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United States (United States) (search for this): chapter 4
also one of her own, of which some articulate rumor has barely reached us dwellers by the sea. Our contributors, Graham's magazine, Feb., 1845. In this local development of literature, Philadelphia, the first seat of our government, naturally took the lead. The first monthly magazine, the first daily newspaper, the first religious magazine, the first religious weekly, the first penny paper, mathematical journal, juvenile magazine, and illustrated comic paper ever published in the United States had started on their career in Philadelphia; and that city produced, still more memorably, in Benjamin Franklin the first American writer to gain a permanent foreign reputation; and America's first imaginative writer and first professional writer of any description, in Charles Brockden Brown, the novelist. The first national capital. In 1774 the first and second Continental Congresses met in that city, which was then the largest in America. In 1776 Philadelphia sent forth the Decl
Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania, United States) (search for this): chapter 4
birth to the Declaration, the Federal Convention assembled and formulated the Federal Constitution. The new Constitution met particularly strong opposition in Pennsylvania, which was, however, the second state to ratify it. The first Congress under the Federal Constitution met in New York in March, 1789, and Washington was inauguat later, the trenchant arguments of the radical Thomas Paine, and the brilliant sallies of the Whig humorist, Francis Hopkinson. The Letters from a farmer in Pennsylvania were written by Dickinson in 1767-1768, and first printed in a Philadelphia newspaper. Later they were published in book form, with an introduction by Frankle boats then crossed twice a day from New York to Staten Island, and we discover also with some surprise that negroes were freely admitted to ride in stages in Pennsylvania, although they were liable, half a century later, to be ejected from street-cars. We learn also that there were negro free schools in Philadelphia. All this
Quaker (West Virginia, United States) (search for this): chapter 4
ould then have made the picture wholly unfaithful. One has only to read over the private letters of any educated family of that period to see that people did not then express themselves as they do now; that they were far more ornate in expression, more involved in statement, more impassioned in speech. Even a comparatively terse writer like Prescott, in composing Brown's biography only sixty years ago, shows traces of the earlier period. Instead of stating simply that his hero was a born Quaker, he says of him: He was descended from a highly respectable family, whose parents were of that estimable sect who came over with William Penn, to seek an asylum where they might worship their Creator unmolested, in the meek and humble spirit of their own faith. Prescott justly criticises Brown for saying, I was fraught with the apprehension that my life was endangered; or his brain seemed to swell beyond its continent; or I drew every bolt that appended to it; or on recovering from deliquiu
Rhode Island (Rhode Island, United States) (search for this): chapter 4
ablished institution long before Franklin gave it standing as literature. The first matter of any length to be printed in America was an almanac published in Cambridge in 1639; and when, nearly a century later (1733), Poor Richard began to appear, it could differ only in degree of excellence from many of its predecessors and contemporaries. Among its most formidable competitors were the Astronomical diary and almanac of Nathaniel Ames, a Massachusetts man, father of Fisher Ames, and the Rhode Island almanac of Franklin's brother James. These publications were respectively eight and five years older than the Philadelphia almanac; and they have much of the varied humor and wisdom which, touched with the subtle charm of personality that belonged to everything Franklin wrote, made Poor Richard so famous. The incidents of the last twenty-five years of Franklin's life cannot be more than touched upon here. His diplomatic career in England and France kept him away from America during
New Hampshire (New Hampshire, United States) (search for this): chapter 4
ary touch was earlier recognized. A certain proof of the cultivated character of Philadelphia, beyond New York or Boston, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, may be found in the remarkable magazine called The Portfolio, a weekly quarto which may fairly be described as the first essentially literary periodical in America. Joseph Denny, the editor, was a Bostonian and a Harvard graduate, and had edited newspapers in New England. He had been nominated for Congress and defeated in New Hampshire, and went to Philadelphia in 1799, as private secretary to Thomas Pickering, Secretary of State. The Portfolio was established at the beginning of 1801; was for five years a quarto and then for many years an octavo, following precisely the development which periodicals now sustain, substituting octavo for quarto, monthly for weekly, introducing illustrations and sometimes going down hill. He had for assistant writers John Quincy Adams, whose Letters from Silesia first appeared there, a
Department de Ville de Paris (France) (search for this): chapter 4
ed capital city, at least for literary purposes; and it had only a series of capitals, even politically. In the very middle of the nineteenth century, James Russell Lowell was compelled to write as follows: Our capital city, unlike London or Paris, is not a great central heart.... Boston, New York, Philadelphia, each has its literature, almost more distinct than those of the different dialects of Germany; and the young Queen of the West has also one of her own, of which some articulate rum is easy enough to criticise Brown, but he unquestionably had his day and served his purpose. He lived among a circle of Philadelphians who took habitually a tone like that of Cherbulieza charming heroine, who declares that for her the world ends at fifty leagues from Paris and she leaves all beyond to the indiscreet curiosity of geographers. He did not live to see the centre of statesmanship transferred in one direction, that of business in another, that of literature for a time in a third.
