Event Comment: Boswell (Restoration Court Stage, pp. 180-81) believes that a performance occurred on this day, as well as on 16 Feb. 1674@5, Shrove Tuesday, the date often specified in advance statements. For previous notices, see 2 Feb. 1674@5, 15 and 22 Dec. 1674. Edition of 1675:....followed at innumerable Rehearsals, and all the Representations by throngs of Persons of the greatest Quality...at the 20th or 30th, for near so often it had been Rehearsed and Acted....And the Composer of all the Musick both Vocal and Instrumental Mr Staggins. Langbaine. (English Dramatick Poets, p. 92): a Masque at court, frequently presented there by Persons of great Quality, with the Prologue, and the Songs between the Acts: printed in quarto Lond. 1675....This Masque was writ at the Command of her present Majesty: and was rehearsed near Thirty times, all the Representations being follow'd by throngs of Persons of the greatest Quality, and very often grac'd with their Majesties and Royal Highnesses Presence. John Evelyn (The Life of Mrs Godolphin): [Mrs Blagge] had on her that day near twenty thousand pounds value of Jewells, which were more sett off with her native beauty and luster then any they contributed of their own to hers; in a word, she seemed to me a Saint in Glory, abstracting her from the Stage. For I must tell you, that amidst all this pomp and serious impertinence, whilst the rest were acting, and that her part was sometymes to goe off, as the scenes required, into the tireing roome, where severall Ladyes her companions were railing with the Gallants trifleingly enough till they were called to reenter, she, under pretence of conning her next part, was retired into a Corner, reading a booke of devotion, without att all concerning herself or mingling with the young Company; as if she had no farther part to act, who was the principall person of the Comedy...[With] what a surprizeing and admirable aire she trode the Stage, and performed her Part, because she could doe nothing of this sort, or any thing else she undertooke, indifferently....Thus ended the Play, butt soe did not her affliction, for a disaster happened which extreamly concern'd her, and that was the loss of a Diamond of considerable vallue, which had been lent her by the Countess of Suffolke; the Stage was immediately swept, and dilligent search made to find it, butt without success, soe as probably it had been taken from her, as she was oft inviron'd with that infinite crowd which tis impossible to avoid upon such occasion. Butt the lost was soon repair'd, for his Royall Highness understanding the trouble she was in, generousely sent her the wherewithall to make my Lady Suffolke a present of soe good a Jewell. For the rest of that days triumph I have a particular account still by me of the rich Apparell she had on her, amounting, besides the Pearles and Pretious Stones, to above three hundred pounds (ed. Samuel Lord Bishop of Oxford [London, 1847], pp. 97-100). See also 15 Dec. 1674

Event Comment: Boswell, (Restoration Court Stage, p. 280) lists this as by the King's Company, which had given it on 23 July 1662. Pepys, Diary: Hearing that there was a play at the Cockpit (and my Lord Sandwich, who came to town last night, at it), I do go thither, and by very great fortune did follow four or five gentlemen who were carried to a little private door in a wall, and so crept through a narrow place and come into one of the boxes next the King's, but so as I could not see the King or Queene, but many of the fine ladies, who yet are really not so handsome generally as I used to take them to be, but that they are finely dressed. Here we saw The Cardinall, a tragedy I had never seen before, nor is there any great matter in it. The company that came in with me into the box, were all Frenchmen that could speak no English, but Lord! what sport they made to ask a pretty lady that they got among them that understood both French and English to make her tell them what the actors said

Event Comment: Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 285, believes that the ballet may have been given again. See 20 Feb. 1670@1

Event Comment: Boswell (Restoration Court Stage, p. 286) believes that Calisto may have been acted again at court by this date

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; C 5, by Miles Peter Andrews and Frederick Reynolds; based on Le Dissipateur; ou, L'Honnete Friponne, by Philippe Nericault, dit Destouches. Prologue by the Duke of Leeds; Epilogue by Miles Peter Andrews (see text)]: With new Scenes, Dresses and Decorations. The Scenery designed and executed by Greenwood. Gazetteer, 18 Nov.: At the rehearsal of the new comedy on Tuesday the Duke of Leeds, Major Scott, Mr Angerstein [the banker] and Mr Boswell were in the boxes. Mr Boswell said an epigrammatic thought had struck him...and he brought the following Impromptu into life: Andrews, your play is safe enough; For noble Leeds endures it; Boswell and Scott are pledged to puff, And Angerstein ensures it. World, 13 Dec. 1790: To-morrow will be published Better Late than Never (1s. 6d.). Receipts: #240 14s. (206.7; 32.6; 2.1)

