ARCHIBALD HOME, ESQ., Late Secretary and One of His Majesties Council for the province of New Jersey North America, which was purchased by Mr. Nelson from a London dealer in 1890, and that one of these poems is entitled PROLOGUE, INTENDED FOR THE SECOND OPENING OF THE THEATRE AT NEW YORK, ANNO 1739, which is as follows: Encourag’d by th’ Indulgence you have shown, Again we strive to entertain the Town, This gen’rous Town which nurs’d our infant Stage And cast a Shelter o’er its tender Age, It’s young Attempts beyond their Merits prais’d Fond of the little Bantling she had rais’d Go on to cherish to a Stronger Size This Spur to Virtue, this keen Scourge to Vice! Ye Faultless Fair, lend all your influence here! O Patronize the Child, you cannot Fear. Oft when the Serious Admonition Fails O’er the lov’d Fault the Comick Mask prevails; Safe From the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne, Vice blushing yields to ridicule alone. This ancient Greece this the Great Romans knew, They held th’ instructive Mirrour Fair to view; That each his own Deformities might trace And smooth his features by the Faithful Glass. When Arts and Sciences began to Smile, And shed their Lustre on our Parent Isle, Attendant on their Steps the Drama came, Like theirs th’ Improvement of Mankind her Aim; Intent on this with them she journeys West, To our New World, a wish’d, a welcome Guest; Here pleas’d she sees her Stage erect its head, Her Children honour’d, & her Servants Fed; Prophetick views in you her second Rome And swells her Breast with Empire yet to come.[18] The researches of the writer of an article in “The New-York Times” of December the 15th, 1895, has brought to light some information hitherto unknown of these early American theaters. He has examined the newspaper files of the Library Society in Charleston, South Carolina, from 1732, and finds, on the 24th of January, 1735, that a play was acted in Charles Town, as the name was then written, and he gives this advertisement of it in the “South Carolina Gazette,” dated, as was then customary, from Jan. 18, 1734-35: On Friday, the 24th inst., in the Court Room, will be attempted a tragedy called “The Orphan, or The Unhappy Marriage.” Tickets will be delivered out on Tuesday next, at Mr. Shepheard’s, at 40s. each.