I cull from volume five a few specimen articles to illustrate the wealth of local and national history embedded in this popular periodical:
VOL. V, p. 185.--Report on the petition of Hallam and Henry to license a theatre in Philadelphia.
P. 197.--Account of the battle of Bunker Hill.
P. 220.--Letters of "James Littlejohn"--_i.e._, Timothy Dwight.
P. 235.--Duché's Description of Philadelphia.
P. 295.--Impartial Chronicle, by W. Livingstone.
P. 300.--Poetical address to Washington, by Governor Livingstone.
P. 473.--Franklin's idea of an English school.
P. 488.--"How to Conduct a Newspaper,"--Dr. Rush.
The same cause that led to the suspension of the _Columbian Magazine_ put a period also to the _American Museum_, and in the same month. On December 31, 1792, Matthew Carey, in bidding farewell to the public that had supported his undertaking, ascribed its failure to "the construction, whether right or wrong, of the late Post-Office law, by which the postmaster here has absolutely refused to receive the _Museum_ into the Post-Office on any terms." Although the circulation of the magazine had been large for those days, the publisher had derived small profit from his venture. The subscription price, $2.40 per annum for two volumes, making together more than one thousand pages, was too low; and during the six years, between 1786 and 1792, Carey was always poor, and in his _Autobiography_ declares that during those years he was never at any one time the possessor of four hundred dollars. But in those years of personal penury and public turmoil, Matthew Carey laid the foundation of the American system of social science.
Six years after the suspension of the magazine, Carey attempted to re-animate it, and published _The American Museum, or Annual Register of Fugitive Pieces, Ancient and Modern_, for the year 1798, printed for Matthew Carey. Philadelphia: W. & R. Dickson, Lancaster. Matthew Carey, whose introduction was dated June 20, 1799, wrote of the renascent publication, "If this _coup d'essai_ be favorably received, I shall publish a continuation of it yearly." No other volume was ever issued.
_The Medical Examiner_ was published in 1787, and made one volume octavo of 424 pages. It was edited by J. B. Biddle.