Event Comment: Charles II had begun negotiations for bringing Italian players to England again. See the correspondence in HMC, 7th Report, Appendix, pp. 285, 286, 331; and L. C. 5@144, p. 407, in Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 61. See also HMC, 7th Report, p. 288 (1 May 168O) and Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 125

Event Comment: The warrant for the export of the goods of the French comedians who acted in the late summer is dated this day. See Calendar of Treasury Books, 1685-1689, p. 2082, and Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 128. During October #200 was paid to John deSureis for himself and eleven companions, the French comedians who had been at Windsor (Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 128)

Event Comment: Great Applause to the Farce (Hopkins Diary).Benefit for Mrs Abington. Mainpiece: By Particular Desire. Tickets delivered for The Tender Husband will be taken. Send Servants by Four to prevent Confusion. [Sir Joshua Reynolds had procured forty places in the front boxes this night. Boswell and Dr Johnson were among his guests. Johnson could see and hear little, but sat out the performance, commenting on Garrick's excellence as a writer of Prologues. See Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill, II, 324ff.] Receipts: #287 9s. 6d. Charges: #64 4s. Profits to Mrs Abington: #223, 5s. 6d. (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Charles II had rope-dancers perform in the Hall at Whitehall. (See Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 25.

Event Comment: Edward Gower to Sir R. Leveson, 26 Feb. 1660@1: No more plays at court after this night, and but three days this week at the playhouse (HMC, 5th Report, 1876, p. 202). Boswell (Restoration Court Stage, p. 279) accepts this as evidence that a play was acted at Court on this night. As this was Shrove Tuesday, Gower's statement may well reflect the restrictions upon plays during Lent

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: Then my wife and I to Drury Lane to the French comedy, which was so ill done, and the scenes and company and everything else so nasty and out of order and poor, that I was sick all the while in my mind to be there. See also Boswell (Restoration Court Stage, p. 280). W. J. Lawrence (Early French Players in England, The Elizabethan Playhouse and Other Studies (1912), pp. 139-40) argues that the play was Chapoton's Le Mariage d'Orphee et d'Eurydice. See also The Description of the Great Machines of the Descent of Orpheus into Hell. Presented by the French Comedians at the cockpit in Drury Lane. The Argument Taken out of the Tenth and Eleventh Books of Ovid's Metamorphosis (1661). Rugg's Diurnal the French players (BM Add. Mss. 10116, f243v)

Event Comment: According to L. C. 5@137, p. 100 (Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 280), a play, unidentified, was given at court

Event Comment: An unnamed play was acted at court. See L. C. 5@137, p. 389, in Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 280

Event Comment: See Boswell, Restoration Court Theatre, pp. 56-57, for a stage which may have been used for the puppets, and also Speaight, English Puppet Theatre, p. 73. Pepys, Diary: To my Lord's again, thinking to speak with him, but he is at White Hall with the King, before whom the puppet plays I saw this summer at Covent-garden are acted this night

Event Comment: See Boswell (Restoration Court Stage, p. 280), who identifies the company as the King's Company. Evelyn, Diary: Saw the Young Admiral acted coram Rege &c

Event Comment: L. C. 5@137, p. 389, in Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 281. By the Duke's Company. Charles II to Madame (his sister), 9 Feb. 1662@3: I am just now called for to goe to Play (C. H. Hartman, Charles II and Madame [London, 1934], p. 68)

Event Comment: Charles II to Madame, 10 Dec. 1663: I am just now going to see a new play (C. H. Hartmann, Charles II and Madame[1934], p. 89). The Duke's Company. W. J. Lawrence, in a review of Boswell, The Restoration Court Stage, in Modern Language Review, XXVIII (1933), 103, suggests that it was The Step-Mother which was given on this occasion. The edition of 1664 lists: The Prologue to the King at the Cockpit at White-Hall. The Epilogue to the King

