as there were of the former class who had names, the publisher endeavored to enlist by personal application. Irving was still living, but no longer available. Cooper was lately dead, but his story of "Old Ironsides" was posthumously contributed, in several instalments, to the maga

Except these and the writers actually secured, what American names were there which the judicious publisher of a new magazine would have sought? Hawthorne, Emerson, the author of "Two Years before the Mast"? All these the publisher did seek. Emerson responded with enthusiastic approval of the project, but contributed nothing. Hawthorne made some slight contributions. Mr. Dana declined, being already entangled with the law, and finding her, in Coke's phrase, a "jealous mistress." So that the most nearly literary of the learned professions really had to be invoked. Dr. Hawks, then the rector of Calvary, and by consequence the publisher's pastor, was perhaps the most scholarly" of the New York divines of his time. It was partly upon his advice that the magazine printed the most striking and sensational of all its articles, "Have We a Bourbon among Us?" In fact it is pretty well agreed now that we had n't, though the identification of the Rev. Eleazar Williams with "the late Dauphin" looked very plausible. The opening article of the third number, on "Japan," a piece of "actuality" suggested by Perry's expedition, was written by Dr. Francis Vinton, then and long after of the clerical staff of Trinity, and among the other New York clerical names were those of Dr. Bethune, adding a Dutch Reformed pastor to the two Anglicans, and of Dr. Samuel Osgood, of the Unitarians. There was also Rev. F. W. Shelton, to whom, as "one of the gentlest of humorists," Cozzens dedicated the volume made up of his delightful "Sparrowgrass Papers," published

national belongings I know no more than can be negatively inferred from the fact that he accepted a dedication from a wine merchant. The "comeouting" clerical contributors resided chiefly in Boston, and one comes with a strange sense of mingled remoteness and of nearness upon the names, in the publisher's private register, of "Rev. Henry James," of course the senior bearer of that now more widely known name (with a paper on Sir William Hamilton), and of "Rev. T. W. Higginson," and the same sense is conveyed by the name of "Charles Norton, Cambridge."

Another name credited to Cambridge is that of "Arthur Clough. Clough's sojourn there, in spite of the friendships he formed with our best in his kind, was a weariness and dissatisfaction to him from which he took the earliest opportunity to escape. But they gave us those delightful "Songs in Absence" which may fairly be called the most valuable and lasting of his poetical legacies. Of his contributions to PUTNAM'S two "Letters of Parapedimus" constitute a chapter of fantastical literary autobiography and criticism. As interjections, they contain a "specimen" from which the reader can judge for himself whether Matthew Arnold's praise of Clough as the English poet best qualified to translate Homer be misplaced or not. These "Homeric echoes" the poet did not include in his avowed translations of Homer. It is perhaps of more general interest to note that there is inter

jected in the prose the pretty lyric,

Upon the water in the boat,

which is included in his poetical remains. The third contribution, and probably the most important of the three, is the "Peschiera" known to all readers of the poet:

What voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crossed?
The "short story" is recognized as

develop its own short-story writers. Before its establishment, who were the American writers in this form? Irving, Poe, and Hawthorne really exhaust the list and none of these was available. The versatility of "G. W. C." was equal in PUTNAM's, as afterwards in the "Don Bobtail Fandango' series in Harper's, to turning out negotiable fictitious tales, but nothing that much outlasted its occasion, or that he cared to revive. Herman Melville was the main prop, perhaps, of the magazine in fiction. But he had not the knack of the true shortstory writer, and could not readily "turn round" in a single number. Though his short stories contributed to PUTNAM'S were reprinted under the title of "Piazza Tales" they have had their day and long since ceased to be. Neither was his long serial, "Israel Potter" what might fairly have been expected from the author of "Typee" and "Omoo." Perhaps Omoo." Perhaps Fitz James O'Brien and Frederick Beecher Perkins were the two chief helps to the magazine in this department, the former with a series of sprightly tales, the latter especially with "Miss Chester," a story dealing with what was then called "animal magnetism" and would now be called "hypnotic suggestion."

But fiction was not then so pervading as it has come to be since. It was the verse, the sketches, the essays, that formed the chief attraction of the magazine, as of the Knickerbocker before it, which it far surpassed in all ways, and of the Atlantic after it, which it seems to me it fully equalled. In truth the In truth the impression made by one of the earlier numbers of the Atlantic is that it might have been written by the survivors among the contributors to its predecessor, as in fact it largely was. And Mr. F. H. Underwood, the first editor of the Atlantic (was he not?) appears as a frequent contributor to its predecessor.

