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The Indian of Fenimore Cooper is the father of the stage Indian; and both have been described by Mr. Mark Twain as belonging to "an extinct tribe which never existed." A full list of the Indian plays more or less successful, known in other days and now quite forgotten, would be one of the curiosities of American dramatic literature. A few of them are here preserved:

THE REVOLUTIONARY AND WAR DRAMA.

THE FRONTIER DRAMA.

All this, of course, is the old, old story so often told on the stage before, and to last forever; but Mr. Murdoch seems to have told it better than any of his fellow-countrymen.

Its reception by the press was not cordial or kindly, and the severe things written about it had, it is said, such an effect upon its sensitive author that he literally died of criticism in Philadelphia, November 13, 1872. Frank H. Murdoch was a nephew of James E. Murdoch, the old tragedian, and was himself an actor of some promise. His single play was of so much promise that if there were an American Academy to crown such productions it might have won for him at least one leaf of the laurel.

THE STAGE AMERICAN IN THE CHARACTER PLAY.

The typical and accepted American of the stage, the most familiar figure in our dramatic literature, is a Jonathan, an Asa Trenchard, a Rip Van Winkle, a Solon Shingle, a Bardwell Slote, a Mulberry Sellers, and a Joshua Whitcomb; and even he does not always figure in the American play as it is here defined.

Mr. Warner and Mr. Clemens, jointly with John T. Raymond, are responsible for the character of Colonel Mulberry Sellers, a stage American from the Southern States. He is quite as much exaggerated as Slote, and quite as amusing. He can be found in part in all sections of the country, perhaps, but as a whole, happily for the country, he does not exist at all, except upon the stage.

THE LOCAL NEW YORK DRAMA.

These were nearly all spectacular plays, and they were usually realistic to a degree in their representation of men and things in the lower walks of life. Rich merchants, lovely daughters, wealthy but designing villains, comic waiter-men, and pert chamber-maids with song and dance accompaniment, were placed in impossible uptown parlors; but the poor but honest printer set actual type from actual cases, and cruelly wronged but humble maidens met disinterested detectives by real lamp-posts and real ash-barrels, in front of what really looked like real saloons.

THE SOCIETY DRAMA.

At the rising of the curtain on the opening night Mr. Crisp was discovered reading a newspaper; and he spoke as follows, the italics being Mr. Sargent's own:

Mrs. Mowatt's career as an actress was very remarkable. She was one of the few persons of adult years who, going upon the stage without the severe training and long apprenticeship so necessary even to indifferent dramatic success, display anything like brilliant dramatic qualities. She was an actress and a "star" born, not made. Her reasons for adopting the profession were as remarkable as the triumphs she won; her success as a playwright encouraging her, she said, to attempt to achieve like favor as a player. Every one familiar with the history of the theatre since it has had a history knows well how great is the distinction between producer and performer, and how few are the actors who have written clever plays, how few the authors who have become distinguished as actors upon the stage. The popularity of Miss Elizabeth Thompson's battle pictures would not encourage her to attempt to lead armies in the field; gun-makers are proverbially poor marksmen; and Von B?low would never succeed were he to attempt the construction of a grand-piano.

Mrs. Mowatt is described, by those who remember her in the first flush of her youth and her success, as "a fascinating actress and accomplished lady; in person fragile and exquisitely delicate, with a face in whose calm depths the beautiful and pure alone were mirrored, a voice ever soft, gentle, and low, a subdued earnestness of manner, a winning witchery of enunciation, and a grace and refinement in every action"; and it was felt by her admirers that she would have become, had she remained longer in the profession, a consummate artist--one of the greatest this country has ever produced.

Matilda Heron was one of the most remarkable actresses our stage has ever produced. With an intensity and passion in her performances which, at times, were magnificent and carried everything before them, she displayed professional shortcomings and infirmities which were often glaring and unpardonable; but she made and held, by the force of her own genius--and genius she certainly possessed--a position which few modern actresses have ever reached. Her personal faults were of the head rather than of the heart, and may they now rest lightly on her!

