Francis Hopkinson and Witherspoon were among the earliest contributors. William Smith and Provost Ewing assisted in later numbers. Benjamin Rush and Sergeant and Hutchinson imparted to Paine, in their walks in State House yard the suggestions of "Common Sense," the pamphlet which "had a greater run than any other ever published in our country," and which, as Elkanah Watson said, "passed through the continent like an electric spark. It everywhere flashed conviction, and aroused a determined spirit, which resulted in the Declaration of Independence, upon the 4th of July ensuing. The name of Paine was precious to every Whig heart, and had resounded throughout Europe." A department of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_, called "Monthly Intelligence," reported the progress of the war, and furnished engravings of the battles, and of General Gage's lines. It was the first illustrated magazine published in the city. It was also the first that made more than one volume. The second volume began in January, 1776, and ended in July, 1776. The last number contained the Declaration of Independence. Phillis Wheatley, negro servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston, and daughter of an African slave, published her only volume of poems, dedicated to the Countess of Huntingdon, in 1773. The best, if the word may be applied to such performances, of her occasional poems, published after 1773, and which have never been collected into a volume, was a poem "To his Excellency Gen. Washington," in the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ of April, 1776: "Celestial choir! enthron'd in realms of light, Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I write." The poem was dated October 26, 1775, and sent with a letter to Washington, who replied (Feb. 2, 1776): "However undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents; in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the poem had I not been apprehensive that while I only meant to give the world this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. This, and nothing less, determined me not to give it place in the public prints." Another President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, with less urbanity, but more acumen, said of these verses that they were beneath criticism.[5]