When first Columbus touch’d this distant shore,
And vainly hoped his Fears and Dangers o’er,
One boundless Wilderness in view appear’d
No Champain Plains or rising Cities cheer’d
His wearied Eye.
Monsters unknown travers’d the hideous Waste,
And men more savage than the Beasts they chased.
But mark! How soon these gloomy Prospects clear,
And the new World’s late Horrors disappear.
The Soil obedient to the industrious swains,
What happy Harvests crown their honest Pains,
And Peace and Plenty triumph o’er the Plains.
What various products float on every Tide?
What numerous Navies in our Harbors ride?
Tillage and Trade conjoin their friendly Aid,
T’ enrich, the thriving Boy and lovely Maid,
Hispania, ’tis true, her precious mines engross’d,
And bore her shining Entrails to its Coast.
Britannia more humane supplies her wants,
The British sense and British beauty plants.
The aged Sire beholds with sweet surprise
In foreign climes a numerous offspring rise,
Sense, Virtue, Worth, and Honour stand confest
In each brave male, his prosperous hands have blessed,
While the admiring Eye improved may trace,
The Mother’s Charms in each chaste Virgin’s Face.
Hence we presume to usher in those Arts
Which oft have warm’d the best and bravest Hearts.
Faint our Endeavours, wide are our Essays,
We strive to please, but can’t pretend to Praise;
Forgiving Smiles o’er pay the grateful task,
Those all we hope and all we humbly ask.
The further information that this interesting article contains it will
be more satisfactory to give in the author’s own words:
“The Orphan” was repeated January 28, and again February 4, with the
addition of “a new Pantomime Entertainment in Grotesque Characters,
called, ‘The Adventures of Harlequin and Scaramouch, with the
Burgo-Master Trick’d.’”
After this run of three nights it was necessary to change the
programme, and so the “Gazette” for February 18, 1734-35, announces
“‘The Opera of Flora; or, Hob in the Well,’ with the Dance of the
two Pierrots and a new Pantomime Entertainment, etc., to begin at 6
o’clock precisely.”
On Tuesday, March 25, they played the comedy called “The Spanish
Fryar; or, The Double Discovery,” and on Thursday of the same week the
play was repeated “for the benefit of Monimia.” Who was Monimia?
This benefit seems to have closed the season, but the people must have
been pleased, for on May 3 the following advertisement appears:
Any gentlemen that are disposed to encourage the exhibition of plays
next Winter, may have the sight of the proposals for a subscription
at Mr. Shepheard’s in Broad Street. And any persons that are desirous
of having a share in the performance thereof, upon application to Mr.
Shepheard shall receive a satisfactory answer. N. B.--The subscription
will be closed the last day of this month.
There is not another word in “The Gazette” concerning theatrical
affairs until January 24, 1735-36, when the proposals appear to have
borne fruit, for it is announced that--
On Thursday, the 12th of February, will be opened the new theatre
in Dock Street, in which will be performed the comedy called “The
Recruiting Officer.”
Tickets for the pitt and boxes will be delivered at Mr. Charles
Shepheard’s, on Thursday, the 5th of February. Boxes, 30s; pitt, 20s;
and tickets for the gallery, 15s, which will be delivered at the
theatre the day of playing.
N. B.--The doors will be opened all the afternoon. The subscribers are
desired to send to the stage door in the forenoon to bespeak places,
otherwise it will be too late.
Dunlap evidently had never heard of the “new theatre in Dock Street,”
for he says that “in 1773 the first theater was built in Charleston,
S. C., David Douglass having gained permission from the magistrates,
and being invited by the inhabitants. In September he went thither and
the company followed him. They played fifty-one nights in that city,
closing the campaign in June, 1774. On October 24, 1774, the first
Congress agreed to discountenance gaming, cock fighting, exhibition of
shows, plays, and other expensive diversions and entertainments.”
The Charles Town “Gazette” does not notice so important an event as
the opening of the first theater in the South, and probably on this
continent, in its news columns, but the advertisements announce that
on February 23 Otway’s “Orphan” was played, and the next “Gazette”
announces:
By desire of the officers of the Troop and Foot Companies, at the new
theatre, Queen street, will be acted on Tuesday next, a comedy called
the “Recruiting Officer,” with several entertainments as will be
expressed in the great bills.
Tickets to be had at Mr. Charles Shepheard’s and at the theatre.
Charles Town was at that time a rapidly growing town, and plebeian
“Dock” street, as shown by the advertisements, had been changed to
“Queen” street, as it is still known.
Once a week seems to have been the rule for the plays, but the next
piece, George Lillo’s famous “The London Merchant, or the History of
George Barnwell,” was not put upon the boards until March 9. Seven
days later it was repeated “for the last time,” with the addition of
a farce, “The Devil to Pay, or the Wives Metamorphosed.” This was
Coffey’s celebrated work, whose “female character Nell * * * made the
fortunes of several actresses.”
The season seems to have closed with the perennial “Orphan” and the
above-named farce, which were played March 23, 1735-36. This is all
that can be gleaned from the “Gazette” as to the plays and theater, but
the new venture seems to have very soon come to grief. The “Gazette”
for May 22-29 contains this epigram: