[15] Abercrombie's prospectus for a new edition of Johnson's Works--"to be comprised in fourteen octavo volumes, with new designs and plates. Phila.: 1811"--is contained in the _Port Folio_, Vol. VI, p. 98.
In the "Philadelphia Pursuits" Davis wrote of Dennie:
"There's no clown from Walpole to Hell-Gate, But ribaldry from him has learned to prate."
"Such is our Dennie! high exalted name, Eager alike for dollars and for fame."
Two Philadelphians only escaped the sting of the adder:
"With Clifton, Nature's poet, who shall vie? Though low he lies, his works shall never die. And Linn, distinguish'd for his moral lays, Shall, by his strain, Columbia's triumph raise."
"The Sketches in Verse" was magnificently printed for C. and A. Conrad by Smith and Maxwell in 1810.
"Where Schuylkill o'er his rocky bed Roars, like a bull in battle"--
"Our American names, although some of them are truly savage, are not much worse than many of those with which we might be furnished by other nations in abundance; and Schuylkill would not have offended the ears of Boileau more than the Whal and the Leck, the Issel and the Zuiderzee."
THOMAS I. WHARTON (1791-1856), a distinguished Philadelphia lawyer, was a frequent contributor, and for a time was editor of the _Analectic Magazine_.
CHARLES J. INGERSOLL, the author of "Inchiquin the Jesuit's Letters on American Literature and Politics," was born in Philadelphia, October 3, 1782, and died there May 14, 1862. His first boyish composition is in the _Port Folio_ of October 24, 1801. It is entitled "Chiomara," and is introduced by the editor as the work of a "youth ambitious of the fame of Chatterton." Chiomara is a Gaul, who kills a Roman in defence of her honor.
EDWARD INGERSOLL, a younger brother of Charles, wrote poems for the _Port Folio_ on the events of the times, and named them "Horace in Philadelphia." All his poems, of whatever nature, were signed "Horace."
CONDY RAGUET (1784-1842) published in the _Port Folio_ some interesting letters on the "Massacre of St. Domingo." He had gone as supercargo to Hayti, and lived there during the exciting scenes of the Revolution. He also contributed numerous papers to the _Port Folio_ upon "Free Trade."
JOHN SANDERSON (1783-1844) was professor of Greek and Latin in the Philadelphia Central High School. He wrote, at the suggestion of Theodore Hook, a capital volume of Parisian sketches, called the "American in Paris," which Jules Janin translated into French. Portions of his "American in London" appeared in the _Knickerbocker Magazine_. He successfully opposed, in a pamphlet signed "Riberjot," the plan of excluding the classical languages from Girard College. He was an intimate friend of John E. Hall, and contributed to the _Port Folio_.