llyn, Mr.
Tomlinson, Mr. Broad/belt, Mr. Greville, Mrs. Douglass,/Mrs.
Morris, Miss Wainwight, and/Miss Cheer./To which will be added,
A Ballad Opera called/The Contrivances./To begin exactly at
_Seven o'clock_.--_Vivant Rex & Regina._/

In the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, for the same date, appears an
advertisement, without the cast of characters.

The production occurred on April 24, 1767.

Seilhamer gives a probable cast of characters, although only the list
of actors is given in the advertisement. Apart from this, little is
known of the production: whether or not it pleased the theatre-goers
of the time. We can judge, however, from the reading of the play
itself, that there was little of extreme dramatic excellence in the
situations, the chief claim, from the actor's point of view, being the
opportunity to deliver certain very highly coloured, poetical lines
modelled after the manner of the Elizabethan drama.

In the publication of "The Prince of Parthia," we have the first
printed American tragedy in existence, and in its production we have
one of only two plays, written by Americans, and presented on the
stage before the Revolution. The other play is George Cockings's "The
Conquest of Canada; or, The Siege of Quebec," printed for the author
in 1766, and presented in Philadelphia in 1773. We note, in Dr. F. W.
Atkinson's estimable Bibliography of American Plays in his possession,
that Cockings later described himself as "Camillo Querno, Poet
Laureate to Congress."

The interest in the early history of the American drama, which has
become evident within recent years, and nowhere more evident than
among the student body in our American colleges, induced the
Zelosophic Literary Society, encouraged by the University of
Pennsylvania, to revive "The Prince of Parthia," which was written by
one of their alumni. The production was consummated on March 26, 1915.
Even though we have no statement as to the actual manner in which the
Douglass Company presented the play originally, we are given every
evidence, by those who witnessed the revival, that the play, while
containing many excellences, was not of a dramatic character according
to modern ideas of stage effectiveness.

The only portrait of Godfrey known to have been in existence was that
painted by Benjamin West, in his earlier years. It is interesting to
note that in commemoration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary
of the original production