Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v1.djvu/147

Rh recognizable as such. For instance, William Livingston's Independent Reflector, or Weekly Essays and also Andrew Oliver's Censor, are nothing more than single essays published serially. The Censor was published in weekly reply to “Mucius Scaevola” and other writers of the Spy. The very meaning of the word “magazine” in the eighteenth century makes classification difficult. It was literally a “storehouse,” being applied to literature as a “collection”; almost any assemblage of writings, especially if published serially, could be referred to as a “magazine.” Even the regular London magazines of the period were made up largely of excerpts from weekly reviews and periodicals, along with a summary of the news of the month. A department called “Poetical Essays” was usually more original, but on the whole both The Gentleman's Magazine and The London Magazine could be described fairly enough as collections of material from various sources.

There were a few magazines of this standard English type in America before the Revolution. Franklin, as usual, led the way, though it happened that his rival Andrew Bradford actually published the first magazine in the colonies. Franklin's soon followed, and these two little periodicals brought out the same month in Philadelphia, 1741, clearly indicate the attempt to transplant the English type, with some adaptations, for colonial readers. Franklin's title. The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America, shows his intention of giving a review of colonial news rather than of British. He did, as a matter of fact, use The Virginia Gazette and other weeklies for articles and verse, but he also took European items whenever he could get them. Both magazines were evidently premature, however, for Bradford's existed only three months, and Franklin's only six.

The next attempt at this sort of periodical came from Boston two years later. Jeremy Gridley was the able editor of The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle. It is an excellent piece of work for that date, both in general arrangement and in details of printing. There is very little original material, however, since the editor not only imitated The London Magazine very closely in plan, but boldly copied most of the essays, articles, and verse from it or from The Gentleman's Magazine. An occasional translation from the classics by a Harvard