very third or fourth man we met gave him a respectful salute.
He continued his friendly talk with me in a way that relieved me
of all sense of my own insignificance in the shadow of his
celebrity and august proportions.

As far as his theatrical association is concerned, we can have no better
source of information than a letter written by Noah to William Dunlap,
and published in the latter's "History of the American Theatre." It is
quoted in full:

New-York, July 11, 1832.

To William Dunlap, Esq.,
Dear Sir:

I am happy to hear that your work on the American Drama is in
press, and trust that you may realize from it that harvest of
fame and money to which your untiring industry and diversified
labours give you an eminent claim. You desire me to furnish you
a list of my dramatic productions; it will, my dear sir,
constitute a sorry link in the chain of American writers--my
plays have all been _ad captandum_: a kind of _amateur_
performance, with no claim to the character of a settled,
regular, or domiciliated writer for the green-room--a sort of
volunteer supernumerary--a dramatic writer by "particular
desire, and for this night only," as they say in the bills of
the play; my "line," as you well know, has been in the more
rugged paths of politics, a line in which there is more fact
than poetry, more feeling than fiction; in which, to be sure,
there are "exits and entrances"--where the "prompter's whistle"
is constantly heard in the voice of the people; but which, in
our popular government, almost disqualifies us for the more soft
and agreeable translation to the lofty conceptions of tragedy,
the pure diction of genteel comedy, or the wit, gaiety, and
humour of broad farce.

I had an early hankering for the national drama, a kind of
juvenile patriotism, which burst forth, for the first time, in a
few sorry doggerels in the form of a prologue to a play, which a
Thespian company, of which I was a member, produced in the
South-Street Theatre--the old American Theatre in Philadelphia.
The idea was probably suggested by the sign of the Federal
Convention at the tavern opposite the theatre. You, no doubt,
remember the picture and the motto: an excellent piece of
painting of the kind, representing a group of venerable
personages engaged in public