the true-hearted farmer and his granddaughter who, by her efforts to save the daughter of the self-seeking social striver, almost loses her own lover. These are all types, to be sure, but they are made alive and the dialogue is clever. The play had a great success here and abroad, and may be said to have founded a school of playwriting which lasts to this day. Its immediate successors, however, hardly came up to the standard set by Fashion. One of the best of them, Nature's Nobleman, produced in New York in 1851, was written by Henry O. Pardey, an English actor, who laid his scenes in Saratoga, Cape May, and a farm in New York State, and established quite well a contrast between American and English types. Mrs. Bateman's Self, E. G. Wilkins's Young New York, Cornelius Mathews's False Pretences; or, Both Sides of Good Society, all played in 1856, become caricature of a descending quality. Perhaps the most clever of the later comedies of social life is Americans in Paris by W. H. Hurlbert, performed in 1858.

In romantic comedy, there was very little that could compare with the achievement in romantic tragedy. The Deformed, played in 1830, by Richard Penn Smith, has some real merit, though it owes much to Dekker. Tortesa, the Usurer, by N. P. Willis, was played by J. W. Wallack in 1839 in New York and later in England, where Lester Wallack played Angelo to his father's Tortesa. It is an excellent play, and the last act, in which the usurer rises to the dignity of self-sacrifice, is especially appealing. Another play in which the two Wallacks were associated, The Veteran (1859), written by Lester Wallack, is an entertaining comedy laid in France and Algeria. Boker's Betrothal has already been mentioned. Mrs. Mowatt's Armand, or The Child of the People, produced in 1847 in New York and in 1849 in London, is a blank verse comedy of some merit. But here again the line between comedy and melodrama is hard to draw. Especially is this true in the plays dealing with Irish life, of which there are a number. One of the most interesting records in this connection is that describing the production, in 1842, after the playwright's death, of the adaptation of the novel of The Collegians by Louisa Medina. This play has not survived, but the For an interesting contemporary critique of Fashion, see Poe's Works, Virginia Edition, vol. x11, pp. 112-121 and 124-129.

cast of characters is significant in view of the later dramatization of the same material in Dion Boucicault's Colleen Bawn.

The Gothic melodrama, illustrated by Dunlap's Fontainville Abbey, played in 1795, or his Abaellino, performed in 1801, was popular and in it he had a number of followers, some of whom, like S. B. Judah, in his Rose of Aragon, played in 1822, preserved the original meaning of the word Gothic. More interesting, if not more artistic, was the melodrama that dealt with contemporary events, such as Woodworth's Lafayette or The Castle of Olmutz, played in 1824, the year of Lafayette's visit to this country. Dunlap's importation of the domestic drama of Kotzebue had also its effect. Some of the dramas of this class, notably Noah's Wandering Boys, played first in Charleston in 1812 under the title of Paul and Alexis, were vastly popular. Most important in this class was the genesis of Rip Van Winkle. As early as 26 May, 1828, Thomas Flynn seems to have played a version of Rip Van Winkle in Albany. It was written by an native of Albany. In October, 1829, there was produced in Philadelphia3 a version written in whole or part by John Kerr, in which W. Chapman and later J. H. Hackett played Rip Van Winkle and "J. Jefferson" played Knickerbocker. This version was very popular and was afterward played in New York. A later play by Charles Burke is an adaptation of this one, with certain changes, notably the preservation of Dame Van Winkle, and the final version of Boucicault and Joseph Jefferson the younger is a development in its turn from Burke's play.

2

The farce as a species of comedy in the broader sense has already been spoken of in connection with the treatment of certain comic themes. Payne developed a form of farce largely from foreign sources, and W. E. Burton, by the development of farcical characters like the Toodles out of material whose history goes back to sentimental domestic drama, scored one of his greatest popular successes.

The dramatization of American novels calls for a word of comment here. The work of Cooper, W. G. Simms, J. P. Kennedy, C. F. Hoffman, R. M. Bird, T. S. Fay, Mrs. Stowe,

and others, was quickly placed on the stage. It will be noticed that it was chiefly in the sphere of the romance that this was the case, Cooper being the prime favourite. Though this work was rarely done by a dramatist of distinction, it was often popular.

What impresses one most in a survey of these types of drama is the evidence of organic growth. It is possible to trace in the development of the drama in this country before the Civil War certain fairly distinct periods. The first ends with the closing of the theatres in 1774 and has as its principal event the production of The Prince of Parthia in 1767. The second, from 1774 to 1787, includes the Revolutionary satirists and is a transition period. The third begins with the production of The Contrast in 1787 and closes with the termination of Dunlap's first period of managership in 1805. It was a period of tentative effort, partly under the influence of German and French models. The fourth period from 1805 to 1825 is one of development, with considerable native effort, but still largely under foreign influence, both English and Continental. The fifth was a significant and creative period, from 1825 to the Civil War, with its climax in Francesca da Rimini in 1855.

