hen only
twenty-seven years of age, and his poems, with an "account of T.
Godfrey," were published by Nathaniel Evans in 1767.

Nathaniel Evans knits together, in a manner, this _American Magazine_
and the _Port Folio_, as he was the biographer of Godfrey, who was a
contributor to the former, and the Petrarch-lover of Elizabeth Graeme or
Mrs. Ferguson, a helper of the latter. That he was hopeful of his city's
future is evident from the following prophecy, which makes a part of his
"Ode on the Prospect of Peace," 1761:

"To such may Delaware, majestic flood,
Lend from his flow'ry banks a ravish'd ear,
Such notes as may delight the wise and good,
Or saints celestial may induce to hear!
For if the Muse can aught of time descry
Such notes shall sound thy crystal waves along,
Thy cities fair with glorious Athens rise,
Nor pure Ilissus boast a nobler song."

Godfrey's chief claim to recognition in the history of American
literature is his authorship of the "Prince of Parthia," the first
dramatic work produced in America. It was written in 1758, and acted at
the new theatre in Southwark, Philadelphia, April 24, 1767.

Several of the contributors to the magazine were members of the faculty
of the college. Ebenezer Kinnersley, chief master of the English School,
summarized the month's progress in philosophy; John Beveridge supplied
the readers of the magazine with Latin poems, which were too lightly
timbered for the loud praise of William Smith, who pronounced them of
equal merit with the choicest Latinity of Buchanan, Erasmus and
Addison.[4]

[4] "The Trustees of the College of this city, who have never spared
either pains or expense to supply every vacancy in the institution with
able masters and professors, having been informed of Mr. Beveridge's
capacity, experience and fidelity, were pleased at a full meeting, on
the 13th of this month (June, 1758), unanimously to appoint him
Professor of Languages and Master of the Latin School, in the room of
Mr. Paul Jackson" (_American Magazine_, p. 437).

Thomas Coombe, assistant minister of Christ Church, translated some of
Beveridge's Latin poems, and was himself the author of "The Peasant of
Auburn; or, the Emigrant," published in 1775, and intended as a
continuation of "The Deserted Village."

A collection of poems came from distant Virginia from the pen of Mr.
Samuel Davies (1724-1761), the dissenting minister in Hanover County,
Virginia, who mad