Page:Republican Court by Rufus Griswold.djvu/252

dyism," was produced at the John street house with considerable success. It was written by William Dunlap, who for two or three years had painted portraits, for very moderate prices, at number thirteen Queen street. A contemporary critic observes that "sentiment, wit, and comic humor, are happily blended in this ingenious performance, nor is that due proportion of the pathetic, which interests the finest feelings of the human heart, omitted. The happy allusions to characters and events in which every friend of our country feels interested, and those traits of benevolence which are brought to view under the most favorable circumstances, conspired to engage, amuse, delight, and instruct, through five acts of alternate anticipations and agreeable surprises." The reception of this piece encouraged Dunlap to further efforts, and on the twenty-fourth of November his "Darby's Return" was acted, before a very crowded house, to its "fullest satisfaction." When Washington came in, on this, as on other occasions, the audience rose and received him with the warmest acclamations.

IV.

The winter of 1789-90 was warmer than any which the oldest inhabitants could remember. In the last week of December and the first of January gardeners and farmers on the island of Manhattan were ploughing, and women appeared in the streets of the city in their summer dresses. The pleasant custom of making New Year's calls had long obtained in most of the countries of continental Europe, and it was brought to New York by both the Dutch and the Huguenots, who had preserved it as one of their peculiar institutions, which never could be naturalized in towns of a more purely English origin and population. On Friday, the first of January, 1790, we are informed by the late venerable Mr. John Pintard, who was then a young man of fashion, and a close observer,