Event Comment: Sixth Night. For the Author. Afterpiece: By Desire. Charges: #67 15s. Profit to Hull #139 6s. 6d. Paid Whitefield one quarter year's salary due Xmas last #25, and Sarjant, ditto #10. Paid Bibb (sword cutler's) bill #14 13s. Receipts: #207 1s. 6d. (Account Book)

Event Comment: The New Comedy, The Man of Business is still deferr'd on account of Woodward's Illness. Paid Pattinson (tallow chandler) #49 13s. Paid Cooper (printer) #42 8s. (Account Book). Receipts: #202 2s

Event Comment: The Fifteenth Night. For the Author. Charges #64 5s. Profit to Hull #51 9s., plus #68 15s. from tickets (Box 151; Pit 134; Gallery 109). Paid Holme & Cooper (timber merchants) #69 8s.; Paid Evans (sawyer) #3 1s. Receipts: #115 14s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: [Afterpiece: Prologue by George Colman elder.] Paid DeLoutherbourg #41 13s. 4d. [this paid monthly throughout season]. Receipts: #104 3s. 6d. (75.9.0; 27.16.0; 0.18.6)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 4 years [not acted since 20 Sept. 1774]. Paid DeLoutherbourg 1 Modth #41 13s. 4d. [this salary paid monthly]. Receipts: #146 16s. (114.0.0; 30.17.6; 1.18.6)

Event Comment: [Afterpiece in place of Tom Thumb, announced on playbill of 3 Oct.] "Covent Garden Theatre. As personal allusions and party views have been attributed to the dramatic satire, called The Wishes, the author thinks he cannot so effectively disclaim them as by entirely withdrawing the piece" (Unidentified clipping, dated 5 Oct. 1782, The Tale Edition of Horace Walpoles Correspondence, cd. W. S. Lewis, 1955, xxix, 219). Paid Guard for Scene Men from 8 June to 21 Sept., on 9 occasions, approximately #900. Paid Music #7 14s.; properties 9s. [both being an average payment throughout the season per night]. Receipts: #221 8s. 6d. (218/11/0; 2/17/6)

Event Comment: The last Time of the Company's performing this Season. [Mainpiece acted for the 22nd time this season. The playbill states, "for the 23rd Time"; on the Kemble playbill this has been corrected in MS to 22nd. Genest, VI, 262, says that this play was also acted on both 3 and 4 June. But on those nights the theatre was dark.] Receipts: #270 11s. (260/7; 10/4; after-money not listed). Account-Book, 5 June: Paid Mrs Siddons a Present from the Proprietors #100; 6 June: Paid 100 Renters #20 4s. apiece; 23 June: Received of Their Majesties #156

Event Comment: The last Time of the Company's performing this Season. Receipts: #185 17s. (181/14; 4/3). Account-Book, 9 June: Received Stage Forfeits this Season #61 2s.; received of His Majesty for the Box this Season #60; paid Barlow [treasurer] in full for salary this Season #200; 20 June: Paid one yrs Land Tax #105 os. 4J

Event Comment: Afterpiece: In Three Acts. Paid Macleish, Printer [of playbills] #9 6s. [this sum paid weekly]. Receipts: #233 17s. 6d. (226.15.0; 7.2.6)

Event Comment: [Afterpiece in place of The Divorce, advertised on playbill of 15 Sept.] Paid Renters' Interest #34 [this paid daily]; Supernumeraries #3 4s. 6d.; Tailor #8 16s. 6d.; Scenemen #5 4s.; Daglish copying music #6 16s. 9d. Receipts: #113 1s. (69.16.0; 41.13.6; 1.11.6)

Event Comment: Account-Book, summer: Paid 212 Renters a total of #4,918 8s. interest; 2 Sept.: Paid Lucas, Tinman, in full, #568 18s. 9d. The last Night of the Company's performing this Season. Receipts: #321 11s. (245/4/6; 67/18/0; 8/8/6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Bensley. Morning Chronicle, 16 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Bensley, No. 21, Charlotte-street, Bloomsbury. Receipts: #490 16s. (217.9.0; 92.4.6; 6.4.6; tickets: 174.18.0) (charge: #231 6s. 2d.). Account-Book breaks down Bensley's charge as follows: house #200, Mrs Siddons #20, Mrs Jordan #10 10s. Properties 5s. 8d., supernumeraries 10s. 6d., for a total of #231 6s. 2d . At the doors of the theatre #315 18s. was received. The charge subtracted from this amount leaves #84 11s. 10d., which was paid to Bensley. The Proprietors made him a gift of the #20 he paid Mrs Siddons. His own profit was therefore #104 11s. 10d., which, in addition to his tickets, gave him a grand total of #279 9s. 10d

Event Comment: Benefit for Mme Mara. 2nd piece: Compressed into 2 Acts. The Words of the new Song to be had at the Theatre. Morning Herald, 21 May: Tickets to be had of Mme Mara, No. 57, Edgeware-road. Account-Book: Paid the Duke of Bedford one years Rent for the Theatre due Ladyday 1794 #456 4s.; Account-Book, 10 June: Paid the Duke of Bedford one years Rent due Ladyday 1795 #456 4s. Receipts: #339 10s. (250.1.6; 2.2.0; tickets: 87.6.6)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: Against my judgment and conscience (which God forgive, for my very heart knows that I offend God in breaking my vows therein) to the Opera, which is now newly begun to act again, after some alteracion of their scene, which do make it very much worse; but the play, Love and Honour, being the first time of their acting it, is a very good plot, and well done. Downes (pp. 21-22): This Play was Richly Cloath'd; The King giving Mr Betterton his Coronation Suit;...The Duke of York giving Mr Harris his...and my Lord of Oxford gave Mr Joseph Price his...and all the other Parts being very well done: The Play having a great run, Produc'd to the Company great Gain and Estimation from the Town

