their wrath 
 at being soundly beaten, and political vituperation sur 
 charged the atmosphere in Philadelphia for the rest o; 
 the century. 
 
 The contest in Pennsylvania between those who be 
 lieved in the force of tradition and the teachings of 
 history, and leaders of Cannon s kind who wished to 
 be rid of the " trumpery " of learning and, like Rous 
 seau, to take their laws from men clad in skins sitting 
 
106 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 under oak trees, involved the patriots coming to Phila 
 delphia from other colonies. Hamilton was too young 
 a man to understand the deep meaning of the two philo 
 sophical tendencies when the contest was begun; but 
 to John Adams the Pennsylvania Constitution was gall 
 and wormwood. He employed a large part of his 
 leisure time while representing the colonies in Europe 
 in the writing of a long and careful comparative study 
 of the governments of the world, deprecating the im 
 practical provisions of the Constitution of Pennsyl 
 vania and defending the constitutions of the other 
 states against the attacks of Turgot, who had taken up 
 a brief for Pennsylvania. His works strongly testify 
 to the vigorous efforts he put forth to counteract Frank 
 lin s influence and to correct the impression that Amer 
 ica, either in nation or state, could or would be gov 
 erned by a tempestuous convention such as was soon to 
 assume control of the destinies of France. No writer 
 in Pennsylvania, none in America and none in the world 
 but Burke exerted such power to set the world right in 
 a matter that had long made Philadelphia and Paris 
 the centres of a dangerous philosophy. 
 
 From the intellectual disputes of the war even scien 
 tists and poets could not escape. Of the former, there 
 are two of eminence to be named, David Rittenhouse 
 and Dr. Benjamin Rush, while Francis Hopkinson and 
 Philip Freneau are the leading belletristic writers of the 
 
 od. 
 
 littenhouse was the most profound scientist whom 
 the times produced. While Franklin s ingenuity was 
 universal, since he knew as much about one subject as 
 another, and delved not too deeply into any, Ritten 
 house devoted his attention to mathematics and astron- 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 107 
 
 omy, gaming a position of high authority in them. 
 His ancestors were Mennonites who came from Hol 
 land and established the famous paper mill on the Wis- 
 sahickon. Born in a house overlooking that stream, 
 his father, Matthias Rittenhouse, soon removed to a 
 farm in Norriton, then in Philadelphia, but now in 
 Montgomery County near the present Norristown. 
 At that time David was three years old and it was ex 
 pected that he would become a farmer. He early 
 displayed mechanical skill. Without educational op 
 portunities, he perfected himself in mathematics. At 
 eight he had built a watermill; at seventeen a wooden 
 clock which led to his setting up a shop as a clock and 
 mathematical instrument maker. Of a delicate mould 
 he applied himself too diligently and was attacked by 
 a lung affection that kept him in pain as long as he 
 lived. 
 
 He discovered a method of fluxions without knowl 
 edge of the researches of Newton or Leibnitz, and 
 although deprived of credit for the performance, to 
 which he seems to have been as well entitled as they, 
 he knew no discouragement. His clocks became cele 
 brated. He invented a thermometer which was based 
 upon the principle of the expansion and contraction of 
 metals. He made telescopes and was soon engaged in 
 a study of the heavens. In 1770 he completed his 
 orrery, a mechanical representation in brass of the 
 planetary system, by which the relative position of each 
 body upon any day for five thousand years either for 
 ward or backward could be readily displayed. The 
 ingenious device was purchased by Princeton College 
 for 300. A duplicate was made for the College of 
 Philadelphia, the inventor was voted a sum of money 
 
io8 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 as a premium by the legislature of Pennsylvania, and 
 after the French alliance, the Philosophical Society de 
 termined to have him construct one for presentation 
 to the King of France. By this time Rittenhouse had 
 made the acquaintance and won the favor of all the 
 patrons of learning in the colony, including Dr. Wil 
 liam Smith and the professors at the College. His 
 fame was greatly enhanced by the service he performed 
 in connection with the American Philosophical Society 
 in making their observations of the transit of Venus, 
 an opportunity which had not occurred for many years 
 and would not be repeated for more than a century. 
 Three parties were organized; one to use the telescope 
 mounted on a wooden platform in the State House 
 yard, from which the Declaration of Independence was 
 later read; a second to go to the Delaware Capes; and 
 a third to David Rittenhouse s home in Norriton where 
 the results were particularly noteworthy. The sky was 
 clear, the reports delighted the astronomers of Europe. 
 Rittenhouse s political sentiments, which were openly 
 expressed, were akin to Franklin s. He had a promi 
 nent part in the convention which framed the Pennsyl 
 vania Constitution of 1776 and was a radical Constitu 
 tionalist, from which party for twelve years he enjoyed 
 his place as Treasurer of the state and other offices. 
 All kings were abominations in his eyes and he once 
 uttered the wish, ascribed at a later day to Henry C. 
 Carey and his group of nationalists, " that Nature 
 would raise her everlasting bars between the new and 
 old world and make a voyage to Europe as impracti 
 cable as one to the moon." A newspaper poet wrote 
 in 1777: 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 109 
 
 " Meddle not with state affairs, 
 Keep acquaintance with the stars; 
 Science, David, is thy line; 
 Warp not Nature s great design, 
 If thou to fame would st rise." 
 
 All to no purpose. Rittenhouse deeply concerned 
 himself with liberal politics. After Franklin s death 
 he became the President of the Philosophical Society, 
 an office which he held until his death in 1796, uphold 
 ing all its intellectual traditions. Cobbett in his untrue 
 way said that Rittenhouse was an atheist in the pay of 
 France. " The American Philosophical Society 
 composed of a nest of such wretches as hardly evei 
 met together before," this arch libeller continued am 
 its President gave some basis to the allegations of its 
 enemies by taking sides openly with the party which 
 sympathized with the French revolutionists and raged 
 up and down the streets, urging a renewal of the war 
 with England. Aside from some translations from the 
 German, Rittenhouse s literary work was confined to 
 scientific papers included for the most part in the Trans 
 actions of the Philosophical Society. 
 
 In Europe today Philadelphia is perhaps more widely 
 known as a centre of medical learning than for any 
 other intellectual attainment whatsoever. A Philadel- 
 phian travelling about the world, if he make known 
 in educated circles the name of the city whence he 
 comes, will discover that its fame as the home of med 
 ical schools and eminent surgeons and physicians is 
 widespread. The foundations for this distinction were 
 laid in the eighteenth century. The time when men 
 could be cured of their various ills by decoctions of 
 herbs, mysterious powders, " Chinese stones," " tooth- 
 
i io LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 ache bags," eelskins, iron skewers, a piece of flitch 
 buried under the eaves of a house, and the remedies 
 born of superstition and charlatanry which were pre 
 scribed in the almanacs, was rapidly passing, and med 
 icine as a science was winning, and deserving to win, 
 general respect. 
 
 The first thing approaching a medical school in 
 Philadelphia was Dr. William Shippen, Jr. s, " Ana 
 tomical Theatre" in which he gave lectures in 1762, 
 continuing them for three years or until, with the aid 
 of Dr. John Morgan and others, he established the 
 medical school in connection with the College of Phil 
 adelphia. He held a professorship in the College and 
 its successor, the University, until 1806, or for more 
 than forty years. 
 
 The real founder of medical science in this country 
 was Dr. Benjamin Rush, the " American Hippocrates " 
 or the " American Sydenham " as he is sometimes 
 called. Born in 1745 on a farm in Byberry, a few 
 miles northeast of Philadelphia, of stock that had 
 fought in Cromwell s army, the boy was early brought 
 to the city. His father died and he came under the 
 care of his mother, who sought in Philadelphia the 
 means of educating her children. Benjamin, when not 
 yet fifteen years of age, graduated at Princeton Col 
 lege, and then gave his attention to the study of medi 
 cine under tutors in Philadelphia, perfecting himself 
 at Edinburgh where he received his doctor s degree in 
 1768. He came back to Philadelphia in the next year 
 and took a professorship in the new medical school, 
 being a teacher in the College from this time continu 
 ously until his death in 1813. He reached the height 
 of his career in 1793, during the yellow fever epidemic. 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION in 
 
 Nearly all the doctors had fled the city at sight of 
 this dread visitant, and when six thousand were sick or 
 dying but two remained with him to alleviate their suf 
 ferings. The disease broke out in July and it raged 
 for about one hundred days, or until the end of Sep 
 tember. Some forty-five hundred persons died. The 
 rich fled in all directions; while many of the poor were 
 taken to tents on the outskirts of the city. Dr. Rush 
 devised a method of treatment which consisted princi 
 pally of bleeding his patients and purging them with 
 mercury. He often treated more than one hundred 
 thus in a day. His house was besieged by men arid 
 women who came to beg him to save them, or some one 
 dear to them. He was compelled to drive his chaise 
 at breakneck speed to escape the petitioners who hoped 
 to intercept him in the streets. He himself barely es 
 caped with his life; he was so exhausted that he was 
 with difficulty raised from his last attack. His blood 
 letting into bowls or upon the ground, when the dish 
 was not at hand, was so free, and his purges were so 
 invariably prescribed that he was attacked viciously by 
 doctors recommending other modes of treatment. In 
 deed, he was threatened with expulsion from the city. 
 Freneau wrote at this time : 
 
 " Doctors raving and disputing, 
 Death s pale army still recruiting. 
 What a pother, 
 One with tother, 
 Some a-writing, some a-shooting. 
 
 " Nature s poisons here collected, 
 Water, earth and air infected; 
 
ii2 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 O! what pity 
 Such a city 
 Was in such a place erected." 
 
 William Cobbett ("Peter Porcupine") attacked 
 Rush in his " Gazette," and, the doctor suing for libel, a 
 famous case came into the courts. Rush won his suit 
 and Cobbett was compelled to pay $5,000 in damages, 
 which the victor, with honor satisfied, devoted to char 
 ity. 
 
 Dr. Rush was actively interested in the politics of 
 the Revolution, though on the side which opposed 
 Franklin and Rittenhouse. He wrote and worked to 
 repeal the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 and ad 
 vocated a stronger confederation of the states. Like 
 Dr. Richard Peters, his heart was full of benevolence, 
 seasoned by good judgment, and his sympathies went 
 out to his fellow-men in all directions. John Wool- 
 man, the Quaker preacher; Benjamin Lay, a queer little 
 dwarf who lived in a cave out on the Old York Road 
 and occasionally stalked into Quaker meetings; and An 
 thony Benezet, a French Huguenot who became a 
 Quaker and arrived in Philadelphia in 1731, had un 
 remittingly denounced negro slavery. Benjamin Rush 
 carried on the agitation at every opportunity. He ad 
 vocated the culture of the maple tree, hoping that sugar 
 might be obtained from it in sufficient quantities to 
 emancipate the negro in the West Indies. He pub 
 lished essays upon free schools and urged the higher ed 
 ucation of women. He was one of the first to oppose 
 capital punishment and the use of alcoholic liquors and 
 tobacco. He was a kind of perfectionist. " If he had 
 no other claim to fame," said Dr. William Pepper, 
 " Rush would stand high as a philanthropist and social 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 113 
 
 reformer. He was inspired by no love of notoriety 
 nor deterred by any dread of unpopularity." 
 
 His literary style was attractive. Even his medical 
 writings, which comprise several volumes, abound in 
 classical allusions and poetical references, so that they 
 are interesting to the non-professional reader. He 
 was the first to lecture upon diseases of the mind and 
 wrote a book upon insanity which passed through sev 
 eral editions. Indeed, until 1883 it was one of only 
 two systematic treatises on the subject which had been 
 published in America. He was greatly beloved by the 
 leaders who came to Philadelphia during the Revolu 
 tion, and was the friend and correspondent through life 
 of many of the famous men of the United States and 
 Europe. 
 
 In writers esteemed to be purely literary, the times 
 were not very productive. If the average man were 
 asked to designate such an one, he would very likely 
 pronounce the name of Francis Hopkinson, and if he 
 were required to cite a work by that writer, he would 
 instinctively mention " The Battle of the Kegs." This 
 satirical ballad, mere doggerel as it was, describes the 
 ludicrous commotion created among the British on oc 
 cupying Philadelphia because of a report that the 
 Americans were setting adrift in the upper river kegs 
 of powder, fitted with springs to explode the contents 
 upon striking any obstacle, and designed to do havoc 
 to the shipping in the harbor, ancestors of the modern 
 torpedo. It had instant popularity, such as works of 
 this kind sometimes enjoy, if they appear at the ripe 
 moment; and as a bit of political satire gained a place 
 beside TrumbuH s " McFingal." Hopkinson was the 
 son of Thomas Hopkinson, an English gentleman who 
 
ii 4 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 had settled in Philadelphia and who was probably the 
 inventor of the lightning rod rather than Benjamin 
 Franklin. The son graduated at the College under Dr. 
 William Smith, to whose group he belonged. His 
 muse was cultivated at an early age, but he had less 
 talent than Nathaniel Evans or Thomas Godfrey, Jr., 
 whose friend he was, and has left scarcely anything 
 that can cause him properly to be considered as a bard. 
 " One of your pretty little curious, ingenious men " 
 with " a head no bigger than an apple," as John Adams 
 wrote, he was a general artistic and literary dilettante. 
 
 He studied law and was interested in music, paint 
 ing, science and all forms of culture, marrying Miss 
 Borden of Bordentown, N. J., where afterward he 
 lived for several years. He signed the Declaration of 
 Independence and was an Anti-constitutionalist in Penn- 
 / sylvania, and later a Federalist. His literary service 
 was political and in the line of satire. He is accounted 
 to have achieved much by ridicule. The play of this 
 writer s fancy, which had delicacy beyond that of most 
 other writers of the time, is enjoyed in the preface to 
 "A Pretty Story," one of his satirical works published 
 in 1774. He concludes it: 
 
 " As I am but a clumsy carpenter at best, I shall not 
 attempt to decorate my little cottage with any but out 
 of door ornaments; but as it would be inconvenient and 
 uncomfortable to have my front door open immediately 
 into the apartments of my house, I have made this 
 preface by way of entry. And now, gentle reader, if 
 you should think my entry too plain and simple you may 
 set your imagination to work and furnish it with a grand 
 staircase, with cornices, stucco and paintings. . . . 
 Or if you like not this, you may suppose that the follow- 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 115 
 
 ing sheets were found in the cabinet of some deceased 
 gentleman; or that they were dug out of an ancient 
 ruin, or discovered in a hermit s cave, or dropped from 
 the clouds in a hail storm. In short, you may suppose 
 just what you please. And when by the help of the 
 imagination you have seasoned the preface to your pal 
 ate, you may turn over this leaf and feast upon the body 
 of the work itself." 
 
 While Francis Hopkinson s was a very thin note, 
 Philip Freneau s had the robust ring of poetry. The 
 contest over the title to place as the first American bard 
 has brought forward many names. Perhaps it may 
 be at an end since the " Atlantic Monthly " has recently 
 said: " We do not hesitate to assert roundly that Fre- 
 neau was the first really interesting American poetical 
 character and the first citizen of these states to write 
 poetry of real distinction." 
 
 Freneau came of a French Huguenot family settled 
 in New York City. His father, Pierre Freneau, was 
 an importer of wines, a man of fortune, as is indicated 
 by the fact that he resided in later years on an estate 
 of one thousand acres in New Jersey in regal plenty, 
 with slaves and a menage suggestive of the South. 
 Philip, who was born in 1752, was sent to Princeton 
 College, where he graduated in 1771 in the class of 
 Hugh Henry Brackenridge and James Madison, who 
 vainly wooed Freneau s sister. While in college, there 
 were signs of poetic promise in his verses on " The 
 Power of Fancy," which are accredited to him when 
 he was only eighteen: 
 
 " Wakeful, vagrant, restless thing, 
 Ever wandering on the wing; 
 Who thy wondrous source can find, 
 
u6 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Fancy, regent of the mind? 
 
 A spark from Jove s resplendent throne, 
 
 But thy nature all unknown. 
 
 Ah, what is all this mighty whole, 
 These suns and stars that round us roll? 
 What are they all, where er they shine, 
 But Fancies of the power Divine? 
 What is this globe, these lands and seas, 
 And heat and cold and flowers and trees, 
 And life, and death, and beast, and man, 
 And time that with the sun began, 
 But thoughts on reason s scale, combin d, 
 Ideas of the Almighty Mind ? " 
 
 In 1778 his classmate and friend Brackenridge, a 
 native of York County, Pa., who had been a teacher 
 and later a chaplain in the army,* persuaded Francis 
 Bailey, a printer in Philadelphia, to undertake the pub 
 lication of the " United States Magazine." It was 
 begun to disprove the common allegation that the 
 American colonists if separated from England would 
 become " illiterate ourang-outangs." The effort would 
 be made at a most unfortunate season " to paint 
 the graces on the front of war and invite the muses to 
 our country." This magazine brought Freneau to 
 Philadelphia and "tie contributed verse and prose to 
 each issue; but its design was entirely chimerical and 
 it died a natural death after completing its first volume. 
 
 * Brackenridge removed to Pittsburg in 1781 where he became 
 very prominent at the bar. Appointed a judge of the Supreme 
 Court of Pennsylvania in 1799 he sat upon the bench until his death 
 in 1816. He was the author of " Modern Chivalry or the Adven 
 tures of a Captain and Teague O Regan, his Servant." a political 
 satire in the form of a four-volume novel, one of the oldest of 
 American works of fiction. 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 117 
 
 Brackenridge complained bitterly of his ill-fortune. 
 A large class, said he, in his valedictory, " inhabit the 
 region of stupidity and cannot bear to have the tran- 
 quility of their repose disturbed by the villainous shock 
 of a book. Reading is to them the worst of all tor 
 ments and I remember very well that at the commence 
 ment of the work it was their language, * Art thou 
 come to torment us before the time ? We will now 
 say to them, * Sleep on and take your rest. 
 
 Freneau, who had already had some experience be 
 fore the mast, for the sea called him loudly so long as 
 he lived, now shipped on the " Aurora " which had the 
 ill-luck to be captured, and the poet with the rest of 
 the crew spent a season on a British prison ship, an ex 
 perience he commemorated in verse. Upon his release, 
 he returned to Philadelphia and on April 25, 1781, ap 
 peared the first number of his new weekly paper, " The 
 Freeman s Journal or North American Intelligencer." 
 It too had Bailey for its publisher. Its announced 
 purpose was " to encourage genius, to deter vice and 
 disrobe tyranny and misrule of every plumage." Fre 
 neau, the foremost poet of the time, could escape polit 
 ical influence no more than any of his fellows and he 
 radically espoused the cause of the French. For three 
 years this paper lived and shot its pointed darts at 
 England, roundly berating all conservatives. The 
 " Epistle to Sylvius " was Freneau s farewell: 
 " Then, Sylvius, come, let you and I 
 
 On Neptune s aid once more rely. 
 
 Perhaps the muse may still impart 
 
 The balm to ease the aching heart. 
 
 Though cold might chill and storms dismay, 
 
 Yet Zoilus will be far away." 
 
ii8 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Freneau now engaged principally in the West Indian 
 trade, and, as a master and captain of various vessels, 
 came in and out of Philadelphia and other ports, im 
 bibing much of the irresponsibility and vagrancy of the 
 sea. 
 
 With his pecuniary ills and misfortunes, Freneau s 
 political philosophy gained in acerbity, and he became 
 the more determined in his antagonism to leaders and 
 measures that he deemed aristocratic. In the disgust 
 sometimes felt by literary men of all countries and in 
 all ages, Freneau had many complaints of the scant 
 rewards of his pen. In his " Expedition of Timothy 
 Taunus " he wrote: 
 
 " Were this cartload of learning the whole that I knew 
 I could sooner get forward by mending a shoe; 
 I could sooner grow rich by the axe or the spade, 
 Or thrive by the meanest mechanical trade. 
 The tinker himself would be richer than I, 
 For the tinker has something that people will buy; 
 While such as have little but Latin to vend 
 On a shadow may truly be said to depend." 
 
 Freneau again appeared in Philadelphia in 1791 at 
 the invitation of Thomas Jefferson, who offered him a 
 post as translator in the office of the Secretary of State, 
 and was instrumental in making him the editor of an 
 other newspaper, the " National Gazette." For two 
 years, through the pro-French excitement, of which 
 more is to be said in the next chapter, this paper was 
 unremitting in its praise of Jefferson, while it most bit 
 terly attacked Washington, Hamilton and the Feder 
 alists. After this experience, Freneau returned to 
 New York and its neighborhood, where he was soon 
 
PHILIP FRENEAU 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 119 
 
 publishing newspapers again, varying this employment 
 with trips to sea and settling at last on his farm in a 
 grove of locust trees at Mount Pleasant, near Mon- 
 mouth, N. J., the place being now called Freneau in 
 his honor. He lived to the age of eighty. In 1832, 
 when returning to his home in a snow storm, he was 
 lost and died in a bog. 
 
 Misfortune seemed to pursue him to the end. His 
 house was burned. From the party which he aimed to 
 aid, although it was long in power, Jefferson and Mad 
 ison being in the President s office for sixteen years, 
 nothing came to him but the clerkship in Philadelphia 
 during Washington s administration. Proud, sensi 
 tive, erratic and undependable, there seemed to be no 
 great place for him and he died, as he had lived, the 
 impecunious bond-servant of a vagrant fancy. 
 
 Philip Freneau had very marked talents as a poet, 
 and as a prose writer he was also forceful and prolific. 
 He wrote with notable facility. His poems were often 
 composed in the shade of a tree, whence he carried his 
 manuscript to the printing office, immediately to put it 
 into type with his own hands. Of wide reading in the 
 classics, and in command of several modern languages, 
 his culture asserted itself in his work. The range and 
 variety of the subjects he chose are as surprising as his 
 lavish vocabulary, and his fluency of expression. 
 Witty, satirical, or seriously poetical, he was enjoyed 
 in England as in America, winning the praise of Walter 
 Scott, Jeffrey, Campbell and many British writers and 
 critics. His wit is perhaps as well illustrated in this 
 extract from " The Silent Academy " as in any that 
 could be given : 
 
120 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 " Some are in chains of wedlock bound, 
 And some are hanged and some are drowned. 
 Some are advanced to posts and places, 
 And some in pulpits screw their faces; 
 Some at the bar a living gain, 
 Perplexing what they should explain ; 
 To soldiers turned a bolder band 
 Repel the invaders of the land; 
 Some to the arts of physic bred, 
 Despatch their patients to the dead ; 
 Some plough the land and some the sea, 
 And some are slaves and some are free; 
 Some court the great and some the muse, 
 And some subsist by mending shoes; 
 While others but so vast the throng, 
 The cobbler shall conclude my song." 
 
 " On Humanity and Ingratitude " is another exam 
 ple of Freneau s humorous fancy. It is often seen in 
 " nonsense rhyme " collections and begins : 
 
 " By the side of the sea in a cottage obscure 
 There lived an old fellow nam d Chariot Boncoeur 
 Who was free to his neighbor and good to the poor. 
 
 Catching fish was his trade, 
 
 And all people said 
 
 That mischief to nothing but fish he design d, 
 To all people else he was candid and kind." 
 
 A satirical prophecy made in 1782 begins with these 
 playful lines: 
 
 " When a certain great king, whose initial is G., 
 Shall force stamps upon paper, and folks to drink tea; 
 When these folks burn his tea, and stampt paper like stubble, 
 You may guess that this king is then coming to trouble. 
 But when a petition he treads under his feet 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 121 
 
 And sends over the ocean an army and fleet; 
 
 When that army, half-starved and frantic with rage, 
 
 Shall be coop d up with a leader whose name rhymes to cage, 
 
 When that leader goes home, dejected and sad, 
 
 You may then be assur d the king s prospects are bad." 
 
 That new curiosity, the balloon, did not escape Fre- 
 neau s good-natured satire in lines as enjoyable now as 
 a century ago : 
 
 " The man who at Boston sets out with the sun 
 If the wind should be fair may be with us at one; 
 At Gunpowder Ferry drink whiskey at three, 
 And by six be at Edentown ready for tea. 
 The machine shall be ordered (we hardly need say) 
 To travel in darkness as well as by day 
 At Charleston by ten he for sleep may prepare, 
 And by twelve the next day be the devil knows where." 
 
 Of the honest poetical value of Freneau s work 
 there are many examples. In the poem on " The Peo 
 pling of the West " these lines are addressed to the 
 Mississippi : 
 
 " Great sire of floods, w r hose varied wave 
 
 Through climes and countries takes its way ; 
 
 To whom creating nature gave 
 
 Ten thousand streams to swell thy sway! 
 
 No longer shall they useless prove, 
 
 Nor idly through the forests rove; 
 
 " Nor longer shall thy princely flood 
 
 From distant lakes be swell d in vain, 
 Nor longer through a darksome wood 
 
 Advance unnoticed to the main. 
 Far other ends the fates decree 
 And commerce plans new freights for thee." 
 
122 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 In " The Dying Indian " this farewell to earth is 
 said : 
 
 " To all that charmed me where I strayed, 
 The winding stream, the dark, sequestered shade; 
 Adieu ! Adieu, all triumphs here ! 
 Adieu, the mountain s lofty swell! 
 Adieu, thou little verdant hill! 
 And seas and stars and skies, farewell 
 For some remoter sphere." 
 
 Upon Franklin s return to Philadelphia in 1785, his 
 years made more serene by the adulation of France, he 
 became the candidate of the Constitutional party for 
 President, or governor of. the state, an office he held 
 for three years. His home was in the centre of a lot 
 one hundred feet in width, running from Market to 
 Chestnut Streets, about midway between Third and 
 Fourth Streets. It was built to face Chestnut Street, 
 but an outlet in that direction was blocked by a de 
 fective title. Filled with springs, bells, pulleys and 
 curious devices of many kinds, the house rivalled a 
 museum. The shelves in the library extended to the 
 ceiling and Franklin reached a book by turning up the 
 seat of a chair and climbing a step ladder attachment 
 under it, still preserved in the rooms of the American 
 Philosophical Society; or by means of a long artificial 
 arm with a hand at the end of it. 
 
 When the Reverend Manasseh Cutler of Massa 
 chusetts visited Philadelphia there was " no curiosity " 
 in the city which he so much desired to see as Franklin. 
 Although he approached him with the awe inspired by 
 a king, the great man was sitting in a chair upon the 
 grass under a mulberry tree. " How were my ideas 
 
THE WRITERS OF THE REVOLUTION 123 
 
 changed," says he, " when I saw a short, fat, trunched 
 old man in a plain Quaker dress, bald pate and short 
 white locks, sitting without his hat in this position." 
 He exhibited a two-headed snake preserved in a bottle 
 of alcohol which some friend had sent him, and 
 proceeded to draw from it a political lesson. How 
 inconvenient, he argued, if the serpent in passing 
 through the brush should meet an obstruction. It 
 could go in neither direction. Thus would it be with 
 a government whose legislature consisted of two 
 houses. 
 
 Franklin died in 1790, bowed with age, honors and 
 a complication of disorders induced by gout and the 
 stone. The French revolutionists interrupted their or 
 gies to pronounce eulogiums upon the world s great 
 liberal, but his name was honored by men of all polit 
 ical views. At home a Philadelphian so antithetical in 
 standards and views as Provost William Smith, de 
 livered an oration, under the auspices of the American 
 Philosophical Society, in the German Lutheran Church 
 in Fourth Street in the presence of President and Mrs. 
 Washington, Vice-President and Mrs. Adams, and 
 many senators and representatives in Congress. 
 
 His youngest daughter, Rebecca, the beautiful girl of 
 whom Gilbert Stuart has given us a portrait, expressed 
 a sentiment which must have been secretly shared by 
 many Philadelphians. On returning home from the 
 church, Dr. Smith asked his daughter how she had been 
 pleased with the address. 
 
 " Oh, papa, it was beautiful," she said, " very 
 beautiful indeed, only papa only only " 
 
 " Only what?" interrupted her father. 
 
 " Only, papa, now you won t be offended, will you? 
 
i2 4 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 I don t think you believed more than one tenth part of 
 what you said of old Ben Lightning Rod, did you? " 
 
 Despite his crude science, his evil philosophy and his 
 homely literary outlook, Franklin was an extraordinary 
 man of letters and a humorist for all the ages. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 
 
 The death of Franklin, almost coincident as it was 
 with the triumph of Federalism and the beginning of 
 government under the Constitution, marks the dawn of 
 another literary era. First, however, his philosophy 
 was to lead to the excesses in which the city rioted dur 
 ing the years of the French Revolution. It was a 
 struggle for an adjustment of ideas; a trial of the 
 strength of contrary influences; an intellectual combat 
 to determine the seat and limits of the power of the 
 new government in reference to individuals and states. 
 
 The nation at large was quite naturally in a frame 
 of mind to sympathize with the movement to over 
 throw monarchy and establish a republic in its stead in 
 France. Freneau, Rittenhouse and many others al 
 lowed their hearts to overrule their judgment, and 
 their sympathy passed all the bounds of reason. The 
 anti-English and pro-French demonstrations were soon 
 beyond control. The people were calling each other 
 "Citizen" and " Citess." Jacobin Clubs were organ- 
 ized. Men, women and children wore the tri-color and 
 the cockade, intertwined with French and American 
 flags, erected liberty poles, sang " Ca Ira," and danced 
 the carmagnole in the public squares. There were ban 
 quets everywhere at which wine was drunk to various 
 revolutionary sentiments : 
 
 125 
 
126 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 " The fair of France and America, may each one 
 weave a cap of liberty for her husband." 
 
 "The spirit of 76 and 92, may the citizens of 
 America and France as they are equal in virtue be equal 
 
 in success." 
 
 "The extinction of monarchs, may the next gen 
 eration know kings only by the page of history and 
 wonder that such monsters were ever permitted to 
 
 exist." 
 
 " May tyrants never be withheld from the guillo 
 tine s closest embraces." 
 
 " May those who envy us never partake of our bless 
 ings and their constant abiding place be Nova Scotia 
 and Botany Bay, there to live on cod-fish tails soaked 
 in whale oil with a small morsel of bread." 
 
 At these dinners the red cap of liberty was placed 
 upon the head of the chief guest and then each one 
 present fitted it to the pate of his next neighbor as a 
 mark of good fellowship. When Citizen Genet ar 
 rived, the excitement reached its height and there was 
 grave risk that the new nation, whose capital was at 
 Philadelphia, would be carried by popular storm into 
 a European war in defence of regicide. Encouraged 
 by Jefferson, Genet paraded the country like some con 
 queror until President Washington, controlled by his 
 native sense and supported by the valued advice of 
 Hamilton and that bold and powerful pillar of Feder 
 alism, Senator Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, asserted 
 the authority of which he was possessed by the new 
 Constitution, but had not yet exercised; and the wrath 
 of men who disliked every suggestion of personal re 
 straint was boundless. " Ten thousand people in the 
 streets of Philadelphia," wrote John Adams, " day 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 127 
 
 after day threatened to drag Washington out of his 
 house and effect a revolution in the government, or 
 compel it to declare war in favor of the French Revo 
 lution and against England." Men with tawny skins 
 and Creole belles, who came from the West Indies, 
 sipped their liquors at tables on balconies and on the 
 pavements in tropical abandon. Only the yellow fever, 
 it is believed, saved the city from a bloody revolution. 
 
 When John Jay negotiated a treaty of amity and 
 commerce with Great Britain, with the support of 
 Washington and the administration in Philadelphia, 
 mobs again roamed the streets. Once the windows in 
 the English consul s office were broken. At another 
 time at a dinner party a pig, its head severed from its 
 body, was carried about the table, an exhibition meant 
 to symbolize the decapitation of the French king, where 
 upon each guest jabbed his knife into the flesh to em 
 phasize the loathing he felt for monarchy. 
 
 Freneau was editing the " National Gazette " and 
 by its assaults upon Washington, Hamilton and the 
 Federalists, called forth the praise of democrats. Jef 
 ferson went so far as to say that his friend had " saved 
 our constitution which was fast galloping into mon* 
 archy." The popular party was recruiting its strength 
 from new sources and it now had in its ranks such 
 writers as Benjamin Franklin Bache, James Thomas 
 Callender, Alexander James Dallas, Mathew Carey 
 and a less distinguished assortment of Scotchmen, Irish 
 men and English-haters of whom the time was so not 
 ably prolific. As an antidote to scurrilous democrats 
 there was provided William Cobbett (" Peter Porcu 
 pine"), the vitriolic partisan of aristocracy, and be 
 tween the red-handed doctrines of France and the im- 
 
128 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 moderate Federalism of New England was being sought 
 a mean which at last bore fruit in the political philos 
 ophy of Jefferson and Madison, as exhibited in their 
 presidential administrations. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin Bache (Baitch) was a son of 
 Richard Bache, an Englishman of aristocratic lean 
 ings, who had married Franklin s daughter Sally, later 
 acquiring a fortune in Philadelphia in merchandising 
 and as postmaster-general. The son, who was named 
 for his grandfather, was taken to Paris and Geneva to 
 be educated under his distinguished grandsire s care, 
 and came back a great advocate of liberty. 
 
 In October, 1790, he began to publish the "Gen 
 eral Advertiser/ afterward known as the " Aurora," 
 because of the rays of light forming the design with 
 which the title of each issue was ornamented. The ed 
 itor wrote of Washington when the Jay treaty was 
 signed: ** Does the President fancy himself the Grand 
 Llama of this country that we are to approach him with 
 superstitious reverence or religious regard? His an 
 swer to the citizens of Philadelphia bespeaks a con 
 tempt for the people that no other evidence but his 
 own letter could render credible. He has disdained to 
 look down with an eye of complacency from that emi 
 nence on which they have placed him, and has assumed 
 a tone of mystery and authority which would induce us 
 to suppose ourselves in Potsdam instead of Philadel- 
 phia." 
 
 Bache was soon joined in the office of the " Aurora " 
 by William Duane, and by him its reputation for keen 
 attack and common blackguardism was developed very 
 rapidly. 
 
 Duane came of Irish Catholic parents who had set- 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 129 
 
 tied near Lake Champlain in New York State. His 
 mother took him to Ireland to be educated. When 
 only nineteen he married a Protestant girl, whereupon he 
 was dismissed from his home, sacrificed his hereditary 
 prospects, and must go out to make a living for him 
 self. He became a printer. For a time he had a 
 newspaper in India, where he was arrested by the gov 
 ernment and returned to England. He wrote for a 
 while for the " General Advertiser " of London, which 
 developed into the London "Times," and in 1795 ne 
 came to Philadelphia, where Bache engaged him as a 
 writer on the "Aurora." 
 
 In 1798 the yellow fever again swept the city. 
 Bache, still only twenty-nine years of age, was a victim 
 and Duane became the " Aurora s " chief editor, and 
 soon its owner by marrying the young widow. He 
 continued at his post until 1822, though the paper ex 
 erted a diminishing influence after the seat of govern 
 ment was removed to Washington. He impaled Fed 
 eralists, all to him English lords, aristocrats and people 
 haters, on the shafts of his ribald ridicule. Many 
 caustic wits wrote for his paper, among others Fre- 
 neau, who returned to his old pen name of " Robert 
 Slender," after which he now appended the letters O. S. 
 M. Not entitled to an A. M. or an LL. D., he used 
 these letters, which stood, as he explained, for " One of 
 the Swinish Multitude." President Adams s home be 
 ing at Braintree, Mass., Duane s favorite title for him 
 was " the Duke of Braintree," or sometimes, " H ; s 
 Rotundity, the Duke of Braintree," or again, " His 
 Serene Highness, the Duke of Braintree." Jeffer 
 son largely attributed his election to the devotion of 
 the " Aurora." Adams, the paper declared, was " cast 
 
I 3 o LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 of God as polluted water out at the back door." A 
 writer in its columns, in the course of an address to the 
 President, in all seriousness " hoped and prayed that 
 your fate may be a warning to all usurpers and tyrants 
 and that you may before you leave this world become a 
 true and sincere penitent, and be forgiven all your man 
 ifold sins in the next." Mr. Adams was said to be 
 insane, and abuse of all kinds was heaped upon his 
 head by a large group of writers of whom Duane was 
 the most fiery. 
 
 Upon the announcement in Philadelphia of Jeffer 
 son s election, the French influence was again triumph 
 ant. Bells were rung, volleys of musketry fired, while 
 men gathered at ox-roasts and drank toasts to Franklin, 
 Rittenhouse and the younger men who followed in their 
 intellectual pathway. Washington was shrewdly for 
 given and his sins were ascribed to the baleful influence 
 of Hamilton. There were groans and hisses for all 
 aristocrats amid strains from the "Rogue s March"; 
 while to such sentiments as " the tree of liberty," " the 
 whole family of mankind" and " the American fair: 
 may they never smile upon any but true Republicans," 
 many a deep cup was quaffed. The bloody deeds of 
 the French Revolution were again glorified. To write 
 for such a paper as the " Aurora " presupposed a knowl 
 edge of the political history of every European country 
 but England, out of whose side we had so lately sprung, 
 since her statesmen to the earliest generations were too 
 opprobrious for their names even to be mentioned in 
 the hearing of our international democrats. 
 
 On the opposite side, William Cobbett was an even 
 worse offender than Duane. He was as libellous in his 
 support of English monarchy as the " Aurora " was in 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 131 
 
 the interest of French liberty. " From these presses," 
 said Joseph Hopkinson, counsel for Dr. Rush in the 
 famous libel suit against Cobbett, " there incessantly 
 issues a pestilential deadly vapor of the most low and 
 vile defamation." It is very clear that Cobbett, by the 
 excesses of his statement, did the Federalists a vast deal 
 of injury, and in a different way helped forward the 
 triumph of Jefferson s party quite as certainly as 
 Duane. 
 
 Cobbett was born in 1762 in Surrey, England, and 
 until he was of age worked in his father s fields. Writ 
 ing of his own grandfather as compared with the 
 grandsire of his rival in libels, Benjamin Franklin 
 Bache, Cobbett remarked upon one occasion in his char 
 acteristic way : 
 
 " Everyone will, I hope, have the goodness to be 
 lieve that my grandfather was no philosopher. Indeed 
 he was not. He never made a lightning rod nor bot 
 tled a single quart of sunshine in the whole course of 
 his life. He was no almanac maker, nor quack, nor 
 chimney doctor, nor soap boiler, nor ambassador, nor 
 printer s devil; neither was he a Deist and all his chil 
 dren were born in wedlock. The legacies he left were 
 his scythe, his reaphook and his flail; he bequeathed no 
 old and irrevocable debts to an hospital; he never 
 cheated the poor during his life nor mocked them in 
 his death." 
 
 At man s estate, Cobbett went to London and after 
 chafing for a time at clerkly duties he enlisted in the 
 English army, soon to be sent to Nova Scotia and New 
 Brunswick, where he served for eight years or until the 
 end of 1791. Upon his return to Europe, he spent a 
 few months in France, where the Revolution impended 
 
132 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 ominously, and then sailed for the United States, to 
 begin in Philadelphia a career of astonishing activity 
 under the pen name of " Peter Porcupine." In his 
 " Gazette," and in pamphlets innumerable, he assailed 
 the French Revolutionists and their American sympa 
 thizers with a savagery never equalled by any other 
 writer in the new world. By his indiscriminate abuse 
 he ran afoul of many men, including Mathew Carey, 
 the bookseller and publisher, and Dr. Benjamin Rush. 
 There was published in 1799 "A Plumb Pudding for 
 the Humane, Chaste, Valiant, Enlightened Peter Por 
 cupine by his obliged friend Mathew Carey." While 
 not seriously hurt by Cobbett s allusions to him, Carey 
 made a great ado about a small episode. The Irish 
 bookseller called Porcupine " a fiend," " a low-bred 
 cowardly alien," " a disgrace to human nature," etc. 
 " No small sword for me," said Carey; " I shall give 
 brickbat for brickbat to Cobbett and every such scoun 
 drel as may drive me into the field." 
 
 " I can safely declare and appeal to Heaven for the 
 truth of the assertion," he continued, " that of all the 
 villains that ever possessed a printing press I never 
 knew or ever heard of more than one or two that could 
 in any degree be compared to him." Carey promised 
 to forfeit five hundred dollars if he did not cause his 
 " Plumb Pudding " to be read " in every city, town, 
 village and hamlet in the United States to which there 
 is a conveyance by stage, by mail, by wagon or by 
 
 cart." 
 
 Dr. Rush, not relying on stage and cart, entered suit, 
 as has been indicated, to test the right of citizens, under 
 the libel laws of Pennsylvania, to protection against 
 Porcupine s attacks. This was in 1797 although the 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 133 
 
 case did not come to trial until 1799. Porcupine had 
 attacked Rush for purging and bleeding for yellow 
 fever. He called the great physician " our remorse 
 less bleeder." " The Israelite slew his thousands, but 
 the Rushites have slain their tens of thousands," Cob- 
 bett wrote brutally in his " Gazette." The jury gave 
 Rush five thousand dollars damages and there were 
 accumulated costs amounting to about three thousand 
 dollars, so that Porcupine was obliged to wind up his 
 career in America. He went back to England, pub 
 lishing his works in London and editing newspapers 
 with considerable pecuniary profit. The agents of the 
 law still pursued him. Once he spent two years in an 
 English gaol, and to escape another sentence, he took 
 flight to America to reside for a year or two on Long 
 Island. In later life his literary work was more free 
 from abuse and he achieved a reputation as one of the 
 foremost English satirists, by some placed beside 
 Swift and "Junius." 
 
 Whatever be thought of the city s imported news 
 paper editors, the growing reputation of America as an 
 asylum for the downtrodden and oppressed of Europe 
 brought to Philadelphia a number of men of distinct 
 intellectual value; among them, Mathew Carey, Alex 
 ander Wilson, Peter S. Duponceau, John Bouvier, Jo 
 seph Priestley and Du Pont de Nemours, all of whom, 
 as might be expected, were anti-English radicals. 
 
 Philadelphia had been sending several of its distin 
 guished sons abroad; it was but fair that there should 
 be some return. Benjamin West, of Chester County, 
 was already a great painter in London. Lindley Mur 
 ray, born near Lancaster like West, of Pennsylvania 
 Quaker stock had been a student in the College of 
 
134 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Philadelphia. He followed his father to New York, 
 where he became a successful merchant. In 1784 he 
 made a trip to England for his health, and remained 
 there to achieve eminence as a grammarian. For 
 twenty years Robert Fulton, born of Irish parents in 
 Lancaster County, had been attracting attention in 
 England and France. Apprenticed for a time to a 
 jeweler in Philadelphia, he soon became an artist, later 
 giving his attention to mechanics and engineering. He 
 went to London in 1786, where he became a member 
 of Benjamin West s family. In Paris Fulton lived for 
 seven years with Joel Barlow, invested five thousand 
 dollars in " The Columbiad," in return for which the 
 work was affectionately dedicated to him, experimented 
 with torpedoes, and navigated steamboats on the Seine. 
 The list of men of eminence whom we secured in 
 exchange properly opens with Mathew Carey. Al 
 though he had many of the faults of temperament of 
 the writers, journalists and pamphleteers who came here 
 at this time, he developed a substantial Americanism 
 that carried him very well out of the class in which 
 his life was begun in this country. He was born in 
 1760 in Dublin, where his father was a baker. Through 
 a nurse s carelessness, he met with an accident which 
 left him lame for life. He chose the trade of a 
 printer and early wrote and published inflammatory 
 political pamphlets which caused him to flee to Paris. 
 There he worked for a time in Franklin s little print 
 ing shop in Passy, but in about a year returned to Dub 
 lin, where he conducted a newspaper. He denounced 
 England with ardor, and the government offered a re 
 ward for his arrest. He was imprisoned for a season, 
 but, getting free, he donned female dress to board a 
 
THE 
 
 COLUMBIAD 
 
 A POEM. 
 
 BY JOEL BARLOW. 
 
 Tu spiegherai, Colombo, a un novo poTo 
 Lontane si le fortunate antenne 
 Ch a pena seguira* con gli occhi il volo 
 La Kama, cl>* ha* mille occhi e mllle pennfc. 
 Canti ella Alcide, e Bacco; e di te solo 
 Basti a i poster! tuoi, ch alquanto accenne: 
 Chd quel poco clara* hmga meiiioria 
 Dl po6ma degntssima* e. d istorfa. 
 
 GIERUS. LIB. Can. xv. 
 
 PTU35TED BY FRY A<fCD 
 
 TOR C. ASD A. COKRAD AND CO. PHILADELPHIA; COXHAD, LUCAS AND CO. BALTIMORE. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 1807. 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF JOEL BARLOW S " COLUMBIAD 
 
136 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 ship for America in September, 1784, hiding himself 
 among the cargo until she was well out at sea. Land 
 ing in Philadelphia, Lafayette, learning of his need, 
 sent him four hundred dollars in one dollar notes of 
 the Bank of North America, a debt afterward repaid by 
 a shipment to France of two hogsheads of tobacco, and 
 in 1824, when the Marquis came to the United States 
 in straitened circumstances, it was discharged again, this 
 time in cash and dollar for dollar. 
 
 Here the Anti-constitutionalists of Pennsylvania, 
 who soon became Federalists, regarded Carey as but 
 
 v one more " foreign renegado." He helped to form a 
 society, " The Newly Adopted Sons of Pennsylvania," 
 and at once took an active part in politics on the demo 
 cratic side. Having established a newspaper, the 
 " Pennsylvania Herald," Carey became involved in 
 a political altercation with Colonel Eleazer Oswald, 
 another Philadelphia editor. The grossest insults 
 were passed in print. Carey wrote " that the literary 
 assassin who basely attempts to blast a character is a 
 villain whether he struts in glare of day, a ferocious 
 Colonel Oswald with a drawcausir countenance, or 
 skulks a Junius concealed for a quarter of a century/ 
 Soon they were facing each other at ten paces on 
 a duelling-ground in New Jersey, in spite of Carey s 
 crippled leg. While Oswald had been through the 
 Revolutionary War, the young Irishman had never 
 drawn a pistol in his life. Carey was shot in the thigh 
 above the knee and he was a subject for a surgeon, suf 
 fering from the wound for upwards of fifteen months. 
 After two months experience as one of a little group 
 of Philadelphians who had projected and were publish- 
 
 ing the " Columbian Magazine," which led a checkered 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 137 
 
 career for six years under various owners and editors 
 until 1792, when it was compelled to suspend because 
 of the government s refusal longer to convey it in the 
 mails, Carey withdrew to found the " American Mu 
 seum." It lived for six years, as long as the " Colum 
 bian," and was suspended for the same reason. In 
 1792 its editor " sang its requiem." The " Museum " 
 was a well-chosen collection of excerpts from news 
 papers and other publications, but it enjoyed little finan 
 cial favor, although Washington said of it that " a 
 more useful literary plan has never been undertaken in 
 America, or one more deserving of public encourage 
 ment." 
 
 Carey s struggles with money-lenders, usurers, en 
 dorsers of notes, and those for whom he must endorse 
 in return, continued for years and would have resulted 
 in the ruin of a less determined spirit. His publishing 
 and bookselling business at length attained important 
 proportions and he was in possession of an assured for 
 tune. He actively identified himself with Bible making 
 and added to the city s reputation, so early established, 
 in this trade. He printed some of the earliest quarto 
 editions of the Bible and in 1804 entered into corre 
 spondence with an Englishman in the hope of introduc 
 ing to America the stereotyping process lately invented 
 by Didot. As the terms were unfavorable and it was 
 too expensive to set and reset so great a work for every 
 new edition, Mr. Carey resolved upon another course 
 to keep the separate types standing. His " stand 
 ing Bible" was long famous among printers; over 
 200,000 impressions were made before 1825, while 
 some of the chases remained to tell the story of the 
 enterprise till 1844, when they were broken up. 
 
i 3 8 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Never possessed of a flexible or entertaining style, 
 Mathew Carey was an indefatigable writer of tracts 
 and pamphlets, especially in his later life when he had 
 become interested in what he was wont to call u the pro 
 tecting system." Having read Adam Smith, he was 
 impressed with the " monstrous absurdity " of the great 
 English economist s doctrines, entering the lists, as he 
 explained, " against this Goliath with the sling and stone 
 of truth." Again and again did he complain that he 
 got no aid from the American manufacturers, while he 
 " converted whole sections of the country to protec 
 tion " by his single-handed efforts and at his own ex 
 pense. Many of his writings were published by the 
 " Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of National 
 Industry," which he had formed and supported from 
 his private purse. His spirit here, as earlier, was stub 
 born and his zeal untiring. In his autobiography in 
 the " New England Magazine " in 1834 he wrote: " I 
 believed and still believe that I was not only laboring 
 for the present and future generations of the United 
 States, but for the operatives of Europe as, if our 
 manufactories were adequately protected thousands of 
 those people would remove to this country and be in a 
 far better situation than at home." In 1832 he offered 
 to contribute the sum of five hundred dollars a year for 
 the establishment of a professorship of political econ 
 omy at the University of Maryland, to combat, as he 
 explained to Daniel Raymond, whom he wished to oc 
 cupy the chair, the "pestiferous doctrines" which had 
 made America " a colony to the manufacturing nations 
 of the old world." 
 
 From this inflexible man came publishing houses that 
 long held leading places in the country. The old 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 139 
 
 Mathew Carey firm is the ancestor of two Philadelphia 
 publishing houses of this day, Lea Brothers and Com 
 pany and Henry Carey Baird and Company. From 
 Mathew Carey have also come two American writers 
 of much eminence: a son, Henry C. Carey, the econo 
 mist; and a grandson (through a daughter who married 
 Isaac Lea, the naturalist), Henry Charles Lea, the 
 historian. 
 
 Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, came here from 
 Scotland. He was born in Paisley in 1766. His 
 father, an illiterate man, followed the distilling busi 
 ness. At ten the boy had a step-mother, and few ad 
 vantages of any kind were at his hand. His school 
 ing was meagre and when thirteen years old he was 
 apprenticed to a weaver. For several years he tended 
 a loom in his native place, finding diversion in rambles 
 with nature and verse-writing. His love of out-door 
 life induced him to become a peddler. His verse ac 
 cumulated until he had enough in 1790 for a little vol 
 ume which he published, attempting the sale of it as 
 he traveled the moors, in connection with his other 
 wares. Some of his work was attributed to Burns, but 
 it had no real value and in later years he wished it had 
 never been written, relating in apology that it was flung 
 off at an age which was " more abundant in sail than 
 ballast." 
 
 For lampooning a rich manufacturer who was hated 
 by his employees, Wilson was arrested and impris 
 oned for a short time. The outlook for his future 
 was so unfavorable that with his nephew he crossed 
 to Ireland and took passage for New Castle, Del., as 
 a deck passenger on a crowded ship. With only a few 
 shillings in his pocket and a gun as his sole article of 
 
I 4 o LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 baggage he walked to Philadelphia, where he arrived 
 in the summer of 1794. 
 
 For a while he followed his trade as a weaver and 
 then took up his pack for a peddling tour in New Jer 
 sey, at length becoming a teacher in schools north of 
 Frankford; at Milestown, on the Old York Road; and 
 at Kingsessing, near Gray s Ferry on the Schuylkill, 
 where he met William Bartram, the only one of John 
 Bartram s sons who followed in the father s footsteps 
 as a scientist. Meantime in school Wilson had been 
 improving his mind, especially in mathematics, while 
 he wrote verses, played the flute and got himself into 
 a state of almost hopeless gloom through a love affair, 
 when his penury galled him more than ever before. 
 His friends recommended him to take up drawing, in 
 which he had no great success until he began to choose 
 birds for his studies. Bartram on his rambles had 
 studied ornithology as well as botany and in his " little 
 Paradise," as Wilson called the Gray s Ferry gardens, 
 the young Scotch weaver, peddler, poet and school 
 master was always a welcome guest. In October, 
 1804, with two companions, he started for Niagara 
 Falls, an expedition which he describes in his poem, 
 " The Foresters." He walked nearly thirteen hundred 
 miles. The trip had been postponed too long and the 
 return was made through the deep snow, but it con 
 firmed Wilson in his design to picture and describe the 
 birds of North America. 
 
 He laid his plans before the Bradfords and in 
 duced that printing house to make itself pecuniarily 
 liable for his great undertaking. There were to be 
 several quarto volumes with colored plates from Wil 
 son s own hand, or by assistants working under his im- 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 141 
 
 mediate direction. His plans called for long journeys 
 through the swamps, forests and fields of the West and 
 South. Wherever he went he carried with him the pros 
 pectus of his work and sought subscriptions from the 
 people. He had hoped to be appointed to go upon the 
 Lewis and Clark expedition by Jefferson, of whom he 
 was an extravagant political admirer. On March 4, 
 1805, at the dawn of Jefferson s second term, Wilson 
 wrote to William Bartram : " This day the heart of 
 every republican, of every good man within the im 
 mense limits of our happy country, will leap with joy. 
 The enlightened philosopher, the distinguished natural 
 ist, the first statesman on earth, the friend, the orna 
 ment of science is the father of our country, is the faith 
 ful guardian of our liberties. " Such enthusiasm should 
 have met its reward, especially as Jefferson was ac 
 counted one of the country s principal authorities on 
 American birds before Wilson turned his attention to 
 the subject; but it did not, and the ornithologist was left 
 to arrange his own itinerary on foot, on horseback, in 
 stage coach, in skiffs on dangerous rivers, and some 
 times on cart-tails through all the inhabited and many 
 of the uninhabited parts of America. 
 
 The price of a set of the books was one hundred and 
 twenty dollars, a very large sum for the times, which as 
 Wilson said so often rose " like an evil genius between 
 me and my hopes." While in New England he wrote 
 of his book to a friend in Philadelphia, saying that he 
 was " travelling with it like a beggar with his bantling 
 from town to town and from one country to another. 
 I have been loaded with praises," said he, " with com 
 pliments and kindnesses, shaken almost to pieces in 
 stage coaches; have wandered among strangers hearing 
 
I 4 2 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 the same O s and Ah s and telling the same story a 
 thousand times over, and for what? Ay, that s it. 
 You are very anxious to know and you shall know the 
 whole when I reach Philadelphia. * 
 
 The net result of this trip seems to have been forty- 
 one subscriptions. In Baltimore he secured sixteen 
 after a week s work. He made an effort to obtain a 
 subscription from the legislature of the state but " the 
 wise men of Maryland stared and gaped from bench to 
 bench. Having never heard of such a thing as one 
 hundred and twenty dollars for a book, the ayes for 
 subscribing were none," says Wilson, " and so it was 
 unanimously determined in the negative." Seventeen 
 subscriptions were taken in Washington. His friend, 
 companion on many of his journeys, and biographer, 
 George Ord, complained bitterly of Philadelphia s scant 
 appreciation of the great naturalist in its midst, since 
 up to the time of his death only seventy citizens had 
 subscribed, while in New Orleans sixty names were se 
 cured in seventeen days. The first volume of the work 
 made its appearance in September, 1808, and by 
 March, 1809, there were still only 250 subscribers in 
 all. 
 
 Wilson knew no discouragement. He had nearly 
 completed his eighth volume, when in 1813 after his 
 return from a trip to Great Egg Harbor, N. J., whither 
 he had gone to study water birds, his career suddenly 
 ended. Plunging into a stream to recover a specimen 
 he had shot, a cold ensued, and the enthusiasm of this 
 great self-taught naturalist cost him his life. He was 
 buried in Old Swedes Church-yard in Southwark and 
 these lines mark his grave: 
 
 " This monument covers the remains of Alexander 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 143 
 
 Wilson, author of the American Ornithology. He was 
 born in Renfrewshire, Scotland, on the 6th of July, 
 1766, emigrated to the United States in the year 1794 
 and died in Philadelphia of the dysentery on the 23d 
 of August, 1813, aged 47." 
 
 Wilson had known practically nothing of his science 
 until he was forty. In seven years, therefore, he had 
 made himself the father of American ornithology, and 
 did for the birds of the United States what all the 
 naturalists of Europe in a century had not done for 
 theirs. 
 
 Wilson walked very rapidly and few could keep up 
 with him until he met a bird when he was all eyes and 
 ears, studying its notes and movements most carefully. 
 His descriptions are strongly marked by the fancy of 
 his poetic mind. Science to him was no dull thing of 
 mathematical measurements, although accuracy was 
 never sacrificed to imagery. He introduces a very 
 vivid account of the barn swallow with these agreeable 
 lines: 
 
 " There are but few persons in the United States 
 unacquainted with this gay, innocent and active little 
 bird. Indeed the whole tribe are so distinguished from 
 the rest of small birds by their sweeping rapidity of 
 flight, their peculiar aerial evolutions of wing over our 
 fields and rivers and through our very streets from 
 morning to night, that the light of heaven itself, the 
 sky, the trees, or any other common objects of nature, 
 are not better known than the swallows. We welcome 
 their first appearance with delight, as the faithful har 
 bingers and companions of flowery spring and ruddy 
 summer; and when after a long frost-bound and bois 
 terous winter we hear it announced that the * swallows 
 
I 4 4 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 are come, what a train of charming ideas are associated 
 with the simple tidings! " 
 
 Of the bald eagle, " the adopted emblem of our 
 country," Wilson wrote, explaining the wide disper 
 sion of the bird: 
 
 " Formed by nature for braving the severest cold; 
 feeding equally on the produce of the sea and of the 
 land; possessing powers of flight capable of outstrip 
 ping even the tempests themselves; unawed by any 
 thing but man; and from the ethereal heights to which 
 he soars looking abroad at one glance on an immeas 
 urable expanse of forests, fields, lakes and ocean deep 
 below him, he appears indifferent to the little localities 
 of change of seasons, as in a few minutes he can pass 
 from summer to winter, from the lower to the higher 
 regions of the atmosphere, the abode of eternal cold; 
 and thence descend at will to the torrid or arctic regions 
 of the earth. He is therefore found at all seasons in 
 the countries which he inhabits. . . . Elevated 
 upon a high dead limb of some gigantic tree, that com 
 mands a wide view of the neighboring shore and ocean, 
 he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the 
 various feathered tribes that pursue their busy avoca 
 tions below: the snowy white gulls slowly winnowing 
 the air; the busy Fringae coursing along the sands; 
 trains of ducks streaming over the surface; silent and 
 watchful cranes intent and wading; clamorous crows 
 and all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty 
 of this vast magazine of nature." 
 
 Peter S. Duponceau was born in France and studied 
 to be a priest. He could ill bear the restraints of such 
 a training and went to Paris where fate threw him with 
 Baron Steuben who was coming to the United States 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 145 
 
 to train the Continental troops. From 1777 to 1779 
 he was with the army as the Baron s secretary. In 
 1781 he became a citizen of Pennsylvania and after 
 a time studied law. He defended the Constitution of 
 Pennsylvania of 1776, opposed the adoption of the 
 Federal Constitution of 1787, and wore the liberty cap 
 when Genet invaded Philadelphia. He had wide re 
 pute as a diner-out and wit. For a number of years 
 he was President of the Philosophical Society. 
 
 His literary fame rests upon several treatises on phi 
 lology, a department of learning in which Philadelphia 
 had never yet won distinction. Noah Webster had 
 been in the city for a short time in charge of the Epis 
 copal Academy, and Lindley Murray had gone hence 
 to England but there the record came to an end. Du- 
 ponceau made a careful study of the Chinese language 
 and of some of the Indian tongues. 
 
 John Bouvier came to Philadelphia in August, 1802, 
 when he was fifteen years old, with his father, mother 
 and brother, the whole family having emigrated from 
 the south of France where they were zealous repub 
 licans. They did not understand the English language 
 and had no friends in the city, but, landing on a Sun 
 day at the Spruce Street wharf, as they were Quakers 
 in France, they at once directed their steps to the meet 
 ing-house at Second and Market Streets. There, when 
 the meeting broke, they were the centre of an inter 
 ested group. Strangely dressed, the mother in a large 
 white muslin cap and garments that are still worn by 
 the peasant women of France, wealthy Quakers offered 
 them many kindnesses. The yellow fever was at that 
 time again virulent. The father died of it the next 
 year in Frankford, where he had found employ- 
 
y 
 
 I 4 6 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 ment, and young John became the pillar of the fam 
 ily. He learned the printing business, and in 1814 
 removed to western Pennsylvania where he published 
 a newspaper. Later he studied law and in 1823 re 
 turned to Philadelphia, which was his home until his 
 death in 1851. He was the author of a well-known 
 law dictionary, the " Institutes of American Law " in 
 four volumes, and other works demanding much labor 
 and learning, which he found time to complete in con 
 nection with an important practice at the Philadelphia 
 bar. 
 
 Dr. Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, was 
 an English liberal in religion as well as in politics who 
 lived in Birmingham. A mob burned the Unitarian 
 meeting-house in which he preached and his home, con 
 taining all his manuscripts and scientific instruments, 
 while with a group of friends he was attempting to 
 celebrate the fourteenth of July and show his sympathy 
 for French aspirations for liberty. The town after 
 ward indemnified him for the loss he had suffered, but 
 in the meantime he had decided to remain in England 
 no longer. He came to Philadelphia in 1794. Here 
 the French party regarded him as a political martyr 
 and sought to have him meet President Washington 
 who declined the honor of his acquaintance. No pul 
 pits were offered him by Philadelphia s orthodox cler 
 gymen, although he was warmly welcomed by the 
 Philosophical Society and was tendered a professorship 
 of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania. This 
 post he did not accept and soon passed on to the banks 
 of the Susquehanna. There at Northumberland, Pa., 
 whither his sons had preceded him, he lived and died 
 and was buried. 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 147 
 
 Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours had as pictur 
 esque a career as any foreigner who came to Philadel 
 phia on the tide of liberal emigration. He was asso 
 ciated with old Dr. Quesnay, the elder Mirabeau, and 
 the " Economistes," a little sect in Paris which con 
 structed imaginary wealth from imaginary land accord 
 ing to a system which they called the " Physiocratie." 
 Franklin seemed to endorse their peculiar views and 
 became the friend of the leading members of the so 
 ciety. Du Pont wrote much upon economic subjects 
 and edited the organ of the sect. He held offices un 
 der some French ministries while he was banished from 
 his home by others. During the Revolution he nar 
 rowly escaped with his life, both from mobs on the one 
 hand and guillotiners on the other, and in 1799 made 
 his way to the United States with his sons who founded 
 the large powder manufactories near Wilmington, Del. 
 There the old French " Economists " died in 1817. 
 
 But the Revolution and its differences were ceasing 
 to dominate the public mind. Science was disentan- . 
 gling itself from political philosophy. Alexander Wil 
 son wrote to his nephew in 1806, when invited to make 
 a political address at Milestown: " Politics has begot 
 me so many enemies both in the old and new world 
 and has done me so little good that I begin to think 
 the less you and I harangue on that subject the better." 
 He said that hereafter he would deliver his speeches in 
 the wood where he could " offend nobody." Some 
 slight belletristic performances were pointing the way 
 to that famous Philadelphia magazine, the " Port 
 Folio," and to the founder of the novel in America, 
 Charles Brockden Brown. The age wore a healthier 
 aspect. There were omens of better things to follow, 
 
i 4 8 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 when Irish, Scotch and French would come into some 
 degree of harmony with the Englishmen already set 
 tled here, to their great mutual benefit, and to the honor 
 of the city and of America. 
 
 The first historian of Pennsylvania was Robert 
 Proud. For the Revolutionary period there are a num 
 ber of diarists such as Christopher Marshall, a retired 
 druggist of leisure and means sufficient in a busy time 
 to enable him to write an interesting record of the 
 movements about him; and Alexander Graydon, whose 
 mother kept boarders in the famous Slate Roof House 
 in Second Street to which many notable people came 
 for creature comforts while he gleaned impressions of 
 them for his " Memoirs." Proud s studies did not 
 carry him through the war and his work was completed 
 before the colonists had yet established their independ 
 ence, although it was not until 1798 that it could be 
 published. It came from Zachariah Poulson s press 
 in two volumes. 
 
 Considering the preparations which were made for 
 the undertaking, the materials at his hand and the time 
 consumed, the work was voted a disappointment. 
 Proud, who was " a large majestic English gentleman," 
 wearing a great gray wig and a hat, half-sprung, said 
 that the wind always blew in his face. He was alike 
 unfortunate in business and in love, and joining the 
 Quakers, reached Pennsylvania in 1759. For thirty 
 years he taught Latin and Greek in a Friend s school, 
 and on account of his learning, was appointed to write 
 a history of Pennsylvania, being given access to all the 
 Quaker records, public and private, and the manuscripts 
 of the Logan, Pemberton, Morris and other leading 
 Quaker families. Complaint was made that there was 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 149 
 
 " too much preface for the contents," about one third 
 of the first volume being preface, while one third of 
 the second volume was appendix. In general, " much 
 more was expected than ever came to pass." 
 
