Robert Montgomery Bird

“ The Broker of Bogota will live when our vile trunks are rotten." Certainly in the character of "Febro," with his middle-class mind, lifted into tragedy by his passionate love for his children and his betrayal by his oldest and best loved son, Bird drew one of the most living portraits in our dramatic history. ”

“ Although he started practice and at a later time (1841–3) was a member of the Faculty of the Pennsylvania Medical College in Philadelphia, medicine was never the main interest in his life. While still attending the University he was writing plays, and completed in 1827 two romantic tragedies, The Cowled Lover and Caridorf, and two comedies, A City Looking Glass (1828) and News of the Night, both dealing with life in Philadelphia. None of these was acted.
Pelopidas or The Fall of the Polemarchs, a tragedy laid in Thebes, was finished in 1830 and was accepted by Edwin Forrest. ”

“ The Broker of Bogota represents the romantic verse tragedy, written under the inspiration of Edwin Forrest. It represents also the interest in the Spanish colonies in America, in which its author, Robert Montgomery Bird, laid so many of the scenes of his plays and novels. Bird was born February 5, 1806, in New Castle, Delaware. After completing his school life at Germantown Academy, near Philadelphia, he entered the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating on April 6, 1827. ”