_Methodist Magazine_, he began, January 3, 1801, the publication of the
_Port Folio_, by Oliver Oldschool, Esq., the best of Philadelphia
magazines, which he continued to edit until his death, in 1812. Dennie's
strong personality and engaging qualities of mind and heart attracted
attention, and made him many friends. With genuine editorial tact and
skill he drew to himself all the literary ability of the city, which was
then "the largest and most literary and most intellectually accomplished
city in the Union," to quote the words of a later editor of the _Port
Folio_, Dr. Charles Caldwell. There was scarcely a more picturesque
figure in Philadelphia in the first decade of this century than that
presented by the editor of the _Port Folio_. It would be necessary to go
to London and to Oliver Goldsmith to find another to outshine this
Oliver Oldschool as Buckingham saw him slipping along Chestnut Street to
his office "in a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen small-clothes,
white silk stockings and pumps, fastened with silver buckles which
covered at least half the foot from the instep to the toe." Dennie was
but 44 years of age when he died; Buckingham says he was "a premature
victim to social indulgence." Those were the days of hard drinking and
of high thinking. Nothing so frugal as a cup of Madeira and a cold
capon's leg would satisfy Dennie's epicurean soul. He was a social
creature, and those _noctes ambrosianæ_ of the Tuesday Club when Tom
Moore, who celebrated the club in his eighth epistle, or some other
lover of Anacreon was the guest, were often kept up until it was too
late to go to bed. Wine songs and Martial-like epigrams of pointed
indecencies are correspondingly brisk and plentiful in the pages of the
_Port Folio_.
In the introduction to the magazine Dennie stated that the word _Port
Folio_ was not to be found in Johnson's Dictionary, and proceeded to
define it as "a portable repository for fugitive papers." "Editors," he
continued, slyly satirizing his contemporaries, "ambitious of sonorous
or brilliant titles, frequently select a name not intimately connected
with the nature of their work. We hear of the _Mirror_ and the _Aurora_;
but what relation has a literary essay with a _polished plane of glass_,
or what has politics to do with the _morning_?[11]" The editor began with
a "lilliputian page" because he was warned by "the waywardness of the
time." "A waywardness which," he explains, "alludes to our indifference
to elegant letters, the acrimony of our party bickerings, and to the
universal eagerness for political texts and their _commentary_.... Amid
such 'wild uproar' the gentle voice of the Muse is scarcely audible." In
these early years of the century literature was wretchedly paid. John
Davis, the vivacious English writer of travels, offered, in 1801, two
novels to any bookseller in the country who would publish them, on the
condition of receiving fifty copies. The booksellers of New York could
not, he said, undertake them, for they were dead of the fever. It is
interesting to find Dennie writing in his introduction, "Literary
industry, usefully employed, has a sort of draught upon the bank of
opulence, and has the right of entry into the mansion of every
Mæcenas.... Authors far elevated above the mire of low avarice have
thought it debasement to make literature common and cheap."
[11] The editor of the _Aurora_ retorted in kind, and dubbed the _Port
Folio_ "Portable Foolery."
The _Port Folio_ at once sprang into popular favor. In the life of
Josiah Quincy, by his son, we read, "The _Port Folio_ was very far
superior in literary ability to any magazine or periodical ever before
attempted in this country. Indeed, it was no whit behind the best
English magazines of that day, and would bear no unfavorable comparison
with those of the present time on either side of the water. Its
influence was greatly beneficial in raising the standard of literary
taste in this country, and in creating a demand for a higher order of
periodical literature and for more exact and careful editorship."
Dennie was a daring and devoted lover of England. He had no patience
with American innovations that, as it seemed to him, were certain to
lose history by being severed from the traditions of England. When the
doctrine of social equality was flaunted before him, or the glittering
clauses of the Declaration of Independence were quoted to him, his
indignation forgot all discretion. He was soon bandying hot words with
the _Aurora_, and marking with his scorn every new phase of Americanism.
Speaking in his editorial person he declared:
"To gratify the malignancy of fanatics he will not asperse the
Government or the Church, the laws or the literature of England.
