number that I have seen contains
sixty pages.

In January, 1787, or one month after withdrawing from the management of
_The Columbian Magazine_, Matthew Carey published the first number of
_The American Museum, or Repository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive
Pieces, etc., Prose and Poetical_, which proved to be the first really
successful literary undertaking of the kind in America. General
Washington said of it in a letter dated June 25, 1788: "No more useful
literary plan has ever been undertaken in America." John Dickinson in
the same year also commended it. Governor Wm. Livingstone wrote: "It far
exceeds in my opinion every attempt of the kind which from any other
American press ever came into my hands." Among others who swelled the
chorus of praise were Governor Randolph of Virginia, Ezra Stiles of
Yale, Timothy Dwight, Francis Hopkinson and Provost Ewing. "Citizen"
Brissot, in his "New Travels in the United States" (1788), considered
Carey's _Museum_ to be "equal to the best periodical published in
Europe." The first number attracted great attention; Franklin furnished
the first article, "Consolation for America;" Benjamin Rush followed
with an "Address to the People of the United States",[8] the burden of
which was that the "Revolution is not over;" already the cry was going
up for civil service reform to deliver the country from the oppression
of politics. The edition--one thousand copies--was soon exhausted. "I
had not means," said Carey, "to reprint it. This was a very serious
injury, many persons who intended to subscribe declining because I could
not furnish them the whole of the numbers."

[8] Benjamin Rush's papers in the _Museum_ and in the _Columbian_ were
printed in book form, "Essays--Literary, Moral and Philosophical," 1798.

The work of editorship was no novelty to Matthew Carey. He had had full
and fiery experience in both Ireland and America. He was born in Ireland
in 1760, and became acquainted with Dr. Franklin in Paris while living
there to avoid prosecution at home. He was imprisoned for the
publication of the _Volunteer's Journal_ in Dublin. He arrived in
Philadelphia, November 15, 1784, and in the following January began to
publish the _Pennsylvania Evening Herald_, the first newspaper in the
United States to furnish accurate reports of legislative debates. He was
wretchedly poor, but Lafayette laid the foundation of his fortune by a
generous gift of four hundred dollars in notes of the Bank