 Although literature, for its own sake, issued from the 
 conflict but slowly, publishers were bolder, as is evi 
 denced by a notable performance of Thomas Dobson 
 who printed " at the Stone House " in Second Street 
 above Chestnut. Already in 1790 he began the first 
 American edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, gen 
 erally known as " Dobson s Encyclopaedia." He had 
 but 246 subscribers when the first half-volume was 
 ready for delivery. There were one thousand copies 
 of the first volume and these were not sold until he had 
 reached the eighth volume. The work contained 
 nearly 600 copper plates, and it was difficult to find 
 enough printers and engravers to finish it, but it was 
 successfully completed in twenty-one volumes, including 
 a supplement of three volumes, in 1803. The selling 
 price was $156 in boards and $187.50 in sheep. 
 
 In 1795 Bioren and Madan began to issue the 
 " First American Edition " of Shakespeare in eight 
 volumes, and the work was completed the next year. 
 The " Plays and Poems," with Johnson s notes, an in 
 troduction, a brief " life," and a glossary, attracted 
 much attention. The publishers, in heralding their 
 work, said: " An edition of the works of William 
 Shakespeare is now offered to the citizens of the United 
 States. This poet has always been considered as the 
 father of the English drama and as beyond any com 
 parison the greatest theatrical writer in the English 
 language," etc., etc. 
 
 In 1804 Caleb P. Wayne came to Philadelphia to 
 
ENCYCLOPEDIA; 
 DICTIONARY 
 
 O F 
 
 ARTS, SCIENCES, 
 
 AND 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE; 
 
 Conftrufted on a PLAN, 
 
 BY WHICH 
 
 THE DIFFERENT SCIENCES AND ARTS 
 
 Are digefled into the FORM of Diftinft 
 
 TREATISES OR SYSTEMS, 
 
 COM r II ! DUO 
 
 THE HISTORY, THJEORY, and PRACTICE, of each, 
 
 According to the Lateft Difcoveries and Improvement! ; 
 
 AND rvLL tXfLANATlONS CirSIt Ot 7BI 
 
 VARIOUS DETACHED PARTS OF KNOWLEDGE, 
 
 WHtTMia 11LAT1KO TO 
 
 NATURAL and ARTIFICIAL Obje&s, or to Matters ECCLESIASTICAL, 
 
 CIVIL, MILITARY, COMMERCIAL, I3c. 
 
 Including CiCCIDATlom of the moA important Topiet relative to RtLiciOK, MoiULi, MANNZRI, 
 and the OECONOMT of Lira . 
 
 reoiriit wim 
 A Dncttnoi of all (be Countries Cititt, principal Moonulcs, Sea*, Riren, fcfr. 
 
 throughout the WOILDJ 
 A General Hiifoar, 4*t*at and Mod*r*, of the different Empire^ Engdotni, and Sotrn 
 
 * 
 
 cAn Account of the LITII of the mo ft Eminent Perfoni in erery Nation, 
 from the tallied age* down to the prefent limes. 
 
 Cnp3r<i From (lit writing, of tU Ufl Awbon, in frrtrl Unpurn; ih moA ipprorcd DidioouSo,M well offtncrtl fcKBCc u o/it> 
 
 HlMivbwrfMMMnifiHi^jMn^ailiSHfcfhMLM^ari 
 
 Proff San oo difftrrtt k tcnta\ Mid * ntietj at OrijinJ Mucralt, furniflwd b; 
 
 THS. T1HS7 .tMtJUCAN EDITION, IN MJCHTMXN rOLUMS t CKtATLT JMfJtOrZD. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH FIVE HUNDRED AND FORTY-TWO COPPERPLATES. 
 VOL. I. A - ANG~~ 
 
 PHlLADELPHtAt 
 
 HlTIO T TMOM4I OOtlOB, AT TMt ITOMI MOUII, * 4!, IOUTM HCOlOJ ITUtT 
 M.OCC.I CTI II. 
 
 [Cofj Right fecured according to law- ) 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION 
 OF THE " ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA " 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 151 
 
 publish John Marshall s " Life of Washington," which 
 he did in five volumes, completing the work in three 
 years. He is said to have paid $60,000 * to the au 
 thor for the rights to this important biography which, 
 being written by the Chief Justice of the United States, 
 at a time when the interest in Washington was deep, 
 found a wide sale. 
 
 Bradford s agreement to issue Wilson s " Ornithol 
 ogy " was closely accompanied by that firm s determi 
 nation to put forth an American edition of Abraham 
 Rees s " Cyclopaedia or Universal Dictionary " in forty- 
 seven large volumes. When Wilson declined the offer 
 to superintend this work, other editors were secured. 
 It was " revised, corrected, enlarged and adapted to this 
 country " by several " literary and scientific characters." 
 The work began to appear in 1810 and the last volume 
 did not leave the press until 1824, the publishers en 
 countering many difficulties as they proceeded with it. 
 By 1818 they announced that they had expended 
 $200,000 upon it, and the undertaking made an end to 
 the old house of Bradford. The firm failed and the 
 work passed into the hands of a syndicate made up of 
 several of the engravers engaged upon it, who, to dis 
 pose of the edition, finally resorted to a lottery specially 
 authorized by the legislature of Pennsylvania. It was 
 evident that Philadelphia s publishers were resuming 
 that notable activity which was interrupted by the war 
 and which again for a full generation was to make the 
 city the literary market-place for the whole United 
 States. 
 
 The note of poetry was as a thin voice. Alexander 
 
 * Thompson Westcott s History of Philadelphia, in the Sunday 
 Dispatch. 
 
THL 
 
 CYCLOPAEDIA; 
 
 ARTS, SCIENCES, AND LITERATURE 
 
 BT 
 
 ABRAHAM REES, DJ>. F.R.S. F.L.S. jtmer. Soc. 
 
 WITH THt AiiWT*>Cl Of 
 
 LMZNTNT PROFESSIONAL f.rvn FMTJ* 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS, 
 jr TXE MOST DtSTLVGClSMCJ* <t*T/ST* 
 
 RRST AMERICAN EDITION. 
 COMXCTED, EM_VRGIOX A.XD ADAPTED TO THIS COUXTRt. 
 
 IX FORTY-OXE VOLUMES. 
 VOL, L 
 
 fT-BLISHED BT SAMCEL r. 
 
 MUTUL\T. F AIRMAN. AXT> CO. 
 A, KISTC&, i-ar-Tt .x . LAE k CV*ICNAM, **ro; CUIMIBO k 
 
 w-MArt; CHABLL5 WltrPLL. VC 
 
 ; jo.x a ST*T, *i.tKAo*i . o. MC 
 
 t.PKjcr>cc ; WM K. ITZWMTLO>.. KICMKOBO ; KICMAKB COTTOX, rtri 
 vo, JOrfv BOTT. CKA.BLUTOV . WILLIAM T VILI.IAHV SAAHAH; *omT AB KUB 
 
 ACOVITA ; CB.AJCLA, VTlA*., AB> UCM&ACM, mmBU i AJTO A*K* 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF REES S " CYCLOP.EDIA 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 153 
 
 Wilson s poems were in prose form; his verse was 
 valueless. Peter Markoe, sometimes called " the city 
 poet," the son of Abram Markoe, a West Indian sugar 
 planter of Huguenot stock who once owned the block 
 now occupied by the Post Office, was educated at the 
 University of Dublin. He studied law in London and 
 cultivated the muse in Philadelphia, publishing a trag 
 edy called " The Patriot Chief " and other poems. 
 
 John Parke, another post-revolutionary poet, was an 
 officer in Washington s army, and published some odd 
 translations and paraphrases of the " Lyric Works of 
 Horace." 
 
 The poet of the time who is generally remembered 
 is Joseph Hopkinson, the author of " Hail Colum 
 bia ; " the real and only true poet of this period is 
 
 Hopkinson was "a son of Francis Hopkinson and was 
 born in Philadelphia in 1770, graduating at the Uni 
 versity of Pennsylvania in 1786. He early became an 
 eminent lawyer in the city, and was later appointed a 
 L nited States District Judge by John Quincy Adams, 
 being until his death in 1842 a consistent friend of liter 
 ature, science and the fine arts. In 1798 when 
 the war with France impended and the feeling between 
 the French and English parties was at fever heat, Hop 
 kinson was appealed to by a young actor named Fox, 
 then playing at a city theatre, for patriotic words to 
 be sung to the tune of " The President s March," at 
 that time the favorite popular air. It had been 
 composed by a German music teacher resident in Phila 
 delphia, and gained such popularity that the leaders 
 of bands must often stop in the midst of their classical 
 programmes to answer the demand for it. Hopkin- 
 
154 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 son, who was a Federalist, in finding words for the air, 
 desired to arouse an American spirit that would be inde 
 pendent of and above all foreign attachments and sym 
 pathies. He therefore mentioned neither France nor 
 England. Beginning 
 
 " Hail Columbia, happy land ! 
 Hail ye heroes, heaven-born band, 
 Who fought and bled in Freedom s cause," etc. 
 
 his verses were finished and delivered upon a few 
 hours notice. They were instantly successful and were 
 sung and resung, the audience joining vociferously in 
 the chorus: 
 
 " Firm, united let us be, 
 Rallying round our Liberty; 
 As a band of brothers joined, 
 Peace and safety we shall find." 
 
 Crowds shouted the song in the city streets, and it 
 soon travelled the length and breadth of the republic, 
 although its seemingly harmless sentiments did not pro 
 tect its author from the attacks of the French, who de 
 nounced it as a contrivance of the " Anglo-Monarchical 
 Tory party " and " the admirers of British tyranny." 
 Almost totally bare of evidence of inspiration or even 
 of common skill in rhyme-making, it is still to-day a 
 popular patriotic American air. 
 
 William Cliffton was the son of strict, well-to-do 
 Quaker parents who resided in Southwark. At nine 
 teen consumption set its seal upon him and, barred from 
 active worldly pursuits, he devoted himself to music, 
 painting and poetry. His sensitive soul and very 
 active mind 
 
r 
 
 r 
 
 H 
 
 ^. O 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 155 
 
 " Fretted the pigmy body to decay, 
 And o er informed the tenement of clay," P0l lV%k/ 
 
 so that in 1799, at twenty-seven, his promiseful life, 
 like Nathaniel Evans s and Thomas Godfrey s, was 
 done. 
 
 A strong Federalist, he eagerly supported Washing 
 ton s administration against the French party during 
 the excitement which attended the negotiation of the 
 Jay treaty, wasting his poetical energies in political 
 satire of no lasting value to his fame. With some title 
 to the name of the American Dryden, which is at times 
 applied to him, he was no mere imitator, never being 
 content to express trite ideas. The genius of the false 
 French philosophy appeared as the witch Chimeria in 
 his poem, " The Chimeriad " 
 
 " her roving mind 
 
 Left meek content and order far behind, 
 Too light to study and too dull to scan 
 The temper, state and faculties of man ; 
 Full of herself, she soared aloft to prove 
 The joys which float in endless change above 
 And saw obedient to her mad command 
 Incongruous nothings into chaos plann d. 
 She saw her empire form d, and day by day 
 Saw systems spring to light and pass away; 
 Saw idiots dazzled with her tinsel zone, 
 And genius sometimes sporting round her throne ; 
 There Plato walk d his academic round, 
 And there his shadowy prototypes were found ; 
 His spectre cave he pompously display d, 
 Talk d of a world, of endless essence made; 
 Pour d forth of eloquence an airy storm, 
 And lick d his cub republic into form." 
 
156 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 As a poetical denunciation of evil philosophies, this 
 is excellent. In his epistle to William Gifford, the 
 English poet, Mr. Cliffton describes the severe intel 
 lectual discipline by which ancient scholars were formed, 
 contrasting it then with the methods by which genius 
 was in his day so rapidly evolved : 
 
 " So the sage oak, to nature s mandate true, 
 Advanc d but slow, and strengthened as it grew; 
 But when at length (full many a season o er) 
 Its virile head, in pride, aloft it bore ; 
 When steadfast were its roots, and sound its heart, 
 It bade defiance to the insect s art, 
 And, storm and time-resisting, still remains 
 The never-dying glory of the plains. 
 
 " Then, if some thoughtless Bavius dared appear, 
 Short was his date, and limited his sphere ; 
 He could but please the changeling mob a day, 
 Then, like his noxious labors, pass away ; 
 So, near a forest tall, some worthless flower 
 Enjoys the triumph of its gaudy hour, 
 Scatters its little poison through the skies 
 Then droops its empty, hated head and dies." 
 
 In his poem " II Penseroso," Cliffton writes: 
 
 " Why should I mingle in the mazy ring 
 
 Of drunken folly at the shrine of chance? 
 Where insect pleasure flits on burnished wing, 
 
 Eludes our wishes and keeps up the dance; 
 When in the quiet of an humble home, 
 
 Beside the fountain, or upon the hill, 
 Where strife and care and sorrow never come, 
 
 I may be free and happy, if I will." 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 157 
 
 In reading such verse we must regret with Verplanck, 
 writing in the " Analectic Magazine" in 1814, and 
 " with every one who is anxious for the literary repu 
 tation of his country " that Mr. Cliffton did not live 
 " to accomplish some greater and more finished work." 
 
 The principal literary name of this time, the city s 
 and the nation s reward for a long period of bitter wait 
 ing, is Charles Brockden Brown. Sometimes called the 
 "Father of the American Novel," it is certain that 
 none before him in this country had done so well; none 
 produced fiction that the people read so eagerly and 
 appreciatively. Mrs. Susanna Rowson, an English 
 woman, the author of a sentimental novel, " Charlotte 
 Temple," and an actress who played for several years 
 at the close of the century at the Chestnut Street Thea 
 tre, her husband being a musician in the orchestra, 
 while here wrote a great four-volume novel, " The 
 Trials of the Human Heart." 
 
 But Brown was a native writer and his work had 
 compelling force. To subject it to careful criticism is 
 to discover the gravest artistic defects. There is no 
 originality in his method or themes; he simply trans 
 ferred action and scenes in vogue with English novel 
 ists, such as William Godwin, Mrs. Radcliffe and 
 " Monk " Lewis, to the banks of the Schuylkill and 
 the Delaware. Nevertheless, Brown was and remains 
 the first writer of fiction to achieve eminence in this 
 country, and the first writer of whatever kind who had 
 the daring to make literature his sole pursuit. He 
 lived by his pen, a hurried, fitful and brief life, it is 
 true, but starve at the end he did not. 
 
 He came of an old Chester County Quaker family, 
 respectable but not eminent, having been born in Phila- 
 
i 5 8 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 delphia on January 17, 1771. He was named for 
 Charles Brockden, the well-known conveyancer and 
 agent for the Penn family in Philadelphia who married 
 his father s sister. From this writer is the taste for 
 triple names among American authors sometimes de 
 rived. With him at least the multiplication of cogno 
 mens seemed to be a necessity, for he clearly under 
 stood that the odds were as unfavorable to the Browns 
 as they were to Oliver Wendell Holmes s hero whom 
 fate tried to conceal under the name of Smith. Once 
 when a friend had done him the honor of giving him a 
 namesake, Brown expressed his regret that the infant 
 was not to have a greater chance for the distinctions 
 of life. u It has ever been an irksome and unwelcome 
 sound to my ears," said he. " I have sometimes been 
 mortified in looking over the catalogue of heroes, sages 
 and saints to find not a single Brown among them. 
 This indeed may be said of many other names but most 
 others are of rare occurrence. It must then be a 
 strange fatality which has hitherto excluded it from 
 the illustrious and venerable list." 
 
 For about five years Charles Brockden Brown at 
 tended the Quaker school of Robert Proud, the histo 
 rian, but, frail of build, confinement and application 
 jaded him. He was designed for the law but the pros 
 pect of that life was repellent. He loved solitude, es 
 pecially rambles into the country. The talk of the 
 world about him wearied him with its frivolity. His 
 enthusiasm was for thinking and writing, and essays, 
 verse, dialogues, fanciful sketches and a journal were 
 produced while he was still at school. He was the 
 leading member of the little Belles Lettres Club of nine 
 members, and though he was contributing to the " Co- 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 159 
 
 lumbian Magazine," he was painfully impressed with 
 the hopelessness of earning a livelihood from literary 
 pursuits. His parents, his three older brothers, 
 Joseph, James and Armit,* and his friends were all 
 disappointed that he had left off his law studies, and 
 until his first literary success was achieved in " Wie- 
 land " in 1798, he was at times plunged in the depths 
 of despondency. He visited New York, and was there 
 the guest of Dr. Elihu Hubbard Smith whom he had 
 come to know as a medical student in Philadelphia. 
 Smith introduced the young writer to a group of pro 
 fessional and literary men who received him cordially. 
 These visits were frequently repeated. For a time 
 New York was accounted his home, and his attachment 
 to his friends in that city almost cost him his life during 
 the fever plague of 1798. Throughout this time, by 
 his own account, he " mused and wrote cheerfully in 
 spite of the groans of the dying and the rumbling of 
 the hearses." 
 
 In Philadelphia in 1793 Brown had escaped the 
 dangers of the disease by removing with his family to 
 a place of safety in the country. While in New York 
 he had spent several summers at Perth Amboy with his 
 friend who was later his biographer, the artist and 
 dramatist, William Dunlap, but in 1798 he tarried in 
 the city with Dr. Smith. A distinguished Italian 
 traveler, Dr. Scandella, after many adventures, which 
 read as if they were drawn from one of Brown s novels, 
 was seized with the malady, to be taken into Smith s 
 home. The Italian soon died. Dr. Smith followed 
 him to the grave and Brown, who was a nurse for both, 
 
 * Whence descends Henry Armitt Brown, the orator of the Valley 
 Forge Centennial. 
 
- r :- ~: -f l-_ 
 
AI 
 
 TJi.rrj. 
 
 zr:~~~. ? ::i:r:r is i ~~::r :: 
 
 is to be found hot a small port of all 
 
 bF 
 
 WhOc h 
 with his New York magazine. Eght of IBS fekads 
 
 ~ ". 27 J - 7~" J". ^.2. 7-i-l^--l 7-T- - ~*_5-- . - 5 ~ . T I. >_ ~ J- i ~ " 
 
 amount to insure its success. He r^nWi m> "The- 
 Monthly Magazine and ^rirjm Review," and the 
 red in ApdL 1799. 
 
 almost the uutc Tohnnc of what was pofefished in this 
 periocfical and at first had from it enticing pcospects of 
 InitiBir Tncre were 400 subscribers* which A WOT 
 computed would repay the anwal cost of tssoe; or 
 $1,600. ** Afl above 400 wifl he door profit to me* 1 * 
 he wrote to one of his brothers, and i ,000 subscribers, 
 he calculated, would yield him a net annul income of 
 2,700. His hopes were not realized and at the cad 
 of the year iSoo the publication ceased, the editor re 
 turning to bis home in Philadelphia, 
 
 In bis own city Charles BtoUjka Bros* was not 
 hog to dwell in literary MHKIV He was warn writing 
 political pamphlets. He made an arrangement with 
 John Conrad, a publisher in Philadelphia, fee a 
 magazine, * The Literary Magazine and Ai 
 Register." At the time it was founded,, in October, 
 1 803, theie was no other monthly publication in Amer 
 ica and the way looked dear before it. The editor in 
 bis salutatory said: " I cannot expatiate on the vanity 
 
162 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 of my knowledge, the brilliancy of my wit, the versa 
 tility of my talents. To none of these do I lay any 
 claim." But it was his hope " to collect into one focal 
 spot the rays of a great number of luminaries." It 
 would be his province " to hold the mirror up so as 
 to assemble all their influences within its verge and re 
 flect them on the public in such a manner as to warm 
 and enlighten." 
 
 In enlisting the co-operation of other writers, Brown 
 had no great success. In one number nothing was con 
 tributed but a short article; everything else was from 
 the editor s own hand. There was no gayety in this 
 publication, for Brown had none. Nevertheless, the 
 magazine was continued for nearly five years. 
 
 In 1806 he began to compile for the same publish 
 ing house his " American Register or General Reposi 
 tory of History, Politics and Science," an annual review 
 of the world s happenings in different fields which was 
 issued for five years (1806-10 inclusive), a large vol 
 ume and sometimes two volumes for the year. It was 
 published until its editor was obliged to surrender to 
 his disease. 
 
 Consumption for many years had been his arch en 
 emy. He had travelled hither and thither in vain in the 
 hope of strengthening his weak, pale frame, and when 
 the attack from which he was not to rise came, in No 
 vember, 1809, his friends were urging him to undertake 
 a journey to Europe, though it was against his inclina 
 tions. In that year he wrote to a member of his family : 
 " When have I known that lightness and vivacity of 
 mind which the divine flow of health even in calamity 
 produces in some men? And would produce in me no 
 doubt; at least when not soured by misfortune? Never, 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 163 
 
 scarcely ever. Not longer than an half hour at a time 
 since I have called myself man." 
 
 His only consolation was found in his books which 
 for him, he said, had " great efficacy in beguiling body 
 of its pains and thoughts of their melancholy, in re 
 lieving head and heart of their aches." He died on 
 February 22, 1810, at his home in Eleventh Street near 
 Chestnut when only thirty-nine years of age, being in 
 terred in an unmarked spot in the Friends burial 
 ground at Fourth and Arch Streets.* 
 
 While choice of his fellows, few more fully enjoyed 
 those intimacies which were contracted. Although not 
 adhering closely to Quaker tenets, to his Quaker friends 
 he used his " thee " and " thy " as one to the manner 
 born. He had a brief period of domestic bliss, for 
 while in New York he met, wooed and won for a wife 
 Elizabeth Linn. She was the daughter of Dr. William 
 Linn of Shippensburg, Pa., once the President of Rut 
 gers College, and at the time a distinguished Presbyte 
 rian clergyman in New York. The young novelist and 
 Miss Linn were married in November, 1804, and she 
 came to make her home in Philadelphia where her 
 brother, Dr. John Blair Linn, also a minister, had been 
 preaching in the First Presbyterian Church until his 
 death of consumption in the preceding August. He 
 had been Brown s intimate friend and was a writer of 
 verses, one of which, an epic called " Valerian," the 
 novelist edited and published with a memoir. 
 
 Although Brown was to have little more than five 
 years of married happiness, he left four children, three 
 
 *I am indebted to Miss M. Atherton Leach of the Pennsylvania 
 Historical Society for the researches which have resulted in the 
 location of Brown s grave as well as for many other kindnesses 
 enjoyed in the progress of this investigation. 
 
164 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 boys and an infant girl. Two were twins of whom he 
 wrote when they were born : " I was always terribly 
 impressed with the hardships and anxieties attending 
 the care of infants and was at the moment appalled by 
 the prospect of a double portion of care. . . . 
 Now after two months experience I find, and their 
 mother finds, that the two healthy and lovely babes are 
 a double joy instead of being a double care." 
 
 The final judgment on Brown s work may not yet 
 have been uttered, but it is not difficult now to assign 
 his novels to their proper place. They must be consid 
 ered in the light of the time in which they were written 
 when they will be accounted to have a great deal of 
 value in spite of crudities and imperfections that are 
 obvious to all who dip but a little way into them. They 
 are the work of a writer of unbridled imagination. 
 In a few pages there are exciting incidents enough to 
 serve a novelist of this day for an entire volume. Lust, 
 intrigue and multiplied mystery testify to a fancy as 
 fecund as that of the Sultana who saved her head by 
 relating the tales of the one thousand and one nights 
 in Arabia. 
 
 Philadelphia in Brown s hands at once became a 
 kind of Bagdad. Marvelous houses with winding stair 
 ways and dark basements, dead men who conic to life, 
 voices in closets, lights that strangely disappear, treas 
 ure found and lost with much seduction, suicide and 
 murder make up a record which contains suggestions 
 for a generation of story writers. If the plots could 
 be rid of involution, they would be enjoyed by the bad 
 boys of our day. The reader is carried headlong from 
 one startling situation to another until he is mentally 
 fagged, although compelled to read on, in the end 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 165 
 
 viewing with wonder the singular flow of the author s 
 imagination. 
 
 An impression is created of a mind too full of possi 
 bilities of strange complications for convenient arrange 
 ment and utterance. Probability is taxed to its limits, 
 although his friends assert, when they compare his 
 work with that of other writers, that these bounds are 
 never passed. The narrative proceeds in short, tense, 
 direct, high-strung sentences, striking with the force 
 and regularity of a trip-hammer. Of charm of style 
 his readers will acquit Charles Brockden Brown. Of 
 niceties of language or care in the arrangement of his 
 ideas there is almost total lack. Of humor or epigram 
 there is none. Dialect is used only awkwardly, and 
 the characters talk in an unchanging monotone. In 
 deed, dialogue is little resorted to by Brown in his 
 story-telling, and there are pages and chapters of state 
 ments and confessions unrelieved by quotation marks. 
 The narrator, who uses the first person, changes from 
 time to time, and only close and continued attention dis 
 closes the identity of the speaker. The most marked 
 defect in Brown s work, however, is his failure to make 
 use of all the material which he so lavishly spreads out 
 before us as his story proceeds. 
 
 " Wieland " errs principally through the artificiality 
 of the devices employed to create the tissue of mystery 
 of which the tale consists. Two ideas are utilized, the 
 principle of " self combustion " by which the elder 
 Wieland, the German mystic who has a temple of 
 prayer somewhere on the banks of the Wissahickon or 
 Schuylkill, is consumed; and ventriloquism, an art then 
 new, by which a man for no sufficient motive induces 
 the younger Wieland to murder his wife and children. 
 
1 66 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 The great defect of " Arthur Mervyn," on the other 
 hand, is the introduction of episodes that are forgotten 
 by the author in the later development of his plot. In 
 the end he has two interesting heroines whose fate re 
 mains to be explained. They are suddenly abandoned 
 for a third. It is plain that the author changed his 
 plans again and again as his work progressed under his 
 hand. These faults arose from the fact that the 
 printer literally stood at his shoulder while he wrote, 
 after " Wieland " had whetted the public taste for his 
 stories, and the manuscript could not be revised. Such 
 speed was fatal to art as it was to Brown himself. 
 
 The facts remain that " Wieland " is an absorbing 
 tale of mystery, while "Arthur Mervyn" is more; it 
 is in its first part an historical document ranking with 
 Dr. Rush s and Mathew Carey s writings as a truthful 
 delineation of the peculiar horrors of the yellow fever 
 plague of 1793 in Philadelphia. Of his description of 
 the scene between Welbeck and Mervyn, when the lat 
 ter burns up $20,000 in notes, Brown subsequently 
 wrote to his brother that " to excite and baffle curiosity 
 without shocking belief is the end to be contemplated. 
 I have endeavored to wind up the reader s passions to 
 the highest pitch and to make the catastrophe in the 
 highest degree unexpected and momentous." This in 
 short was the guiding principle of Brow r n s life as a 
 novel writer, and that he succeeded in spite of defects 
 which it is easy to see and criticize, is his title to a na 
 tional and international place in literature. 
 
 It is impossible to find a measure of the circulation 
 of his books or of the profit that accrued to him as 
 their author. However, it cannot have been large for 
 he wrote to his brother Joseph in 1800, after his second 
 
THE FRUITS OF THE WAR 167 
 
 successful book had appeared: "Seldom less happy 
 than at present; seldom has my prospect been a 
 gloomier one. Yet it may shine when least expected." 
 
 Again he wrote in the same year: " Book-making is 
 the dullest of all trades and the utmost that any Ameri 
 can can look for in his native country is to be reim 
 bursed his unavoidable expenses. * At his death, his 
 wife conducted a boarding-house to sustain herself and 
 her children. 
 
 Thus the novel was established in America by an 
 undoubted literary genius, but on foundations too has 
 tily and too carelessly built. His own physical wretch 
 edness, his penury, his temperament that caused him to 
 work with unparalleled rapidity all conspire to cast 
 discredit upon his art and make his achievement seem 
 vastly smaller than it might have been under more fav 
 orable circumstances. But blemishes may be forgot in 
 the presence of such a creative faculty, and though the 
 reproach be fairly his that his novels are not read to 
 day, it is no conclusive argument against an author 
 whose place has long been secure in our gallery of lit 
 erary men. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PORT FOLIO 
 
 The arrival in Philadelphia of Joseph Dcnnie to 
 become private secretary to Timothy Pickering, John 
 Adams s Secretary of State, was a fortunate event in 
 the literary life of the city. The capital was removed 
 to Washington but he remained to establish a weekly 
 critical paper, the " Port Folio," and to make him 
 self the centre of a little group of lovers of " polite 
 and elegant literature " who contributed to his journal 
 and were members of his famous Tuesday Club. 
 
 The " Port Folio " was published in one form or 
 another from 1801 until 1827; therefore for more 
 thrtn a quarter of a century; and it enhanced in a ma 
 terial way the public love and respect in America for 
 poetry, the essay, satire, criticism and the literary fine 
 arts. No magazine in the country exerted a more be 
 neficent influence in that direction. Although its cir 
 culation seems at no time to have exceeded 2,000 or 
 2,500 copies, its editor continued on his way boldly and 
 fearlessly with no master but his own cultivated spirit. 
 
 Joseph Dennie came to Philadelphia from Massa 
 chusetts and upon his life before he reached the na- 
 ttonal capital we need not linger. He was called the 
 American Addison while he still resided in New Eng 
 land, and to that name he had a clearer title than 
 many of his critics are disposed to admit. lie was 
 born in Boston in 1768. In Harvard he was noted 
 
 168 
 
THE PORT FOLIO 169 
 
 for his attractive manners, ready wit and the outspoken 
 habit which clung to him through life. For insulting 
 a tutor and later the government of the college, he was 
 suspended for six months. At the end of his academic 
 course he studied law in New Hampshire and in 1794 
 opened an office for practice in Charlestown in that 
 state. He early began " The Farrago " papers 
 short essays printed in various places at uncertain times. 
 His literary fame had reached Boston when he visited 
 the city to consult a law library, and his friends there 
 persuaded him to edit a little critical 
 paper to be called " The Tablet." It 
 appeared for thirteen weeks, when it 
 must suspend, its editor returning to the 
 law in New Hampshire. 
 
 He soon began a series of essays, 
 signed " The Lay Preacher," for a 
 country paper, the " Farmers Mu 
 seum," of Walpole, N. H. They were 
 widely copied and the author of them 
 was invited to become the editor of 
 
 the journal. He succeeded in drawing SILHOUETTE 
 
 . , ., - .. OF JOSEPH DEN- 
 
 to it the contributions of literary men NIE FROM THE 
 
 in all parts of the Union, and its value " PORT FoLI " 
 was soon recognized from Maine to Georgia. In spite 
 of this fact, the publisher went bankrupt in 1798, 
 owing Dennie several hundred dollars. The next year 
 Mr. Pickering threw out a suggestion that the " Lay 
 Preacher" should come to Philadelphia at $1,000 
 a year. The offer was accepted and the young 
 New England essayist was warmly received in intel 
 lectual circles at the national capital. He wrote ac 
 tively in the Federalist interest for Fenno s " Gazette," 
 
170 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 and soon induced Asbury Dickins, the bookseller in 
 Second Street opposite Christ Church, to undertake the 
 publication of the " Port Folio." * A liberal man 
 was Dickins, said Dennie, one " who in literary negotia 
 tions is unaccustomed to measure talents with a two- 
 foot rule or to ascertain the exact quantum of mental 
 labor with the vulgar arithmetic of a pitiful excise 
 
 man." 
 
 The paper was printed by Hugh Maxwell to whom 
 Charles Brockden Brown had entrusted " Arthur Mer- 
 vyn." The first number, a quarto of eight pages, ap 
 peared on January 3, 1801, and it was to be issued on 
 every succeeding Saturday morning at five dollars a 
 year, cash in advance. Edited by u Oliver Oldschool, 
 Esq.," the fictitious name Dennie hacTcTiosen "for ""Him 
 self in his new role, his journal was to be " devoted 
 principally to moral instruction and polite literature." 
 But for some time, while the city was still disturbed by 
 the Jacobinical discussion, it was also a powerful po 
 litical organ, untiring in its efforts to counteract the 
 teachings of William Duane, so diligently propagated 
 in the " Aurora." Already in his prospectus Dennie 
 wrote that the editor of the " Port Folio " " will not 
 rive to please the populace at the expense of their 
 quiet by infusing into every ill-balanced and weak mind 
 a jealousy of rulers, a love of innovation, an impatience 
 of salutary restraint, or the reveries of liberty, equality 
 and the rights of man. He will not labor to confound 
 the moral, social and political system, nor desperately 
 essay * to break up the fountains of the great deep of 
 
 * Later, Dickins for twenty-five years was Secretary of the United 
 States Senate, being a son of John Dickins, a powerful Methodist 
 preacher, who came to Philadelphia in 1789. 
 
THE PORT FOLIO. 
 
 D.Y 
 
 OLIVER OLDSCHOOL, ESQ. 
 
 t various that the mind 
 
 Of desultory man, studious of change, 
 And pleas d with novelty, -may be indulged. 
 
 VOL. I....FOR 1801. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 HUNTED BV H. MAXWELL. AKD SOLD BY WILLIAM FRY. HO. Mi> ORTH SCCOKD-STREtr. 
 OPPOSITE CHRIST-CHURCH. 
 
 1801. 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE " PORT FOLIO " 
 
I 7 2 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 government. 1 He will not repeat to hewers of wood 
 and drawers of water the Fairy Tales of France that 
 all men are kings and emperors and nobles and judges 
 and statesmen." 
 
 For vigorous English, there is in his writings much 
 to equal but little to surpass his defense of Marie An 
 toinette, " who was hurled from the high seat of legiti 
 mate power by the smirched and bloody hands of the 
 chimney sweepers, and butchers of an atrocious revolu 
 tion; a revolution the most hideous of all the hated rev 
 olutions which have vexed the repose and cheated the 
 expectations of mankind. " Strong, clear and direct 
 statement was aided by another weapon, satire. Once 
 Dennie published a communication from the wife of a 
 Philadelphia tailor, who complained that her husband 
 was " newspaper mad." His entire time was taken 
 up in reading Duane s " Aurora," in relating the won 
 ders of it, and commenting upon them to all who passed. 
 The capture of Genoa by the French had cost two yards 
 of cloth which were spoiled in the cutting when he heard 
 the news, and all he made from his trade was consumed 
 in nightly drinkings at the inns to the cause of liberty. 
 
 Dennie s attacks upon the democratic system were so 
 violent that at the instigation of Duane, he was indicted 
 by the Grand Jury in 1803 for uttering an "inflam 
 matory and seditious libel;" but aided by his friends, 
 the ablest lawyers of the city, Judge Hopkinson, Charles 
 Jared Ingersoll and William Meredith, he was found 
 not guilty when the case was tried in 1805. 
 
 It was at first supposed that enough advertisements 
 could be obtained to fill a separate sheet which might 
 form " an useful envelope to the Port Folio." These, 
 however, must be of an unexceptionable character. 
 
THE PORT FOLIO 173 
 
 " No place will be ever allowed to the obscene filth of 
 quack doctors," wrote Oldschool, " nor to the gibberish 
 bills of jugglers, tumblers, rope dancers, French moun 
 tebanks, etc. The editor is determined to give cur 
 rency to nothing except the correct and the useful." 
 But even the booksellers did not support the paper lib 
 erally. They oftentimes failed to subscribe for it, al 
 though Dennie made a subscription the lowest price of 
 including notices of their publications in his " Literary 
 Intelligence." 
 
 The editor had sorry experiences in collecting the 
 amounts due him by his subscribers. u The numerous 
 subscribers who are indebted to the editor, some five 
 talents and some ten," Oldschool wrote in 1802, " are 
 respectfully invited to enclose them in letters postpaid. 
 Unless the editor receive more liberal aid he must at 
 the close of the present year lock up his Port Folio." 
 People who were " occupied with higher cares " he 
 urged not " to forget or procrastinate our trifling 
 claims. Remote subscribers are requested to correspond 
 with the editor and let the topics be cash and increas 
 ing patronage." He also reminded his readers that he 
 had been working for the pleasure and edification of 
 the public since 1795, but his writings were u scarcely 
 lucrative enough to pay for the oil consumed in their 
 composition." They were asked to remember that 
 " without the dew the corn shall wither on his stalk." 
 Often subscribers, in making their remittances, did not 
 prepay the postage which on a letter from a remote 
 place, containing five dollars, might amount to one dol 
 lar. For this reason in January, 1804, the price of the 
 " Port Folio " was increased to six dollars a year at 
 which rate it remained ever afterward. 
 
174 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Dennie had once said in New England that he would 
 not edit a democratic paper for twelve millions of dol 
 lars annually. He disdained public adulation and 
 cringed to none with hope of pecuniary gain. " The 
 common people in every country in every age are nearly 
 the same," the editor observed in his own behalf. 
 " Their praise is often to be dreaded and their censure 
 is generally a proof of the merit of the object. That 
 miscellaneous rabble which Burke emphatically calls the 
 1 miserable sheep of society have never yet compelled or 
 allured him to run with barefaced debasement the scrub 
 race of popularity." His contempt for " the million " 
 never diminished. Shortly before his death he wrote: 
 " For more than fifteen years we have published in pe 
 riodical pages our sentiments in complete defiance of 
 the choice or dictation of the many. In this path we 
 shall persevere and while the editor obtains the partial 
 suffrage of gentlemen, scholars and Christians, he is 
 most contemptuously careless of the vulgar voice." 
 
 The same independence of spirit controlled him in 
 his relations with his readers and correspondents, whom 
 he addressed in a column weekly. In his opening invi 
 tation to contributors he wrote conciliatingly : 
 
 " The editor will exercise great tenderness and lenity 
 towards all who tempt the dangerous ocean of ink. 
 The literary offspring of youthful and trembling 
 authors shall, if possible, be fostered. 
 
 " Our natures, merciful and mild, 
 Will from fond pity save the child ; 
 In bulrush-ark the bantling found, 
 Helpless and ready to be drown d, 
 We will preserve by kind support 
 And bring the baby muse to court." 
 
JOSEPH DENNIE 
 
THE PORT FOLIO 175 
 
 But so long as he lived, Dennie never deviated from 
 his high literary standards for any consideration. He 
 soon had so many contributors that he could speak his 
 mind to them. No part of the journal is more enter 
 taining than that in which he praises or condemns, en 
 courages or endeavors to put out the lights of those who 
 have forwarded him their manuscripts. Some inser 
 tions follow: 
 
 " * X is illiberal and sour. Let him pour out his 
 vitriolic acid elsewhere. It is too corrosive for the 
 Port Folio." 
 
 " We prefer borrowing from the European bank of 
 poetry to the free gift of such a wretched versifier as 
 1 Sylvander. " 
 
 " * Jenny writes with airy sprightliness but lacks 
 correctness and has not read or remembered the laws 
 of composition. The editor is sorry to reject the effu 
 sions of a pretty woman. Though as an editor he is 
 obliged to find fault with her pen, as a man he can re 
 peat with the swain of Caledonia : 
 
 " Bonny Jenny, blithe and free, 
 Won my heart right merrily." 
 
 In criticism, Dennie assumed the air of detachment 
 to such a degree and was so sparing of his praise of 
 American authors that he was openly accused of un 
 friendliness to them. The " million " set upon him in 
 the same way that they at a later day attacked Mr. 
 Edwin L. Godkin for like contempt of their ways. Their 
 wrath availed them nothing. Dennie was not consid 
 ering American literature, but literature in the large. 
 He reviewed the works of the principal British authors 
 as they appeared of Scott, Maria Edgeworth, 
 
176 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Wordsworth, Thomas Campbell and William God 
 win. If he had not praise without alloy for Joel Bar 
 low s colossal American epic in ten books, " The Colum- 
 biad," which had just come to Philadelphia to be 
 printed sumptuously by the Conrads, an important per 
 formance, and another compliment to the state of the 
 publishing trade in this city, he did not hesitate to 
 speak kindly of Charles Brockden Brown who he said 
 wrote " uncommonly well for an American." When 
 Brown s magazine began to be published in Philadel 
 phia in 1805, the " Port Folio" said of the editor: 
 " Although his figure appears extenuated by his ardor 
 of application and his face pallid, not by the midnight 
 revel but by studious vigils, yet his alert and robust 
 mind seems not to sympathize with its valetudinary 
 companion. He employs many a vigilant and inquisi 
 tive hour in reading what deserves to be remembered 
 and in writing what deserves to be read." 
 
 For those in every part of the country who contribu 
 ted what was valuable to the " Port Folio," its editor 
 had only words of kindness, gratitude and encourage 
 ment. Dennie drew about him in Philadelphia in the 
 Tuesday Club, and as contributors to his magazine, 
 Richard Rush, the lawyer who was to become a states 
 man, son of Dr. Benjamin Rush; Judge Hopkinson, 
 Horace Binney and William Meredith, all at the 
 Philadelphia bar; Robert Walsh, the author and 
 editor; Charles Brockden Brown, Rev. John Blair 
 Linn, the poet, Brown s brother-in-law; Nicholas Bid- 
 die, Charles Jared Ingersoll, the lawyer and author; 
 Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, the " Falkland " of the 
 " Port Folio; " General Thomas Caduahuler, who made 
 translations from Horace; Samuel Ewing, son of the 
 
THE PORT FOLIO 177 
 
 Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, who wrote 
 verse under the name of " Jacques " and later became a 
 lawyer; Thomas I. Wharton, lawyer, legal writer and 
 commentator; Richard Peters, son of Judge Peters and 
 the editor of the " Reports " of the United States Su 
 preme Court; Philip Hamilton, the son of Alexander 
 Hamilton, soon killed in a duel on the field upon which 
 his father was later to fall in combat with Aaron Burr; 
 William B. Wood, the actor and theatrical manager so 
 long identified with dramatic art in Philadelphia; and 
 Alexander Wilson, whose poem, " The Foresters," was 
 published in installments in the " Port Folio. * Many 
 of the principal scholars of the land wrote from time to 
 time for the magazine. Some of the most graceful of 
 Dennie s contributors followed him to Philadelphia 
 from the " Farmers Museum." Thus he still had the 
 assistance of Royal Tyler, a young Bostonian who had 
 studied law in the office of John Adams, later removing 
 to Vermont where he became Chief Justice of the Su 
 preme Court. He wrote " The Algerine Captive," 
 one of the earliest of American novels, and contributed 
 to the " Museum " and the " Port Folio " a melange 
 of light verse and comment purporting to come " from 
 the shop of Messrs. Colon and Spondee." Thomas 
 Green Fessenden, the satirical poet, Dennie s protege 
 at Walpole, also continued his contributions. Dennie 
 himself published new " Farrago " and " Lay 
 Preacher " papers, adding other essays under fictitious 
 signatures as his pleasure dictated and the literary need 
 arose. 
 
 In the summer of 1804 Thomas Moore, the amatory 
 Irish bard, arrived in Philadelphia. He had come to 
 the United States from the Bermudas, whither he was 
 
1 78 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 commissioned upon some government business. Moore 
 was " completely disappointed in every flattering expec 
 tation " which he had formed of this country, and was 
 inclined to say to America, as Horace said to his mis 
 tress, " Intentata nites." Nowhere but in Philadel 
 phia, if we believe his own account, did he find sympa 
 thetic companionship, and here the pain of contact with 
 our 
 
 " One dull chaos, one unfertile strife, 
 Betwixt half-polish d and half-barbarous life, 
 Where every ill the ancient world can brew 
 Is mixed with every grossness of the new," 
 
 had but one alleviation, the society of Joseph Dennie. 
 Only for the sake of the editor of the " Port Folio " 
 and his friends, did Moore repent his ungenerous judg 
 ments : 
 
 " 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." 
 
 They alone recalled his friends at home, for 
 
 " while I wing d the hours 
 
 Where Schuylkill undulates through banks of flowers, 
 Though few the days, the happy evenings few, 
 So warm the heart, so rich with mind they flew 
 That my full soul forgot its wish to roam 
 And rested there as in a dream of love." 
 
 No doubt what Moore most enjoyed in his new 
 found Philadelphia friends was their conviviality, and 
 their hatred of the rampant French democracy, for he 
 writes : 
 
THE PORT FOLIO 179 
 
 " Long may you hate the Gallic dross that runs 
 O er your fair country and corrupts its sons." 
 
 " In the society of Mr. Dennie and his friends at 
 Philadelphia," Moore explains in prose, " I passed the 
 only agreeable moments which my tour through the 
 States afforded me. Mr. Dennie has succeeded in dif 
 fusing through this elegant little circle that love for 
 good literature and sound politics which he feels so 
 zealously himself and which is so very rarely the char 
 acteristic of his countrymen. If I did not hate as I 
 ought the rabble to which they are opposed I could not 
 value as I do the spirit with which they defy it; and 
 in learning from them what Americans can be I but 
 see with the more indignation what Americans are." 
 
 It is a persistent myth that the Irish poet, while in 
 Philadelphia, occupied a small house in Fairmount 
 Park, on the west bank of the Schuylkill, above Bel- 
 mont, still called " Tom Moore s Cottage," where he 
 was inspired to write the poem beginning 
 
 " 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 gaz d on its flowery banks with a sigh." 
 
 Moore was not long enough in the city to make any 
 house his home and there is no evidence that he was 
 identified with that one which bears his name, beyond 
 what is implied perhaps by passing in and out of it. 
 
 Many of his poems were published for the first time 
 in the " Port Folio," and served to increase the 
 regard which was entertained for that publication in 
 literary circles in America. For this reason, or other 
 
i8o 
 
 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 cause, a writer in Brown s rival magazine was impelled 
 to speak slightingly of Moore. " I never heard of any 
 merit he possessed beyond that of a writer of drinking 
 songs and love ditties," this critic observed. " Even 
 his warmest admirers say no 
 more of him than that he drinks 
 genteelly, plays well on the piano 
 forte, writes very fine verses and 
 sings his own verses scientific 
 ally." So scientific indeed was 
 his singing that on one occasion, 
 it is alleged, Mrs. Joseph Hop- 
 kinson, the wife of the author of 
 " Hail Columbia," wept at hear 
 ing him. Dennie s envious com 
 petitors might compose them 
 selves as best they could. Tom 
 Moore had come and gone, and 
 left, in his wake, many a ripple 
 on the surface of Philadelphia s 
 literary society. 
 
 The " Port Folio " continued 
 to appear each week for eight 
 years. But its pecuniary success, 
 TOM MOORE, FROM " GRA- Dennie wrote, had been " of no 
 HAM S MAGAZINE" brilliant complexion," and he 
 was obliged, at the beginning of 1809, to convert it 
 into a monthly magazine of about one hundred pages. 
 Brown s magazine was now no longer published and 
 this one was projected in the hope that it would con 
 tribute " to the interest of individuals, to the power 
 of Philadelphia and the aggrandizement of our em 
 pire." Partisan political discussion was to be eschewed 
 
THE PORT FOLIO 
 
 A MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 
 
 PIVOTED 
 
 TO USEFUL SCIENCE, THE LIBERAL ARTS, LEGITIMATE 
 CRITICISM, AND POLITE LITERATURE; 
 
 CONDUCTED 
 
 BY OLIVER OLJDSCHOOL, ESQ. 
 
 ASSISTED 
 
 BY A CONFEDERACY OF MEN OF LETTERS. 
 VOL.1. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY BRADFORD Cr 1NSKEEP, PHILADELPHIA, 
 AND INSKEEP & BRADFORD, NEW-YORK. 
 
 PRINTED BY SMITH CC MAXWELt. 
 
 1809. 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF A NEW SERIES OF THE 
 " PORT FOLIO " 
 
182 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 and with some rhetorical flourishes to the advantage of 
 Philadelphia the monthly " Port Folio " made its bow 
 to its readers. " The place of publication is unques 
 tionably auspicious to all the projects of genius, science, 
 and art/ wrote Dennie. " A magnificent metropolis 
 continually widening her sphere of splendor, distin 
 guished by the possession of the best libraries in the 
 United States, memorable for the liberality of her in 
 stitutions and the grandeur of her views, must be the 
 genuine Alma Mater, the foster nurse of the rising gen 
 eration of the genius of America." 
 
 But Dennie himself, like his journal, was now on the 
 downward path. His physical debilities were making 
 severe inroads upon his mental health. He was " the 
 sport of the elements, the wintry winds often obliging 
 him to keep his room." A consumptive, he was at 
 times afflicted with great depression of spirits, when he 
 sought solace in his cups, a practice that was encour 
 aged by his spirit of good fellowship. In conversa 
 tion he was as polished as when he expressed himself 
 with the pen, and in many Philadelphia homes, as in 
 William Meredith s, he was a welcome guest. Both 
 Mr. Meredith and his wife, who was Gertrude Gouver- 
 neur Ogden, a niece of Gouverneur Morris, were con 
 tributors to the u Port Folio " and were members of 
 Dennie s little coterie. 
 
 He was noted for the great care he gave to his per 
 sonal appearance. When in the street he dressed at 
 " the highest notch of fashion." An old printer s 
 devil, who once waited at his elbow for " copy," re 
 calls a morning in May when Dennie sat at his desk 
 in a pea-green coat, a white vest and nankin small 
 clothes, tied at the knees with long bows of colored rib- 
 
THE PORT FOLIO 183 
 
 bon. His lower limbs were grandly swathed in white 
 silk stockings and upon his feet were pumps ornamented 
 with great silver shoe buckles. His hair was pow 
 dered, frizzed and made heavy with pomatum, while 
 adown his back hung a false tail or queue wrapped in 
 yards of black silk. 
 
 His death came on January 7, 1812, at the age of 
 forty-four. He had long struggled with ill-health, 
 misfortune and broken credit. He had aimed to serve 
 only " the most illustrious descriptions of American so 
 ciety the liberal, the ladies, the lawyers, the clergy, 
 and all the gentlemen and cavaliers of Columbia," and 
 they alone grieved at his departure. He was interred 
 in St. Peter s Church-yard, where his friends placed a 
 column over his grave. The inscription on the stone, 
 said to have been written by John Quincy Adams, 
 runs: 
 
 " Endowed with talent and qualified by education 
 
 To adorn the Senate and the Bar; 
 But following the impulse of a genius 
 
 Formed for converse with the muses, 
 He devoted his life to the literature of his country. 
 
 As author of the Lay Preacher, 
 And as first editor of the Port Folio, 
 He contributed to chasten the morals and to 
 
 Refine the taste of this nation. 
 To an imagination lively, not licentious, 
 
 A wit sportive, not wanton, 
 And a heart without guile, he 
 United a deep sensibility, which endeared 
 
 Him to his friends, and an ardent piety 
 Which we humbly trust recommended him 
 To his God." 
 
184 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 The members of the group who had assisted in sup 
 porting the " Port Folio " in Dennie s lifetime were 
 determined that after his death the magazine should 
 continue upon its course as the representative of higher 
 literary ideals. Paul Allen, born in Providence in 
 1 11S > a graduate of Brown University, had come to 
 Philadelphia shortly before Dennie relinquished his in 
 secure hold upon life, to assist the editor, but he was 
 indolent and impecunious and was allowed to pass on 
 to Baltimore, where he led a varied career as a news 
 paper editor. Nicholas Biddle was soon selected for 
 Dennie s post. A handsome and brilliant young 
 Philadelphian, who had been ready to graduate at the 
 University of Pennsylvania when only thirteen years 
 of age, he was still little more than twenty-five. The 
 principal subject of his interest was the fine arts, and he 
 contributed to the magazine a number of biographical 
 and critical papers on the old masters. But already in 
 the legislature of Pennsylvania he was being swept into 
 that political career which was to culminate in the mem 
 orable contest with Andrew Jackson over the United 
 States Bank, and early in 1814 Dr. Charles Caldwell 
 was invited by the publisher of the " Port Folio " to 
 undertake the editorship. He entered upon his tasks 
 at once and continued in the place until the end of 1815, 
 when financial disasters led to another change of pro 
 prietors. 
 
 Caldwell was a tall, fine-looking North Carolinian. 
 He came to Philadelphia in 1792, when about twenty 
 years of age, to study medicine, and aspired to be the 
 rival of Rush, Barton and Wistar in the University s 
 medical faculty, a \vish that, owing to his disputatious 
 manner, was not to be gratified. He was a careful 
 
THE PORT FOLIO 185 
 
 student of the yellow fever epidemics, frequently cross 
 ing swords with Doctor Rush. Thrice he himself was 
 attacked with the disease none escaped all his 
 teeth rotting in their gums after he was dosed with 
 Rush s mercury. As a scientist he gained a good deal 
 of repute, in spite of his flirtations with, phrenology, and 
 he was gifted besides as an orator and a writer upon 
 a great variety of subjects. As the editor of the u Port 
 Folio " he particularly strove to obtain full reports of 
 military movements on land and sea during the War 
 of 1812, and through his friendship with many officers 
 was successful to such an extent that they reported their 
 movements to him as regularly as to the War and Navy 
 Departments at Washington. General Jacob Brown, 
 " the fighting Quaker schoolmaster," a native of Bucks 
 County, who had conducted att"invasion of Canada, at 
 the time a great popular hero, was a devoted corre 
 spondent of the " Port Folio." 
 
 Among Dr. Caldwell s assistants in the editorship 
 of the magazine was Dr. Thomas Cooper, a friend of 
 Dr. Priestley, whom he had followed to this country 
 from England. Like Priestley, Cooper was a chemist, 
 and like him, too, held Jacobinical views. Going to 
 France, he had been a member for a time of the Na 
 tional Assembly until a personal rencontre with Robes 
 pierre forced him to flee the country. For three years 
 he had been professor of chemistry in Dickinson Col 
 lege, and afterward came to Philadelphia, soon to take 
 a similar place in the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Although a professorship of geology and the philos 
 ophy of natural history had now been created for Dr. 
 Caldwell in the new " Faculty of Physical Sciences " 
 at the University of Pennsylvania, he was ready to 
 
i86 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 leave Philadelphia. The city, he believed, had not 
 done so well by him as his talents deserved, and with 
 several offers at his hand he, in 1819, accepted an in 
 vitation to establish a medical school in the Mississippi 
 valley, at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky. 
 Later he removed to Louisville and died there in 1853. 
 Dr. Cooper found his way to Columbia College, South 
 Carolina, of which he rose to be president. He and 
 Cooper were the first, says Caldwell, in some pride in 
 his interesting autobiography, " that had the independ 
 ence and enterprise to sever an official connection with 
 the University of Pennsylvania and issue from that 
 medical emporium for the express purpose of establish 
 ing schools of medicine in the other parts of the United 
 States." 
 
 At the end of Caldwell s editorship of the " Port 
 Folio," that magazine passed into the hands of the 
 Halls there were three or four brothers to re 
 ceive the particular direction of John E. Hall. Ever 
 since Dennie s death it had continued to be edited by 
 "Oliver Oldschool, Esq.," and Hall called himself 
 " Oliver Oldschool, the Fourth." His mother was 
 Sarah Hall, a daughter of Provost Ewing of the Uni 
 versity of Pennsylvania, she herself being the author of 
 a popular and much read book, " Conversations on the 
 Bible," and a frequent contributor to the " Port Folio." 
 John E. Hall was born in 1783. He was educated at 
 Princeton and read law in Philadelphia under Judge 
 Hopkinson. He practised for a time at Baltimore and 
 was a leading character in the riot at the house of Alex 
 ander C. Hanson in 1812. Hanson, the editor of a 
 Federalist newspaper, Hall and several other Feder 
 alists were attacked by a mob. After a successful dc- 
 
IS 
 
 i ~ 
 
 g 2 
 . w 
 S n 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
THE PORT FOLIO 187 
 
 fence they surrendered themselves to the sheriff, who 
 placed them in the jail for safe keeping. There they 
 were attacked again and Hall was one of nine whom 
 the ruffians threw in a pile and left for dead. This ex 
 perience caused him to leave Baltimore. For nine 
 years he had edited the " American Law Journal " and, 
 a deeply interested student of literature as well as a 
 graceful writer, he took charge of the " Port Folio " 
 at the beginning of the year 1816. 
 
 The success which attended the journal was still not 
 large. For no publication were there many readers. 
 In 1810 there were nine daily papers in Philadelphia, 
 but Judge Hopkinson computed that they all together 
 circulated not more than 15,000 copies. For literary 
 journals there was proportionately less encourage 
 ment. The magazine continued to appear each month, 
 however, until 1820, when it was converted into 
 a quarterly, patterned after the large British reviews. 
 Each number contained upwards of 250 pages octavo. 
 Later there was a return to monthly issues, but in De 
 cember, 1825, the editor determined to suspend the 
 work. 
 
 Many of the subscribers who had been receiving the 
 magazine for years did not contribute one cent to its 
 support. In vain did the editor remind them that 
 " several thousand copies of a monthly magazine in 
 London are paid for before the sheets are dry from the 
 press." The people were asked to remove this " stigma 
 from our national literature." But the stigma re 
 mained. For the first six months of 1826 the " Port 
 Folio " did not appear, although in July of that year 
 Mr. Hall projected a new series which, because of his 
 declining health and the paltry financial encouragement 
 
i88 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 he received, was suspended finally in 1827. He died 
 in 1829. 
 
 Such was the career of one of the most famous of 
 all the periodical publications of America. From be 
 ginning to end it had served the country well without 
 shadow of turning from the straight and narrow way. 
 Its ideals were always high, its services to letters in the 
 United States signally honorable. Under Dennie it 
 had been brilliant, and under those who followed him 
 always good. When it could be that no longer the 
 " Port Folio " was " locked up," the fate which its 
 first editor would have wished for it in that event. 
 
 " Politics and plans of practical utility now engross 
 the public mind almost to the exclusion of native litera 
 ture," Oliver Oldschool, the Fourth complained in 
 1825. It was the age of Andrew Jackson, when em 
 pire was invading the west and democracy, made fluid, 
 was to be cast in another and a larger mould. Reading 
 was to be a pastime for Dennie s despised " million," 
 and Philadelphia s publishers and authors were also to 
 be the leaders in this new movement to bring books and 
 magazines to the ken of growing numbers of men. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 IN TRANSITION 
 
 Descending through Franklin s Junto, Mrs. Fergu 
 son s Saturday Evenings, and Dennie s Tuesday Club, 
 we come into the presence of Robert Walsh s Soirees 
 and the famous Wistar Parties. If Charles Brockden 
 Brown and Joseph Dennie were at their time the only 
 men in America who had yet depended upon letters for 
 their bread and butter, others were coming on to tempt 
 the Fates for love of literature to content themselves 
 with its meagre rewards. Most of the writers in Den 
 nie s group were young dilettante who were to achieve 
 their principal successes in other fields, as in law, states 
 manship or medicine. Such were Nicholas Biddle, 
 Richard Rush, Nathaniel Chapman, Horace Binney, 
 and Charles Jared Ingersoll. Robert Walsh was of 
 another class, and while fortunately he need not solely 
 rely upon his pen for a living, he was by profession a 
 literary man. 
 
 While Dennie s was a somewhat careless company, 
 Walsh drew about him the more serious culture of the 
 city. Statesmen, bishops, foreign ministers and 
 savants revolved in his circle. Writing and conversa 
 tion with him were highly responsible pursuits, and the 
 lighter view of life taken by Dennie, Tom Moore and 
 a later English invader of Philadelphia s literary group, 
 William Makepeace Thackeray, was not for Mr. 
 Walsh. This elegant gentleman and polished littera- 
 
 189 
 
LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 teur was born in Baltimore in 1785. He was the son 
 of an Irish peer, Count Walsh and Baron Shannon, by 
 a Pennsylvania Quakeress, and at his father s death 
 might have assumed these titles. He, however, ab 
 jured the marks of a noble lineage, being happy to be 
 regarded as the citizen of a democratic nation, which 
 he for a long time endeavored to improve and civilize. 
 He was educated at Catholic colleges in Baltimore and 
 Washington and always remained true to the faith of 
 his ancestors. For years, as a young man, he travelled 
 and studied in Europe and came back to be a lawyer in 
 Philadelphia, where he was admitted to the bar about 
 1808. Deafness prevented him from practising the 
 profession he had embraced, whereupon he found solac 
 ing employment in his pen. He wrote frequently for 
 the "Port Folio, " and in 1811 published a pamphlet 
 of the proportions of a large book, his " Letter on the 
 Genius and Dispositions of the French Government." 
 At the moment of its appearance, public sensibilities 
 were highly wrought up over international questions 
 and American sympathy for France, to the disadvan 
 tage of Great Britain, was still running in a current of 
 dangerous strength. Never before had Napoleon been 
 handled so vigorously. The book was a strong protest, 
 in fine diction, against the desolation of Europe, and it 
 at once aroused deep and general attention in England, 
 as in this country. It passed through twelve editions 
 in six weeks in London, so eager were English readers 
 to peruse it. " We must learn to love the Americans 
 when they send us such books as this," wrote Jeffrey, the 
 critical autocrat of the day in Great Britain. 
 
 About this time, in January, 1811, Walsh projected 
 his " American Review of History and Politics, and 
 
IN TRANSITION 191 
 
 General Repository of Literature and State Papers," 
 the first quarterly journal to appear in the United States. 
 Dana and his friends did not secure control of the re 
 cently founded " North American Review " at Boston 
 to launch it on its famous career until 1815, and the 
 " Port Folio " was not ready to begin its brief life as 
 a quarterly until 1820. Walsh s quarterly was pub 
 lished by Farrand and Nicholas, and its chief ends, 
 " to which the most indefatigable attention will be given 
 and for which ample resources will be provided," the 
 prospectus ran, " are the propagation of sound political 
 doctrines and the direction and improvement of the 
 literary taste of the American people." It must be said 
 to his honor that the editor kept this high purpose con 
 stantly in view. The leading article in the first number 
 concerned the relations of the United States and France, 
 and it alone filled eighty-eight closely printed pages 
 written by the editor, who also contributed to his mag 
 azine a series of letters on France and England, extend 
 ing through several issues, and based upon the knowl 
 edge he had gained during his recent residence in those 
 countries. These essays upon higher political, espe 
 cially international, matters, were printed side by side 
 with long and exhaustive reviews of the principal new 
 literary works, whether in English or foreign languages. 
 All were learnedly considered. Among the works thus 
 brought under review were Carlo Botta s " History of 
 Our War of Independence " in Italian, " Kotzebue s 
 " History of Prussia " and Goethe s novel, " Die Wahl- 
 verwandtschaften " in German; together with many new 
 French publications. Scott s " Lady of the Lake," of 
 which a Philadelphia publisher sold one thousand copies 
 in a few weeks, so popular were the author s poems in 
 
I 9 2 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 America at that time, and Dugald Stewart s essays were 
 reviewed appreciatively and at length. Alexander 
 Hamilton s works, which had just been compiled, were 
 the subject of two long articles in the " Review." In 
 addition to about two hundred pages of original mat 
 ter, Mr. Walsh gave his subscribers, in an appendix* to 
 each number, sixty to one hundred pages of state pa 
 pers, lately issued by the principal governments of the 
 world, involving laborious translation from foreign 
 languages. The editor complained less of the lack of 
 subscribers than of the difficulty he experienced in find 
 ing contributors for his review. Nevertheless, the pub 
 lishers failed late in 1812 and Mr. Walsh was obliged 
 to put out the eighth and last number of his quarterly 
 at his own expense, thus ending his literary experiment, 
 though not without the promise of returning to it soon 
 with new vigor. 
 
 In 1817 he issued the "American Register or Sum 
 mary Review of History and Politics and Literature," 
 an annual review like Charles Brockden Brown s pub 
 lication of a similar name. It appeared for two years. 
 Mr. Walsh was now compiling and writing the per 
 sonal sketches to accompany an edition of the English 
 poets in fifty small volumes, a work projected by a 
 Philadelphia publishing house, and in 1819 brought 
 out his " Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain 
 Respecting the United States of America." In his 
 quarterly magazine he had been instant in and out of 
 season in his efforts to defend America against the mis 
 representation and supercilious criticism of Englishmen. 
 His interest in this direction finally led him to write a 
 large volume which took the form of a history of the 
 " political and mercantile jealousy of Great Britain," 
 
ROBERT WALSH 
 
 From a portrait in possession of his grandson, Dr. J. F. Walsh 
 
IN TRANSITION 193 
 
 the rise and development of the American colonies, the 
 establishment of separate government on this continent, 
 with an examination of various attacks upon American 
 taste, character, customs and aspirations, and the 
 grounds upon which they were based. The work at 
 tracted a vast amount of attention, and for it Mr. 
 Walsh was publicly and privately congratulated. He 
 received personal letters from Thomas Jefferson, John 
 Adams, John Quincy Adams and other eminent char 
 acters. Some of the historical matter which he assem 
 bled is said to have suggested to Longfellow the writing 
 of " Evangeline." 
 
