Event Comment: [Mainpiece in place of THE EARL OF ESSEX, advertised on playbill of 23 Dec.] Receipts: #333 5s. 6d. (327/6/6; 5/19/0)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Gibbs. 3rd piece [1st time; M. ENT 2, by James Roberts]: End of Act I A Grand View of the British Fleet and the French Prizes entering Portsmouth, and an appropriate Procession. The Piece to conclude with a representation of the Town, &c. of Portsmouth, as illuminated on the glorious occasion. With a Transparency of Earl Howe. [These were included in all subsequent performances.] The selected Musick by Mornington, Handel, Dr Arne, Boyce, Pleyel, &c. A Naval Overture, and the new Musick, by Dr Arnold. The Scenery by Rooker. Books of the Songs to be had at the Theatre. Morning Chronicle, 24 Oct. 1794: This Day is published RULE BRITANNIA! (1s.)

Event Comment: Benefit for the Widows and Orphans of the Gallant Men who fell in the late Engagement [on 1 June, 1794 ] under Earl Howe. [3rd piece in place of RULE BRITANNIA !, advertised on playbill of 9 Sept.]

Event Comment: Afterpiece: End of Act I an exact Representation of the Engagement between the British and French Fleets on the First of June [1794]. The whole to conclude with a Grand Fire-Work, in honour of Earl Howe. Ladies and Gentlemen are respectfully requested to give peremptory orders to their servants to set down with their Horses Heads towards Drury-Lane, and to take up with the Horses Heads towards Covent-Garden. No Carriage can be permitted to stop the way after proper Notice given to the Company. Powell: Glorious First of June rehearsed at 11. Miss DeCamp came 10 minutes beyond the Time, Dignum 15 minutes, Miss Leak 20 minutes. Receipts: #328 13s. 6d. (271.11.6; 56.2.6; 0.19.6)

Event Comment: [Mainpiece in place of The Earl of Essex, advertised on playbill of 23 Dec.] Afterpiece [1st time; P 1]: Composed, prepared and directed by Mark? Lonsdale. With new Music, Scenery, Machinery, Dresses and Decorations. The Dances by Byrn. The Music partly composed new by Shield [the printed score (Preston and Son [1794]) contains rest of new music, by Aylward , Atterbury, Spofforth, Howard, with overture by Gretry (from Evenements Imprevus)]; the rest selected by Goodwin from the works of Haydn, Aylward, Baumgarten, Boccherini, Pleyel, Gluck, Reeve, Dr Arne, Ware, Leffler Jun. & Spofforth. The Scenery (with very few exceptions) expressly designed and executed by Richards, Walmsley, Phillips, Lupino Jun. and Hodgins; assisted by Byrne, Holland, Thorne, Hollogan and others. The Dresses under the direction of Dick. Books of the Songs to be had at the Theatre. Receipts: #286 1s. (270.8; 15.13)

Event Comment: [Mainpiece in place of The Earl of Essex, advertised on playbill of 10 Jan.] Receipts: #216 14s. (211.1; 5.13)

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; T 5, by William Henry Ireland; incidental music by William Linley. Prologue by Sir James Bland Burges; Epilogue by Robert Merry (see text)]: With new Scenes, Dresses & Decorations. The Scenes designed and excuted by Greenwood and Capon. The Dresses by Johnston, Gay & Miss Rein. Printed slip attached to Kemble playbill: A malevolent and impotent attack on the Shakspeare MSS. [i.e. those forged by W. H. Ireland, of which this play was one] having appeared, on the Eve of representation of Vortigern, evidently intended to injure the interest of the Proprietor of the MSS., Mr Samuel? Ireland [W. H. Ireland's father] feels it impossible, within the short space of time that intervenes between the publishing and the representation, to produce an answer to the most illiberal and unfounded assertions in Mr Malone's enquiry [i.e. Edmond Malone, An Inquiry into the Authenticity of certain Papers attributed to Shakspeare, Queen Elizabeth, and Henry, Earl of Southampton, 1796]. He is therefore induced to request that Vortigern may be heard With that Candour that has ever distinguished a British Audience. The Play is now at the Press, and will in a very few days be laid before the Public. [But it was not issued until 1799 (see below). See also Bernard Grebanier, The Great Shakespeare Forgery, London, 1966.] 4 Apr., states that the first three acts were listened to with patience, but beginning with the fourth act the play was damned, when "one tremendous yell of indignation from the pit burst simultaneously." "At four o'clock the doors of the theatre were besieged; and, a few minutes after they were opened, the pit was crowded solely with gentlemen. Before six not a place was to be found in the boxes, and the passages were filled...The audience betrayed symptoms of impatience early in the representation; but, finding its taste insulted by bloated terms, which heightened the general insipidity, its reason puzzled by discordant images, false ornaments, and abortive efforts to elevate and astonish, pronounced its sentence of condemnation at the conclusion of the play" (Gentleman's Magazine, Apr. 1795, pp. 346-47). "Irelands play of Vortigern I went to. Prologue spoken at 35 minutes past 6 [see 29 Mar.]: Play over at 10. A strong party was evidently made to support it, which clapped without opposition frequently through near 3 acts, when some ridiculous passages caused a laugh, mixed with groans-Kemble requested the audience t o hear the play out abt. the end of 4th act and prevailed.-The Epilogue was spoken by Mrs Jordan who skipped over some lines which claimed the play as Shakespeares. Barrymore attempted to give the Play out for Monday next but was hooted off the stage. Kemble then came on, & after some time, was permitted to say that "School for Scandal would be given," which the House approved by clapping. Sturt of Dorsetshire was in a Stage Box drunk, & exposed himself indecently to support the Play, and when one of the stage attendants attempted to take up the green cloth [i.e. a carpet which, by custom, was laid on the stage during the concluding scene of a tragedy], Sturt seized him roughly by the head. He was slightly pelted with oranges" (Joseph Farington, Diary, 1922, I, 145). Account-Book, 4 Apr.: Paid Ireland his share for the 1st Night of Vortigern #102 13s. 3d. Morning Chronicle, 29 Mar. 1799: This Day is published Vortigern and Henry the Second (4s.). Receipts: #555 6s. 6d. (528.6.0; 26.9.6; 0.11.0)

