Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), November 8, 1845, vol. 2, no. 18, p. ???, col. ?

[page 275, column 2, continued:]

Hunt's Merchants’ Magazine, for November, opens with an admirable paper, by C. Fenno Hoffman, on “The Poetry of Trade.” Its second article is from the pen of H. Middleton Jr. of S. C., and is Chapter IV. of the thoughtful series of essays on “The Government and the Currency,” which have done so much for the character of the Magazine. Nothing so good, on the same subjects, has as yet appeared in America. The other papers are “Trade and Commerce of Mobile”; “The First Coal Region of Pennsylvania”; “What is a Revenue Tariff?”; “Maritime Law — No. 8”; and “Railroad Movement in Virginia.” The last article is especially important and interesting. The usual “Commercial Chronicle,” Statistics, and Book Criticisms, fill up the number, which altogether is one of the best yet issued.

Of the editor of “The Merchant's Magazine” we have more than once expressed our opinion — that he is one of the most remarkable men of his day; and we have now lying by us an article from the pen of Willis which speaks very much to the same purpose. There is not one of our readers who will not forgive us for quoting it:

Hunt has been glorified in the Hong-kong Gazette, is regularly complimented by the English mercantile authorities, has every Banker in the world lor an eager subscriber, every Consul, every Ship-owner, and Navigator — is filed away as authority in every library, and thought of, in hall the countries of the world, as early as No. 3, in their enumeration of distinguished Americans — yet, who seeks to do him honor in the city he does honor to? The Merchant's Magazine, though a prodigy of perseverance and industry, is not an accidental developement of Hunt's energies He has always been singularly sagacious and original in devising new works and good ones. He was the founder of the first ‘Ladies’ Magazine,’ of the first ‘Children's Periodical,’ he started the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge,’ compiled the best known collection of American Anecdotes, and is an indefatigable writer — the author, among other things, of ‘Letters about the Hudson.’ A mutual Inend of Hunt and ourself says of him: — ‘His most important labor was the projection and successful establishment of the ‘Merchant's Magazine and Commercial Review.’ Having had the means of ascertaining the precise wants of the commercial public, and knowing that almost every other class of our population possessed its appropriate work, he conceived that a magazine and review, devoid to the interests of that large, wealthy, and respectable class, the merchants — a work which should be thoroughly practical and national in its character, embodying commercial matter, literary and statistical, having a national bearing upon their interests and intelligence, and supported by ripe and disciplined minds, would be a desideratum. This national work, tending to inform us of the causes which bad acted upon our trade and commerce in times past, and the expanding growth of our country, he has at length brought out with full success. In his periodical he has opened a new vein of thought, especially adapted to the peculiar cast of our American minds, and erected a monument which will endure.’ [page 276:]

Hunt was a playfellow of ours in round-jacket days, and we have always looked at him with a reminiscent interest. His luminous eager eyes, as he goes along the street keenly bent on his errand, would impress any observer with an idea of his genius and determination, and we think it is quite time his earnest head was in the engraver's hand, and his daily passing-by, a mark for the digito monstrari. Few more valuable or more note-worthy citizens arc among us.

“The Merchant's Magazine” was, indeed, one of those “happy ideas,” as they are weakly termed, which enter the heads of men of genius alone. The execution of the scheme was not less happy than its conception. At the time, Mr. H. had not only not a dollar, but was much involved. His friends (?) too discouraged him — as friends in such cases always do. He persevered; made personal application to those who would understand and appreciate his enterprize; suffered no labor nor repulse to deter him; and in the end (without embarrassing himself with a partner) succeeded in establishing on the firmest basis a Magazine, which, independently of its literary, or commercial utility, is decidedly the best property of any similar journal in the world.