“A gentleman must be very difficult to please if he does not find Charleston society agreeable; there is something warm, frank and courteous in the manner of a real Carolinian; he is not studiously, but naturally polite; and though his character may not be remarkable for that persevering industry and close attention to minutiæ in business which are so remarkable in the New England merchants, he is far from deficient in sagacity, courage or enterprise.” One characteristic of the Charleston women which still abides with them is noted by Mr. Murray, who says: “They are pretty, agreeable and intelligent, and in one respect have an advantage over most of their Northern sisters--(if the judge is to be a person accustomed to English society)--I mean as regards voice; they have not that particular intonation which I have remarked elsewhere, and which must have struck every stranger who has visited the other Atlantic cities.” There was little of the Puritanical element in the thriving capital of South Carolina. Many of its citizens had frequented, in their college days, the pit of Drury Lane or Covent Garden, others who had come as adventurers had found the fortunes they sought, and an important element of the population was that strain of Huguenot blood from which Calvinism had not eradicated the _joie de vivre_ inherent in the Frenchman. William Dunlap, the first and most painstaking of the historians of the American stage, states that the first dramatic performance ever given in America was in Williamsburg, Va., where a theatre was opened on September 5, 1752, and this date was generally accepted as correct, and the centennial of the introduction of the drama in America was celebrated with all the honors at Castle Garden, New York, a hundred years later. Later investigators claim that New York was treated to a performance by professionals in September, 1732, and that Addison’s _Cato_ was rendered in Philadelphia by a regular company as early as 1749. The South Carolina _Gazette_ for January 18, 1734, has the following advertisement: “On Friday, the 24th instant, 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.” That this was probably a success is proved by its repetition on the Charleston boards on January 28th, and again February 4th, with the addition of “A new pantomime entertainment in grotesque characters called ‘The Adventures of Harlequin and Scaremouch, with the Burgo-Master Trick’d.’” No city on the continent had a higher standard of scholarship a few decades before and after the Revolution of 1776.