of the crown to encounter in that brilliant and memorable argument
against the "Writs of Assistance," which the pen of the historian, and,
more recently, the chisel of the sculptor, have contributed to render
immortal. This publication, if we regard it, as we doubtless may, as
the original and prototype of the "American Magazine," would seem to
have been rightly named. It was printed on what old Dr. Isaiah Thomas
calls "a fine medium paper in 8vo," and he further assures us that "in
its execution it was deemed equal to any work of the kind then
published in London." In external appearance, it was a close copy of
the "London Magazine," from whose pages (probably to complete the
resemblance) it made constant and copious extracts, not always
rendering honor to whom honor was due, and in point of mechanical
excellence, as well as of literary merit, certainly eclipsed the
contemporary newspaper-press of the town, the "Boston Evening Post,"
"Boston News Letter" and the "New England Courant." The first number
contained forty-four pages, measuring about six inches by eight. The
scope and object of the Magazine, as defined in the Preface, do not
vary essentially from the line adopted by its predecessors and
contemporaries, and seem, in the main, identical with what we have
recounted above as characteristic of this new movement in letters. The
novelty and extent of the field, and the consequent fewness and
inexperience of the laborers, are curiously shown by the miscellaneous,
_omnium-gatherum_ character of the publication, which served at once as
a Magazine, Review, Journal, Almanac, and General Repository and
Bulletin;--the table of contents of the first number exhibits a list of
subjects which would now be distributed among these various classes of
periodical literature, and perhaps again parcelled out according to the
subdivisions of each. Avowedly neutral in politics and religion, as
became an enterprise which relied upon the patronage of persons of all
creeds and parties, it recorded (usually without comment) the current