and "The Spires of Oxford," it has immortalized hitherto unknown poetic geniuses like Rupert Brooke, Alan Seeger, and W. M. Letts. On the whole, however, its literary influence has been anything but gratifying. It has vitiated the art of Bennett and Galsworthy; prompted Noyes and Watson to write some of the worst stuff they ever perpetrated; silenced the leading dramatists; and impelled our Louis Untermeyers to camouflage non-war material under such suggestive titles as "These Times." At the very best, indeed, it must be said that it has failed to add to any previously established reputation. True, Masefield's "Gallipoli" is thoroughly good, and Wister's "Pentecost of Calamity" is really powerful; but who imagines, for one moment, that the one or the other will take permanent rank beside such masterpieces as "The Daffodil Fields" and "The Virginian"?

The one consoling phase of the matter is that it has ever been thus. In France, between 1789 and 1815-the period covering the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars-there appeared no fiction at all comparable to that of Balzac and Flaubert; no poetry in a category with that of Hugo, Musset, or Lamartine. Incendiary political pamphlets by Mirabeau, Marat, and other Revolutionists were the literary order of the day. In England, during the Napoleonic War period, only four real classics of fiction, "Sense and Sensibility," "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield Park," and "Waverley," were published. Poetry, meanwhile, was in a rather barren state. Scott alone, of the major poets, was in the heyday of his career. Wordsworth and Coleridge had begun to wane; Byron did only a minor portion of his best work; and Keats and Shelley were as yet obscure. Nor did the essays of Hazlitt, De Quincey, and Lamb appear until several years later. In America, between 1861 and 1865, there was amazingly little literature of any importance brought forth; although Bryant, Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, Lanier, Simms, Timrod, and Hayne were all living, and most of them were in the prime of life.

But why this bad effect of war on literature? The most patent reason for the difficulty is to be seen in something that I mentioned awhile ago: namely, the tendency of poets and

novelists to forsake their crafts for new kinds of writing. And here the result is as obvious, as inevitable, as the sum of two and two. Put a harness-maker at a cobbler's bench, and you are likely to get some inferior shoes. Man a ship with a land-lubber railroad crew, and you had better pray for the safety of the ship. In this connection, also, we must note that even where a writer has stuck to his accustomed field of labor, he has often had to change his philosophy diametrically. Thus, Alfred Noyes, who before the war was a rabid, almost a fanatical pacifist, is now trying to pluck a relentlessly bellicose tune from the strings of his old peace-lute.

Down beneath the surface, however, there lies a much bigger reason for the present temporary decline of literature. The fact is, this world holocaust is so colossal, so overpowering, that no living man, not even the most comprehending of its would-be interpreters, can view it in its true perspective. An American critic, speaking of a volume of Watson's war poetry, characterized the distinguished English author as being at present "a poet so overwhelmed that he forgets to sing." And St. John G. Ervine, in a recent North American Review article, aptly says: "Poets will not be able to write of this war with any artistry until the memories of it have been dimmed and blurred, and the bitterness and hate have been dissolved by the chemicals of time." The same is true, to only a slightly less degree, of the novelists. The great novels and poems of this war, like the great histories, will be written at some time in the future, after the guns have ceased their thundering. And, indeed, supremely excellent novels and poems, whether of war or of peace, will scarcely be written or read any more until that glad day.

The American Theatre in the Eighteenth

Century

ORAL SUMNER Coad
Columbia University

The earliest recorded dramatic exhibition within the limits of the present United States was offered by certain citizens of Accomac in the colony of Virginia on the 27th of August, 1665. The play was entitled Ye Beare and ye Cubb. Our knowledge of this event arises from the fact that the three chief actors, on the complaint of an offended soul, were hailed before the court of justice, where a second performance was given, to the complete vindication of the participants and to the discomfiture of the informant, who was compelled to pay the costs.

