The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Politician Out-Witted, by Samuel Low

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Title: The Politician Out-Witted

Author: Samuel Low

Release Date: June 26, 2009 [EBook #29227]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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TRANSCRIBERS' NOTES

This e-book contains the text of _The Politician Out-witted_, extracted
from Representative Plays by American Dramatists: Vol 1, 1765-1819.
Comments and background to all the plays and the other plays are available
at Project Gutenberg.

Spelling as in the original has been preserved.

THE

POLITICIAN OUT-WITTED

_By_ SAMUEL LOW

SAMUEL LOW

(b. December 12, 1765)

Very little is known about the author of "The Politician Out-witted,"[1] a
play which I have selected as representative of the efforts of the American
drama, as early as 1789, to reflect the political spirit of the time.
Assiduous search on the part of the present editor has failed to bring to
light any information from any of the historical societies regarding Mr.
Low, except that he was born on December 12, 1765, and that he must have
been, in his political sympathies, an anti-federalist. The reader who is
interested in literary comparisons might take this play of Low's and read
it in connection with Dunlap's "The Father," in which a prologue gives a
very excellent example of the American spirit. Dunlap's "Darby's Return"
might likewise be read in connection with "The Politician Out-witted,"
inasmuch as it refers to the Federal Constitution, and to Washington's
inauguration.

The present play, which was opposed to the Federal union, was, according to
some authorities, offered to the actors, Hallam and Henry, and was promptly
rejected by them. There is no record of the piece having thereafter
succeeded in reaching the theatre. It is mentioned both in Dunlap and in
Seilhamer in a casual manner.

In the New York Directory, of 1794, we find Samuel Low mentioned as a clerk
in the Treasury Department, and, in a later Directory of 1797-1798, he is
re