pport the weight,
Are, each of them, a mighty State;
Thirteen and more the vista shows,
As to vaster length it grows;
For new States shall added be,
To the great confederacy,
And the mighty arch shall rise
From the cold Canadian skies,
And shall bend through heaven's broad way
To the noble Mexic Bay!
In the lofty arch are seen
Stars of lucid ray--thirteen!
When other States shall rise,
Other stars shall deck these skies,
There, in wakeful light to burn
O'er the hemisphere of morn."

As might be expected from Brackenridge's management, the magazine was
full of wit and scurrility. The January (1779) number contained
Witherspoon's delightful satire upon James Rivington, the Royal Printer,
of New York. It was a parody of Rivington's "Petition to Congress," and
was called "The Humble Representation and Earnest Supplication of J. R.,
Printer and Bookseller in New York--To his Excellency Henry Laurens,
Esq." And Dr. Witherspoon, who was President of Princeton College when
Brackenridge was a student there, supplied his former pupil during his
year's editorship with many a sly sarcasm and bit of grave philosophy.

"The Cornwalliad, an Heroic Comic Poem," was begun in March, 1779, and
was continued through several numbers. It described various incidents in
the British retreat to New York after the battles of Trenton and
Princeton.

In the January number was begun a series of articles under the title of
"The Cave of Vanhest," concerning which the following letter was written
October 2, 1779, by Mrs. Sarah Bache to Benjamin Franklin: "The
publisher of _The United States Magazine_ wrote to you some time ago to
desire you would send him some newspapers, and sent you some of his
first numbers. I suppose you never received them. I now send six, not
that I think you will find much entertainment in them, but you may have
heard that there was such a performance, and may like to see what it
is; besides, its want of entertainment may induce you to send something
that may make the poor man's magazine more useful and pleasing. Tell
Temple 'The Cave of Vanhest' is a very romantic description of Mr. and
Mrs. Blair's house and family; the young ladies that the traveller
describes and is in love with are children, one seven months younger
than our Benjamin, and the Venus just turned of five."

The most amusing episode in the history of the magazine was the quarrel
that arose between its editor and General