ng many
items of tickets bought. A type entry in Washington's diary is, "Went
to the play in the evening--sent tickets to the following ladies and
gentlemen and invited them to seats in my box, viz:--Mrs. Adams (lady of
the Vice-President,) General Schuyler and lady, Mr. King and lady, Majr.
Butler and lady, Colo Hamilton and lady, Mrs. Green--all of whom accepted
and came except Mrs. Butler, who was indisposed."

Maclay describes the first of these theatre parties as follows: "I
received a ticket from the President of the United States to use his box
this evening at the theatre, being the first of his appearances at the
playhouse since his entering on his office. Went The President, Governor
of the State, foreign Ministers, Senators from New Hampshire, Connecticut,
Pennsylvania, M.[aryland] and South Carolina; and some ladies in the same
box. I am old, and notices or attentions are lost on me. I could have
wished some of my dear children in my place; they are young and would have
enjoyed it. Long might they live to boast of having been seated in
the same box with the first Character in the world. The play was the
'School for Scandal,' I never liked it; indeed, I think it an indecent
representation before ladies of character and virtue. Farce, the 'Old
Soldier.' The house greatly crowded, and I thought the players acted well;
but I wish we had seen the _Conscious Lovers_, or some one that inculcated
more prudential manners."

Of the play, or rather interlude, of the "Old Soldier" its author, Dunlap,
gives an amusing story. It turned on the home-coming of an old soldier,
and, like the topical song of to-day, touched on local affairs:

"When Wignell, as Darby, recounts what had befallen him in America, in New
York, at the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the inauguration of
the president, the interest expressed by the audience in the looks and the
changes of countenance of this great man [Washington] became intense. He
smiled at these lines, alluding to the change in the government--

There too I saw some mighty pretty shows;
A revolution, without blood or blows,
For, as I understood, the cunning elves,
The people all revolted from themselves.

But at the lines--

A man who fought to free the land from we,
_Like me_, had left his farm, a-soldiering to go:
But having gain'd his point, he had _like me_,
Return'd his own potato ground to see.
But there he could not rest. With one ac