THE AMERICAN STAGE NEGRO.

THE AMERICAN STAGE NEGRO.

"Dear heart, what a terrible life I am led! A dog has a better that's sheltered and fed. Night and day 'tis the same; My pain is deir game; Me wish to de Lord me was dead! Whate'er's to be done Poor black must run. Mungo here, Mungo dere, Mungo everywhere; Above and below, Sirrah, come, sirrah, go; Do so, and do so. Oh! oh! Me wish to de Lord me was dead!"

This is a style of ballad which has been very popular with Mungo's descendants ever since. It may be added that Mungo got drunk in the second act, and was very profane throughout.

"Backside Albany stan' Lake Champlain-- Little pond half full of water; Plat-te-burg dar too, close 'pon de main: Town small; he grow big, dough, herea'ter.

"On Lake Champlain Uncle Sam set he boat, An' Massa Macdonough he sail 'em; While General Macomb make Plat-te-burg he home, Wid de army whose courage nebber fail 'em."

It is a melancholy fact that George Holland joined Christy and Wood's minstrels in 1857, playing female characters in a blackened face, and dividing with George Christy the honors of a short season. He returned to Wallack's Theatre in 1858. This is a page in dramatic history which old play-goers do not like to read.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd have you for to know I's got a little darky here to jump Jim Crow."

Mrs. John Drew, who was present, says that the boy instantly assumed the exact attitude of Jim Crow Rice, and sang and danced in imitation of his sable companion, a perfect miniature likeness of that long, ungainly, grotesque, and exceedingly droll comedian.

"Wheel about, turn about, Do jis so, An' ebery time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow."

There were many lithographed and a few engraved portraits of Rice made during the years of his great popularity, a number of which are still preserved. In Mr. McKee's collection he is to be seen dancing "Jim Crow" in English as well as in American prints--as "Gumbo Chaff," on a flat-boat, and, in character, singing the songs "A Long Time Ago" and "Such a Gettin' Up-stairs." In the same collection, among prints of George Dimond and other half-remembered clog-dancers and singers, is a portrait of John N. Smith as "Jim Along Josey," on a sheet of music published by Firth & Hall in 1840; and, more curious and rare than any of these, upon a musical composition, "on which copyright was secured according to law October 7, 1824," is a picture of Mr. Roberts singing "Massa George Washington and Massa Lafayette" in a Continental uniform and with a blackened face. This would make James Roberts, a Scottish vocalist, who died in 1833, the senior of Jim Crow by a number of years.

Mr. White says that in early days negro songs were sung from the backs of horses in the sawdust ring; that Robert Farrell, "a circus actor," was the original "Zip Coon," and that the first colored gentleman to wear "The Long-tailed Blue" was Barney Burns, who broke his neck on a vaulting board in Cincinnati in 1838. When the historians disagree in this confusing way, who can possibly decide?

Emmett, describing this scene, places the time "in the spring of 1843," and says that they were all of them "end men, and all interlocutors." They sang songs, played their instruments, danced jigs, singly and doubly, and "did 'The Essence of Old Virginia' and the 'Lucy Long Walk Around.'" Emmett remained upon the minstrel stage for many years; he was a member of the Bryant troupe from 1858 to 1865, and he was the composer of many popular songs, including "Old Dan Tucker," "Boatman's Dance," "Walk Along, John," "Early in the Mornin'," and, according to some authorities, he was the author of "Dixie," which afterwards became the war-song of the South.

Mr. White, nevertheless, was prominently before the public for many years as manager and performer; he was associated with the "Virginia Serenaders," with "The Ethiopian Operatic Brothers" ; with "The Sable Sisters and Ethiopian Minstrels;" with "The New York Minstrels," etc. He introduced "Dan" Bryant to the public, and has done other good services in contributing to the healthful, harmless amusement of his fellow-men.

