INTRODUCTION THOMAS GODFREY AND "THE PRINCE OF PARTHIA " WHETHER or not it be true, as is so frequently asserted, that America has produced little.drama worthy of the name, certain it is that such drama as. Aderica has produced, especially in the early period of our history, languishes in obscurity for lack of popular interest and critical interpretation. A conspicuous instance of the neglect of our native drama is afforded in "The Prince of Parthia", published for the first and only time a century and a half ago. In cyclopedia and biographical dictionary, there is no dearth of feeble and inadequate accounts of Thomas Godfrey. Yet in the mind of no biographer has significance been accorded to the circumstance that this noteworthy beginning of American drama was made in Wilmington, North Carolina; that it was here the first American tragedy was brought to completion; that it was from this place that the manuscript of this work of original genius was despatched to Godfrey's native city, Philadelphia, for subsequent production - the first production of a native tragedy upon the professional stage in America ; 1 and that it is here Godfrey sleeps unhonored and unsung in an unmarked grave. It is surely incumbent upon the student of our native drama, concerned with the larger interests of our national literature, to endeavor to discover the circumstances under which the play was written and, if possible, to re-create in imagination the literary and cultural conditions of American society, in Philadelphia and in Wilmington, in which young Godfrey found sympathy and encouragement for creative effort. Such a study is especially appropriate at a time when the entire civilized world is paying a monumental international tribute to the genius of William Shakespeare; for this, Godfrey's only dramatic work, is the rich fruit of Shakespearean study... I. There is reason for genuine regret that no detailed and authoritative study has ever been made, so far as is known, of the rare composite of scientist and artist bipartite genius of the type of José Echegaray or "Lewis Carroll", for example - who combines in mediately even proportions the powers of scientific analysis and creative imagination. Little less interesting than this type is the case of the literary artist who is the offspring of the scientist afforded us in the example of Thomas Godfrey, Jr., the poet, son of Thomas Godfrey, Sr., the mathematician. Thomas Godfrey, Senior, was born in Bristol township, about one mile from Germantown, in the colony of Pennsylvania, in the year 1704, on a farm adjoining Lukens' mill, on the Church lane. In some notes on the Godfrey family, J. F. Watson says: "His grand father, Thomas Godfrey, a farmer, had purchased the place of 153 acres from Samuel Carpenter, merchant of Philadelphia, on the 24th of August, 1697. His father, Joseph, a farmer and maltster, died in 1705, when he was but one year old. His mother afterwards married one Wood, of Philadelphia, and put her son out to learn the business of a glazier. The glaziers then did not paint as now; they only soldered the glasses into leaden frames. He did such work for the State house in 1732-3. He also did the same for £6 10s. for Andrew Hamilton's house at Bush hill, in 1740- and I saw his bills. His father's estate became his when he was of age. He appears to have sold it to John Lukens on the 1st of January, 1735. The same premises sold in 1812 for $30,600." According to traditionary accounts, Thomas Godfrey, the "American glazier” was both poor and uneducated; and the "authors" of the American Magazine have given this flowery description of him, fully characteristic of the fanciful writing of the period: "Nature seems not to have designed the Father for a greater Mathematician, than she has the son for a Poet. The former, was, perhaps, one of the most singular Phænomena that ever appeared in the learned world. For without the least advantages of education, almost intuitively, and in a manner entirely his own, he had made himself master of the abstrusest parts of Mathematics and Astronomy." It is clear that he was a man of some small property and moderately well-to-do; and the business in which he was engaged, of glazier or plumber, was reasonably 2 1 Watson: " Annals of Philadelphia", 1850 edition, I, 528. profitable. His interest early turning toward mathematical science, through the mere chance of reading a mathematical work, he resolutely set to work to educate himself. As an illustration of his pertinacity in acquiring knowledge, it is related that, being baffled by the Latin terms with which mathematical books were interspersed, Godfrey “applied himself to that language with such diligence as to be able to read the occasional Latin he found." The branches of mathematics for which he showed the greatest fondness and aptitude were optics and astronomy.1 Intimate personal glimpses of the man and his family are given us by Benjamin Franklin, with all his forthright simplicity and engaging naïveté. After his return, at the age of twenty-one, from his sojourn in London, young Franklin took a house "near the Market" in Philadelphia; and with characteristic frugality, in order to lessen the rent, he and his partner, Hugh Meredith, a "Welsh Pensilvanian", thirty years of age, "took in Thomas Godfrey . . . and his family, who were to pay a considerable part of it to us, and we to board with them." 2 In the autumn of 1727 the studious Franklin formed most of his "ingenious acquaintances" into a "club for mutual improve 1 Watson, l. c., I, 529-530. Cf. also "Philosophical Transactions", No. 435, and Watson's Ms. "Annals", p. 566, in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 2 "Works of Benjamin Franklin", edited by John Bigelow, Phila., 1887, I, 140. In 1730 Meredith removed to North Carolina with many other Welsh settlers from Pennsylvania, who were induced to go on account of the cheapness of the lands. Somewhat later, Franklin published in his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, two letters written by Meredith from North Carolina, containing, as Franklin said, "the best account that had been given of that country, the climate, soil, husbandry, etc." — l. c., 152. 66 ment", which he named the Junto. "The rules that I drew up", says Franklin in his "Autobiography", "required that every member in his turn should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased." 1 Among the first members was Thomas Godfrey, one of the directors of the Library Company of Philadelphia, whom Franklin described in the following thumb-nail sketch: ". . . a self-taught mathematician, great in his way, and afterwards inventor of what is now called Hadley's Quadrant, . . . he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was for ever denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation." The diplomatic Mrs. Godfrey endeavored to arrange a match between Franklin and one of her relations; but the negotiations finally resulted in the departure of the Godfreys in a huff. After a "serious courtship" of the young girl, who he acknowledges with comical condescension to have been "very deserving", Franklin let Mrs. Godfrey, the go-between, know that “he expected as much money with their daughter as would pay off his debt for the printing-house", which he computed as not above a hundred pounds. After that, 1"Works of Franklin." Edited by John Bigelow, 1887, I, 142. For an interesting description of the Junto, see the paper read before the American Philosophical Society by Dr. Patterson, one of its vice-presidents, on the 25th of May, 1843, in commemoration of its Centennial Anniversary. |
