length of Webbe's pedantic prospectus. He claims that the idea of the magazine had long been in his mind, and that Webbe had stolen his plans. Before he had divulged the scheme to Webbe he had proceeded so far in the matter as to choose his writers and to buy his small type.

Webbe wrote a wrathful reply in the Mercury of November 13, and continued it under the title of "The Detection" through three numbers. He admitted that Franklin did communicate to him his desire to print a magazine, and asked him to compose it. But this did not restrain him from publishing at any other press without Mr. Franklin's leave. In the third number of "The Detection," Webbe accused Franklin of using his place of Postmaster to shut the Mercury out of the post, and of refusing to allow the riders to carry it. Up to this point Franklin had made no reply to Webbe's abuse, but upon this new attack he dropped the advertisement of the magazine and put a letter in its stead in the Gazette of December 11. He acknowledged it to be true that the riders did not carry Bradford's Mercury, but explained that the Postmaster-General, Colonel Spotswood, had forbidden it because Mr. Bradford had refused to settle his accounts as late Postmaster at Philadelphia.

Webbe had the last word in the controversy in a reply to this letter (Mercury, December 18), in which he showed that Franklin had not complied with the order of Colonel Spotswood until the personal letters appeared in the Mercury.

In January of the following year Andrew Bradford published The American Magazine; or a Monthly View of the Political State of the British Colonies.

Three days later Franklin issued The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America.

Three numbers only of Bradford's periodical appeared, and only one copy is known to exist. It is lodged in the New York Historical Society.

Franklin's magazine contained parliamentary proceedings, extracts from sermons, a bit of verse of more than Franklinian foulness, rhymes eulogizing Gilbert Tennent, and a manual of arms. The title-page wore the coronet and plumes of the Prince of Wales. Franklin ridiculed his rival's magazine in doggerel verse; his own he made no mention of in his autobiography. Its publication ceased in June, 1741.

The General Magazine had given accounts of the excited discussion that followed the visits paid to the colonies by George Whitefield. Tens of thousands listened to the impressive sermons of the eloquent divine, delivered from the balcony of the courthouse, which stood then on High Street, in the centre of the city. There Franklin and Shippen and Lawrence and Maddox might daily be seen, and there Benjamin Chew and Tench Francis and John Ross might daily be heard. From that balcony John Penn, freshly arrived from England, "showed himself to his anxious and expectant people." One block east of the ancient courthouse was the London Coffee-house, and there, too, were the publishing houses of those days. Directly opposite to the Coffee-house, on the north side of High Street, was the shop of the famous bookseller from London, James Rivington, whose father in 1741 published Richardson's "Pamela," and supplied six editions of it in a twelvemonth. Immediately to the west was Robert Aitken, who published the Pennsylvania Magazine and the first English Bible in America. And hither, to the old Coffee-house, in 1754, William Bradford removed his famous hereditary press, and three years later printed the third Philadelphia magazine.

The first William Bradford arrived in Philadelphia in 1685, and brought with him the second printing press that was set up in British North America. Upon it, in the following year, he printed the first Middle Colony publication, the "Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense." His son, Andrew Sowle, named after a London printer of Friends' books, to whom the father had been apprenticed, continued the business, and from 1712 to 1723 was the only printer in Pennsylvania. From his press, at the sign of the Bible, issued the first American magazine. Andrew's nephew, William Bradford, grandson of the first William, transferred the business to the London Coffee-house, and in October, 1757, published the first number of "The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies. By a Society of Gentlemen. Printed and sold by William Bradford." The policy of the new magazine was to support the cause of the crown against France, and the Penns against Franklin and the Friends.

The French and Indian war brought the magazine into existence. "That war," says the editor in his preface, "has rendered this country at length the object of a very general attention, and it seems now become as much the mode among those who would be useful or conspicuous in the state, to seek an acquaintance with the affairs of these colonies, their constitutions, interests and commerce, as it had been before, to look upon such matters as things of inferior or secondary consideration." The editor further relates the origin of the enterprise: "It was proposed by some booksellers and others in London, soon after the commencement of the present war, to some persons in this city who were thought to have abilities and leisure for the work, to undertake a monthly magazine for the colonies, offering at the same time to procure considerable encouragement for it in all parts of Great Britain and Ireland.

"The persons to whom the proposal was made, approved of the design, but gave for answer, that if it was to be a work of general use for all the British colonies, and not confined to the affairs of a few particular ones, it could not be carried on without establishing an extensive correspondence with men of leisure and learning in all parts of America, which would require some time and a considerable expense. This, however, has at length been happily effected, and proper persons are now engaged in the design, not only in all the different governments on this continent, but likewise in most of the West India Islands."

At the head of each issue of the magazine is a vignette in which the French and English treatment of the Indian are contrasted. In the middle of the picture an Indian leans upon his gun; on the left is a Briton reading from the Bible, beneath his arm is a roll of cloth, symbolizing the dress and manufactures of civilized life; on the right is a Frenchman, extravagantly dressed, offering to the savage a tomahawk and purse of gold. The vignette has the inferior motto: Prævalebit æquior, and the title-page the further legend: Veritatis cultores, Fraudis inimici.

The first number (October, 1757) gave a variety of pleasing and extraordinary information to curious readers: Indians, "broods of French savages;" earthquakes, St. Helmo's fire, phosphorescence, aurora borealis, mermen and mermaids, sea-snakes, krakens, etc., were jostled together in charming confusion.

The editor of the new magazine was the Rev. William Smith, first provost of the College of Philadelphia. He was born near Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1727, and was invited to take charge of the Seminary of Philadelphia in 1752. His personality made the magazine a very fair representative of the culture and refinement of Philadelphia society, when already through the influence of the college and library the city was becoming "the Athens of America," as, at a later date, it was frequently called.

Smith published in eight successive numbers of the magazine a series of papers called "The Hermit," and signed "Theodore." He