Event Comment: [[By
William Congreve. Premiere.] Congreve wrote on 26 March: I wished particularly for you on Friday last, when
Eccles his music for the prize was performed in
Dorset Garden, and universally admired.
Mr Finger's is to be to-morrow; and
Russel and
Weldon's follow in their turn....The number of performers, besides the verse-singers, was 85. The front of the stage was all built into a concave with deal boards; all which was faced with tin, to increase and throw forwards the sound. It was all hung with sconces of wax-candles, besides the common branches of lights usual in the playhouses. The boxes and pit were all thrown into one; so that all sat in common; and the whole was crammed with
beauties and
beaux, not one scrub being admitted. The place where formerly the music used to play, between the pit and the stage, was turned into
White's chocolate-housev....Our friend
Venus performed to a miracle; so did
Mrs Hodgson Juno. Mrs Boman was not quite so well approved in
Pallas.-Congreve to
Keally, in Congreve, I, 71-72
Performances
Mainpiece Title: The Judgment Of Paris