For seven years no one attempted another magazine, and then in September, 1786, by a combination of publishers, _The Columbian Magazine, or Monthly Miscellany_, modelled upon the _Gentleman's Magazine_ and the _London Magazine_, began its career. It was the most ambitious enterprise of the kind that had yet been undertaken in America. The printing facilities were still very limited, and the subscription lists for all publications small. In 1786 there was one daily paper printed in Philadelphia, and but three or four weekly ones. In the same year four printers after much deliberation agreed to print a small edition of the New Testament. "Before the Revolution a spelling-book, impressed upon brown paper, with the interesting figure of Master Dilworth as a frontispiece, was the extent of American skill in printing and engraving." Improvements came very rapidly, and before the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century Barlow's _Columbiad_ was magnificently printed in Philadelphia, and the great undertakings of Rees' "Cyclopaedia" and Wilson's "Ornithology" entered upon. The monthly expense of printing the _Columbian_ was said to be L100, which was paid to mechanics and manufacturers of the United States. The magazine was inaugurated by Matthew Carey, T. Siddons, C. Talbot, W. Spotswood and J. Trenchard. Carey published, in the first number, "The Life of General Greene," whose portrait was the first in the volume. He also contributed "The Shipwreck," "A Philosophical Dream" (a vision of 1850), and "Hard Times." In the "Philosophical Dream" Carey made the first suggestion of a canal to unite the waters of the Delaware and Ohio. He withdrew from the _Columbian Magazine_ in December, 1786, finding that the quintuple team could not work well together. Charles Cist, another of the combination, was born at St. Petersburg, August 15, 1738, was graduated at Halle, and, upon coming to Philadelphia in 1773, entered into partnership with Melchior Steiner, with whom he published Paine's "Crisis"--"These are the times that try men's souls." He died in Philadelphia, December 2, 1805. John Trenchard became sole proprietor of the publication in January, 1789. He was an engraver by profession, having studied under James Smithers, and engraved most of the plates for the magazine. His son, Edward Trenchard, entered the navy, visited England and induced Gilbert Fox, then a 'graver's apprentice, to return with him to America. In this country Fox became an actor, and for him Joseph Hopkinson wrote "Hail Columbia." "The Foresters, an American Tale," was written for the _Columbian_ by Jeremy Belknap, who sought to portray humorously in it the history of the country and the formation of the Constitution. The _Columbian_ of May, 1789, gave an elaborate account of Washington's progress to New York, with the notable receptions at Gray's Ferry and at Trenton.