nvite the muses to our
country_." This, it will be noticed, is the second express invitation to
the Maids of Parnassus to "migrate from Greece and Ionia," and to "cross
out those immensely overpaid accounts." The first was extended during
the French and Indian war, and the second in the very aim and flash of
the Revolution. That the muses did not immediately accept the
invitation, and "placard 'Removed' and 'To Let' on the rocks of their
snowy Parnassus," we are reminded by the opening lines of the "Epistle
to W. Gifford," written by another Philadelphia poet, William Cliffton,
at the very close of the century.[6]

[6] William Cliffton (1772-1799) was the son of a blacksmith in
Southwark. His poem "The Group" (1793) was written in ridicule of the
Commissioners of Southwark.

"In these cold shades, beneath these shifting skies,
Where fancy sickens, and where genius dies;
Where few and feeble are the muse's strains,
And no fine frenzy riots in the veins."

The editor, in his preface to the reader, asks the very pertinent
question, "For what is man without taste, and the acquirements of
genius? An ourang-outang with the human shape and the soul of a beast."
His excuse for the magazine is that it is started to refute the British
scoff, that when separated from England, the colonies would become mere
"illiterate ourang-outangs," and proceeds to the axioms that "We are
able to cultivate the belles-lettres, even disconnected with Great
Britain;" and that "Liberty is of so noble and energetic a quality, as
even from the bosom of a war to call forth the powers of human genius in
every course of literary fame and improvement."

The vignette for the magazine was made by Pierre E. Du Simitiere
(P. E. D.), who also made the one that adorned the _Pennsylvania
Magazine_. It represented a triumphal arch with a corridor of thirteen
columns, the arch decorated with thirteen stars, symbolizing the States,
Pennsylvania being the Keystone. Under the arch is the figure of Fame,
with cap of liberty and trumpet.

The artist was a native of Switzerland, who arrived in Philadelphia in
1766. His collection of curiosities he opened to the public under the
name of "The American Museum."

The first number of this magazine contained certain verses in
explanation of the emblematic vignette:

"The arch high bending doth convey,
In a hieroglyphic way,
What in noble style like this
Our united empire is!
The pillars, which su