 In 1820, when public excitement over the Missouri 
 Compromise had reached some height, a group of gen 
 tlemen headed by Roberts Vaux, a prominent lawyer 
 and anti-slavery advocate, induced Mr. Walsh to form 
 a partnership with William Fry, the bookseller, for the 
 publication of a newspaper, the " National Gazette and 
 Literary Register." Poulson s " Advertiser," the prin 
 cipal paper of the city, was neutral on this absorbing 
 question and the need of an outspoken organ was keenly 
 felt. For a few months it was published twice a week, 
 and after November i, 1820, daily, in the evening. It 
 was said of Walsh s " Gazette " that u for the union of 
 political sagacity and independence, with literary ful 
 ness, taste and skill," it had not been surpassed in Amer 
 ica. Indeed, no publication which its editor served 
 could fail to reflect a high critical sense in the treatment 
 of political and literary questions. 
 
 Mr. Walsh was connected with the " Gazette " for 
 fifteen years, or until about 1835, when he went abroad, 
 the paper being merged at length with the Philadelphia 
 " Inquirer. 
 
194 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 In the meantime, in 1822, Mr. Walsh was identified 
 with another adventure in letters. He undertook to 
 compile for the publisher, Eliakim Littell, in Chestnut 
 Street, the u Museum of Foreign Literature and Sci 
 ence," a monthly budget of about one hundred pages of 
 articles taken from the best British reviews and maga 
 zines. It was issued for more than twenty years, al 
 though Walsh s connection with it was brief being 
 taken at length to New York. Littell himself removed 
 to Boston, where he started a similar eclectic publica 
 tion, u Littell s Living Age," long and favorably known 
 in the literary homes of America. 
 
 Mr. Walsh now found the occasion to resuscitate his 
 quarterly magazine. In 1827 Carey and Lea began to 
 issue under his direction the u American Quarterly Re 
 view." Like its less fortunate precursor of 1811 and 
 1812, it was a quarterly collection of high-minded essays 
 upon political and literary topics. A book, or group of 
 books, recently issued by the American, English or Con 
 tinental presses, formed the text for the writers who in 
 these pages carried criticism to a higher point than it had 
 reached before or has ever reached since in this city. 
 Carey continued to publish the Philadelphia quarterly 
 until 1834, when Walsh seems to have left it also. 
 Subsequently it had several editors and no less than 
 three publishers, ceasing to appear after 1837. Al 
 though when near the end of its days it was at times 
 somewhat irresponsible and ribald in its judgments, the 
 series in these eleven years forty-four numbers, mak 
 ing twenty-two large volumes, appeared is a contri 
 bution to American critical literature of lasting impor 
 tance. 
 
 Bodily infirmities barred Mr. Walsh from many en- 
 
AMERICAN QUARTERLY REVIEW. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 MARCH, 1827 
 
 ART. I. AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 American Biographical and Historical Diction 
 ary, Sec. By WILLIAM ALLEN, A. M..-- Cambridge, 
 (Mass.) 1809. 
 
 Biographical Dictionary, containing a Brief *ftc- 
 count of the First Settlers, and other Eminent Cha 
 racters in New-England. By JOHN ELIOT, I). D. 
 
 3. Delaplaine s Repository of Ike Lives and PorJtaits of 
 Distinguished Americans. Philadelphia. *1817. 
 
 "L Biograplvy of the Signers of the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence. By JOHN SANDERSON. 6 vols. Philadelphia. 
 1820-4. 
 
 3. Biographical Sketches, of eminent Lawyers, States- 
 men, and Men of Letters. By SAMUEL L. KNAPP. 
 Boston. 1821. 
 
 6. Ji New American Biographical Dictionary ; or, Re 
 membrancer of the Departed Heroes, Sages, and 
 Statesmen of America. Compiled by THOMAS J. 
 RODGER*. Third edition. Easton, (Penn.) 1824. 
 
 WE do not know that better ideas of the true nature and ex 
 cellence of BIOGRAPHY are any where to be found, much 
 as has been written on those topics than in Drydcn s Notice 
 of Plutarch, prefixed to the version of Plutarch s Lives, 
 which was published in London near the end of the. seven 
 teenth century, and on which forty-one translators Mad been 
 L NO- U 2 
 
 FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF WALSH S " QUARTERLY " 
 
196 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 joyments, but music was a passion with him through life. 
 His deafness did not prevent him from deriving keen 
 pleasure from his musical soirees, at which were gath 
 ered together men so varied in their interests and feel 
 ings as the Episcopal Bishop White, the Roman Catholic 
 Bishop Cheverus, William Ellery Channing when he 
 came to Philadelphia, Mr. Duponceau, Mr. Biddle, Dr. 
 Nathaniel Chapman, and chosen spirits from the group 
 that sustained the Wistar Parties. Of the soirees a 
 friend said that " not to know them was to be yourself 
 unknown." Walsh s home was long the meeting- 
 ground for intellectuels of all varieties. Some of the 
 foreign ministers continued to live in Philadelphia, al 
 though the principal legations had been removed to 
 Washington. Many found their way into his circle. 
 New Englanders visiting the city met a most hospitable 
 host. " To smatter French and thrum the piano used 
 to be the standard of education in the city of Brotherly 
 Love," said the Boston u Transcript " rather supercili 
 ously. Here other ideals were cultivated. * What of 
 the genuine literary tone, feeling, taste and knowledge 
 Philadelphia could boast either in her society, her press, 
 or her hospitality," continued the " Transcript," " was 
 long centred in the person, the writings and the home 
 of Robert Walsh." 
 
 Such sneers were not well deserved, as may be guessed 
 by any one who has read this work up to the present 
 point. Philadelphia, in truth, as the New York u Trib 
 une " observed when reviewing Walsh s life, was at the 
 time " the centre of commerce, finance, letters and sci 
 ence of the Union." It was with Philadelphia s active 
 and enterprising publishers that he found employment 
 for his active mind. He was " a literary and historical 
 
IN TRANSITION 197 
 
 link," wrote William Henry Fry, the composer and 
 musical critic, between Jefferson, Madison and Hamil 
 ton, and the great figures of a newer age just beginning 
 to loom indistinctly and uncertainly in the mists. 
 
 The times were not growing better for aristocrats, 
 and by his political writings Mr. Walsh made enemies 
 who were as ribald in their abuse of the substantial 
 group to which he belonged as Paine, Bache, Duane or 
 Freneau had ever been. 
 
 Deficient in imagination and not ready of speech, it 
 was said that his deafness was an affectation, so that he 
 could hide his " incapacity of repartee " at the Wistar 
 Parties. " The dividend aristocracy had died off rap 
 idly and left no issue," whereupon Mr. Walsh, selling 
 his interest in his newspaper to his partner, William Fry, 
 " one of the party of the old income aristocrats living 
 on rents and dividends and luxuriating on literature and 
 the rose water smell of the British constitution," left 
 Philadelphia about 1835 to make his home in future in 
 Paris. There again he was the centre of a literary 
 group, which included Guizot, Thiers, Dupin, Michel 
 Chevalier, and many distinguished and scholarly French 
 men. Eminent Americans, travelling abroad, found a 
 warm welcome at his hearth and fireside. In 1845 
 President Tyler, at the friendly instigation of Nicholas 
 Biddle and Daniel Webster, appointed him Consul-Gen 
 eral of the United States in Paris, and he held the office 
 through the administrations of Polk and Taylor, to be 
 removed by Fillmore, because of some statements in the 
 newspapers for which he continued regularly to corre 
 spond. He died in 1858, having for seventy-five years 
 kept alive his frail body by his remarkably zestful in 
 tellect. Probably no American of his age knew inti- 
 
198 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 mately so many celebrated men and women in so many 
 different lands. 
 
 The Wistar Parties extended over the same gen 
 eral period covered by Dennie s Tuesday Club and 
 Walsh s Soirees and were continued long after the death 
 of him who gave them life, having been revived, indeed, 
 at a recent date after an era of desuetude. Philadel 
 phia s pre-eminence as a scientific centre, not only in med 
 icine but also in various departments of natural history, 
 was widely acknowledged. The most remarkable name 
 in the history of medicine in Philadelphia after Dr. 
 Rush, is that of Dr. Caspar Wistar. Two brothers, 
 Richard and Caspar, descendants of a German Quaker 
 who settled in Philadelphia in 1717, attained to prom 
 inence, Richard as a merchant, Caspar in science. The 
 latter is said to have felt his attraction to medicine by 
 observing the unrelieved sufferings of the wounded sol 
 diers after the battle of Germantown. Completing his 
 course in the Medical Department of the University of 
 Pennsylvania, he went abroad to pursue his studies at 
 London and Edinburgh, and took his degree at the 
 Scottish university in 1786. Upon his return to Amer 
 ica he became professor of chemistry in the College of 
 Philadelphia. When it joined the University of Penn 
 sylvania he was appointed an associate professor of anat 
 omy, and at the death of Dr. Shippen in 1808 he was 
 made a full professor of a subject in which he was one 
 of the highest authorities of his time. His principal 
 published work was his " System of Anatomy," said to 
 have been the first American treatise on that branch 
 of medical science. As a teacher and a practitioner, he 
 enjoyed equal renown. He was a Vice-President of the 
 American Philosophical Society from 1795 until 1815, 
 
IN TRANSITION 199 
 
 when he succeeded Thomas Jefferson as President, hold 
 ing that post until his early death in 1818. 
 
 During his illness so many people called at the house 
 to inquire for him that the physicians in attendance 
 were obliged to issue bulletins and place them upon the 
 table in the hall. " The crowd that formed his funeral 
 procession/ we are told, " might be almost pronounced 
 the population of Philadelphia." Dr. Charles Cald- 
 well perhaps judged him justly when he wrote : " Dr. 
 Wistar did not possess talents of the very highest order, 
 yet did he employ them with such dexterity and im- 
 pressiveness as to produce effects which were rarely 
 reached, and in the same sphere and under like circum 
 stances never surpassed by men of the highest and hap 
 piest talents." 
 
 Dr. Wistar resided at the south-west corner of Fourth 
 and Locust Streets, where he received his friends on 
 Sunday evenings. Once a week from November until 
 April from fifteen to thirty persons gathered at his house, 
 the time of meeting being changed in 1811 from Sun 
 day to Saturday. After his death the members of the 
 group, unwilling to abandon the pleasures of weekly 
 intercourse, formed a kind of association and the " par 
 ties " were held at uncertain times at their various 
 homes. Subsequently for many years invitations con 
 taining Wistar s portrait, which Thackeray, after at 
 tending a meeting, remembered as the " hospitable pig- 
 tailed shade," were received by the literati of America 
 and Europe when they visited the city. At various 
 times Alexander von Humboldt on his return from 
 South America; General Jean Victor Moreau, held to 
 be the greatest general in France after Bonaparte, and 
 who lived for a time in Philadelphia and in Robert 
 
200 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Morris s house at Morrisville, Pa., later to return to 
 Europe to be killed in the battle of Dresden; Prince 
 Murat, son of Napoleon s King of the Sicilies; the Duke 
 of Saxe-Weimar; Thomas Moore, when he was enjoy 
 ing the society of Dennie; James Madison, Le Sueur, 
 the French naturalist; John Quincy Adams; Commodore 
 Barron; Charles Carroll of Carrollton; Charles Lucien 
 Bonaparte; the Prince de Canino and Musignano; Gen- 
 erino Persico, the sculptor; and a great number of na 
 tive and foreign dignitaries, European travellers and 
 refugees, were entertained by the club, which was made 
 up for the most part of active members of the American 
 Philosophical Society. The local group included the 
 more prominent of Dennie s literary friends : Robert 
 Walsh, Judge Hopkinson, William Meredith, Horace 
 Binney, Charles Jared Ingersoll, a substantial company 
 gleaned from the bar, the university and the highways 
 and byways of learning, changing as the years passed 
 and new men came forward to direct the city s intel 
 lectual life, bringing into its fold Mathew and Henry 
 C. Carey, Alexander James Dallas, the Baches, Charles 
 Willson Peale, Dr. George B. Wood, Judge Kane, Dr. 
 Isaac Hayes, Dr. Robert Hare, Langdon Cheves, the 
 South Carolina statesman who lived for a time in Phila 
 delphia, while President of the United States Bank, and 
 afterward in Lancaster; Dr. R. M. Patterson, Dr. 
 W. H. Furness, Isaac Lea, William Tilghman, Bronson 
 Alcott, Thomas Nuttall, Thomas Say, Correa da Serra, 
 and many others. 
 
 Wistar did not stand alone in this period to orna 
 ment and dignify the science of medicine. There were 
 also Dr. Philip Syng Physick and Dr. Nathaniel Chap 
 man. 
 
IN TRANSITION 201 
 
 Physick is often and justly called " the father of 
 American surgery." Born in Philadelphia in 1768, he 
 studied at the University of Pennsylvania and later in 
 London under the celebrated John Hunter. Like Wis- 
 tar, he graduated at Edinburgh (1792), whereupon he 
 returned to Philadelphia to practice his profession. In 
 1805 a chair in surgery was created for him at the 
 University of Pennsylvania, with which institution he 
 was prominently connected, until in 1831 failing health 
 compelled him to retire from his place. 
 
 Physick s contemporary, Chapman, was descended 
 from an old Virginia family. He came to Philadelphia 
 in 1797 to study under Dr. Rush, and later went abroad 
 to attend the lectures at Edinburgh, then the most fa 
 mous of British medical schools. Upon his return, he 
 settled in Philadelphia, entered the faculty of the Uni 
 versity of Pennsylvania in 1813, and held a professor 
 ship there for forty years, or until his death in 1853. 
 While Physick shunned society, being, as Dr. Caldwell 
 said, " one of the most single-hearted and unostenta 
 tious of men," Chapman was noted for his sociability, 
 courtliness and wit. He wrote in the general field of 
 literature as well as in his own branches of science. 
 For a number of years he was President of the Amer 
 ican Philosophical Society, and held many posts which 
 identified him with the city. 
 
 In natural history, the period connects Philadelphia 
 with the names of Ord, Bonaparte, Audubon, Say, Nut- 
 tall and Darlington. 
 
 George Ord and Charles Lucien Bonaparte were or 
 nithologists whose work closely joins their careers with 
 Alexander Wilson s. Ord was a native of Philadel 
 phia and died there in 1866, at eighty-five years of age. 
 
202 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 The companion of Wilson on many rambles and quests, 
 he completed the volumes left unfinished by that eminent 
 naturalist, later issuing a biography of his master and 
 friend. 
 
 Bonaparte went farther and described and pictured 
 many species of American birds which had not been 
 met with by Wilson in his travels. The son of .Lucien 
 Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, he married his cousin, 
 a daughter of Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain, emi 
 grating with the latter to Philadelphia in the twenties. 
 His supplement to Wilson s " Ornithology " comprises 
 four volumes and treats of not less than one hundred 
 new species. The work was published in Philadelphia 
 from 1825 to 1833. After a few years in this country, 
 Bonaparte removed to Italy, where he interested himself 
 in the birds of Europe, becoming a leader in the Revo 
 lution of 1848. He died in Paris in 1857 with a 
 greater reputation as a naturalist than in statecraft. 
 
 A rival of Wilson and his disciples, a man who at 
 tained to still greater distinction as an ornithologist, was 
 John James Audubon. The foundations for his colos 
 sal work, " The Birds of America," were laid within 
 sound of Philadelphia. Audubon s father was a French 
 naval officer, who lived for a time on a plantation in 
 Louisiana, then a French possession. There the orni 
 thologist was born about 1780. When he was still 
 very young, the family returned to France and he was 
 sent to Paris to study art under the celebrated painter 
 David. Upon coming back to America, it was to re 
 side on a farm of 285 acres, called " Mill Grove," on 
 the banks of the Schuylkill where it is joined by Perki- 
 omen Creek, a few miles north of Norristown, in Mont 
 gomery County, near a village recently rechristened 
 
cs 
 
IN TRANSITION 203 
 
 Audubon in honor of the great naturalist. The tract is 
 now owned by Wm. H. Wetherill, who values the asso 
 ciation, having appropriately marked the gateway to the 
 mansion that passers-by may know the history of the 
 place. 
 
 Audubon s father had owned this farm for a long 
 time and it was presented to the boy, who went there to 
 live with the Quaker tenant and his family. He re 
 mained for several years, varying unsuccessful commer 
 cial adventures with his scientific rambles, when he was 
 not seeking his own pleasure. On this farm Audubon 
 freely indulged his love of nature. u Its fine woodlands, 
 its extensive fields, its hills crowned with evergreens," he 
 wrote in recalling this life, " offered many subjects for 
 agreeable studies with as little concern about the future 
 as if the world had been made for me." The house 
 became a veritable museum, filled as it was with stuffed 
 quadrupeds and birds, bird-skins, birds eggs and other 
 relics of the hunt. 
 
 In 1808, Audubon married Lucy Bakewell, the 
 daughter of a cultivated Englishman who occupied an 
 adjoining farm. Prospective family obligations spurred 
 him to new commercial exertions, and, taking his bride 
 with him, he removed to Kentucky in the hope of find 
 ing fortune in new fields, but with no better success. 
 " For a period of twenty years," Audubon wrote, " my 
 life was a succession of vicissitudes. I tried various 
 branches of commerce but they all proved unprofitable, 
 doubtless because my whole mind was ever filled with 
 my passion for rambling and admiring those objects of 
 nature from which alone I received the purest gratifica 
 tion." 
 
 In the entire long record of science, it is doubtful 
 
204 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 if nature has ever had a more devoted student, with zeal 
 to surmount so many apparently insuperable obstacles. 
 Once he was embarked upon his life as an ornithologist, 
 Audubon abandoned every other interest. For many 
 years he was separated from his family. One time 
 during an absence he found that 200 of his drawings 
 which were put in a box for safe-keeping had been 
 destroyed by the rats. He returned to the wilderness 
 until he had refilled his portfolio. The engravers of 
 Wilson s and Bonaparte s volumes in Philadelphia, 
 which he visited in 1824, declared that they could not 
 work from his drawings. Thereupon, in 1826, the 
 scientist went to England, where he found an appreci 
 ative reception, although he constantly longed for the 
 American field, swamp and wild wood. " I hate it, 
 yes, I cordially hate London, and yet cannot escape 
 from it," he wrote. ; I neither can write my journal 
 when here nor draw well, and, if I walk to the fields 
 around, the very voice of the sweet birds I hear has no 
 longer any charm for me, the pleasure being too much 
 mingled with the idea that in another hour all will again 
 be bustle, filth and smoke. " 
 
 One day in London " the weather was shocking; a 
 dog would scarce have turned out to hunt the finest of 
 game." 
 
 In France Audubon was not much happier. " I 
 travelled from Paris to Boulogne with two nuns that 
 might as well be struck off the calendar of animated 
 beings," he wrote on one occasion. They stirred 
 not, they spoke not, they saw not; they replied neither 
 by word nor gesture to the few remarks I made. In 
 the woods of America I have never been in such silence; 
 for in the most retired places I have had the gentle mur- 
 
IN TRANSITION 205 
 
 muring streamlet, or the sound of the woodpecker tap 
 ping, or the sweet, melodious strains of that lovely re 
 cluse, my greatest favorite, the wood-thrush." 
 
 He had no overpowering respect even for the greatest 
 of the men he met. He had had a letter of introduc 
 tion to Francis Jeffrey of the " Edinburgh Review." 
 " He never came near me and I never went near him," 
 the great ornithologist wrote, " for if he was Jeffrey 
 I was Audubon and felt quite independent of all the 
 tribe of Jeffreys in England, Scotland and Ireland put 
 together." One distinguished personage, to whom he 
 was presented, he described as " a monstrously ugly old 
 man with a wig that might make a capital bed for an 
 Osage Indian during the whole of a cold winter on the 
 Arkansas River." 
 
 He asked for 175 subscribers for his plates at about 
 $1,000 the set. The kings of England and France 
 placed their names upon his subscription list and the 
 work of publication began at London in 1827. The 
 first volume was completed in 1830 and the fourth and 
 last the entire series comprises 435 plates in 1838. 
 When his arrangements for this work were completed, 
 Audubon wrote his " Ornithological Biography," or the 
 descriptions of the birds which he had pictured and of 
 the adventures through which he had passed in collect 
 ing his specimens. This notable contribution to science, 
 comprising five volumes, appeared in Edinburgh. 
 
 In his last years, though always a wanderer, Audu 
 bon lived on the banks of the Hudson on a tract now 
 included within the limits of New York City, where he 
 died in 1851 while in the midst of a work on the quad 
 rupeds of America, as Wilson had been at the time his 
 
ao6 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 labors were interrupted by the summons to another 
 world. 
 
 Thomas Say, a remarkable entomologist, came of a 
 Quaker family which had early established itself in Phil 
 adelphia. His father, Benjamin Say, was a well-known 
 physician, and settled the son in the drug business, which 
 was soon abandoned for the study of insects. His part 
 ner in the apothecary shop, John Speakman, with some 
 other young men, had founded the Academy of Natural 
 Sciences in 1812, and in its hall Say lived in the hum 
 blest way, pursuing his scientific investigations. He 
 slept beneath the skeleton of a horse and was nourished 
 chiefly by bread and milk, a process by which he is said 
 to have put the problem of living upon a basis of twelve 
 cents a day. He made many expeditions alone and with 
 parties of government engineers, geographers and sci 
 entists, pursuing his studies in all parts of the country. 
 At length he became interested in Robert Owen s com 
 munistic settlement at New Harmony, Ind., and re 
 moved thither in 1825. His chief work, "American 
 Entomology," in three handsomely illustrated volumes, 
 was published in Philadelphia, beginning with 1824. 
 Before his death, which occurred in 1834, he had turned 
 his attention to conchology, but he left his studies in that 
 field very incomplete. 
 
 Botany, which had been so faithfully studied and 
 taught in Philadelphia by the Bartrams, father and son; 
 Dr. Benjamin S. Barton, of the University of Pennsyl 
 vania; and Humphry Marshall of Marshallton, Chester 
 County, a kinsman of the Bartrams who had his Ar 
 boretum or botanic garden, which was long an object of 
 interest in the neighborhood, although today in great 
 decay, was now capably represented by William Dar- 
 
IN TRANSITION 207 
 
 lington, also of Chester County, Abbe Correa da Serra 
 and Thomas Nuttall. 
 
 Darlington came of an old Quaker family. He grad 
 uated in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, 
 where he was a pupil of Barton s, practised his profes 
 sion in West Chester, served in Congress, and studied 
 botany, in which science he gained international distinc 
 tion. 
 
 Joseph Francisco Correa da Serra was a Portuguese 
 botanist who, after long residence in Paris, came to this 
 country to continue his studies in natural history. In 
 Philadelphia he lectured upon his science and invigor 
 ated the study of it in the group of which he was a dis 
 tinguished member. While still here he was appointed 
 Portugal s Minister to the United States and afterward 
 returned to his own country, where his death occurred 
 in 1823.* 
 
 Thomas Nuttall was the greatest botanist of the 
 group. A Yorkshire Englishman, at twenty-two he 
 came to Philadelphia, finding employment at the print 
 ing trade. Becoming interested in the names of flowers 
 which he discovered while rambling on the banks of the 
 Schuylkill, he received kindnesses from William Bar- 
 tram and Professor Barton, to whom he applied for 
 guidance and information. Supported out of the 
 purses of Professor Barton, Correa da Serra, Zaccheus 
 Collins, a Quaker philanthropist interested in the nat 
 ural sciences, and others, Nuttall undertook a remark 
 able series of journeys into the interior. He made 
 friends with the Indians, of whom he complained that, 
 while his back was turned, they would often drain his 
 
 *To him is ascribed the famous maxim: "The Lord takes care 
 of little children, drunken men and the United States." My author 
 ity for this statement is Henry Carey Baird. 
 
208 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 spirit bottles which were filled with specimens, leaving 
 his snakes and lizards dry! Once his wanderings took 
 him to the Rocky Mountains. He was closely con 
 nected with the Academy of Natural Sciences, which 
 has so powerfully contributed to make Philadelphia a 
 centre for the study of natural history, deriving his in 
 come from his lectures and the private sale of his col 
 lections. His publications, describing the results of his 
 explorations, brought him a high reputation, and in 
 1822 he was appointed professor of natural history in 
 Harvard University. In this position he never felt 
 entirely at his ease. He yearned for his old life in the 
 open air and, failing to secure a leave of absence, he 
 resigned. In 1833 he was again in Philadelphia, pre 
 paring for a trip to the Pacific coast with a party of 
 scientists. This expedition was very successful and he 
 returned by way of Cape Horn. 
 
 Nuttall made the most important additions to the 
 " American Silva " of Francois Andre Michaux. 
 When a lad but fifteen years of age, Michaux had ac 
 companied his father, Andre Michaux, to North Amer 
 ica for a study of the oaks, and had subsequently 
 visited the country on behalf of the French government, 
 sending home acorns and young trees with a view to the 
 introduction of new species in European forests. De 
 siring in some way to repay the Americans for their hos 
 pitalities, he left at his death a legacy to be divided 
 between Boston and Philadelphia for the encouragement 
 of sylviculture in the United States. The American 
 Philosophical Society was made the custodian of the 
 sum, about $8,000, which came to Philadelphia, and 
 with the fund a Michaux grove of oak trees was planted 
 in Fairmount Park and lectures upon the important sub- 
 
IN TRANSITION 209 
 
 ject of forestry have been given from time to time. The 
 younger Michaux s valuable work, " North American 
 Silva," was raised from three to six volumes by Thomas 
 Nuttall. For some time he had been looking forward 
 to the inheritance of a small estate in England from an 
 uncle, but that insular old man, fearing for his neph 
 ew s safety while exploring the American wildernesses, 
 attached to the bequest the condition that the beneficiary 
 should occupy the estate at least nine months in each 
 year. Chafing under the provision, the naturalist at 
 last discovered that by leaving England in September 
 and returning in the following April he would still be 
 conforming to the letter of the will, and from time to 
 time he came to spend his winters in Philadelphia at the 
 Academy of Natural Sciences in the study of botany and 
 ornithology, which also claimed his interest in the later 
 years of his life. 
 
 In 1830 Amos Bronson Alcott arrived in this city 
 to enforce upon the people his peculiar ideas concerning 
 education. He was a Connecticut farmer s son, who dis 
 liked the trade of his father. He worked for a time in a 
 clock factory and then peddled almanacs and tin-ware 
 from house to house in New England, later extending 
 his tours to Virginia and the Carolinas. He talked 
 much to the people, with whom he spent many days in 
 pleasant converse, and sold little, betraying thus early 
 that singularly unpractical character which distinguished 
 him in later life. Obtaining a place as a teacher in a 
 public school in Connecticut, he came to hold many fan 
 tastic views about the education and moral government 
 of his pupils, attracting the attention of philanthropists 
 in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. In 1828 he 
 opened an infant school in Boston and later taught older 
 
210 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 children. It was his wish u to philosophize upon the 
 pure workmanship of the Creator to aid in preserv 
 ing its symmetry and beauty." 
 
 He had learned to know Samuel J. May, the Aboli 
 tionist, who had expressed an interest in his educational 
 system. Alcott married May s sister in 1830 and soon 
 after came to Philadelphia, which he had visited two 
 years before, when he made the acquaintance of Dr. 
 William H. Furness, Mathew Carey, and other prom 
 inent men. Roberts Vaux, who had offered a prize for 
 the best treatise on education, awarded it to Alcott, and 
 thus he had gained another friend in the city. Robert 
 Walsh, Dr. George McClellan, the father of General 
 McClellan; Dr. James Rush and John Vaughan, the 
 scientists, were also numbered among his friends, though 
 the most valuable of all was Reuben Haines, a wealthy 
 Quaker of Germantown, who interested himself partic 
 ularly in cattle breeding and the natural sciences. 
 
 Through Haines Alcott was induced to settle in Ger 
 mantown. His patron bought him a house for his 
 school " on the main street, the grounds and gardens 
 standing back and including an acre or more, all beau 
 tifully laid out." This building stood on the site of the 
 present Masonic Hall at 5425 Germantown Avenue. 
 In May, 1831, the experiment began with four or five 
 children from three to nine years of age, the number in 
 creasing until it promised to attain some degree of suc 
 cess. Watson, " the chronicler and oracle of this part 
 of the country," Alcott wrote to a friend, sent his daugh 
 ter to the school, and pupils came to him from several 
 prominent families in Germantown. The children 
 reached him at eight o clock each morning and he aimed 
 to enlarge their souls by divers original means. Some- 
 
IN TRANSITION 211 
 
 times he escorted them to the Wissahickon, that the 
 ; beautiful romantic stream " might have " a happy 
 influence upon their imaginations and feelings." His 
 school- room contained busts of Christ, Socrates, Shake 
 speare, Newton and Locke. Whether or not, when the 
 pupil needed punishment, he was commanded to rap 
 the knuckles or lay the strap upon his teacher, a re 
 versal of all usual processes, tried later in Boston, his 
 tory sayeth not, but there was curious theoretical non 
 sense in plenty wherever Bronson Alcott was. 
 
 In Germantown two of his daughters were born, the 
 second being Louisa M. Alcott, who, in spite of a veg 
 etable diet, and only of those vegetables that grew up 
 into the pure air never such as sent their strength 
 downward like the onion and the potato ; graham bread, 
 without sweets of any kind, which was often made into 
 images of soul-inspiring objects; interminable transcen 
 dental discussion, and incidentally extreme penury, grew 
 up to be one of the most popular of American story 
 writers. 
 
 Of their Germantown home Mrs. Bronson Alcott 
 wrote at the time : " Imagination never pictured out 
 to me a residence so perfectly to my mind. I wish my 
 friends could see how delightfully I am settled. My 
 father has never married a daughter or seen a son more 
 completely happy than I am." Alas for prophecy! 
 Reuben Haines died in October, 1831. The school 
 dwindled and it became necessary to close it, when Al 
 cott went into the city and opened classes in a building in 
 Eighth Street, where Charles Godfrey Leland was a 
 pupil until his parents discovered the uselessness of his 
 teacher s methods. " Llis forte was moral influence," 
 says Leland in his " Memoirs." He believed in " sym- 
 
212 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 pathetic intellectual communion " by talking to his pu 
 pils, and " Oh, Heaven," exclaimed " Hans Breit- 
 mann " in recalling these days, u what a talker he was ! " 
 This school also came to grief. Alcott formed an asso 
 ciation of Philadelphia teachers which published a jour 
 nal of education. It, too, failed, and he now bade adieu 
 to the too practical Quakers and again turned his face 
 toward New England, where, said he, " there is a more 
 intelligent sympathy for the improvement of humanity, 
 freer toleration of variant opinions, and a more gener 
 ous philanthropy." There was a place for him in New 
 England, if he wished such a place, which he could not 
 have gained among the Philadelphians, of whom he had 
 said upon coming to them, that their interest " inclined 
 to subjects connected with utility, comfort and practical 
 morals " rather than to " metaphysical and ethical " 
 questions. 
 
 Returning to Boston in 1833, after a residence of a 
 little less than four years in Pennsylvania, he conducted 
 his school in the Masonic Temple, until he was sold out 
 by the sheriff; then drifted to Concord to become a rival 
 and much admired friend of Emerson, and a head pro 
 fessor of a new mystical philosophy, trying socialistic 
 experiments while he talked and starved himself, his 
 wife and four daughters, who made the subjects for 
 Louisa s first successful story, " Little Women." By 
 this noble-hearted girl was the family saved from the 
 penalties of idealism in a very practical world. She 
 had been a domestic servant, a nurse in the war, and, as 
 Rebecca Harding Davis says without too much exag 
 geration, would have ground her own bones to make 
 bread for her people. Her father was accurately pic 
 tured by Lowell in his " Fable for Critics " : 
 
IN TRANSITION 213 
 
 " While he talks he is great, but goes out like a taper 
 If you shut him up closely with pen, ink and paper. 
 Yet his fingers itch for em from morning till night, 
 And he thinks he does wrong if he don t always write." 
 
 Endless reams of paper were covered with writing 
 which no one would read or publish, but his daughter 
 Louisa had a different fortune. After " Little Wom 
 en " appeared and her popularity as a writer of stones 
 for girls was established, her father was enabled to 
 travel at will until he was more than eighty, giving his 
 " Conversations " in all parts of the country and being 
 regarded with no unnatural curiosity, especially in the 
 West. Miss Alcott made perhaps $200,000 from her 
 books, and upon coming to Philadelphia used to enjoy 
 the visits to the old house in which she was born. 
 
 Two magazine editors and poets, Sumner Lincoln 
 Fairfield and Dr. James McHenry, made Philadelphia 
 their home for many years in the twenties and thirties. 
 
 Fairfield, a poor unhappy character, later epileptic 
 and insane, was born in Massachusetts. His life was 
 ill-starred from the first. He was shorn of kin and 
 friends by death, the iron sank into him and he was 
 made morbidly misanthropic until gloom shrouded his 
 spirit completely. It is likely that history would have 
 nothing to say of him but for his remarkable wife, Jane 
 Frazee, a niece of John Frazee, the sculptor. He came 
 to Philadelphia in 1828 and took charge of an academy 
 at Newtown, in Bucks County, where his life promised 
 some fruits, until he went bathing one day with a pupil 
 named Strawbridge. The boy was drowned and Fair- 
 field was brought out insensible, many hours passing 
 before he could be resuscitated. The event broke up 
 the school, and the teacher, his mind a prey to suspi- 
 
214 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 cions, superstitions and unhappy memories, removed to 
 New York. 
 
 He had already written some heavy, maundering and 
 but half-comprehensible poems, and, starvation staring 
 them in the face, his wife set out to secure subscribers 
 for a volume of his verse. She had remarkable success 
 and it is to her pilgrimages to the homes and business 
 places of the generous rich (amid indignities and priva 
 tions suffered by no other woman of whom there is 
 record in our literary history, not even by Mrs. Clemm, 
 Poe s faithful aunt-mother) that Fairfield and a family 
 of four or five children were maintained during many 
 years. 
 
 Once more in Philadelphia in 1830, " sick, solitary, 
 friendless and moneyless," Fairfield projected the 
 " North American Magazine," at first a monthly and 
 later a quarterly, which was published at five dollars a 
 year. It was conducted in no spirit of sweetness and 
 without the least editorial ability, being a misanthropic, 
 crotchety and malicious collection of prose and verse, 
 much of it from the editor s own hand. Mrs. Fairfield 
 travelled up and down the country in behalf of this un 
 happy enterprise. It cost $3,000 a year to publish it, 
 and all this and enough besides to keep her husband and 
 children was procured by this unusual woman, often 
 times from men whom the editor had ill-naturedly at 
 tacked in his periodical. 
 
 For five years this work was continued and was fol 
 lowed by her sale of a complete edition of his poems, a 
 biography she had written of him, and an autobi- 
 graphy of herself, by all of which she was enabled to 
 keep him until his death this occurred in New Or 
 leans in 1844 and afterward the children, several of 
 
5:5- 
 
IN TRANSITION 215 
 
 whom were insane like their father, a lingering heritage 
 of this unhappiest of marriages. 
 
 In New York Mrs. Fairfield went into Wall Street 
 among the bankers and brokers. Once she journeyed to 
 Canada, and again to England. She told an English 
 literary man " that during the fifteen years of her mar 
 ried life she had published by subscription, by individual 
 labor, two editions of poems in detached parts and lastly 
 during the past year," had brought out her husband s 
 works entire in the volume she carried with her. " Be 
 sides, during that period/ she said, she had " estab 
 lished and sustained a periodical work for five years. * 
 Men declared it incredible, and it became the more in 
 comprehensible when they stopped to read what Fair- 
 field wrote, since it so totally lacked popular charm. 
 
 Jane Frazee Fairfield must have been a woman of 
 many personal attractions, a view that finds confirmation 
 in her autobiography, when she complains of the jeal 
 ousy which other women displayed as she sought their 
 husbands subscriptions. Fairfield s longest poem was 
 " The Last Night of Pompeii," the plot and scenery of 
 which he always charged Bulwer with appropriating for 
 his novel, " The Last Days of Pompeii;" the latter, 
 said Mrs. Fairfield, being " in every respect an entire 
 and most flagrant plagiarism." If Bulwer derived any 
 advantage from the poem, the unprejudiced investigator 
 to-day will be disposed to think it a well-earned reward 
 for the toil of reading this most dismal writing. 
 
 Dr. James McHenry, a writer of agreeable songs and 
 lyrics and several popular novels, was an Irishman by 
 birth. He was educated for the Presbyterian clergy, 
 but being a hunchback would not go into the pulpit. 
 He then studied medicine at Belfast and Glasgow and 
 
216 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 came to America in 1817. After being employed for 
 some time at Baltimore and Pittsburg, he settled in Phil 
 adelphia, where for years he was a physician, the keeper, 
 with his wife s assistance, of a drygoods store in Second 
 Street and later at Eighth and Chestnut Streets; polit 
 ical leader, magazine editor, Irish laureate, critic and 
 general litterateur. While not a great man in any lit 
 erary branch, he had conspicuous talents for the time in 
 which he lived. His poem, " The Pleasures of Friend 
 ship," was first published in Pittsburg in 1822. It had 
 reached its seventh edition with Grigg and Elliott in 
 Philadelphia in 1836, and there were printings in Eng 
 land. Dr. McHenry was also the author of a narrative 
 poem, " Waltham," whose scenes were laid in or near 
 Philadelphia at the Revolutionary time. Waltham 
 
 " was a man of that unvarnished sect 
 Who for their conscience sake, not from neglect, 
 From fashion s freaks keep artless nature free 
 And think her fairest in simplicity." 
 
 This old Quaker lived 
 
 11 Where Schuylkill leads his Indian-chaunted tide 
 Through fields of maize and forests wand ring wide, 
 Near where yon joyous city, proud and fair, 
 Skirts the broad banks of haughty Delaware." 
 
 He was a Tory who, overhearing Washington s 
 prayer at Valley Forge or in its neighborhood, became a 
 patriot, a Revolutionary legend repeated to this day. 
 Like Fairfield, Dr. McHenry was ambitious to write 
 epics, and J. B. Lippincott published his " Antedilu 
 vians, or the World Destroyed," a long poem in ten 
 books in 1840. His particular forte was Irish love- 
 
IN TRANSITION 217 
 
 songs, of which he indited a large number, many of 
 them designed to be sung to well-known Irish tunes. 
 He was the author of lines beginning 
 
 "War and Love are bold compeers: 
 War sheds blood and Love sheds tears ; 
 War has swords and Love has darts; 
 War breaks heads and Love breaks hearts. 
 
 " War s a robber, Love s a thief ; 
 War brings ruin, Love brings grief; 
 War s a giant, Love s a child ; 
 War runs mad and Love runs wild." 
 
 Dr. McHenry s novels included " O Halloran, or the 
 Insurgent Chief," and " Hearts of Steel," Irish histori 
 cal tales; some American historical novels such as " The 
 Wilderness, or Braddock s Times;" "The Spectre of 
 the Forest, or Annals of the Housatonic " (a New Eng 
 land romance) ; " The Betrothal of Wyoming " and 
 " Meredith, or the Mystery of the Meschianza." He 
 was also the author of " The Usurper," an historical 
 tragedy once seen on the Philadelphia stage, and of 
 other works now gone out of the world s recollection. 
 
 In January, 1824, he began to publish " The Ameri 
 can Monthly Magazine " as a Philadelphia rival of the 
 " North American Review," after the " Port Folio " 
 had declined and before Walsh had launched his "Amer 
 ican Quarterly " with the Careys. Dennie, in the full 
 ness of his strength, did not put his personal stamp more 
 firmly upon the " Port Folio " than did McHenry 
 upon his magazine, and while it lived, its files are pre 
 served for but a single year, 1824, it was a real orna 
 ment to the periodical literature of the country. It ex- 
 
218 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 celled in criticism, essays, poetry and social satire, not 
 the least important of its articles being a series of " Ex 
 tracts from the Chronicle of a Bachelor/ wit worthy to 
 be read at this day. 
 
 Judged by his critical articles in this magazine, Dr. 
 McHenry, like Dennie, was a sound and conservative 
 disciple of Pope, and most valiantly led the battle 
 against the " Lakers " and Lord Byron. He was 
 swayed by no craze or current fashion and was fearless 
 in his defense of the best English literary traditions. 
 Trained in the classics in British schools, he bent his 
 bow as surely as Dennie or Walsh. He steadfastly de 
 nounced Byron s " doggerels and ribaldries. " Words 
 worth, he declared, did less mischief only because he 
 was less read. His " great fault " was " a puerile affec 
 tation of simplicity so extreme as to be absolutely sicken 
 ing to any reader who has reached the age of maturity. * 
 The Lake School was " a school which although not so 
 very rude and filthy as the Byronian or prosaic school, 
 is incomparably more tame and insipid." The " inanity 
 of the Water Poetry " he illustrated by quotations from 
 Wordsworth : 
 
 " Around a wild and wooded hill 
 A gravell d pathway treading, 
 We reached a votive stone that bears 
 The name of Aloys Redding." 
 
 11 Hush-a-ba-lul-a-by," exclaimed McHenry as the 
 sing-song was done. As for the other " Lakers," Cole 
 ridge was said to be an agreeable companion and con 
 versationalist, but judged as a poet " we for our parts," 
 said McHenry, " look upon him as a pretty prattler fit 
 to figure nowhere so well as in the nursery room." 
 
IN TRANSITION 219 
 
 Dr. McHenry died in 1845, m Larne, County An 
 trim, Ireland, as the United States Consul at London 
 derry, an office to which he had been appointed by his 
 friend, President Jackson. His sons were successful 
 shipping merchants in Philadelphia, James becoming a 
 resident of England, where he led a notable career as a 
 financier. 
 
 In historians the city was not yet rich. The greatest 
 undertaking after Proud s was Watson s large collec 
 tion of legendary lore, reminiscences and hearsay evi 
 dence, incorporated in his " Annals of Philadelphia." 
 
 John Fanning Watson was born in Burlington 
 County, N. J., in 1779. He was placed in a counting 
 house when a boy and wandered as far afield as New 
 Orleans, returning home upon his father s death to be 
 come a bookseller in Chestnut Street. When he left 
 this business, he was elected the cashier of a bank in 
 Germantown, an office he held for thirty-three years, 
 afterward acting as Secretary and Treasurer of the Phil 
 adelphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad, from 
 which post he retired in 1859 when he had reached the 
 age of eighty. For years he was an industrious pedes 
 trian, the Wissahickon being a favorite resort, but 
 his interest and pleasure carried him in all directions. 
 On Saturday afternoons it was long his custom to take 
 tea at Stenton with Deborah Logan, who assisted him 
 in his antiquarian researches. His record is of much 
 quaint interest, but it has neither the philosophy nor the 
 trustworthiness required of history. Born in the dark 
 days of the Revolutionary War, Watson died in 1860, 
 soon after Lincoln was elected to the Presidency and the 
 country faced its great Civil War. 
 
 In centering our attention upon the " Port Folio " 
 
220 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 and the " American Quarterly Review," with our pass 
 ing allusions to McHenry s and Fairiield s magazines as 
 the representative periodicals of this time in u this mind- 
 nurturing city of Philadelphia, the intellectual metrop 
 olis of this fair republic," as one writer designated it, 
 we are in danger of passing over other attempts seri 
 ously made to improve the literary taste of the city and 
 the nation. There were several magazines which led 
 very brief lives. Among them may be named u The 
 Mirror of Taste and Dramatic Censor," which the 
 Bradfords began to publish in 1810. This was doubt 
 less the most satisfactory paper devoted exclusively to 
 the drama which we have ever had in this country. 
 Certainly the state of the dramatic art in America and 
 the public interest in dramatic things to-day seem not 
 to support such a publication. 
 
 About one hundred pages of excellent matter, critical, 
 historical and biographical, concerning plays and actors, 
 was issued each month until the end of 1811. Com 
 plaint was entered against the " men of letters with 
 which the city abounds " that they were shirking their 
 responsibilities as guardians of the public taste. " Ap 
 plause, which ought to be measured out with scrupulous 
 justice, correctness and precision, has been by admiring 
 ignorance poured forth in a torrent roar of uncouth and 
 obstreperous glee on the buffoon, * the clown that says 
 more than is set down for him/ and on the robustious 
 perriwig-pated fellow who tears a passion all to rags, 
 while chaste merit and propriety have often gone unre 
 warded by a smile." 
 
 At the time this publication was begun, the theatre in 
 Philadelphia was in a very unreformed condition. The 
 gallery boys were in undisputed control of the play- 
 
THE MIRROR OF TASTE, 
 
 AND 
 
 DRAMATIC CENSOR. 
 
 Vol. I. JANUARY 1810. No. U 
 
 HISTORY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 Segnius irritant animos demfesa per aurem 
 Quam qu.T sum ocuiis subjects fidelibus, et qtUB 
 Ipse sibi tradit spectator.* Hor.de Arte Poetic* 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE STAGE CONSIDERED AND REFUTED. 
 
 THAT amusement is necessary to man, the most superfi* 
 cial observation of his conduct and pursuits, may convince 
 us. The Creator never implanted in die hearts of all his in 
 telligent creatures one common universal appetite withotit 
 some corresponding necessity;, and that he has given them 
 an instinctive appetite for amusements as strong as any other 
 which we labour to gratify, may be clearly perceived in the 
 efforts of infancy, in the exertions of youth, in the pursuits 
 of manhood, in the feeble endeavours of old age, and in the 
 pastimes which human creatures, even the uninstructed sa 
 vage nations themselves, have invented for their relaxation 
 and delight. This appetite evinces a necessity for its grati 
 fication as much as hunger, thirst, and weariness, intimate 
 the necessity of bodily refection by eating, drinking, and 
 
 What we hear 
 
 With weaker passion will aflefct the heart 
 Than when the faithful eye beholds the pwt-JVvmfl. 
 
 VOL. z. c 
 
 FIRST PAGE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE " MIRROR OF TASTE 
 
222 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 houses. Correspondents of the "Mirror of Taste" 
 begged the editor not to criticize the players, but the 
 ruffians who " crimsoned the cheek of decency " with 
 their lewd interruptions of the play. The occupants of 
 places in the pit often sat in a rain of nutshells and apple 
 parings, when missiles were not aimed spitefully at bald 
 pates, a condition of things that caused gentlemen to 
 wear their hats at the theater, and to leave their wives 
 and daughters at home. The boxes were sometimes the 
 scene of drinking revels, jugs, bottles and glasses from 
 which both men and women refreshed themselves, being 
 in the foreground as the play progressed. These prac 
 tices were most vehemently condemned by the " Mirror 
 of Taste." 
 
 The editor of this magazine was Stephen Cullen Car 
 penter, who came to Philadelphia from England by way 
 of Charleston, S. C. He was a native Irishman, but 
 early went to India, where he served in the British army. 
 Upon returning to London he commended himself by 
 his political writings to Edmund Burke and officiated as 
 a parliamentary reporter at the trial of Warren Hast 
 ings. He was the author of several volumes of travel 
 and biography and died in Philadelphia in 1830 in the 
 seventy-eighth year of his age. 
 
 The " Mirror of Taste s " most notable literary serv 
 ice was to bring forward the young Philadelphia artist, 
 Charles Robert Leslie. In 1810 George Frederick 
 Cooke, the great English tragedian, arrived in America. 
 His coming to the city caused unusual excitement, a 
 crowd remaining in the street all night to be present 
 betimes at the opening of the box office. Leslie, 
 who attended the performances, drew vivid portraits of 
 Cooke as King Lear and Richard the Third, which were 
 
IN TRANSITION 
 
 223 
 
 engraved for the "Mirror of Taste." So much atten 
 tion was attracted to the young man by these drawings 
 that a fund was collected to send him to Europe to 
 study, whereby an original artistic genius was fostered 
 and made valuable to the world. 
 
 The chief minor Phila 
 delphia magazine of this 
 time, however, was the 
 " Analectic," with which 
 Washington Irving s name 
 is closely linked. The times 
 greatly encouraged literary 
 piracy at the expense of 
 British authors and publish 
 ers. The principal Phila 
 delphia bookseller prior to 
 Littell to identify his name 
 with the business of bor 
 rowing and stealing from 
 the British magazines was 
 Enos Bronson, who in 1809 
 issued a compilation called 
 " Select Reviews and the 
 Spirit of the Magazines." 
 It was edited by young Sam 
 uel Ewing, the " Jacques " 
 of the " Port Folio." In 
 1812 Moses Thomas pur 
 chased the magazine and it continued to appear month 
 ly, as the " Analectic," until 1821. Primarily eclectic, 
 as its name indicates, some original articles were early 
 introduced into its pages. Washington Irving, James 
 Kirke Paulding and G. C. Verplanck frequently wrote 
 
 COOKE as KING LEAR 
 
 Glost. Let me kiss that hand. 
 Lear. Let me wipe it first; 
 it smells of mortality. 
 
 One of Charles R. Leslie s draw 
 ings in the " Mirror 
 of Taste " 
 
224 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 for it, and it is said that Irving was for a short time its 
 editor. At any rate, he contributed a number of biog 
 raphies of heroes of the War of 1812 and essays later 
 included in " The Sketch Book," all anonymously. 
 
 Irving often wrote to and visited the financial sponsor 
 of the magazine, and the two men were warm friends. 
 Thomas published many of his early works and his 
 reputation as an author was established and ex 
 tended through Philadelphia. In 1819 Thomas re 
 vived " Salmagundi " for Paulding, Irving being at the 
 time in Europe, and the second series of this publication, 
 which had made a name for itself in New York, ap 
 peared fortnightly for about a year at Thomas s shop 
 in lower Chestnut Street. 
 
 Of life in Philadelphia Irving had many glimpses at 
 this time, suffering particularly at the tea-parties, where 
 he was subjected to " an artillery of glances " from long 
 rows of young ladies, " disposed close together like a 
 setting of jewels or pearls round a locket in all the maj 
 esty of good behaviour." He found them agreeable 
 except when they sought to be witty, at which times he 
 said, " if I might be allowed to speak my mind," they 
 are " very disagreeable, especially to young gentlemen 
 who are travelling for information." Punning was the 
 peculiar vice of the Philadelphians. " I cannot speak 
 two sentences," said Irving, " but that I see a pun gath 
 ering in the faces of my hearers. I absolutely shudder 
 with horror. Think what miseries I suffer me to 
 whom a pun is an abomination. 1 
 
 The "Analectic" in July, 1819, published the first 
 lithograph made in America, a woodland scene done 
 upon a stone from Munich which was presented to the 
 American Philosophical Society by Thomas Dobson, the 
 
AN EARLY WOOD CUT 
 From "Graham s Magazine" 
 
 THE FIRST AMERICAN LITHOGRAPH 
 
 From the "Analcctic Magazine" 
 
IN TRANSITION 225 
 
 bookseller and publisher. It was said that the draw 
 ings could also be made upon stone from Kentucky and 
 a white marble quarried in Lancaster and Montgomery 
 Counties in Pennsylvania. The experiments with native 
 stone had only just begun and Philadelphia s artists and 
 engravers, of whom there was so large a company drawn 
 hither to minister to the active publishing trades, were 
 thus made acquainted with a new process that was soon 
 to become an important influence in the popularization 
 of books and magazines. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 LITERARY DEMOCRACY 
 
 The city now came without delay into the age when 
 publishers sought to bring their magazines and books to 
 the attention of increasing numbers of people. If they 
 were to succeed in this effort, they must cease to print 
 excerpts from the British reviews, or collections of 
 articles by American writers patterned after those in 
 the European magazines. In truth, there was nothing 
 for them, whether they liked it or not, but to bow down 
 obsequiously before the man and woman who had barely 
 learned to read at all, and wished for their first exercises 
 what their untrained intellects could easily understand. 
 There were men in plenty now, as a writer in the 
 " American Quarterly " observed, to whose ears " the 
 hiss of a locomotive is sweeter music than the happiest 
 stanza that ever melted like the honey of Hybla from 
 the divine pen of a poet." It was an age of low-priced 
 newspapers and magazines filled with cheap, tawdry 
 stories, sentimental poetry, pictures, puzzles, articles 
 about the fashions of dress and cookery, and material to 
 minister to all the rubbishy interests of the great droves 
 of mankind, bringing many up, carrying a few down, 
 and maintaining all at a common level, which meant 
 handsome rewards for the publishers. 
 
 The first of these cheap literary papers was the " Sat 
 urday Evening Post," the lineal descendant of Benjamin 
 Franklin s " Pennsylvania Gazette." This periodical 
 
 226 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 227 
 
 had been riding the waves of adversity for many years, 
 but in 1821, at the death of David Hall, a grandson of 
 Franklin s old partner, it came into the hands of Samuel 
 C. Atkinson, who had had a financial interest in it for 
 some time, and Charles Alexander, another Philadelphia 
 journalist. In 1821 Robert S. Coffin came to the 
 city from West Chester, where he had worked in 
 the office of the " Village Record," a paper which had 
 several notable graduates, among others Bayard Taylor. 
 He wrote verses under the name of the " Boston Bard " 
 and began the publication of a literary paper called the 
 " Bee," which failed almost instantly. The subscrip 
 tion lists of the " Bee " and the " Gazette " were now 
 merged, and the result, on August 4, 1821, was the 
 " Saturday Evening Post," under the editorship of 
 Thomas Cottrell Clarke. 
 
 The paper was established in an office which had once 
 been occupied by Franklin himself, in Market Street, a 
 few doors below Second Street, with some of Franklin s 
 presses, type and other printing-house relics to link the 
 undertaking with the past. Several other periodicals 
 which endeavored to rival it were absorbed, and it went 
 on its way victoriously for many years. Clarke ceased 
 to be its editor in 1828, and he was followed by a num 
 ber of men whose names are well known in the literary 
 annals of the city, including Charles J. Peterson, his 
 cousin, Henry Peterson, the author of " Pemberton; " 
 Rufus W. Griswold, the critic; Morton McMichael, 
 Colonel Samuel D. Patterson, George R. Graham and 
 Horatio Hastings Weld. It had many publishers and 
 was issued from many offices. In 1827 its owners 
 boasted that its circulation was " rising 7,000 papers 
 every week," and a time came when this number, large 
 
228 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 as it then seemed to be, was distanced handsomely, and 
 it could be said with truth that there was no part of the 
 United States which the " Post " did not penetrate. G. 
 P. R. James, Mrs. Henry Wood, who wrote " East 
 Lynne; " Mary Howitt, and several leading English 
 authors of the day, sent their stories to the editor, as did 
 many native writers. Its vogue at length passed, and it 
 remained for the " Post s " present owners, the Curtis 
 Publishing Company, to raise it from its sunken estate 
 to the popularity which it now enjoys, and which was not 
 within the bounds of the imagination of the magazine 
 proprietors of a less ambitious age. 
 
 The success of this undertaking encouraged others 
 to found periodicals, and the city became the home of a 
 large group of publishers, editors, writers and engravers 
 who sought a livelihood from the movement to make 
 magazines for ladies and ladies for magazines. When 
 Clarke left the u Saturday Evening Post " he established 
 " The Album and Ladies Weekly Gazette," and there 
 were also " The Ladies Literary Portfolio," "The 
 Casket, or Flowers of Literature, Wit and Sentiment," 
 " The Ladies Garland " and so on indefinitely. 
 
 There had been imported from England about this 
 time the " Forget-me-not," " Souvenir," " Evergreen," 
 or " Wreath " (the book had many names), a volume 
 of verses, sketches and stories, " caskets of brilliant 
 gems," issued annually. The first of these to make its 
 appearance in this country was the " Atlantic Souvenir," 
 which was published in Philadelphia. Their number 
 multiplied so rapidly that they defeated their own pur 
 poses, and after a few years they were seen no more. 
 They were issued in time to be used as Christmas or 
 New Year presents, and at least one, "The Gift," of 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 229 
 
 which more deserves to be said, attained a high degree 
 of literary excellence. 
 
 Louis A. Godey was the jirst great prince in the mak 
 ing of lady books, and he soon had a magazine on the 
 market which outstripped the " Saturday Evening Post " 
 in the race for literary popularity. Born humbly in 
 , New York in 1804, he was employed for a time in a 
 broker s office in that city. He was self-educated, and 
 having literary aspirations, in 1828 was drawn to Phila 
 delphia. At first he was a clerk for a newspaper pub 
 lisher, and in 1830 issued the initial number of his 
 " Lady s Book." He had purchased some old plates 
 from the owner of a defunct publication and, taking his 
 articles from British papers, made a modest and 
 dubious entry into the literary world. The maga 
 zine, if not instantaneously successful, at once gave 
 promise of its future strength. An important change 
 came over it in 1837, when it was merged with the 
 " Ladies Magazine " of Boston, the oldest periodical 
 of the kind in the United States. For several years the 
 Boston magazine had been edited by Mrs. Sarah Jose- 
 pha Hale, who now assumed editorial control of the 
 combined publications. Her husband had been a lawyer 
 in New Hampshire and, left a widow with five children 
 dependent upon her, the eldest but seven years old, she 
 entered upon a literary career with a two-volume novel 
 called " Northwood," which was published in Boston in 
 1827. Writing verses, sketches, stories, long novels, 
 and essays, and compiling and editing the works of oth 
 ers were her life-long pursuits, and her literary career 
 was one of phenomenal activity. For a time she edited 
 " Godey s " from Boston, but in 1841 removed to Phil 
 adelphia, and her name was closely identified with the 
 
2 3 o LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 magazine until 1877. She was then nearly ninety years 
 old. In addition to her literary work she had been the 
 originator or patron of many philanthropic movements 
 designed to benefit her sex and mankind generally, being 
 the moving spirit in a great fair at which the money was 
 raised to complete the Bunker Hill monument. 
 
 It is to her persevering and indefatigable exertions 
 also that we owe our national Thanksgiving Day, which, 
 before she began her labors, was celebrated by the differ 
 ent states upon different days in a haphazard fashion. 
 
 It was little thought by Mrs. Hale, when she casu 
 ally wrote some children s poems for Dr. Lowell Mason 
 of Boston to be published in 1830 in a small pamphlet 
 now very rare, that the verses beginning 
 
 " If ever I see 
 
 On bush or tree 
 Young birds in a pretty nest, 
 
 I must not in my play 
 
 Steal the birds away 
 To grieve their mother s breast," 
 
 and the universally popular 
 
 " Mary had a little lamb, 
 Its fleece was white as snow," 
 
 would be her title to remembrance by later generations. 
 
 From 1840 to 1850 the magazine was at the height 
 of its popularity and influence. Mr. Godey published 
 the names of his writers. The mystery which had ear 
 lier surrounded literary work, especially in the maga 
 zines, was removed, and many who wrote acceptably to 
 his readers were helped into reputations by this enter 
 prising man. He also paid his authors. At first he 
 
From a portrait loaned by her granddaughter, 
 Mary Stockton Hunter 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 231 
 
 " drew from English periodicals and books the mental 
 bouquets monthly spread before his readers," but this 
 practice ceased. " We were the first to introduce the 
 system of calling forth the slumbering talent of our 
 country by offering an equivalent for the efforts of 
 genius," he wrote in 1840. The demand was princi 
 pally for trivial, albeit entirely innocent, love stories and 
 sentimental sketches. These were supplied by many 
 writers: Miss Eliza Leslie, T. S. Arthur, Miss Sedg- 
 wick, " Grace Greenwood " (Mrs. Sarah J. Lippincott) , 
 Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney, for a time Mrs. Hale s as 
 sistant in the editor s chair; Miss Buchanan, afterward 
 Mrs. Annan; Harriet Beecher Stowe, who had not yet 
 written " Uncle Tom s Cabin "; Alice Neal, the young 
 widow of the author of the " Charcoal Sketches " ; Mrs. 
 E. F. Ellet, who wrote stories and romantic historical 
 sketches, and many more. 
 
 But no American writer was too great to disdain a 
 place in " Godey s " pages or to despise the remunera 
 tion which came from writing for it. Edgar Allan Poe 
 contributed many stories, reviews and criticisms, while 
 the names of Washington Irving, Nathaniel Haw 
 thorne, William Gilmore Simms, Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes, James K. Paulding, Park Benjamin, Theodore 
 L. Cuyler, Thomas Dunn English, N. P. Willis, who 
 was heralded for a time as a regular contributor and 
 three younger Pennsylvania writers, Bayard Taylor, T. 
 Buchanan Read and Charles Godfrey Leland, of whom 
 more was soon to be heard, were frequently seen in the 
 magazine. Indeed, at one period not a month passed 
 without the publication of articles by writers whose 
 names now have an established place in American liter 
 ature. 
 
232 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Godey was a skilful advertiser of his wares. He de 
 clared, with truth, that he expended more money in the 
 production of his magazine than any other lady book 
 publisher of the time. With each issue he gave his sub 
 scribers a number of admirably executed steel engrav 
 ings, colored fashion-plates, patterns for the use of 
 needle-women, models of cottages, furniture, etc. In 
 deed, he sent artists abroad to describe and picture the 
 fashions of England and France. It was a literary 
 event in America when the circulation of " Godey s " 
 reached fifteen thousand copies. In 1850 it was about 
 eighty thousand, and in the year before the war ninety- 
 eight thousand five hundred copies. 
 
 It was announced by Mr. Godey very exultantly 
 that it had cost him $105,200 to produce the " Lady s 
 Book " in 1859, the coloring of his fashion-plates alone 
 calling for an expenditure of $8,000. If these may 
 seem not great sums to the magazine publisher of this 
 day, they were large for that time. " Hundreds of 
 magazines have been started and after a short life have 
 departed," wrote Mr. Godey in 1853, "while the 
 4 Lady s Book alone stands triumphant, a proud monu 
 ment reared by the Ladies of America as a testimony of 
 their own worth." 
 
 This Barnum of the Philadelphia publishing trade 
 was a large-hearted, amiable man who made a great for 
 tune from his magazine and the other publications with 
 which his name was identified. He lived in the enjoy 
 ment of his wealth at 1517 Chestnut Street. Publish 
 ing centres and the standards of taste having changed, 
 the magazine was of diminishing importance after the 
 war, and in 1877 Godey sold it to a stock company. 
 He died in 1878, Mrs. Hale in 1879, and the " Book " 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 233 
 
 itself gradually disappeared after a truly famous career 
 covering a half century. 
 
 Of Godey s writers in Philadelphia, Eliza Leslie, T. 
 S. Arthur, Alice Neal, and " Grace Greenwood " were 
 perhaps the most active and typical. 
 
 Miss Leslie, described by Mr. Godey in his magazine 
 as " a true daughter of Philadelphia," was the sister of 
 Charles Robert Leslie, the artist. Their father was a 
 respectable Philadelphia watchmaker. In one of 
 Godey s story contests, Miss Leslie was given the prize 
 for a tale afterward published in the " Lady s Book," 
 " Mrs. Washington Potts." Subsequently she wrote 
 for Mr. Godey almost constantly until she established a 
 magazine of her own called " Miss Leslie s Magazine." 
 All her work had a quiet humor, and her stories afforded 
 innocent entertainment in multitudes of American homes. 
 
 T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur was a native of New 
 York State. He came to the city when about thirty 
 years of age and resided here for nearly fifty years, or 
 until his death in 1885. He was a most prolific writer. 
 Harpers early began to publish his books in New York 
 and many found their way to England, where they were 
 reissued and widely circulated. " Sweethearts and 
 Wives," " Lovers and Husbands," " Married and 
 Single " are some of the titles of his volumes, which 
 number upwards of one hundred. His " Ten Nights in 
 a Bar-room " once had a great popularity, and if not 
 much read as a book today, is still seen upon the stage 
 in country towns. In 1852 he started a periodical of 
 his own, " Arthur s Home Magazine," which was pub 
 lished for many years. Mr. Arthur usually wrote with 
 some moral end in view, and his name became univer 
 sally known among the American masses. 
 
234 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Alice Neal was the wife, and soon the widow, of 
 Joseph Clay Neal. the Philadelphia humorist of whom 
 something may as well be said in this place. He was 
 the son of a New Hampshire clergyman and educator 
 who had earlier been at the head of a female academy 
 in Philadelphia. The father dying soon, the boy was 
 brought to Philadelphia, where he was reared, amid pri 
 vations, by a faithful mother. He early sought his for 
 tune with the crowd that swarmed to the newly discov 
 ered anthracite coal beds around Pottsville, and after he 
 had recovered from this fever, returned to the city, 
 where in 1831 he entered newspaper life. Neal was 
 connected for some years with 4i The Pennsylvanian," an 
 evening newspaper, succeeding James Gordon Bennett 
 as its editor when that Scotchman went to the " Daily 
 Courier," a trivial and insincere journal which Philadel- 
 phians did not admire and which he soon abandoned to 
 continue his career on more favorable ground in New 
 York City. Neal became a popular humorist, and his 
 " Charcoal Sketches," published at first in the newspa 
 pers, were soon gathered together in books, to be much 
 admired by Charles Dickens. They are essentially 
 Pickwickian, in spite of the thrusts of Poe who could 
 see no value in them, being for the most part humorous 
 delineations of frayed-out seedy gentlemen. Indeed, 
 there is a good deal of well-directed social satire in the 
 sketches. 
 
