Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), August 9, 1845, vol. 2, no. 5, p. ???, col. ?

[page 75, column 2, continued:]

Hunt's Merchants’ Magazine and Commercial Review. August, 1845. New-York: Freeman Hunt.

Mr. Hunt's admirable Magazine is now in its seventy-fourth number — a pregnant example of what may be effected by combined talent and energy. The work is undoubtedly the best properly of its kind in America; yet, if we are not mistaken, Mr. Hunt engaged, without a dollar, in the arduous task of its establishment. Its progress has never faltered for an instant. The steps taken were infallible, and the triumph sure. The Merchants’ Magazine was erected, and is now owned, edited, and conducted generally, by Mr. Hunt alone.

The August number contains many papers of high value and interest — among others, “The Government and the Currency,” “The Main Line of the State Works of Pennsylvania,” “Our Merchant Seamen,” “Maritime Law,” “A Biog raphy of the late Joseph Peabody, of Salem,” a “New Theory of the Gulf Stream,” “Commercial History of Norwich, Conn.,” and “The Silver Mines of North Carolina.”

The biography of Mr. Peabody is one of the most interesting and instructive papers we have read for years. Few more remarkable men have lived in the commercial world. Among other things it is stated of him, that he built and owned eighty-three ships, which, in every instance, he freighted himself; and for the navigation of them, he shipped at different times, upwards of seven thousand seamen. Since the year 1811, he has advanced thirty-five to the rank of ship-master, who entered his employ as boys. He had performed by these vessels the following voyages, viz: — to Calcutta, 38; Canton, 17; Sumatra, 32; St. Petersburg, 47; other ports in the north of Europe, 10; the Mediterranean, 20, before the war of 1812.

Perhaps the most able article in the number, however, and one which we especially recommend to our readers, is “The Government and the Country,” by Mr. Middleton, the author of the admirable essay (with a similar title) which was published last year by Carey & Hart, and which attracted so general an attention. The North American Review, among other journals, spoke of it in the warmest terms of commendation. The present article is not more remarkable for the lucidity and profundity of its views, than for the vigor, simplicity, and general excellence of its style.