Remembering that we are _at peace_ with that power--that the most
wholesome portions of our polity are modelled from hers--that we kneel
at shrines and speak a language common to both, he will not flagitiously
and foolishly advert to ancient animosities, nor with rash hand attempt
to hurl the brand of discord between the nations." In the same
connection he attacks Gallic philosophy and the equality of man, the
latter of which he styles an "execrable delusion of hair-brained
philosophy." Others might speak of "the _Republic_ of letters;" with
Dennie it was the _Monarchy_ of letters. Several articles ran through
the _Port Folio_ of 1801 on the sentiment and style of the Declaration
of Independence, characterizing that famous document as a "false and
flatulent and foolish paper." In the same volume (page 215) Dennie,
offended by the introduction of some new Americanism into politics,
writes:
"Unsatisfied with _acting_ like fools, men begin to enlarge their scheme
and talk and write from the vocabulary of folly. All this, however,
quadrates with the character of a good republican; as he hates England,
why not murder _English_?" In April, 1803, Dennie denounced Democratic
Government, and prophesied that of it would come "civil war, desolation
and anarchy." His pranks had now become too broad to bear with, and on
the Fourth of July this latest publication of his was condemned as "an
inflammatory and seditious libel," and a bill of indictment was found.
The case was tried in November, 1805, Ingersoll and Hopkinson appearing
for the defence. The verdict reached was "not guilty," and Mr. Joseph
Dennie had the triumphant pleasure the next week in his report of the
case to define democracy for the benefit of his enemies as "a fiend more
horrible than any that the imagination of the classical poets ever
conjured up from the vasty deep of their Pagan Hell."
When Dennie learned that a certain Noah Webster was to publish "A
Columbian Dictionary" containing "American corrections of the English
language," he had a few suggestions to offer. The Columbian language he
understood to be an elegant dialect of the English, but, he went on,
"there is one remark which I would wish with deference to submit to our
great lexicographer before I finish this paper. As his dictionary, I
understand, is to be the dictionary of the vulgar tongue in New England,
would it not be better to prefix to it the epithet _Cabotian_ instead of
Columbian? Sebastian Cabot first discovered these Eastern States, and
ought not to be robbed of the honor of giving his name to them. I would,
therefore, propose calling New England Cabotia, the other States
America, and the Southern continent Columbia." He then proposed, in
irony, a list of a few "Cabotian words"--happify, gunning, belittle,
quiddle, composuist, sot, etc. _Lengthy_ he stigmatizes as "a foolish,
flat, unauthorized, unmusical Indian word".[12] In conclusion (_Port
Folio_, I, page 370), "let then the projected volume of _foul and
unclean_ things bear his own Christian name and be called NOAH'S ARK!"
[12] "Lengthy" is the American for long. It is frequently used by the
_classical_ writers of the New World.--(John Davis' "Travels in the
United States," page 126.)
We meet the first notice of Benjamin West, as a boy of 19 years, in
Bradford's second _American Magazine_. In the first volume of the _Port
Folio_ we find the first of a long series of sketches in praise of
West's genius and generosity. "It is a melancholy and miraculous
circumstance," the satirical writer begins, "that this American artist,
after experiencing the good fortune to be born and educated in
Pennsylvania, should sullenly retreat to England and exchange the
glorious privileges of our happy, tranquil and rising Republic for the
smoke and servility of the city of London. It is perfectly inexplicable
that he should barter citizenship for knighthood, that he should receive
a king's money, and, more provoking still, be soothed by regal praise.
What are titles, honours and gold to an independent Republican who,
remaining at home, might have had the noblest and amplest opportunities
of _giving away_ as many pictures as he pleased."
It is a singular history, that of the boy from Chester County, whom
Byron called--
The dotard West,
Europe's worst daub, and poor England's best.
The Archbishop of York, for whom he had painted his "Agrippina landing
with the Ashes of Germanicus," presented the young American to George
III. "The Departure of Regulus from Rome" won for him the royal favor.
In 1768 he was one of the founders of the Royal Academy, and in 1792 he
succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as President of that institution.
The _Port Folio_ is full of accounts of "Christ Healing the Sick,"
West's generous gift to the Pennsylvania Hospital, and of his "Death on
the Pale Horse," and his "Paul and Barnabas" in the Pennsylvania
Academy.
In a letter from West to Charles Willson Peale, dated November 3, 1809,
and published in the _Port Folio_ of the following year, reference is
made to a young gentleman, studying under his directions, "whose talents
only want time to mature them to excellence," and West desires his
friends in Philadelphia to procure for the young man the means of
studying another year. That rising artist, who had early felt the
generous assistance of Benjamin West, was Thomas Sully, who had the
honor, in 1837-8, of painting the scene of Queen Victoria's coronation,
and his daughter, to save her Majesty fatigue, stood for her, wearing
the royal robes.