Event Comment: Charles II to Madame, 14 July 1664: I am just now come from seeing a new ill play and it is almost midnight (C. H. Hartman, Charles II and Madame [1934], p. 108). W. J. Lawrence, in a review of Boswell, The Restoration Court Stage, in Modern Language Review, XXVIII (1933), 103, stated his belief that this play was acted at court this day

Event Comment: The King's company. On 31 Aug. or 1 Sept. 1664 Orrery wrote to Sir Henry Bennett: Ther was noe Play of myne Acted, they are now but Studyinge it; I hope within less then a Fortnight twill be on ye Theater And if you are not surfetted, with what of mine you have already seene [Henry V], I will beg ye honour to wait on you when tis Acted (see The Dramatic Works of Roger Boyle, ed. W. S. Clark@II [Cambridge, Mass., 1937], 1, 102). The play is also on the list of Herbert, Dramatic Records, p. 138. Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 281, lists it among the plays given at court, but Sir Heneage Finch's note (see below) seems to indicate an afternoon performance. Sir Heneage Finch to Sir Edward Dering, 15 Sept. 1664: Yesterday was acted, in the Greatest and noblest presence wch ye Court can make, before ye fullest Theatre, & with the highest applause imaginable, my Lo Orerys new play calld ye Generall formerly acted in Ireland by the name of Altamira, but much altered & improved. From thence the whole Court went to Wallingford house, where the Earl of Arran and the Lady Mary Stuart were that night before Supper marryd in the Gallery (Dramatic Works of Roger Boyle, I, 103, from Stowe MS 744 f. 81)

Event Comment: An unnamed play was acted by the King's Company at the Cockpit at Court. See L. C. 5@138, p. 156, in Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 281

Event Comment: See Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, pp. 22-56. Pepys, Diary: This night I am told the first play is played in White Hall noon-hall, which is now turned to a house of playing. I had a great mind, but could not go to see it

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Boswell (Restoration Court Stage, p. 282) thinks that this play given on the L. C. lists--see Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 346--between 29 Oct. and 6 Nov., may have been acted on this day. See also an order for supplies for the comedians acting at court in Alwin Thaler, Shakespear to Sheridan, p. 290. Pepys, Diary: I to White Hall, where I staid walking up and down till night, and then got almost into the playhouse, having much mind to go and see the play at Court this night; but fearing how I should get nome, because of the bonefires and the lateness of the night to get a coach, I did not stay

Event Comment: A troupe of foreign comedians under Tiberio Fiorelli had arrived by this date, for on this day the Customs Commissioners were ordered to admit their clothes, scenes, and other equipment. See CSP, Treasury Books, 1672-1675, p. 119 (in Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 119; Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, p. 118). E. Cholmeley to Lady Harley, April 1673: Pray tell Sir Edward that I now want him to go to the new play 'for the Italian comedian Scarramouch is come, which are things I know hee delights in not a little' (HMC, 14th Report, Appendix, Part II [1894], p. 337)

Event Comment: The Diary of Robert Hooke, 1672-1678: at Scaramuches at york house. present: the King, Duke of York, Lord Ormond &c. (ed. H. W. Robinson and Walter Adams [London, 1935], p. 42). See slso Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, pp. 118-19, and John Harold Wilson, A Theatre in York House, Theatre Notebook, XVI (1962), 75-78

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 216. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 348. There is considerable uncertainty as to when the first performance occurred, but it appears to have been acted first at court. See Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, pp. 131-34. The first Prologue, written by Lord Mulgrove, and the second, written by Lord Rochester, are in A Collection of Poems Written upon several Occasions by several Persons (1673). Roger North: And now we turne to the Publik theatres. It had bin strange if they had not observed this promiscuous tendency to musick, and not have taken it into their scenes and profited by it. The first proffer of theirs, as I take it, was in a play of the thick-sculd-poetaster Elkanah Settle, called The Empress of Morocco; which had a sort of masque poem of Orfeus and Euridice, set by Mr M. Lock, but scandalously performed. It begins The Groans of Ghosts, &c. and may be had in print (Roger North on Music, ed. John Wilson [London, 1959], p. 306)