e United States
Magazine_, in 1786.

Freneau was one of the first American poets to be read and appreciated
in England. At the time when Byron was making merry with the notion of
an American poet bearing the name of Timothy (Dwight), Campbell was
appropriating a line, "The hunter and the deer--a shade" from Freneau's
"Indian Burying Ground," and knitting it into "O'Connor's Child," and
Sir Walter Scott in "Marmion," by altering a single word, was
transparently concealing his theft from "The Heroes of Eutaw."

In December, 1779, the suspension of the magazine was announced, the
editor declaring in explanation that the publication was "undertaken at
a time when it was hoped the war would be of short continuance, and the
money, which had continued to depreciate, would become of proper value.
But these evils having continued to exist through the whole year, it has
been greatly difficult to carry on the publication; and we shall now be
under the necessity of suspending it for some time--until an established
peace and a fixed value of the money shall render it convenient or
possible to take it up again."

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 publi