At the dawn of the eighteenth century (Mr. O. G. Sonneck, in his Early Opera in America, has shown pretty conclusively that the date was 1703 instead of 1702 as often stated) Anthony Aston, an English adventurer who numbered acting and play-writing among his accomplishments, gave some performances at Charleston and later at New York. The first American theatre, there is reason to believe, was erected at Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1716, near the Bruton Parish Church. Players and scenery from England were included in the project. This house has emerged from oblivion in our own day as the setting for the closing incidents of Mary Johnston's Audrey. The first New York company of which we have any definite information seems to have been a professional body from London, which held forth between 1732 and 1734 in an upper room, capable of seating about four hundred, near the corner of Pearl Street and Maiden Lane. What was perhaps the second play-house in this country to be built expressly for theatrical purposes was put up in Charleston in 1736. Philadelphia's earliest experiment with the stage appears to have been made in 1749 by a semi-professional company, which probably continued its activities until suppressed by the magistrates as a public menace.

Thus did dramatics make a tentative start in several of the

leading colonial towns during the first half of the eighteenth century. But the most important event in the early history of the American stage was the arrival of the Hallam Company in 1752. William Hallam, manager of a minor London theatre, became bankrupt in 1750 and resolved to try his fortunes in the New World. He collected a band of about a dozen actors of no distinction, placed them under the direction of his brother Lewis, himself an actor, and sent them across the Atlantic. Their repertory consisted of perhaps twenty-four dramas, mostly Shakespearean and Restoration, and eight or ten farces. The troupe landed in Virginia, probably choosing the cavalier South as more favorable to the profession than the puritan North. They proceeded to Williamsburg, where they inaugurated their career with The Merchant of Venice on September 15, 1752.* A new, barn-like theatre, built the previous year, housed the enterprise. In the absence of an orchestra a lone harpsichord dispensed music.

The next fall Hallam's players migrated to New York. A theatre was erected in Nassau Street for their reception, the first building constructed in the city especially for dramatic exhibitions. The season extended from September to March; the playing nights were Monday, Wednesday and Friday; the performances began at six o'clock; the price of admission was soon fixed at six, four and two shillings.

In 1754 Hallam attempted to invade Philadelphia, but the Quakers petitioned the governor to prohibit "profane stageplays." Permission was finally granted the company to open a theatre on condition that they offer "nothing indecent and immoral," that they devote one night's receipts to the poor, and that the manager give security for the payment of all debts contracted. The last stipulation clearly indicates the suspicion in which actors were held in many localities; indeed their status was often little better than that of vagrants. Vigorous opposition continued throughout the season of ten weeks. Pamphlets were distributed, and every effort was made to show

Dunlap, in his History of the American Theatre, and others have placed this occurrence on September 5, but the announcement in The Virginia Gazette reads "On Friday next, being the 15th of September.". Moreover the change from old to new style calendar, which was made just at this time, eliminated the days from September 3 to 13 inclusive.

the evils attendant upon the theatre, but the company prospered none the less.

Lewis Hallam was succeeded upon his death by David Douglass, who erected a new play-house on Cruger's Wharf in New York. He did so without the sanction of the authorities, and when he tried to open the doors in 1758 the privilege was denied him. He then advertised a "Histrionic Academy", in which he "proposed to deliver dissertations on subjects moral, instructive, and entertaining, and to endeavor to qualify such as would favour him with attendance to speak in public with propriety." This ruse failed to blind the eyes of the magistrates, but eventually permission for a brief season was granted.

Douglass's actors, like all the early companies, were literally a band of strollers. They carried their simple equipment with them and moved about the country as they saw fit. There were no theatrical magnates with whom they might make advance arrangements. Uninvited they entered whatever town they chose, picked out the most likely substitute for a playhouse, set up their dingy canvas world, and dispensed the riches of Shakespeare and Otway and Congreve until it seemed expedient to move on. Being the chief purveyors of drama to the colonies, the Douglass troupe of barn-stormers embraced in its itinerary the extremes of Newport and Williamsburg, and besides New York, Philadelphia and Annapolis, visited many smaller towns where the court-house or other building was compelled to serve as a theatre. In general the actors were regarded as folk outside the pale of normal moral restrictions, from whom evil conduct was only to be expected. In reality their deportment seems to have been sufficiently correct, and it was their custom to give a benefit for the poor to allay ill-will. One annoyance from which the players suffered was the presence of intruders behind the scenes and even on the stage; sometimes the number on the stage was so large as to interrupt the performance. In return the actors imposed an inconvenience on the public by going from house to house soliciting patronage for their benefit nights. Both practices disappeared before the end of the century.

That the legal status of the profession was very low is