"Oh! that we could boast a reading public; and that we could say, with truth, that any other books than a few novels and poems and, generally, an elegant folio Bible, kept for ornament and family dignity, were to be found in half the splendid mansions of Philadelphia. But 'we can procure the book at the Philadelphia Library.' Yes, and the author of an excellent work must be left to beg and starve, and his wife and children must be doomed to penury because their natural protector was a literary man and an author, who conferred honour on his species. _Burn_ the Philadelphia Library, we say. Aye! _burn_ it! if this must be its influence, to deprive meritorious authors and enterprising artists of their sustenance and of the means of continuing their labours. Let those who cannot afford to purchase valuable works, who wish to peruse scarce tomes, the work of former generations, resort to the library; but let our rich merchants, our thrifty lawyers and the elegantly neat Quaker proprietors of the soil of this city, who have sons and daughters to be educated for usefulness and happiness, be ashamed to creep into the repository of rare, ancient and learned volumes, and ask in a soft voice of the librarian, '_Is Sanderson's Biography in?_' and to add, '_My daughters wish to see it._'" In 1822 the _Port Folio_ was reduced to making selections from the literary and political journals of Europe after the manner of _The Select Reviews_ which Ewing had edited. The final suspension of the _Port Folio_ was preceded by an international quarrel. John Neal was in England in 1834, and his offer to write for _Blackwood's Magazine_ in that year a series of sketches of "American writers" was accepted, and the first instalment appeared in _Blackwood's_ of September, 1824, page 305. The author could name only three writers "who would not pass just as readily for an English writer as for an American." The trio consisted of Paulding, Neal and Brown. The article was signed "X. Y. Z." and was written in the favorite _Blackwood's_ "bludgeon" style. Neal says of himself, "He is undeniably the most original writer that America has produced--thinks himself the cleverest fellow in America, and does not scruple to say so--he is in Europe now." When he approached the date of the _Port Folio_, Neal paid his compliments, displaying unmistakable malice, to John E. Hall. "Hall had the misfortune, some years ago, to fall acquainted with Mr. Thomas Moore, the poet, while Mr. Moore was 'trampoosing' over America. It spoilt poor Hall--turned his brain. He has done little or nothing since but make-believe about criticism, talk dawdle-poetry with a lisp, write irresistible verses under the name of 'Sedley' in his own magazine, twitter sentimentally about 'little Moore,' his 'dear little Moore'--puffing himself all the time anonymously in the newspaper, while he is damning himself, with unmistakable sincerity, twelve times a year in his own magazine. We do not think very highly of the