John Trumbull, son of "Brother Jonathan" the patriot, who painted the
famous "Declaration of Independence," was imprisoned for treason in
London, and was only released by Benjamin West, to whom he had been
introduced by Franklin, becoming his surety. Gilbert Stuart, greatest of
American portrait painters, who has graven the face of Washington upon
our memories, learned his art and received his earliest encouragement in
the English home of Benjamin West. It is a matter of interesting and
singular memory that a Boston boy, John Singleton Copley, sent
anonymously to West, in 1760, a portrait which at once attracted
attention. It was "The Boy and the Flying Squirrel," the boy
representing Copley's half-brother, Henry Pelham. Through West's
influence the picture was exhibited at Somerset House. Through West
again, Copley was elected a fellow of the Society of Artists of Great
Britain. When he crossed the ocean to make his home near West, he took
with him his Boston-born son, John Singleton, Jr., who became in 1827,
the year that the _Port Folio_ suspended, Lord Chancellor of England,
and was raised to the peerage as Baron Lyndhurst. To Lyndhurst, as the
greatest of orators, Lord Lytton dedicated his _St. Stephen's_.
The leading article of the _Port Folio_ of May 28, 1803, is devoted to
young Leigh Hunt, and treats him as an American poet, and assures the
public that he "is a deserving object of patronage." Again, in June 11,
1803, some sonnets and odes are quoted from Hunt's _Juvenilia_, Hunt
being then a lad of 19 years, and the author is said to be a "blossom
from our own garden." Although the editor lays claim to Leigh Hunt as a
Philadelphian and to his works as American, he is advised to abide in
London: "Let him remain in London, 'the metropolis of the civilized
world,' and remember with the judicious Sancho that St. Peter is very
well at Rome.... It affords the editor the purest pleasure to have it in
his power to advance the claims of a child of genius, a nephew of Sir
Benjamin West, an honor to that country from which he is descended and
to that which protects him."
Isaac Hunt, the father of the author of "The Story of Rimini," and
Benjamin West married sisters, daughters of Stephen Shewell, merchant,
in Philadelphia. Leigh Hunt, in 1810, writing in the _Monthly Mirror_,
gave an eloquent and tender description of his mother, Mary Shewell,
which was reprinted in the _Analectic Magazine_ of Philadelphia, in
1814. "Here, indeed," he exclaimed, "I could enlarge both seriously and
proudly; for if any one circumstance of my life could give me cause for
boasting, it would be that of having had such a mother. She was indeed a
mother in every exalted sense of the word, in piety, in sound teaching,
in patient care, in spotless example." The father, Isaac Hunt, came to
Philadelphia from the Barbadoes, was graduated at the College of
Philadelphia, read law in the city, and was admitted to the bar in 1765.
He was an uncompromising Tory. It is said that on one occasion he
pointed out to a bookseller a volume of reports of trials for high
treason as a proper book for John Adams to read. Alexander Graydon, one
of the faithful contributors to the _Port Folio_, in his "Memoirs of a
Life Chiefly Passed in Pennsylvania," relates the following incident
which, no doubt, led to the accident of Leigh Hunt's birth in England,
and to the loss of "Abou ben Adhem" to America: "A few days after the
carting of Mr. Kearsley, Mr. Isaac Hunt, the attorney, was treated in
the same manner, but he managed the matter much better than his
precursor. Instead of braving his conductors, like the Doctor, Mr. Hunt
was a pattern of meekness and humility; and at every halt that was made
he rose and expressed his acknowledgments to the crowd for their
forbearance and civility. After a parade of an hour or two, he was set
down at his own door, as uninjured in body as in mind. He soon after
removed to one of the islands, if I mistake not, to Barbadoes, where, it
is understood, he took orders."
Leigh Hunt was not the only English poet of far-shining fame who was of
American origin. Percy Bysshe Shelley was the grandson of a quack doctor
in Newark, N. J., who, according to a local tradition, married the widow
of a New York miller. Fitz-Greene Halleck lived and died in an old house
in Guilford, Connecticut, built upon ground that had belonged to Bysshe
Shelley, before he went to England and became master of Castle Goring.
