The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 — John Shaqi
The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850Smyth, Albert Henry
History
The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850
Smyth, Albert Henry
American periodicals -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
[10] Dennie always remained faithful to his New England friends. T. G.
Fessenden had been one of the contributors to the _Farmer's Museum_;
when his "Terrible Tractoration" appeared, Dennie wrote to the _Port
Folio_, "To Connecticut men studious either of Hudibrastic or solemn
poetry, we look with eager eyes for the most successful specimens of the
inspiration of the Muse." Fessenden was the last to maintain the fame of
the "Hartford Wits;" and the glory of "McFingal," and "The Conquest of
Canaan" and the "Anarchiad," and the "Political Green house" and "The
Echo" faded with the failing of the _Farmer's Museum_.
The publisher became bankrupt in 1798, and Dennie pilgrimaged to
Philadelphia, without fortune and without a patron. His service under
Pickering was of short duration.
In connection with Asbury Dickins, a son of John Dickins of the
_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 ambrosianae_ 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_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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