 It is likely that few readers of the present generation 
 know of this humorist. The remarks of one of his char 
 acters on " making people understand " may be quoted : 
 "If they won t be convinced, easily and genteelly con 
 vinced," said he, " you must knock it into em short 
 hand; if they can t comprehend, neither by due course of 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 235 
 
 mail nor yet by express you must make em understand 
 by telegraph. You ll find it in history books, that one 
 nation teaches another what it didn t know before by 
 walloping it; that s the method of civilizing savages 
 the Romans put the whole world to rights that way ; and 
 what s right on the big figger muse be right on the small 
 scale. In short, there s nothing like walloping for tak 
 ing the conceit out of fellows who think they know more 
 than their betters." 
 
 It was through the " Saturday Gazette," usually 
 called " Neal s Gazette," which he founded in 1841, 
 that the humorist met the young woman who became so 
 popular with readers of Godey s magazine. A native 
 of New York State, she had gone to school in New 
 England, where she wrote some sketches that were sent 
 to Mr. Neal for his paper. Indeed, she contributed to 
 several publications under the name of Alice G. Lee. 
 Neal discovered in a year or two that his contributor was 
 Miss Emily Bradley. Late in 1846 he sought her out 
 and brought her to Philadelphia as his wife. In about 
 six months after his marriage he died and she, still but 
 nineteen years of age, took his place as the editor of his 
 paper. She had retained the name of Alice at his re 
 quest, and as Alice B. Neal, or " Cousin Alice," her sig 
 nature became familiar to all readers of the popular 
 magazines. In 1853 sne niarried Samuel L. Haven and 
 abandoned the " Gazette " and Philadelphia, signing 
 her name to future writings as Alice Bradley Haven. 
 
 " Grace Greenwood," who was a prolific writer for 
 " Godey s " until her anti-slavery sentiments caused her 
 to be looked at askance by editors ambitious to hold 
 their Southern subscribers, was born Sara Jane Clarke in 
 Onondaga County, N. Y., in 1823. When she was 
 
236 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 twenty, her father removed to New Brighton, a small 
 place near Pittsburg, Pa., whence issued a number of 
 poems under her own name and some " witty, saucy, and 
 dashing " letters signed " Grace Greenwood/ all pub 
 lished in the New York " Mirror." In 1853 she mar 
 ried Leander K. Lippincott, a publisher of Philadelphia, 
 and for several years conducted a juvenile magazine in 
 this city called " The Little Pilgrim." In later years 
 she travelled widely for various newspapers, and at the 
 time of her death, which occurred recently, lived in the 
 neighborhood of New York City. Her writings ex 
 haled a strong atmosphere of sentiment, and in value did 
 not rise above the general average of their class. 
 
 After Mr. Godey, the Petersons were doubtless lead 
 ing influences to feminize literature in Philadelphia. 
 This was a numerous family, several members of which 
 for many years were closely connected with the book and 
 magazine publishing trade in the city, and some of the 
 name, notably Henry Peterson and Charles J. Peterson, 
 were writers of popularity. 
 
 Charles J. Peterson was one of a large number of 
 brothers descended from a Swede who early settled on 
 the Delaware. Pie was educated for the law in an office 
 in which George R. Graham, of " Graham s Magazine," 
 was also a student, and was interested with that man, 
 Godey, Morton McMichael and others in a variety of 
 publishing enterprises, which led, however, to no notable 
 results. Besides many magazine articles, he wrote a 
 number of volumes of popular history and some fiction 
 in which he utilized local antiquarian lore. In 1840 
 he entered the lady book field with " Peterson s Maga 
 zine," called at first " The Ladies National Magazine." 
 While some of Godey s writers were secured for this 
 
FRONTISPIECE 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 237 
 
 periodical, it was an inferior publication in nearly all re 
 spects. Like " Godey s," it served the public for its day 
 and then disappeared in competition with magazines 
 better able to interpret popular moods and gratify public 
 tastes. 
 
 Charles J. Peterson s brother, T. B. (Theophilus 
 Beasley) Peterson, who had begun life as a clerk in a 
 dry-goods store, established in Philadelphia what soon 
 became a large and profitable book publishing business 
 with two other brothers, George and Thomas Peterson, 
 the firm being known afterward as T. B. Peterson and 
 Brothers. In 1846 the house, which was long located 
 at 306 Chestnut Street, began to stereotype and plate 
 popular books and send them out in a cheap form to all 
 parts of the country. Works which had cost several 
 dollars a volume were offered for sale at twenty-five or 
 fifty cents. While no great literary object was served 
 by the house, it published for several Philadelphia au 
 thors, and gained a reputation among classes of the 
 people who were casting aside the almanac of the chim 
 ney-corner for fashion-papers, cook-books, guides to 
 behavior and tawdry novels with sensational plots. 
 
 Henry Peterson, for a long time editor and part own 
 er of the " Saturday Evening Post," was undoubtedly 
 the most capable of all who bore the name, and he is 
 chiefly to be remembered for " Pemberton," the precur 
 sor of the modern Revolutionary novel. His story pre 
 ceded by several years the series with which the country 
 was swept in the wake of that most successful and well 
 executed Revolutionary romance, Dr. Mitchell s " Hugh 
 Wynne." The same episodes, the battle of German- 
 town, the Meschianza, and the loves of English officers 
 for American maids in Philadelphia during the city s oc- 
 
238 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 cupation by the British army, which are utilized in 
 " Pemberton " later formed a background of great 
 attraction to novel writers and novel readers. The book 
 appeared in 1872 when, with the Centennial Exhibition 
 in prospect, the popular mind dwelt with interest and 
 pleasure upon the events of the Revolutionary epoch. 
 The principal thread of love running through the tale is 
 found in Andre s devotion to Helen Graham, one of the 
 reigning belles of Philadelphia, who is made the inter 
 mediary in the negotiations with Benedict Arnold, and 
 an instrument in the plot at the ball in the mansion at 
 Bush Hill to drug and abduct General Washington, an 
 enormity she will not assist to perpetrate. While the 
 story has undoubted interest, little enough art is shown 
 in putting the incidents together. The hand of the 
 skilled novelist is not seen in the utilization of the ma 
 terial, and the sentiment, which is of the mawkish and 
 effusive kind, we usually associate with shop-girls. The 
 aristocratic young women of Philadelphia of the Revo 
 lution are made to talk like girls of our modern middle 
 class, and Washington, Andre and Arnold move in the 
 same intellectual atmosphere, soon jading fastidious 
 tastes. 
 
 The novel was subsequently put upon the stage as 
 " Helen, or One Hundred Years Ago," and enjoyed a 
 run at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia in 
 1876 during the Centennial, having been provided with 
 showy settings, with views of the Chew House, the Dev 
 il s Pool in the Wissahickon, the Meschianza and the 
 old Walnut Street Prison. There was a revival of in 
 terest in the novel a few years ago, when it was reprinted 
 for another generation of readers, who enjoyed it, al 
 though knowledge of the book has never passed far be- 
 
FASHION PLATE 
 From Godcy s Magazine 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 239 
 
 yond the limits of the city that gave birth to its thrilling 
 scenes. 
 
 Henry Peterson s wife, Sarah Webb Peterson, was the 
 editor of " The Lady s Friend," another lady book that 
 actively sought for several years to divide the field, so 
 profitably cultivated by Mr. Godey. 
 
 The demand was felt for still cheaper literary papers. 
 Godey s magazine was published at three dollars a 
 year, while Peterson s was issued at two dollars. The 
 price of the u Saturday Evening Post " was two dollars. 
 In 1843 Swain, Abel] and Simmons of the " Public 
 Ledger " began to publish " The Dollar Newspaper. * 
 A prize of one hundred dollars having been offered for 
 the best short story, Edgar Allan Poe, who had sold 
 " The Gold Bug " to Mr. Graham for fifty-two dollars, 
 begged that it might be returned to him to be entered in 
 this attractive competition. The committee, of which 
 Robert T. Conrad, the Philadelphia poet and dramatist, 
 was the principal member, awarded the premium to Poe, 
 and in June, 1843, tne story was printed in the new 
 paper. The publishers found that they had undertaken 
 to give their subscribers too much for one dollar, and 
 they at length changed the name of their periodical and 
 increased its price. 
 
 Another not wholly satisfactory result of the popular 
 ization of literature was the development of the melo 
 drama, which had come into favor with so many Phila 
 delphia actors and playwrights; and the blood-curdling 
 novel written in florid language of the type made rather 
 famous by George Lippard. The city now had several 
 dramatists, and their plays were being seen with satis 
 faction at the theatres. 
 
 James Fennell, an English tragedian of note, came to 
 
240 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 this country in 1793, and lived in Philadelphia for much 
 of his time until his death, in dissipation and poverty, in 
 1816. He wrote several comedies and an autobi 
 ography, or, as he called it, an u Apology " for his mis 
 used life. 
 
 James N. Barker, a native of Philadelphia, a soldier 
 in the war of 1812, a politician, the mayor of the city in 
 1820, a writer of verse and a dramatist, was the author 
 of several thrilling plays, among them " Marmion," 
 " The Indian Princess " and " Superstition." 
 
 " Marmion " was notable for having been the cause 
 of a demonstration in the Chestnut Street Theatre dur 
 ing the war of 1812 which was long remembered by 
 those who witnessed it. John Duff was playing the 
 leading part. He had rendered the lines: 
 
 " My Lord, my Lord, under such injuries 
 How shall a free and gallant nation act? 
 Still lay its sovereignty at England s feet, 
 Still basely ask a boon from England s bounty, 
 Still vainly hope redress from England s justice? 
 No, by our martyred fathers memories; 
 The land may sink but like a glorious wreck 
 Twill keep its colors flying to the last." 
 
 At this speech the author s venerable father, General 
 John Barker, also for several years the mayor of the 
 city and a prominent politician and town figure, got up 
 from his seat in a box, swung his cane over his head and 
 shouted : 
 
 "No, sir, no; we ll nail them to the mast and sink 
 with the stars and stripes before we ll yield." 
 
 A patriotic outburst of applause followed this declar 
 ation which interrupted the progress of the play for sev 
 eral minutes. 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 241 
 
 David Paul Brown (1795-1872) was a remarkably 
 successful lawyer, an acceptable orator upon public occa 
 sions and a picturesque citizen. He aspired to be a 
 dramatist also. His tragedy, " Sertorius, or the Roman 
 Patriot," was written on his evening horse-back rides to 
 Yellow Springs, the popular spa of the day in the hills 
 of northern Chester County. Although the elder 
 Booth had the title role, the play was acted only nine 
 times. A tragedy, " The Trial," and a melodrama, 
 " The Prophet of St. Paul s," met even less favor on 
 the stage. 
 
 Mordecai M. Noah, the Jewish lawyer, politician and 
 journalist, who was born in Philadelphia and lived 
 here for some years before his permanent removal to 
 New York in 1813, was the author of several plays, in 
 cluding " Paul and Alexis, or the Orphans on the 
 Rhine," first produced in Charleston, and afterward re 
 vived, without the author s knowledge or consent, as 
 " The Wandering Boys" ; and " She Would Be a Sol- 
 dier, or the Battle of Chippewa," written for an Eng 
 lish actress whose acquaintance he had made on a recent 
 voyage from Europe. A generous, merry, versatile 
 soul, he became very popular in the green rooms, where 
 " the Major," as he was called, frequently had requests 
 for plays. In this way he wrote " Marion, or the 
 Hero of Lake George," " The Grecian Captive " and 
 " The Siege of Tripoli," all of which had considerable 
 fleeting success. 
 
 The chief impulse to serious dramatic writing in the 
 city came from Edwin Forrest, a Philadelphian by birth 
 and of choice. Even when he dwelt in his castle on the 
 Hudson, Philadelphia was his home. Here he came to 
 spend his old age in a brown-stone mansion at the cor- 
 
242 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 nerof Broad and Master Streets, now the School of De 
 sign for Women. Here he died; and here he left a 
 most worthy memorial, the home for aged actors and 
 actresses, established on his country estate, " Spring 
 Brook, " near Frankford, which still lives by his charity. 
 Forrest was the son of an unsuccessful merchant of 
 Scotch descent, who in his last years was employed in 
 the Girard Bank. Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, 
 taught the boy elocution. For a time he was employed 
 by Duane on the " Aurora," since it was necessary for 
 him to seek a living for himself at a very early age. 
 But his love for the stage asserted itself and he began 
 his great career as a tragedian, the first actor of heroic 
 proportions which the country had produced. By the 
 year 1829, although still but twenty-three years old, For 
 rest had laid by a small fortune, having first paid his 
 father s debts. He made a series of offers of prizes for 
 original plays by American authors in order if possible 
 to create an American dramatic literature. Judging 
 committees were appointed, consisting of William Cul- 
 len Bryant, Fitz-Greene Halleck, and other literary men, 
 and the first award for " the best tragedy in five acts of 
 which the hero or principal character shall be an aborig 
 inal of this country," went to John Augustus Stone of 
 Philadelphia for " Metamora, or the Last of the 
 Wampanoags." Forrest expended at least $20,000 for 
 the encouragement of the native drama, says Alger, his 
 biographer, and, although hundreds of works were sub 
 mitted and the judges were nearly all New Yorkers, the 
 prizes invariably fell to Philadelphia writers. Thus 
 he obtained " Metamora " and " The Ancient Briton," 
 by Stone; " The Gladiator," " Oraloosa," " Pelopidas " 
 and " The Broker of Bogota," by Dr. Robert Mont- 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 243 
 
 gomery Bird; " Caius Marius," by Richard Perm Smith, 
 and " Aylmere," by Robert T. Conrad.* 
 
 After their trial all but four proved practically to 
 be failures, or at least unsuited to Forrest s big 
 physique, the " Metamora " of Stone, " The Gladia 
 tor " and u The Broker of Bogota" of Bird, and 
 " Aylmere," having places in Forrest s repertoire both 
 in Europe and America as long as he continued to ap 
 pear upon the stage. Forrest found in these plays the 
 opportunity he desired for " striding, screeching, howl 
 ing, tearing passions to tatters, disregarding the sacred 
 bounds of propriety," which, as his biographer, Alger, 
 says, was always the refrain in the cry of his critics. 
 But this he liked, and this his audiences demanded of 
 him. The melodrama, in this stage of the people s lit 
 erary development, was the inseparable companion of 
 the wishy-washy lady books. " Faint ladies, spruce 
 clerks, spindling fops and perfumed dandies," says Al 
 ger, " were horrified and well-nigh thrown into convul 
 sions by his Gladiator and Jack Cade. Their quivering 
 sensitiveness cowered before his terrible fire and stride, 
 and they shrank from him with fear." 
 
 " Constantly breaking into colossal attitudes and ges 
 tures, lightnings of expression and thunderbolts of 
 speech," he frightened but held in some magical way 
 the people whose senses Godey and Peterson were titil 
 lating in their mild-mannered magazines. He ap 
 pealed strongly to the American alter ego of a curi 
 ous age. 
 
 Of these four Philadelphia dramatists who supplied 
 
 * It has been asserted that Forrest s prize play idea was a mere 
 cover to obtain plays cheaply. Dr. Bird received $1,000 each for 
 " The Gladiator," " Oraloosa " and " The Broker of Bogota," and 
 was promised further sums which never were paid. 
 
244 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Forrest with plays, John Augustus Stone, Richard Penn 
 Smith, Robert T. Conrad and Robert Montgomery 
 Bird, the first-named was probably the man of the few 
 est parts. 
 
 Stone was a New England actor who finally came to 
 make his home in Philadelphia. His u Metamora," the 
 play which won the prize in the first contest, after its 
 initial production at the Arch Street Theatre, on January 
 22, 1830, was performed again and again with much 
 advantage to Forrest and the theatres. Its success was 
 almost entirely due to Forrest s personality. He played 
 the part of the red Indian who died at the head of his 
 tribe, the literary prototype of King Philip. Never be 
 fore had the American aborigine been put upon the 
 stage with such seriousness, and Forrest had the figure 
 for just such an impersonation. He had studied the In 
 dians in their own haunts, and red delegations often 
 came to see him, a party in Boston growing so excited by 
 the realistic display that they stood up in their places and 
 chanted a dirge at the death of the great chief. The 
 author of several plays, this was Stone s principal 
 achievement. In a fit of despondency in 1834, when 
 still but thirty-three years of age, he flung himself into 
 the Schuylkill from the Spruce Street wharf. His 
 corpse was found floating in the dock a few hours after 
 ward, to be buried in Machpelah Cemetery, at Tenth 
 and Prime Streets, in a spot which is marked by a stone 
 bearing this inscription: " In memory of the author 
 of Metamora by his friend Forrest." 
 
 Richard Penn Smith was a grandson of Provost Will 
 iam Smith, and had more flexible talents as a writer than 
 any other member of that gifted family. Although his 
 achievements were not such as to entitle him to the first 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 245 
 
 rank in any field, he was more successful as a dramatist 
 than as a writer of verse or stories, both of which he 
 essayed to do with much gravity. A long two-volume 
 novel, " The Forsaken," whose scenes were laid in and 
 around Philadelphia at the time of the Revolution, was 
 almost entirely devoid of interest or charm, although 
 many of his short stories were received by the magazines 
 and found an audience when put between book covers. 
 
 Smith wrote several farces and comedies, such as " A 
 Wife at a Venture," seen at the Walnut Street Theatre; 
 "Quite Correct" and " Is She a Brigand?" but his 
 successes were melodramas. " The Deformed, or 
 Woman s Trial," and " The Disowned, or the Prodi 
 gals," after being played in Philadelphia and other 
 American cities, were produced in London. Many of 
 Mr. Smith s plays were presented in the Chestnut Street 
 Theatre when Mr. and Mrs. Rowbotham and John 
 Darley were members of the stock company there. 
 " The Eighth of January," which was given in that 
 play-house for a few nights in 1829, was a daring nov 
 elty. It was a drama to commemorate the battle of 
 New Orleans, with Rowbotham as General Jackson. 
 Mr. Smith truthfully remarked of this work, which was 
 done to order for a particular occasion, that u the diffi 
 culty of introducing distinguished living characters on 
 the stage without offence to propriety can be duly esti 
 mated by those alone who have attempted it." 
 
 He also wrote a melodrama, " William Penn," 
 which was played for a time at the Arch Street Theatre. 
 " The Triumph at Pittsburgh " and " The Sentinels," 
 both patriotic plays, were put on the stage at the Chest 
 nut. His Roman tragedy, " Caius Marius," which 
 won a prize offered by Edwin Forrest, was played but 
 
246 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 seldom, and " The Venetians," written in a similar vein 
 for the same actor, was not accounted a popular suc 
 cess. The entire list of his dramatic writings printed 
 and unprinted and performed and unperformed is a 
 long one. 
 
 Smith was born in 1779, and studied law under Will 
 iam Rawle. He was enticed from his practice for about 
 five years to edit the " Aurora," which he had bought 
 from Duane in 1822. Finding this u dray horse work," 
 both wearying and unprofitable, he returned to the law, 
 varying it as before with his writing. He was a very 
 rapid worker. His plays were produced with incredible 
 speed. " The Eighth of January " was sent to the the 
 atre piecemeal, to be copied for the use of the company 
 who were waiting for it in order to study their parts; 
 and of " William Penn " it is said that the entire last act 
 was flung off on the afternoon of the day preceding its 
 first performance. Mr. Smith, it is related, was rather 
 indifferent to criticism, and it is a story of the old Phila 
 delphia green rooms that, after the curtain had fallen 
 like a pall upon one of his pieces, an auditor turned to 
 him without knowing his connection with it to ask what 
 the play was all about. Really," Smith replied, im- 
 perturbably, u it is now some years since I wrote that 
 piece, and though I paid the utmost attention to the per 
 formance I confess I am as much in the dark as you 
 are." He died at the family seat at the Falls of Schuyl- 
 kill in 1854 and was buried with his father and grand 
 father at Laurel Hill. 
 
 Robert T. Conrad was a son of a member of the pub 
 lishing firm which brought out Charles Brockden 
 Brown s magazine, Joel Barlow s " Columbiad," and 
 many other books early in the century. Educated for 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 247 
 
 the law, he spoke and wrote frequently on political sub 
 jects, held judicial office that caused him to be known 
 through life as Judge Conrad, and served a term in an 
 important emergency as mayor of the city. His great 
 est pleasure and satisfaction, however, came from his 
 writing, which was both journalistic and of more endur 
 ing quality. He had had experience in journalism as a 
 young man, and later for many years was an editor of 
 the " North American/ For a little while he helped 
 Mr. Graham to conduct " Graham s Magazine " and 
 wrote both prose and verse for that and other period 
 icals. 
 
 As a dramatist, his reputation rests upon " Aylmere, 
 or the Bondman of Kent," a prize play frequently and 
 widely produced by Forrest. This work was founded 
 upon the incidents of the English insurrection of 1450 
 for the abolition of the biting wrongs of the feudal sys 
 tem, which was led by Jack Cade. Forrest took the 
 part of Cade, and that outlaw, under Conrad s treat 
 ment, was invested with much sympathy, converted, in 
 deed, into a real hero contending against monstrous odds 
 for the rights of the common people. The author 
 aimed to clear the name of the man, whom Shakespeare 
 pictured as a despised rebel and a brutal demagogue, of 
 the odium of centuries, and the result was at once a 
 poetic drama and an impassioned argument for democ 
 racy. The play was practically reconstructed by Con 
 rad, under Forrest s advice, in order that it might be bet 
 ter adapted for the stage, and the author has said, what 
 is pretty obvious, that " to the eminent genius of that un 
 rivalled tragedian and liberal patron of dramatic litera 
 ture, its flattering success at home and abroad may be 
 justly ascribed." The work, however, is full of bold 
 
248 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 and rugged measures that mark it as poetic tragedy of a 
 
 high order. Says Aylmere (Cade) : 
 
 "Alas! 
 
 Alas! for England! 
 
 Her merry yeomen, and her sturdy serfs, 
 That made red Agincourt immortal, now 
 Are trod like worms into the earth. Each castle 
 Is the home of insolent rapine, and the bond 
 Are made the prey of every wolfy lord 
 Who wills their blood to lap. The peasant now 
 Weds in grim silence; kisses his first-born 
 With prayers that it may die, and tills the glebe, 
 Embittering it with tears. Almighty God, 
 Is this my England? " 
 
 The play of Jack Cade secured and held the favor 
 which " Metamora " enjoyed. In the part, says Alger, 
 Forrest was " a sort of dramatic Demosthenes, rousing 
 the cowardly and slumbering hosts of mankind to re 
 deem themselves with their own right hands.* 
 
 An impulsive but brilliant man, Conrad wrote some 
 short poems which have been much admired, if they be 
 not widely known today even by students of American 
 literature. His work does not fill many volumes, but it 
 is robust and strong. There is little to mark it as the 
 product of a delicate fancy; we know from Conrad s 
 career in politics and journalism that he had not this, but 
 he did have ideas, deep feeling and a fair degree of flu 
 ency. In his poem, " Poland," he writes : 
 
 " I saw her her hand on her sword 
 
 And Hope kindled wild in her eye, 
 As she vowed, by her wrongs, by the faith she adored, 
 No longer to bow to the Muscovite lord, 
 
 But spurn her oppressors, or die! 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 249 
 
 " Time passed : I beheld her again ; 
 
 Where now was the glory of yore ? 
 
 She had fought, she had conquered, but conquered in vain, 
 For foes came in nations like waves of the main 
 
 And Poland was Poland no more! " 
 
 Dr. Robert Montgomery Bird was clearly the best 
 and strongest of the members of this group of Philadel 
 phia dramatists. He was born in 1805, coming from 
 the Delaware family of that name. Studying medicine, 
 he soon abandoned it and devoted himself to literature. 
 In the last years of his life, from 1847 to 1854, he was 
 the editor of and the owner of a one-third interest in the 
 " North American," the associate of Morton McMi- 
 chael, a young man who had already been connected 
 with several Philadelphia publications and was hencefor 
 ward to identify his name so closely with the career of a 
 useful and profitable newspaper. As has been said, Bird 
 wrote three of Forrest s " prize plays: " " Oraloosa," 
 dealing with the romantic life and tragic fate of the 
 Incas of Peru; "The Gladiator," a Roman tragedy; 
 and " The Broker of Bogota," a subtle study of domes 
 tic life in South America. The first of the three was 
 not a great success and was produced but seldom. 
 
 " The Gladiator," on the other hand, was even more 
 popular with Forrest s audiences than " Metamora." 
 The part of Spartacus afforded the opportunity for an 
 intensely melodramatic performance. In naked fighting 
 trim, the muscles of his great form polished and hard, 
 Forrest, when he appeared upon the stage, " used to 
 stand and receive the long, tumultuous cheering that 
 greeted him as immovable as a planted statue of Her 
 cules." It was a play arousing all the elemental pas- 
 
250 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 sions and afforded vast opportunities for the glare and 
 noise of which his public was so fond. 
 
 Bird s third play, " The Broker of Bogota," was a 
 tragedy of slower movement, for which reason, no 
 doubt, it could be played but rarely and only to audi 
 ences of the more discriminating class. Nevertheless, 
 it is said to have been a favorite with the great tragedian 
 and up to the time of his death he produced it whenever 
 he could. The part of Baptista Febro, an old banker, 
 broker and money lender of Bogota, was closely studied 
 by Forrest and with psychological faithfulness. As it 
 was the best play for Forrest, so is it the best for Dr. 
 Bird, the work which shows him at his full worth as a 
 dramatist. 
 
 The material for two of his prize plays, " The Broker 
 of Bogota " and " Oraloosa," was drawn from his re 
 searches into the history and civilization of South Amer 
 ica, and the scenes of at least two of his novels, which 
 the Careys published, " Calavar " and " The Infidel," 
 were laid in Mexico at the time of the conquest. Al 
 though he had never visited Latin America, Bird knew 
 the Spanish language and carefully studied the people 
 and the land in books, both Prescott and Parkman attest 
 ing in footnotes to the accuracy of his work. 
 
 " Calavar," which was published in 1834, was much 
 admired. It was suggestive of Scott. A writer in the 
 " Knickerbocker Magazine " said of it: " We shall be 
 exceedingly mistaken if the work does not at once place 
 the author in the very highest rank among the writers 
 of America." Poe, who always praised sparingly, said 
 that it was " beyond doubt one of the best of American 
 novels." There were several printings of the book and 
 its vogue was revived during the Mexican War. 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 251 
 
 " The Hawks of Hawk Hollow/ a story of the up 
 per Delaware valley around the Water Gap, was not so 
 successful, but Bird s Kentucky story, " Xick of the 
 Woods," was as good an Indian tale as was ever written 
 by Cooper, who, it may be observed, narrowly iniwd 
 being a Philadelphian, coming of Pennsylvania stock as 
 he did and being born across the river at Burlington, 
 although he early removed to New York State. 
 
 What a good critic truthfully said of " Calavar," 
 that " the whole tone of the composition was "^iff***, 
 chastened and thoroughly elaborated, evincing with the 
 fervor of genius the good taste of an elegant mind and 
 the patient labor of a highly accomplished intellect," 
 was in no manner applicable to some of Dr. Bird s coo- 
 temporaries in fiction willing. "He striding and 
 screeching of which Forrest was aconcd upon the stage, 
 were transferred to the printed page by a number of 
 writers of a school which was founded by George Up- 
 pard and of which he was the leading expositor. While 
 Forrest was an undoubted artist in his department, Lip- 
 pard cannot be iiMfjifd to any high place in the sphere 
 in which he gained so much pJTiiiif; celebrity. This 
 young petrel who swooped, gyialed and oat his circles 
 over the roofs and chimney-tops of Philadelphia, saOSa& 
 up the Wissahickon and down the Brandy-wine, now 
 scenting its romantic history and now its foulnesses and 
 vice, was as odd a creature as is known to the literary 
 annals of the neighborhood. His friends, who as faith 
 fully upheld his methods as he himself defended Ana 
 at every opportunity in the face of his critics, compre 
 hending nearly every literary authority of the day that 
 thought it worth his while to waste a shaft on such a 
 mark, have never made out a strong enough case to 
 
252 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 cause us to give him a place anywhere except in the 
 gallery of our curiosities. He studied history, said 
 they, as a poet, like the French poet-historian Michelet. 
 His imagination glorified it. His work was good, too, 
 because it was patriotically American. He attacked 
 vice and stripped it " to its bare bones " with a high 
 moral purpose. If pruriency were read into Lippard, 
 he and his defenders still protested entire purity and 
 honesty of motive, the manner, by the way, of many a 
 better author. Nevertheless, he wrote and published 
 with unexampled industry and w r as read by multitudes 
 of people, who, if they were mechanics, laborers, shop 
 girls, farmers and farmers* wives, never having seen 
 a book before, were parts of the great body of the 
 population to which the printing-press was now making 
 its appeal. 
 
 Lippard seems to have been of Pennsylvania-German 
 extraction, and was born August 10, 1822, on a farm 
 in West Nantmeal township, in northern Chester 
 County, whither his father, Daniel Lippard, had lately 
 gone from Philadelphia County. A wagon passing 
 over his body after he had fallen on the ice, while on 
 his way to market \vith his produce, seriously disabled 
 the head of the family and necessitated its removal to 
 the city. George, at an early age, was taken to Ger- 
 mantown. Both his parents died and he was left alone 
 with three sisters and two aunts. They were robbed 
 of the family savings by a bank failure. The sisters 
 died. He married a beautiful young woman, Miss 
 Rose Newman, by whom he had two children. His 
 wife and children died and were buried from his home 
 at 965 North Sixth Street, before consumption came to 
 claim him at the age of thirty-two. At this time he was 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 253 
 
 residing in a new three-story home which he had pro 
 cured on Apple (now Lawrence) Street above Jefferson. 
 For this man life was a continuous tragedy and his 
 work breathed it in maledictions upon the church for 
 its hypocrisy, upon the rich for their cruelties to the 
 poor and their immoralities, and upon all who enjoyed 
 the world s favors and were in authority under the sys 
 tem by which our civilization is so relentlessly controlled. 
 His parents had been Methodists and at thirteen 
 George Lippard allied himself with that denomination 
 which undertook to send him to college and educate him 
 for the ministry. He could not long endure this re 
 straint and turned to the law, as Charles Brockden 
 Brown, early a subject of his literary admiration, had 
 done, but with equal lack of success. He seems now to 
 have been a real starveling of the streets. He found a 
 great abandoned house near Franklin Square, containing 
 about 100 rooms, and this he proceeded to occupy by 
 squatter s right, wandering by day through the city or 
 out to his beloved Wissahickon, while at night he slept 
 on one of its barren floors with his head pillowed upon 
 his valise. Here his fancy recalled the Welbeck house 
 of wonders in " Arthur Mervyn " and many a sugges 
 tion was furnished him for Monk Hall, the great house 
 of vice and mystery in his own famous book, " The 
 Quaker City." 
 
 At length Lippard was commended to Colonel John 
 S. Du Solle, a wild spirit, later the private secretary of 
 P. T. Barnum. Du Solle published a widely circulated 
 Democratic newspaper called " The Spirit of the 
 Times," the motto of which was u God and the People." 
 Haggard from starvation, his clothing in rags, which 
 were lashed together with twine, Lippard was engaged 
 
254 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 as an assistant editor of that journal, a place he held 
 for about three years. His fortunes now underwent a 
 gradual improvement. He began his career as a nov 
 elist with " Ladye Annabel," a tale founded upon the 
 chivalric lore of Germany, with which he had early 
 filled his mind. This story, " stuffed till it cracks with 
 dazzJing incidents," as a friendly critic remarked, began 
 to appear in a country paper in 1842, when Lippard 
 was barely twenty years old. He now turned his atten 
 tion to local legend, tradition and history, particularly 
 at the time of the Revolution, with specific reference to 
 Germantown and the Wissahickon, " flowing for miles 
 through its dark gorge where gray rocks arise and gaunt 
 pines interlock their branches from opposing cliffs," a 
 life-long source of inspiration to the novelist. His 
 first essay in this field was " Herbert Tracy," a Revolu 
 tionary story, and it was followed by u The Battle Day 
 of Germantown," a tale woven about the Chew House. 
 
 From local history he turned rapidly to the vice he 
 beheld around him, the result being " The Quaker 
 City," the first installments of which were issued in 
 1844, at once creating an immense sensation. It was 
 published in pamphlet form in ten numbers. The book 
 in five years had attained its twenty-seventh edition, no 
 one of W 7 hich was less than 1000 copies, while some 
 reached 4000 copies. It was reprinted in London and 
 was translated into German, still being read in 1876, 
 when T. B. Peterson and Brothers, who published most 
 of his mad tales, issued a complete edition of his works. 
 
 " The Quaker City " was a story of vices, horrors 
 and abuses of which Philadelphia at the time was sup 
 posed to be prolific. It is an unpleasant record of se 
 duction relieved by no bright scenes or cheerful emo- 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 255 
 
 tions. It is a wild and headlong denunciation. " This 
 is the great city," said Lippard, after he had arraigned 
 it for its sins, " which every Sunday lifts its demure 
 face to Heaven and with church burning, Girard Col 
 lege and bank robbery hanging around its skirts, tells 
 Almighty God that it has sent missionaries to the isles 
 of the sea, to the Hindoo, the Turk and the Hottentot; 
 that it feels for the spiritual wants of the far-off nations 
 to an extent that cannot be measured by words, while 
 it has not one single throb of pity for the poor who 
 starve, rot and die within its very eyesight." 
 
 It was supposed that many of the characters were 
 taken from real life. For instance, Gus Lorrimer was 
 thought to be a fashionable young libertine who had 
 lately been killed by another Philadelphian for seducing 
 his sister; and " the fat and festered profligacy in the 
 Senate, on the bench, in the pulpit and at the bar," it is 
 said, were deeply stirred by this recital of their mis 
 deeds. The author was threatened with " pistols, dag 
 gers, and libel suits," if we believe his own account. 
 Certain it is that when his novel was ready to be put 
 upon the stage at the Chestnut Street Theatre, the 
 mayor came to him in the crowd which awaited the 
 opening of the doors and urged him to let the announce 
 ment be made over his name, as the author, that the play 
 would not be presented. Lippard consented, in the 
 interest of peace and order, at a time when the city was 
 suffering greatly from the outrages of incendiary mobs. 
 The story was so popular that he established a magazine 
 called " The Quaker City," in which many of his wild 
 tales appeared. 
 
 Having described the battle of Germantown, Lippard 
 turned to the battle of Brandywine. He visited the 
 
256 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 region and strolled beside the stream. " A sinless vir 
 gin, with gentle thoughts gleaming from her mild eye, 
 soft memories flushing over her young cheek, grace in 
 her gestures and music in her voice, such," said he, 
 44 is the Brandywine among rivers; such her valley 
 among valleys." The result of this study was his 
 " Blanche of Brandywine, or September the Eleventh, 
 1777." Lippard had now outdone his master, Charles 
 Brockden Brown; he had written five novels in three 
 years, and at least two of them, " The Quaker City " 
 and the Brandywine story, were so long that each would 
 fill three or four volumes of ordinary proportions. 
 
 The amount of work involved in their writing must 
 have been enormous, but his career as a novelist had 
 scarcely yet begun. He published many legends, one 
 great volume in 1847 called "The Legends of the 
 American Revolution, or Washington and his Gen 
 erals " ; some legends of Mexico, suggested by the 
 Mexican War, in which work he became so much 
 enamoured of the character of Zachary Taylor that he 
 stumped the state of Pennsylvania for the General, who 
 was now the Whig candidate for President. 
 
 To the Wissahickon, or Wissahikon, as he always 
 spelled the name, he often came to dream in the shade 
 of its trees and to write as he lay or sat upon the rocks. 
 From the time he wandered in the glen with scarcely a 
 crust in his pocket, wondering day by day when he 
 should die, until the end, this stream seems to have had 
 a prophetic power over him. Here, " where the breeze 
 mourns its anthem through the tall pines; where the 
 silver waters send up their voices of joy; where calmness 
 and quiet and intense solitude awe the soul and fill the 
 heart with bright thoughts and golden dreams woven 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 257 
 
 in the luxury of the summer hour," Lippard was mar 
 ried. It was a moonlight night in May in 1847 an ^ 
 there were only rude Indian rites; but in this way was 
 this romantic soul bound to the young woman whom he 
 loved and who loved him. Much of his lore of the 
 Wissahickon was brought together in a long novel called 
 " Paul Ardenheim, the Monk of Wissahikon." In this 
 book he unfolded " the secret history of the Revolu 
 tion." A dozen more works, shorter or longer, came 
 from Lippard s pen before his death, which closely fol 
 lowed his wife s, after he had travelled much in the 
 north and west in the vain hope of forgetting his crush 
 ing sorrows and of restoring his wasted frame. 
 
 Lippard s methods of writing were somewhat pecul 
 iar. J. M. W. Geist, of Lancaster, Pa., who had been 
 his associate in the office of the " Quaker City," in 
 recalling the novelist, said : 
 
 " George Lippard had no vices, unless excessive 
 smoking is a vice, and he and his cigar were inseparable 
 companions, especially when he was thinking out the 
 plot of story or novel and committing it to paper. 
 When his novels were running through the * Quaker 
 City, he would not begin writing the weekly installment 
 until the morning of the day before the paper had to go 
 to press, and when he began he would not rise until his 
 eight or ten columns were finished. On those days it 
 was my assignment to sit by his side, receive the copy, 
 sheet by sheet, prepare it in takes for the compositors 
 and see to it that his cigar did not go out, as that would 
 be sure to cause an interruption to his train of thought 
 and consequent loss of valuable time. When one cigar 
 was nearly burnt out I would replace it with a freshly 
 lighted one, and it really seemed as if he was uncon- 
 
258 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 scious of what was being done, so deeply was he ab 
 sorbed in his writing. His manuscript was so correct 
 that he rarely altered a word in the proof; in fact, he 
 would not look it over unless pressed to do so." 
 
 His stories wrote themselves as he went along. 
 Once, at the end of an installment, he left a boy dang 
 ling from a frail strip of lattice work. The situation 
 was too tense for Mr. Geist, and he asked: " George, 
 what are you going to do with that boy you left hanging 
 to the grape vine? " l< I cannot tell until next week," 
 said Lippard. He would not know until he sat down 
 with his cigar to continue his story.* 
 
 Not in fiction alone did he denounce the institutions 
 of society. As a citizen he contended steadily, if rather 
 aimlessly, for the same objects. He attacked the fac 
 tory system and the " monopoly " of land and money, 
 being virtually a communist, as he was a spiritualist and 
 a general enthusiast for most of the isms of his time. 
 Shortly before his death, he organized a secret society 
 called the " Brotherhood of the Union," of which he 
 was the " Supreme Washington," or President. This 
 society had for its purpose the amelioration of the 
 wrongs of mankind. " It seeks," said he, " to destroy 
 those social evils which produce poverty, intemperance 
 and crime. It seeks to inculcate correct views of the re 
 lations of capital and labor, so that the capitalist may 
 no longer be the tyrant nor the laborer the victim, but 
 both sharers of the produce of work on the platform of 
 right and justice." The " Supreme Circle " of the 
 Brotherhood held its first convocation in Independence 
 
 * Anniversary Committee s publications on the occasion of the 
 fiftieth annual session of the Supreme Circle of the Brotherhood 
 of the Union. 
 
k 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 259 
 
 Hall in 1850 and its interests pleasantly occupied Lip- 
 pard s closing years. He established branches in twen 
 ty-three states of the Union, and it is still a vigorous 
 organization, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in Phil 
 adelphia in 1900. The Society regularly commemo 
 rates Lippard s birthday and decorates his grave, over 
 which it has erected a suitable monument. 
 
 Many of his name had been laid away in a neglected 
 little plot in Germantown, of which he wrote : " You 
 may talk to me of your fashionable graveyards where 
 death is made to look pretty, and silly and fanciful, but 
 for me this one old graveyard with its rank grass and 
 crowded tombstones has more of God and Immortality 
 in it than all your elegant cemeteries together. I love 
 its soil; its stray wild flowers are omens to me of a 
 pleasant sleep taken by weary ones who were faint with 
 living too long. It is to me a holy thought that here 
 my bones will one day repose." 
 
 They, however, were not taken there when he died in 
 1854, but to the Odd Fellows Cemetery on Twenty- 
 third Street, between Diamond and Norris Streets, 
 whither the corpse was followed by a considerable caval 
 cade of delegations from his own and other secret 
 societies. His monument is the work which he crowded 
 into his few years. Lippard once said that his " great 
 est fault " had ever been that he could not mould him 
 self " to the humors of a tinselled aristocracy nor 
 worship empty pomps and emptier skulls though garn 
 ished with big names and hired praise." He was wont 
 to complain, too, that men attacked him because he 
 wore his hair in long shaggy locks and dressed in a 
 blue coat with a scalloped velvet collar buttoned tight 
 at the waist, in total disregard of changing fashions. 
 
260 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Needless to say, these are not the reasons why Lippard 
 is barred from association with great names. 
 
 It is not to be denied that he had much imagery, but 
 of the refinements of literature he lacked understanding 
 and appreciation. For art he endeavored to substitute 
 social reform, which meant the uncovering of vice until 
 it stood naked before you, and a blatant Americanism. 
 " Our idea of a national literature," said he, " is simply 
 that a literature which does not work practically for the 
 advancement of social reform, or which is too dignified 
 or too good to picture the wrongs of the great mass of 
 humanity is just good for nothing at all. * English 
 novels do more to corrupt the minds of American 
 children than any sort of bad literature that ever cursed 
 the world. They are filled with attacks upon American 
 freedom. They sneer at what they do not comprehend 
 in our government and grossly misstate facts where their 
 comprehension is clear. Published by greedy pirates in 
 New York who will not pay a decent price for a book 
 even from the pen of a Cooper or an Irving, these books 
 are scattered broadcast over the land. . . . Written 
 very often by authors who believe in that most terrible 
 of Infernal Machines, the Established Church of 
 England; who believe that Britain is right in starving 
 300,000 Irishmen to death per year; who, in fact, cling 
 to the whole list of British absurdities from absurdity 
 A No. i of supporting a female Pope called a queen at 
 the expense of the misery of a whole people to Z No. 
 99, of pouring all the life and blood of a people into 
 that great funnel of degradation called the * Factory 
 System, these English novels are the very worst class 
 of books to put into the hands of an American boy or 
 girl." 
 
LITERARY DEMOCRACY 261 
 
 Lippard daubed all his canvases red. He did not 
 know the value of soft colors, and the sense of men of 
 a finer organization is palled by his narrative, which 
 will be dismissed as a confusion of horrors expressed by 
 a writer who is working at too high a mental pitch, 
 tense with morbid incident detailed with windy ad 
 jectives. His heart, it was said by one of his friends 
 and imitators, of whom he had so many, was " a furnace 
 of fire-thoughts seething and simmering with emotions 
 for which he could find no utterance." Any but an 
 untrained reader soon tires of sentences like these: 
 
 " The uplifted torch flung its column of blood-red 
 flame and lurid smoke far along the darkness of that 
 ancient chamber." 
 
 " In that blood-red light his countenance stood out 
 from the surrounding gloom like an image of bronze 
 bathed in crimson." 
 
 " Along the calm waters marched a long and wind 
 ing column of the dead, gliding over the bosom of the 
 river, their stiffened feet but touching the smooth sur 
 face while their solemn faces were upraised to the sky 
 and their white shrouds fell in drooping folds around 
 their awful forms." 
 
 Houses that are filled with trap-doors through which 
 men are plunged to underground pits, black slaves who 
 do murder, and Oriental voluptuousness, improbability, 
 mystery and passion reproduced in Philadelphia give us 
 no name for the world to venerate. Brown, whatever 
 his faults, held a rein upon his imagination and told his 
 tales in direct language unencumbered by tawdry orna 
 ments. The answer to Lippard as an artist is the read 
 ing of his works by those who have proper standards of 
 literary taste. As a social reformer his answer is found 
 
262 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 in the realization that no good moral object was ever 
 effected by his tales of seduction and revenge which were 
 read by the multitude only for their libidinous descrip 
 tions; as a writer who strove to encourage patriotism by 
 preserving legendary material and describing national 
 events in the guise of fiction, in the knowledge that to 
 this day the historian labors to correct some of the false 
 impressions which he disseminated among the American 
 people. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 
 
 The most famous and the most truly national literary 
 periodical after the " Port Folio " was " Graham s 
 Magazine." It also made its home in Philadelphia. 
 George Rex Graham (1813-1894) was the son of a 
 shipping merchant who lost his fortune in one of the 
 panics which swept the country periodically early in the 
 century. He was named for his maternal uncle, George 
 Rex, a prosperous farmer in Montgomery County, with 
 whom he was placed as a lad and remained until he was 
 nineteen years of age, when he came to the city to learn 
 the cabinet-maker s trade. Designed for the bar before 
 his father was overtaken by disaster, he still cherished 
 the ambition to become a lawyer. Faithfully sawing, 
 planing and joining at his bench day after day, he 
 utilized his early morning and evening hours for study 
 which would fit him for the profession. He very early 
 began to evince a love for general literature, wrote for 
 various periodicals and by the time he was admitted 
 to the bar in 1839, had an editorial position on the 
 " Saturday Evening Post." Graham soon acquired a 
 proprietary interest in that paper; in Atkinson s " Cas 
 ket," which was merged with Burton s " Gentleman s 
 Magazine " to become " Graham s Magazine "; in the 
 " North American," and other publications, being like 
 Godey, Morton McMichael, Charles J. Peterson and 
 others of their day, an active speculator in magazine and 
 
 263 
 
264 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 newspaper properties. He was often associated with 
 these men and others in enterprises which for the day 
 were of a daring character and at length led to his 
 complete undoing. 
 
 The establishment which was peculiarly his own was 
 the magazine that bore his name for nearly twenty years. 
 Upon it he expended money with a lavish hand; from it 
 he derived profits which if they had been husbanded 
 would have made him through life, as he was for a 
 number of years, a very wealthy man. No one, not 
 even Godey, whose avowed purpose was to produce a 
 woman s magazine, so that the two great periodical 
 publishers, if contemporaneous, were not in antagonism, 
 had ever in America attempted magazine-making on 
 such a scale. Like Godey, Graham had exact psycho 
 logical knowledge of his people, and he went to them, 
 month after month, with the best that could be garnered 
 of the kind of reading which they cordially enjoyed. 
 Ready to devote but little of its space to " the Julianas 
 and Florellas of Feebledom," who were in the ascendant 
 in the lady books, " Graham s " was still in no way 
 aimed over the heads of the populace. It was not the 
 editor s intention to produce a periodical which was 
 superior to the great body of the people, as Dennie did 
 with unvarying pride. He sought to find a mean be 
 tween the uninteresting and severe literature that only 
 Tories read and the namby-pambyism which was the 
 ruling note of the age. He sought, too, and for this 
 history honors him, to build up a native literature by 
 purchasing at adequate prices the work of the best 
 American writers, achieving a deserved success in com 
 petition with piratical publishers who, at practically no 
 cost to themselves, made periodicals by running their 
 

 
 ? 
 
 TV 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 265 
 
 drag-nets through the pages of European books and 
 magazines. 
 
 " Graham s," although the product of a marriage of 
 Atkinson s " Casket " and the " Gentleman s Maga 
 zine," was properly a descendant of the last of these. 
 This parent, at any rate, is the one most worth owning. 
 In 1837, William E. Burton, the comedian, had begun 
 to publish a magazine which was named for the famous 
 English periodical. If ladies were to have magazines 
 and papers of their own, it was but just that gentlemen 
 should receive consideration also, and in the new literary 
 movement Mr. Burton, connected for some time with 
 the city theatres, determined that his sex should have 
 its rightful dues. It was his intention, he said, to pro 
 duce a book which would be worthy of a place " upon 
 the parlor table of every gentleman in the United 
 States," and it must be said that he succeeded very well. 
 He largely relied upon Philadelphia writers, who were 
 then a goodly company and, if of no world-wide renown, 
 had sufficient industry and capacity under intelligent 
 direction to produce an interesting magazine. 
 
 Edgar Allan Poe was soon brought on by Mr. Burton 
 to join the literary colony of the city, and beginning with 
 July, 1839, was active as its assistant editor. John 
 Sartain, the young English engraver who had come to 
 Philadelphia in 1830, upon the advice of Thomas 
 Sully, the painter, was employed to make some of 
 his beautiful mezzotints for the " Gentleman s," and 
 it was a likely candidate for popularity when Mr. Bur 
 ton, desiring to have a theatre of his own, and requiring 
 all his energies and capital for that use, sold his periodi 
 cal late in 1840 to George R. Graham. It now became 
 (to give it all its copious titles) " Graham s Lady s and 
 
266 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Gentleman s Magazine (The Casket and Gentleman s 
 United), embracing every department of literature; em 
 bellished with engravings, fashions and music arranged 
 for the piano forte, harp and guitar." Some of this 
 persiflage was later eliminated, but whatever its official 
 name, to the public which loved it, it was always " Gra 
 ham s." The new owner took over most of Burton s 
 writers, including Poe, who for eighteen months con 
 tinued to hold an editorial position at $800 a year, and 
 at once put forth strenuous and successful efforts to 
 secure the services of the New York and New England 
 writers who had come forward in such numbers to 
 eclipse Philadelphia s literary luminaries. 
 
 The higher literary criticism, so ably represented in 
 the city by Robert Walsh and his group of writers in 
 the " American Quarterly Review," had acknowledged 
 the growing supremacy of other centres only slowly and 
 grudgingly. They contended for a while that Brockden 
 Brown was a better novelist than Cooper, and, like Dr. 
 James McHenry, were violent in their charges upon the 
 " Lakers," the name they bestowed upon Percival, Willis 
 and Bryant. They did but imitate Wordsworth, 
 Southey, Coleridge, Shelley and Keats, the Lake poets 
 of England, said the " Review." In Dennie s group in 
 Philadelphia the standard of value in poetry was Pope, 
 just as they followed Addison as their master in prose. 
 Willis was held particularly blameworthy for introduc 
 ing the " repulsive " Lake style into this country. When 
 he was selected as the poet for an important public occa 
 sion, the Philadelphia " Quarterly " remarked: 
 
 " Could they not have found a better poet in New 
 England ? By the bye, we fear not. Poetry is not the 
 pursuit in which the truly enlightened inhabitants of that 
 
BURTON S 
 
 GENTLEMAN S MAGAZINE, 
 
 MONTHLY AMERICAN REVIEW. 
 
 EDITED BY WILLIAM E. BUHTO1T, 
 
 * 
 EDGAR A. FOB. 
 
 By . g*mlman, w. mean not to drew a HIM tiat would be InTkUom between hlfh and tow, raiit n<J 
 ubordlnatSon, riobM tod poverty. No. 77U dMmctMM u in IA mM. WhotTCr U open, jun and [run; 
 vhorrer I* of a humino and aflabls demeanor ; whoever U hoDounbla in hinuieir, and In hit ju.lm,;ai of 
 Obert, and requires no law but hig word to make him fulfil an engagnMntr-nch a man ii a gtntlmai*?- 
 *nd nth man maj be found among the tiller* of UM earth M well a* in Uu drawing room* of toe high-bora 
 and lie rich, Ox. Yum, 
 
 VOLUME Vt 
 FROK JANUARY TO JULY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA j 
 
 WILLIAM E. BURTON, 
 
 OPFOSITB ran EXCHANGE, DOCK STREET. 
 
 A. TITLE PAGE FROM THE " GENTLEMAN S MAGAZINE " WHILE POE 
 WAS AN EDITOR 
 
268 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 section of our country seem to excel. Theirs is the 
 land of practical sound sense, industry, enterprise, acute- 
 ness, and persevering research, rather than of keen feel 
 ing or glowing and active imagination. If our brethren 
 east of the Hudson are not content with this praise, we 
 cannot help it. Justice will not permit us to accord to 
 them in addition that of poetical excellence." 
 
 In a very short time after this judgment was pro 
 nounced, Philadelphia was disillusioned, first by Bryant 
 and then by Longfellow and Lowell, to mention no 
 other of New England s claimants for poetical honors. 
 In verse, barring Henry B. Hirst, a quite remarkable 
 poet, the Quaker City could offer few better writers than 
 Robert T. Conrad, Willis Gaylord Clark and Robert 
 Morris, whom after Clark s death Poe declared to be 
 " the best of the Philadelphia poets." In prose, as 
 against Hawthorne and the Knickerbockers, the city 
 afforded Dr. Bird, upon whose work its claims must 
 principally if not solely depend. Bayard Taylor, 
 Thomas Buchanan Read, George H. Boker and Charles 
 Godfrey Leland were coming forward; but they were 
 all younger men with their reputations still unmade, and 
 their weight was put into the balance on Pennsylvania s 
 side, only at a somewhat later period. 
 
 Graham took what he found in Philadelphia and 
 made it go as far as it would, with articles and poems 
 from Judge Conrad, Henry B. Hirst, Richard Penn 
 Smith, Joseph C. Neal, Mrs. Neal, Thomas Dunn 
 English, Dr. Reynell Coates, Dr. John K. Mitchell,* a 
 
 *The father of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. "The Song of the Prairie," 
 a refrain in his long poem, " Indecision," was at one time very 
 popular: 
 
 " Oh fly to the prairie, sweet maiden, with me. 
 Tis as green and as wild and as wide as the sea." 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 269 
 
 Virginian, who studied under Dr. Chapman and settled 
 in Philadelphia, publishing a volume called " Indecision 
 and Other Poems"; Morton McMichael, Charles J. 
 Peterson, John Frost, professor of literature in the 
 Philadelphia High School, and the industrious compiler 
 of many histories and biographies; Catharine H. Water 
 man, the poetess, afterward Mrs. Esling; Fanny Kemble 
 Butler, Robert Morris, Joseph R. Chandler, a Massa 
 chusetts man of many fine qualities, for twenty-five years 
 editor of the " United States Gazette " before it was 
 combined with the "North American" in 1847, an d 
 afterward a member of Congress from Philadelphia, 
 all men and women of liberal intellectual interests like 
 those who revolved about Joseph Dennie in his day and 
 generation. 
 
 But these were not enough ; Graham disregarded geo 
 graphical boundaries and sought his writers wherever he 
 could find them. Not many could withstand the allure 
 ments of his invitation to send him their manuscripts. 
 Longfellow contributed constantly. There are enough 
 of his poems in Graham s bound files to fill a goodly 
 volume. The collection would include " The Spanish 
 Student," " The Belfry of Bruges," " The Arsenal at 
 Springfield," "Nuremberg," and " The Builders." 
 Lowell also wrote for the magazine frequently, coming 
 on with his young wife to reside for a time in Philadel 
 phia, so that he might be in close attendance at the 
 nation s literary market-place. Bryant, N. P. Willis, 
 Richard H. Dana, R. H. Stoddard, Park Benjamin, 
 George P. Morris, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Christopher 
 P. Cranch, and later John G. Saxe, E. P. Whipple, 
 George D. Prentice and Alice and Phoebe Cary, were 
 upon Mr. Graham s list of poets. 
 
270 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 In prose he had James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne, James K. Paulding, Washington Allston, 
 the painter; Mayne Reid, " Ik Marvel," W. W. Story, 
 Charles Fenno Hoffman, and all the principal writers 
 of the day except Washington Irving, who was too 
 busily occupied with the " Knickerbocker Magazine " 
 to divide his favors with others. From the South came 
 many poems and stories from William Gilmore Simms. 
 The better-class female magazine writers, such as Mrs. 
 Ann S. Stephens, Frances Sargent Osgood, Mrs. Seba 
 Smith, Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Embury, 
 " Grace Greenwood " and Mrs. Ellet, sent their stories, 
 poems and sketches for the enjoyment of those of Gra 
 ham s readers for whom Lowell, Poe and Bryant were 
 too trying an intellectual exercise. Even T. S. Arthur s 
 name was occasionally seen on Graham s list of contribu 
 tors, although Poe said of him that he was u uneducated 
 and too fond of mere vulgarities to please a refined 
 
 taste." 
 
 Horace Greeley wrote upon fishing, while Francis 
 P. Blair, John W. Forney and men of eminence in 
 political spheres, sent occasional papers to Graham, the 
 dean of magazine publishers in America. 
 
 " My name has figured, I assure you, on the covers of 
 Graham and Godey, making as respectable an appear 
 ance for aught I could see as any of the canonized bead- 
 roll with which it was associated," says one of Haw 
 thorne s characters in " The House of Seven Gables," 
 and to read over the list of writers for " Graham s" 
 before 1850, is practically to call off the names of all the 
 leading American writers of that generation. And they 
 contributed to its pages not once but many times. 
 
 The magazine on its art side was not less well sup- 
 
GKAHAM S MAGAZINE 
 
 OF IITERATTJEE AM) AET. 
 
 GEOBGE R GRAHAM AND BUFD8 W. GED5WOLD, EDITORS. 
 
 principal (Eontribntors : 
 
 WASHINGTON ALLSTON;XR.A. 
 
 WILLIAM C. BRYANT, ?Q. 
 
 WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH, Ei 
 
 J. FEN I MORE COOPER, E*Q. 
 
 REVNELL COATE3, M. D. 
 
 Rr. WALTER COLTON, U. S. N. 
 
 How. ROBERT T. CONRAD, 
 
 GEORGE H. COLTON, ESQ. 
 
 RICHARD H. DANA, Exj. 
 
 THEODORE FAY, EM). 
 
 T. C. GRATTAN, E.Q. 
 
 CHARLES FE?.VO HOFFMAN, EM) 
 
 HT.NKY \YILLIAM HERBERT. EO. 
 
 GKORGF. HILL, EM> 
 
 W A. JO.VES, ESQ. 
 
 HKNRY W LONGTELLOW EJQ. 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, E*a 
 
 CORNELJU3 MATHEWS, EKJ, 
 
 ROBERT MORRIS, EM). 
 JOHN H. MANCUR, Ej. 
 
 HO*. JAMES K, PAULDINO, 
 
 EDGAR A. POE, ESQ. 
 
 ALFRED B. STREET, EKJ. 
 
 W W STORY, ESQ. 
 
 HENRY H. TUCKERMAN, ESQ. 
 
 Bo*. RICHARD HENRY WUJ)E. 
 
 N. P WILLIS, E*Q. 
 
 H. HASTINGS WELD, E*j. 
 
 MRS A. M. F. ANNAN, 
 
 MRS. MARY CLAVERS," 
 
 MRS. EMMA C. EMBUEY, 
 
 MRS. E. F ELLET, 
 
 MRS. FRANCIS 8. O3GOOD, 
 
 MARIA DEL OCCIDENTS," 
 
 MRS. LYDIA B. 81GOURNEY, 
 
 MRS. ANN a 
 
 WITH P07MEROUS OLCTSTRATION3 BY THE MOST EMINENT AETISTa 
 
 VOLUKE XXII. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 GEORGE R. GRAHAM, NO. 98 CHESNITT STREET. 
 
 isii 
 
 TITLE PAGE OF " GRAHAM S " WHEN THE MAGAZINE WAS AT THE 
 HEIGHT OF ITS GLORY 
 
272 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 plied with good work by first-rate hands. While a 
 colored fashion-plate was usually introduced to suggest 
 a rivalry with Mr. Godey, resort was had principally to 
 mezzotint and steel engravings. Here are to be found 
 many handsome plates by John Sartain in which every 
 line of character in the human face, the sheen of silk 
 and brocade, the glossy coats of horses and dogs are 
 reproduced with his delightful realism. Sadd, Tucker, 
 Dick, Smillie, Rawdon, Wright and Hatch and the 
 best engravers in Philadelphia and New York, were 
 employed to embellish " Graham s," with results that 
 are not to be dismissed with a superior air, even when 
 we contrast the plates with the showier illustrations 
 made by newer processes to adorn our periodicals at 
 this day. 
 
 To receive the magazine was a delightful experience; 
 a happy anticipation before the numbers arrived, fol 
 lowed by as much surprise as we feel today in turning 
 over the pages of the bound volumes there to find work 
 which has since become a part of the warp and woof of 
 American literature. 
 
 The result was effected by two agennes, intelligent 
 editorial direction and the lavish use of money. Mr. 
 Graham was always his own editor, although he at 
 different times had many distinguished associates. He 
 had inherited Poe from Burton and would have kept 
 him longer but for his quarrel with Charles J. Peterson, 
 also an associate editor, as one informant tells us, or 
 with Rufus W. Griswold, who took Poe s desk during 
 a temporary absence, according to another version of 
 the affair. At that time between Graham and Poe there 
 seems to have been no unfriendly feeling, and the sever 
 ance of the interesting relation was very unfortunate for 
 
FRONTISPIECE 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 273 
 
 Poe and of no advantage to his employer, who con 
 tinued, however, to purchase the effusions of the young 
 genius, now a kind of derelict on the face of the literary 
 waters. " The connection of E. A. Poe, Esq., with this 
 work," Graham announced in his magazine in 1842, 
 " ceased with the May number. Mr. Poe bears with 
 him our warmest wishes for success in whatever he may 
 undertake." 
 
 Griswold, who followed Poe, was a strange admixture 
 of human opposites, blending, as he did, wide learning 
 with deep-laid prejudices, and he remained for no long 
 time, withdrawing in October, 1843. ^ n X 848 Graham 
 was assisted in his editorial labors for a few months by 
 Judge Conrad, and later his associates were Joseph R. 
 Chandler and Bayard Taylor, now writing constantly as 
 J. B. or J. Bayard Taylor. - 
 
 Through his literary assistants, Graham interested a 
 growing number of writers in the magazine, but the 
 principal influence in inducing them to contribute to its 
 pages was the promise of what were for that day hand 
 some pecuniary rewards. He could early boast of more 
 than one writer whom he had been able " to tempt from 
 their retreats " and who could not be induced, he said, 
 " to contribute to any cotemporary." Poe was ill-paid, 
 like all venders whose necessities compel them to seek 
 a market for their wares. He had much to sell and his 
 needs were commonly known, while the admirers of 
 what was genuinely good were far from numerous, in 
 the state of appreciation of letters in the America of 
 that time. Mr. Graham paid him only four dollars a 
 page for his critical articles and not much more for his 
 tales. Longfellow seems to have received about fifty 
 dollars for each of his minor poems, and George 
 
274 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 P. Morris could get that sum for anything which he 
 would offer before he had yet put his pen to paper, so 
 popular were his songs. The highest prices were paid 
 to those whom Graham persuaded against their own 
 desires, particularly Cooper and Hawthorne. No one 
 received so much as Cooper, said the editor in recalling 
 the halcyon days of his magazine. To him $1800 were 
 paid for " The Islets of the Gulf, or Rose Budd," 
 which was published serially, to be reprinted as a book 
 under the name of u Jack Tier, or the Florida Reefs "; 
 and $1000 were given the same writer for a series of 
 biographies of distinguished naval commanders. 
 
 Graham went to England for few of his authors, but 
 once he bought a short novel from G. P. R. James, " A 
 Life of Vicissitudes/ for which he paid $1200; and 
 obtained several poems at some cost from Mrs. Brown 
 ing when she was still Elizabeth B. Barrett, " the truest 
 female poet who has written in the English language," 
 said Graham as he set her work before the people beside 
 the verse of Longfellow, our American master of 
 melody. 
 
 Many a number, said Graham, in harking back to his 
 prosperity, cost him $1500 for "authorship" alone, 
 and for years the lowest monthly outlay for this item was 
 $800. In 1852 the editor boasted that in the ten years 
 past he had paid to American writers between $80,000 
 and $90,000, and offered to support his statement with 
 the vouchers of the transactions. The engravings were 
 even more expensive. A number often represented an 
 outlay of $2000 for decorations. An artist received 
 from $100 to $200 for a plate while the paper and re 
 production brought up the cost of each engraving to 
 about $500. 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 275 
 
 Graham, as we have said, strove to produce a maga 
 zine of some literary excellence, but he was not too good 
 an angel for his business, or his time. His engravings 
 were of brides, coquettes, happy maids, pensive maids, 
 honest swains, and of scenes meant to promote marriage 
 and glorify peaceful, domestic life. In some issues he 
 gave portraits of his contributors and reproduced pretty 
 landscapes, while a piece of music for the cottage melo- 
 deon and a fashion-plate for the girl or the matron in. 
 the country who wished to follow if at a deliberate 
 distance the Paris modes, were evidences of a human 
 feeling in the editor s breast. Graham passed through 
 the time when 
 
 " Bloomer costumes rule the day; 
 Ladies wear the new apparel ; 
 Corsets now are thrown away, 
 Hourglass changes to a barrel," 
 
 and the hoopskirt craze, of which Leland wrote in this 
 strain 
 
 " He w r alked the lady round and round, 
 
 She seemed intrenched upon a mound, 
 
 Securely spanned and fortified, 
 
 As if all lovers she defied. 
 
