Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Abington. 1st piece: By Permission of the Author. 2nd piece [1st time; C 1, attributed to Frances Abington. Larpent MS 1209; not published]: From La? Somnambule; or, Sleep Walker [by Antoine deFeriol, comte de Pont-de-Veyle]. Receipts: #303 12s. (176.1.6; 4.1.0; tickets: 123.9.6)

Event Comment: Artaxerxes [announced on playbill of 21 May] is obliged to be deferred on account of the Indisposition of a principal Performer. Afterpiece [1st time; C 3, by Elizabeth Inchbald. Prologue by Henry Sampson Woodfall, Jun. (see text)]: Taken from the celebrated piece called Guerre Ouverte; ou, Ruse Contre Ruse [by Antoine Jean Bourlin, dit Dumaniant]. Public Advertiser, 1 Dec. 1787: This Day is published The Midnight Hour (1s. 6d.). Receipts: #74 5s. (70.2; 4.3)

Event Comment: Afterpiece [1st time; F 2, by John O'Keeffe, based on Les Intrigants; ou, Assaut de Fourberies, by Antoine Jean Bourlin, dit Dumaniant. Prologue probably by the author.]. Receipts: #269 8s. 6d. (264.10.0; 4.18.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Miss Brunton. 1st piece [1st time; T 3, by Mariana Starke, based on La Veuve du Malabar, by Antoine Marin LeMierre. Prologue by William Thomas Fitzgerald. Epilogue by Richard John Hughes Starke (see text)]: With new Scenes and Dresses. And a Procession representing the Ceremonies attending the Sacrifice of an Indian Woman on the Funeral Pile of her deceased Hqsband. 2nd piece: Not acted these 18 years [acted 4 May 1776. Miss E. Brunton was from the Norwich theatre]. Morning Chronicle, 1 Feb. 1791: This Day is published The Widow of Malabar (1s. 6d.). Public Advertiser, 21 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Miss Brunton, No. 35, Gerrard-street, Soho. [The mainpiece is sometimes stated to have been 1st acted at Mrs Crespigny's private@theatre@in@Camberwell, 1790, but "'The Widow of Malabar' was not first produced at Mrs Crespigny's Theatre. The Tragedy performed there is called 'The British Orphan' (also by Mariana Starke)" (Gazetteer, 24 Jan. 1791).] Receipts: #338 13s. (208.7; 2.8; tickets: 127.18)

Event Comment: Benefit for Whitfield. Afterpiece [1st time; F 2] Translated from the French [La Nuit aux Aventures; on, Les Deux Morts Vivants, by Antoine Jean Bourlin, dit Dumaniant] by Mrs Inchbald, the Author of I'll Tell You What, Such Things Are, A Simple Story, &c. [Larpent MS 900; not published. In 1797 altered by J. C. Cross as An Escape into Prison. "In January 1788 Mrs Inchbald was translating an unnamed French play, acted three years later as The Hue and Cry" (James Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs Inchbald, 1833, I, 255-56). "Mrs Inchbald is now adapting La Nuit aux Aventures, by Dumaniant" (World, 26 Jan. 1788). In the text of Dumaniant's play the dramatis personae is the same as that in the Larpent MS. Author of Prologue unknown.] Morning Chronicle, 30 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Whitfield, No. 19, Great Piazza, Covent-Garden. Receipts: #263 13s. (68.19.0; 31.7.6; 3.13.6; tickets: 159.13.0) (charge: #116 4s. 4d.)

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; C 5, by Thomas Holcroft, adapted from Le Complaisant, by Antoine de Feriol comte de Pont-de-Veyle, and from Clavigo, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It has been attributed to John Fenwick (Genest, VII, 360-61; London Chronicle, 14 Feb. 1798). But for Holcroft's acknowledgment of authorship see his Life, ed. Elbridge Colby, 1925, II, 170. Author of Prologue unknown. Epilogue by the author (Knapp, p. 88)]. Times, 12 Apr. 1798: This Day will be published He's Much to Blame (2s.). "Mrs Mattocks has of late habituated herself to a constant titter, which destroys the effect of her best scenes" (Times, 14 Feb.). Receipts: #249 1s. (240.5; 8.16)