Harper's Encyclopædia of United States History
John Howard Payne
Payne, JOHN HOWARD, dramatist; born in New York City, June 9, 1792; was very precocious, editing The Thespian Mirror when only thirteen years of age. He became a poet, a dramatist, and an actor of renown. At the age of fifteen and sixteen he published twenty-five numbers of a periodical called The Pastime, and in 1809, at the age of seventeen, he made a successful entrance upon the theatrical profession at the Park Theatre, New York, as Young Norval. In 1810 he played Hamlet and other leading parts with great success, and, at the age of twenty and twenty-one, he played with equal success at Drury Lane, London. While there he produced many dramas, chiefly adaptations from the French. In one of these occurs the song Home, Sweet Home, by which he is chiefly known. Payne became a correspondent of Coleridge and Lamb; and, in 1818, when he was twenty six years of age, his tragedy of Brutus was successfully brought out at Drury Lane. He returned to the United States in 1832. He was appointed consul at Tunis, and died in office there, April 10, 1852. His remains were brought to Washington late In March, 1883, and interred at Georgetown.
- Payne, JOHN HOWARD, Harper's Encyclopædia of United States History from 458 A.D. to 1902, edited by John Benson Lossing and Woodrow Wilson, 1902.