Event Comment: Account-Book: Received of the Earl of Chesterfield for a private box #105; Paid Simonet for 4 rehearsals #8 8s. Receipts: #270 4s. 6d. (259.14.6; 10.10.0)

Event Comment: Edition of 1660: A Tragy-Comedy. Relating to our latter Times. Beginning at the Death of King Charles the First. And ending with the happy Restaurant of King Charles the Second. Written by a Person of Quality. [This work was probably not acted. The British Museum copy (E 1038) has a MS date 8 Aug. 1660.

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: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: With my wife by coach to the Duke of York's play-house, expecting a new play, and so stayed not no more than other people, but to the King's house, to The Mayd's Tragedy; but vexed all the while with two talking ladies and Sir Charles Sedley; yet pleased to hear their discourse, he being a stranger. And one of the ladies would, and did sit with her mask on, all the play, and, being exceeding witty as ever I heard woman, did talk most pleasantly with him; but was, I believe, a virtuous woman, and of quality. He would fain know who she was, but she would not tell.... By that means lost the pleasure of the play wholly, to which now and then Sir Charles Sedley's exceptions against both words and pronouncing were very pretty

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: Thence called Knepp from the King's house, where going in for her, the play being done, I did see Beck Marshall come dressed, off of the stage, and looks mighty fine, and pretty, and noble: and also Nell Gwyn?, in her boy's clothes, mighty pretty. But, Lord! their confidence! and how many men do hover about them as soon as they come off the stage, and how confident they are in their talk! Here I did kiss the pretty woman newly come, called Pegg Hughes?, that was Sir Charles Sidly's mistress, a mighty pretty woman, and seems, but is not, modest. Here took up Knepp into our coach, and all of us with her to her lodgings, and thither comes Bannister with a song of her's, that he hath set in Sir Charles Sidly's play [The Mulberry Garden] for her, which is, I think, but very meanly set; but this he did, before us, teach her, and it being but a slight, silly, short ayre, she learnt it presently. But I did get him to prick me down the notes of the Echo in The Tempest, which pleases me mightily. Here was also Haynes, the incomparable dancer of the King's house, and a seeming civil man, and sings pretty well

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage," p. 13. Charles II to Madame, Whitehall, 14 Dec.: I can say no more to you now for I am called to goe to the Play (C. H. Hartman, Charles II and Madame [London, 1934], p. 227)

Event Comment: The King's Company. This play has generally been assigned to June 1669, partly on the basis of a suit--see Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, pp. 252-53, 348-55-over a scene for it which Isaac Fuller, the scene designer, states was finished by 23 June 1669. The suit also states that the play ran for fourteen days, but it is not certain that the theatres played on consecutive days in the summer. The play has been assigned to 24 June 1669 on the basis of a letter from Charles II to Princess Henriette-Anne, dated 24 June [1669]: I am just now going to a new play that I heare very much commended (Cyril Hughes Hartmann, Charles II and Madame [London, 1934], p. 259). Elizabeth Cottington to Herbert Aston, ca. May 1669: Wee ar in expectation still of Mr Draidens play. Ther is a bowld woman [Aphra Behn (?)] hath oferd one: my cosen Aston can give you a better account of her then I can. Some verses I have seen which ar not ill; that is commentation enouf: she will think so too, I believe, when it comes upon the ptage. I shall tremble for the poor woman exposed among the critticks (Arthur Clifford, Tixall Letters [London, 1815], II, 60)