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TRANSCRIBERS' NOTES

This e-book contains the text of _The Prince of Parthia_, extracted from
Representative Plays by American Dramatists: Vol 1, 1765-1819. Comments and
background to all the plays and the other plays are available at Project
Gutenberg.

Spelling as in the original has been preserved.




THE

PRINCE OF PARTHIA


_A TRAGEDY_




THOMAS GODFREY, JR. (1736-1763)


Thomas Godfrey, Jr., was born in Philadelphia, on December 4, 1736,
the son of a man who himself won fame as an inventor of the Quadrant.
Godfrey, Senior, was a friend of Benjamin Franklin, the two probably
having been drawn together by their common interest in science. When
Godfrey, Senior, died, December, 1749, it was Franklin who wrote his
obituary notice.[1]

Young Godfrey was a student at the College or Academy of Philadelphia,
and when his education was completed, he became apprenticed to a
watch-maker, remaining in that profession until 1758. As a student at
the Academy, he came under the special influence of Dr. William Smith,
the first Principal or Provost of that institution,[2] and it was Dr.
Smith who not only obtained for Godfrey a lieutenancy with the
Pennsylvania troops in 1758, which sent him in the expedition against
Fort Duquesne, but who, likewise, as the Editor of _The American
Magazine_, was only too glad to accept and publish some of Godfrey's
poetical effusions.

That the young man was popular, and that he associated with some of
the most promising figures of the time, will be seen from the fact
that, although he was only twenty-seven