 You d say if you that hoop should see 
 
 A war-hoop it was meant to be." 
 
 But Graham s purpose was serious and his service 
 truly literary. He was no mean writer himself and he 
 made some boasts and occasionally betrayed confidences 
 in a department at the back of his book called " Gra 
 ham s Small Talk, held in his idle moments with his 
 readers, correspondents and exchanges." Early in the 
 history of the magazine he wrote: " As we have intro- 
 
276 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 duced a new era into magazine history, we shall not 
 pause until the revolution is complete. We shall not 
 follow the namby-pamby style of periodical literature 
 but aim at a loftier and more extended flight." He be 
 lieved that magazine literature would become better as it 
 was " purged from the sickly sentimentality which de 
 grades public taste," and this hour was at hand, he 
 said, when " the first minds in the nation " were de 
 voting " solid thought to adorn and elevate it," as 
 through " Blackwood s " and " Frazer s " in England 
 and the " Knickerbocker " and " Graham s " in the 
 United States. 
 
 He had begun in December, 1840, with the combined 
 lists of " Burton s " and the " Casket," which called for 
 an issue of not more than 5500 copies. At the end 
 of the first year, the circulation had risen to 25,000 
 copies and it seems to have stood at about 40,000 until, 
 by speculation in copper mines and other business out 
 side his proper sphere, the editor was obliged to sell his 
 magazine. 
 
 He had addressed his subscribers in much confidence 
 in January, 1845 : " We must confess that it is with no 
 little pride we issue the present number. The engrav 
 ings which adorn it are of the very highest order of 
 excellence and the literary matter is from the acknowl 
 edged writers of America. Such men as Cooper, Pauld- 
 ing, Bryant, Longfellow and Lowell would sustain the 
 reputation of any magazine without plates, but when 
 we add to a single number engravings from such artists 
 as Sartain, Smillie and Rawdon, Wright and Hatch, the 
 highest order of excellence must be attained. No pub 
 lisher can issue a handsomer or more sterling work. 
 We say this on the confidence of truth; and having 
 
FRONTISPIECE 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 277 
 
 secured exclusively the best writers and the best engrav 
 ers, we feel as secure in this business as any man can with 
 the reins in his own hand." 
 
 But he was not to keep the reins in his own hand. 
 Disaster overtook him in 1848 and Samuel Dewees Pat 
 terson became the principal owner of the property. 
 
 Colonel Patterson, like Graham, was a Montgomery 
 Countian, having been born in an old inn at Jefferson- 
 ville, near Norristown. He learned to set type in the 
 office of a Norristown newspaper, later became the 
 state printer at Harrisburg, wrote verse, published the 
 "Saturday Evening Post" from 1843 to 1848, and 
 now, through its owner s unhappy speculations, came 
 into control of " Graham s Magazine." Colonel Pat 
 terson retained Mr. Graham as one of the editors. " A 
 series of misfortunes having bereft me of any proprie 
 tary interest in this magazine," said its former owner in 
 an open letter to his subscribers, it would now be his 
 study to attend more closely to their interests, and to 
 work for the " redemption " of the great periodical 
 which bore his name. " What a daring enterprise in 
 business can do," he continued, " I have already shown 
 in Graham s Magazine and the North American, and, 
 alas ! I have also shown what folly can do when business 
 is forgotten; but I can yet show the world that he who 
 started as a poor boy with but eight dollars in his 
 pocket and has run such a career as mine is hard to be 
 put down by the calumnies or ingratitude of any." 
 
 Much sympathy was expressed for the bold editor 
 and he was enabled in a short time to recover a part of 
 his fortune, though not before a dangerous rival ap 
 peared in the field in the shape of " Sartain s Maga 
 zine." William Sloanaker, Graham s business mana- 
 
278 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 ger, had persuaded John Sartain, the engraver, to es 
 tablish a periodical which it was expected would gain 
 many of the older magazine s subscribers, now that the 
 strong hand of its owner was no longer guiding it. It 
 was a secession. Sartain ceased to contribute to " Gra 
 ham s " his engravings made by the mezzotinting proc 
 ess, now blended with lining and stippling to produce 
 new and even more beautiful effects; he reserved them 
 to enrich his own periodical. The artist and his partner 
 had purchased, for $5000, the u Union Magazine," of 
 New York, which was edited by Mrs. Caroline M. Kirk- 
 land, transferred it to Philadelphia, and re-christened it 
 " Sartain s Union Magazine of Literature and Art." 
 Professor John S. Hart, the principal of the Philadel 
 phia High School, and a compiler of several manuals, 
 was employed to assist Mrs. Kirkland in the editorial 
 department and money was freely expended to obtain 
 the work of the best writers of the day, both foreign 
 and American. A series of papers were received from 
 Harriet Martineau. Novels by Frederika Bremer, the 
 popular Swedish authoress, who spent a year or two in 
 the United States in the middle of the century, and by 
 William and Mary Howitt, the English writers, 
 adorned the pages of the magazine. Longfellow con 
 tributed his translation of " The Blind Girl of Castel 
 Cuille," and his poem, " Resignation," beginning 
 
 " There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
 
 But one dead lamb is there. 
 There is no fireside, howsoe er defended, 
 But has one vacant chair." 
 
 George H. Boker, Mrs. Sigourney, Lydia Maria 
 Child, Albert Barnes, Mrs. Ellet, Mrs. Esling, Lucy 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 279 
 
 Larcom, Henry T. Tuckerman, Park Benjamin, R. H. 
 Stoddard and many other writers of the day sent their 
 work to the editors. Charles Godfrey Leland wrote 
 regularly for the magazine. Here Poe s poem, " The 
 Bells/ was first published, instantly gaining great popu 
 larity. At his death, " Sartain s " announced rather 
 jubilantly that it had in hand another of his poems which 
 would be published in an early number; but meantime 
 it had appeared in the New York " Tribune " and was 
 going the rounds of the press, although the Philadelphia 
 magazine had " bought and paid for " it. Mr. Sar- 
 tain s only consolation was found in the fact that two or 
 three other editors were in the same predicament in 
 reference to this ballad, which proved to be " Annabel 
 Lee": 
 
 "It was many and many a year ago, 
 
 In a kingdom by the sea, 
 That a maiden there lived whom you may know 
 
 By the name of Annabel Lee. 
 And this maiden she lived with no other thought 
 Than to love and be loved by me." 
 
 " Sartain s " early seemed to promise financial suc 
 cess. Its circulation after six months was said to be 
 20,000 copies and it was nearly 30,000 at the end of the 
 first year. But it found itself in very close quarters with 
 the other Philadelphia magazines. " Graham s " was in 
 tellectually higher than " Godey s," and " Sartain s " 
 professed to be and probably was moving on a somewhat 
 loftier plane than " Graham s." In any case there was 
 little modesty in putting forth this claim and to the fact 
 that it was rather deficient in the ability to read and 
 interpret popular taste its defeat is probably due. Even 
 
THE BELLS. 
 
 BT EDOAR A. POE. 
 
 Hn the iled-t* with the belU- 
 
 Silrer belUt 
 
 What ft world of merriment their melody forctclUt 
 How ibry tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, 
 
 In the Icy air of ni r -hi! 
 \Vi,ilt tb tUn that oTcrsprtnkle 
 All the hcarcm, term to twinkle 
 
 With a crystalline delight; 
 Keeping timo, time, time, 
 In a sort of Runic rhymo, 
 To the tintinnabulation that to musically wells 
 From the bells, belli, bell*, bell*, 
 
 Bell*, bc-11*, bell* 
 From the jingling and UM tinkling of UM bells. 
 
 Uttr the mellow, wed ding-bell* 
 
 Golden belli I* 
 
 What a world of happloou tbeir harmony foreUllsl 
 Through the balmy air of night 
 How {bey tin; out their delight! 
 from tbe molten-golden note*, 
 
 And til In tune, 
 Wbit a liquid ditty float* 
 To the turtledove that liitcns, while tbe gloat* 
 
 On tbc mooo I 
 
 Oh, from out tbe Bounding cell*. 
 What a guh o( euphony rolumlnously well* I 
 UowltiwclUI 
 Bow It dwells 
 
 On the Future! how It tclli 
 
 Of the rapture that Impel* 
 
 To tbe twinging and the .ringing 
 
 Of tbe bell*, belli, U-lls- 
 (X the belli, bell*, bell*, bills, 
 
 Bells belli, belli 
 To the rhyming aud Uw chiming of the belli! 
 
 Dear the load alarum bclls- 
 
 Draien belli! 
 
 What a We of terror, now, their turbnlcncy tell*! 
 In the ttartled car of ni^-bl 
 How they scream out their affright 
 Too m uch horrified to *peak, 
 They can only shrtck, shriek. 
 
 Out of tune, 
 
 IB a elamoroiit appralins to the mercy of tbe are, 
 In a mad cipwtulation with the deaf nnd frautic Or*, 
 leaping higher, higher, higher, 
 With a uVfperatt ditlrc, 
 And a molute cudrarour 
 Now now to ill, or ncrcr, 
 Dy tbe tide of the pale-faced moon. 
 Ob, the brill, bell*, belUI 
 tut a tale their terror lelU 
 Of Dcipalrl 
 
 How they clang, and cla<h, and roar I 
 What a horror they outpour 
 On the boiom of the palpitating air) 
 Vet the ear, It fully knowt^ 
 Dy tbc twanging 
 And Ibe clanging, 
 IIow tbc danger ebb* and flow*; 
 Yet tbe ear distinctly tells, 
 In thcjan;ling 
 And (he wrangling, 
 Dow tbc dan-ir stnki and iwcll*. 
 By the unking or tbc swelling in tbc anger of tbe bell* 
 
 Of the bcllv- - 
 Of the bells bills, bells, boll*. 
 
 Voll.s be!!.-., bellt- 
 In the clamour and the clangour of the belli 
 
 Hear the tolling of UM bellt- 
 
 Iron bell* I 
 
 What a world of colemn thought their monody oompeUf 
 In the silence of the night, 
 How we (hirer with affright 
 At the melancholy menace of their tone! 
 For erery sound that float* 
 From tbe ruit within their throat* 
 
 I* a groan. 
 
 And the people ah, the people 
 They that dwell up in the rteeple. 
 
 All alone, 
 And vhn, tolling, tolling, tolling, 
 
 In that muffled monotone, 
 Feel a glory in to rolling 
 
 On the human heart o stone i 
 They are neither man nor wi>oian-*> 
 They arc neither brute nor human 
 
 They arc Obouli : 
 And their king it it who tolli: 
 And be roll*, rolls, rolls, 
 
 Itolli | 
 
 A pcsn from the bells I 
 And his merry botom iwelli 
 
 With the p*>an of tbe belli I 
 And be daaoes, and be yells i 
 Keeping time, time, tim, 
 In a oort of Runic rhyme. 
 To tbe pxan of the bell* 
 
 Of the belli :- 
 Keeping time. time, time, 
 In a sort of Runic rhyme,* 
 
 To tbc throbbing of the bell* 
 Of the be!!-, hell*, belli- 
 
 To tbc lobbing of the tell* : 
 Keeping tim.>, tiuio, time, 
 
 A. h- k,,.ll s knells, kncll*. 
 In a happy Kunlc rhym^ 
 
 To the rolling of the bell*- 
 Of Ihc bell*, bells, belli >- 
 
 To tbc tolling of tbc Mia- 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, bell*, 
 
 j.BclK bells, belli 
 To the moaning and the groaning- eT UM bell*. 
 
 A PAGE FROM " SARTAIN S MAGAZINE; 
 " THE BELLS " 
 
 FIRST PUBLICATION OF 
 
UNDINE 
 
 An engraving by John Sartain in "Sartain s Magazine" 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 281 
 
 " Sartain s " did not dare to neglect the fashions in 
 female dress, but the sentimental stories, verses and en 
 gravings, which filled " Godey s " and were not wholly 
 excluded from " Graham s," occupied but very little 
 space in the new publication. It plumed itself upon its 
 superiority in this direction. Its editors boasted that 
 they had " sedulously excluded from its pages the whole 
 brood of half-fledged witlings with fancy names the 
 Lilies and the Lizzies the sighing swains and rhym 
 ing milkmaids of literature." They convinced them 
 selves that the public had shown " unequivocal symp 
 toms of disgust " with such writings. 
 
 The undertaking was doomed to disastrous failure. 
 Professor Hart and Mrs. Kirkland left the editorship" 
 and were followed by Dr. Reynell Coates, who in turn, 
 after a few months, gave place to Mr. Sartain himself. 
 In February, 1851, $1,000 were offered for ten prize 
 tales or essays and over four hundred writers submitted 
 manuscripts in the competition. The editor, making 
 a virtue of his necessity, declared that in future more 
 attention w r ould be given to the work of native writers 
 and artists. " Enough of the beautiful in literature and 
 art may be found in foreign productions," he said, "but 
 encouragement of the talent at home is a paramount 
 duty and it is all we can afford to attend to." The first 
 number of the magazine was issued in January, 1849, 
 the last in 1852. In the three years, from $15,000 to 
 $20,000 had been paid to authors, and it was seven and 
 a half years before Mr. Sartain could discharge the 
 debts in which he had become involved by this unhappy 
 venture. He lived until 1897 and just before his death 
 published an interesting volume of memoirs, " The 
 Reminiscences of a Very Old Man." 
 
282 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 In the meantime Graham had again become the owner 
 of his famous periodical, in 1850 buying back the inter 
 est he had been obliged to dispose of to Mr. Patterson 
 two years before, and he began a most active campaign 
 for subscribers. 
 
 " That we feel proud of our reinstation in this maga 
 zine the child of our happier days," this direct and 
 single-hearted man remarked to his readers, u we shall 
 not deny. The gold that bought it for us if esti 
 mated by the happiness it has diffused must have 
 dropped from Heaven baptized for good. The dark 
 shadows, the regrets and heart-burnings of the past are 
 over." The light was leaping " over the mountain 
 tops," and the portrait of himself with a flattering 
 sketch by his friend, Charles J. Peterson, which ap 
 peared in the magazine to celebrate his reinstatement, 
 brought blushes to his cheek, he said, " like a maiden s 
 before the ardor of her first lover." He wrote again 
 to the authors of New England, inviting them to send 
 him their stories, essays and poems, as they had sent 
 them to him before, and again expended money freely. 
 He warmly supported the younger Pennsylvania writers. 
 Of one issue late in 1851 he printed 80,000 copies, many 
 of which, however, were given away as samples, and 
 are not a fair indication of the magazine s prosperity. 
 
 From Poe s time onward the department of " Gra 
 ham s " which was devoted to the criticism of current 
 books, was noted for the brilliancy of its opinions and 
 the independence and fearlessness with which they were 
 uttered. Its standards were high and its judgments 
 undeviating in a demand for value between book covers. 
 If it were true, as Lowell declared, that Poe sometimes 
 mistook " his phial of prussic acid for his inkstand," he 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 283 
 
 said what he believed and he usually believed what was 
 worth believing. In later years E. P. Whipple re 
 viewed the more important books for the magazine. 
 " Graham s " always dealt out its praise and criticism 
 honestly and, if we mistake not, its scathing attack upon 
 " Uncle Tom s Cabin " was no small influence to hasten 
 its end. That remarkable review of Mrs. Stowe s anti- 
 slavery story, entitled " Black Letters, or Uncle Tom 
 Foolery in Literature," created a great pother in all 
 parts of the North. In response to his critics, Graham 
 yielded nothing. He contended u that there is a slavery 
 more ignoble than that of the body and that the man 
 who has not the courage to speak and write what he 
 thinks is just and true is already fettered with bonds 
 more potent than those of any other slave negro or 
 white." 
 
 He would not be " gagged or coughed down " by 
 the " whole fraternity of proscriptives." He reiterated 
 that " Uncle Tom s Cabin " was a " bad book." It 
 was, said he, " badly constructed, badly timed and made 
 for a bad purpose." It was " a mere distortion of 
 facts, a stupendous lie"; in short, a "most despicable 
 novel," from the sale of which thousands of dollars 
 were to be made by mercenary publishers. He invited 
 the Abolitionists, if they had the real good of the negro 
 at heart, to exercise their minds over the condition of 
 the free negroes in the North. He himself had taught 
 negroes for years in a Sunday School and he now 
 offered to pay $1,000 to Charles S. Boker (George H. 
 Boker s father), the President of the Girard Bank, to 
 found a college in Philadelphia for free negroes, if 
 300 Abolitionists would subscribe the same amount, an 
 opportunity which no one embraced. 
 
284 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Graham had found it not difficult to survive the com 
 petition of the declining " Knickerbocker Magazine," 
 but he now had to face the rivalry of " Harper s " and 
 in a little while " Putnam s " also, both periodicals of 
 large resources. He ascribed the change of the tide to 
 the tendency which was revived to make magazines 
 from material abstracted without price and often 
 without credit from foreign publications. " Will there 
 never be pride enough in the American people," he 
 asked, " to stand by those who support a national litera 
 ture? Or to urge upon Congress an International 
 Copyright Law? " 
 
 Graham finally parted with his magazine in 1853 or 
 1854, and it rapidly declined. In 1857 Charles God 
 frey Leland made a valiant effort to revive the vogue 
 of the periodical with page upon page of his delightful 
 humor, but in 1859 ^ ts name was changed and it soon 
 disappeared, its famous founder, editor and proprietor 
 seeking his livelihood on the face of the waters for forty 
 years, to die, in 1894, a forgotten old man, broken in 
 health and a charge upon the charity of his friends, 
 who had all but disappeared. When he was seventy, 
 his eyesight failed, but it was partially restored by an 
 operation. He was sustained, in misfortune, by George 
 W. Childs, the philanthropic editor of the " Public 
 Ledger," who for long allowed no man to know of his 
 generosity toward one to whom American literature 
 owed so much, though the service was so generally for 
 got. Mr. Graham outlived his benefactor, dying on 
 July 13, 1894, in the Memorial Hospital at Orange, 
 N. J., with no kinsman or friend to stand at his bedside. 
 Frank W. Baldwin of West Orange, upon whom 
 the charitable task of supporting Mr. Graham after Mr. 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 285 
 
 Childs death principally devolved, brought the remains 
 to Philadelphia to be placed in the Laurel Hill Cem 
 etery. 
 
 In the group of writers, editors and artists who 
 were closely connected with " Graham s," its predeces 
 sor, " Burton s," or its offshoot, " Sartain s," and who 
 were natives of the city or made it their home for a 
 longer or shorter time during this period, in answer to 
 pecuniary blandishments, Edgar Allan Poe and James 
 Russell Lowell are the most notable. Philadelphia 
 will always recall, with a sense of interested pride, their 
 association with the city, which, if rather brief for 
 Lowell, covered about five years, the happiest, of Poe s 
 feverish life. 
 
 Poe had ended his connection with the " Southern 
 Literary Messenger " in Richmond and had passed 
 through Philadelphia on his way to New York in 1837. 
 The next summer he returned to the city to make it his 
 home indefinitely, hoping to find among its publishers 
 some supporting hand. The old house of Mathew 
 Carey, which had now become Lea and Blanchard, pub 
 lished some of his tales, they taking all the gains and 
 allowing the author twenty copies for distribution among 
 his friends. Even this arrangement was not profit 
 able and they declined to make any further issues of his 
 works, although he urged them to new adventures. It 
 was his unchanging desire from this time until his 
 death to have a magazine of his own, and it was prob 
 ably less in the hope of finding what he did, a sub 
 editor s desk in the office of an already established mag 
 azine, than capitalists willing to assist him in realizing 
 greater ambitions, that he was drawn to Philadelphia. 
 
 William E. Burton had lately started his " Gentle- 
 
286 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 man s Magazine." Already Poe was rather widely 
 known as a writer, if there were few to read his books, 
 and he was employed at ten dollars a week, in return 
 for which his name was placed beside Burton s on the 
 cover and he furnished, by his own reckoning, an aver 
 age of eleven pages of original matter monthly beside 
 his services in proof-reading and other editorial work. 
 For much of the time he was on such terms with his 
 employer that it is difficult to see how the relation was 
 continued. There were the most unpleasant passages 
 between the two men, especially after Poe issued his 
 prospectus for " The Penn Magazine," which was to 
 appear on January i, 1841. His illness, a financial 
 depression and an offer to become an editor of " Gra 
 ham s " induced the poet to change his plans. Until 
 the spring of 1842 he was now regularly employed at a 
 desk beside Mr. Graham s. That the relationship was 
 pleasant to the employer, he later attested generously 
 and cheerfully. 
 
 At the end of this engagement Poe was again at the 
 mercy of the world. He had married his cousin, Vir 
 ginia Clemm, in Richmond, when she was not yet four 
 teen years old, and this child and his aunt-mother, Mrs. 
 Clemm, his father s widowed sister, made up a house 
 hold of which he was the unfit pecuniary mainstay. 
 While in Philadelphia they had several homes. They 
 boarded first in Arch Street. According to John Sar- 
 tain s " Reminiscences," they resided for a time in Six 
 teenth Street near Locust. Later they had a little home 
 in Coates Street (Fairmount Avenue) near Twenty- 
 fifth, on the borders of Fairmount Park, far from the 
 city s centre and then a very isolated place. From this 
 dwelling they removed to the little " rose-covered cot- 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 287 
 
 tage " Mayne Reid calls it a " lean-to " set against 
 the gable of a large four-story brick house occupied by 
 an opulent Quaker, " a dealer in cereals," who was the 
 poet s landlord, and who, if report be true, was not very 
 proud of the relationship. The cottage is now identi 
 fied as the back buildings of the house standing at 530 
 North Seventh Street, at the corner of Brandywine 
 which is a small street just above Spring Garden. 
 Walls have been built in what was then a garden, filled 
 in summer with vines and flowers which in the winter 
 were carried inside to blossom behind the glass. Here 
 the delicate child-wife, who, like Poe, had the fatal 
 heritage of consumption, tasted the sweets of life that 
 were to be enjoyed so briefly. She had her harp and 
 piano, to w T hich she sang for Mayne Reid, who met Poe 
 intimately and almost daily for two years; Thomas Cot- 
 trell Clarke, Mr. Graham, and the guests who cared to 
 seek them out in their retreat. Neat furnishings, birds, 
 and the motherly love and attention of Mrs. Clemm, 
 made it a home that was not unbefitting a man of Poe s 
 mould. He had resolved not again to taste the liquors 
 that the convivial people of Richmond had put to his 
 lips, at times disqualifying him for his duties while in 
 that city. He seems to have kept his resolution toler 
 ably well until his wife in singing ruptured a blood ves 
 sel, and the frail creature, who was the object of his 
 deep, honest, unchanging love, entered upon that series 
 of collapses that brought him so often to what he be 
 lieved to be her dying bed, to part with her forever. 
 
 He had revived his project for a magazine and made 
 such progress with the idea that he entered into a part 
 nership with Thomas Cottrell Clarke for issuing it at a 
 definite date. F. O. C. Darley, to whom Poe carried 
 
288 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 his manuscript, always in a tight roll, his small, fault 
 less print-like writing on note paper, the bottom of one 
 sheet pasted to the top of the next, to be unwound like a 
 scroll, falling upon the floor as his reading of it pro 
 ceeded was to be the artist of the magazine. They 
 had determined that it should be called " The Stylus/ 
 but the scheme came to naught. Poe must still rely up 
 on the sale of his fugitive writings to other editors, a 
 most precarious means of support. He always wrote by 
 fits and starts. " There are epochs when any kind of 
 mental exercise is torture," he told James Russell Low 
 ell, whom he deeply admired. " I have thus rambled 
 and dreamed away whole months and awake at last to a 
 sort of mania for composition." It was galling to Poe 
 to write to order at stated times, or, indeed, to subject 
 himself to any kind of discipline or restraint. Especial 
 ly uncongenial was much of the writing which he must 
 do to meet the demands of the editors and which now 
 plays so large a part in the complete editions of his 
 works. It is unfortunate that Poe, or any writer lead 
 ing such a life as his, should be made to answer to the 
 latest generations for all that he contributes to period 
 icals which he despises, for the enjoyment of classes of 
 people for whom he can have no literary sympathy. 
 While in Philadelphia he seems to have written " The 
 Murders in the Rue Morgue," which appeared in "Gra 
 ham s " in 1841 to signalize his engagement with that 
 magazine; "The Gold Bug," the most popular of his 
 prose tales, which won the prize offered by and was 
 printed in "The Dollar Newspaper"; and doubtless 
 " The Raven," his most successful poem, which was 
 published in New York shortly after his arrival there. 
 But doing all he could, Poe s poor efforts did not suf- 
 
I 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 289 
 
 fice to keep, even in tolerable comforts, himself, his frail, 
 dying wife, and his faithful mother-in-law and aunt 
 who was so true to her " Eddie " in life, and defended 
 his memory so bravely after his death. " She was the 
 sole servant, keeping everything clean," said Mayne 
 Reid of Mrs. Clemm in recalling his visits to the Poe 
 home in Philadelphia; " the sole messenger, doing the 
 errands, making pilgrimages between the poet and his 
 publishers, frequently bringing back such chilling re 
 sponses as * The article not accepted or The check not 
 to be given until such and such a day/ often too late for 
 his necessities." After nearly five years in Philadel 
 phia, without finding the city too grateful, Poe deter 
 mined to remove to New York. One morning in April, 
 1844, ne an d Virginia, Mrs. Clemm being left behind 
 to settle their affairs, were driven with their belongings 
 to Walnut Street wharf, crossing to New Jersey, whence 
 they made their way to Amboy by rail. The rest of the 
 journey, forty miles by Poe s own measurement, was 
 accomplished in a steamboat. When he reached New 
 York, after paying all his expenses, he had in his pockets 
 about four dollars and a half with which to begin his 
 life in a new city where poverty was more cruel than it 
 had ever been in Philadelphia. 
 
 Of their life in New York N. P. Willis has given us a 
 vision as clear as we need to behold. " Our first knowl 
 edge of Mr. Poe s removal to this city," said Mr. Willis, 
 " was by a call which we received from a lady who in 
 troduced herself as the mother of his wife. She was in 
 search of employment for him and she excused her 
 errand by mentioning that he was ill, that her daughter 
 was a confirmed invalid, and that their circumstances 
 were such as compelled her taking it upon herself. The 
 
290 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 countenance of this lady, made beautiful and saintly 
 with an evidently complete giving up of her life to pri 
 vation and sorrowful tenderness, her gentle and mourn 
 ful voice urging its plea, her long forgotten but habitu 
 ally and unconsciously refined manners and her appeal 
 ing and yet appreciative mention of the charms and abil 
 ities of her son, disclosed at once the presence of one of 
 those angels upon earth that women in adversity can be. 
 . . . Winter after winter for years the most touch 
 ing sight to us in the whole city has been that tireless 
 minister to genius, thinly and insufficiently clad, going 
 from office to office with a poem, or an article on some 
 literary subject to sell sometimes simply pleading in 
 a broken voice that he was ill and begging for him 
 mentioning nothing but that he was ill, whatever 
 might be the reason for his writing nothing and 
 never, amid all her tears and recitals of distress, suffer 
 ing one syllable to escape her lips that could convey a 
 doubt of him, or a complaint or a lessening of pride in 
 his genius and good intentions." 
 
 The poor willowy wife on a straw bed, warmed by 
 the furry cat that purred on her breast and the great 
 military cloak of the husband, who loved her but was 
 powerless to procure her the commonest comforts at the 
 dying hour, is a picture that will never fade from the 
 mind. 
 
 Her life ended in the cold January of 1847 anc ^ * nc 
 disappearance of the " greatest and only stimulus to 
 battle with this uncongenial, unsatisfactory and ungrate 
 ful life," as Poe described his Virginia, left him a drift 
 ing wreck, which finally sank in Baltimore in 1849, 
 shortly after a visit to John Sartain in Philadelphia, 
 when the artist, with difficulty, saved him from suicide 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 291 
 
 while in a wild frenzy brought on by drink, narcotics, 
 grief and disease. 
 
 It would be hard to find two lives that contrast so 
 forcefully as Poe s and Lowell s in Philadelphia : one 
 led in sorrow, disappointment and poverty; the other in 
 the joy of the honeymoon with the world stretching out 
 happily before him. It is a pleasure to pass from so 
 much dark misery into the light. Lowell married Maria 
 White near the end of 1844. She had previously spent 
 some months in the city and had grown to like it. " I 
 have talked so much to James of Philadelphia," she 
 writes, " that I have inspired him with the desire to try 
 its virtues." They reached the city on New Year s 
 Day, 1845, an d found lodgings at 127 Arch Street* in 
 the house of a Mrs. Parker, a kindly Quakeress. " We 
 have a little room in the third story (back), with white 
 muslin curtains trimmed with evergreen," Lowell wrote 
 to a friend, " and are as happy as two mortals can be. 
 I think Maria is better and I know I am in health, I 
 mean in spirit we both are. She is gaining flesh and 
 so am I, and my cheeks are grown so preposterously red 
 that I look as if I had rubbed them against all the red 
 brick walls in the city." 
 
 Mrs. Lowell echoed her husband s happiness in a 
 letter to Mrs. Hawthorne. " James s prospects," she 
 wrote, " are as good as an author s ought to be and I 
 begin to fear we shall not have the satisfaction of being 
 so very poor after all. But we are, in spite of this dis 
 appointment of our expectations, the happiest of mor 
 tals or spirits and cling to the skirts of every passing 
 
 * Old number. Identified by Albert H. Smyth, in his useful 
 study of the Philadelphia magazines, as the house standing at the 
 north-east corner of Fourth and Arch Streets. 
 
292 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 hour though we know the next will bring us still more 
 
 joy." 
 
 Mrs. Lowell translated German verse, for which 
 there was a demand in the magazines, and her husband 
 employed himself in writing u leaders " at five dollars 
 each for the u Pennsylvania Freeman," the fortnightly 
 anti-slavery paper which Whittier had earlier edited for 
 two years; and poems and essays for " Graham s Maga 
 zine " ; although he found it hard to work when just 
 married, and thought it ought not to be necessary. 
 " The Jews," said he, " gave a man a year s vacation." 
 
 Two weeks after his arrival in Philadelphia, Lowell 
 wrote to a friend : " I have seen Graham and shall 
 probably be able to make a good arrangement after my 
 new book has been puffed a little more. He has grown 
 fat, an evidence of success. He lives in one of the finest 
 houses in Arch Street and keeps his carriage. He says 
 he would have given me $150 for the Legend of Brit 
 tany for his magazine without the copyright. I am 
 sorry I did not think of this at the time." Soon, Mrs. 
 Lowell expecting the birth of a child, their faces were 
 turned to Cambridge again, and, after a carriage jour 
 ney through Chester County with their friends, Mr. and 
 Mrs. E. M. Davis, Lucretia Mott s son-in-law and 
 daughter, they left the city at the end of May, 1845, 
 before they had become very closely identified with its 
 people or its life. 
 
 George P. Morris, who frequently sent his songs to 
 the Philadelphia periodicals they were eagerly sought 
 wherever magazines were published was a native of 
 the city, although he left it at a very early age 
 to make his home in New York, where in 1823 he 
 founded the New York " Mirror," which for its time 
 
THE BELLE OF THE OPERA 
 
 Characteristic engraving from "Graham s Magazine" 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 293 
 
 performed a service, as " a field-marshal of our native 
 forces," much akin to Dennie s a decade or so earlier 
 through the " Port Folio." Morris became " the 
 song writer of America." " He is just what poets 
 would be if they sang like birds without criticism," said 
 his friend Willis, " and it is a peculiarity of his fame 
 that it seems as regardless of criticism as a bird in the 
 air. Nothing can stop a song of his." There was 
 none who did not know his " Woodman, Spare That 
 Tree," " My Mother s Bible," " We Were Boys To 
 gether," " I Have Never Been False to Thee," and a 
 host more. His " I Love the Night " needs no red- 
 sashed troubadours with their guitars under the latticed 
 window for its accompaniment. It sings itself: 
 
 " I love the night when the moon streams bright 
 
 On flowers that drink the dew; 
 When cascades shout as the stars peep out 
 
 From boundless fields of blue ; 
 But dearer far than moon or star, 
 
 Or flowers of gaudy hue, 
 Or murmuring trills of mountain rills 
 
 I love, I love love you." 
 
 Thomas Dunn English wrote thousands of poems, 
 two or three score plays, and a respectable number of 
 stories and novels, but his reputation was made by his 
 very moving ballad, " Ben Bolt," beginning 
 
 Si Don t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt, 
 
 Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown, 
 Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile 
 
 And trembled with fear at your frown ? 
 In the old churchyard in the valley, Ben Bolt, 
 
 In a corner, obscure and alone, 
 
294 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 They have fitted a slab of the granite so gray 
 And Alice lies under the stone." 
 
 English was born in Philadelphia in 1819 of an Irish 
 family which arrived on the banks of the Delaware in 
 William Penn s time. He was destined for the bar, 
 but his father having failed in business, he early became 
 a newspaper writer. In 1839 he graduated in medicine 
 from the University of Pennsylvania and later studied 
 law, but his absorption in journalism and politics pre 
 vented him from making a success of either profession. 
 He wrote for " Burton s " and " Graham s," a half 
 dozen newspapers, and edited or helped to edit some ill- 
 starred comic periodicals. Many of his earliest poems 
 appeared in " Burton s " while he was at Blockley Hos 
 pital and in 1843 n ^ s reputation was made by the poem 
 which he dedicated to his friend, Charles Benjamin Bolt. 
 It was written, at N. P. Willis s request, for the New 
 York " Mirror," lately revived as the " New Mirror," 
 and in the greatest haste, as was everything that issued 
 from his pen. It caught the popular fancy, and when 
 set to music, as it soon was, became known all over 
 the world wherever English was spoken or under 
 stood. Ben Bolt became the name of a ship, a steam 
 boat and a race horse. " The ship was wrecked," 
 English used to relate, " the steamboat was blown up 
 and the horse turned out to be a * plater and never won 
 anything." The plaintive melody was introduced to a 
 generation to whom it was strange by Trilby in Du 
 Maurier s novel which somehow struck the fancy of the 
 people, as the song itself had captivated them fifty years 
 before. The University of Pennsylvania, proud to 
 honor Mr. English as a graduate, warmly received him 
 
FABLES IN RHYME 
 
 FROM THB POLISH OF ARCH DISH OP KRASUCKL 
 
 01 THOMAB DOW* BMOLISU, tf . 0. 
 
 TflE RAM AND JACKASS. 
 
 The ass complained, in moving words, 
 
 It was a shame and sin 
 To cast him from the stable out 
 
 And let the ram within; 
 But, while the loudest were his moans, 
 Thus spake the ram in bitter tones : 
 
 Be quiet, pray, my long-cared friend. 
 
 With anger be less rife, 
 A butcher s standing by my side 
 
 With ready-sharpened knife. 
 Comfort yourself with this conceit, 
 (Ma nkind will not cat jackass-meat. " 
 
 THE STANDISH AND THE PEN. 
 
 Belwfvl (Tic sfandiJi nml (he pen 
 
 A dreadful (jnairct rose, 
 Which came to words of bitter kind, 
 
 Black looks, and almost blown, 
 As to which penned a certain- fable 
 That lay just written on the table. 
 
 Its author in the meanwhile came 
 
 The library within, 
 And, finding out the cause of this 
 
 Mbst sad and dang rous din,- 
 Exclaimed, " How many bards at war 
 Just like this pen and Mandish arc 1" 
 
 THE DOG AND HIS MASTER, 
 
 A certain dog, of watchful kind, 
 
 To scare the thief away, 
 Barked from the selling of the sun 
 
 Until the dawn of day. 
 His master, at the morning light, 
 Flogged him for barking thus all night. 
 
 Next night the dog in kennel slept 
 
 Sound, with prodigious snore, 
 The thief broke in, and, seizing all, 
 
 Made exit by the door. 
 When morning came they flogged the brute, 
 Because the lazy dog was mute. 
 
 THE LAZY OXEN. 
 
 The firt commission of an III 
 
 Delightful is, no less; 
 Tig In the effects it brings about 
 
 That lies the bitterness. 
 A easily is proven by 
 This most veiacious history. 
 
 In spring the oxen all refused 
 
 To plough the grassy plain ; 
 When autumn came they would not haul 
 
 From out the fields the giain. 
 In winter, being scarce of bread, 
 They knocked the oxen on the hood. 
 
 A PAGE OF ENGLISH S VERSE FROM THE " GENTLEMAN S MAGAZINE 
 
296 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 at the meetings of the alumni, which accompany the 
 Commencement season, in 1899, sixty years after he had 
 taken his degree in its medical school. 
 
 English removed to New York in time to be included 
 in Poe s serial critique of New York s " literati " in 
 " Godey s Lady s Book" in 1846, and the passage at 
 arms between the two men was the most exciting which 
 had been witnessed since Cobbett s famous assault upon 
 Dr. Rush. Poe was right in adjudging English no very 
 important literary figure, but he was unnecessarily se 
 vere, as he was wont to be in the presence of mediocrity. 
 " No spectacle can be more pitiable," said Poe in " Go 
 dey s," " than that of a man without the commonest 
 school education busying himself in attempts to instruct 
 mankind on topics of polite literature." His grammar 
 was defective. He wrote " lay " for " lie," and in 
 general needed " private instruction," for getting which, 
 Poe explained " no one of any generosity would think 
 the worse of him." The Irish in English rising, he re 
 fused to rest quietly under such imputations and re 
 sponded, through a New York newspaper, with attacks 
 on his critic s moral character. Poe made a rejoinder 
 through Neal s " Saturday Gazette " in Philadelphia. 
 He called English " Thomas Dunn Brown," and the 
 author of " Ben Bolt " in truth was " done " so 
 " brown " that he must have regretted ever having 
 offered himself for a baking at the hands of such an 
 artist in cookery. Poe sued for damages and got an 
 award of $225, with the costs charged to his defamers, 
 in February, 1847. 
 
 Many of English s defects, as Poe said, were attrib 
 utable to his sparing education, but these might have 
 been corrected if he had shown the ability and patience 
 
"THE BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN J 
 
 From "Graham s Magazine" 
 
 A PICNIC ON THE WISSAHICKON 
 
 From "Graham s Magazine" 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 297 
 
 to work more carefully. With the journalist s train 
 ing and heedless instincts as a writer, he would produce 
 three or four poems at a single sitting, and " The Mor 
 mons," perhaps his most successful play, occupied him 
 for but three days and nights. It is not surprising, 
 therefore, that his work, large in volume and variety as 
 it was, is of no enduring importance. 
 
 English had entered politics before he was twenty- 
 five years old, warmly advocating the annexation of 
 Texas. For a while in the fifties he resided in Virginia. 
 During the Civil War he was a member of the legisla 
 ture of New Jersey, and early in the nineties, when he 
 had passed seventy, being then a resident of Newark, 
 he was elected to Congress, where he was an interesting 
 figure for two or three terms. He died in 1902. 
 
 The prominent position occupied by Philadelphia in 
 the publishing trade and the variety and number of its 
 magazines, brought to the city a curious critical autocrat, 
 Rufus Wilmot Griswold. He was born in Vermont, 
 in 1815, and studied for the Baptist ministry. He 
 preached long enough to become a doctor of divinity 
 and obtain the title to be called " the Reverend Mr. 
 Griswold " by Lowell, Poe and many who held his lit 
 erary wisdom in contempt, which none of them con 
 cealed and upon which this would-be Jeffrey of Amer 
 ica apparently throve. Abandoning the church, he 
 travelled extensively in the American interior and in 
 Europe, and then turned his attention to newspaper, 
 magazine and book writing. He had prejudices that 
 nothing could subdue and enjoyed contention; but with 
 all his bigotry as a critic, for it must be called that, he 
 had a knowledge of the history of American literature 
 which was perhaps unsurpassed by that of any student 
 
298 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 who preceded Moses Colt Tyler. " He has more liter 
 ary patriotism, if the phrase be allowable," said an ad 
 mirer in " Graham s," " than any person we ever knew. 
 Since the Pilgrims landed no man or woman has written 
 anything on any subject which has escaped his untiring 
 research." 
 
 Griswold resided in Philadelphia for a few years in 
 the forties, editing the " Saturday Evening Post," and 
 afterward taking Poe s desk for several months in the 
 editorial office of " Graham s Magazine." Two men 
 more different in temperament, outlook and method of 
 life are rarely found, which is the explanation of the 
 criticism and censure that Griswold passed upon Poe 
 almost before the grave had closed over him, creating a 
 real cause celebre in the annals of literature in America. 
 The echoes of the contest between Griswold and Poe s 
 friends are still heard, and that he was a calumniator 
 who deliberately sat down to write the poet s biography 
 in an ugly spirit, is not anywhere denied. Griswold in 
 dustriously criticized and compiled extracts from the 
 works of most of the writers of America, many of his 
 books having been published by Carey and Hart in Phil 
 adelphia ; but he left the city after no very long residence 
 in it and continued his literary career in Boston and New 
 York. 
 
 " The Reverend Mr. Griswold is an ass and, what s 
 more, a knave," Lowell said one time when he was 
 stung by some criticism of Poe. Graham declared in 
 his magazine, in his open letter to Willis, that Gris- 
 wold s attack was " dastardly," as well as " false." For 
 three or four years Graham said he had known Poe in 
 timately and for eighteen months saw him almost daily, 
 writing and conversing with him at the same desk. In 
 
7** 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 299 
 
 that time he had found much to admire in him and he 
 now testified in the poet s behalf most willingly. He 
 dwelt upon Poe s deep attachment for his wife and Mrs. 
 Clemm, to whom all the money that Mr. Graham paid 
 him was taken regularly. " His love for his wife was 
 a sort of rapturous worship of the spirit of beauty 
 which he felt was fading before his eyes," said Graham. 
 " I have seen him hovering around her when she was 
 ill, with all the fond fear and tender anxiety of a mother 
 for her first-born, her slightest cough causing in him a 
 shudder, a heart chill that was visible. I rode out one 
 summer evening with them, and the remembrance of 
 his watchful eyes eagerly bent upon the slightest change 
 of hue in that loved face haunts me yet as the memory 
 of a sad strain. It was this hourly anticipation of her 
 loss that made him a sad and thoughtful man and lent 
 a mournful melody to his undying song." 
 
 Later there came a note of morbidness induced by his 
 inability to do for her "a consciousness of the in 
 equalities of life and of the abundant power of mere 
 wealth, allied even to vulgarity, to override all distinc 
 tions and to thrust itself bedaubed with dirt and glitter 
 ing with tinsel into the high places of society and the 
 chief seats of the synagogue." 
 
 " Could he have stepped down and chronicled small 
 beer," Graham continued, " made himself the shifting 
 toady of the hour, and with bow and cringe hung upon 
 the steps of greatness, sounding the glory of third-rate 
 ability with a penny trumpet, he would have been feted 
 alive and perhaps been praised when dead." Graham s 
 testimony was not needed to convince the world that 
 Poe was not of this mould ; but his statement was very 
 useful in controverting Griswold s malignant assertions, 
 
3 oo LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 
 
 since it came from one who, like Mayne Reid, was en 
 titled to a respectful hearing in this unpleasant dispute. 
 
 Three Philadelphia poets in Graham s galaxy, Willis 
 Gaylord Clark, Robert Morris and Henry B. Hirst, all 
 of whom Poe admired, do not loom as large upon the 
 literary horizon as they should, if their work were better 
 known. The first two left the world all too little for 
 it to judge them by, while Hirst s genius was clouded in 
 his last years, and, although his youthful output was 
 considerable, his memory was marred by his misfor 
 tunes and dissipations. 
 
 Willis Gaylord Clark was the brother of Lewis Gay- 
 lord Clark, long the editor of the u Knickerbockei 
 Magazine." A native of New York State, he came to 
 Philadelphia when a young man and was connected with 
 a number of literary papers. He died of consumption 
 soon after " Graham s" was founded, and when little 
 past thirty years of age, being buried at his parting de 
 sire beside his wife at the same hour of the day at 
 which she was interred. An " Impromptu " entitled 
 41 Sabbath Bells " in " Graham s Magazine " gives an 
 indication of the ground Poe had for his admiration of 
 Clark. The poem begins : 
 
 " Sweet Sabbath ! To my ear 
 
 Thy bells with mingling tone 
 Tell of the distant and the dear 
 In yon far blue unknown. 
 
 " Of happier days they tell, 
 
 When o er the vernal ground, 
 Fairer than Ocean s richest shell, 
 Young Nature breathed around. 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 301 
 
 " When Hope, as at a shrine, 
 To Fancy poured her lay, 
 And hues, inspiring and divine, 
 Painted the live-long day." 
 
 This is not very consequential, but in all that Clark 
 wrote, there is, as Poe said in " Graham s," u a deep 
 abiding sense of religion," he being, indeed, " almost 
 the first poet to render the poetry of religion attractive." 
 He was given distinction " for his grace and euphony." 
 " The rank to which he belonged," said his appreciative 
 judge, " was not the highest but in that rank he occu 
 pied one of the foremost stations." 
 
 His friend, Robert Morris, had much the same 
 character as a poet, writing in " The Christmas Dream 
 of the Future," rather casually to select but one extract 
 from a single poem from this graceful muse : 
 
 " How brief our earthly span! Youth, Manhood, Age, 
 We creep we walk we totter off life s stage. 
 
 How quick yon star shoots down the illumined sky 
 Tis gone! and yet we see not where on high 
 Its bright lamp shone ! Tis thus with feeble man 
 He twinkles here a moment, and is gone! 
 On rolls the world ! Each evanescent year 
 Bears on its current to some distant sphere 
 Myriads of mortal forms vain things of time, 
 Youth in its hour of hope and manhood s prime 
 Beauty and all its fading hues of clay, 
 The tints that are net, but were yesterday! " 
 
 Robert Morris was not a descendant of the Financier 
 of the Revolution, as his name might indicate, but of a 
 Welsh sea-captain who, being in command of an armed 
 
302 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 vessel in the War of 1812, was captured and confined 
 in an English prison, later dying in France. For a num 
 ber of years the poet was the editor of the Philadelphia 
 " Inquirer," for which, in addition to his political ar 
 ticles, he wrote a series of weekly essays in the manner 
 of the " Spectator." 
 
 Henry Beck Hirst was a poet of large natural pro 
 portions and it was a real misfortune to letters that 
 his muse yielded fruit for but a few years in his youth. 
 He was one of the group of young literary men who 
 used to gather with Poe at Thomas Cottrell Clarke T s 
 house at Twelfth and Walnut Streets. Hirst was an 
 amorous fellow who drank absinthe at a ruinous rate, 
 and he and his associates would often tap on the pane 
 of the window of the basement room in which Clarke 
 worked, the signal for an evening frolic. Poe accused 
 Thomas Dunn English of having got all the good there 
 was in him from Hirst, which did not leave the victim 
 of the piracies barren of poetical thoughts, or the ability 
 to express them gracefully and musically. Hirst on his 
 side was obviously influenced by Poe and more than one 
 of his poems is suggestive of the intimacy and com 
 munion of the two poets. Listen for example to one 
 of Hirst s early productions, " Eleanore " : 
 
 " When I came of old, thy glance, 
 
 Eleanore, 
 Seemed with loving light to dance, 
 
 Eleanore ; 
 
 But thy glances now are ever 
 Far the brighter when we sever, 
 
 Eleanore. 
 
BBH 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 303 
 
 " I am lone without thy love, 
 
 Eleanore, 
 And my life with grief is wove, 
 
 Eleanore ; 
 
 While the scorn thy glances dart 
 Make a winter in my heart, 
 
 Eleanore." 
 
 Or hear this from " To a Ruined Fountain ": 
 
 " In a green Arcadian valley, 
 
 Grey with lichen, overgrown; 
 Where the blandest breezes dally, 
 Chaunting, ever musically, 
 
 Roundelays with silvery tone, 
 Stands a mossy fountain, broken, 
 Of the ancient day a token. 
 
 " On the ground beneath it, sleeping, 
 Lies some quaintly sculptured god, 
 
 O er the scene no vigil keeping; 
 
 While the willow on it weeping 
 Trails its leaves along the sod, 
 
 And the ivy climbs beside it 
 
 Seeking from the sight to hide it." 
 
 His " Endymion," which Willis accused him of hav 
 ing written " after Keats," a charge that he vigorously 
 resented with the statement that he had not read Keats s 
 poem founded on the same classical legend until after 
 finishing his own, is his longest work. It is in four 
 cantos and it contains much that is of striking beauty 
 and charm. These are two of the stanzas: 
 
 " Yet he was faint faint with fatigue and drooping, 
 Through the long day unwearied he had kept 
 Watch, while his cattle slept ; 
 
304 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 And now the sun was like a falcon, stooping 
 
 Down the red west, and night from out her cave 
 Walked, Christ-like, o er the wave. 
 
 " And from the south the yellow south, all glowing 
 With blandest beauty, came a gentle breeze, 
 
 Murmuring o er sleeping seas, 
 Which, bearing dewy damps and lightly flowing 
 Athwart his brow, cooled his hot brain and stole 
 Like nectar to his soul." 
 
 All of Hirst s works were published in Boston and be 
 fore 1850. His first volume, "The Coming of the 
 Mammoth, The Funeral of Time, and Other Poems, " 
 appeared in 1845; his " Endymion, a Tale of Greece " 
 followed in 1848, and The Penance of Roland, 
 and Other Poems" in 1849. He had studied law 
 and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1843, 
 when he was thirty years of age. With dissipated 
 habits, ,Hirst is said to have coupled inordinate self-es 
 teem, which later developed into insanity. For a long 
 time he was allowed to go about the streets in strange 
 habiliments, imagining himself by turns the President 
 of the United States and the various emperors, kings, 
 and queens of Europe. He was finally placed in the 
 insane department of the Blockley Almshouse. At first 
 he believed himself in the moon or in Japan, but later 
 he seemed to understand his true situation and a friend 
 who visited him believed him convalescent, until, ap 
 proaching him, Hirst gravely explained that his name 
 was Beauregard, " the grandson of the stars and the 
 eldest child of the late Comet, Christianized and heir 
 to the throne of Morocco," etc. He died in 1874 at 
 the age of sixty. Such was the miserable end of a 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 305 
 
 great American poet, some of whose work entitles him 
 to place beside the best writers of English verse. 
 
 Catherine H. Waterman of Philadelphia, who in 
 1840 became the wife of a sea captain, C. H. W. 
 Esling, with whom she lived for some years in Brazil, 
 was a very prolific writer of hymns and of verse which 
 appeared in " Graham s/ u Godey s " and all the Phila 
 delphia magazines of the day. Poe speaks of the " ten 
 derness and melody " of her short poems but with reser 
 vation, some of his praise emanating no doubt from the 
 chivalric feeling with which he always attacked the 
 work of lady writers. To banish all gallantry, it must 
 be said that there was never great value in Miss Water 
 man s or Mrs. Esling s verse. Perhaps there is as 
 much in these lines from a poem entitled " We Meet 
 No More," published in the " Gentleman s " for 1839, 
 as we need expect to find in any part of her work: 
 
 " We meet not there there, where we sadly parted 
 
 In days of yore 
 
 There, at the tryst place of the trusting-hearted 
 We meet no more. 
 
 " We meet no more for long, long years have changed thee, 
 
 And other skies 
 
 From the sweet haunts of earlier joys estranged thee 
 And nearer ties." 
 
 Walter Colton, while better known for his works of 
 travel than for his poetry, occasionally contributed verse 
 to the Philadelphia magazines. Born in Vermont, he 
 graduated at Yale in 1822, and afterward studied the 
 ology. While editing a newspaper in Washington, he 
 won the admiration of President Jackson who appointed 
 him a chaplain in the Navy. After extensive travels in 
 
306 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 the service, in 1838 he was assigned to the Philadelphia 
 station, where he wrote much for the newspapers and 
 magazines. In 1845 he was ordered to accompany a 
 squadron to California and was an important factor 
 there in a wild and uncivilized era. In the midst of the 
 gold-mining excitement he returned to Philadelphia, 
 and died in 1851 to be buried in Laurel Hill. 
 
 Now and again the name of Frances Kemble Butler 
 appears upon the covers of the Philadelphia magazines, 
 and it is thus that readers are introduced to Fanny 
 Kemble. She had lately left the stage, where she was 
 nightly a popular success, to become the wife of Pierce 
 (Mease) Butler, a Southern planter, who had an estate 
 near the city. He was the grandson of Major Pierce 
 Butler, the old senator from South Carolina, who 
 resided in Philadelphia much of his time, even while 
 in the Senate as a South Carolinian. Miss Kemble had 
 won practically instantaneous triumphs on the English 
 stage and came to the United States with her father, 
 Charles Kemble, in 1832, when she was still but twenty- 
 three years old. They played in all the principal cities 
 and her black hair, flashing eyes and lithe young figure, 
 while they captivated all people were particularly ruin 
 ous to Mr. Butler s peace of mind. That he might be 
 always near her, he followed Miss Kemble from city to 
 city, she looking down upon him sometimes in the audi 
 ence and often in the orchestra pit where he served as a 
 musician. They were married in Philadelphia in June, 
 1834, and such a romantic attachment should have led 
 to an enduring happiness that neither Mrs. Butler nor 
 her husband seems to have enjoyed. The young couple 
 resided on the Butler estate on the Old York Road, near 
 the city, spending a winter or two on the ancestral plan- 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 307 
 
 tations in the islands of the Altamaha River on the coast 
 of Georgia. 
 
 Here Miss Kemble suffered all the agonies of heart 
 and conscience of a Lucretia Mott or a Mrs. Stowe. 
 Slavery wounded her to the soul. The Butlers, judging 
 from her journal of her residence in Georgia, were 
 brutal slave-drivers, and her denunciation of the system 
 and her husband s indisposition to humor her whims as 
 a reformer, with other differences, led to their complete 
 estrangement. For a young woman of Miss Kemble s 
 independent spirit, with her English training and the 
 remembrance of her popular successes on two continents, 
 the centipedes, alligators, black snakes, and the plead 
 ings of maltreated human beings were too much to be 
 borne patiently. In 1846 she left her husband s home 
 and two years later Mr. Butler sued for and procured 
 a divorce on the ground of abandonment and incompati 
 bility of temper. Although never returning to the 
 stage, she gave Shakespearean readings in Philadel 
 phia and many other cities. She lived in Massachu 
 setts and England and after Mr. Butler s death, which 
 occurred in 1867, returned to Philadelphia again to 
 make her home in the city for a few years. She wrote 
 plays, poems and animated prose, chiefly the journals of 
 her life, being, when all things are considered, one of the 
 most interesting of the members of that large group of 
 literary people whose names are associated with the 
 city s history. 
 
 Thomas Mayne Reid, who knew Poe so closely while 
 he was in Philadelphia, although of Scotch blood on 
 both sides, was born in Ireland, where his father was a 
 Presbyterian minister. He had come to America at 
 twenty, landing at New Orleans to hunt, trade, explore, 
 
308 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 and live a life of general adventure, interspersed with 
 what would rightly be called daredeviltry, on the Red, 
 the Missouri and the Platte Rivers, being accompanied 
 on one journey by Audubon, whom he met in the wilder 
 ness. Settling in Philadelphia in 1843, tne city was 
 Reid s home until the outbreak of the Mexican War. 
 Here he strove to live by his pen, writing both prose and 
 verse for " Graham s " and " Godey s," and a tragedy 
 which was performed by James William Wallack at 
 the Walnut Street Theatre. It is hard to conceive of 
 any reason for the publication of his verse, but it was 
 published. Stanzas entitled " Another Heart Broken," 
 are curiosities in the annals of the author s life as they 
 are in the history of magazine literature in America. 
 Thus did he begin this " poem " : 
 
 " Oh, vainly I m weeping; he thinks not of me, 
 
 And little he recks of the grief that consumes me 
 Unspoken and silent my sorrow shall be ; 
 
 He shall not know the cause of the anguish that dooms me." 
 
 In 1846 Reid donned the American uniform and 
 marched into Mexico, being at the head of his column 
 at the storming of the castle of Chapultepec, where he 
 was badly wounded. For some time he was mourned 
 for dead and his pagans as a writer and a soldier were 
 sung in the newspapers. He came to life again, how 
 ever, like the heroes of his stories, returned for a time 
 to Philadelphia, now a Captain, and in 1849 raised a 
 company of volunteers in New York to go to Hungary 
 and help Kossuth in his war of freedom. The insur 
 rection collapsed before he had got farther than Paris 
 and Captain Mayne Reid, as he was always afterward 
 known, now settled in England, to produce that series 
 
GRAHAM S AND ITS GROUP 309 
 
 of thrilling tales with which his name is so closely as 
 sociated. His adventures in this country supplied him 
 with the material for a score of books that have de 
 lighted several generations of boys. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 " BLACK LETTERS " 
 
 The strife between the sections over the slavery ques 
 tion profoundly influenced literary activity in Philadel 
 phia, just as the Revolution had stirred our writers, 
 inspiring voices that otherwise might have been silent 
 and giving a common tune to every lay. Whatever the 
 advantages of war are accounted to be by those who 
 find it fashionable to defend it as a means of improving 
 the national character, it is demonstrably a small influ 
 ence to make letters what in Joseph Dennie s time would 
 have been called " polite." The angering of man 
 against man meant a return to controversial writing, 
 and Philadelphia for a few decades, as in the Revolu 
 tion, was the principal battle-ground for conflicting 
 ideas, sentiments and opinions. Perhaps it is not 
 strange that " Godey s " and " Graham s " should con 
 fess some disgust with the new literary monotone. In 
 1850 Godey announced that he would drop "Grace 
 Greenwood " from the list of contributors to his maga 
 zine because of her Abolition sympathies, whereupon, 
 the publisher having presented a portrait of himself in 
 his " Lady s Book," Whittier addressed a poem to 
 his 
 
 11 moony breadth of virgin face 
 By thought unviolated." 
 
 The Abolition poet continued : 
 
 310 
 
BLACK LETTERS 311 
 
 " Thou saw st beneath a fair disguise 
 
 The danger darkly lurking, 
 And maiden bodice, dreaded more 
 
 Than warrior s steel-wrought jerkin. 
 How keen to scent the hidden plot ! 
 
 How prompt wert thou to balk it! 
 With patriot zeal and peddler thrift 
 
 For country and for pocket." 
 
 " Graham s " said in its famous article on " Black 
 Letters " in reviewing " Uncle Tom s Cabin " : 
 
 " A plague of all black faces! We hate this nigger- 
 ism and hope it may be done away with. We cannot 
 tolerate negro slavery of this sort we are Abolition 
 ists on this question. In the name of the prophet not 
 the bookseller s profit let us have done with this 
 wooly-headed literature ; let us have change ; let us have 
 a reaction. Let us go back to our original Mexican 
 brigands, our fresh Texans with their big beards and 
 unerring Beeswings, our prairie heroines, and all that 
 wonderful adventure which is only sunburnt at the deep 
 est. Let us have the breathless * Romance of the 
 Lowell Factory Girl, the thrilling Pirate of the 
 Chesapeake, the Mystery of the Modern Gomorrah/ 
 
 * The Dark Monk of Wissawamponoag. We are 
 really weary of preaching negroes and Mas r, and 
 
 * spects I se wicked, and that yer ole man, and * dat 
 ar nigger! 
 
 Philadelphia seems to be without much responsibility 
 for Harriet Beecher Stowe, although there are rumors 
 of " Uncle Tom s Cabin " coming here to publishers 
 who would have none of it because of its assaults upon 
 the South.* 
 
 *" Uncle Tom s Cabin " was finally issued as a book, after it had 
 come out serially in the Washington " National Era," by J. P. 
 
3ia LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Miss Beecher passed through the city with the fam 
 ily in 1832 when her father, Lyman Beecher, was 
 making his way from Boston to take the presi 
 dency of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati. 
 They begged for the school, as they went, but did not 
 very well succeed " in opening purses " in Philadelphia. 
 They traveled out the Lancaster turnpike, singing 
 4 Jubilee " as the wagon jolted them on to Ohio, and 
 distributing tracts along the way, " peppering the 
 land with moral influence," said Harriet with that hap 
 py faculty which characterized her even as a girl. 
 
 The patient, untiring, inflexible advocates of liberty 
 for the negro were the Quakers of Pennsylvania. They 
 took no glory to themselves for the service. They pro 
 duced no Mrs. Stowe, or William Lloyd Garrison, or 
 Wendell Phillips; they worked in quieter ways and used 
 few of the world s weapons. But their consciences 
 were fixed; they feared no human being, though they 
 bore no arms, and defied public opinion, laws and gov 
 ernments in their contest with slavery. It was a haz 
 ardous business to bring fugitive slaves northward 
 through the city, but some of the principal lines of the 
 Underground Railroad touched its outskirts. Many a 
 Quaker, night after night, and year after year, slept 
 with one ear open for the sound of the wagon which 
 would bring him, under cover of night, a load of slaves 
 ambitious to enjoy the sweets of freedom in Canada. 
 Many a Quaker matron and maid cooked and sewed 
 for the blacks that came to their homes, to remain un 
 til they could be forwarded to the next station where 
 hearts were as faithful and lips as discreet. Through 
 
 Jewett of Boston, who was so elated with his success that he went 
 into the publishing business on a larger scale, promptly meeting 
 with misfortune. 
 
BLACK LETTERS 313 
 
 the rich Quaker counties of Chester and Bucks, the 
 negro passed constantly, in spite of Fugitive Slave Laws 
 with barbarous penalties, diligent non-Quaker con 
 stables, and masters with whips in hand who not infre 
 quently drove over the border from Maryland to re 
 cover their runaways and take them back to their un 
 requited tasks. There are many still to tell the secrets 
 of that time and to recall with pride that they are sprung 
 of this heroic Quaker stock. 
 
 Pastorius, Benjamin Lay, the dwarf; John Woolman, 
 Warner Mifflin and Anthony Benezet were Quaker 
 leaders who denounced the evils of human bondage, 
 and the Society of Friends itself was w r ell clear of mem 
 bers who were slave owners. The pioneer in the anti- 
 slavery movement, which now swept on in a straight 
 course to the Civil War, was Benjamin Lundy. This 
 man was born in 1789 in Sussex County, N. J., being a 
 descendant of a Quaker preacher who had early settled 
 at Buckingham in Bucks County. He travelled for his 
 health, establishing himself at length as a saddler at 
 Wheeling, Va., then a market-place for slaves in clank 
 ing chains. The thought of the inhumanities of the 
 traffic disturbed him, and after he had moved over the 
 border to follow his trade in Ohio, he formed an anti- 
 slavery society which, beginning with five or six, soon 
 had five hundred members. In January, 1821, he es 
 tablished his " Genius of Universal Emancipation," the 
 first avowedly anti-slavery journal in the country. He 
 continued to publish this paper regularly or irregularly, 
 as time and place favored it, for nearly eighteen years, 
 first in Mount Pleasant, O., then in Jonesborough, 
 Tenn., and afterward successively in Baltimore, Wash 
 ington and Philadelphia. His profits as a harness and 
 
3H LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 saddle-maker seem to have been lost before he began his 
 career as a journalist. When at Mount Pleasant the 
 " G. U. E.," as he familiarly called the " Genius," was 
 printed in Steubenville and he made the twenty miles 
 to and from that place on foot, often carrying the 
 papers on his back. In his long absences on his mis 
 sionary tours, it must be written and printed under the 
 most serious disadvantages, for Lundy was not long to 
 be satisfied with the service he could perform at his 
 home, even with the aid of a periodical. In 1824 he 
 made his first appearance as an anti-slavery lecturer in a 
 grove beside a Friends Meeting House in North Caro 
 lina. He was a pioneer here also, the first of a host 
 who soon found voices to denounce the evils of slavery 
 in public meetings. Lundy travelled through many 
 Southern states, speaking at house-raisings, militia-mus 
 ters and wherever he could find an audience. His 
 weapon was moral suasion. He sought to create pub 
 lic opinion in favor of manumission and the colonization 
 of the freedmen in Hayti, Mexico or other countries. 
 
 At first he was received rather cordially and was suc 
 cessful in organizing many anti-slavery societies in the 
 South. Indeed, in 1827, by Lundy s computation, 
 there were in the United States no less than 130 anti- 
 slavery societies with 6,625 members, 106 of which 
 were in slave-holding states. Tennessee had twenty- 
 five of 1,000 members and North Carolina fifty of 
 3,000 members, a promise of what might have been 
 achieved, if Abolitionists more violent than Lundy had 
 not appeared in the field to inflame the people and 
 render nugatory his efforts to gain the end by peaceful 
 and gradual methods. 
 
