“A magazine , when properly conducted, is the nursery of genius; and by constantly accumulating new matter, becomes a kind of market for wit and utility.” Thomas Paine made this (true) statement in 1775, in the first issue of The Pennsylvania Magazine , for which he served as editor. In this same manifesto, he had unkind words for the magazine’s older cousins. “The British magazines, at their commencement, were the repositories of ingenuity: They are now the retailers of tale and nonsense. From