Music of Philadelphia and actress. Benjamin Franklin was also a musician, a guitar teacher and inventor of musical instruments like the glass armonica. In 1784 Andrew Adgate organized the Institution for the Encouragement of Church Music, renamed the Uranian Academy (1787–1800). The school was the center of the city's choral music scene during the latter part of the 18th century. The earliest known performance of a musical drama in Philadelphia was Colley Cibber’s "Flora, or Hob in the Well", a ballad opera performed by a touring opera company from England in 1754. In 1757 Francis Hopkinson mounted an elaborate production of Thomas Arne’s
Paris in the 18th century business, but all important decisions had to be made by the King and his council. Despite the grandeur of the new monuments, the center of the city at the beginning of the 18th century was overcrowded, dark, unhealthy, and had little light, air, or drinking water. It was also dangerous, despite the addition of the first metal lanterns on the main streets and the enlargement of the police night watch to four hundred men. The last years of the King's long reign were marked by natural catastrophes which caused great suffering for the Parisians; they began with a bad harvest