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A printing-press had been established at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1787, on which a weekly newspaper was printed, and, in 1793, Cincinnati had its first newspaper ; but no tokens of the cultivation of the Muses in the West were given, until about the year 1815, when The Western Spy occasionally published verses which were announced as original. Newspapers were then printed in Missouri, in Michigan, and in Indiana; but they were mere chronicles of news, giving infrequent attention even to local business affairs. Soldiers, hunters, and boatmen had among them many songs, descriptive of adventures incident to backwoods life, some of which were not destitute of poetic merit ; but they were known only around camp-fires, or on "broad-horns," and tradition has preserved none which demands place in these pages.

In August, 1819, the initial monthly magazine of the "West was issued at Lexington, Kentucky. There was then decided rivalry between Cincinnati and Lexington for literery pre-eminence. Rival institutions of learning exerted powerful influence wherever social circles existed, not wholly absorbed by imperative material necessities, and the effect of that influence was the development of an active literary spirit, which found expression in The Western Review, The Western Spy, and in The