In 1751, at Barbadoes, Washington “was treated with a play ticket to see the Tragedy of George Barnwell acted: the character of Barnwell and several others was said to be well perform’d there was Musick a Dapted and regularly conducted.” This presumptively was the lad’s first visit to the playhouse, but from that time it was one of his favorite amusements. At first his ledger shows expenditures of “Cash at the Play House 1/3,” which proves that his purse would bear the cost of only the cheapest seats; but later he became more extravagant in this respect, and during the Presidency he used the drama for entertaining, his ledger giving many items of tickets bought. A type entry in Washington’s diary is, “Went to the play in the evening—sent tickets to the following ladies and gentlemen and invited them to seats in my box, viz:—Mrs. Adams (lady of the Vice-President,) General Schuyler and lady, Mr. King and lady, Majr. Butler and lady, Colo Hamilton and lady, Mrs. Green—all of whom accepted and came except Mrs. Butler, who was indisposed.” Maclay describes the first of these theatre parties as follows: “I received a ticket from the President of the United States to use his box this evening at the theatre, being the first of his appearances at the playhouse since his entering on his office. Went The President, Governor of the State, foreign Ministers, Senators from New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, M.[aryland] and South Carolina; and some ladies in the same box. I am old, and notices or attentions are lost on me. I could have wished some of my dear children in my place; they are young and would have enjoyed it. Long might they live to boast of having been seated in the same box with the first Character in the world. The play was the ‘School for Scandal,’ I never liked it; indeed, I think it an indecent representation before ladies of character and virtue. Farce, the ‘Old Soldier.’ The house greatly crowded, and I thought the players acted well; but I wish we had seen the _Conscious Lovers_, or some one that inculcated more prudential manners.” Of the play, or rather interlude, of the “Old Soldier” its author, Dunlap, gives an amusing story. It turned on the home-coming of an old soldier, and, like the topical song of to-day, touched on local affairs: “When Wignell, as Darby, recounts what had befallen him in America, in New York, at the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the inauguration of the president, the interest expressed by the audience in the looks and the changes of countenance of this great man [Washington] became intense. He smiled at these lines, alluding to the change in the government— There too I saw some mighty pretty shows; A revolution, without blood or blows, For, as I understood, the cunning elves, The people all revolted from themselves. But at the lines—