"Christy's Minstrels, organized in 1842," was the legend for a number of years upon the bills and advertisements of the company of E. P. Christy. This would give it precedence of the "Virginia Minstrels" by a few months at least. When the matter was called to the attention of Mr. Emmett, many years later, he wrote from Chicago on the 1st of May, 1877, that after his own band had gone to Europe a number of similar entertainments were given in all parts of the country, and that Enam Dickinson, who had had some experience in that line in other companies, had trained Christy's troupe in Buffalo in all the business of the scenes, Mr. Emmett believing that Mr. Christy simply claimed, and with truth, that he was "the first to harmonize and originate the present style of negro minstrelsy," meaning the singing in concert and the introduction of the various acts, which were universally followed by other bands on both sides of the Atlantic, and which have led our English brethren to give to all Ethiopian entertainments the generic name of "Christy Minstrels," as they call all top-boots "Wellingtons" and all policemen "Bobbies."

Christy's Minstrels proper began their metropolitan career at the hall of the Mechanics' Society, 472 Broadway, near Grand Street, early in 1846, and remained there until the summer of 1854, when Edwin P. Christy, the leader and founder of the company, retired from business. George Christy, who the year before had joined forces with Henry Wood at 444 Broadway, formerly Mitchell's Olympic, took both halls after the abdication of the elder Christy, and rattled the bones at one establishment, "Billy" Birch, afterwards so popular in San Francisco and New York, cutting similar capers at the other, and each performer appearing at both houses on the same evening.

Edwin P. Christy died in May, 1862. George Harrington, known to the stage as George Christy, died in May, 1868; while in April of the latter year Mechanics' Hall, with which in the minds of so many old New-Yorkers they are both so pleasantly associated, was entirely destroyed by fire, never to be rebuilt for minstrel uses.

The dignified and imposing Mr. Johnston has sat during all these years in the centre of a long line of black comedians, which includes such artists as "Eph" Horn, "Dan" Neil, and "Jerry" Bryant--whose real name was O'Brien--Charles H. Fox, "Charley" White, George Christy, "Nelse" Seymour--Thomas Nelson Sanderson--the Buckleys, J. W. Raynor, Birch, Bernard, Wambold, Backus, "Pony" Moore, "Dan" Cotton, "Bob" Hart, "Cool" White, "Dan" Emmett, "Dave" Reed, "Matt" Peel, "Ben" Gardner, Luke Schoolcraft, James H. Budworth, Kelly, Leon, "Frank" Brower, S. C. Campbell, "Gus" Howard, "Billy" Newcomb, "Billy" Gray, Aynsley Cooke, "Hughey" Dougherty, "Tony" Hart, Unsworth, W. H. Delehanty, "Sam" Devere, "Add" Ryman, George Thatcher, "Master Eugene," "Ricardo," "Andy" Leavitt, "Sam" Sanford, "Lew" Benedict, "Harry" Bloodgood, "Cal" Wagner, "Ben" Collins, and "Little Mac."

Nothing like a personal history of any of these men, who have been so prominent upon the negro minstrel stage during the half-century of its existence, can be given here. They have all done much to make the world happier and brighter for a time by their public careers, and they have left a pleasant and a cheerful memory behind them. Their gibes, their gambols, their songs, their flashes of merriment, still linger in our eyes and in our ears; and before many readers scores of quaint figures with blackened faces will no doubt dance to half-forgotten tunes all over these pages, which are too crowded to contain more than the mere mention of their names.

How much of the wonderful success and popularity of the negro minstrel is due to the minstrel, how much to the negro melody he introduced, and how much to the characteristic bones, banjo, and tambourine upon which he accompanied himself, is an open question. It was certainly the song, not the singer, which moved Thackeray to write years ago: "I heard a humorous balladist not long since, a minstrel with wool on his head, and an ultra Ethiopian complexion, who performed a negro ballad that I confess moistened these spectacles in a most unexpected manner. I have gazed at thousands of tragedy queens dying on the stage and expiring in appropriate blank-verse, and I never wanted to wipe them. They have looked up, be it said, at many scores of clergymen without being dimmed, and behold! a vagabond with a corked face and a banjo sings a little song, strikes a wild note, which sets the heart thrilling with happy pity."