Many another great life in England was bound with strands of intimate
connection to the history of America. John Keats's brother George made
his home in Kentucky, and his descendants are still residents of
Philadelphia. Tench Francis, the merchant, who was for many years the
agent for the Penns in their domain, and who was the first cashier of
the Bank of North America, was a cousin of Sir Philip Francis, the
reputed author of the "Junius" letters. Sir Philip wrote to Tench's
brother, Turbott, whom he called, familiarly, "Tubby:" "At present I am
bound to the Ganges, but who knows whether I may not end my days on the
banks of the Ohio? It gives me great comfort to reflect that I have
relatives, who are honest fellows, in almost every part of the world. In
America the name of Francis flourishes. I don't like to think of the
quantity of salt water between us. If it were claret I would drink my
way to America." The name of Francis certainly flourishes in
Philadelphia. The intricate little settlement of Francisville, within
the city, perpetuates the name of the family.
It has always been asserted and believed that Gulian Crommelin
Verplanck, of New York, was the first American editor of Shakespeare. A
few jottings from the _Port Folio_ will show that he has too rashly been
placed upon the pinnacle, and that the honor justly belongs to Joseph
Dennie.
The _Port Folio_ of February 11, 1804 (p. 46) advertises "the first
complete edition of Shakespeare in this country, from the text of the
best editors of Shakespeare. To be published by Hugh Maxwell and Thomas
S. Manning." No editor's name is mentioned, but in the following month
(March 10, 1804) Dennie tells the whole story: "The editor, having, at
the request of his publisher, undertaken to superintend a new edition of
the Plays of Shakespeare, is particularly desirous of inspecting the
first folio edition. This is probably very scarce, and may be found only
in the cabinet of some distant virtuoso. But the owner of this rare book
will be very gratefully thanked if the editor can have permission to
consult it for a short season." Later on (April 14, p. 119) Dennie
confesses some further "wants:" "During some weeks in which the editor
has been engaged in researches respecting the text of Shakespeare he
has had frequent occasion to acknowledge the kindness of many literary
gentlemen who have directed his attention to many books auxiliary to his
labors. But notwithstanding his own inquisitiveness and the aid of
others, he still has not had the good fortune to find the following, for
the whole or any one of which he will be particularly obliged:--'Remarks
on Shakespeare's Tempest,' 'An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir
John Falstaff, by Mr. Maurice Morgan, 8 vo, 1777,'" etc., etc.
After this there can be no doubt that the useful notes to the 1807
edition, signed "J. D.," are from the pen of Joseph Dennie. Although he
edited but one volume, he is the first American editor, and the honors
are transferred from New York to Philadelphia.
Charles Brockden Brown was the first man in America to cultivate
literature as a profession; Dennie was the second. When inaugurating the
_Port Folio_ he wrote of himself: "He has long been urged by a sober
wish, or, if the sneering reader will have it so, he has long been
deluded by the visionary whim, of making literature the handmaid of
fortune, or at least of securing something like independence, by
exertion, as a man of letters."
Of course Dennie and his colleagues who drew their poetry from Pope and
their prose from Addison had no sympathy with the new romantic poetry
that at the time of the birth of the _Port Folio_ was issuing from the
English Lakes. "William Wordsworth" said the _Port Folio_ of 1809
"stands among the foremost of those English bards who have mistaken
silliness for simplicity, and, with a false and affected taste, filled
their papers with the language of children and clowns" (_P. F._, Vol.
VII, p. 256).
The first American edition of Wordsworth was published in Philadelphia
in 1802. It is exceedingly rare, and bears the following imprint:
LYRICAL BALLADS, | with | other poems: | In Two Volumes. | By W.
WORDSWORTH. | [Motto] Quam nihil ad genium, papiniane, tuum! | Vol. I. |
From the London Second Edition. | PHILADELPHIA: | _Printed and sold by
James Humphreys,--At the N. W. Corner of Walnut and Dock street, 1802._
2 _vols._ 120. VOL. I, _pp._ xxii-159. VOL. II, _pp._ 172.
The earliest notice of John Howard Payne is in the _Port Folio_, new
series, Vol. I, p. 101 (1806). Payne was then a lad of fourteen years,
and already editor of the _Thespian Mirror_ in New York.
The _Port Folio_, new series, Vol. II, p. 421, contains an account of
the first dramatic performance composed in North Carolina, "NOLENS
VOLENS; or, _The Biter Bit_," written by Everard Hall, a gentleman of
North Carolina.
Dennie died January 7, 1812, and was buried in St. Peter's churchyard. A
monument was erected to him, and the inscription carved upon it, which
errs only in the place of his nativity, was written by his friend, John
Quincy Adams:
Joseph Dennie,
Born at Lexington, Massachusetts,
August 30, 1768;
Died at Philadelphia, January 7, 1812;
Endowed with talents 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.