This development was interrupted naturally by the Civil War. What would have been its course had the war not occurred it is perhaps fruitless to speculate. There were signs of a quickening of dramatic interest in the late fifties under the encouragement of such managers as Lester Wallack and Laura Keene, but the domination of the stage by Dion Boucicault and John Brougham, while it resulted in some significant plays, especially in a later period, was not an unmixed blessing from the point of view of the production of American drama. The dramatization of English and French novels with resultant long runs, indeed the very success of Boucicault's original dramas, made for conditions in which the work of new playwrights became less in demand. The old days in which a manager was willing to put on a play for a few nights were going fast, and with them went our early drama. That its significance in the history of our literature has never been appreciated is due largely perhaps to the fact that some of its most important monuments are still unprinted. But of its significance both in itself and for the later drama there is no shadow of doubt.

CHAPTER III

Early Essayists

'N anticipating Dr. Johnson's advice to fashion his prose style on the model of Addison, Franklin anticipated also the practice of American essay-writers for more than a generation. Like Franklin's Dogood Papers, the first essays printed in colonial newspapers were written with a conscious moral purpose. With some spice of wit Timothy Dwight and John Trumbull collaborated in an imitation of The Spectator in 176970, and between 1785 and 1800 nearly a hundred series of light periodical essays were contributed to various New England journals. Those of the better sort like the "Neighbour" of The Massachusetts Spy or the "Metabasist" in The Farmer's Journal of Danbury, Connecticut, when not discussing politics, filled their columns with grave moralizing or racy satire on manners. They were widely copied and recopied by other papers, and a few such as Noah Webster's Prompter and Mrs. Judith Murray's Gleaner attained the distinction of separate publication by reason either of their plain common sense or their studied correctness. In general, the imitation of English models resulted in feeble literary replicas, or in strange patchworks of Yankee homespun with Addisonian finery.

During the first decade of the nineteenth century nearly every literary device and favourite character in the long line of British essayists was reproduced in this country. Isaac Bickerstaff owned an American cousin in Launcelot Langstaff of Salmagundi, memories of l'Espion turc were evoked by Wirt's Letters of a British Spy, and Goldsmith's Lien Chi Altangi dropped a small corner of his mantle on Irving's Mustapha Ruba-Dub Kheli Khan and S. L. Knapp's Shahcoolen. The shade of Johnson dictated the titles of The Traveller, The Rural Ellis, H. M., Joseph Dennie and his Circle, p. 51.

Wanderer, The Saunterer, and The Loiterer, and such editorial pseudonyms as Jonathan Oldstyle, Oliver Oldschool, and John Oldbug were significant of the attempt to catch the literary tone of the previous age. But the essay of manners, a product of leisurely urban life, was not easily adapted to the environment of a sparsely settled, bustling young republic. "Perhaps, indeed," wrote the Rev. David Graham of Pittsburg, "it is impossible to give interest and standing popularity, to a periodical essay paper, constructed upon the model of the British Essayist, in an infant country." Even in the populous cities "where the inhabitants amount to several thousand" there was little interest in the art of living. Reprehensible luxury and eccentric characters were hard to discover. But by dint of persistent attempts the essay of manners was made to grow in the new soil.

I

Perhaps the most successful "American Addison" was Joseph Dennie (1768–1812), who was "reasonably tinged with literature" while resisting a Harvard education, and after a short trial of the law, devoted his desultory talents to periodical writing until his death. He kindled the first sparks of a reputation by the Farrago essays, contributed to various country newspapers, but his Tablet, a hopeful weekly paper devoted to belles lettres, failed to set Boston ablaze. Yankee readers objected to his exercises in the manner of Goldsmith and Addison as "sprightly rather than moral." While a law-student, Dennie had supplemented his income by reading sermons in unsupplied churches, and now to gain a hearing he fitted each of his lucubrations with a text and tempered his sentiments ostensibly for the pulpit. The Lay Preacher, commenced in 1795, won immediate applause. Seven years later John Davis, the traveller, declared it the most widely read work in America, and its popularity contributed largely to the author's success as editor, first of The Farmer's Weekly Museum at Walpole, New Hampshire, and finally of that notable literary gazette, the Philadelphia Port Folio.

Though Dennie collaborated with his friend Royall Tyler in a mélange of light prose and verse "From the Shop of Messrs. Colon & Spondee," which later developed into a series

The Pioneer, consisting of Essays, Literary, Moral and Theological, Pittsburg, 1812. P. 31.