ad the good fortune to find the following, for
the whole or any one of which he will be particularly obliged:--'Remarks
on Shakespeare's Tempest,' 'An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir
John Falstaff, by Mr. Maurice Morgan, 8 vo, 1777,'" etc., etc.

After this there can be no doubt that the useful notes to the 1807
edition, signed "J. D.," are from the pen of Joseph Dennie. Although he
edited but one volume, he is the first American editor, and the honors
are transferred from New York to Philadelphia.

Charles Brockden Brown was the first man in America to cultivate
literature as a profession; Dennie was the second. When inaugurating the
_Port Folio_ he wrote of himself: "He has long been urged by a sober
wish, or, if the sneering reader will have it so, he has long been
deluded by the visionary whim, of making literature the handmaid of
fortune, or at least of securing something like independence, by
exertion, as a man of letters."

Of course Dennie and his colleagues who drew their poetry from Pope and
their prose from Addison had no sympathy with the new romantic poetry
that at the time of the birth of the _Port Folio_ was issuing from the
English Lakes. "William Wordsworth" said the _Port Folio_ of 1809
"stands among the foremost of those English bards who have mistaken
silliness for simplicity, and, with a false and affected taste, filled
their papers with the language of children and clowns" (_P. F._, Vol.
VII, p. 256).

The first American edition of Wordsworth was published in Philadelphia
in 1802. It is exceedingly rare, and bears the following imprint:

LYRICAL BALLADS, | with | other poems: | In Two Volumes. | By W.
WORDSWORTH. | [Motto] Quam nihil ad genium, papiniane, tuum! | Vol. I. |
From the London Second Edition. | PHILADELPHIA: | _Printed and sold by
James Humphreys,--At the N. W. Corner of Walnut and Dock street, 1802._
2 _vols._ 120. VOL. I, _pp._ xxii-159. VOL. II, _pp._ 172.

The earliest notice of John Howard Payne is in the _Port Folio_, new
series, Vol. I, p. 101 (1806). Payne was then a lad of fourteen years,
and already editor of the _Thespian Mirror_ in New York.

The _Port Folio_, new series, Vol. II, p. 421, contains an account of
the first dramatic performance composed in North Carolina, "NOLENS
VOLENS; or, _The Biter Bit_," written by Everard Hall, a gentleman of
North Carolina.

Dennie died January 7, 1812, and was buried in St. Peter's churchyard. A
monument was erected to h