This ballad perhaps was "Nelly Bly," or "Nelly was a Lady," or "Lucy Long," or "Oh, Susanna," or "Nancy Till," or, better than any of these, Stephen Foster's "Way Down upon the Swanee River," a song that has touched more hearts than "Annie Laurie" itself; for, after all, "The Girl We Left Behind Us" is not more precious in our eyes than "The Old Folks at Home;" and the American has sunk very low indeed of whom it cannot be said that "he never shook his mother." Foster is utterly unappreciated by his fellow-countrymen, who erect all their monuments to the men who make their laws. He was the author of "Massa's in the Cold, Cold Ground," "Old Dog Tray," "Old Uncle Ned," "Old Folks at Home," "Old Kentucky Home," "Willie, We have Missed You," and "Come where My Love lies Dreaming." He died as he had lived, in 1864, when he was but thirty-seven years of age, and his "Hard Times Will Come Again No More."

THE AMERICAN BURLESQUE.

THE AMERICAN BURLESQUE.

Classical critics credit Aristophanes with being distinguished for the exuberance of his wit, for his inexhaustible fund of comic humor, and for the Attic purity and great simplicity of his language; while at the same time he is accused of introducing, when it suits his purpose, every variety of dialect, of coining new words and expressions as occasion offers, and of making bad puns, whether occasion offers or not; in all of which his disciples persistently and consistently follow him.

"Whereat, with blade, with bloody, blamefull blade, He brauely broacht his boiling bloody breast,"

read like the blank-verse mouthed by the deep tragedians of the negro minstrel stage of to-day.

Mr. Mitchell's other famous burlesque parts were Man Fred, Hamlet, Willy Walters , Sam Parr, Jap , Antony, and Richard Number Three. Very few portraits of this old actor, either in character or otherwise, are known to the collectors. The accompanying print is from a drawing made by Charles Parsons while seated in the pit of the old Olympic half a century ago, when the draughtsman--a mere lad--was beginning his professional career. The original sketch was given to Mr. Mitchell by the young artist, who received in return a pass to the theatre--the highest ambition of the boys of that period.

It would be an easy matter to fill many of these pages with stories of the humorous productions and the laughable performances of Burton and Brougham on the Chambers Street boards. The literature of the American theatre overflows with anecdotes of their quarrels and their reconciliations upon the stage, their jokes upon each other, their impromptu wit, their unexpected "gags"--which were always looked for--the liberties they took with their authors, their audiences, and themselves, and, above all, with their incomparable acting in every part, whether it was serious or frivolous.

"Well roared, indeed, my jolly Tuscaroras. Most loyal corps, your King encores your chorus;"

"Y, sir, or I, sir, search the vowels through, And find the one most consonant to you."

Later the King cries:

"Sergeant-at-arms, say, what alarms the crowd; Loud noise annoys us; why is it allowed?"

And Captain Smith, describing his first introduction at the royal court, says:

"I visited his Majesty's abode, A portly savage, plump and pigeon-toed; Like Metamora, both in feet and feature, I never met-a-more-a-musing creature."

In a more serious but not less happy vein is the apostrophe to tobacco, by the smoking, joking Powhatan, as follows:

"sees a land Where Nature seems to frame with practised hand Her last most wondrous work. Before him rise Mountains of solid rock that rift the skies, Imperial valleys with rich verdure crowned For leagues illimitable smile around, While through them subject seas for rivers run From ice-bound tracks to where the tropic sun Breeds in the teeming ooze strange monstrous things. He sees, upswelling from exhaustless springs, Great lakes appear, upon whose surface wide The banded navies of the earth may ride. He sees tremendous cataracts emerge From cloud-aspiring heights, whose slippery verge Tremendous oceans momently roll o'er, Assaulting with unmitigated roar The stunned and shattered ear of trembling day, That, wounded, weeps in glistening tears of spray."

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