.]

It is small wonder that Charles Brockden Brown was the foremost member
of the club. He had just claim. Thrusting aside criticism and advice,
ignoring the fact that he was an invalid facing the hardship that must
be overcome, he stood forth as the first writer in America to support
himself by his pen alone. The Bar, even though there was ever so fair
a prospect of his earning a living by it, could not attract him
against his natural desire. The writings of this determined genius
could not but be successful. Seeking no friends, but having many,
preferring the single companionship of Dr. Smith, with whom he lived,
Charles Brockden Brown wrote his novel, _Wieland_, and followed it in
the next three years with _Ormond_, _Edgar Huntley_, _Arthur Mervyn_,
_Jane Talbot_, and _Clara Howard_. Many a man of the pen, in
admiration of the iron will of this first American novelist, finds a
delight in thinking of him and in following his footsteps along Pine
Street and the lower end of Broadway to the Battery.

[Illustration: The Post Office

William St.]

In the days of bereavement following the death of Dr. Smith, the
companion of Brown's solitude was Joseph Dennie. Often in the
intervals of work they wandered through the quiet park, and many a
time they knelt together in the Brick Church, a square beyond the Park
Theatre, with the memory of their dead companion strong upon them. The
shadow of their friend's death was still over them when they parted,
and Joseph Dennie went to Philadelphia to start his magazine, _The
Portfolio_, which was to cause the name of "The Lay Preacher" to ring
through the land. He was in Philadelphia when Brown, in 1803, started
_The Literary Magazine and American Register_. But the next year he
was in New York again, occasionally joining in a literary partnership
in which there was a third member now, for Brown had married the
daughter of Dr. Linn, the Presbyterian minister. The years rolled on,
and Brown sought to fight off death by terrific work. But death only
clutched him the tighter. The strolls with Elizabeth, his
gentle-hearted wife, grew shorter and shorter and less frequent, until
they ceased altogether six years after his marriage, and another
landmark in the literary history of the city had gone down.

There was one stately and studious member of the Friendly Club who, it
is recorded, could seldom be persuaded to go to the Park Theatre
except on the "great nights." James Kent, then a P