[1] Alluding to William Smith's home at Falls of Schuylkill. There is a further description in prose of Smith's summer home upon page 123 of the magazine.
The other poems by Hopkinson in the _American Magazine_ are, "Ode on the Morning" (page 187), "On the taking of Cape Breton" (page 552) and "Verses inscribed to Mr. Wollaston" (the portrait painter).
The most remarkable poem in the magazine appeared in March, 1758. It occupied seven octavo pages, and drew in its wake three closely-printed pages of learned notes. It set forth its subject "On the Invention of Letters and the Art of Printing. Addrest to Mr. Richardson, in London, the Author and Printer of Sir Charles Grandison and other works for the promotion of Religion, Virtue and Polite Manners, in a corrupted age." The anonymous author lived in Kent County, Maryland. "His intimacy with Mr. Pope," he says, "obliged him to tell that great Poet, above twenty years ago, that it was peculiarly ungrateful in him not to celebrate such a subject as the INVENTION OF LETTERS, or to suffer it to be disgraced by a meaner hand."
It may not be amiss to note that the author credits Koster with the glory of the invention of printing.
"Ah! let not Faustus rob great Koster's name Like him, who since usurp'd Columbus' fame. Pierian laurels flourish round his tomb; And ever-living roses breathe your bloom!"[2]
[2] Which reminds us of Sandys's translation of a fifteenth century epitaph:
"Let Koster's fame live ever in our hearts Unshar'd; whose art preserves all other arts."
Many wild conjectures have been made as to the identity of the Kentish man who contributed this long, careful and learned poem to American literature, but the author has hitherto remained unknown. In the summer of 1891, while reading in the British Museum, I found a copy of the _American Magazine_, annotated throughout in a contemporary hand, and apparently the gift of a Philadelphian to an Englishman who had visited the colonies. This would seem to be evident from the character of the notes, which read sometimes like the following:
"This poem was written by Francis Hopkinson, _whom you will remember in Philadelphia_." Unfortunately, many of the historical notes have been cut away in the binding of the book. In this volume the author of the poem in question is named and clearly defined. To James Sterling, the author of "The Parricides" and "The Rival Generals," must be given whatever credit this poem, written in Maryland, can confer upon its author.