New England (United States) (search for this): chapter 4
ton, but his distinctive flavor belonged to a city where the literary touch was earlier recognized. A certain proof of the cultivated character of Philadelphia, beyond New York or Boston, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, may be found in the remarkable magazine called The Portfolio, a weekly quarto which may fairly be described as the first essentially literary periodical in America. Joseph Denny, the editor, was a Bostonian and a Harvard graduate, and had edited newspapers in New England. He had been nominated for Congress and defeated in New Hampshire, and went to Philadelphia in 1799, as private secretary to Thomas Pickering, Secretary of State. The Portfolio was established at the beginning of 1801; was for five years a quarto and then for many years an octavo, following precisely the development which periodicals now sustain, substituting octavo for quarto, monthly for weekly, introducing illustrations and sometimes going down hill. He had for assistant writers Joh
Scotia (search for this): chapter 4
al period, the remarkably effective work of the conservative John Dickinson, and, somewhat later, the trenchant arguments of the radical Thomas Paine, and the brilliant sallies of the Whig humorist, Francis Hopkinson. The Letters from a farmer in Pennsylvania were written by Dickinson in 1767-1768, and first printed in a Philadelphia newspaper. Later they were published in book form, with an introduction by Franklin, and had an astonishing popularity, not only in America, but in England, Ireland, and France. They were highly praised by such foreign critics as Voltaire and Burke, and their author was idolized at home until, as the Revolution approached, the public grew impatient of his temperate policy. He wished for constitutional liberty; they demanded independence. Thereafter probably the most influential pieces of Revolutionary prose, outside of documents, were Paine's Common sense, Hopkinson's The Battle of the Kegs, and Franklin's Examination relative to the Repeal of the S
Silesia (search for this): chapter 4
ress and defeated in New Hampshire, and went to Philadelphia in 1799, as private secretary to Thomas Pickering, Secretary of State. The Portfolio was established at the beginning of 1801; was for five years a quarto and then for many years an octavo, following precisely the development which periodicals now sustain, substituting octavo for quarto, monthly for weekly, introducing illustrations and sometimes going down hill. He had for assistant writers John Quincy Adams, whose Letters from Silesia first appeared there, after being published in London in 1800, and Charles Brockden Brown, the so-called Father of American fiction, of whom we shall presently speak. Reading these volumes now, one finds with surprise that they go beyond similar periodicals even at the present day, in the variety of sources whence their cultivation came. The Portfolio translates portions of Voltaire's Henriade; recognizes the fact that fresh intellectual activity has just begun in England; quotes early po
Bunker Hill (West Virginia, United States) (search for this): chapter 4
w my enemy, and I am, Yours, B. Franklin. On the third of October, Franklin again writes to Priestley: Tell our dear good friend, Dr. Price, who sometimes had his doubts and despondencies about our firmness, that America is determined and unanimous, --a very few Tories and placemen excepted, who will probably soon export themselves. Britain, at the expense of three million pounds, has killed one hundred and fifty Yankees this campaign — which is twenty thousand pounds a head; and at Bunker's Hill she gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost again by our taking post on Ploughed Hill. During the same time sixty thousand children have been born in America. From these data, his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all, and conquer our whole territory. The autobiography. There we see the literary touch, but it is still more clearly to be felt in his autobiography; as, for example, in the account of his first entry into Philad
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