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Show 30 Early Western Travels ( Vol 26 made their appearance in that paper under the title, " Sketches of a Traveller" They were, as their name purports, mere sketches from a traveller's portjeuiUe, hastily thrown upon paper whenever time, place, or opportunity rendered convenient; in the steamboat saloon, the inn bar- room, the log-cabin of the wilderness, or upon the venerable mound of the Western prairie. With such favour were these hasty productions received, and so extensively were they circulated, that the writer, on returning from his pilgrimage to " the shrine of health," was induced, by the solicitations of partial friends, to enter at his leisure upon the preparation for the press of a mass of MSS. of a similar character, written at the time, which had never been published; a thorough revision and enlargement of that which had appeared, united with this, it was thought, would furnish a passable volume or two upon the " Far West." Two years of residence in the West have since passed away; and the arrangement for the press of the fugitive sheets of a wanderer's sketch- book would not yet, perhaps, have been deemed of sufficient importance to warrant the necessary labour, had he not been daily reminded that his productions, whatever their merit, were already public property so far as could be the case, and at the mercy of every one who thought proper to assume paternity. " Forbearance ceased to be longer a virtue," and the result is now before the [ vii] reader. But, while alluding to that aid which his labours may have rendered to others, vember 34,1850, he issued the first number of the Louisville Journal, which through his able management was soon recognized as the chief Whig organ in the West Wholly devoted to day's cause, its own reputation { rose and declined with that of its champion. The Journal maintained an existence till 1868, when Henry Watterson consolidated it with the Courier, under the title of Courier- Journal. Prentice is reputed to have been the originator of the short, pointed paragraph in journalism. His Life of Henry Clay ( Hartford, 1831) is well known. In 1859 he published a collection of poems under the name Prentieeana ( New York). It was reprinted in 1870 with a biography of the author by G. W. Griffin ( Philadelphia).- ED. |