 Soon there were none in the South to listen to Abo- 
 
BLACK LETTERS 315 
 
 lition lecturers or to read the writings of anti-slavery 
 editors. Their persons were not secure from mobs. 
 They were proscribed and sometimes assaulted, even in 
 the North. The missionaries rapidly withdrew from 
 the Carolinas, Virginia and Tennessee, and at last from 
 such middle ground as Washington and Baltimore, to 
 enjoy the shelter of Philadelphia. That city was on 
 " the borders of slavery," said Whittier when he came 
 from New England to serve the Abolition cause, but 
 nowhere in the country could there be found a more 
 devoted band of anti-slavery advocates. 
 
 Lundy was again a pioneer in organizing in Phila 
 delphia in 1828 the society to encourage the use of free 
 labor products. Soon there were advertisements in the 
 anti-slavery papers of " Lydia White s Requited Labor 
 Grocery and Dry-Goods Store," which was at 219 
 North Second Street, Philadelphia, and there were 
 several shops of the kind in different Northern cities 
 where cotton, sugar, rice and other Southern merchan 
 dise were sold only under certified guarantees that slaves 
 had had no hand in the production of them. Much 
 free labor cotton was woven on hand-looms into fabrics 
 for the manufacture of shirts, sheets and kerchiefs for 
 the Abolitionists, who believed with Lundy that " if 
 there were no consumers of slave produce there would 
 be no slaves." In 1831 a grocer in Philadelphia 
 offered a premium of ten dollars above the market 
 price for five casks of rice which was clean of the taint 
 of slavery. 
 
 Lundy came to Philadelphia in the thirties to pub 
 lish the " Genius," and direct another paper, " The Na 
 tional Enquirer and Constitutional Advocate of Uni 
 versal Liberty," a weekly that on March 15, 1838, was 
 
3i6 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 converted into the " Pennsylvania Freeman," to edit 
 which Whittier was brought on from his " childhood s 
 Merrimac " to a land where other rivers inspired his 
 song. Lundy had served his generation and the time 
 was at hand for bolder leaders. He had met Garrison 
 in Boston, when that man had not yet enlisted for the 
 contest, and had persuaded him to assist in editing the 
 " Genius of Universal Emancipation " in Baltimore. 
 There Garrison s writings gave him his first acquaint 
 ance with the inside of a prison. Lundy observed with 
 a little superior pride that he had known how to select 
 his words to avoid violations of law while his colleague 
 did not. The methods of Lundy were too mild for the 
 new Abolitionists. His plan of reasoning with the 
 slave owners and of seeking their aid in the only spirit 
 in which it could be secured, politely asking them to 
 free their blacks and send them to Hayti or Mexico, 
 had no more advocates. Taking the pledge to ,wear 
 no slave-grown cotton shirts or aprons and to deny 
 themselves sugar and molasses, was too lady-like a 
 weapon for those who believed slavery was a great 
 moral wrong to be fought tooth and nail with a view to 
 Immediately extirpating it. 
 
 The parting with Lundy was amiable. " It would 
 perhaps be improper for me to say anything in recom 
 mendation of the gentleman who succeeds me as editor 
 of the National Enquirer, " said Lundy of Whittier 
 in the last issue of his paper. " He is known to some 
 of its readers personally and to all of them by reputa 
 tion ... I am perfectly satisfied with his ap 
 pointment to the station. I should not have willingly 
 resigned it to one that I consider incompetent to the dis 
 charge of the important duties which must devolve upon 
 
BLACK LETTERS 317 
 
 him, but I am confident that a better selection could not 
 have been made among the well-tried friends of our 
 
 cause." 
 
 The next Thursday, March I5th, the " Enquirer " 
 became u The Pennsylvania Freeman," and Whittier 
 wrote of the retiring editor: " It will be seen that the 
 present volume of this paper commences under new 
 auspices. Its veteran editor has retired from his post, 
 after having for more than twenty years worn the Abo 
 lition harness and fought the battles of freedom a 
 greater part of that period single-handed and alone, 
 sacrificing his time, his hard-earned property, and his 
 health, amidst derision and contempt on one hand, and 
 active persecution on the other." 
 
 It is true that he had sacrificed much. He published, 
 lectured, and travelled without any capital but his faith 
 in the cause and his trust in God. His wife died in 
 Baltimore, when he was in Hayti working for the black 
 man. His children were left to the mercies of others, 
 while he led the life of a travelling reformer and mis 
 sionary. His money gone, while far from home, he 
 returned to the saddler s trade to earn a few dollars to 
 carry him to the next town. He was frequently be 
 friended by wealthy Northern Abolitionists in a life 
 which to some seemed to be inexplicably wasted, but 
 which craved none of those things highly valued by 
 other men. He was still not fifty when the Abolition 
 party saw new lights and sent him to the rear not 
 too old to fall in love with a Quakeress in Chester Coun 
 ty, Mary Vickers, the daughter of a prominent station- 
 keeper on the Underground Railway, before he re 
 turned to the west where he suddenly died early the 
 next year. 
 
3i8 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 The " Pennsylvania Freeman " for a long time ac 
 tively rivalled Garrison s " Liberator." It was in the 
 hands of the Quakers so completely that it was pub 
 lished on Fifth-Day instead of Thursday and letters to 
 the editor were addressed to " Friend Whittier." 
 Whittier first came to Philadelphia in December, 1833, 
 as a delegate from Massachusetts to organize the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society. His fame as a poet 
 who wrote for the anti-slavery papers, had preceded 
 him, and men and women pointed to him, as they do to 
 those of whom they have somehow heard. The little 
 convention of less than seventy-five persons met at the 
 Adelphi Building, in Fifth Street below Walnut Street, 
 and he was one of its secretaries. With Garrison and 
 Samuel J. May, he was a member of the committee to 
 draft the famous Declaration of Anti-Slavery Senti 
 ments. This paper was written principally in the night 
 in a negro s attic. In it there was much promise like 
 this which follows: 
 
 " We shall organize anti-slavery societies if possible 
 in every city, town and village in our land. 
 
 We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of 
 remonstrance, of warning, of entreaty and rebuke. 
 
 " We shall aim at a purification of the churches from 
 all participation in the guilt of slavery. 
 
 " We shall encourage the labor of freemen over that 
 of the slaves by giving a preference to their produc 
 tions; and 
 
 " We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the 
 whole nation to speedy repentance." 
 
 The delegates in attendance, when it had been suf 
 ficiently discussed and amended, signed the document, 
 and of his autograph upon it, Whittier used to remark 
 
BLACK LETTERS 319 
 
 to visitors to the home of his old age at Oak Knoll, 
 near Danvers, Mass. : " I set a higher value on my 
 name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of 
 1833 than on the title page of any book." 
 
 Of the Society formed by this convention, Whittier 
 in two or three years became the Secretary, and this 
 office, combined with his new editorial duties, made 
 Philadelphia the centre of his interest and attention, 
 and for much of the time his home, until 1841. The 
 popular temper, even in Philadelphia with its Quaker 
 leanings to Abolitionism, was such that the leaders 
 were now finding it difficult to secure halls for their 
 meetings. They determined therefore to erect a build 
 ing of their own and a few friends of the slave formed 
 the Pennsylvania Hall Association of which Daniel 
 Neall was the President. 
 
 " Formed on the good old plan, 
 A true and brave and downright honest man, 
 He blew no trumpet in the market place ; 
 Nor in the church, with hypocritic face, 
 Supplied with cant the lack of Christian grace. 
 Loathing pretense, he did with cheerful will 
 What others talked of while their hands were still." 
 
 Thus Whittier wrote of Neall who lived until a few 
 years ago, to the end a Philadelphian, proud, like the 
 other Abolition pioneers, and their descendants for 
 them, of the part he had played in the contest against 
 slavery. There were 2,000 shares of stock sold at 
 twenty dollars a share, much of which was taken by 
 women and workingmen who cheerfully contributed 
 their small savings in a martyr cause. The hall was 
 built on Sixth Street at the south-west corner of Haines 
 
320 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Street, between Race and Cherry, and it was nearly 
 ready for dedication to the spirit of free discus 
 sion, when Whittier came to Philadelphia to edit " The 
 Pennsylvania Freeman." Its first floor was fitted up 
 with a small auditorium, committee-rooms, offices and 
 stores, and over these in the second story was a large 
 hall which with its galleries would seat 3,000 people. 
 The opening ceremonies were set for the week begin 
 ning May I4th, and they brought to the city from many 
 directions, Abolitionists of all degrees of zeal, cour 
 age and sincerity. John Quincy Adams, Thaddeus 
 Stevens and other eminent men declined in letters that 
 spoke of honest regret, and an orator was found in 
 David Paul Brown, the eloquent Philadelphia lawyer. 
 Brown said that he was ready " to fight the battle of 
 Liberty " as long as he had " a shot in the locker," 
 although he wished the Abolitionists to know that he 
 was a very busy man and that they were being much 
 favored by his coming to the exercises. The " shot in 
 his locker " was not well enough aimed to suit many of 
 those present, including the radical young Whittier, 
 who the next day, addressed a poem to 
 
 " This fair hall to truth and freedom given, 
 Pledged to the right before all earth and heaven; 
 A free arena for the strife of mind, 
 To caste or sect or color unconfined." 
 
 It would be : 
 
 " A fair field, where mind may close with mind 
 Free as the sunshine and the chainless wind." 
 
 Various anti-slavery societies were convening in the 
 large hall and the committee rooms on these dedicatory 
 
UNDERCLIFF 
 
 George P. Morris s home on the Hudson River 
 
 (See page 301.) 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA HALL 
 
 Located on Sixth Street, between Race and Cherry 
 
BLACK LETTERS 321 
 
 days and on the evening of the third day, Wednesday, 
 May 1 6th, the anti-slavery women held a crowded meet 
 ing which was addressed briefly by Garrison, who was 
 followed by Angelina E. Grimke, married a little while 
 before to Theodore D. Weld, another well-known Abo 
 litionist. 
 
 Angelina Grimke was one of two sisters who had 
 emancipated their blacks in South Carolina, and had 
 come North to give their testimony against slavery. 
 They were great lions in Abolition circles and Angelina 
 was a fluent and popular talker on the platform. 
 
 She had barely begun to speak when a large mob, 
 which had been assembling in the street outside, inter 
 rupted the meeting with hideous noises, scuffling and 
 cries of " fire," meant to put the audience in a panic 
 and precipitate it into the street. Philadelphia was 
 now to pay the penalty of being the great centre it has 
 always been for the education of doctors. There were 
 at the medical schools many students from the South 
 who had, in addition to the traditional deviltry of young 
 collegians, pronounced anti-Abolitionist proclivities. 
 They were enforced by the whole tribe of ruffians that 
 gather at a sign in large cities without anyone knowing 
 whence they come, and by the knowledge that private 
 and official sentiment would go far to condone their law 
 less acts. Placards had been posted in public places 
 announcing that " a convention to effect the immediate 
 emancipation of the slaves throughout the country is 
 in session in this city and it is the duty of citizens who 
 entertain a proper respect for the Constitution of the 
 Union and the right of property to interfere." 
 
 This interference was now at hand, but the audience 
 stood its ground. Mrs. Weld continued to speak when 
 
322 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 none could hear her. Lucretia Mott rose to reassure 
 the timorous when panic seemed inevitable, and the mob 
 committed no greater violence than to hurl at the win 
 dows stones which shattered the glass, but were stopped 
 on their course by the inside blinds. These meetings 
 were attended by many free negroes and the Abolition 
 ists, who were as nearly clear of race prejudice as men 
 can be on this earth, were accused of walking arm in 
 arm with them white women with black men, and 
 white men with black women, a state of things that no 
 pro-slavery mob could ever view satisfiedly. At length 
 the women in the hall were allowed to proceed to their 
 homes without indignity, but several negroes, as they 
 filed out, were set upon by the mob and one was quite 
 seriously injured. 
 
 The next day, Thursday, May lyth, the mob got 
 more courage and as the hours passed, it became quite 
 clear that the evening meeting which was announced, 
 could not be held. The Mayor, John Swift, was asked 
 to protect the building, but he declared that sentiment 
 did not favor the hall and those who were assembled in 
 it, and he could do little nothing unless he were given 
 the keys. These were surrendered to him and as the 
 mob grew in proportions at the approach of night, he 
 appeared before it, making a truculent and cowardly 
 speech in which he asked the people to be his police 
 men. He had no sooner gone than the crowd, which 
 seems to have numbered 15,000 people, developed lead 
 ers who crushed in the doors. The ends of long 
 pieces of timber were struck against the frames and 
 panels again and again until the locks and hinges 
 yielded. The ruffians swarmed in and pillaged the 
 offices. With wood shavings from the cellar, blinds 
 
BLACK LETTERS 323 
 
 from the windows and Abolition books, a flame was 
 kindled on the speaker s stand, and the new temple of 
 free speech in Philadelphia was soon lighting the skies. 
 
 Whittier had just moved the offices of " The Penn 
 sylvania Freeman " into the hall, and the mob rifled his 
 desk, strewing his papers about while he looked on in 
 a great white coat and wig which he had borrowed of 
 his friend, Dr. Joseph Parrish, in whose hospitable 
 home he had taken refuge. Probably no act of greater 
 daring was ever performed by this quiet Quaker poet 
 who in the enthusiasm of his youth raged in print 
 against slavery, but could never speak in public or even 
 read his own sounding verses, and who abhorred war, 
 riot, sin and all fleshly excitements with a pure hate. 
 His blood was too warm, however, to stay indoors 
 while the mob burned Pennsylvania Hall and to his 
 dying day he told of this adventure in Philadelphia with 
 almost boyish pleasure. 
 
 Benjamin Lundy, who had little enough of this 
 world s possessions, had stored his all in a room in the 
 Hall preparatory to his removal to the West, and it 
 was totally destroyed. The firemen came with their 
 extinguishing machines, but those who were disposed to 
 quench the flames and protect the property were forcibly 
 prevented from directing their streams of water upon 
 the pyre, and in a little while the building was in ashes. 
 The Anti-slavery Society, which had adjourned until 
 the following day, met in the street beside the smoking 
 embers in the spirit of the ancient martyrs and for 
 years the black ruin remained, mutely witnessing the 
 disgrace of Philadelphia. The next night the mob in 
 triumph again poured through the streets, bent upon 
 razing the homes of Lucretia Mott and other Abo- 
 
3 2 4 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 litionists, and the offices of some newspapers which had 
 criticized it for destroying Pennsylvania Hall; but it 
 was turned from its purposes and vented its fury by set 
 ting on fire the new negro orphan asylum of the Ortho 
 dox Friends in Thirteenth Street, and a negro church. 
 
 The Governor of the state at this time was Joseph 
 Ritner, a south Pennsylvania farmer, who, in his 
 first message to the legislature in 1838, had spoken 
 of the " base bowing of the knee to the dark spirit of 
 slavery," and declared that " these tenets, viz., oppo 
 sition to slavery at home which by the blessing of Provi 
 dence has been rendered effectual; opposition to the ad 
 mission to the Union of new slave-holding states; and 
 opposition to slavery in the District of Columbia, the 
 very hearth and domestic abode of the national honor, 
 have ever been and are the cherished doctrines of the 
 state. Let us, fellow citizens, stand by and maintain 
 them unshrinkingly and fearlessly. While we admit and 
 scrupulously respect the constitutional rights of other 
 states on this momentous subject, let us not either by 
 fear or interest be driven from aught of that spirit of 
 independence and veneration for freedom which has 
 ever characterized our beloved commonwealth." 
 
 For this speech Ritner was called an Abolition Gov 
 ernor and Whittier wrote in the scathing strain which at 
 this period marked his verse: 
 
 " Thank God for the token! One lip is still free - 
 One spirit untrammel d, unbending one knee. 
 
 O er thy crags, Alleghany, a blast has been blown! 
 Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur has gone! 
 To the land of the South of the Charter and Chain 
 Of liberty sweeten d with slavery s pain : 
 
BLACK LETTERS 325 
 
 Where the cant of Democracy dwells on the lips 
 Of the forgers of fetters and wielders of whips." 
 
 Governor Ritner now came forward and offered a 
 reward for the apprehension of those who had a hand 
 in the Philadelphia outrages, and Mayor Swift, stirred 
 at last to a sense of his duty, issued a similar proclama 
 tion, but of course without effect. The dark deed was 
 done. Thousands who would not have been willing 
 to apply the torch themselves, were at heart glad that 
 the baiters of Abolitionists were abroad in the city. 
 The jury to which the question of damages for the de 
 struction of Pennsylvania Hall was referred was three 
 years in making its award, when the large sum the own 
 ers asked was measurably scaled. The county at last 
 paid $33,000 as the price of the night of fun in which 
 it indulged some classes of its citizens. A subscription 
 was at once opened for stock in a company which should 
 build a new Pennsylvania Hall, but the movement did 
 not succeed. The lot in a few years was sold to the 
 Odd Fellows, who erected a building devoted to their 
 particular purposes which still stands upon this historic 
 site. 
 
 The work was not to stop by reason of one disaster, 
 as crushing as it seemed, but Philadelphia Abolitionists 
 chose now to exert themselves in behalf of their beloved 
 cause in other ways. " The Pennsylvania Freeman " 
 was about to go to press when the hall was burned. 
 Whittier wrote a " Postscript " : 
 
 "ATROCIOUS OUTRAGE! BURNING OF PENN 
 SYLVANIA HALL! 
 
 " Eighteenth day of Fifth month, half-past seven 
 o clock Pennsylvania Hall is in ashes ! The beauti- 
 
326 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 ful temple consecrated to Liberty has been offered a 
 smoking sacrifice to the Demon of Slavery. In the 
 heart of this city a flame has gone up to Heaven. It 
 will be seen from Maine to Georgia. In its red and 
 lurid light men will see more clearly than ever the black 
 abominations of the fiend at whose instigation it was 
 kindled," etc., etc. 
 
 The Executive Committee of the state anti-slavery 
 society asked through the " Freeman " : 
 
 " Are Pennsylvanians prepared to yield up their dear 
 est rights to perpetuate a system which cannot live in 
 connection with the free exercise of those rights 
 which shrinks from the light which is safe only in 
 darkness and howls in agony at the first sunbeam of 
 truth which touches it? Will they allow it to overstep 
 its legal boundary and trample on the free institutions of 
 Pennsylvania, to smite down the majesty of our law 
 to hunt after the lives of our citizens to shake its 
 bloody hands in defiance of our rights within sight of 
 the Hall of Independence and over the graves of Frank 
 lin and Rush and Morris? No! The old spirit of 
 Pennsylvania yet lives along her noble rivers and the 
 fastnesses of her mountains are still the homes of 
 Liberty." 
 
 These ringing declarations, un-Quaker-like as they 
 may have seemed, were born of a spirit which Whittier 
 did not assume. They came of hatred of a wrong 
 which he strongly felt and did not hesitate to express. 
 The Quakers of America and particularly of Pennsyl 
 vania in the twenties, had unfortunately been divided 
 by the forceful preaching of a New York State Friend, 
 Elias Hicks. Hicks spoke vigorously and effectively 
 and soon aroused many of the older Friends to the point 
 
BLACK LETTERS 327 
 
 of denouncing him as an unfaithful minister of the 
 church. He was charged with denial of the divinity 
 of Christ and with unorthodoxy in several important 
 articles of faith. The rupture was soon complete and 
 the breach irreparable, for although both parties wor 
 shipped in the same peculiar way on plain benches 
 in their unadorned meeting-houses, the women in drabs 
 on one side, the men in their severe coats and broad 
 brims on the other; the elders being on elevated seats 
 facing the body of the people, while the ministers spoke 
 only in response to the callings of an inner spirit there 
 were soon the Hicksite and Orthodox Friends. Neith 
 er to this day will acknowledge the distinguishing name 
 and each believes itself to be the body of true Friends. 
 Whittier was an Orthodox Friend and he came to 
 Pennsylvania when the two parties in Philadelphia and 
 its neighborhood were scarcely yet done with the law 
 suits to establish themselves in the possession of meet 
 ing-houses, schools, grave-yards and other property. 
 In some places the houses were divided by partitions 
 and the members religiously mused and preached in op 
 posite ends of the same building where before they had 
 formed a single congregation. Whittier complained 
 that in Bucks and Chester Counties the Hicksites had 
 obtained control of nearly all the old meeting-houses. 
 There were no Orthodox Friends to contest their rights 
 of possession. In Philadelphia he usually attended the 
 Orthodox Twelfth Street Meeting, but was mostly 
 thrown into the society of the Hicksites, who were lead 
 ing in the Abolition movement. Hicks himself was an 
 uncompromising Abolitionist. It has never been as-; 
 serted or believed that the Orthodox Friends were in 
 thought and feeling less hostile to slavery than the 
 
328 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Hicksites; but so distrustful were they of the men and 
 women with whom they had so lately been in union 
 and of their transcendentalism and disposition to free 
 thinking, that they were unwilling to take a very active 
 part in the contest. 
 
 With many this view of Hicksite unsoundness seemed 
 to find confirmation when Lucretia Mott assisted the 
 " world s people " in their Anti-Slavery Fairs, and a 
 little later a Society of Progressive Friends was formed 
 at Longwood, Chester County, two miles east of Ken- 
 nett Square. In this forum of free thought Garrison, 
 Theodore Parker, Lucretia Mott, Fred Douglass, Oli 
 ver Johnson, Mary Grew, Anna Dickinson and all the 
 reformers of the day, both men and women, spoke for 
 Abolition, temperance, female suffrage, spiritualism, 
 and religious liberty, deeply exciting the suspicion of 
 the conservative churches. 
 
 Of Whittier as of many of his Hicksite friends, it 
 could be said truly that he was an Abolitionist first and 
 a Quaker afterward. In Philadelphia he was working 
 with Dr. Parrish, James Miller McKim, a Presbyterian 
 clergyman of Lancaster County, who married a Chester 
 County Quakeress and was later himself a member of 
 the Society of Friends; William H. Burleigh and C. C. 
 Burleigh, brothers from Connecticut, who were writers 
 and lecturers; Lucretia Mott, Mary Grew, the little 
 Quakeress of whom Whittier wrote, 
 
 The world were safe, if but a few 
 Could grow in grace as Mary Grew;" 
 
 Robert Purvis, who pretended to be a negro but who 
 was in reality a white man except for some blood re 
 ceived through his mother from the Moors; Dr. Bar- 
 
BLACK LETTERS . 329 
 
 tholomew Fussell, Abraham L. Pennock, John Coxe, 
 and the Chester County leaders ; Joseph Healy, of Bucks 
 County, who was the financial backer and business man 
 of "The Pennsylvania Freeman"; Daniel Neall and 
 many more. 
 
 Whittier lived very quietly in Philadelphia. A poor 
 boy, without family connections that could be very use 
 ful to him at home, he was not far past this point in 
 Pennsylvania. As a writer he was not yet known out 
 side of the anti-slavery circle. His first volume, a col 
 lection of Abolition poems, did not appear until 1837. 
 There was little of general value to presage his rise to 
 the position he later came to occupy in American let 
 ters. In Philadelphia there were many warm-hearted 
 Quakers who opened their homes to him, but he lived 
 mostly at boarding and lodging houses where even 
 common comforts were scantly dealt out. Once he was 
 heard to relate, with the keen appreciation of honest fun 
 which always characterized him, how he and Miller 
 McKim had played a joke on " Charley " Burleigh. 
 Burleigh had red hair that fell in long curls over his 
 shoulders and plumed himself on a resemblance to 
 Christ He, Whittier and McKim at one time occu 
 pied a room together, and Burleigh s clothing had be 
 come so shabby that his two fellows resolved to surprise 
 him one night with a new suit. Having taken his meas 
 ure in a rough manner, they put the garments at his bed 
 side after he had fallen asleep, spirited away the old 
 clothing and in the morning were awake in time to note 
 the results. With their heads half-covered, they 
 watched him take up the suit, eye it suspiciously and 
 then without a word put it on. Not then, nor ever af 
 ter, did Burleigh allude to the incident. 
 
330 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Whittier was of a delicate build and thus early had 
 many physical ailments which in later life he attributed 
 to the exposing and rough work on his father s farm. 
 It was several times necessary for him to relinquish his 
 editorial duties and visit or travel. From time to time 
 he returned to Massachusetts and for a considerable 
 period was a guest of Joseph Healy at " Spring Grove 
 Farm " on a high bluff overlooking the Delaware River 
 in Bucks County. Although palpitation of the heart, 
 neuralgia and other ills interrupted his labors, his paper 
 throve. In August, 1838, he wrote to his sister Eliza 
 beth, who stayed with him in Philadelphia for some 
 time : " My paper is beginning to attract attention and 
 I should not think it strange if it got pretty essentially 
 mobbed before the summer is out." It was for the 
 most part an appeal to the nation s moral sense and 
 what was not rhetoric to arouse lethargic souls and put 
 courage into faltering hearts, was a collection of items 
 of news depicting the inhumanities of slavery. The 
 pages teemed with horrible tales of bloodhounds, flog 
 gings and the auction block. The brutalities of the 
 masters and overseers were magnified. Even in the 
 literary department of the paper the poems and tales 
 were well steeped in Abolition. Early in 1840 Whit- 
 tier s ill-health caused him to leave the city and neigh 
 borhood to which his interest, then and through life, 
 was so closely bound. 
 
 Though he was here for less than three years, he felt 
 himself of Philadelphia and of its people, so many of 
 whom were of his religion and of his politics on the 
 slavery question. So long as he lived he did not fail to 
 recall with delight the years spent in Pennsylvania, and 
 to view its people and its places through the favoring 
 
BLACK LETTERS 331 
 
 eyes of happy youth. A happy youth he was when the 
 city was his home and curiously in later life he never re 
 visited it, nor indeed travelled anywhere, for which rea 
 son his only impressions of the outside world, received 
 here, were deepened. He was always particularly 
 drawn to 
 
 " The fire-tried men of 38, who saw with me the fall 
 Midst roaring flames and shouting mob of Pennsylvania s 
 Hall," 
 
 and their descendants. " Does thee know, 1 he wrote 
 to Sara Louisa Oberholtzer in 1873, " I think the old 
 Quaker settlements of Chester, Bucks, Delaware and 
 Lancaster Counties forty years ago were nearer the per 
 fection of human society than anything I have since seen 
 or had heard of before ? As I sit alone these long win 
 ter evenings I call before me the men and women, and 
 the scenery and dwellings until I almost live my young 
 er days over again. It is greater than St. Paul s Roman 
 citizenship to have been born in such a community." 
 
 To all Pennsylvania writers, especially if they had 
 sprung of Quaker stock and depicted local scenes, he 
 was generous and encouraging. Fame never spoiled 
 him for a service that he cordially enjoyed. Of Bayard 
 Taylor he was a warm admirer and wrote at the request 
 of the Pennsylvania poet, who himself composed the 
 hymn, the ode read at the opening of the Centennial 
 Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1776, beginning 
 
 " Our fathers God : from out whose hand 
 The centuries fall like grains of sand, 
 We meet to-day, united, free, 
 And loyal to our land and Thee, 
 
332 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 To thank thee for the era done, 
 And trust thee for the opening one." 
 
 Chester County was to Whittier " that beautiful land 
 of plenty and peace which Bayard Taylor has de 
 scribed in his 4 Story of Kennett. To the end of 
 his life the poet had a Philadelphia tailor who from 
 time to time sent him the plain Quaker coats which he 
 always wore and without the least change in measure 
 ments or style. 
 
 Many of the subjects of Whittier s poems are Penn- 
 sylvanian. He believed in the virtue of the people as 
 when he sang with the spirit of the anti-slavery time: 
 
 " Will that land of the free and the good wear a chain ? 
 Will the call to the rescue of freedom be vain? 
 
 No, never! One voice, like the sound in the cloud 
 When the roar of the storm waxes loud and more loud, 
 Wherever the foot of the freeman hath press d, 
 From the Delaware s marge to the Lake of the West, 
 On the South-going breezes shall deepen and grow 
 Till the land it sweeps over shall tremble below." 
 
 As early as in August, 1838, Whittier wrote to a 
 Boston anti-slavery leader: " Our cause here is slowly 
 and against unnumbered obstacles going ahead. You 
 in New England have got pro-slavery to contend with; 
 we have got into a death grapple with slavery itself. 
 They leave no stone unturned. to put us down. The 
 clergy of all denominations are preaching against us. 
 The politicians are abusing us in their filthy papers; 
 and dirty penny sheets, with most outrageous carica 
 tures of Garrison, Thompson and Angelina Grirnke 
 Weld, are hawked daily about the streets. But we 
 
BLACK LETTERS 333 
 
 shall go ahead nevertheless. We are slow-moulded, 
 heavy-sterned, Dutch-built out here away; but when 
 once started on the right track there is no backing out 
 with us. The Abolitionists of old Pennsylvania are 
 of the right material; many of them don t believe in 
 the devil and those who do aren t afraid of him." 
 
 Many have sought to involve Whittier in romances 
 with several young women in Pennsylvania on the 
 strength of a few amatory poems that escaped him at 
 this period. As much inquiry and speculation have 
 never led to the precise identification of the lady, it is 
 perhaps right to conclude that his attachments were only 
 friendships, that his ill health and the love he bore 
 his mother and sister, who depended greatly upon him, 
 compelled him, as he said, " to look into happiness 
 through the eyes of others and to thank God for the 
 happy unions and the holy firesides I have known." 
 
 The most active, interesting, and, in some ways, lit 
 erary of the Philadelphia Abolitionists on the Quaker 
 side was Lucretia Mott, who very early identified her 
 self with the movement to free the slave. A married 
 matron though she already was, she almost deranged 
 Whittier s fancy at the Anti-Slavery Convention in 
 Philadelphia in 1833. She had " a clear, sweet voice," 
 said he, " the charm of which I have never forgotten " ; 
 she was " a beautiful and graceful woman in the prime 
 of life with a face beneath her plain cap as finely intel 
 lectual as that of Madame Roland." Born a Coffin 
 on the island of Nantucket, in 1811 when barely 
 eighteen she was married to James Mott in the Pine 
 Street Meeting-House in Philadelphia. She first spoke 
 publicly in the Twelfth Street Meeting in 1816 before 
 the separation, and thereafter was an acknowledged 
 
334 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 minister among Friends, adhering to Hicksism until her 
 death, in 1880, at the age of eighty-seven. In that 
 time it may be truly said that her labors were indefat 
 igable and the public acclamation she won, not only 
 in the city and the country over which she travelled in 
 America, but in England, where she later visited, was 
 remarkable. 
 
 James Mott seems to have been as indifferent to pub 
 lic notice as he was willing to encourage and support his 
 wife in her humanitarian ministrations. Life with him 
 was at first a serious struggle, but he at length became 
 a cotton commission merchant in which business he 
 achieved considerable success. As cotton was grown 
 by slaves, and his wife, as luck would have it, was at 
 the head of the Free Labor Products Society, he was 
 induced to quit the trade in 1830 and turn his attention 
 to wool which came from flocks that no slave tended. 
 He continued to deal in the fleece of the sheep for more 
 than twenty years, suffering no pecuniary disadvantage 
 by his change from a growth of the southern bottoms to 
 a product of the northern hills. In 1836 James and 
 Lucretia Mott s daughter Maria married Edward M. 
 Davis, another Abolitionist, who was the friend of 
 Whittier, Lowell and most of the anti-slavery leaders. 
 For twenty years the Motts lived on Ninth Street, be 
 tween Race and Vine, in an old-fashioned house with a 
 large garden. They were there when the mob swept 
 through the streets the night after Pennsylvania Hall 
 was burned, and their home would have been attacked 
 and in all likelihood razed to the ground if the crowd s 
 head had not been turned and its mad fury expended 
 on the Orphan Asylum. Afterward the family re 
 moved to 338 Arch Street (old number), and in 1857 
 
BLACK LETTERS 335 
 
 to " Roadside," a vine-covered, flower-encompassed cot 
 tage about eight miles north of the city beyond Oak 
 Lane on the Old York Road. Edward M. Davis had 
 earlier purchased a farm in that neighborhood, called 
 " Oak Farm," and in this quiet rural locality the rest of 
 Lucretia Mott s days were passed. 
 
 To her many came, and with the most various de 
 mands. Driving to the old Abington Meeting, silent 
 and secluded among the tall trees near Jenkintown, 
 preaching on her missionary circuits, and lending a hand 
 to public movements that seemed to her good, she was 
 a centre of interest for all manner of women and men. 
 Fugitive slaves, lecturers, reformers all found their 
 way to her home. " No man in the Abolition party," 
 says Rebecca Harding Davis in her " Reminiscences," 
 " had a more vigorous brain or ready eloquence than 
 this famous Quaker preacher, but much of her power 
 came from the fact that she was one of the most 
 womanly of women. She had pity and tenderness 
 enough in her heart for the mother of mankind. . . . 
 Even in extreme old age she was one of the most 
 beautiful women I have ever seen." While Southern- 
 ers regarded her as " the modern Borgia, the planner 
 of wars and murders," one who saw her remarked in 
 surprise: " Why, she looks like a saint. I believe she 
 is one of the saints of God." 
 
 When news of the final passage of the Fifteenth 
 Amendment reached her, Lucretia Mott was with some 
 of her friends, woman reformers like herself. " What 
 will thee and I do now? " one of them said to her with 
 some appreciation of the humor implied by the remark. 
 " Well, there is prison reform," she answered, " or we 
 might stir up women to vote." 
 
336 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 None of these practised agitators was long to remain 
 idle. They were perfectionists who had set out to re 
 deem mankind. Yet, strangely, no woman was more 
 domestic than Lucretia Mott. When she left her home 
 to visit her children and friends, she did not forget to 
 put a few eggs or vegetables in her hand-bag. She 
 made marvelous bedspreads and disproved the charge 
 that women who engage in public work are inept and 
 careless about the household vocations. Louis Kossuth 
 and Charles Dickens brought letters to her from Europe 
 where she was regarded as one of the great American 
 liberators, and a feature of the city. On February 25, 
 1842, she wrote to a friend in the frank, quizzical, 
 half-humorous Quaker way: 
 
 " Another lion has just arrived in the city Charles 
 Dickens. Our children have a strong desire to see him. 
 I, too, have liked the benevolent tendency of his writ 
 ings, though I have read very little in them. I did not 
 expect to seek an interview or to invite him here, as he 
 was not quite of our sort. But just now there was 
 left at our door his and his wife s card with a kind 
 letter from our dear friend, E. J. Reed, of London, 
 introducing them and expressing a strong desire that we 
 would make their acquaintance. There is not a woman 
 in London whose draft I would more gladly honor. 
 So now we shall call on them and our daughters are in 
 high glee." * 
 
 In the ranks of the ordained clergy of the city no 
 man was so early aroused, or did such useful service for 
 the Abolition cause as Dr. William Henry Furness, the 
 good and gifted Unitarian minister, whose son, Horace 
 
 * The letters of James and Lucretia Mott were edited and pub 
 lished by their granddaughter, Mrs. Hallowell, in 1884. 
 
BLACK LETTERS 337 
 
 Howard Furness, is today foremost among Shake 
 spearian scholars. Born in Boston in 1802, he, as a 
 boy, was the playmate of Emerson, and graduated at 
 Harvard in 1820, one year ahead of the sage of Con 
 cord. Finishing the courses in the theological school 
 in 1824, he came to a little Unitarian congregation 
 in Philadelphia, which had been established by Dr. 
 Priestley. The members had built a small brick church, 
 and Furness, in 1825, still but twenty-three years old, 
 was installed as its pastor. He preached to this people 
 for fifty years when he became pastor emeritus, to 
 continue his discourses twenty years more, or until his 
 death in 1896. Although his life almost covered the 
 century, he seemed never to grow old in spirit, even 
 when time had seamed his face and silvered his hair. 
 He exerted a beneficent influence upon the city in many 
 ways so long as he lived. 
 
 Dr. Furness was a kinsman of Wendell Phillips and 
 a friend of Garrison and Lucretia Mott, who with her 
 husband, was accounted to be no small factor in elicit 
 ing his sympathy for the slave. He foresaw the result 
 of his unpopular course, but dared all and lost many 
 members who, however, gradually returned to his 
 church. A parishioner was once heard to remark that 
 in twenty-five years he was certain no Sunday passed 
 when Dr. Furness in sermon or prayer did not make an 
 allusion to the evils of African slavery. His tempera 
 ment did not cause him to rage with the vehemence of 
 Phillips, Garrison and Theodore Parker, but his testi 
 mony was long and consistently given against the 
 wrongs of human bondage. His religious writings, 
 which include many titles, would not rank very high in 
 this day of careful criticism of the Scriptures, but his 
 
338 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 manifest spirituality which so early attracted the 
 Quakers to him, has left its wholesome impress upon 
 the community, and will cause all who ever heard his 
 voice or saw his saint-like face to remember him grate 
 fully. Thus did a great leader in the church, regard 
 less of the cost of the step, arise to heed Whittier s 
 stirring command: 
 
 " Stand in thy place and testify 
 
 To coming ages long, 
 That truth is stronger than a lie, 
 And righteousness than wrong." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 
 
 In the middle of the century a number of important 
 changes came over the business of publishing and selling 
 books. For many years the leading publishing firm in 
 Philadelphia and, indeed, in America, was the old house 
 of Mathew Carey, which in 1885 celebrated its cen 
 tennial, and now, therefore, is 120 years old. In 1817 
 Mathew Carey admitted to partnership with him his 
 eldest son, Henry Charles Carey, who, from an early 
 age, had been taught the business very thoroughly. 
 Four years later Isaac Lea, who had married one of 
 Mr. Carey s daughters, joined the firm. In 1824 its 
 founder retired from active part in the direction of the 
 business, and afterward the firm was known as Carey 
 and Lea. When a younger son, Edward L. Carey, 
 attained his majority, the firm name became Carey, Lea 
 and Carey, but in 1829 the business was divided. The 
 brothers separated, Edward taking the retail trade as 
 his portion, and inviting to partnership with him a 
 young Jewish business man, but eighteen years of age, 
 Abraham Hart. At ten, upon the death of his father, 
 Hart was compelled to enter a counting-house, where he 
 served for several years without recompense, at length 
 obtaining money enough to establish his mother in the 
 fancy goods business in a little shop in Third Street, 
 opposite the Girard Bank. He soon decided to add 
 books to the meagre stock. The venture was so suc- 
 
 339 
 
34 o LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 cessful that he attracted the attention of the Careys. 
 Thus was formed the firm of Carey and Hart, long and 
 favorably known, not only as booksellers, but as pub 
 lishers of much of the best literature of the time. They 
 at one period outstripped the parent house in the bril 
 liancy of their list of authors, and had a class of pub 
 lications which at a later time gravitated to Boston to 
 the house of Ticknor and Fields. 
 
 They published the works of the New England, as 
 well as the Pennsylvania, poets, and in the excellence of 
 their printing, the illustrations with which they adorned 
 their books, and their general high standards of taste, 
 gave the city a pre-eminent reputation. For many 
 years, the firm issued a Christmas souvenir volume 
 called the " Gift," which distanced all other publica 
 tions of the kind. It was edited for a time by Eliza 
 Leslie. The contents of the volume for 1845 included 
 poems, sketches and stories by Henry W. Longfellow, 
 N. P. Willis, Edgar Allan Poe, R. W. Emerson, H. T. 
 Tuckerman, Wm. H. Furness, Joseph C. Neal, C. P. 
 Cranch, Mrs. Ellet, Mrs. Sigourney and Charles Fenno 
 Hoffman. The plates, which were by C. R. Leslie, 
 Thomas Sully, Malbone, Huntington and others, were 
 engraved by John Cheney, J. I. Pease, R. W. Dodson, 
 and the best artists of the day. 
 
 Edward Carey was a man of excellent taste and wide 
 reading in many fields. He was a liberal patron of 
 the fine arts, his home being veritably a picture gallery. 
 His bodily sufferings for years were acute and he died in 
 1845 in the fortieth year of his age, some branches of 
 the business being taken over by his nephew, Henry 
 Carey Baird, whose firm still exists ; while others, through 
 Mr. Hart, now of established fortune, came into the 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 341 
 
 possession of Parry and McMillan, who were favor 
 ably known for several years in the publishing busi 
 ness in Philadelphia. Parry was an old employee of 
 Mr. Hart and his partner, James McMillan, was a 
 bookseller who had come to the city from New Bruns 
 wick. 
 
 Meantime, upon Edward Carey s withdrawal with 
 the retail business, the parent firm, v/hich now devoted 
 itself exclusively to book-publishing, resumed the name 
 of Carey and Lea. In 1833 William A. Blanchard, 
 who had been an employee of the house for more than 
 twenty years, was taken into the firm, which became 
 Carey, Lea and Blanchard, and in 1836, when Henry 
 C. Carey, by this time a widely known economist, re 
 tired, the Carey name disappeared from the firm title 
 forever. It remained Lea and Blanchard until 1851, 
 when the principal glory of the house seems to have 
 departed, at any rate as far as its activity in the pub 
 lication of general literature was concerned. Isaac 
 Lea, who had become a noted conchologist and geolo 
 gist, left the firm in 1851 and was succeeded by his son, 
 Henry Charles Lea, today a leading historian. The 
 house thereafter, until 1865, was known as Blanchard 
 and Lea, when Mr. Blanchard retired in favor of his 
 son, Henry Blanchard. For a time the firm was once 
 more Lea and Blanchard, but ill-health soon compelled 
 the young Mr. Blanchard to leave the business, when 
 Henry Charles Lea conducted it in his own name until 
 his sons and some old employees were taken into the 
 firm. Since 1885, it has been known as Lea Brothers 
 and Company. The house, for many years, has de 
 voted itself principally to the publication of scientific, 
 and particularly medical works, being a factor in con- 
 
342 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 junction with several other firms with which this business 
 is a specialty, to make the city a centre for the medical 
 text-book trade, as it has long been a centre for medical 
 education. 
 
 The history of the Carey firms from the Revolution 
 to the Civil War is the history of the book on its busi 
 ness side in this country. Some personal allusions to 
 Mathew Carey, the Irish emigre, whose indomitable 
 energy made the reputation of the house, are found in 
 an earlier chapter. The methods of selling books in 
 his day were in some respects curious. Mathew Carey 
 was instrumental in organizing the American " Literary 
 Fair," the first being held in New York in June, 1802. 
 It was patterned after the book-fairs at Frankfort and 
 Leipsic and was an enterprising business conception. 
 In future it was resolved that it should be held at New 
 York and Philadelphia alternately, in New York in 
 April and in Philadelphia in October. The October 
 Fair in 1802 was postponed until December because of 
 the yellow fever, when Philadelphia extended its first 
 welcome to the booksellers. The meeting lasted for 
 about two weeks, and was held at the Franklin Hotel, 
 on the south side of Market Street, between Third and 
 Fourth, in Franklin Court. At this Fair the idea of 
 auctions was introduced; lots of several hundred vol 
 umes, bound or in sheets, of such works as " Paradise 
 Lost," the " Life of Joseph," Cook s " Voyages," Gold 
 smith s " Greece" and Dodsley s "Fables," were 
 offered for sale to the highest bidder. Mr. Carey was 
 elected the first President of the American Association 
 of Booksellers and before they went back to their vari 
 ous homes they ate a dinner together in the hotel. 
 
 These semi-annual sales promised very well, but, in 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 343 
 
 practice, expectations were defeated by the disagree 
 ments between the country and city traders. The coun 
 try printers brought in editions of popular works, run 
 off on inferior paper from worn types, and thus enjoyed 
 an improper advantage, for which reason the Fairs were 
 abandoned after four or five years of rather indifferent 
 success. 
 
 The auction feature of the Literary Fair was revived 
 in 1824 by Henry C. Carey, when he instituted in 
 Philadelphia the " Book Trade Sales," later, for many 
 years, in charge of Moses Thomas, the old publisher of 
 the " Analectic Magazine," now a well-known auc 
 tioneer. His sales attracted booksellers from all parts 
 of the Union, and were conducted in rooms on the 
 present site of the Bullitt Building, in Fourth Street. 
 Similar sales were held subsequently in Boston and New 
 York, where they were continued after Philadelphia 
 had abandoned them. 
 
 Mathew Carey had an odd salesman in Rev. Mason 
 L. Weems, who wrote the " Life of Washington," 
 wherein was started the famous mythical story about 
 the cutting down of the cherry-tree, of which the end 
 will never be heard; and biographies of Franklin, Wil 
 liam Penn and other works not so well-known. For 
 several years he was in charge of the Episcopal parish 
 at Mount Vernon in Virginia, and coming to Philadel 
 phia, he was employed by Carey as a book agent. He 
 gave particular attention to the sale of his own works. 
 In 1817 a writer in the "Analectic Magazine" de 
 scribed Weems s peculiar methods. " Our readers 
 should know," said the " Analectic," " that he is an 
 author, a peddler and a preacher. He writes a book, 
 carries it about the country, holding forth a goodly ser- 
 
344 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 mon in every village and taking occasion to exhort all 
 manner of persons to open their eyes and read fructify 
 ing books. The cart stands ready at the door, and 
 after a congregation have heard a sermon for nothing 
 they will seldom be so hard-hearted as not to pay for a 
 book." In this and other ways more than forty editions 
 of Weems s " Washington " were sold to the American 
 people, and it was found in many homes in which it 
 was the only book except the Bible. 
 
 One of the most interesting and at the same time 
 profitable achievements in the history of the Carey house 
 was the republication of Sir Walter Scott s novels. 
 William A. Blanchard, who was a valuable factor in 
 upbuilding the reputation of this house, used to relate 
 how, when a young man, he was sent away with a stage 
 load of a new " Waverley," sitting high on the bundles 
 of books and travelling night and day across New Jer 
 sey and over the North River, in order to deliver them 
 at the earliest possible hour to the New York publish 
 ers. In those days an English book was for the first 
 printer in America who could get it and place it on 
 the market. International copyright there was none, 
 but to obtain the advance sheets it was customary for 
 enterprising American publishers to make some payment 
 as a slight douceur to the author. About 75 would 
 be paid for the early sheets of a u Waverley " ; 300 
 were paid for Scott s u Life of Bonaparte," and the 
 same sum for Lockhart s "Life of Scott"; but the 
 packet service was so undependable that a ship which 
 made its departure a month after some other vessel had 
 cleared the English coast might reach its destination 
 first. Thus, even when the advance sheets were pur 
 chased, there was constant anxiety lest a rival would 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 345 
 
 procure the book. As soon as the sheets were received, 
 compositors worked upon them day and night and they 
 were bound with the greatest speed to be sent to market 
 with the least possible delay. The Careys were the first 
 to reprint the " Pickwick Papers," issuing the parts in 
 this country as soon as they could be obtained from 
 England, and paying Dickens for the advance sheets of 
 all his works, until after his visit to this country and his 
 failure to secure an international copyright law, he re 
 fused in disgust to have anything more to do with such 
 a people as the Americans. 
 
 During the visit of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dickens 
 to Philadelphia in 1842 (he came a second time in 
 1867), they presented a letter of introduction to the 
 Careys from Charles R. Leslie, the artist, a connection 
 by marriage of Henry C. Carey, who tendered them a 
 reception at his house, still standing at the corner of 
 Tenth and Clinton Streets. All the visiting cards in 
 the tray in the parlor were used up for autographs, and 
 Dickens expressed the opinion that they had been ac 
 cumulated for that purpose. Henry Carey Baird, the 
 only guest of that occasion now living, and at that 
 time seventeen years old, secured one of these auto 
 graphs, which he still reveres. Philadelphia " is a 
 handsome city, but distractingly regular," Dickens 
 wrote in his " American Notes," which were the out 
 come of his first visit to the United States. " I felt 
 that I would have given the world for a crooked street. 
 The collar of my coat appeared to stiffen and the rim 
 of my hat to expand beneath its Quakerly influence." 
 
 At one time, it is stated by the historiographer of the 
 firm, the Carey house regularly published two novels a 
 week, in addition to many solid works, such as encyclo- 
 
346 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 pedias, biographies, poems and essays. Among native 
 authors it had Cooper, Irving, Poe, William Gilmore 
 Simms, John P. Kennedy and Robert Montgomery 
 Bird. Early in the forties, suffering from the great 
 panic, the house withdrew from the general publishing 
 trade. For several years no book could be sold unless 
 it was cheap. The firm had in hand large stocks of 
 Cooper, and as an instance of the sudden change in the 
 literary demand, it is related that the boards must be 
 stripped from the books and that they must be re-cov 
 ered in paper before they could be disposed of. 
 
 Another pioneer in the book-trade in Philadelphia 
 and in the country at large, was John Grigg, who estab 
 lished in the city what was probably the largest book 
 distributing house in the world. Grigg was a country 
 orphan boy. When very young, he went to sea and 
 later lived successively in Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky, 
 being in the last named state superintendent of a woolen 
 mill. In 1816 he came to Philadelphia, where he made 
 the acquaintance of Benjamin Warner, a Quaker book 
 seller, by whom he was hired as a clerk. Warner 
 dying, Grigg closed out his employer s affairs in 1823 
 and then went into business on his own account in a 
 small store in Fourth Street above Market, effecting 
 revolutions in the book trade in America. He soon 
 developed an important jobbing business; that is, whole 
 saling the books of all publishers and distributing them 
 to retail dealers in every part of the country. The 
 extension of the public-school system is, perhaps, as 
 much responsible as any other one agency for the re 
 markable growth of this trade. 
 
 Mr. Grigg was a most determined spirit, a natural 
 bookseller it was often said, knowing by instinct what 
 
JOHN GRIGG 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 347 
 
 others seemed never to learn by experience. In the 
 settlement of Mr. Warner s affairs, it was necessary for 
 him to travel widely. On one occasion, it is related, in 
 evidence of the attention to duty always characterizing 
 him, he was in Charleston a few days before Christmas. 
 He must be in Philadelphia on that day. When he 
 came to Baltimore, he found that the boats had left off 
 running. He turned then to the mail-coach, but it was 
 full, wherefore he must ride outside with the driver. 
 The night was cold, the air thick with sleet, and the 
 road miry. At Havre de Grace another driver took the 
 reins and, he being unacquainted with the road, the 
 passengers, fearful of their necks as the coach plunged 
 in the mud, were in favor of waiting until morning. 
 Mr. Grigg was determined that the stage should go 
 forward. So he procured a lantern and, preceding the 
 coach to light the way, piloted the vehicle through the 
 darkness and mire for two miles. Finally mounting 
 the box again, he took the reins in his own hands and 
 daylight saw the party at Elkton. In this way did Mr. 
 Grigg arrive in Philadelphia at the appointed time. 
 
 Once when a business engagement was to be kept, 
 he was so ill that he must be carried to the stage-coach, 
 and thus he proceeded to his destination regardless of 
 all personal risks and dangers. Almost military 
 promptness characterized all his business relations so 
 long as he lived. 
 
 From time to time Mr. Grigg took into partnership 
 with him young men who were in his employ and had 
 proven themselves faithful to his interests. The firm at 
 first was Grigg and Elliott; then when Henry Grambo 
 was admitted to partnership, Grigg, Elliott and Com 
 pany; and finally in 1849 b tn Mr. Grigg and Mr. 
 
348 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Elliott sold their interest in the house to Joshua Bal- 
 linger Lippincott, a retail bookseller and publisher who, 
 about 1836, had opened his store at the southwest 
 corner of Fourth and Sassafras (Race) Streets. The 
 firm now became Lippincott, Grambo and Company, 
 and when Grambo left it in 1855, J. B. Lippincott and 
 Company, under which name it established a place as 
 one of the great publishing houses of the country. In 
 1868 this firm began to issue " Lippincott s Magazine," 
 and it long continued its important jobbing business at 
 715 Market Street. 
 
 Mr. Lippincott, the controlling power in building up 
 the reputation of the house, came of a family which had 
 early settled in southern New Jersey. His parents were 
 Quakers. He was born in 1813 and died in 1886, 
 amassing much wealth in a life assiduously and intelli 
 gently devoted to the book-trade, his three sons being 
 the principal factors in the company which now conducts 
 the business of the house in Washington Square. Its 
 list of publications includes many valuable encyclopedic 
 and scientific works, as well as standard books of all 
 classes of general literature by American and foreign 
 authors. J. B. Lippincott introduced to American read 
 ers " Ouida s " w^orks and the novels of Captain King. 
 The publication of Amelie Rives s " Quick or the 
 Dead " was one of the marked successes of the maga 
 zine, in which the story appeared serially. The house 
 issued Allibone s " Critical Dictionary of Authors " and 
 Thomas s " Biographical Dictionary " and " Gazetteer 
 of the World "; Schoolcraft s " Indian Tribes " in six 
 quarto volumes, an authoritative government work; and 
 the American edition of Chambers s Encyclopedia. 
 
 For some time after the Civil War practically its only 
 
[. B. LIPP1NCOTT 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 349 
 
 rival in upholding Philadelphia s honor in the publish 
 ing trade in the field of general literature, was Porter 
 and Coates, who succeeded to the business of Willis P. 
 Hazard. The firm afterward became Henry T. Coates 
 and Company, its plates, rights and accumulated ad 
 vantages being taken over recently by the John C. 
 Winston Company. 
 
 Neither Pennsylvania, nor indeed any colony or state, 
 had yet produced men of great interest in economic 
 questions. A few pamphlets by Francis Rawle, pub 
 lished from 1720 to 1725, are believed to have been 
 the first works of this class in Philadelphia. Tench 
 Coxe was a writer of authority during the Revolution 
 ary period and subsequent years. Born in this city 
 in 1755, and graduating at the College of Philadelphia, 
 he entered his father s banking house, later becoming 
 Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Hamilton and 
 filling other government posts. He lived until 1824, 
 publishing several volumes of economic and statistical 
 studies, the chief of which, " A View of the United 
 States of America," was an elaborate discussion of the 
 material condition of the country at the end of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 But these works were of little importance as con 
 tributions to economic science in comparison with those 
 of Henry C. Carey. Through him Philadelphia won 
 the distinction of becoming the seat of a certain body of 
 doctrines in political economy with which the name of 
 the city is still inseparably associated. Mathew Carey 
 in his later years had exhibited much interest in the 
 tariff question, and maintained an agitation which, if it 
 did not establish his title to consideration as a great 
 economist, testified in one more way to his pertinacious 
 
350 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 nature. It is often assumed that Henry C. Carey came 
 by his love of economics as naturally as did John Stuart 
 Mill through his father, James Mill; the father edu 
 cating the son. The analogy is rather striking and the 
 principal difference is found in the substance of the 
 teaching and the fruit born of the process. The Careys, 
 both father and son, were untaught or rather self- 
 taught, while the Mills had opportunities to secure the 
 philosophical and scientific backgrounds for their writ 
 ings. 
 
 Mathew Carey put his sons to work at an early age. 
 His was the gospel of labor. Henry, the eldest son, 
 born in 1793, was sent to Baltimore when twelve years 
 old, to superintend a branch of his father s publishing 
 house, and, upon coming of age in 1814, was made a 
 partner in the business. In 1819 he married a sister of 
 Charles R. Leslie, the artist, and of Eliza Leslie, the 
 novelist. For twenty-one years, or until 1835, when he 
 retired from mercantile life, he was an active spirit in 
 the publishing trade in Philadelphia, reading manu 
 scripts and books, gaging the literary market and devel 
 oping a taste for general literature, including fiction, 
 that he freely indulged so long as he lived. He was 
 one of the most accomplished publishers of his day and 
 standards invariably high ruled him in all his judgments 
 and appreciations. From 1835 until his death in 1879, 
 nearly forty-five years, Henry C. Carey was a retired 
 gentleman and an economist whose theories, like Henry 
 George s, another Philadelphian by birth and by resi 
 dence in early life, were generally known even where 
 they were not accepted. It is stated that the younger 
 Mr. Carey began his career as a free-trader, which is 
 a fact rather difficult to reconcile with the theory that 
 
HENRY C. CAREY 
 
 From a photograph in possession of Mrs. Harvard Gardiner 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 35 1 
 
 he came by his interest in social science through his 
 father, to whom a protective tariff was the beginning 
 and the end of political economy. In any event, he was 
 not slow or unemphatic in signalling his conversion to 
 protection, which he sought to give a place in an origi 
 nal and independently wrought-out system of social 
 philosophy. In 1840 he completed his three volumes, 
 " The Principles of Political Economy," and in 1858 
 another three-volume work, " The Principles of Social 
 Science." In all, in his fifty years of authorship, Mr. 
 Carey produced thirteen octavo volumes, 3,000 pages 
 of pamphlets, besides a great amount of writing which 
 was done without pecuniary reward for Horace Greeley 
 and Morton McMichael and appeared from time to 
 time in the editorial columns of the New York 
 " Tribune " and the Philadelphia " North American." 
 His works have been translated into French, German, 
 Italian, Russian, Magyar, Portuguese, Japanese and 
 other languages, and they are of such a character as still 
 to call for examination by the economists of Europe. 
 His " Political Economy " in Japanese has passed 
 through a number of editions, and it has been an un 
 questioned influence in determining that government to 
 adopt a policy which has brought the nation to a posi 
 tion of wealth and independent power. 
 
 With the dogmatism of some of his Irish ancestors 
 and much of their daring and inflexibility, he discarded 
 most of the accepted doctrines of Adam Smith, Ricardo, 
 Malthus and Mill as absurdities, and erected a new 
 structure whose chief pillar was the thought that popu 
 lation could increase and prosper indefinitely, if the gov 
 ernment would isolate it commercially and a balance 
 were maintained between the factory and the farm. 
 
352 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Thus he refuted such fundamental and, as they had 
 seemed to most investigators, obvious economic princi 
 ples as the law of diminishing returns, Ricardo s law of 
 rent, Malthus s law of population, and the wage-fund 
 theory. In this way did he combat free-trade and es 
 tablish through the agency of his books and newspaper 
 articles his title to be regarded as the founder of a 
 school of American political economy whose home was, 
 and is still accounted to be, in Philadelphia, as opposed 
 to the international English free-trade whose bulwarks 
 were set up in the colleges and universities of New 
 England. 
 
 Economists are noted beyond all other men, except 
 perhaps theologians, for their tenacity, their prejudices, 
 and oftentimes their downright ill-nature in controversy. 
 Mr. Carey, like his father, throve in contention. He 
 was a man of no reserves. He would clinch his state 
 ments with strong and unfashionable expletives. He 
 lacked humor. He wrote rapidly, often furiously, in 
 a hand which it was difficult for the unpractised to de 
 cipher. He gave himself no physical recreation when 
 at work, save an occasional walk through the spacious 
 rooms of his mansion lined with paintings and crowded 
 book-shelves, when he returned with new ideas to be put 
 upon paper with similar rapidity. He published his 
 works without thought, hope, or need of recompense 
 and on balance at his death protection was a large 
 debtor from whom nothing ever came. 
 
 With all his intellectual severity, Mr. Carey was a 
 man of much warmth and geniality socially. He 
 snuffed like a gentleman of the old school, and enjoyed 
 his glass of wine. He loved the opera, drama and 
 light literature, and his interests were those of a cosmop- 
 
TITLE PAGE, FOURTH EDITION, VOLUME II, OF HENRY C CAREY S 
 " POLITICAL ECONOMY," IN JAPANESE 
 
354 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 olite. He belonged to a number of clubs, including 
 one of twelve members who met together annually 
 until all but him had gone to other spheres. Upon the 
 appointed day, he continued to dine alone for several 
 years, or until his own death at the age of eighty-six. 
 Once a week, on Sunday afternoons, the leading men of 
 the city gathered at his round table in his mansion at 
 1 1 02 Walnut Street. These meetings, called the 
 Carey Vespers, before, during and after the war, 
 were characterized by a vigorous discussion of national 
 problems. In 1865 General Grant was at Mr. Carey s 
 house in attendance at one of the Sunday " afternoons. " 
 Just prior to his death in 1879, the combined ages of 
 Carey and three men who met at his home, General 
 Robert Patterson, whose residence, at Thirteenth and 
 Locust Streets, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania 
 long occupied; William D. Lewis, the banker and trans 
 lator; and Joseph R. Chandler, the old editor of the 
 " United States Gazette," was 351 years, or an aver 
 age of nearly eighty-eight years for each. 
 
 Mr. Carey s doctrines, in so far as they justified a 
 protective tariff, were eagerly embraced by politicians 
 and manufacturers, who cared little enough for the 
 Ricardian theory of rent or the law governing the in 
 crease of population by a geometrical ratio, and the 
 increase of subsistence by only an arithmetical ratio. 
 These might stand or fall, if there were a scientific de 
 fense for the protection of native industries. Carey, 
 therefore, found himself at the head of a large school of 
 thinkers, writers and agitators. In 1859, before his 
 departure for Europe, he made a tour of the eastern 
 Pennsylvania cities. Accompanied by Dr. William 
 Elder, Morton McMichael and others, he visited 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 355 
 
 Scranton, Pittston, Wilkesbarre, Bloomsburg, Mauch 
 Chunk, etc., where processions of miners, factory em 
 ployees and citizens, mounted and on foot, fire com 
 panies and brass bands, followed his carriage through 
 the streets. In Philadelphia his friends tendered him 
 a banquet at the La Pierre House (later the Lafayette 
 Hotel on Broad Street), the leading hotel of the day. 
 At one end of the room was the motto, " Protection to 
 American Labor," while in front of Mr. Carey s plate 
 was a locomotive and a train of cars laden with coal and 
 pig iron, all ingeniously constructed of sugar and choco 
 late. Mayor Henry presided and Simon Cameron and 
 other notabilities of the day in political and commercial 
 life sat at the board and eulogized him " for the explo 
 sion of the absurd doctrines of Malthus, Say and 
 Ricardo in regard to the inability of the earth to meet 
 the demands of an increasing population. " 
 
 Protection soon became known as the " Philadelphia 
 idea," and newspapers and orators were at hand acri 
 moniously to discuss the question with representatives of 
 free-trade New England and the free-trade South. 
 The principal writers of the Carey group, omitting 
 several who still live and therefore do not come within 
 the scope of this study, were Stephen Calwell and Dr. 
 William Elder. 
 
 Calwell was a West Virginian by birth. He was first 
 a lawyer, practising in Ohio and Pittsburg, but he left 
 his profession to become an iron manufacturer. For 
 a time he had furnaces in Atlantic County, N. J., and 
 later at Conshohocken, on the Schuylkill, near Philadel 
 phia, in which city, at his death in 1871, he held many 
 posts of honor. Calwell wrote several treatises on 
 economy and finance, and Mr. Carey said in his eulo- 
 
356 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 gium of the dead manufacturer before the American 
 Philosophical Society, that between them there had 
 " never been any essential difference/ There was 
 " coincidence of doctrine " reached, as Mr. Calwell be 
 lieved, by independent reasoning. However that may 
 have been, Mr. Calwell was a diligent collector of 
 works on economic subjects and an attentive reader of 
 them. His library contained about 5000 volumes in 
 various languages which were donated, at his death, to 
 the University of Pennsylvania, as were Mr. Carey s at 
 his demise. When some one commented upon the large 
 number of books on the subject of money in his library, 
 and asked him if he had read them all, Mr. Calwell 
 replied : " Enough to know that there is really little or 
 nothing in them of any value," a sentiment that well 
 characterizes the rather arrogant attitude of the econo 
 mist. 
 
 Dr. William Elder, a Philadelphia physician, came 
 to the city from Somerset, Pa. He wrote and spoke 
 against slavery before the war, and afterward interested 
 himself in economic questions, being at one time the 
 statistician of the Treasury Department at Washington. 
 He delivered an oration, very appreciative of his master, 
 before the Pennsylvania Historical Society in 1880, 
 shortly after Mr. Carey s death. 
 
 The Careyites are a small and diminishing coterie in 
 Philadelphia, but they have the coherence and the ardor 
 of a sect. Their devotion to each other and to their 
 chief, though gone out of their midst, is admirable, and 
 their example could be profitably copied by other classes 
 of men in the city s intellectual group. 
 
 The Wistar Parties had been abandoned in favor 
 of the Carey Vespers, though not before the literary 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 357 
 
 and scientific lights of Philadelphia had spent many 
 happy hours with William Makepeace Thackeray. 
 Thackeray first came to America in 1852, and again in 
 1855. On his first visit, he stopped at the Girard 
 House, on Chestnut Street, between Eighth and Ninth, 
 and lectured on the " English Humorists " at Musical 
 Fund Hall, in Locust, near Eighth Street; on the second, 
 at the La Pierre House, his subject being " The 
 Georges," at Concert Hall, on Chestnut Street, near 
 Thirteenth. While he had got " smashing criticisms " 
 at Boston, he was more considerately treated in Phila 
 delphia, where the autocrats who report lectures for the 
 newspapers contented themselves with the complaint that 
 he dropped the final " g " of words ending with " ing," 
 said " amiral " for " admiral," and pronounced 
 " humor " as if it were spelled " heumour." 
 
