The last editor of the _Port Folio_, Mr. John E. Hall, published in 1826 "The Philadelphia Souvenir, a collection of fugitive pieces from the Philadelphia press, with biographical and explanatory notes." The book was intended to be "a sort of _cairn_ to the memory of the circle of friends which Mr. Moore has commemorated in his immortal poems." The commemoration to which Mr. Hall refers is found in Moore's "eighth epistle," addressed "To the Honourable W. R. Spencer:"
Yet, yet forgive me, oh you sacred few, Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew; Whom, known and lov'd through many a social eve, 'Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave. Not with more joy the lonely exile scann'd The writing traced upon the desert sand, Where his lone breast but little hop'd to find One trace of life, one stamp of human kind, Than did I hail the pure, th' enlightened zeal, The strength to reason and the warmth to feel, The manly polish and the illumin'd taste, Which,--'mid the melancholy, heartless waste My foot has travers'd,--oh you sacred few! I found by Delaware's green banks with you.
The only pleasant memories of America that Thomas Moore carried back with him to England were of the "nights of mirth and mind" spent "where Schuylkill winds his way through banks of flowers." He was in Philadelphia in the autumn of 1804, and was lionized by the _Port Folio_; the eighth epistle in the "Poems Relating to America," from which the lines above are quoted, was written at Buffalo, and it was from Buffalo also that Moore sent to Dennie the manuscript of the beautiful "Lines on Leaving Philadelphia," which was published in the _Port Folio_ of August 31, 1805 (Vol. V, p. 271), and reprinted in Brockden Brown's _Literary Magazine_, January, 1806 (Vol. III, p. 27).
Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer rov'd, And bright were its flowery banks to his eye; But far, very far were the friends that he lov'd, And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh.
O Nature, though blessed and bright are thy rays, O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown, Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays In a smile from the heart that is fondly our own!
Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain Unblest by the smile that he languished to meet; Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again, Till the threshold of home had been prest by his feet.