Those friends have erected this tribute of their
Affection to his memory;
To the mercies of that God is their resort
For themselves and for him.
MDCCCXIX.
John Quincy Adams, who wrote the lines upon the monument, was an old and
valued friend of Dennie's, and one of the earliest contributors to the
_Port Folio_.
His "Tour Through Silesia," afterward reprinted in London in two octavo
volumes, first appeared in the _Port Folio_ in 1801. He also contributed
to the first number of the magazine a version of the thirteenth satire
of Juvenal, and intended to continue the translation of Juvenal, but
abandoned the project when Gifford's work was announced. A brother of
John Quincy Adams, who was a resident of Philadelphia, had been a
fellow-student with Dennie at Harvard.
The obituary notice of Dennie in the _Port Folio_ of February, 1812, did
not satisfy his friends. His life was related at greater length,
accompanied by a silhouette, in May, 1816 (_Port Folio_, page 361). This
time the affection and admiration for the man found right expression. It
was said that Dennie had "erected the first temple to the muses on his
natal shore;" and "when the Muse of History shall hereafter narrate the
story of our rapid progress from ignorance, poverty and feebleness, to
knowledge, splendor and strength, the name of Dennie will be inscribed
among the most worthy of those who laboured to procure these invaluable
blessings" (page 170).
A complete list of the contributors to the _Port Folio_ would be the
history of literature in Philadelphia for the first quarter of this
century. The articles were almost never signed, and while the thin
disguises of assumed names are in most cases easily penetrable, some
that occur infrequently are only identified with much difficulty.
The last editor of the _Port Folio_, Mr. John E. Hall, published in 1826
"The Philadelphia Souvenir, a collection of fugitive pieces from the
Philadelphia press, with biographical and explanatory notes." The book
was intended to be "a sort of _cairn_ to the memory of the circle of
friends which Mr. Moore has commemorated in his immortal poems." The
commemoration to which Mr. Hall refers is found in Moore's "eighth
epistle," addressed "To the Honourable W. R. Spencer:"
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.
Not with more joy the lonely exile scann'd
The writing traced upon the desert sand,
Where his lone breast but little hop'd to find
One trace of life, one stamp of human kind,
Than did I hail the pure, th' enlightened zeal,
The strength to reason and the warmth to feel,
The manly polish and the illumin'd taste,
Which,--'mid the melancholy, heartless waste
My foot has travers'd,--oh you sacred few!
I found by Delaware's green banks with you.
The only pleasant memories of America that Thomas Moore carried back
with him to England were of the "nights of mirth and mind" spent "where
Schuylkill winds his way through banks of flowers." He was in
Philadelphia in the autumn of 1804, and was lionized by the _Port
Folio_; the eighth epistle in the "Poems Relating to America," from
which the lines above are quoted, was written at Buffalo, and it was
from Buffalo also that Moore sent to Dennie the manuscript of the
beautiful "Lines on Leaving Philadelphia," which was published in the
_Port Folio_ of August 31, 1805 (Vol. V, p. 271), and reprinted in
Brockden Brown's _Literary Magazine_, January, 1806 (Vol. III, p. 27).
LINES WRITTEN ON LEAVING PHILADELPHIA.
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 gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh.
O Nature, though blessed and bright are thy rays,
O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown,
Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays
In a smile from the heart that is fondly our own!
Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain
Unblest by the smile that he languished to meet;
Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again,
Till the threshold of home had been prest by his feet.
But the lays of his boyhood had stol'n to their ear,
And they lov'd what they knew of so humble a name;
And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear,
That they found in his heart something better than fame.
Nor did woman--O woman! whose form and whose soul
Are the spell and the light of each path we pursue;
Whether sunn'd in the tropics or chill'd at the pole,
If a woman be there, there is happiness too.
Nor did she her enamouring magic deny,--
That magic his heart had relinquished so long,--
Like eyes he had loved was _her_ eloquent eye,
Like them did it soften and weep at his song.
Oh, blest be the tear, and in memory oft
May its sparkle be shed o'er the wanderer's dream;
Thrice blest be that eye, and may passion as soft,
As free from a pang, ever mellow its beam!
The stranger is gone--but he will not forget,
When at home he shall talk of the toils he has known,
To tell with a sigh what endearments he met,
As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone.
It is interesting to remember that the woman in the poem,