known as one of the foremost dames of the colonies; and several others, some from the Royalist side, as Sewell's _Cure for the Spleen_ and an anonymous production, _The Battle of Long Island_. The second war with England was also celebrated by our early playwrights, as was the war with Tripoli. The dramatic history of no country would be complete which did not celebrate the deeds and warlike exploits of its aboriginal inhabitants, and the American dramatist was not slow in recognizing the many-sided character of the North American Indian. His wars, his fluent oratory, his virtues, are all told, the best of these efforts being embodied in Stone's _Metamora_, made famous by the acting of Edwin Forrest. But all of the dramatic productions which were written prior to 1830 did not relate to America, and a glance over the list will show many plays which take for their groundwork the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the Russian Empire and its people, while Love, that mysterious something which lays its finger upon all whether we will or no, is found, as in our fiction, in nearly all of them. What the dramatist, poet, and novelist would do without the help of the fickle goddess is an unsolvable problem. As will be seen by a glance at the contents of this volume, few of the plays were acted, nor were many of them intended for public entertainment. A large number were written to serve a purpose--political or otherwise--and when that had been attained, were forgotten, even by their authors. They show, however, what was and could be accomplished in this way, at a time when the average citizen had little time for aught but earnest, sober thought. When looked at from this view-point we must really wonder that as much remains as has been discovered. Can any country besides ours show a better result--at least for quantity, if not for quality? Among the interesting facts which will be discovered by a perusal of this list is that a number of the writers of early American plays were men who achieved success in other callings. Thus we find among those who found time to interest themselves in the drama and the production of plays, the names of Judge H. H. Brackenridge, Charles Brockden Browne, the first American novelist, Edward Hitchcock, President of Amherst and foremost among the scientists of his era, David Humphreys, Revolutionary soldier and diplomat, John Neal, the friend of Poe, Jas. G. Percival, the poet, Jas. K. Paulding, coworker with Irving, Royall Tyler, and Samuel Woodworth, author of _The Old Oaken Bucket_.