It will be noticed that the frontispiece is from a
drawing by Dunlap, which must have been done by
him shortly after his return from England, where he
had been studying art as a pupil under Benjamin West.
It was evidently intended to represent the portraits of
Mr. and Mrs. Morris, Mr. Henry, Mr. Wignell, and
Mr. Harper, in their respective characters in this play,
with the scenery as given in the last act at the John
Street Theater, the first season, but the inferior work
of the engraver had made it of little value as likenesses.
The illustration to the song of Alknomook is from
music published contemporaneously with the play.
This song had long the popularity of a national air and
was familiar in every drawing-room in the early part
of the century. Its authorship has been accredited
both to Philip Freneau and to Mrs. Hunter, the wife
of the celebrated English physician, John Hunter. It
was published as by Freneau in the American Museum,
where it appears (with slight changes from the version
in the 'Contrast') in vol. I., page 77. But Freneau
never claimed to have written it, and never placed it
among his own collections of his poems, several editions
of which he made long after the 'Contrast' was pub-
lished. Mrs. Hunter's poems were not printed till
1806, and the version of the song there printed is an
exact copy as given in the play.
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