Transcribers' Note:
This e-book contains the text of The Politician Out-witted, extracted fromRepresentative Plays by American Dramatists: Vol 1, 1765-1819. Comments andbackground to all the plays, and links to the other plays are availablehere.
For your convenience, the transcribers have provided the following links:
SAMUEL LOW
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
ACT I.
ACT II.
ACT III.
ACT IV.
ACT V.
Spelling as in the original has been preserved.
(b. December 12, 1765)
Very little is known about the author of "The Politician Out-witted,"[1]a play which I have selected as representative of theefforts of the American drama, as early as 1789, to reflect the politicalspirit of the time. Assiduous search on the part of the presenteditor has failed to bring to light any information from anyof the historical societies regarding Mr. Low, except that he wasborn on December 12, 1765, and that he must have been, in hispolitical sympathies, an anti-federalist. The reader who is interestedin literary comparisons might take this play of Low's andread it in connection with Dunlap's "The Father," in which aprologue gives a very excellent example of the American spirit.Dunlap's "Darby's Return" might likewise be read in connectionwith "The Politician Out-witted," inasmuch as it refers to theFederal Constitution, and to Washington's inauguration.
The present play, which was opposed to the Federal union, was,according to some authorities, offered to the actors, Hallam andHenry, and was promptly rejected by them. There is no recordof the piece having thereafter succeeded in reaching the theatre.It is mentioned both in Dunlap and in Seilhamer in a casualmanner.
In the New York Directory, of 1794, we find Samuel Low mentionedas a clerk in the Treasury Department, and, in a later Directoryof 1797-1798, he is referred to as the first bookkeeper inthe Bank of New York.[2]
In the preface to his published poems, after the diffident mannerof the time, Low says: "Many of the pieces were written at avery early age, and most of them under singular disadvantages;among which, application to public business, for many years past,was not the least; not only because it allowed little leisure forliterary pursuits, but because it is of a nature peculiarly inimicalto the cultivation of poetic talent. For his own amusement andimprovement he has written—at the request of his friends hepublishes."
We know that he was a writer of odes, exhibiting some gracein his handling of this poetic form. He is also credited with havingwritten a long poem entitled "Winter Displayed," in 1794.In 1800, two volumes of poems appeared in New York, andamong the subscribers listed were John Jacob Astor, WilliamDunlap, Philip Hone, Dr. Peter Irving, and members of theBeekman and Schermerhorn families....