An advertisement for performance at the Royal Victoria Theatre, Sydney, as a benefit for the actor Albert Spencer, on 28 August 1838, to include 'Shakespeare's celebrated Tragedy, entitled King Lear'; 'After which (for the first time in this Colony) ... the celebrated popular Comic Song, entitled "Jim Crow"'; and '(for the first time at this Theatre) the 'grand Eastern Spectacle, entitled Timour the Tartar'.
An advertisement for performance at the Royal Victoria Theatre, Sydney, on 25 August 1838 to include the 'Romantic Drama, entitled The Knights Templars' and the 'Laughable Farce, called The Rival Pages'.
The subject of this piece is James Macpherson (ca. 1675-1700) a Scottish 'thief and reputed musician', according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. The unknown author of the piece quotes from Robert Burns' poem about Macpherson, 'Macpherson's Farewell' (1788) as well as from a ballad by James Herd entitled 'MacPherson's Rant' (1769) .
AustLit has not yet established if this is work is by an Australian writer. The work may have been sourced from an international publication.
Source: Mary Anne Alburger, ‘MacPherson, James (c.1675–1700)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17727, accessed 28 May 2014]
