he merit of their new-born lays,
Seek for a patron, follow fleeting fame,
And beg the slut may raise their hidden name."

The Philadelphia magazines, from Franklin's to Graham's, furnished ample
opportunities for "young blushing writers eager for the bays." Their
articles, it is true, were often a kind of yeasty collection of fond and
winnowed opinions, but among these shallow fopperies there would at
times be heard a strain of higher mood. Nor is the story of these
magazines altogether without its pathos. American writers, after the
Revolution which lost England her colonies, felt themselves to be under
the opprobrium of the literary world. They felt keenly the sneers of
English men-of-letters, and winced under injustice and invective that
they were not strong enough to resent. The insolence of British
travellers was especially provoking. J. N. Williams, a Philadelphian,
stung by some offensive criticism by a wandering Englishman, wrote,
"America looked not for a spy upon the sanctity of her household gods in
the stranger that sat within her gates; she scarce supposed that the
hand of a clumsy servant like the claws of the harpies could utterly mar
and defile the feast which honest hospitality had provided."

The _Port Folio_, in 1810, was moved indignantly to declare that
foreign critics grounded their strictures "upon the tales of some
miserable reptiles who, after having abused the hospitality and patience
of this country, levy a tax from their own by disseminating a vile mass
of falsehood and nonsense under the denomination of Travels through the
United States."

Sydney Smith waved American literature contemptuously aside in the
_Edinburgh Review_. _The Quarterly_ was brutal in its attacks upon timid
transatlantic books. William Godwin reproached American ignorance, and
proceeded to locate Philadelphia upon the Chesapeake Bay. No wonder that
the _Port Folio_ exclaimed in 1810, "The fastidious arrogance with which
the reviewers and magazine makers of Great Britain treat the genius and
intellect of this country is equalled by nothing but their profound
ignorance of its situation."

The insolence of Great Britain affected American writers in two ways.
Some it stung into violent hatred or sullen antagonism, others it
coerced into timid imitation and servility. Upon Dennie and his
associates it had the latter effect, and the _Port Folio_ vigorously
resisted all "Americanisms" in politics and in letters, and soug