a first-night performance of an
American play, the revolution was complete. At Boston a number of the
most prominent, intelligent, and influential citizens assembled in town
meetings, and passed resolutions instructing their representatives to
demand of the Legislature an immediate repeal of the laws against
theatrical amusements, and upon such repeal being refused, they
subscribed the necessary funds to erect a theater and invited the
American Company to visit Boston to give a series of performances
there, which invitation was accepted. There was some interference on
the part of the authorities, but the new theater was erected and
performances publicly given there, while the prohibitory law became a
dead letter.

It will be noticed that the frontispiece is from a drawing by Dunlap,
which must have been done by him shortly after his return from England,
where he had been studying art as a pupil under Benjamin West. It was
evidently intended to represent the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Morris,
Mr. Henry, Mr. Wignell, and Mr. Harper, in their respective characters
in this play, with the scenery as given in the last act at the John
Street Theater, the first season, but the inferior work of the engraver
had made it of little value as likenesses.

The illustration to the song of Alknomook is from music published
contemporaneously with the play. This song had long the popularity of
a national air and was familiar in every drawing-room in the early part
of the century. Its authorship has been accredited both to Philip
Freneau and to Mrs. Hunter, the wife of the celebrated English
physician, John Hunter. It was published as by Freneau in the American
Museum, where it appears (with slight changes from the version in the
'Contrast') in vol. I., page 77. But Freneau never claimed to have
written it, and never placed it among his own collections of his poems,
several editions of which he made long after the 'Contrast' was
published. Mrs. Hunter's poems were not printed till 1806, and the
version of the song there printed is an exact copy as given in the
play. This song also appeared in a play, entitled, 'New Spain, or Love
in Mexico,' published at Dublin in 1740. After considerable research,
I have become convinced that Alknomook is the offspring of Tyler's
genius.

THOMAS J. MCKEE

THE
CONTRAST

A COMEDY;
IN FIVE ACTS:

WRITTEN BY A
CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES;

Primus ego in patriam