 " Here in Philadelphia it is all praise and kindness," 
 Thackeray wrote an English friend. " Do you know 
 there are 500,000 people in Philadelphia? I dare say 
 you had no idea thereof, and smile at the thought of 
 there being a monde here and at Boston and New 
 York." 
 
 The monde for him was made up of several Philadel- 
 phians, among them William B. Reed, William D. 
 Lewis, Thomas I. Wharton, Professor Henry Reed, 
 and Morton McMichael. He met the city s younger 
 literary men George H. Boker, Bayard Taylor and 
 Charles Godfrey Leland, and was taken to hear and 
 admire the singing of Miss Furness, Horace Howard 
 Furness s sister, later Mrs. A. L. Wister, the translator. 
 He went to the Wistar Parties, ate late suppers with 
 Morton McMichael in the oyster cellars, which were 
 then a feature of the social life of the city, enjoying the 
 
358 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 curious oysters " and all sorts of birds " served by the 
 African waiters, whose black hands on the white plates 
 later amused Dean Hole, as well as many another Eng 
 lish visitor in short, as he wrote, " making and re 
 ceiving visits all day long and going out to dinner and 
 supper prodigiously." Sometimes he chanted his non 
 sense rhymes about " Little Billee " in his inimitable 
 way, and he visited Pierce Butler, to carry home to Fan 
 ny Kemble, then in London, late news of her children. 
 " The prettiest girl in Philadelphia, poor soul, has read 
 4 Vanity Fair twelve times," said Thackeray, in return 
 for which he paid her " a great big compliment about 
 her good looks " ; and Kane, the Arctic explorer, told 
 how he had found one of his seamen at a book for many 
 hours which, upon investigation, proved to be " Pen- 
 dennis." The Quaker girls unsettled him completely. 
 He saw a Quakeress at one of his lectures. " Lord ! 
 Lord! how pretty she was!" he wrote afterward. 
 4 There are hundreds of such everywhere, airy-looking 
 little beings." " The lectures are enormously suivies," 
 wrote Thackeray again, " and I read at the rate of a 
 pound a minute, nearly." So great a lion was he in 
 the city that his friends seriously proposed that he seek 
 the appointment of British Consul at Philadelphia and 
 remain with them forever. 
 
 William B. Reed and Henry Reed were grandsons 
 of Joseph Reed, a rather unsatisfactory and undepend- 
 able political character in Pennsylvania during the Rev 
 olution. William B. was a lawyer who obtained a 
 prominent position at the Philadelphia bar. He held 
 political offices, going once on a mission to China for 
 President Buchanan, and wrote and spoke constantly 
 on various subjects. He was known to Thackeray 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 359 
 
 before the latter reached the city, and by some, though 
 likely without grounds, is supposed to have been the 
 prototype of Barnes Newcome in " The Newcomes." 
 Reed was pretty thoroughly detested during the war, 
 since he was an active Copperhead, and other difficulties 
 in the city that had earlier honored him in many ways, 
 led to his removal to New York, where he concluded 
 his days as a journalist. 
 
 Henry Reed also studied law and was admitted to 
 the bar in 1829, but two years later the University of 
 Pennsylvania made him an assistant professor in the 
 College and he soon rose to be professor of rhetoric 
 and English literature, a place he held with honor for 
 twenty years. Professor Reed was undoubtedly one of 
 the ablest men ever closely associated with the Univer 
 sity of Pennsylvania on its literary side. He corre 
 sponded with Wordsworth, Coleridge and the English 
 Lake poets, of whom he was a profound admirer. He 
 was known as Wordsworth s chief American disciple, 
 and arranged an edition of that poet s verse. He had 
 long cherished the hope of meeting face to face his 
 literary friends in England, and in May, 1854, leaving 
 his wife and children at home, he embarked for Europe 
 in company with his sister-in-law, Miss Bronson. Mrs. 
 Reed and Miss Bronson were grand-daughters of Bishop 
 White. While in Europe, Professor Reed and his 
 companion met many distinguished literary men, and 
 Thackeray wrote to William B. Reed that to see them 
 was " like being in your grave, calm, kind, old Philadel 
 phia over again." 
 
 Wordsworth was now dead, but they visited Mrs. 
 Wordsworth, nearly eighty-five, and she had wished 
 them a pleasant voyage as they left " Rydal Mount n 
 
360 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 for Liverpool, to take the " Arctic " on September 20, 
 1854, for their return journey to America. On Sep 
 tember ayth, when about sixty-five miles from Cape 
 Race, at midday in a fog, the steamship collided with a 
 French iron propeller. Steps were taken to rescue the 
 200 or more persons on board the French steamer, but 
 this was soon seen to be impossible, for the wounds in 
 the hulk of the " Arctic " were of the gravest kind. It 
 was sought to cover or fill the holes with sails, mat 
 tresses and pillows, but they were too far below the 
 water-line; and the vessel, with some 250 passengers 
 and a crew of 150 or 175 men, was doomed slowly to 
 sink under the waves with all on board. The few boats 
 which were launched were filled with the engineers, 
 deckhands and table-waiters. A raft, which was made 
 from the masts and yards, was so awkwardly constructed 
 that the seventy-six who found refuge upon it, were 
 gradually washed off or died of hunger and exposure, 
 only one, a table-waiter, McCabe, being able to cling to 
 it long enough, twenty-six hours, to be sighted and 
 picked up by a passing vessel. Some two or three score, 
 mostly seamen and ship s employees, were saved in vari 
 ous ways; all the others finding a common grave be 
 neath the sea. Henry Reed and Miss Bronson perished 
 with the rest, after awaiting the end for more than four 
 hours while the ship sank inch by inch to its destruction. 
 McCabe came to Philadelphia to tell William B. Reed, 
 in the presence of Morton McMichael and Ellis Yar- 
 nall, of his brother s fate, and the city mourned the loss 
 of one who had consistently stood before his students 
 and in the community at large as a representative of 
 high and pure literary ideals. Professor Reed s univer 
 sity lectures were published after his death, to be ad- 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 361 
 
 mired and praised in England as well as in discriminat 
 ing circles in this country. 
 
 A man of prodigious learning and devout in his atten 
 tion to the history and development of literature, was 
 S. Austin Allibone, who was born in Philadelphia in 
 1816 and died at Lucerne, Switzerland, where he is 
 buried, in 1889. The volume of his critical labors is 
 enormous, but his principal work, completed in 1872, 
 is his " Dictionary of English Literature and British 
 and American Authors." Robert C. Winthrop, of 
 Boston, once spoke of the Dictionary as " that great 
 work which is itself enough to give celebrity to the city 
 in which it was produced." Dr. Allibone estimated 
 that when he began his labors there were about 650,000 
 books in the English language. He farmed the whole 
 field, which before he did his work, said Dr. S. D. Mc- 
 Connell, in a paper read to the Historical Society of 
 Pennsylvania in 1890, was " in the same state as was the 
 English language before Dr. Johnson did his." " It is 
 not too much to say," Dr. McConnell continued, " that 
 the names of these two men will survive while the tongue 
 lasts. The one traced out the genesis, arranged and 
 assigned a value, to its words; the other did the same 
 thing for its books. But the amazing thing is that Dr. 
 Allibone s Dictionary gives account of five times as 
 many whole books as the great lexicographer s does of 
 single words ! And it should be remembered that Dr. 
 Johnson employed a large staff of workers to aid him, 
 while Dr. Allibone was the sole compiler of facts and 
 criticisms, and author of the biographies of the writers 
 assembled in his immense undertaking." Mrs. Alli 
 bone copied the work which, in manuscript, covered 
 20,000 foolscap pages. 
 
362 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Philadelphia s portion of writers in medicine and nat 
 ural science was still large, larger, perhaps, than for any 
 previous generation. In medicine the list includes 
 Jacob M. DaCosta, Samuel D. Gross, D. Hayes Agnew, 
 George B. Wood and William Pepper. 
 
 Dr. DaCosta, who was born in the Danish West 
 Indies, was educated both in Europe and America, grad 
 uating at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, 
 where he began his practice in 1854, attaining a promi 
 nent local position which became national and interna 
 tional. His interest was in general medicine, and he 
 wrote a number of scientific works which have been 
 widely translated. 
 
 Dr. Gross was a Jefferson graduate also, and a teacher 
 in that college of a somewhat earlier period. Born 
 near Easton, Pa., he practiced and taught for nearly 
 twenty-five years in Ohio and Kentucky, being appointed 
 professor of surgery at Jefferson in 1856, an office 
 which he held almost to the time of his death in 1884. 
 He was incessantly active as a translator, editor and 
 writer, and made many original contributions to his 
 science. His works have gone through many editions 
 in many languages. He was a D.C.L. of Oxford and 
 an LL.D. of Cambridge, honors which indicate the 
 esteem in which he was held in other lands. 
 
 Agnew, the University s great surgeon, was a native 
 of Lancaster County, who had been a country physician 
 for several years and then entered the iron business until 
 a panic led him to return to his profession. He came 
 to Philadelphia in 1848, attaining, during the war, a 
 high reputation for his skill in the soldiers hospitals at 
 Hestonvillc and Chestnut Hill. In 1870 he was made 
 professor of surgery in the University of Pennsylvania, 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 363 
 
 from which he had graduated thirty-two years before. 
 He was one of the surgeons called to President Gar- 
 field s bedside to perform the operation whereby it was 
 hoped that his life might be saved to the nation, defeat 
 ing the assassin s purposes. His principal literary 
 work is a valuable three-volume " Treatise on the Prin 
 ciples and Practice of Surgery." 
 
 Dr. George B. Wood came of a Quaker family of 
 New Jersey. He graduated both in the college and 
 medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, where 
 he was for many years a professor in the medical fac 
 ulty. He wrote a history of the University, in addition 
 to many works upon medicine and pharmacy. In 1859 
 he became the President of the American Philosophical 
 Society, and was rightly regarded at his day as one of 
 the city s leading scientists. 
 
 Dr. William Pepper was a greater figure than any 
 other man identified with medicine in Philadelphia 
 in his time, largely because of the wide range of 
 his public interests and his executive and organ 
 izing faculty, which no other citizen since Franklin 
 has possessed in so remarkable a degree. In estab 
 lishing the University Hospital, a medical jour 
 nal, free city libraries, a commercial museum, a society 
 for the extension of University teaching, and various 
 schools and scientific expeditions in connection with the 
 University of Pennsylvania, of which he became the 
 Provost in 1881, the works he is remembered by are 
 as numerous as Franklin s and are no less vital to the 
 intellectual civilization of the city that was the scene of 
 his useful and active life. Through his executive talent, 
 his devotion to duty, and his high educational ideals, the 
 University, under his direction, gained an eminence as 
 
364 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 a seat of learning which it had never held before. His 
 public work, various and exacting as it was, was per 
 formed seemingly without cost to his reputation as a 
 scientist or as a private practitioner of medicine. His 
 writings were voluminous and his practice large and 
 valuable. The son of William Pepper, a well-known 
 Philadelphia physician, he was distinctly of the city in 
 which he dwelt, and few have done more that was of 
 practical and lasting value for its intellectual advance 
 ment. 
 
 In the natural sciences the city continued to produce 
 investigators of the first class, such as Isaac Lea, Joseph 
 Leidy, Edward D. Cope and Daniel G. Brinton. Isaac 
 Lea, the son-in-law of Mathew Carey and for many 
 years the head of the Carey publishing-house, was of 
 Quaker descent, having been born in Wilmington, Del. 
 He forfeited his membership in the Society of Friends, 
 during the War of 1812, by joining a military company 
 that was never called into service. His leisure, while 
 he was a publisher, and all his time after his retirement 
 from business until his death in 1886, when he was 
 nearly ninety-five years old, were devoted to the study of 
 shells and fossils. For several years he was the Presi 
 dent of the Academy of Natural Sciences, which con 
 tinued to be the gathering-point for naturalists of 
 marked devotion and ability. One of his most interest 
 ing discoveries was the existence of Saurian footprints 
 in the red sandstone many hundreds of feet below the 
 coal measures at Pottsville, where air-breathing forms 
 were never found before. His scientific writings were 
 as numerous as they were important and he made known 
 to the world many hundreds of new species, recent and 
 fossil. Mr. Lea s services caused his name to be known 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 365 
 
 widely and favorably among naturalists in all countries. 
 
 Joseph Leidy, who was born in Philadelphia in 1823, 
 made himself one of the world s great biologists. He 
 was connected with the University of Pennsylvania for 
 many years. His paleontological studies placed him in 
 the first rank among scientists. He was the author of 
 hundreds of published papers descriptive of his scientific 
 discoveries. Like Mr. Lea, Leidy was President of 
 the Academy of Natural Sciences, doing much to in 
 crease the world s knowledge of natural history. 
 
 Edward Drinker Cope was a grandson of Thomas 
 P. Cope, a well-known Philadelphia merchant of the 
 eighteenth century. Born in 1840, he was educated at 
 the Quaker School at Westtown, at the University of 
 Pennsylvania and in Europe. !He also was a paleon 
 tologist, and put his researches to use in the explanation 
 and development of the theory of evolution. In this 
 field of study he reached a position of authority and his 
 work causes his name to be associated honorably with 
 those of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Lamarck, Weis- 
 mann, and the leading evolutionary philosophers of the 
 world. 
 
 Daniel G. Brinton, a Chester Countian, was an 
 archaeologist and ethnologist, the value of whose work 
 compelled recognition in two hemispheres. He studied 
 medicine in Philadelphia, after graduating at Yale, and 
 was a surgeon in the Civil War. While still in college, 
 he interested himself in anthropology and ethnology, 
 and made exhaustive studies of the American Indians 
 which are a monument to his learning and an honor to 
 the neighborhood in which he worked. 
 
 In law, the leading names are those of Eli K. Price, 
 a Chester Countian who rose to much distinction at the 
 
366 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Philadelphia bar, and George Sharswood. Sharswood re 
 established the law school at the University of Pennsyl 
 vania, wrote various treatises, and edited and compiled 
 many legal works. At the same time, he was a judge in 
 the Philadelphia courts and later in the state Supreme 
 Court. He was perhaps the most accomplished jurist 
 Pennsylvania had produced; at any rate, since the Revo 
 lutionary time, when American lawyers were educated in 
 London, where they acquired a notion of the history and 
 philosophy of their subject and were made acquainted 
 with the principles of jurisprudence. 
 
 The church in this period yielded at least two names 
 which cannot be passed in a literary history of the city : 
 Albert Barnes, long the pastor of the First Presbyterian 
 Church on Washington Square; and Phillips Brooks, 
 from 1859 to 1869 the rector of the Church of the Ad 
 vent and of Holy Trinity. Barnes was a native of 
 New York State, who studied theology at Princeton. 
 He was a prolific writer, and of his " Notes " on the 
 Scriptures, which were adapted for the use of Sunday 
 Schools, more than one million copies had been sold be 
 fore 1872. His collected works fill many volumes. 
 He was once tried for heresy, and, although acquitted, 
 was induced to change some passages in his writings 
 supposed to be unsound. 
 
 Phillips Brooks, whose first parishes were in Phila 
 delphia, here laid the foundations for his brilliant career 
 in pulpit oratory. He quickly met with appreciation. 
 A native of Boston, he returned thither in 1869 to lead 
 the largest and wealthiest congregation in the city and 
 to become at length, in 1891, the Bishop of Massachu 
 setts in spite of his " low church " views, which were 
 believed to bar him from it. He was destined, how- 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 367 
 
 ever, to live but two years to occupy his great spiritual 
 office. 
 
 Philadelphia has long been foremost in providing 
 daring spirits for the exploration of the Arctic regions, 
 and two pioneers were Dr. Elisha Kent Kane and Dr. 
 Isaac Israel Hayes. 
 
 To them the North Pole called loudly and they pen 
 etrated latitudes at that time untraversed by any white 
 man, bringing down to more genial climes much useful 
 and interesting knowledge concerning a forbidden land, 
 though at a heavy cost of privation and hardship and 
 amid dangers that again and again proved nearly fatal. 
 
 Elisha Kent Kane was the son of Judge John K. 
 Kane, a prominent lawyer, politician and publicist who 
 in his day attended the Wistar Parties, and was ac 
 counted one of the city s intellectual lights. He lived 
 at Fern Rock, near Fanny Kemble s and Lucretia Mott s 
 York Road homes, in a stone house which is now a part 
 of a summer hotel. Elisha, after taking a course, that 
 was interrupted by illness, at the University of Virginia, 
 studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and 
 upon his graduation, in 1843, became a surgeon in the 
 Navy. He had travels and experiences the most varied, 
 adventurous and dangerous, in Mexico, China, Egypt, 
 mid-Africa, India and the Philippines. 
 
 Once, on the Island of Luzon, he was lowered by a 
 bamboo rope into the crater of a volcano, penetrating 
 its interior to a depth of several hundred feet amid 
 great heat and sulphurous fumes that almost stifled him. 
 When raised to the surface by his companions he was 
 not readily revived, though he had brought with him 
 specimens and drawings of the crater that he considered 
 amply compensating for the hazardous experience. 
 
368 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 He was severely wounded by a spear in the thigh 
 during the Mexican War, while protecting Mexican 
 prisoners from a band of American renegades who, 
 having captured their foes, sought now to massacre 
 them in cold blood, for which service his fellow Phila- 
 delphians on his return presented him with a handsome 
 sword. Like Mayne Reid, he was for a while given up 
 for dead and news of his safety, when it was received, 
 was welcomed everywhere. 
 
 About this time the sympathies of the world were 
 highly wrought up concerning the fate of Sir John 
 Franklin, a British Polar traveller who had gone out on 
 his fourth and, as it proved, his final expedition in May, 
 1845, with two vessels and 136 men. After waiting 
 long and vainly for his return or for information as to 
 his fate, various attempts to effect his rescue having been 
 made by English explorers and navigators, Lady Frank 
 lin appealed to America, and Henry Grinnell, a wealthy 
 whale-oil dealer of New York, offered and fitted out 
 two of his vessels, the " Advance " and the " Rescue," 
 for a polar trip, if the government would semi-officially 
 sanction the enterprise. Lieutenant E. J. De Haven 
 was assigned to command. Dr. Kane volunteered for 
 the service, being appointed the senior medical officer 
 of the expedition. Little was achieved by this party. 
 It left for the north in May, 1850, remained in the ice 
 during the following winter and returned in the summer 
 of 1851 with Kane s appetite well whetted for a greater 
 performance. 
 
 Mr. Grinnell now gave him the " Advance," a brig 
 of 1 20 tons burden, for a second expedition, and, pat 
 ronized also by George Peabody and several learned 
 societies, he secured the official recognition of the Navy 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 369 
 
 Department for the momentous voyage of search and 
 discovery which nearly ended the lives of the com 
 mander and all his eighteen men. His destination was 
 the highest attainable point of Baffin s Bay, up to that 
 time an unexplored region. He left New York in May, 
 1853, wintered north of the 78th parallel of latitude, 
 and flying sledge parties crossed the Soth parallel, the 
 explorer making many scientific observations on these 
 journeys. But from his situation Kane could not es 
 cape. The ice around his brig remained unbroken dur 
 ing the next summer and the outlook seemed to be cer 
 tain destruction for the entire party. Long trips were 
 ineffectual in bringing them aid, and a number of his 
 men abandoned him, only to be forced to return to the 
 ship after two or three months of aimless wandering, 
 during which time they suffered terrible privations. 
 The second winter was passed amid bitter cold, with the 
 scurvy, chilblains that called for the amputation of mem 
 bers, famine, little relieved by the friendliness of some 
 miserable Esquimaux; incessant darkness, lack of fuel, 
 and the sickness of men and dogs. All these things 
 made the salvation of the party seem to depend upon a 
 miracle. 
 
 Finally, in May, 1855, they left the vessel, dragged 
 their boats over the ice for sixty miles, and then em 
 barking, navigated them amidst floating ice and other 
 perils for 1,000 miles to the nearest Danish settlements 
 in Greenland, which they reached in forty-five days, 
 there to meet the vessels sent by the United States gov 
 ernment for their relief. They arrived in New York 
 on October n, 1855, after an absence of nearly two 
 years and a half, during which time world-wide anxiety 
 was felt for their safety. 
 
370 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Kane was now a hero of the first magnitude. He 
 had come back safely with most of his men, the records 
 of his trip, and one of the small boats, the " Faith," 
 which they had dragged over the ice so far and which 
 was later to be exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition 
 in Philadelphia all else was left in the land of cold. 
 He was invited to England, where Lady Franklin of 
 fered him a beautiful home for his own use, and the 
 English government proposed to fit out another expedi 
 tion for him to pursue the search for the ill-fated ex 
 plorer. He went to Europe in 1856, but he was unfit 
 for further Arctic exploration. His health was irre 
 parably shattered and he embarked for the West Indies, 
 where he died the next February, a victim of consump 
 tion, inflammatory rheumatism, paralysis, a heart 
 trouble, with which he had always been afflicted, and 
 other diseases, the price of such treatment of the hu 
 man body. 
 
 The Spanish authorities showed him every mark of 
 honor and attention. The remains were taken to New 
 Orleans, to lie in state in the City Hall under military 
 guard, and then up the Mississippi and the Ohio. 
 There were impressive ceremonies witnessed by throngs 
 of people at Louisville, New Albany, Ind., Cincinnati, 
 Columbus, Wheeling and Baltimore, state and city offi 
 cers co-operating to lend dignity to the progress of the 
 corse, which reached Philadelphia on March nth, to be 
 escorted through the streets by the City Troop and 
 guarded by the Washington Greys while it lay in Inde 
 pendence Hall. Wrapped in his country s flag, buried 
 in flowers, and with the sword which his fellow-citizens 
 had presented him for his exploit in the Mexican War 
 upon his coffin, the young explorer was carried to Laurel 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 371 
 
 Hill, his pall-bearers including the governor, the mayor, 
 and the most distinguished men of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Dr. Kane was but thirty-seven years old; and only 
 thirty-three when he entered the Arctics in command of 
 the " Advance." He was a slight man, never weighing 
 more than 130 pounds, and much of the time his weight 
 was not above 100 pounds. His eye was penetrating 
 and intrepid, and his whole manner absolutely fearless, 
 a quality that made up for a figure which seemed not to 
 favor him as a leader of men upon dangerous expedi 
 tions. 
 
 The account of his first trip to the north with De 
 Haven, illustrated by John Sartain and other artists, 
 was published by Harpers in New York; but the narra 
 tive describing his own " Arctic Explorations: The Sec 
 ond Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Frank 
 lin 1853, 54, 55," in two volumes, was brought out in 
 1856 by Childs and Peterson in Philadelphia, who 
 afterward bought the plates of the first book. No work 
 of the kind by a Philadelphian, with the possible excep 
 tion of John Russell Young s " Around the World with 
 General Grant/ had such popularity, or gained so great 
 a circulation. For the first year, Dr. Kane s royalties 
 were $65,000, making large profits, too, for the pub 
 lishers, the foundation of the fortune of George W. 
 Childs. It was adapted perfectly for the book agent, 
 who carried it into every part of the Union. It is ab 
 sorbing reading today and a valuable record of Arctic 
 experiences, even when Polar journeys are less unusual 
 and we hear and read of them with diminishing zest. 
 He wrote of his adventures, explorations and suffer 
 ings with commendable simplicity, modesty and unself 
 ishness. All classes were touched by his story, but the 
 
372 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 task of producing it was too arduous for a frame that 
 already contained the seeds of fatal disease. 
 
 Before he embarked upon his expedition, Kane began 
 to show attentions to Margaret Fox, one of the Fox 
 sisters who gave exhibitions in many cities of the re 
 markable " spirit rappings," the news of which swept 
 the country and brought forward great numbers of spir 
 itualistic mediums. Kane persuaded Margaret, when 
 she was about seventeen, to give up this career, and he 
 sent her to school near Chester, Pa., with a view to edu 
 cating her to be his wife. His relatives opposed the 
 arrangement, but after his death she called herself Mrs. 
 Kane, asserting that she and the explorer had been mar 
 ried for all the purposes of law, and making a claim 
 upon his estate. At his funeral one of the handsomest 
 of the floral pieces was a wreath, the offering of " Two 
 Ladies " Margaret Fox and her sister Kate. 
 
 Dr. Isaac Israel Hayes was a native of Chester 
 County. He graduated in medicine at the University 
 of Pennsylvania, just in time to join Kane on the fa 
 mous expedition of 1853. He led or joined the group 
 of men who left the ship at the approach of the second 
 winter. They made a long boat journey toward the 
 South, which Kane used all his influence to discourage, 
 and were forced at length to return, after excruciating 
 sufferings, to share the lot of their fellows. Dr. Hayes, 
 upon coming back to civilization, wrote a book to justify 
 this abandonment of his commander, and immediately 
 instituted a movement to fit out an expedition of his 
 own. After the loss of Franklin and the misfortunes 
 of Kane, the world revolted at the thought of further 
 sacrifice of life in the Arctics. Nevertheless, Hayes lec 
 tured before learned societies in many cities and wrote 
 
LATER WRITERS AND EVENTS 373 
 
 in behalf of his project until he succeeded in securing a 
 small sailing vessel, which left Boston for Greenland 
 on July 6, 1860. 
 
 The boat was loaded with supplies until its deck was 
 only eighteen inches above the water line. The party 
 consisted of fifteen men, the number being increased 
 later by some Danes and Esquimaux, and before winter 
 arrived it had reached a point only twenty miles south 
 of the latitude which Kane occupied with his little ves 
 sel. Hayes found milder weather and made a sledge 
 journey, which, if his observations were right, entitle 
 him to the honor of coming nearer to the Pole than any 
 previous explorer. There he planted a small United 
 States flag which had accompanied Wilkes to the South 
 Pole and both De Haven and Kane on their Arctic ex 
 peditions, afterward shown with the " Faith " and other 
 relics at the Philadelphia " Centennial." 
 
 Hayes returned to Boston in the fall of 1861, after 
 having been absent more than fifteen months, to find the 
 country in the throes of the Civil War, whereupon he 
 at once enlisted as a surgeon on the Union side. The 
 book describing his travels did not appear until 1867. 
 He believed with Kane that there was an open sea 
 around the Pole which man could reach if he were able 
 to carry boats across the surrounding belt of ice. 
 Hayes s discoveries and writings attracted much less at 
 tention than Kane s. He was not so direct and vivid a 
 writer, nor was he so modest in his statements and 
 claims. He passed his later life in New York, where 
 he attained some distinction in politics, and where he 
 died in 1881 in his fiftieth year. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 
 
 Four younger men of the Pennsylvania soil found 
 their geniuses comfortably nurtured in the literary at 
 mosphere of Philadelphia, while the city was still a 
 considerable centre for authors and publishers: Bayard 
 Taylor and Thomas Buchanan Read, the sons of Ches 
 ter County farmers; George H. Boker, the son of the 
 old president of the Girard Bank; and Charles Godfrey 
 Leland. All these men gained their courage in writing 
 for the Philadelphia magazines, whose editors very lib 
 erally patronized their budding talents. Taylor nar 
 rowly escaped being the principal editor of " Gra 
 ham s," and he was for a while its co-editor and diligent 
 contributor. Boker and Read wrote much for the mag 
 azine; and Leland had an important monthly commis 
 sion for u Sartain s; " and later, after its fall, made a 
 valiant but vain attempt to revive " Graham s," of 
 which he was for some time the editor. In truth, it may 
 be said that all four of these Pennsylvanians, whose 
 work adds so much lustre to the name of the state in 
 literature, were discovered and put upon the right way, 
 if they were not actually made, by the eager, active liter 
 ary life which then flourished in Philadelphia. 
 
 Bayard Taylor was the largest figure in this group of 
 writers, and he barely missed being as great a character 
 in American letters as Lowell, Longfellow, Whittier, 
 or Poe, if indeed he would not be accounted their equal 
 
 374 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 375 
 
 in a just balance of men. Nothing seems to have pre 
 vented his attainment to one of the highest of places 
 but the slowness of his literary development, the pres 
 sure of the newspaper office and the lecture platform, 
 an almost lifelong struggle with tastes that were too 
 expensive for a poet, the diversity of his literary inter 
 ests and attentions, and a too early death. 
 
 Taylor was named for James Bayard, the Delaware 
 senator of that day, the James being dropped before 
 his literary career was far advanced. He was born in 
 1825, of parents who had Quaker leanings and con 
 nections, in a prosperous Quaker neighborhood, near 
 Kennett Square in southern Chester County. He had 
 no educational opportunities not afforded by a rural 
 community which, whatever its true condition, has 
 boasted from the earliest times of an intelligence and a 
 conscience somewhat quicker than those of other Amer 
 ican neighborhoods. He spent his boyhood upon a 
 farm and, while his father was the sheriff of the county, 
 attended an academy in West Chester, the county seat. 
 A little subsequent training at the Unionville Academy 
 completed his education under schoolmasters, and after 
 teaching for so brief a time that the experience may be 
 left out of the account, he was apprenticed for four 
 years to the publisher of the " Village Record," the 
 leading county paper. 
 
 Already he was writing verses, which found their way 
 to the " Saturday Evening Post " in Philadelphia, then 
 edited by Rufus W. Griswold, who was at the same 
 time associated with Mr. Graham in the editorial man 
 agement of his magazine. To " appear " in " Gra 
 ham s," the young Chester County poet told Mr. Gris 
 wold, was his " highest ambition," and it was finally 
 
376 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 gratified in June, 1843, when he was therefore but 
 eighteen years of age. It was a boyish effusion, to be 
 sure, called " Modern Greece," but it contained a prom 
 ise of better things in lines like these: 
 
 " The ancient spirit has not fled, 
 
 But brighter still will burn, 
 Though long the world had mourned above 
 
 Her desolated urn ; 
 New bards will rise to rival yet 
 
 The Theban song of fire, 
 And Homer s soul reanimate 
 
 The voiceless Grecian lyre." 
 
 Griswold delighted the young man by asking him to 
 send more poems and to call when he was in the city, 
 which he did eagerly. In Graham s office Taylor met 
 Thomas Buchanan Read for the first time, although 
 they were born and reared not many miles from each 
 other. Already nourishing an ambition to publish a 
 book, Griswold encouraged Taylor to bring out a slen 
 der little volume of fifteen titles, " Xirnena, and Other 
 Poems," and to his patron it was dedicated as " an 
 expression of gratitude " for the " kind encourage 
 ment " which had been given a young man who claimed 
 " no further merits " for his verses than that they were 
 " the sincere and fervent effusions of his heart." 
 
 Taylor was bound for four years by his contract with 
 the " Village Record," but he chafed under the re 
 straint and yearned for the sight of foreign countries. 
 He first thought to go to the West Indies, but his plans 
 were revised to cover a trip to Europe. How to ob 
 tain the money for such a journey perplexed him. His 
 little volume had made him a figure on the lower slopes 
 
BAYARD TAYLOR 
 From Eastman Johnson s portrait in possession of Mrs. Bayard Taylor 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 377 
 
 of Parnassus and he walked to Philadelphia, procured 
 fifty dollars in cash from Mr. Patterson, who then pub 
 lished the " Saturday Evening Post," for twelve letters 
 to that periodical ; the same sum from Joseph R. Chan 
 dler for a like service for the " United States Gazette " ; 
 while Mr. Graham purchased several poems for his 
 magazine, thus giving Taylor a total capital of $140. 
 He bought his remaining time from the proprietor of 
 the " Village Record," and in 1844 went to New York 
 with his cousin, Frank Taylor, to embark for England. 
 In that city he met N. P. Willis, who introduced him 
 to several prominent editors, but only one, Horace 
 Greeley, entered into an arrangement with him, and 
 that was conditional. Greeley had had a surfeit of 
 descriptive letters, he said in his blunt manner, but if 
 they were " sketches of German life and society " he 
 thought he might find a place for them in the " Trib 
 une." 
 
 The travellers passage cost them ten dollars each, 
 second cabin, and with a knapsack on his back Bayard 
 Taylor covered a large part of Western Europe, his 
 letters bringing him a reputation in America and about 
 $500, with which he managed to remain away two 
 years. Advised upon his return to issue them in a book, 
 his " Views Afoot " appeared under the auspices of a 
 New York publishing house in 1846. Six editions were 
 sold in the first year and many printings were called for 
 subsequently. 
 
 It may have seemed not a natural thing for so suc 
 cessful a young writer to become the editor of a 
 country paper in a little town near his native place, but 
 this was Taylor s next adventure. With a friend he 
 invested in a small weekly journal at Phoenixville, 
 
378 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Chester County, about twenty-five miles north of Phila 
 delphia, on the Schuylkill River. The first number of 
 the Phoenixville " Pioneer," as it was rechristened, was 
 issued on December 29, 1846. From childhood Taylor 
 and Mary Agnew, a neighbor s daughter at Kennett, 
 had loved each other, and he wished to obtain the 
 means, while being not too far away from her, to bring 
 their little romance to a happy result. At first, Phoenix 
 ville, in spite of its noisy iron mills, attracted him. 
 " Notwithstanding this is a manufacturing place," he 
 wrote to Mary Agnew, " there is a great deal of poetry 
 about it. The scenery is beautiful and the mills and 
 furnaces which are in operation all night make a grand 
 appearance with their columns and clouds of red flame. 
 The sound of the forges ringing out through the live 
 long night keeps me constantly in a fitting spirit to work 
 and think and struggle." 
 
 It is plain to be seen that Phcenixville was not very 
 favorable ground for the kind of a paper which Taylor 
 would be pleased to edit, and instead of advancing his 
 fortunes and bringing him near to his wedding-day, the 
 experiment failed pretty miserably, and he came out of 
 it with debts that it took him three years to discharge. 
 Earlier he had written to Greeley asking for a place 
 on the " Tribune," and that man in his frank way had 
 replied: " My own judgment is that you will do ill in 
 leaving work secure and ready to your hands to hunt 
 work in any of the unhealthy crowds congregated on 
 the sea coast. Life is very hurried and fretful in a 
 great city." Nevertheless, in due time, a place was 
 found for him and thus commenced a connection that 
 was continued as an editor, critic, correspondent, or 
 stockholder until his death. He was personally visited 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 379 
 
 by Samuel D. Patterson after Mr. Graham s misfor 
 tune, and besought to take an important editorial posi 
 tion on " Graham s Magazine," and to be near his home 
 and the woman he loved he accepted, although the finan 
 cial position of the periodical was then such that the 
 offer finally dwindled to a non-resident co-editorship, 
 little more than the use of his name on the covers and 
 prospectuses. 
 
 He worked fifteen hours a day on the " Tribune," 
 writing all manner of things, and having but one night 
 in seven that he could do with as he liked. During the 
 gold-mining excitement in California in 1849, ne went 
 to the Pacific Coast, by way of the Isthmus, for his 
 newspaper, to find, upon his return, the subject of his 
 pretty Chester County romance wasting away with the 
 consumption which had long before lain hands upon 
 her, and which now pointed to her death at no very 
 distant time. The marriage day had been often post 
 poned and the ceremony was performed upon what was 
 practically her death-bed in October, 1850; she died in 
 December and he was left a sorrowing and for a time 
 a bitterly discouraged man. 
 
 In New York, Taylor belonged to a group of literary 
 people whose friendship was life-long, the principal of 
 these being Richard Henry Stoddard. He occasionally 
 visited New England where Lowell, Longfellow and 
 the Cambridge poets made much of him, and in Phila 
 delphia, George H. Boker was his close and intimate 
 friend. After another trip abroad, which was ex 
 tended to India, China and Japan, he became a lecturer 
 of great popularity on the American platform. His 
 newspaper letters had made his name known widely, 
 especially in the west where, as he said, " the Tri- 
 
3 8o LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 bune comes next to the Bible." He delivered about 
 one hundred lectures in 1854 and a still greater number 
 in the following year, a " miserable business," as he 
 wrote to his friend Stoddard "Crammed houses: 
 women carried out fainting; young ladies stretching 
 their necks on all sides and crying in breathless whis 
 pers, * There he is! That s him. It was all en 
 dured that he might obtain the money to raise himself 
 above daily want and devote his life to poetry un- 
 dividedly. 
 
 The next tour, including a trip on reindeer-drawn 
 sledges through Lapland and journeys over Sweden and 
 Norway, resulted in his second marriage. While trav 
 elling up the Nile he had for his companion a German 
 explorer named Bufleb. This friend now provided a 
 house for his residence at Gotha and put him in the way 
 of receiving, in Germany, social attentions and honors 
 that were greatly enjoyed. He in a few months 
 (1857) married Marie Hansen, Mr. Bufleb s niece arid 
 the daughter of Hansen, a well-known astronomer. 
 
 Returning to America Taylor devoted himself to the 
 building of a handsome home of the proportions of an 
 English manor-house on an estate near Kennett Square. 
 It had early been his ambition to erect " a beautiful 
 homestead in Kennett " where life would be " a sweet 
 dream of poetry," where there would be " no golden 
 threads snapped, no fast ripening fancies trodden under 
 foot by contact with coarse and jarring natures." The 
 wish was now about to be gratified in " Cedarcroft." 
 He had become one of the stockholders of the New 
 York " Tribune," which paid handsome dividends, the 
 owner of valuable copyrights, an industrious magazine 
 writer and a popular lecturer. He told Boker in Feb- 
 
SONNET ADDRESSED TO GEORGE H. BOKER BY BAYARD TAYLOR, HANG 
 ING IN THE FRANKLIN INN CLUB, THE GIFT OF MRS. TAYLOR 
 
382 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 ruary, 1860, that in the preceding eighteen months he 
 had delivered 270 lectures. 
 
 But " Cedarcroft," which was ready for occupancy in 
 May, 1860, was built expensively and the cost very 
 much exceeded the estimates; it was inaccessible, even 
 more so at that day than at this; the war ensued and 
 lecturers as well as writers were for a time at the 
 mercy of the elements; and neither at first nor after 
 ward was Taylor destined to get from his beautiful home 
 the enjoyment which he anticipated. It was indeed 
 the instrument of his undoing. The expense of main 
 taining such an establishment was fatal. Many of his 
 literary friends * found their way to " Cedarcroft " 
 and were made happy by its owner s princely hospitality; 
 but he had been accustomed by travel and many years in 
 a newspaper office to a busier life, and his contentment 
 was not increased by several months more in Europe 
 during the war, as secretary of Simon Cameron, Min 
 ister to Russia; and later, when Cameron returned 
 home, as Charge at St. Petersburg. " A leaf falls 
 from the orange tree in the box and it sounds almost 
 like a crash," he wrote in the midst of the country still 
 ness. " Now a chicken flaps its wings and now again 
 there is only the scratch of this pen to be heard in all 
 the world around me." He had expected to spend the 
 winters in New York, but on grounds of economy it 
 was necessary to make " Cedarcroft " his permanent 
 home and he chafed under the restraints of his rural 
 exile. 
 
 * Among them Sidney Lanier the young southern poet whom 
 Taylor admired and encouraged. Lanier was in Philadelphia in the 
 seventies, an interesting member of Gibson Peacock s literary and 
 artistic circle, and he lived for two summers at Chad s Ford in 
 southern Chester County. 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 383 
 
 The slaves being freed, the leaders at Longwood 
 made the neighborhood resound with the demand for 
 other reforms, and Kennett became a kind of Pennsyl 
 vania Concord where the principles of correct living 
 were preached assiduously. Taylor wrote with some 
 bitterness in his " Home Pastorals : " 
 
 " Gone are the olden cheer, the tavern dance and the fox hunt, 
 Muster at trainings, buxom lasses that rode upon pillions, 
 Husking parties and jovial home-comings after the wedding 
 Gone as they never had been ! And now the serious people 
 Solemnly gather to hear some wordy itinerant speaker 
 Talking of Temperance, Peace or the Right of Suffrage for 
 
 Women. 
 
 Sport that once like a boy was equally awkward and restless 
 Sits with thumb in his mouth while a petulant ethical bantling 
 Struts with his rod and threatens our careless natural joy- 
 
 ance." 
 
 The repressions of Quakerism now irked Taylor s 
 spirit. He had become a comfortable eater and drinker 
 and could not thrive upon an ethical discussion by some 
 professional reformer, as many seemed to do. His 
 ways were not those of any large part of his neighbors, 
 a people seeking perfection, and rather intolerant of 
 those who looked upon life as a time for anything but 
 a serious struggle against the natural impulses. 
 
 " Given to preaching of rules, inflexible outlines of duty; 
 Seeing the sternness of life, but also, overlooking its graces." 
 
 He came back a man who was not as they : 
 
 " Was it my fault, if a strain of the distant and dead gen 
 erations 
 
 Rose in my being, renewed, and made me other than these are? 
 They, content with the glow of a carefully tempered twilight, 
 
384 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Measured pulses of joy, and colorless growth of the senses, 
 Stand aghast at my dream of the sun, and the sound, and the 
 splendor." 
 
 The Kennett people were only half-proud of Taylor, 
 with all his fame, and they maintained a relationship 
 which if it may have done credit to neither side was 
 probably unavoidable. Greeley s presidential cam 
 paign and death deprived the poet of his income from 
 the " Tribune " and at a time when he hoped to be at 
 ease, indulging the muse, he must return to active news 
 paper pursuits and exert himself in every possible way 
 as a writer and lecturer to meet his financial obligations. 
 Comfortable relations with the world seemed about to 
 be re-established when President Hayes appointed him 
 Minister to Germany, but he died in a few months after 
 reaching Berlin, in 1878 and was brought home to be 
 buried with distinguished honors at Longwood beside 
 Mary Agnew. 
 
 " Cedarcroft," which had been leased, was finally sold 
 and such an estate in such a situation has never found 
 a use. It is at this writing on the point of being con 
 verted into a school after an ineffectual attempt to make 
 of it a memorial to the greatest poet which Pennsyl 
 vania has thus far produced. 
 
 Taylor was a poet pre-eminently and this he desired 
 to be, although his pen was active in many fields. He 
 wrote essays, books of travel, short stories, novels and 
 translated from the German, notably Goethe s " Faust." 
 The accounts of other travellers have superseded his, 
 as popular as they at one time were; and his novels are 
 not generally read, although " The Story of Kennett " 
 deserves to be. It is one of the great American novels 
 and will not soon lose its title to this place. " Hannah 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 385 
 
 Thurston," his first long story, was a satire on the re 
 formers of Chester County. " John Godfrey s For 
 tunes " was an allusion to his own life in New York. 
 " The Story of Kennett," his " pet novel," as he called 
 it, a simple narrative of country happenings some fifty 
 years earlier in his own community the fox chase, 
 the husking bee, the flood in the Brandywine, the feats 
 of a daring highwayman, and the adventures of the 
 heart of a worthy man, and a true and honest girl, 
 was as successful as an absorbing well-told story, as it 
 was as a transcript of life in an American neighborhood. 
 Nevertheless, it is Taylor s poetry which lasts and will 
 endure by that is he particularly to be remembered. 
 He regretted, and his friends complained and will con 
 tinue to complain, that his situation did not allow him to 
 give poetry his undistracted attention. It was always 
 his ambition to enjoy the leisure and ease which would 
 permit him to devote his time exclusively to this high 
 art and this was one of his motives in building himself a 
 home at Kennett. Its completion was followed by a 
 poetic outburst in some way expressive of his peaceful 
 delight, but the demands of the great estate were par 
 alyzing and the time which he had to devote to poetry 
 afterward was broken in upon by engagements the most 
 various and disturbing. 
 
 Taylor was a most exacting critic of his own work, 
 and in the later editions of his poems only the pure gold 
 remained. He discarded the children of his early fancy 
 one by one, and none could go forth as his which did 
 not meet the fullest approval of his mature years. He 
 wrote to Longfellow in 1866, expressing a truth which 
 he did not try to conceal. " My former works," he 
 said, " are simply so many phases of an education which 
 
386 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 circumstances have compelled me to acquire in the sight 
 of the public. I had, in fact, very little early educa 
 tion except that of travel; I began to publish (it was 
 inevitable) much too soon; and moreover I am de 
 scended from two hundred years of Quaker farmers 
 whose transmitted slowness of maturity I have hardly 
 yet overcome. The artistic sense was long dormant 
 and is only at present becoming fairly active; I am per 
 haps ten years behind a man who has had more favor 
 able antecedents and opportunities. " There was in this 
 too much depreciation of self. He had already written 
 his " Bedouin Song," which Robert Browning knew 
 by heart and recited to him in England in 1856, saying 
 it was the finest thing he had ever read, and which 
 begins: 
 
 " From the desert I come to thee 
 
 On a stallion shod with fire, 
 
 And the winds are left behind 
 
 In the speed of my desire. 
 Under thy window I stand, 
 
 And the midnight hears my cry; 
 I love thee, I love but thee 
 
 With a love that shall not die 
 Till the sun grows cold, 
 And the stars are old, 
 And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold." 
 
 There is verse in the later collections of Taylor s 
 work, so sedulously and jealously excluding as they do 
 everything hinting at mediocrity, which will survive so 
 long as poetry is a living form of art. 
 
 George Henry Boker, Taylor s close friend and inti 
 mate companion, had different opportunities in youth. 
 He was the son of Charles S. Boker, a wealthy Phila- 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 387 
 
 delphia merchant and banker, and was sent to Princeton, 
 where he graduated in 1842 while Taylor was still a 
 farm boy. He studied law, but surprised his friends 
 by announcing that he would devote his life to litera 
 ture, an unusual resolve for a young man of his wealth 
 and social position. His verse early began to appear 
 in " Graham s Magazine," and his inclinations very 
 soon led him, to select the poetic drama as his favorite 
 form of expression. He was fond of classical models 
 and his studies of Shakespeare and the masters in this 
 field inspired him to the most ambitious undertakings. 
 When no more than twenty-five, his Spanish tragedy, 
 " Calaynos," based upon the hatred felt by the Castil- 
 ians for those whose veins contain the blood of the 
 Moors, was put upon the stage in England, winning its 
 author much appreciation. 
 
 He later wrote " Anne Boleyn," " The Betrothal," 
 and " Francesca da Rimini." Despite the difficulty of 
 doing a work which at once challenged damaging com 
 parisons with the great poets, Boker achieved notable 
 results. Lawrence Barrett revived his " Francesca," 
 estimated to be the best of the various dramas founded 
 on this theme, thirty years after it was written, and gave 
 it so pleasing a presentation for several seasons, that it 
 has come to occupy a vital place in English dramatic 
 literature. And his other dramatic poems will long be 
 read as poetry if they are not seen in our theatres as 
 plays. Boker had not the spontaneous abundant flow 
 of poetry that characterized Taylor or the New Eng 
 land leaders, but some of his writings, as " The Podes- 
 ta s Daughter," " The Ivory Carver " and " I Have a 
 Cottage," are of the greatest excellence. They are 
 poetic visions of a great artistic mind expressed with 
 
388 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 the highest skill. He obeyed the demands of old and 
 unpopular forms rather too much, as in the sonnet of 
 which he was so fond and in which he was so expert a 
 craftsman. Despite some servility to his models, his 
 work had much general appreciation wherever poetry 
 was read; and from his fellow-poets, his genius drew 
 forth unquestioned tributes of admiration and praise. 
 In " I Have a Cottage," in which there is so much of 
 beauty that to make a choice of passages is an ungrate 
 ful service, Boker wrote : 
 
 " I have a cottage where the wild bee comes 
 To hug the thyme and woo its dainties forth ; 
 Where humming birds, plashed with the rainbow s dyes, 
 Poise on their whirring wings before the door 
 And drain my honeysuckles as at a draught. 
 Ah, giddy sensualist, how thy blazing throat 
 Flashes and throbs, while thou dost pillage me 
 Of all my virgin flowers!" 
 
 There was shrewd and humorous observation as well 
 as poetic imagery in Boker s work. In the beautiful 
 allegory of the Christian religion, " The Ivory Carver," 
 he wrote of Anselm, the spiritual young priest : 
 
 " Why he was not a bishop at least, 
 Or something more than a common priest, 
 Is a shrewd question we ll not press home 
 They don t make bishops of saints at Rome. 
 Sometimes a bishop becomes a saint; 
 But that is after the fleshy taint 
 Has well worn off in the grave s decay, 
 And anything can be made from clay; 
 Saints, poets, heroes the thing s all one 
 A scratching of pens, and the work is done." 
 
From a portrait presented to the Franklin Inn by Mrs. George Bokcr 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 389 
 
 There is a picturesque vigor in the opening lines of 
 "The Legend of the Hounds:" 
 
 " Colebrook furnace in Cornwall stands, 
 Crouched at the foot of the iron lands 
 The wondrous hill of iron ore 
 That pours its wealth through the furnace door, 
 Is mixed with lime and smothered in wood, 
 Tortured with fire till a molten flood 
 Leaps from the taps to the sow below 
 And her littered pigs that round her glow, 
 So that a gazer, looking down 
 The moulding floor from the platform s crown, 
 Might think, if fancy helped the spell, 
 He saw a grate in the roof of hell." 
 
 That he could write very successfully in a lyrical vein 
 is shown by his poem, " The River and the Maiden," 
 which is concluded as follows : 
 
 " Crowd yon river with your barges 
 
 All the navies of the main 
 Till the loaded tide enlarges, 
 Till it bursts its wonted marges, 
 
 Deluging the pleasant plain! 
 
 " Freight them with the precious plunder 
 
 Of the lands beyond the sea 
 Pearls that make the diver wonder, 
 All the virgin silver under 
 
 The great hills of Potosi ; 
 
 " All the real and fabled riches 
 
 Of the haughty Persian Khan, 
 All the gold that so bewitches 
 All the gorgeous broidered stitches 
 Of the girls of Hindoostan; 
 
390 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 " All the furs, the wines, the treasures, 
 
 Were they at my bidding laid, 
 Ten times doubled in their measures, 
 Ten times doubled in their pleasures, 
 
 I would rather have the maid! " 
 
 Boker was one of the founders and long an officer, 
 Secretary and later President, of the Union League. 
 He had begun as a Democrat, following Buchanan and 
 subsequently Stephen A. Douglas, until the war came 
 to develop his strong Unionist sympathies. A number 
 of his war poems were published in a small volume by 
 Ticknor and Fields and they breathe forth patriotism 
 warmly. In 1871 General Grant appointed him Min 
 ister to Turkey and the Union League tendered him a 
 dinner, which was attended by many men of distinction. 
 Boker s friend, Bayard Taylor, was present and read an 
 after-dinner poem. 
 
 " I know that lustrous eyes are sometimes seen 
 
 Through garden leaves and latticed window bars, 
 And fear some twin Circassian stars may wean 
 His fealty from our seven-and-thirty stars." 
 
 This was one of Taylor s stanzas which were warmly 
 received by the diners. Boker was later transferred 
 from Constantinople to St. Petersburg, and was at the 
 Russian Court when Taylor was at Berlin. He was 
 greatly honored in St. Petersburg and, when he was 
 recalled in 1879, the Russian Minister of Foreign Af 
 fairs, in receiving his successor, is reported to have de 
 clared, rather more truthfully than diplomatically: 
 " I cannot say I am glad to see you. In fact, I m not 
 sure that I see you at all for the tears that are in my 
 eyes on account of the departure of our friend Boker." 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 391 
 
 Boker lived at 1720 Walnut Street. Until his death 
 in 1890, he was a familiar figure in Broad Street, Chest 
 nut Street and in the vicinity of the Philadelphia Club, 
 of which he was long the President. N. P. Willis once 
 described him as the handsomest man in America. Tall 
 and imposing in stature, with a ruddy complexion and 
 a military-looking mustache, he was much remarked 
 wherever he went. His poetic output was not large, 
 if we exclude his tragedies, not great enough to leave 
 very much if it had been subjected to the pruning pro 
 cess which Taylor so heroically applied to his work and 
 which Boker s needed not less than his friend s. 
 
 With a muse of much less vigor than Taylor s and 
 Boker s, although a most fluent and prolific writer, 
 Thomas Buchanan Read takes his place in the group 
 of Pennsylvania poets. A pleasing versifier with a 
 naturally poetic sense, his work covered a wide gamut 
 of subjects, but yields little that reads as well today as 
 many thought it did at the time it was penned. Read 
 was born in 1822 in the broad Chester Valley in Ches 
 ter County, in the shadow of the blue hills of Uwchlan, 
 in a cottage still standing near Downingtown. 
 
 " Between broad fields of wheat and corn 
 Is the lowly home where I was born ; 
 The peach tree leans against the wall 
 And the woodbine wanders over all." 
 
 Hard by flowed the Brandywine, that stream of 
 which Read sang: 
 
 " Not Juniata s rocky tide 
 That bursts its mountain barriers wide, 
 Nor Susquehanna, broad and fair; 
 Nor thou, sea-drinking Delaware, 
 
392 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 May with that lovely stream compare 
 That draws its winding silver line 
 Through Chester s storied vales and hills, 
 The bright, the laughing Brandywine 
 That dallies with its hundred mills." 
 
 Read s parents were in the humblest walks of life, 
 and when his father died, the boy was apprenticed to a 
 tailor. He quickly left that trade to become a cigar- 
 maker in Philadelphia, and a little later went to Cin 
 cinnati where a married sister dwelt. His condition did 
 not immediately improve, but feeling a natural draw 
 ing to art, he was taken into the family of S. V. Cleven- 
 ger, a cutter of tombstones, who had become a sculptor 
 of some eminence. Read, however, preferred paint 
 ing to sculpture and his first employment was as a wan 
 dering sign-painter, gradually advancing to portraits. 
 The field for an artist in the Cincinnati of that day 
 being quite restricted, he, in 1841, returned to the east, 
 settling for a while in Boston where Longfellow noticed 
 his poetry and Washington Allston his art. 
 
 In 1846 he came to Philadelphia and opened a por 
 trait studio, at the same time contributing many poems 
 to " Graham s Magazine," which had the effect of mak 
 ing his name known widely in all parts of the country. 
 His first book of poems appeared in 1847 an d was 
 rapidly followed by other volumes. Much of his work 
 was praised extravagantly by his admirers and as round 
 ly denounced as valueless by those to whom his school 
 of poetry made no appeal. A writer in " Sartain s 
 Magazine, " in 1852, in a learned critique, branded him 
 as a " New Laker," the " most innocent/ of the tribe, 
 one of the multitude of feeble imitators of Wordsworth, 
 all " perfumed, gloved and ladylike." Read had be- 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 393 
 
 gun with work that showed " evidence of indwelling 
 poetry/ said the critic, but he had gone off in " the pur 
 suit of mere wordy conceits with a mistaken notion that 
 quaintness and verbal platitudes are wisdom and beau 
 ty," relying " on Fancy to accomplish what lies legiti 
 mately within the province of a higher power, Imagi 
 nation." He " sings artificially for artificial audiences 
 and on artificial themes," the critic continued, and his 
 readers feel " no inspiring warmth " in their hearts, and 
 " no tears spontaneously suffuse " their eyes as they fol 
 low him. Read sat " at the threshold " of the " New 
 Lake school " in which " many interesting young men 
 in soiled linen and damsels in hair papers erect fabrics 
 of American poetic ginger-bread." 
 
 On the other hand, many critics and particularly the 
 " Lakers " in England, found much to admire in Read. 
 Leigh Hunt described " The Closing Scene " in a lead 
 ing British review as " the only American poem we 
 have read or could read over and over again. It merits 
 the fame that Gray s celebrated elegy has obtained with 
 out deserving it nearly so well." Thackeray thought 
 " The Icebergs," the best of modern ballads and, in 
 truth, much of Read s verse was as keenly enjoyed in 
 England as in this country. After 1850 he spent much 
 time in Italy, and during the cholera epidemic in Flor 
 ence in the summer of 1855, his wife and favorite 
 daughter, Lilian, died. 
 
 " The sun was white in all the streets of Florence 
 The splendor burned upon the bridge and river, 
 While Fate rained down her pestilence in torrents, 
 Bereaving me forever." 
 
 He fled to a watering-place in the mountains where 
 he consoled himself in writing " The Song of the Sea." 
 
394 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Returning to America, Read married Miss Harriett 
 Dennison Butler and established his home in this city. 
 He had a studio for some time in Parkinson s Build 
 ing on Chestnut Street, above Tenth, but our Civil War 
 found him in Italy again, and full of patriotic ardor he 
 returned to serve on the staff of General Lew Wallace 
 and write inspiring war poems for James E. Murdoch, 
 the Philadelphia tragedian and elocutionist, which were 
 read at sanitary fairs and at benefit entertainments for 
 the wounded soldiers. " The Wagoner of the Alle- 
 ghenies," a long poetic tale of the Revolutionary time, 
 was begun some years earlier, but it was essentially an 
 appeal to the patriotic feeling of the American people. 
 His poem, " The Oath," was much used in mustering 
 in the volunteers and conscripts. Lincoln called it 
 " The Swear." 
 
 Of our war president, Read had had a vision in the 
 Thirty-Fourth Book of " The New Pastoral," a lengthy 
 work in narrative verse descriptive of life in eastern 
 Pennsylvania and the West, of which much was expect 
 ed. It was produced from 1850 to 1854 and in it Read 
 wrote : 
 
 " Here in the middle of the nation s arms, 
 Perchance the mightiest inland mart shall spring 
 Here the great statesman from the ranks of toil 
 May rise with judgment clear, as strong as wise, 
 And with a well-directed patriot blow 
 ReclJnch the rivets in our Union bands 
 Which tinkering knaves have striven to set ajar." 
 
 One night during the war, Murdoch was reading 
 Read s poems in the Senate Chamber in Washington. 
 He had closed with " The Oath," the President, with 
 
portrait painted by himself ivlicn about tliirty-scren years of age 
 Franklin Inn collection 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 395 
 
 other high officers of the government, having places in 
 the audience. The next night Lincoln was again pres 
 ent. " The Oath " being omitted, he sent up a request 
 for the poem. Murdoch pleaded that he did not have 
 it with him, whereupon Lincoln remarked, " Oh, 
 I have The Swear in my pocket," and taking it out, 
 it was handed to the elocutionist who read it amid the 
 acclamation with which it was always received. Read s 
 reputation as a poet was widely extended by these popu 
 lar readings of his works. He was in Cincinnati with 
 his brother-in-law, Cyrus Garrett, Murdoch and some 
 other friends, when one picked up a copy of " Harper s 
 Weekly " containing Nast s picture of Sheridan sweep 
 ing through the Shenandoah Valley. Garrett happened 
 to say: 
 
 " Buck, there is a poem in that picture." 
 
 Read thought there might be but, said he, " Do you 
 suppose I can write a poem to order just as you would 
 go to Sprague s and order a coat? " 
 
 Murdoch wished to read it that same evening, No 
 vember, i, 1864, and going to the third story of the 
 building and issuing directions that he be not called 
 " even if the house take fire," Read by noon had finished 
 what at once became his most famous poem, " Sheri 
 dan s Ride." Inconsequential as it seems today and 
 as it must have seemed then to critical people, it found 
 a nation of admirers, and the favor in which it was held 
 was increased by Read s painting commemorative of the 
 " Ride." 
 
 A small, delicate man, who at some times in his life 
 weighed less than one hundred pounds, Read was as 
 indefatigable in art as in poetry. He would often stand 
 at his easel for five or even eight hours at a time without 
 
396 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 sitting down to rest, his wife reading to him while his 
 work progressed. An irrepressible punster, he main 
 tained Philadelphia s reputation as a seat for this ancient 
 vice. Once while on his way to England in the fifties, 
 he was on deck with the captain, who, as there was a 
 splendid wind, observed that " the ship danced over the 
 
 water." 
 
 " Ah," Read responded quickly, " Is that the reason 
 she has her pumps on? " 
 
 The faculty for the harmless jest was displayed even 
 on his death-bed. A friend sat beside him, holding his 
 hand, when the end was near. On one finger Read 
 wore a ring with a handsome cameo, upon which Shake 
 speare s features were cut. 
 
 " Ah, I see you have a head of Shakespeare," she 
 said as she examined it. 
 
 " Yes," he answered feebly, " it is the only way I 
 could get a-head of him." 
 
 In the autumn of 1871, while riding with ex-Gover 
 nor Ward of New Jersey, who wished to see the Coli 
 seum by night, the driver upset the carriage into an 
 excavation and Read was picked up in an insensible con 
 dition. He was ill throughout the winter in Rome but 
 sailed for home in the spring. On the steamer he was 
 attacked with pneumonia and, upon landing, was taken 
 to the Astor House, where he died in a few days, on 
 May II, 1872. His remains were brought on to the 
 home of his wife s sister, Mrs. James E. Caldwell, in 
 Germantown and were buried in Laurel Hill. 
 
 Thomas Buchanan Read had to overcome nearly all 
 the obstacles that the world puts in man s pathway, but 
 he surmounted them and rose to distinction in both 
 poetry and painting. If his gifts were not of the high- 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 397 
 
 est order, they were at any rate conspicuous. He was 
 a friend of both Taylor and Boker, although not a 
 close intimate of those two men. They struck a deep 
 er note; they had an understanding of men s elemen 
 tary feelings, the springs of our great human move 
 ments. Read, on the other hand, saw a beauty, 
 splashed the color upon the canvas, and passed on, leav 
 ing a pleasant record without reaching the heart of any 
 thing. He had the power of deeper insight and of 
 stronger expression, as is evidenced in such poems as 
 " The Closing Scene " and " The Brickmaker." There 
 is poetry in these lines from " The Brickmaker " de 
 scriptive of the kiln: 
 
 " Narrow corridors extend, 
 Long and dark, and smothered aisles; 
 Choke its earthly vaults with piles 
 
 Of the resinous yellow pine . 
 Now thrust in the fettered fire 
 Hearken ! How he stamps with ire, 
 
 Treading out the pitchy wine; 
 Wrought anon to wilder spells, 
 
 Hear him shout his loud alarms! 
 
 See him thrust his glowing arms 
 Through the windows of his cells ! " 
 
 But what a fall it is to such Lady Book rhyming 
 as 
 
 " She came as comes the summer wind 
 
 A gust of beauty to my heart ; 
 Then swept away, but left behind 
 Emotions which shall not depart." 
 
 Unfortunately it is for such verse-making that Read 
 is principally to be judged, since the three volumes of 
 
398 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 his " Complete Works " contain so much of this fluent 
 rhyme. 
 
 Charles Godfrey Leland, as remarkable as were his 
 talents and achievements, was obviously intended for 
 some higher destiny. He spent much of his life in 
 finding out what he was and nearly all the rest of it in 
 trying to be what he was not. Too often it is thus 
 with men, and Leland is a rather conspicuous example 
 of a first-rate humorist who strove to be a philosopher, 
 philologist and a pedagogical reformer at very con 
 siderable sacrifice. No one would undervalue his excel 
 lent translation of Heine, his studies of the gypsies 
 whom he followed from place to place with tireless zeal, 
 or whatever he may have done to improve the methods 
 of teaching art; but translation is not the highest form 
 of literary service and what he did in explaining and 
 preserving the lore of the Romanies could have been 
 as well or better done by some dry-as-dust German pro 
 fessor. Leland was a great humorist who might have 
 been a still greater one, if he had not been ashamed of 
 the honorable calling of making the world laugh, and 
 had not encumbered his mental apparatus with lore of 
 the most various kinds, gleaned from all languages. 
 His " Hans Breitmann " ballads are a part of literature 
 and will be enjoyed so long as there is an appreciation 
 of wit of the kind which possesses some degree of subtle 
 ty and reflects reading and knowledge and literary un 
 derstanding. 
 
 Charles Godfrey Leland was the son of parents who 
 came to the city from Massachusetts, and he was born 
 in a boarding-house on the north side of Chestnut 
 Street, the second door below Third Street, on August 
 15, 1824. Of the four men in Pennsylvania s group 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 399 
 
 of this time, Read was born in 1822, Boker in 1823, 
 Leland in 1824 and Taylor in 1825, and they were so 
 near of an age as to be contemporaries in the fullest 
 sense. Leland lived longer than any of the rest, until 
 1903, largely no doubt because of the easy-going tran 
 quil career which he led, especially in his later years. 
 In childhood and youth, he was far from robust, but 
 he enjoyed the advantages of travel and good schools, 
 his father being a partner of Charles S. Boker, George 
 H. Boker s father, in a profitable importing and job 
 bing business in boots and bonnets. The two boys, 
 Leland and Boker, were thrown together from their 
 earliest years, the families being connected by marriage 
 as well as by business ties. When Boker was a junior, 
 Leland was ready to enter Princeton, and the young 
 student learned much from the older one at " the closely 
 cramped, orthodox, hide-bound, mathematical " college, 
 as the humorist described it in his " Memoirs/ seem 
 ing never to have liked the recollection of his college ex 
 periences. He was now soon off for his Wander]ahre 
 in Europe, where he travelled widely, studied at Hei 
 delberg, Munich and Paris, and in 1848 fought in the 
 barricades, helping to overthrow the government of 
 France, an adventure which was always recalled with 
 warm delight. 
 