Event Comment: The King's Company. The date of the first production is not known. As the licensing date for this play was 30 April 1678, it probably was acted before Easter, but it may have had its first production immediately after Easter, Sunday 31 March 1678

Event Comment: The King's Company. The date of the premiere is not known. As the play was entered in the Term Catalogues, June 1679, it probably was acted first sometime in the preceding two or three months. Gildon's revision of Langbaine, English Dramatick Poets: This Play met not with the Applause the Author and his Friends expected (p. 28)

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known. The edition of 1687 states on the title page: This may be printed, April 23. 1686. It was entered in the Stationers' Register, 8 May 1686, under the title: The Disappointed Marriage; or, Ye Generous Mistris. It was probably first given before mid-April 1686, with the publication delayed, a delay accounting for the fact that Mrs Percival, who did not marry Mountfort until 2 July 1686, appears in the cast as Mrs Mountford. A song, O love that stronger art than wine, the music by John Blow, the verse by Ousley, and sung by John Bowman, is in The Theater of Music, The Fourth Book, 1687

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but the play was licensed 6 April 1687 in the Stationers' Register, 24 May 1687. The play was probably given first in March, as the Prologue refers to the speaking head, which was mentioned in the Newdigate newsletters (Folger Shakespeare Library), 26 March 1687: A Country man haveing invented a head & soe contrived it that whatever language or tune you speak in the Mouth of it it Repeated distinctly and Audibly. [I owe this reference to Professor John Harold Wilson]

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the premiere is not known, but as the play was licensed to be published, 21 May 1688, it was probably first acted early in April 1688, perhaps in late March. In 1688, also was separately printed New Songs Sung in The Fool's Preferment: In I, I sigh'd and pin'd and There's nothing so fatal as Woman, the music composed by Henry Purcell. In III, Fled is my love, the music composed by Henry Purcell, and sung by Mountfort. 'Tis death alone and I'le mount to yon blue coelum, the music composed by Henry Purcell. In IV, I'le sail upon the Dog-star, and A Dialogue by Jockey and Jenny, Jenny, gin you can love, the composer not stated. In V, If thou wilt give me back my love, composed by Henry Purcell and sung by Mountfort. See also Purcell's Works, The Purcell Society, XX (1916), iv-vi. When this play was revived at Drury Lane on 16 July 1703, the bill was headed: Not Acted these Fifteen Years

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known. The play was entered in the Stationers' Register, 13 Feb. 1689@90, and advertised in the London Gazette, 20-24 Feb. 1689@90; hence, it was probably first given in January 1690, certainly no later than early February 1690. Preface, Edition of 1690: The time was, upon the uniting of the two Theatres, that the reviveing of the old stock of Plays, so ingrost the study of the House, that the Poets lay dorment; and a New Play cou'd hardly get admittance, amongst the more precious pieces of Antiquity, that then waited to walk the Stage; and since the World runs all upon Extremes, as you had such a Scarcity of new ones then; 'tis justice you shou'd have as great a glut of them now; for this reason, this little Prig makes bold to thrust in with the Crowd

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is stated in Luttrell, A Brief Relation, II, 435, 28 April 1692: On Monday will be acted a new opera, call the Fairy Queen: exceeds former playes: the clothes, scenes, and musick cost 3000#. [According to Some Select Songs As they are Sung in the Fairy Queen (1692) tne singers were Mrs Ayliff, Mrs Dyer, Freeman, Mrs Butler, and Pate. See Purcell's Works, Purcell Society, XII (1903), ii; E. W. White, Early Performances of Purcell's Operas, Theatre Notebook, XIII (1958-59 ), 45; and R. E. Moore, Henry Purcell and the Restoration Theatre, Chapter IV.] Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, pp. 42-43: The Fairy Queen, made into an Opera, from a Comedy of Mr Shakespeare s: This in Ornaments was Superior to the other Two [King Arthur and The Prophetess]; especially in Cloaths, for all the Singers and Dancers, Scenes, Machines and Decorations, all most profusely set off; and excellently perform'd, chiedly the Instrumental and Vocal part Compos'd by the said Mr Purcel, and Dances by Mr Priest. The Court and Town were wonderfully satisfy'd with it; but the Expences in setting it out being so great, the Company got very little by it. Gentleman's Journal, May 1692: The Opera of which I have spoke to you in my former hath at last appear'd, and continues to be represented daily: it is call'd, The Fairy Queen. The Drama is originally Shakespears, the Music and Decorations are extraordinary. I have heard the Dances commended, and without doubt the whole is very entertaining. [As the May issue of the Gentleman's Journal was licensed on 14 May, the statement that The Fairy Queen continued to be acted daily may indicate consecutive performances from 2 May to at le ast 14 May 1692.