erformed, among
other pieces, Farquhar's _Beaux' Stratagem_. In 1753 a theater was
built in New York, and one in 1759 in Philadelphia. The Quakers of
Philadelphia and the Puritans of Boston were strenuously opposed to the
acting of plays, and in the latter city the players were several times
arrested during the performances, under a Massachusetts law forbidding
dramatic performances. At Newport, R. I., on the other hand, which was
a health resort for planters from the Southern States and the West
Indies. {393} and the largest slave-market in the North, the actors
were hospitably received. The first play known to have been written by
an American was the _Prince of Parthia_, 1765, a closet drama, by
Thomas Godfrey, of Philadelphia. The first play by an American writer,
acted by professionals in a public theater, was Royal Tyler's
_Contrast_, performed in New York in 1786. The former of these was
very high tragedy, and the latter very low comedy; and neither of them
is otherwise remarkable than as being the first of a long line of
indifferent dramas. There is, in fact, no American dramatic literature
worth speaking of; not a single American play of even the second rank,
unless we except a few graceful parlor comedies, like Mr. Howell's
_Elevator_ and _Sleeping-Car_. Royal Tyler, the author of the
_Contrast_, cut quite a figure in his day as a wit and journalist, and
eventually became Chief Justice of Vermont. His comedy, the _Georgia
Spec_, 1797, had a great run in Boston, and his _Algerine Captive_,
published in the same year, was one of the earliest American novels.
It was a rambling tale of adventure, constructed somewhat upon the plan
of Smollett's novels and dealing with the piracies which led to the war
between the United States and Algiers in 1815.

Charles Brockden Brown, the first American novelist of any note, was
also the first professional man of letters in this country who
supported himself entirely by his pen. He was born in {394}
Philadelphia in 1771, lived a part of his life in New York and part in
his native city, where he started, in 1803, the _Literary Magazine and
American Register_. During the years 1798-1801 he published in rapid
succession six romances, _Wieland_, _Ormond_, _Arthur Mervyn_, _Edgar
Huntley_, _Clara Howard_, and _Jane Talbot_. Brown was an invalid and
something of a recluse, with a relish for the ghastly in incident and
the morbid in character. He was in some points a pro