Evidently what the old PUTNAM'S chiefly aimed at was "good writing," was literary quality," was "style." The original prospectus or "salu

tatory" dwelt upon the "Americanism" of the magazine, and the private letter to him, emphasizing the same thing, drew from Richard Henry Dana a solemn warning against making it too American. The good man apparently apprehended that PUTNAM'S was to be published and edited by Elijah Pogram and Hannibal Chollop and General Ginery Twitchell. There was no occasion for alarm. The purpose was to provide a "vates" as "sacred" as might be, for the lack of whom the most cultivated and humane of Americans had remained illacrimaibles ignotique to literary Europe.

At

The purpose was attained. the beginning of the second volume the editorial "Salutatory" was placed by a "Publisher's Notice," in which it is announced that

re

It is merely just and decent to add that the one constant and indispensable factor in this success was the Head of the House himself. In 1854 Mr. Putnam set forth, in a private letter, that he had letter, that he had "assumed the control" of the control" of the magazine "more directly than before. But it is plain that his interest had throughout been, as it continued to be, keen, and his control, whether more iess "direct,' iess "direct," effective; that the success of PUTNAM's was his personal success. His successors will indeed be fortunate if they produce a magazine that shall equally stand the test of time and be as well worth reading in 1956 as its predecessor continues to be in 1906.

or

I

were

occupied a large place in my thoughts. It is the home of many of my dearest friends. It is the great emporium of the State in which I passed the days of my childhood and my youth. It is, in a certain sense, my twin. was born in the first year of its civic life. We were young together, but there, I am sorry to say, the parallel ends. Aurora and Tithonus young together; but the one grew old and gray, while the other flourished in immortal beauty and youth. In the days when Chicago and I were both young, it was my lot to see a good deal of the outside world, and it was always a pleasure to me, in viewing what was most interesting and picturesque in decaying civilizations, to think, by way of contrast, of the brilliant and vigorous municipality that was swiftly taking shape on the shores of Lake Michigan, unlike anything hitherto seen. I talked about it as young men will about things that interest them, and was sometimes good-naturedly rallied. on my vehement claims and large prophecies. But whenever I come here I see how far beyond the possibilities of brag are the simple facts of your marvellous growth. The boasting of the travelling man, the prophetic raptures of poets are alike inadequate. Chicago speaks for herself, in a language of her own, a language the world must learn to interpret, for Chicago is a fact in which the world is concerned.

No other city so epitomizes the prodigious strength, the unlimited promise of the country and the age. The gigantic heart of the continent seems beating and throbbing here, sending its currents of warm vitality through every vein of the country. On one side you have the prairie, levelled as by the hand of Providence for the building of an imperial city whose bounds no man can foretell: on the other, the lake, in its endless facilities for commerce, seems only an extension of the mighty mart. What is this we heard the other day of forty miles of shipping delayed by a temporary obstruction of your great

waterway?

Your geographical posi

tion insured you greatness when the world was made; and all modern history has wrought for your prosperity. But all this peerless store of opportunity would not have availed, had it not been for the alert and indomitable spirit of your people. The aboriginal dwellers in this region were called Illini-which is by interpretation Men. It was men who built this town.

Opportunity alone never made a man or a city. "The skirts of happy chance" must be grasped with a firm hand. The man, or the municipality, fated to greatness makes profit out of storm or sunshine, out of weal or woe, out of luck or disaster. Of the two capital events in your history, the Fire and the Fair, one an almost incalculable calamity, the other the greatest opportunity of the age, it is hard to tell which contributed most to the growth and prestige of Chicago. From the smouldering embers of that wide desolation of 1871 rose the public spirit of this stalwart town, like an invincible weapon, forged in flame and tempered with the chill of adversity, ready for any achievement. And when, in 1893, the time and the occasion met, to show whether Chicago was worthy of her immense prosperity, she seized the chance with a strength of grasp and a certainty. of touch, that fixed her place at once and forever in the world of civilization. Never again could envy or malice say that this city was given too much to the pursuit of material gain. I know of no other town on earth which would have been capable of the magnanimity, the generosity to rivals, the sublime disregard of money. shown by Chicago in that year of inspiration and power. In the presence of that splendid largeheartedness, envy died; rivals became enthusiastic collaborators; and the result was worthy of the lofty qualities which produced it. It proved the fallacy. of the opinion, so often expressed, that beauty in art and architecture is a symptom of decay. We saw the people of a great, young, thriving