the play what the printing press did for the essay, poem, and novel. But in America, the land of a transplanted civili

companies who played short seasons at irregular intervals; then the erection of special playhouses; and finally the formation of more permanent professional companies, both English and American,-all of which took place in the course of nearly

RT I. AMERICAN LI

nscr

f this sort. The Virginia governor's patronage bore different fruit from the early indorsement of playing in staid Massachusetts, for Samuel Sewall recorded in his diary of March 2, 1714, a protest at the acting of a play in the council chamber. "Let not Christian Boston," he admonished, "goe beyond Heathen Rome in the practice of Shamefull Vanities." On the other hand, Williamsburg, Virginia, had its own theater before 1720, New York enjoyed professional acting and a playhouse by 1732, and in Charleston, South Carolina, the use

Royall Tyler's "The Contrast," acted in 1787 at the John Street Theater, New York. The first professional American playwright was William Dunlap (1766–1839), author and producer, who wrote, adapted, and translated over sixty plays, operas, sketches, farces, and interludes, of which at least fifty were produced and nearly thirty have been published. The first actor and playwright of more than local prominence was John Howard Payne (1791–1852), more original than Dunlap and equally prolific, with one or two great successes and eighteen published play

k. There are traces from "Hamlet," signs of "Macbeth," evidences of "The Maid's Tragedy," and responses to the Restoration interest in pseudo-oriental subjects. Yet the play should not be dismissed with these comments as though they were a condemnation. What is more to the point is the fact that "The Prince" is very admirable as a piece of imitative writing. The verse is fluent and at times stately. The construction as a whole is well considered. The characters are consistent, and their actions are based on sufficient motives. Many a later American dramatist fell far short of Godfrey both in excellence of style and in firmness of structure and characterization. Had Godfrey lived and had he passed out of his natural deference for models, he might have done dramatic writing quite equal to that of ma

ering them against their English conquerors. A play with this burden, written so soon after the Seven Years' War, had no more chance of being produced than a pacifist production did from 1914 to 1918. Godfrey's treatment of the Indians seems at first glance unconvincing, but this is chiefly because of the way he made them talk. All the savages and all the different types of white rascal hold forth in the same elevated rhetorical discourse. This fact, which constitutes a valid criticism, should be tempered by the recollection that generations were yet to pass before anything lifelike was to be achieved in dialect writing. Cooper's Indians are quite as stately in speech as Rogers's. Yet, like Cooper, Rogers endowed them with native dignity, self-control, tribal loy

successes in its field-was "The Contrast," a comedy by Royall Tyler (1

iot heart!-this

we may fairly

titles of "My Lo

and plain Si

tures not from

or the follies

n'd the subje

nes-the circle

ne the less interesting for this. It is quite as true to its period as the content of the play is, for it displays the independence of conscious revolt, exactly th

d alone; every sentence is a sentiment"; and Maria, the heroine, is revealed by her own observation that "the only safe asylum a woman of delicacy can find is in the arms of a man of honor." Yet the contrasts lead to good dramatic situations and to some amusing comedy, and the play is further interesting because of the fund of allusion to what Tyler considered both worthless and worthy English literary influences. The extended reference to "The School for Scandal" as seen at the theater by Jonathan is acknowledgment enough of Tyler's debt to an English master. "The Contrast" is the voice of young America protesting its superiority to old England and old Eu

he subject

nes-the circle

André" (1798) by William Dunlap (1766–1839). Dunlap asked f

, a native sc

r candour for

as running in entering the perilous straits of political controversy

ty spirit bla

l the meaning

ngs long past, M

hout reproach, t

e Story by th

damn it, for

ational feeling. And Dunlap, after a slip of sentiment in the first performance, kept clear of politics, and showed tact as well as daring by making the Briton heroic, though a spy, and by his fine treatment of the unnamed "General," who was evidently Washington. Dunlap's play showed a ready appreciation of theatrical effectiveness. It was

t success of Zschokke's "Abaellino" and translated no less than thirteen plays of Kotzebue. A comic opera, a dramatic satire, a farce, or an interlude seemed all one to him in point of ease or difficulty. From 1796 to 1803 he produced more than four plays a year under his own management at the Park Theater in New York. He contin

c for high excellence, and he did nothing new. Now and then men who wrote abundantly produced single plays of rather high merit though of imitative quality, such as Robert Montgomery Bird's "Broker of Bogota." There was a generous output, but a low level of production; tragedies, historical plays, comedies of manners, local dramas, social satires, melodramas, and farces followed in steady flow. Successful novels of Cooper, Simms, Mrs. Stowe, and writers of lesser note were quickly staged, but no one of undoubted distinction came to the fore. Writers in other fields, like Nathaniel Parker Willis, t

K L

l Refe

Romance of the Ame

istory of the Amer

uriosities of the A

Famous Actor-Famili

J. The American

f the American Theater, 17

tory of the American Revolution

The Wallet of T

lec

Plays by American Dramatists, Vol.

Representative Am

al Ar

ginia Play. Nation, Vol

Prologues and Epilogues. Nat

Theaters, 1735–1766. Natio

ays at Harvard. Nation, Vo

lay in America. Nation, V

6–1860. Cambridge History of American

AND P

ains three of the plays mentioned in detail, and the first volume of the collection

es, of episodes-or with reference to the skill with which it was written-the construction, the characterization, the supply of motives for action, the dialogue, the prose or verse styl

l arrive at a satisfactory result only as he limits himself to o