Event Comment: Mainpiece: The authorship is uncertain, with both Joseph Mitchell and Aaron Hill connected with the play.] Benefit the Author. Receipts: money #33 14s.; tickets #76 12s

Event Comment: [The play was not allowed to conclude, nor was the afterpiece, All the World's a Stage, performed. "Yesterday evening, during the representation of...A Bold Stroke for a Wife, at China Hall, Rotherhithe, a party of the inhabitants, who had laid an information against the performers, rushed into the theatre, behind the scenes, and seized Mr Russell (who played the character of Colonel Feignwell), and carried him, in his stage dress, before Justice Smith, at the Rotation-Office, St Bennet's-hill, who committed him to the House of Correction, for further examination this morning" (Morning Chronicle, 24 July). What happened to Russell is not known, but because of this occurrence the theatre did not re-open until the following season, on 25 May 1778. See my article on the history of this unlucky playhouse, Theatre Notebook, VIII, 76-80.

Event Comment: At Hill's Large Theatrical Booth on the Bowling Green, Mainpiece an Italian Comic Farce translated into English by the celebrated Punch, Poet Laureate to the Grand Mogul

Event Comment: PPhillips and Yeates' Booth, opposite Hospital Gate, West Smithfield, during the time of bf. Boxes, 2s. 6d. Pit 1s. 6d. First Gallery 1s. Upper Gallery 6d. There is an extraordinary Band of Music promis'd. [Notice repeated 26 Aug.

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's house, and there saw part of The Discontented Colonel, but could take no great pleasure in it, because of our coming in in the middle of it

Event Comment: Benefit Mrs Hill. At the Desire of several Ladies of Quality. At 7 p.m

Event Comment: Benefit Pearce, Sandham, Bowcher, Miss Hill. At the particular Desire of several Persons of Quality and Distinction

Event Comment: [By Aaron Hill.] Never Acted before

Event Comment: Afterpiece: [by Aaron Hill.] Never performed before

Event Comment: [Probably by Aaron Hill. Apparently not published.] Never Acted before. Written by the Author of the Walking Statue

Event Comment: [By Aaron Hill.] Never Acted before. All the Cloaths, Scenes, and Decorations to the Play being entirely New. Receipts: #78 1s. 6d

Event Comment: Benefit a Gentleman in Misfortunes. Written by Aaron Hill, Esq. All the Characters being entirely new Dress'd. N.B. The putting off the Play so long was occasion'd by the Indisposition of one of the principal Performers, and the Tickets deliver'd out for 4th, the 11th, and the 17th Instant will be taken this Day

Event Comment: First Piece; [Author unknown. Apparently not published.] A New Farce of Two Acts. Second Piece: Written by Aaron Hill, Esq. Third Piece: The Words by Mr Motteux, and set to Musick by Mr Eccles

Event Comment: Second Piece: Written by $Aaron Hill, Esq.

Event Comment: [By Aaron Hill.] On Shakespear's Foundation. With several Sets of Scenes entirely new and properWto the Play. [In an advance notice in Daily Journal, 6 Nov., the scenes are reported to be designed by Signior Angelo, an Italian.

Event Comment: Never Acted before. [By Aaron Hill.] With new Habits, Scenes, and other Decorations, proper to the Play. Admission: 5s., 3s., 2s., 1s. [See Pope, Correspondence, III, 253-54.

Event Comment: The Tragedy of Zara, Made English [by Aaron Hill]. Applauded Thirty-Six Nights running at Paris. The Characters, by a Sett of Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, who never acted before. None will be admitted but by Tickets into the Room that Night, which (by Reason of the Smallness of the Place) will be all commodiously made into Boxes, for the easy Reception of those many Great Personages, who have read and perus'd this Play with Approbation, and desir'd a long Time to see it acted; and charitably agreed to favour and encourage this Design, for the Benefit of [Mr William Bond, the Proprietor], who brings it on at a great Expence (tho' all that act in it, are so good to appear Gratis for him) who has lain ill of the Gout, and Rheumatism, upwards of Four Years. [This bill, in the London Daily Post and General Advertiser, differs considerably in phraseology, though not in basic fact, from that in the Daily Advertiser.]

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Taken from the French of Mons Voltaire [By Aaron Hill]. The Characters New Dress'd

Event Comment: By the Company of Comedians from Goodman's Fields. Taken from the French of Mons Voltaire. [By Aaron Hill.] Admission: 4s., 2s. 6d., 1s. 6d., 1s. 7 P.M

Event Comment: The Farce dislik'd (Cross). Receipts: #160 (Cross); #169 18s. 6d. (Winston MS 8). [See review of the reception and circumstances of publication in Gentleman's Magazine (p. 37), which presents Hill in no good light. See also review of A Letter to the Honourable Author of the Rout (idem.) with its charges against Garrick.

Event Comment: 1st piece [1st time; INT 1 by Francis Godolphin Waldron): Altered from THE FATAL EXTRAVAGANCE of [Joseph] Mitchell and Aaron Hill. "I went on Monday evening with Mrs Darner to the Little Haymarket, to see The Children in the Wood, having heard so much of my favourite, young Bannister, in that new piece; which, by the way, is well arranged, and near being fine. He more than answered my expectation, and all I had heard of him. It was one of the most admirable performances I ever saw: his transports of despair and joy are incomparable, and his various countenances would be adequate to the pencil of Salvator Rosa. He made me shed as many tears as I suppose the original old ballad did when I was six years old. Bannister's merit was the more striking, as, before The Children in the Wood, he had been playing the sailor in No Song No Supper, with equal nature" (Walpole [4 Dec. 1793], XV, 266-67)

Event Comment: Christopher Jeaffreson to Colonel Hill, 29 Oct. 1684: Sir James Hackett, lieutenant-colonell to the Lord Dunbarton's regiment, was wounded in the thigh by one Mr Potter in the Playhouse; of which woud he has since died. He is much lamented by his Majesty, and all that knew him (J. C. Jeaffreson, A Young Squire of the Seventeenth Century [London, 1878], II, 143-44)