In the colonial society, or “people of figure,” as they were then called in New York, where so much depended upon manners, well-arranged apparel and a flowing wig, a peruke maker was, at least in his own estimation, a person of consequence, as appears from the manner in which Mr. Heady is referred to in the paragraph that has been quoted, and also from an announcement that appeared in the “New York Weekly Post Boy” of March 5, 1750, about three weeks after the opening of the Nassau Street Theater by Kean & Murray’s company, as mentioned in my former paper, which announcement is as follows:
“This is to acquaint the public that there is lately arrived from London the Wonder of the World, an honest Barber and Peruke Maker, who might have worked for the King if his Majesty would have employed him; it was not for the want of money that he came here, for he had enough of that at Home; nor for the want of Business that he advertises himself; but to acquaint the gentlemen and ladies that such a Person is now in Town living near Rosemary Lane, where Gentlemen and Ladies may be supplied with Goods as follows, viz.: Tyes, Full Bottoms, Myers, Spencers, Fox-Tails, Ramilies, Tucks, Cut kinds of head coverings and adornments, and bob Perukes; also Ladies’ Talemalongues and Towers, after the Manner that is now wore at Court. By their humble and obedient Servant,
“John Still.”
The hibernicism that he did not put in the advertisement for the want of business, nor to make money, of which he had plenty, but merely to apprise the ladies and gentlemen that such a person was then in town, was, if genuine, an exhibition of enormous self-importance, or it was what is more probable, a comic effort to attract attention to his calling by one who was something of an adept in that way, who may have been a member of the theatrical company that were then performing, and who followed the three pursuits of a barber, a peruke maker, and an actor.
It would appear that there was a second opening of a theater in New York seven years afterwards. All that I know respecting it is that there is a manuscript volume in the possession of Mr. William Nelson, of Paterson, New Jersey, handsomely engrossed with ornamental lettering, entitled:
POEMS
ON
SEVERAL OCCASIONS
BY
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]