 Leland s father, having left the commission business 
 with which he was engaged with Mr. Boker, became a 
 dealer and speculator in real estate and stocks. He 
 owned the old and well-known hotel, Congress Hall, 
 and bought the Arch Street Prison, tearing down its 
 walls to erect a number of dwelling houses upon the 
 site ; but the successes which established his fortune were 
 gained in later years, and it was now time for Charles 
 
400 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 to find a pursuit. It was his parent s desire that he 
 study law and he entered the office of John Cadwalader 
 for this purpose, being admitted to the bar after three 
 years application to his books. He hung out his sign 
 in Third Street, but in six months he had only two 
 clients, from whom he received fifteen dollars, which 
 induced him to give up the profession and he never re 
 turned to it. He had published verse in the Philadel 
 phia newspapers before he went to Princeton; while 
 there contributed to the college magazine, and upon his 
 return from Europe, was employed to write articles on 
 art subjects for " Sartain s." Each month several 
 pages of matter, serious and humorous, were furnished 
 to the editor of this magazine which was so soon to 
 meet an undeserved fate. He was also writing for the 
 " Knickerbocker Magazine," with whose editor, Lewis 
 Gaylord Clark, he was on terms of intimate friendli 
 ness as he was likewise with Rufus Wilmot Griswold, 
 now in New York editing the " International Maga 
 zine/ later merged with " Harper s." For Griswold, 
 who greatly appreciated his talents, Leland wrote a 
 monthly review covering current foreign literature in a 
 half-dozen languages. Already he had mastered several 
 out-of-the-way tongues to add to his Latin, German and 
 French, and had laid the foundations for his reputation 
 as a linguist. 
 
 It was Griswold who suggested that Leland go to 
 New York to assist him in editing the weekly " Illus 
 trated News," projected on a lavish scale by P. T. Bar- 
 num, the showman, and some other capitalists, Frank 
 Leslie being its chief engraver. While Barnum did not 
 use the paper to advertise his new elephants, and de 
 signed it to be something entirely apart from his circus. 
 
D 
 
 From a portrait presented to the Franklin Inn by liis sister, 
 Mrs. John Harrison 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 401 
 
 Leland was often asked by his friends when he fed the 
 monkeys and whether " the great Gyascutus " gave 
 him any trouble, which was irksome to him, and after 
 a year he returned to Philadelphia, leaving the " Illus 
 trated News " to finish a course that was soon run. 
 
 Upon his arrival again in his native city, George H. 
 Boker told him of a vacancy on the editorial staff of 
 the " Evening Bulletin." He applied for the place and 
 secured it. He had already published two or three 
 volumes. His " Meister Karl s Sketchbook," a curious 
 melange about men, places and things in humorous 
 prose and verse, written between his sixteenth and twen 
 ty-fifth years, and appearing in large part in the 
 " Knickerbocker Magazine," was brought out in 1855 
 by Parry and McMillan, the Philadelphia publishers. 
 Washington Irving wrote that he kept it by him to 
 nibble at ever and anon like a Stilton cheese Or a pate de 
 foie gras, but, as Mr. Leland remarked truthfully, " it 
 was caviare to the general reader." Yet the descrip 
 tion of Meister Karl s " tourifications, trapesings, 
 tramps, trudges and travels through this wavy and 
 windy world," are delightful, and readers of Irving s 
 taste, though they be few, will enjoy it as much today 
 as when it was first published. 
 
 Leland was now doing the work for which nature de 
 signed him. In addition to much of the general writ 
 ing which is to be done by the journalist, he was con 
 ducting a department in the " Bulletin " called " Social 
 Hall Sketches." It was at this period that he was able 
 to accomplish the marriage which he had planned five 
 years before with Miss Belle Fisher, a daughter of Rod 
 ney Fisher, a Philadelphia merchant, and they went to 
 live at the La Pierre House. At this time Alexander 
 
402 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Cummings owned the " Bulletin," and after " shav 
 ing " Mr. Leland, reducing his salary materially on the 
 plea of " hard times," the young man was invited to 
 become a part owner of the paper. Leland said that he 
 thought the property could not be very profitable, but 
 Cummings declared that the investment would pay fif 
 teen per cent. 
 
 " How can that be when you complain about the 
 times and pay me so little? " Leland inquired. 
 
 " Ah," said Cummings, chuckling, " you see that is 
 the way we make our money." 
 
 After this revelation, Leland left the paper and was 
 ready for new adventures in New York. A time was 
 now at hand when there was nothing to entice literary 
 men to Philadelphia and little to keep there those indig 
 enous to the soil. Thus did the city lose such a writer 
 as the author of " Rudder Grange " and " The Lady or 
 the Tiger?" The half-brother of Dr. Thomas H. 
 Stockton, a well-known preacher and theological writer 
 of the Methodist church, Frank R. Stockton was born 
 in Philadelphia, graduated at the Central High School 
 and lived here as a wood engraver until after the war, 
 or until he was ready to make literature a pursuit, when 
 he removed to New York. Leland, like Bayard Tay 
 lor, had the same experience a little earlier than Stock 
 ton. The chief of Philadelphia s magazines, " Gra 
 ham s," had entirely passed from the control of its old 
 owner, and Leland, while on the " Bulletin," worked 
 manfully but vainly to resuscitate it. He wrote for it 
 industriously, threw pages of matter into it recklessly 
 under the name of " Easy Talk," good, wholesome hu 
 mor that still lies buried there, though to excavate it 
 and bring it to the light of day would be a real service 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 403 
 
 to American letters. Through his efforts the circula 
 tion of the magazine was raised from almost nothing 
 to 17,000, but the proprietor, who was to give Leland 
 fifty dollars a month for his labors, was eighteen 
 months in arrears, although obligating himself to pay 
 the salary punctually; and there was no need to stay 
 longer in Philadelphia to attend the wake of such a 
 corpse. 
 
 His first employment in New York, on his second 
 visit, was under George Ripley and Charles A. Dana 
 on Appleton s Cyclopedia. He wrote also for Frank 
 Leslie s publications, " Vanity Fair," an illustrated 
 comic weekly, in editing which he was assisted by "Arte- 
 mus Ward," and for other magazines and newspapers, 
 his literary star as that of many other men setting for a 
 time with the outbreak of the war. 
 
 Now for a short period he edited a magazine de 
 voted to the Union cause in Boston, but in 1862 re 
 turned to Philadelphia to bide his time, writing a little, 
 joining the emergency men who went to the front at 
 the time of the excitement caused by Lee s invasion of 
 Pennsylvania, and visiting Tennessee and West Virginia 
 to stake out petroleum lands while the oil fever was at 
 its height, gaining new experiences and making humor 
 ous observations, wherever he went, of value to him in 
 later life. 
 
 Once, he was wont to relate, he had forgotten his 
 blanket and, missing it at length, sent back his guide 
 to recover it. Leland sought shelter in a log cabin, 
 the only inmate of which was a young woman who, 
 upon seeing him, ran at full speed for the wood. 
 When the guide returned, Leland expressed astonish 
 ment at her flight; he did not but gravely asked: 
 
404 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 " Don t the gals in your part of the country allays 
 break for the woods when they see you a-comin ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," Leland averred positively. 
 
 " Thank God ! " the man exclaimed impressively, 
 " our girls here hev better morrils than yourn." 
 
 Leland was again indebted to his friend Boker for 
 a post on a Philadelphia newspaper. John W. Forney, 
 on Boker s recommendation, invited him to become 
 managing editor of the " Press," a position he held for 
 three years with some absences in the West in the capaci 
 ty of a correspondent. It was a period of bitter politi 
 cal animosities and Forney was in the midst of every 
 fracas. Mobs attacked the office and threatened to 
 raze it to the ground, while men were not infrequently 
 shot in the riots under the editorial windows. All the 
 " Press " editors carried arms but Leland, who did not, 
 as he humorously explained, because he hated to have 
 " impedimenta " in his pockets. They hung their coats 
 in a closet outside and when Leland forgot his papers 
 and sent his assistant to fetch them, the latter knew 
 which coat was his chiefs because it was the only one 
 that had no pistol in it. 
 
 Leland was now widely known as " Hans Breit- 
 mann," the author of the dialect ballads written to cele 
 brate the very comical doings of a big and bibulous 
 German who was taken through the Civil War, the 
 Franco-Prussian War, up and down and across this 
 country and Europe, his adventures being chronicled 
 in verse which, with all its subtlety of allusion, was not 
 too far beyond the ken of common men. In the Breit- 
 mann ballads, Leland jumbled French, Latin, Italian, 
 and Dutch, as well as English and German, into a most 
 amusing jargon, and made many references to German 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 405 
 
 philosophy and literature, the full meaning of which is 
 certainly in many cases incomprehensible to any but 
 well-educated people. Hans, however, gained wide 
 spread popularity. He appeared in costume at Ger 
 man balls and in street processions. He was a figure in 
 the plays at the theatres and on the burlesque stage. 
 A cigar was named for him and in London a comic pa 
 per called " Hans Breitmann," made its appearance. 
 There were no national limits to his fame. This funny 
 German made his debut with these accompanying re 
 marks in Leland s pages of " Easy Talk," in " Gra 
 ham s Magazine" for June, 1857: 
 
 " We do not much approve of ridiculing the lan 
 guage or manners of a nation any more than those of 
 an individual sir tis uncosmopolite and therefore 
 vastly wicked and least of all do we like quizzing 
 our friends the Germans. But we cannot reject the 
 following it is too genial in its spirit of broad bur 
 lesque : 
 
 HANS BREITMANN S BARTY 
 
 FUER GRAHAM S MONATSHEFT 
 
 BEI TSCHUPERTI 
 
 "Hans Breitmann gife a barty dey had biano 
 blayin I felld in lofe mit a Merican frau. Her 
 name was Madilda Yane. She hat haar as prown as 
 a pretzel bun, de eyes were himmel blue and ven she 
 looket into mine, dey shplit mine heart in two." 
 
 And so on to the last lines : 
 
 " Hans Breitmann gife a barty vhere is dat barty 
 now? Vhere is de lofely golten cloudt dat float on der 
 moundain s prow? Vhere is de himmelstrahlende 
 
406 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 stern de schtar of de spirit s light? all goned afay 
 mit de Lager Bier afay in der Evigkeit. 
 
 44 Beautiful indeed! * Goned afay in der Evig 
 keit passed away into eternity, if we translate 
 aright, is a very fine conclusion. " 
 
 " Hans Breitmann s Barty " was copied widely and 
 the author was encouraged to describe his hero s farther 
 adventures. Leland s student life abroad and later 
 travels in Germany well equipped him for picturing 
 such a character. In this man was found a parody of 
 the whole German nation, done with no less good humor 
 than knowledge. One ballad followed another and 
 Leland improved himself as he went. In " Breitmann 
 in a Balloon " he wrote : 
 
 " O vot ish dis a gomin ? 
 
 Some planet, py de Lord ! 
 Too boor to life in heafen, 
 
 Coom down on eart to poard ; 
 Und pelow it schwing tree engels, 
 
 Two he-vons, mit a wench; 
 Boot, mein Gott! vot sort of engels 
 
 Can dose pe, dalkin Fraentsch." 
 
 Breitmann not unreasonably expected to find sweet 
 " schmells " in Cologne, but he was disappointed: 
 
 " Of all de schmells I efer schmelt, 
 
 By gutter, sink or well, 
 At efery gorner of Cologne 
 
 Dere s von can peat dat schmell ; 
 Vhen dere you go you ll find it so 
 
 Don t dake de ding on troost; 
 De meanest skunk in Yankee land 
 
 Vould die dere of disgoost." 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 407 
 
 In Cologne Hans visited the minster: 
 
 " Next tay to de cat edral 
 
 He vent de dings to view, 
 Und found it shoost drei thaler cost 
 
 To see de sighds all troo. 
 Id s tear, said Hans, boot go ahet, 
 
 I fe cot de cash all right; 
 Boot id s queer dat s only Protestands 
 Vot mosdly see de sighdt ! 
 
 " Im Mittelalter I hafe read 
 
 De shoorsh vas always sure 
 An open bicdure gallerie, 
 
 Und book for all de poor; 
 Boot now de dings is so arrange 
 
 No poor folk can get in ; 
 We Yankees und de Englisch are 
 
 Pout all ash shbends de tin." 
 
 He concludes with some wisdom that 
 
 " Dese Deutsche sacrisdans might learn 
 
 More goot in Italy, 
 Vhere beoples bays shoost half de brice 
 For ten dimes more to see." 
 
 A very successful ballad was " Schnitzerl s Philoso- 
 pede," produced in a few minutes while he was in the 
 " Press " office. It begins: 
 
 " Herr Schnitzerl make a philosopede, 
 
 Von of de pullyest kind ; 
 It vent mitout a vheel in front, 
 
 Und hadn t none pehind. 
 Von vheel vas in de mittel, dough, 
 
 Und it vent as shure ash ecks, 
 
4 o8 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 For he shtraddled on de axel dree 
 Mit der vheel between his leeks." 
 
 The machine flew like the wind: 
 
 " De vellers mit de trottin nags 
 Pooled oop to see him bass; 
 De Deutschers all erstaunished saidt, 
 
 1 Potztausend ! Was ist das? 
 Boot vashter shtill der Schnitzerl flewed 
 
 On mit a ghastly smile! 
 He tidn t tooush de dirt, py shings, 
 Not vonce in half a mile." 
 
 But the ballads were not collected and issued in book 
 form without misgivings on the part of more than one 
 publisher. One day a friend said to Leland: 
 
 :< Why don t you publish your Breitmann ballads in 
 a book? Everybody is quoting them now." 
 
 " There is not a publisher in America who would 
 accept them," Leland replied, and there was not. A 
 printer undertook to issue some of the ballads in paper 
 covers in 1869, the work soon being transferred to 
 T. B. Peterson and Brothers, although they said they 
 did not hope to sell more than one thousand copies. So 
 successful was the publication that several other vol 
 umes followed and there were editions in England, 
 Canada and Australia. It will be difficult in the entire 
 range of American humor to find anything better than 
 Leland s ballads, although he was more than a dialect 
 humorist, as witness parts of " Meister Karl s Sketch 
 Book" and his " Easy Talk" in " Graham s"; and 
 not the least amusing of his works, albeit perhaps un 
 conscious, is his volume of " Memoirs " published in 
 1893. There is fun enough in " What a Young Man 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 409 
 
 Saw in Broadway " in " Meister Karl s Sketch Book " 
 to show what Leland might have been without the aid 
 of Breitmann s funny jargon: 
 
 " I stood on the steps of the Astor, 
 
 And gazed at the living tide 
 Of vehicles down the middle, 
 And people up either side. 
 
 " And I saw a maid who was pumpkins 
 
 In a shawl of real Cashmere 
 Jump down from the step of a carriage 
 While her robe got caught in the rear. 
 
 " Oh, the robe was of moire antique 
 
 (A very expensive rag ), 
 
 But a skirt peep d out below it, 
 
 And that was a coffee bag. 
 
 " I knew it had once held coffee, 
 
 Though now twas another thing, 
 For on it was Fine Old Java, 
 Y mark d in store blacking. 
 
 " And I thought as she gain d the sidewalk, 
 
 And the muslin again was furl d, 
 
 How much those out-skirts and in-skirts 
 
 Were like man s heart in the world ; 
 
 " How many a Pharisee humbug 
 Plays a lifelong game of brag; 
 His words all silk and velvet, 
 And his heart but a coffee bag." 
 
 Strangely enough, " Breitmann " loathed his calling 
 and devoted but a few years to that work upon which his 
 
4 io LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 literary fame will always rest. He disliked himself In 
 the role of humorist and wished to be remembered as a 
 learned authority on the gypsies, the Algonquin Indi 
 ans, education and the problems of sex, upon which 
 subjects he industriously wrote in his later years. 
 Widely known by his pen name, Leland always resented 
 it if he were introduced or in anywise addressed as 
 " Hans Breitmann." To Fisher Unwin, who had pub 
 lished Leland s picture, placing the pseudonym under 
 it, Leland wrote: 
 
 " Breitmann has become my autocrat who rules me 
 with a rod of iron, and has imposed his accursed name 
 on me and thou helpest him ! " 
 
 Thus did he wish to forget his early and principal 
 service to letters and thus did he rebuke those who 
 sought to regard him as a humorist. 
 
 A tall, well-built man, six feet two inches in height, 
 he and his handsome friend Boker, with whom he was 
 often seen on Chestnut Street, were marked figures. 
 He wore a long, sweeping beard. He had a red and 
 white complexion, and when a young man, the ladies 
 of Philadelphia teased him about it, declaring that he 
 painted to produce the ruddy effects. When on his expe 
 ditions among the gypsies, who treated him as a brother 
 he was a true Romany Rye and in later life was affec 
 tionately called " The Rye," at home and by his close 
 friends he dressed in a velveteen coat and a soft- 
 brimmed hat. He owned the house at 1523 Locust 
 Street, but occupied it for but a few months. When he 
 lived in Philadelphia for four or five years, introducing 
 his ideas in regard to the teaching of art into the pub 
 lic schools, he had apartments in a building on Broad 
 Street where the Art Club now stands. In the end he 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 411 
 
 was almost an exile, passing many years in Europe 
 which came to be his home, and dying in Italy in 1903. 
 
 Walt Whitman, though for nineteen years, or until 
 his death in 1892, residing on the opposite shores of the 
 Delaware, was not of Philadelphia or of its people. 
 Born on Long Island, he roamed the country, being 
 engaged in many occupations, in none of which he 
 gained any degree of success. In youth, he was a house 
 carpenter, like his father; sometimes a printer; again 
 a teacher; during the war, a soldiers nurse and hospital 
 aid; and later a government clerk in Washington, being 
 dismissed from one of the departments for keeping on 
 his desk his " Leaves of Grass," which was accounted 
 by his chief to be immoral. Too ill to go farther, 
 Whitman was stranded in Philadelphia in 1873, while 
 on his way to his friends on Long Island. He found 
 care-takers in Camden, which became his home, and 
 while here the discovery was made, by English appre- 
 ciators principally, that he was a poet of world size. 
 He became the "Good Gray Poet," the "Bard of 
 Democracy " and a " Friend of Man." It would be 
 vain to deny to Whitman a new, original and com 
 pelling genius of some indigenous, not readily classified, 
 kind. His voice was a deep bass from the bowels of 
 our existence. He was the bard of the unwashed 
 democracy. He said with truth in his " Leaves of 
 Grass:" 
 
 " I am for those who believe in loose delights ; I share the mid 
 night orgies of young men ; 
 I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers," etc. 
 
 " O you shunn d persons, I at least do not shun you ; 
 I come forthwith in your midst; I will be your poet; 
 I will be more to you than to any of the rest." 
 
4 i2 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 The brawlers and wantons of the world, whose liv 
 ing he glorifies, did not understand him; indeed, never 
 read him. He is as unintelligible " to the ordinary 
 people of the English-speaking race " as the Greek 
 Testament, one of his admirers has said, and " it will 
 be generations if at all before a people will be pro 
 duced who will read Whitman, as they now do and will 
 for centuries read the graceful and tuneful poets, 
 Shakespeare, or the Bible." Whitman, by the confes 
 sion of his friends, is for some Uebermensch yet to be 
 developed in the evolutionary process, and when this 
 race of persons is lifted up out of the lower classes, it is 
 safe to predict that colleges and universities, the church 
 and the other agencies of our civilization, will have cre 
 ated in it a taste for more beauty and refinement, and 
 lead to a rejection of literature that exhales the various 
 foulnesses of the sinks and sewers of our being. 
 
 Whitman was, is and must remain, the poet of a 
 sect. He is for those who argue, expound and defend 
 for the advocates of the unorthodox, the image- 
 breaking. He lived in the midst of Philadelphians with 
 whom he came to spend his concluding years, obedient 
 to his own preachings, with the " shunn d persons." 
 After his brother left Camden, he occupied a little two- 
 story frame house at 328 Mickle Street, in that city, 
 toward which his admirers turned their steps for many 
 years with the devotion that marked the disciples of 
 Nietsche. He was long an object of charity. George 
 W. Childs, it is computed, gave him in all about $3,- 
 ooo, a considerable part of which was used to purchase 
 the Camden house. Others less able to spare it, both in 
 America and England, young men with Socialist enthu 
 siasm, sent him their small and hard-earned hoards, 
 
From a Franklin Inn portrait 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 
 
 while he, unknown to them, had thousands of dollars 
 which were to be used for the erection of a tawdry tomb 
 to hold his bones in Harleigh Cemetery. 
 
 He was in chronic need Before Mrs. Davis came 
 to live with him as his housekeeper, he cooked the most 
 frugal meals on a coal-oil stove and ate from a dry-goods 
 box. He slept in a room with a bare floor heated by 
 a wood stove. When Charles Godfrey Leland asked 
 him to put his autograph in a copy of " Leaves of 
 Grass," he said he never did such things except for 
 money, and a peddler thrift characterized him in his 
 social relations. A friend sent him a pass on the Phila 
 delphia and Camden ferry boat lines, and it was his 
 amusement to ride back and forth upon the river, lean 
 ing over the boat-rail even in the coldest weather. li I 
 love to hear the ice craunch," said he, always a lover of 
 the elemental, as the boats plowed through the floes 
 that in winter impede the Delaware. He had his 
 " Howdy " for all kinds of persons deck-hands, 
 vagrants, mechanics, for people of both sexes, all 
 colors, ages and nationalities, and on the Philadelphia 
 side would sit long in a chair furnished him by an 
 Italian street vender, munching peanuts, or make 
 friendships with the drivers of the horse-cars who came 
 to the foot of Market Street, often mounting the stool 
 on the front platform which was resigned to him. Thus 
 he journeyed the entire length of Market Street and 
 back again, regarded as an " odd stick," even by those 
 that he assumed most fully to represent. When Le 
 land met him one time, Walt took him into a squalid 
 little bar-room and introduced him to a number of 
 tramps: "I had in my time been bon compagnon 
 with gypsies, tinkers, and* all kinds of loose fish, and 
 
4H LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 thought nothing of it all," said the humorist. Oth 
 ers, not so indulgent of gypsies and tinkers, did not find 
 such methods of living consistent with their notions of 
 poetry. Dr. Reynell Coates, the old editor of u Sar- 
 tain s," who gave him medical attention one time, 
 complained : " I do not object to his going to public 
 houses and getting his tipple upon my credit, but when 
 he impersonates me and does it, it is too much, and I 
 will not stand it." 
 
 " Whitman was, from first to last, a boorish, awk 
 ward poseur" says Rebecca Harding Davis. * He 
 sang of the workingman as of a god, but he never did an 
 hour s work himself if he could live by alms." Many 
 who contributed in response to the appeals of his ener 
 getic friends thought, if they did not dare to say, what 
 Whittier wrote in 1885, when the literary men of the 
 world were asked to subscribe to a fund to buy Whitman 
 a horse and buggy. " I have no doubt in his lameness," 
 said the Quaker poet with the frankness and humor of 
 his people, " that a kind, sober-paced roadster would be 
 more serviceable to him than the untamed, rough, jolt 
 ing Pegasus he has been accustomed to ride without 
 check or snaffle." 
 
 He addressed Christ as " my Comrade," and at his 
 funeral, Confucius, Buddha, the Saviour and Whitman 
 were confused in the requiem, as they always were in 
 the minds of this u sage " of Mickle Street, and of many 
 who journeyed to his shrine. Whitman was a giant 
 mechanic, the hairs of whose long beard mingled with 
 the growth upon his breast exposed beneath the unbut 
 toned collar of his shirt. His sect is as devoted to 
 his memory as to his person in life, and the place given 
 him by the critics of literature must depend upon their 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 415 
 
 conception of poetry, their definition of the limits of 
 art, and their ability to dissociate the lamp from the 
 light which it gave forth. 
 
 With these five authors Bayard Taylor, George 
 H. Boker, Thomas Buchanan Read, Charles Godfrey 
 Leland and Walt Whitman the literary record of 
 Philadelphia may be permitted to close for a time 
 until the years, flowing by us so inexorably, carry us 
 to a point upon which we can stand and look back at 
 works and lives still unfinished. It may be urged that 
 this group is not one that can properly be compared with 
 the " Cambridge group " of poets. They are not of 
 such quality as artists. Moreover, Read and Leland 
 left Philadelphia to live in Europe, while Taylor and 
 Boker wandered on foreign ground whenever they 
 could do so. As for Whitman, he was not of the place 
 or people and was connected with the group chiefly 
 through the begging letters with which his cashiers as* 
 sailed his fellow writers. 
 
 However this may be, Taylor and Boker were poets 
 of the first rank and in a neighborhood more disposed 
 to make heroes of its men of genius, they would hold 
 a place higher than any which we have given them. 
 When their fame was rising, Philadelphia was losing 
 to New York and New England its pre-eminence as a 
 literary centre. Leland, that strange mixture of hu 
 morist and college professor, to be admired so long as 
 there are those who are able to understand and enjoy 
 good wit, faced the same conditions. All must look 
 outside for recognition and the means to their advance 
 ment while their fellow Philadelphians contrived 
 theories to explain the passing of the sceptre, one of 
 which, oddly enough, was that the city had ceased to 
 
416 LITERARY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 produce writers of any worth. Thus in contention they 
 have latterly belittled their own, instead of reading, ad 
 miring, defending and making places in their midst for 
 those that are of them and truly belong to them. 
 
 The Quakers have been held responsible for Penn 
 sylvania s literary position. Yet there was a quarterly 
 magazine in Philadelphia in the first half of the nine 
 teenth century, which predicted that trade so paralyzed 
 literary activity in New England that it would prevent 
 the development of imaginative writers in that region. 
 It was Henry T. Tuckerman who responded, com 
 plaining of our " calm, prescriptive, and monotonous 
 environment," and describing the Friends as " a class 
 distinguished indeed for moral worth, but equally re 
 markable for the absence of a sense of the beautiful, 
 and a firm repudiation of the artistic graces of life, and 
 the inspiration of sentiment, except that of a strictly 
 religious kind." Nevertheless, the Quakers produced in 
 poetry William Cliffton, John Greenleaf Whittier, and 
 Bayard Taylor, and in prose so fertile an imagination 
 as Charles Brockden Brown s. 
 
 From the day of Nathaniel Evans and Thomas God 
 frey, Jr., to " The Story of Kennett," and " The Wag 
 oner of the Alleghanies," the city with its outlying 
 counties has furnished much scenery for the writings 
 of its authors. They have hallowed much Pennsyl 
 vania ground, but art needs a wide country, as a poet 
 like Boker understood: 
 
 1 Tis well for you beyond the sea, 
 
 Where every toiling mattock delves 
 Among the spoils of history, 
 
 To bid us work within ourselves. 
 
THE PENNSYLVANIA POETS 417 
 
 " All bare of legendary lore, 
 
 Our grandest regions stretch away; 
 These are the pictured scenes, no more ; 
 These are the scenery, not the play." 
 
 To many, and to him and Taylor notably, neighbor 
 hood had only accidental claims. Said Boker: 
 
 " Not for myself, but for my art, 
 I claim all ages, every clime ; 
 And I shall scorn the lines that part 
 Country from country, time from time. 
 
 " O poet of the present day ! 
 
 Range back or forth, change time or place, 
 But mould the sinews of thy lay 
 To struggle in the final race." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abolitionists, 314 et seq. 
 
 Academy of Natural Sciences, 
 206, 208, 209, 364, 365. 
 
 Adams, John, on Jacob Duche, 
 44; on Franklin, 52-54; on 
 William Smith, 61, 105; on 
 Pennsylvania Constitution, 
 1 06, 126; attacks on, 129, 
 130. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, 153, 
 183, 200, 320. 
 
 Adams, Samuel, 92. 
 
 Addison, 168, 266. 
 
 Agnew, D. Hayes, 362. 
 
 Agnew, Mary, 378, 379. 
 
 Aitken, Robert, 25, 84, 86, 87. 
 
 Alcott, Bronson, 200, 209, et 
 seq. 
 
 Alcott, Louisa M., 211, 213. 
 
 Alexander, Charles, 227. 
 
 Allen, Paul, 184. 
 
 Allibone, Dr. S. Austin, 348, 
 361. 
 
 Allston, Washington, 270, 
 392. 
 
 Almanacs, 25, 48, et seq. 
 
 American Philosophical So 
 ciety, 55, 56, 108, 109, 145, 
 146, 208. 
 
 419 
 
 American Quarterly Review, 
 
 194, 226, 266. 
 
 Analectic Magazine, 223-225. 
 Annan, Mrs., 231. 
 "Arctic," wreck of the, 360. 
 Arctic Exploration, 367, et 
 
 seq. 
 
 Arthur, T. S., 231, 233, 270. 
 Atkinson, Samuel C., 227, 
 
 263. 
 
 Audubon, J. J., 201, et seq. 
 "Aurora," 128-130; 170, 
 172, 242. 
 
 Bache, B. F., 127-129; 131. 
 Bache, Richard, 128. 
 Bailey, Francis, 116, 117. 
 Baird, Henry Carey, 340, 345. 
 Barker, James N., 240. 
 Barker, General John, 240. 
 Barlow, Joel, 134, 176. 
 Barnes, Albert, 278, 366. 
 Barnum, P. T., 253, 400. 
 Barrett, Elizabeth B., 274. 
 Barrett, Lawrence, 387. 
 Barton, Dr. B. S., 184, 206, 
 
 207. 
 
 Barron, Commodore, 2OO. 
 Bartram, John, 23, 56, 57. 
 
4 20 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bartram, William, 140, 141, 
 207. 
 
 "Bee Hive," Pastorius s, 18. 
 
 Beecher, Lyman, 312. 
 
 Beissel, Conrad, 16, 23, 24, 
 28, 46. 
 
 Bell, Robert, 84, 85, 95. 
 
 Benezet, Anthony, 112, 313. 
 
 Benjamin, Park, 231, 269. 
 
 Bennett, James Gordon, 234. 
 
 Bible, Sower s, 25-27; Car 
 ey s, 137. 
 
 Biddle, Nicholas, 176, 184, 
 189, 196, 197- 
 
 Binney, Horace, 176, 189, 
 
 200. 
 
 Bioren and Madan, 149. 
 Bird, Robert Montgomery, 
 
 242-244, 249, et seq., 268, 
 
 346. 
 
 Blackstone, sale of in America, 
 
 85- 
 
 Blair, F. P., 270. 
 Blair, Samuel, School of, 41. 
 Blanchard, William A., 340, 
 
 344- 
 
 Blanchard, Henry, 341. 
 Boker, Charles S., 283, 386, 
 
 399- 
 Boker, George H., 268, 278, 
 
 357, 374, 379, 386, et seq., 
 
 397, 399, 401, 410, 415- 
 
 417. 
 Bonaparte, Charles Lucien, 
 
 200, 20 1, 202. 
 Bond, Dr. Thomas, 56. 
 
 Bond, Dr. Phineas, 56. 
 
 Book Auctions, 85. 
 
 Book Trade Sales, 343. 
 
 Boston, as a literary centre, 
 viii. 
 
 " Boston Bard," see R. S. Cof 
 fin. 
 
 Boudinot, Ellas, 38. 
 
 Bouvier, John, 133, 145. 
 
 Bracken ridge, Hugh Henry, 
 115, 116. 
 
 Bradford s Printing House, 
 64, 74, 140, 151,220. 
 
 Bradford, Andrew, 13, 61. 
 
 Bradford, Cornelia, 14. 
 
 Bradford, William I., in Phil 
 adelphia, 2, 3 ; imprison 
 ment of, 5 ; in New York, 
 5 ; proposed Bible of, 25, 
 61. 
 
 Brahmins in Philadelphia, vii. 
 
 Brandywine, 256, 391. 
 
 Breintnal, Joseph, 55, 66. 
 
 " Breitmann, Hans," see C. G. 
 Leland. 
 
 Bremer, Frederika, 278. 
 
 Brinton, Daniel G., 7, 364, 
 
 365. 
 
 Brockden, Charles, 54, 158. 
 Bronson, Enos, 223. 
 Brooks, Phillips, 366. 
 Brotherhood of the Union, 
 
 258. 
 Brown, Charles Brockden, 
 
 147, 157, et seq., 189, 256, 
 
 261, 266, 416. 
 
INDEX 
 
 421 
 
 Brown, David Paul, 241, 320. 
 
 Brown, General Jacob, 185. 
 
 Browning, Mrs., see E. B. 
 Barrett. 
 
 Browning, Robert, 386. 
 
 Bryan, George, 92, 94, 97, 
 98. 
 
 Bryant, William Cullcn, 242, 
 266, 268, 269, 276. 
 
 Buchanan, Miss, see Mrs. An 
 nan. 
 
 Bufleb, 380. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 47, 222. 
 
 Burleigh, C. C., 328, 329. 
 
 Burleigh, W. H., 328. 
 
 Burr, Aaron, 177. 
 
 Burton, William E., 263, 265. 
 
 Butler, Frances Kemble, see 
 Fanny Kemble. 
 
 Butler, Pierce, 306, 358. 
 
 Byron, Lord, 218. 
 
 Cade, Jack, 247. 
 Cadwalader, General John, 
 
 100. 
 
 Cadwalader, Thomas, 176. 
 Caldwell, Dr. Charles, 184, 
 
 185, 186, 199. 
 Caldwell, Mrs. J. E., 396. 
 Callender, J. T., 127. 
 Calwell, Stephen, 355, 356. 
 Cameron, Simon, 355, 382. 
 Campbell, Thomas, 119. 
 Cannon, James, 94, 98, 105. 
 Carey and Hart, 298, 340. 
 Carey and Lea, 194, 339, 341. 
 
 Carey, Edward L., 339. 
 Carey, Henry C., 108, 139, 
 
 200, 339, 343, 345, 349, et 
 
 seq. 
 Carey, Mathew, 127, 132 et 
 
 seq., 166, 200, 210, 339, 
 
 342, 349, 350. 
 Carey Vespers, 354, 356. 
 Careyites, 356. 
 Carpenter, S. C., 222. 
 Carroll, Charles, 200. 
 Cary, Alice, 269. 
 Gary, Phoebe, 269. 
 " Caspipina, Tamoc," see Ja 
 cob Duche. 
 " Cedarcroft," 380, 381, 383, 
 
 384. 
 Centennial Exhibition, 238, 
 
 370. 
 Chalkley, Thomas, writings 
 
 of, 8, 46. 
 
 " Chalkley Hall," 8. 
 Chambers Encyclopedia, 348. 
 Chandler, Joseph R., 269, 273, 
 
 354, 377- 
 Chapman, Dr. Nathaniel, 
 
 176, 189, 196, 200, 201. 
 Channing, W. E., 196. 
 " Charcoal Sketches," 234. 
 Chester, Quaker Settlements 
 
 in, 7. 
 Chester County, writers of, 
 
 7; praised by Whittier, 331, 
 
 332. 
 
 Cheverus, Bishop, 196. 
 Cheves, Langdon, 200. 
 
INDEX 
 
 238,254. 
 Odd, Lffe Maria, 278. 
 QM* Ctmy W., 284, 
 
 412. 
 
 Ouist Owidi, 20, 23. 43. 44- 
 Qark, Lwii Gaykrd, 300, 
 
 ^"^? * AT*~~"I , f* T -. -rl ^fc/ O 
 
 vmx, LUIS vjaTiora, 200, 
 
 Oarke, Thomas CoctrdL i. 
 228,287- 
 
 David C, 81 
 
 WflKam, 154, 155, 
 
 349- 
 
 94, ioi- 
 H. T., aid Company, 
 
 Dr. Rej-nefl, 268, 281, 
 
 WnKam, 109, 112, 
 
 127, 130-13*. 
 
 22;. 
 
 55- 
 
 218, 266, 359- 
 
 23- 
 
 ... -- : 
 .... 
 
 ot me 
 
 91- 
 
 161, 176. 
 
 . 239, 243, 
 246-249, 268, 273. 
 
 of the United 
 vfi, 9, 103, 105. 
 
 CJootcntcd of tnc God fearing 
 
 SouL" 21. 
 
 O1"" M "1*I Congress, 104. 
 Cooke, George Frederick, 222. 
 v^ooper. James rennnore, 200, 
 
 270, 274. 276, 346u 
 Cooper, E>r. Thomas, 185, 
 
 186. 
 
 Cope, E. D^ 364, 365- 
 "Cousin Alice," see Alice 
 
 NeaL 
 
 COM, Tench, 349. 
 Cnncfa, C P., 269, 340- 
 
 Cutkr, Manasseh, 122. 
 Corkr, Theodore L., 231. 
 
 DaCosta, J. M^ 362. 
 D Alembert, 92. 
 Dallas, A. J^ 127, 200. 
 
 -^ - " "~ L. - 
 
 Dana, CA^ 403. 
 Dana, R. H^ 269. 
 Darier, F. A. C, 287. 
 Darlington, William, 7, 201, 
 
 206, 207. 
 Daries, Rev. ft*""""*, 41, 42, 
 
 46. 
 
 Dark, E. \L, 292, 335. 
 Davis, Mrs. R. H^ 212, 335. 
 Declaration of Anti-Slavery 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 
 
 Tin, 105, 108. 
 De Haven, E. J., 368, 3?i, 
 
 375- 
 
INDEX 
 
 4^3 
 
 Delaney, Sharp, 101. 
 Dennie, Joseph, 168 et seq., 
 
 189, 264. 
 
 Dick, engraver, 272. 
 Dickens, Charles, 234, 336, 
 
 345- 
 
 Dickenson. Jonathan, 9. 
 Dickins, Asbury, 170. 
 Dickinson, Anna, 328. 
 Dickinson, John, 88, 91, 94, 
 
 96, 99. 
 
 Dickinson College, 91. 
 Diderot, 92. 
 
 Dobson, Thomas, 149, 224. 
 Dock, Christopher, 16, 29, 30. 
 Douglass, Frederick, 328. 
 Duane, William, 128-130, 
 
 170, 242. 
 Dubourg, 90, 91. 
 Duche, Jacob, 43, 44, 46, 61, 
 
 78. 
 
 Dunker Church, 23, 24, 28. 
 Dunlap, John, 87. 
 Dunlap, William, printer, 88. 
 Dunlap, William, artist, 159. 
 Duponceau, P. S., 60, 133, 
 
 144, 145, 196. 
 Du Pont de Nemours, 133, 
 
 147- 
 
 Du Solle, John S., 253. 
 
 Economistes, The, 92, 147. 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 41. 
 Elder, Dr. William, 354, 355, 
 356. 
 
 Ellet, Mrs, E. F., 231, 270, 
 
 278, 340- 
 
 Embury, Mrs,, 270. 
 Emerson, R. W., 212, 340. 
 Encyclopedia Britannica, 149, 
 Encyclopedists, The, 92. 
 English, Thomas Dunn, 231, 
 
 268, 293-297- 
 Ephrata. Mystics at, 23, 24, 
 
 28, 29. 
 
 Episcopal Church, 42, 43. 
 Evangeline. 20, 193. 
 Evans. Nathaniel, 6 1, 64, 67, 
 
 68, 72-77> "4. 416. 
 Ewing. Samuel, 176, 223. 
 
 Factory System, 260. 
 FaLrfield, Jane Frazee, 213 et 
 
 seq. 
 
 FaMeld, S. L,, 213 et seq. 
 Falkners, the Pietists, 22, 
 Farmer, Letters of a, 88, 89, 
 
 96. 
 
 Farrand and Nicholas, 191. 
 Federalists, The, 118, 127, 
 
 128, 129, 131. 
 Fennell, James, 239, 
 Ferguson, Elizabeth Graeme, 
 
 64, 76 et seq. 
 
 Ferguson, Hugh Henry, 78, 
 Fessenden, Thomas Green, 
 
 177. 
 
 Fillmore, President, 197. 
 Fisher, Rodney, 401. 
 Forney, John W., 269, 404. 
 
424 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Forrest, Edwin, 241 et seq. 
 
 Fort Wilson Riot, 92, 101. 
 
 Fox, George, 4, 7. 
 
 Fox, Margaret, 372. 
 
 France, Franklin in, 48, 52; 
 philosophy in, 91, 106, 125, 
 127, 130, 155; war impend 
 ing with, 153. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, Pennsyl 
 vania Gazette of, 14, 15 ; his 
 
 attack on Keimer, 1 5 ; Ger 
 man paper of, 25 ; as a 
 monopolist, 27 ; and White- 
 field, 36; modifying influ 
 ence of, 46, 51, 52, 91 ; life 
 and works of, 46 et seq.; 
 magazine of, 63; in Penn 
 sylvania Convention of 
 J 776, 94; death of, 122, 
 123- 
 
 Franklin, Sir John, 368, 372. 
 
 Franklin, Lady, 368, 370. 
 
 Franklin Inn, 48. 
 
 Free Labor Products, 315, 
 
 334- 
 
 French Revolution, 125, 130. 
 
 Freneau, Philip, 106, ill, 
 115-122, 125, 127, 129. 
 
 Friends, dwindling number of, 
 ix; schism among created by 
 Keith, 3, 4; Hicks s seces 
 sion from, 4; characteristics 
 of, 6; anti-slavery views of, 
 312 et seq.; literary influ 
 ence of, 416. 
 
 Frost, John, 269. 
 
 Fry, William, 193, 197. 
 Fry, William Henry, 197. 
 Fulton, Robert, 134. 
 Furness, Horace Howard, 
 
 337, 357- 
 
 Furness, Dr. W. H., 200, 210, 
 336, 340. 
 
 Garrett, Cyrus, 395. 
 
 Garrison, W. L., 312, 318, 
 328, 332, 337- 
 
 Geist, J. M. W., 257. 
 
 Genet, Citizen, 126. 
 
 Gentleman s Magazine, Bur 
 ton s, 263, 265. 
 
 George, Henry, 350. 
 
 Germans in Pennsylvania, IO, 
 15 et seq., 62, 92. 
 
 Germantown, 17, 20, 21, 23, 
 
 254- 
 
 Gifford, William, 156. 
 " Gift, The," 228, 340. 
 Goddard, William, 88. 
 Godey, Louis A., 229 et seq., 
 
 236, 243, 263, 264. 
 Godey s Lady s Book, 229 et 
 
 seq., 310. 
 
 Godfrey, Thomas, 55-58. 
 Godfrey, Thomas, Jr., 64, 67, 
 
 71, 74, 114, 416. 
 Godkin, E. L., 175. 
 Godwin, William, 157. 
 Graeme, Elizabeth, see E. G. 
 
 Ferguson. 
 
 Graeme, Thomas, 76. 
 Graeme Park, 76, 77, 79. 
 
INDEX 
 
 425 
 
 Graham, George R., 227, 239, 
 
 247, 263 et seq. 
 Graham s Magazine, 263 et 
 
 seq., 310, 374, 375, 377, 
 
 387, 392. 
 
 Grambo, Henry, 347, 348. 
 Grant, General, 354, 390. 
 Graydon, Alexander, 148. 
 Greeley, Horace, 270, 351, 
 
 377, 378, 384- 
 "Greenwood, Grace," 231, 
 
 233, 235, 236, 270, 310. 
 Grew, Mary, 328. 
 Grigg, John, 346, 347. 
 Grigg and Elliott, 347. 
 Grimke, A. E., 321, 332. 
 Grinnell, Henry, 368. 
 Griswold, Rufus Wilmot, 227, 
 
 272, 297-299, 375, 376, 
 
 400. 
 Gross, Dr. S. D., 362. 
 
 Haddonfield, Friends in, ix. 
 Hadley s Quadrant, 57. 
 " Hail Columbia," 154. 
 Haines, Reuben, 210. 
 Hale, Sarah Josepha, 229, 230, 
 
 232. 
 
 Hall, David, 227. 
 Hall, John E., 186, 187, 188. 
 Hall, Sarah, 186. 
 Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 242, 
 
 269. 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 102, 
 
 105, 106, 118, 126, 130, 
 
 349- 
 
 Hamilton, Philip, 177. 
 Hansen, the astronomer, 380. 
 Hanson, Alexander C., 186. 
 Hare, Dr. Robert, 200. 
 Harper s Magazine, 284, 400. 
 Harrison, President Benjamin, 
 
 38. 
 
 Hart, Abraham, 339, 340. 
 Hart, John S., 278, 287. 
 Haven, Alice Bradley, see 
 
 Alice Neal. 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 231, 
 
 268, 270, 274. 
 Hayes, Dr. Isaac, 200, 372, 
 
 373- 
 
 Hayes, Rutherford B., 384. 
 Hazard, Willis P., 349. 
 Healy, Joseph, 329, 330. 
 Heine, 398. 
 Henry, Mayor, 355. 
 Hicks, Elias, 4, 328. 
 Hirst, Henry B., 268, 300, 
 
 302-305- 
 
 Historical Society of Pennsyl 
 vania, 354, 356, 361. 
 
 Hoffman, Charles Fenno, 270, 
 340. 
 
 Hole, Dean, 358. 
 
 Holmes, O. W., 231. 
 
 Hopkinson, Francis, 44, 56, 
 61, 67, 106, 113, 114. 
 
 Hopkinson, Joseph, 56, 131, 
 153 et seq., 172, 176, 187, 
 200. 
 
 Hopkinson, Thomas, 56, 113. 
 
 Howitt, Mary, 228, 278. 
 
426 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hewitt, William, 278. 
 Humboldt, Alexander von, 
 
 199. 
 
 Hume, David, 35, 48. 
 Humphreys, James, 84. 
 Hunter, John, 201. 
 
 Indiana as a literary centre, 
 
 viii. 
 Ingersoll, Charles Jared, 172, 
 
 176, 189, 200. 
 Irving, Washington, 223, 224, 
 
 231, 270, 346, 401. 
 
 Jackson, Paul, 61. 
 Jansen, Reynier, 6. 
 Jay, John, 102, 105, 127, 
 
 128. 
 
 James, G. P. R., 228, 274. 
 Japan, 351. 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 58, 59, 60, 
 
 92, 104, 105, 118, 119, 
 
 126, 128, 130, 141. 
 Jeffrey, 119, 190, 205. 
 Johnson, Oliver, 328. 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 361. 
 Junto, Franklin s, 55. 
 
 Kane, E. K., 358, 367 et seq. 
 Kane, Judge J. K., 200, 367. 
 Keimer, Samuel, 15, 66. 
 Keith, George, 3, 6, 46. 
 Keith, Sir William, 76. 
 Kelpius, Johannes, 16, 21, 22, 
 46. 
 
 Kemble, Fanny, 269, 306, 
 
 356, 367- 
 
 Kennedy, J. P., 346. 
 King, Captain, 348. 
 Kinnersley, Ebenezer, 56. 
 Kirkland, Mrs., 278, 281. 
 Knickerbockers, The, 268. 
 Knickerbocker Magazine, 270, 
 
 276, 284, 300, 400. 
 Kossuth, Louis, 308, 336. 
 Koster, 22. 
 
 Lake School, battle on the, 
 
 218, 266, 392. 
 Lamb, Charles, 45. 
 Lanier, Sidney, 382. 
 Larcom, Lucy, 279. 
 Lay, Benjamin, 112, 313. 
 "Lay Preacher, The," see 
 
 Dennie. 
 
 Lea, Henry C., 139. 
 Lea, Isaac, 200, 339, 364. 
 Lea and Blanchard, 285, 341. 
 Leeds, Daniel, 5, 49. 
 Leidy, Joseph, 364, 365. 
 Leland, Charles Godfrey, 
 
 211, 231, 268, 275, 279, 
 
 284, 357 374. 398 et seq., 
 
 413,415. 
 Leslie, Eliza, 231, 233, 340, 
 
 345, 350. 
 
 Leslie, Frank, 400, 403. 
 Leslie, Charles R., 222, 233, 
 
 340, 350. 
 Le Sueur, 200. 
 Le Veillard, 91. 
 
INDEX 
 
 427 
 
 Lewis, " Monk," 157. 
 Lewis, William D., 354, 357. 
 Linn, John Blair, 163. 
 Linn, William, 163, 176. 
 Linnaeus, 56. 
 Lippard, George, 7, 239, 251 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 394, 395. 
 Lippincott, J. B., 216, 348. 
 Lippincott, Leander K., 236. 
 Lippincott, Mrs. Sara J., see 
 
 " Grace Greenwood." 
 Lippincott s Magazine, 348. 
 Literary Fairs, 342. 
 Lithograph, the first, 224. 
 Littell, Eliakim, 194, 223. 
 Lloyd, Thomas, 10, 17. 
 Logan, Deborah, 12, 13, 219. 
 Logan, George, 12. 
 Logan, James, 10, n, 12, 37, 
 
 57- 
 
 " Log College," 37. 
 London Coffee House, 14. 
 Longfellow, Henry W., 2O, 
 
 268, 269, 273, 274, 276, 
 
 278, 340, 374, 379, 385, 
 
 392. 
 
 Longwood Meeting, 328, 383. 
 Lowell, ix, 268, 276, 282, 291, 
 
 292, 374, 379- 
 Lundy, Benjamin, 313 et seq. 
 
 McClellan, Dr. George, 210. 
 McConnell, Dr. S. D., 361. 
 McHenry, James, 213, 215 et 
 seq. 
 
 McKean, Thomas, 94. 
 McKim, James Miller, 328, 
 
 329. 
 McMichael, Morton, 88, 227, 
 
 236, 249, 263, 268, 351, 
 
 354, 357, 36o. 
 Madison, James, 102, 105, 
 
 115, 119, 125, 200. 
 Malthus, 351,352, 355- 
 Markoe, Peter, 153. 
 Marshall, Humphry, 206. 
 Marshall, John, 15. 
 Martineau, Harriet, 278. 
 " Marvel, Ik.," 270. 
 "Mary .had a little lamb," 
 
 230. 
 
 Mason, Dr. Lowell, 230. 
 Mather, Cotton, 4. 
 Matlack, Timothy, 92, 97. 
 May, Samuel J., 210, 318. 
 Maxwell, Hugh, 160, 170. 
 Mazzei, Philip, 92. 
 Medicine in Philadelphia, 109, 
 
 no. 
 
 Melodrama, 239. 
 Meredith, William, 172, 176, 
 
 182, 200. 
 
 Meschianza, 62, 237. 
 Michaux, Andre, 208. 
 Michaux, F. A., 208. 
 Michelet, 252. 
 Mifflin, General, IOI. 
 Mifflin, Warner, 313. 
 Mill, James, 350. 
 Mill, John Stuart, 350, 351. 
 Mirabeau, 47, 92, 147. 
 
428 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mirror of Taste, 220, 223. 
 Missouri Compromise, 193. 
 Mitchell, Dr. John K., 268. 
 Mitchell, Dr. S. Weir, 237. 
 Moore, Thomas, 177, 178, 
 
 179, 1 80, 189, 200. 
 Moore, William, of Moore 
 
 Hall, 62. 
 Moravians in Pennsylvania, 
 
 31. 
 
 Moreau, Jean Victor, 199. 
 Morgan, Dr. John, no. 
 Morris, George P., 269, 274, 
 
 292, 293. 
 Morris, Robert, financier, 47, 
 
 92, 94, 96, 99-104, 126. 
 Morris, Robert, poet, 268, 
 
 269, 300, 301. 
 Mott, Lucretia, 292, 322, 323, 
 
 328, 333-336, 367. 
 Muhlenberg, F. A., 37, 94. 
 Muhlenberg, G. H., 37. 
 Muhlenberg, H. M., 27, 32, 
 
 36, 46. 
 
 Muhlenberg, Peter, 37. 
 Murat, Prince, 200. 
 Murdoch, James E., 394, 395. 
 Mystics, German, 20-24. 
 
 Napoleon, 190, 199. 
 Nast, Thomas, 395. 
 Neal, Alice, 231, 233, 234, 
 
 235, 268. 
 Neal, Joseph C., 234, 268, 
 
 340. 
 Neall, Daniel, 319, 329. 
 
 Newcome, Barnes, 359. 
 Nicola, Lewis, 86. 
 Noah, Mordecai M., 241. 
 Nuttall, Thomas, 200, 201, 
 207-209. 
 
 Oberholtzer, Sara Louisa, 
 
 331. 
 
 " Oldschool, Oliver," see Jo 
 seph Dennie. 
 
 Old Swedes Church, 20, 142. 
 
 Ord, George, 142, 201. 
 
 Osborne, Charles, 54. 
 
 Osgood, Frances Sargent, 270. 
 
 Oswald, Eleazer, 136. 
 
 " Ouida," 348. 
 
 Paine, Thomas, 47, 83, 92, 
 
 94-97- 
 
 Parke, John, 153. 
 Parker, Theodore, 328, 337. 
 Parrish, Dr. Joseph, 323, 328. 
 Parry and McMillan, 341, 
 
 401. 
 
 Parsons, William, 55, 56. 
 Pastorius, 16-20, 313. 
 Patterson, General Robert, 
 
 354- 
 
 Patterson, Dr. R. M., 200. 
 Patterson, Samuel D., 227, 
 
 277, 377, 379- 
 Paulding, J. K., 223, 224, 
 
 231, 270, 276. 
 Peabody, George, 368. 
 Peacock, Gibson, 382. 
 Peale, Charles Willson, 200. 
 
INDEX 
 
 429 
 
 Penn, William, i, 2. 
 Penn Charter School, 3. 
 Pennsylvania Hall, 319 et 
 
 seq. 
 Pepper, Dr. William, 1 1 2, 
 
 362, 363. 
 Peters, Dr. Richard, 43, 44, 
 
 46, 60, 77, 80, 112. 
 Peters, William, 43. 
 Peters, Judge Richard, of Bel- 
 
 mont, 43. 
 Peters, Richard, son of Judge, 
 
 177. 
 Peterson, C. J., 227, 236, 263, 
 
 269, 272, 282. 
 Peterson, Henry, 227, 237, 
 
 243- 
 
 Peterson, Sarah Webb, 239. 
 Peterson, T. B., 237, 408. 
 Percival, J. G., 266. 
 Peterson s Magazine, 236, 
 
 237- 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 312, 337. 
 
 Physick, Dr. P. S., 200, 201. 
 
 Physiocratie, The, 147. 
 
 Pickering, Timothy, 168. 
 
 Pickwick Papers, The, 345. 
 
 Pietists in Philadelphia, 21-23. 
 
 Poe, E. A., ix, 231, 234, 239, 
 265, 266, 272, 273, 279, 
 282, 285, et seq., 296-300, 
 340, 346, 374- 
 
 Political Economy, M. Car 
 ey s, 138; H. C. Carey s, 
 350, et seq. 
 
 11 Poor Richard," 49-51. 
 
 Pope, 55, 218, 266. 
 " Porcupine, Peter," see Wil 
 liam Cobbett. 
 
 Port Folio, 147, 1 68 et seq. 
 Poulson, Zachariah, 88, 148. 
 Prentice, George D., 269. 
 Presbyterians, 38, 62. 
 Priestley, Joseph, 133, 146, 
 
 185, 337- 
 
 Price, Eli K., 365. 
 Princeton College, 37, 41, 
 
 399- 
 
 Proud, Robert, 7, 148, 158. 
 Purvis, Robert, 328. 
 Pusey, Caleb, 7. 
 Putnam s Magazine, 284. 
 
 Quakers, influence of, ix, 416; 
 writings of, 7; theology of, 
 8 ; censorship of press by, 61, 
 62 ; theocracy of, 93 ; as 
 anti-slavery advocates, 312 
 et seq. 
 
 Quesnay, Dr. 92, 147. 
 
 Radcliffe, Mrs., 157. 
 Ralph, James, 54, 55, 95. 
 Rawdon, Wright and Hatch, 
 
 engravers, 272-276. 
 Rawle, Francis, 349. 
 Raymond, Daniel, 138. 
 Raynal, Abbe, 92. 
 Read, T. B., 7, 231, 268, 374, 
 
 376, 391 etseq., 399,415- 
 Reed, Henry, 357, 358, 359 
 
 et seq. 
 
430 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Reed, Joseph, 78. 
 Reed, William B., 357~36o. 
 Rees s Cyclopedia, 151. 
 Reid, Mayne, 270, 287, 289, 
 
 307> 309, 368. 
 Revolutionary Novels, 237. 
 Rhoads, Samuel, 56. 
 Ricardo, 351, 352, 355. 
 Ripley, George, 403. 
 Ritner, Abraham, 324, 325. 
 Rittenhouse, David, 26, 59, 
 
 60, 92, 106, 109, 125. 
 Rives, Amelie, 348. 
 Robespierre, 92, 97, 185. 
 Rochefoucauld, Duke de La, 
 
 92. 
 
 Rose, Aquila, 66, 67. 
 Rousseau, 48, 91, 92, 94, 98, 
 
 105. 
 
 Rowson, Mrs., 157. 
 Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 106, 
 
 110-113, Ui, 132, 133, 
 
 1 66, 184. 
 Rush, James, 210. 
 Rush, Richard, 176. 
 " Rydal Mount," 360. 
 
 Sadd, engraver, 272. 
 Saint Peter s Church, 44. 
 Sartain, John, 265, 272, 276, 
 
 278 et seq., 286, 290, 371. 
 Sartain s Magazine, 277 et 
 
 *e<]., 374, 392, 400. 
 Saturday Evening Post, 226- 
 
 228, 263, 277, 375- 
 
 Saur, see Sower. 
 
 Saxe, J. G., 269. 
 
 Saxe- Weimar, Duke of, 200. 
 
 Say, Thomas, 200, 201, 206, 
 
 355- 
 
 Scandella, Dr., 159. 
 Schuylkill River, 54, 67. 
 Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania, 
 
 x, 62, 92, 93. 
 
 Scott, Walter, 119, 191, 344. 
 Sedgwick, Miss, 231, 270. 
 Serra, Correa da, 200, 207. 
 Shakespeare, 149, 396. 
 Sharswood, George, 366. 
 " Sheridan s Ride," 395. 
 Shippen, William, Jr., no, 
 
 198. 
 Sigourney, Mrs. Lydia H., 
 
 231, 270, 278, 340. 
 Simms, William Gilmore, 231, 
 
 270, 346. 
 Slavery, agitations against, 
 
 112; its influence on litera 
 ture, 310 et seq. 
 "Slender, Robert," see Fre- 
 
 neau. 
 
 Sloanaker, William, 277. 
 Smillie, engraver, 272, 276. 
 Smith, Adam, 138, 351. 
 Smith, Dr. E. H., 159. 
 Smith, Richard Penn, 243- 
 
 246, 268. 
 
 Smith, Mrs. Seba, 270. 
 Smith, Dr. William, 35, 43, 
 
 60-63, 68, 69, 108, 114, 
 
 123- 
 
INDEX 
 
 43i 
 
 " Society of the Woman in the 
 
 Wilderness," 21. 
 Sower, Charles G., 28. 
 Sower, Christopher, I, 16, 24 
 
 et seq., 36, 88. 
 Sower, Christopher, II, 24, 27, 
 
 28. 
 
 Spangenberg, A. G., 31, 32. 
 Speakman, John, 206. 
 Stenton, n, 12. 
 Stephens, Ann S., 270. 
 Steuart, Andrew, 84. 
 Steuben, Baron, 145. 
 Stevens, Thaddeus, 320. 
 Stevenson, R. L., 2, 45. 
 Stockton, Frank H., 402. 
 Stockton, Thomas H., 402. 
 Stoddard, R. H., 269, 279, 
 
 379. 
 Stone, John Augustus, 242, 
 
 244- 
 Story, W. W., 270. 
 Stowe, H. B., 231, 283, 3ii 
 
 312. 
 
 Stuart, Gilbert, 123. 
 Sully, Thomas, 265, 340. 
 Swain, Abell and Simmons, 
 
 239- 
 Taylor, Bayard, 4, 7, 221, 
 
 268, 273, 331, 357, 374 et 
 
 seq., 390, 397, 399, 41 5> 
 
 416, 417. 
 
 Taylor, Frank, 377. 
 Taylor, Zachary, 256. 
 " Ten Nights in a Barroom," 
 
 233. 
 
 Tennent, Gilbert, 38, 39, 40, 
 
 4 6. 
 
 Tennent, John, 38. 
 Tennent, William, I, 37, 38. 
 Tennent, William, II, 38. 
 Thackeray, William Make 
 peace, 189, 199, 357, 358, 
 
 359, 393- 
 
 Theatres in Philadelphia, 220. 
 Thomas, Gabriel, 9. 
 Thomas, Moses, 223, 224, 
 
 343- 
 
 Thomas s Dictionary, 348. 
 Thiirnstein, Lewis von, 31, 32. 
 Ticknor and Fields, 340, 390. 
 Tilghman, William, 200. 
 Timothee, Louis, 25. 
 Towne, Benjamin, 87. 
 Tucker, engraver, 272. 
 Tuckerman, H. T., 279, 340, 
 
 416. 
 
 Tuesday Club, 168, 176. 
 Turgot, 48, 91, 1 06. 
 Tyler, Moses Coit, 298. 
 Tyler, Royal, 177. 
 Tyler, President, 197. 
 
 "Uncle Tom s Cabin," 231, 
 
 283, 311- 
 Underground Railroad, 312, 
 
 317. 
 
 Union League, 390. 
 University of Pennsylvania, 
 
 60, 61, 63, 1 10, 356. 
 Unwin, Fisher, 410. 
 
432 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Vaughan, John, 210. 
 Vaux, Roberts, 193, 210. 
 Venus, transit of, 59, 108. 
 Verplanck, G. C., 157, 223. 
 Vickers, Mary, 317. 
 Voltaire, 48, 91, 92, 94. 
 
 Wallace, Lew, 394. 
 
 Walsh, Robert, 176, 189 et 
 
 seq., 210, 266. 
 Walsh s Soirees, 189, 196. 
 " Ward, Artemus," 403. 
 Warner, Benjamin, 346, 347. 
 Washington, George, 44, 78, 
 
 96, 102, 104, 118, 126, 127, 
 
 128, 130, 151, 344- 
 Waterman, Miss, 21, 269, 
 
 278, 305. 
 Watson, John F., 12, 210, 
 
 219. 
 
 Watson, Joseph, 54. 
 Waverley Novels, 344. 
 Wayne, Caleb P., 149. 
 Webbe, John, 63. 
 Webster, Daniel, 197. 
 Webster, Noah, 145. 
 Weems, Mason L., 343, 344. 
 Weld, H. H., 227. 
 Weld, Theodore D., 321. 
 West, Benjamin, 7, 67, 133, 
 
 134- 
 West Chester, Friends in, ix. 
 
 Westtown School, 91. 
 Wharton, Thomas I., 177, 
 357- 
 
 Whipple, E. P., 269, 283. 
 White, Bishop, 196, 359. 
 Whitefield, George, 35, 36, 
 
 37, 60. 
 
 Whitman, Walt, 41 1 et seq. 
 Whittier, Elizabeth, 330. 
 Whittier, John G., ix, 8, 16, 
 
 18, 292, 310, 315, 316 et 
 
 se<l-> 374, 4i6. 
 Willing, Thomas, 94, 100, 
 
 313. 
 Willis, N. P., 231, 266, 269, 
 
 289, 340, 377, 39i. 
 Wilmington, Friends in, ix. 
 Wilson, Alexander, 133, 139 
 
 et seq., 147, 153, 177, 2OI, 
 
 242. 
 Wilson, James, 47, 92, 94, 99, 
 
 100, 101, 103, 104. 
 Winthrop, Robert C., 361. 
 Wissahickon, 21, 22, 23, 26, 
 
 107, 254, 256. 
 Wistar, Caspar, 184, 198 et 
 
 seq. 
 Wistar Parties, 189, 196, 198 
 
 et seq., 356. 
 
 Wister, Mrs. A. L., 357. 
 Witt, Dr. Christopher, 22, 23. 
 Wood, George B., 200, 362, 
 
 363. 
 
 Wood, Mrs. Henry, 228. 
 Wood, William B., 177. 
 Woolman, John, 43, 45, 46, 
 
 112. 
 Wordsworth, William, 218, 
 
 266, 359, 392. 
 
INDEX 433 
 
 Yarnall, Ellis, 360. Zimmerman, Pietist leader, 21. 
 
 Yellow Fever in Philadelphia, Zinzendorf, Count von, 31, 
 
 in. 32. 
 Young, John Russell, 371. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 RENIWALS ONLY TEL. NO. 642-3405 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 29197419 
 
 ijf Q -. . 
 
 MAR ^1983 26 
 
 LD21A-60m-3, 70 
 A-32 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
 
 
 
vr 
 
 U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY