Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Cibber. Last time of acting it this season. [Seven rows of Pit laid into Boxes, and amphitheatre on stage. Send servants at 3 o'clock.] Receipts: #240 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for Sga Passerini at the Great Room, Dean Street, Soho. N.B. The Pastoral will precede the Oratorio. The Pastoral, by Desire. The overture and greatest part of which composed by his Majesty the King of Prussia. Mainpiece by Handel. Tickets for the 29th will be taken. Tickets at half a guinea for the Pit, and 5s. for the Gallery. To begin at 6:30 p.m. [The Pastoral is not named in the Bill, but from comment on its musical composer is deemed to be Charlottenburg Festegiante. See 16 March.

Event Comment: PPublic Advertiser: The Uncommon Applause of the new Entertainment...has excited the curiosity of a great many of the Nobility and Gentry that had never seen Marybone before. Sga Seratina and Mr Reinhold have distinguished themselves surprisingly; and though this Entertainment is performed in the English Language, clearly proves, that it is in the Power of an Englishman, to excel even the Italians in that kind of performance; Sga Seratina (though an Italian) expresses the English Dialect with all the Graces, and proper Expressions, which that kind of performance requires. [Books of the performance to be had at the Bar 6d. each.

Event Comment: To begin each day at twelve noon and end at ten at night during the short time of St Bartholomew Fair at Yates' (from Drury Lane) Great Concert Hall in the Greyhound Inn, Smithfield. There is a commodious way to the Hall opposite the Sheep-Penn. The diverting entertainment contains the distresses of a young lady that was stolen by a French pirate; the gallantry of an English Captain who rescued her; their unfortunate shipwreck, and their being thrown upon a desolate island; their sufferings through famine; the unexpected relief they met with on a part of the island; governed only by women; their being afterwards seized as pirates; the punishment inflicted on them by the Female Goverment; and their amazing delivering by the Queen's finding her husband and her only son, whom she had lost and thought dead upwards of twenty years. Interspersed with the comical and diverting adventures of Lt Fireball, a true English Tar, Noddy a distressed Beau, Snivel Thimble, a tailor; Splitfarthing an Old Userer; and Glisterspite a Finical Surgeon. In which will be introduced a Dialogue between Mynheer Vanflawkin, a Dutchman, and Mynheer-the German

Event Comment: N.B. We have engag'd Mr King; & Miss Baker from Ireland, one Mr Moody, a Stroler,-Mr Beard is gone to Covent Garden, 'tis said to be manager Mr Mossop to Ireland. Receipts: #120 (Cross). Boxes 5s. Pit 3s. Gallery 2s. Upper Gallery 1s. Places from Mr Varney at the Stage Door. No admittance behind scenes. [The customary note about prices and admittance will not be noted further here.] [At the opening of the theatres this season appeared an essay in Goldsmith's Bee, giving close observations upon actors, and deploring the relative stiffness and formality of English actors in comparison with the French. Advised English actors to travel abroad. Yet (Vol. 1759, p. 12) commented on the magnificnece of "our theatres as far superior to any others in Europe where plays only are acted. The great care our performers take in painting for a part, their exactness in all minutiae of dress, and other little scenical proprieties has been taken notice of by Riccoboni." Complains of the convention of laying a rug before a dying scene and of the vacant expressions of mutes on stage.

Event Comment: At Yeates' Theatrical Booth, Greyhound Inn, during the time of Bartholomew Fair. The whole to be decorated with decency, and propriety, together with a grand Band of Music, consisting of French Horns, Violins, Trumpets, Hautboys, &c. N.B. There is a convenient Way to the theatre in Cow Lane for coaches, where Ladies and Gentlemen may have admittance without interruption. Boxes 2s. 6d. Pit 2s. First Gallery 1s. Upper 6d. [Several persons had provided booths in the Inns at Smithfield to perform Drolls and Interludes, as had been customary for many years, and were preparing to exhibit accordingly; but the City Marshall and other officers, by order of the Lord Mayor oblig'd them to take down their Shew Cloths and decamp (Morley, Memoirs of Bartholemew Fair).

Event Comment: MMr Vernon-Macheath, 1st time; Mr Parsons-Filch, Mrs Parsons-Mrs Peachum (Cross Diary). Mr William Parsons came with Mr James Love from Edinburg, and Made his first appearance on the stage in London this evening; He died of an asthma on Tues. 3 February in the severe winter of 1795, and was buried in the churchyard of Lea-Church near Blackheath in Kent; he was in his 60th year (Macmillan [Hopkins MS Notes]). Afterpiece: Not acted these 2 years. [See 19 Oct. 1759.

Event Comment: Places may be taken at the Theatre. To begin at one o'clock. [The notice is placed as (and continues hereafter to run as) a news item, rather than in the customary form for advertisements in the Public Advertiser.

Event Comment: A New English Opera. The Music Compos'd by Mr Rush. Signora Cremonini, Clementini, made her first appearance on this Stage in the Character of Eliza. Sings very well, very Graceful Deportm[en]t & is a great Support to the Opera. many of the Songs were Encor'd. Some few Hisses. but upon the whole, was pretty well receiv'd (Hopkins). Books of the Opera to be sold at the Theatre. A new English Opera, the Royal Shepherd-the Musick composed by Mr Rush.-Siga Cremonini made her first appearance,--sings ver fine,--very graceful deportment, and is a great support to the Opera.--Some hisses--Many of the songs encored. Upon the whole was well liked...On this occasion the Stage was cut near two feet and a half to enlarge the orchestra, to make it contain the additional performers who belong to the Opera House, on whose account the Opera cannot be performed Tuesdays and Saturdays (Hopkins Diary-MacMillan)

Event Comment: Book of the opera to be had at the Theatre. A serious English Opera with music by Mr Bates. [These notes appear on all bills this season.] Well received but neglected (Victor, History of the Theatres, III, 63). [Altered from the Italian by Thomas Hull.] We hear a patent will be made out, in favor of an eminent English actor, who intends to establish a Playhouse at New York (Winston MS 9)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: By Desire. Afterpiece with alterations and additions. [A song sung in the "New Scene in Harlequin's Invasion" appears in The Jester's Magazine, May 1766, p. 254. Harlequin enters with a Dancing Bear, and sings four stanzas in broken English about the advantages of dancing, for men, women, philosophers, and politicians. Harlequin's speech is Frenchified English.

Event Comment: Benefit for Holland. Part of Pit laid into Boxes. Afterpiece: Not acted these three years. [See 8 Oct. 1763.

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years. Afterpiece: Performed but once these 3 years. [See 15 Feb. 1764 and 30 Dec. 1762.] [The year (1766) first appears on playbills this season. The regular music charge each night appears as a constant charge of about #6 19s. 10d. Extra music and chorus singers for the Coronation amount each night it is presented to #5 2s. The nightly wardrobe and property charge varies but averages #8 15s. combined (Account Book). The Account Book for this year makes no weekly balance, as did earlier ones. It records a continuous cumulative list of receipts (Account No. 149), and on the page opposite records a cumulative list of payments. Comparison of the two columns can at any monent indicate the relationship between income and expenditure. The Account Book is BM ADD Egerton MSS 2272.] Receipts: #271 18s. 6d. (Account Book)

Event Comment: A Tragedy for Warm Weather. Written after the manner of the Worst, as well as the Best of the English Poets, containing amongst a Variety of Particulars, curious, entertaining, and pathetic, the Rebellion of the Journeymen Taylors on the Score of Wages, etc. Neville MS Diary: Half past Six went to ye Haymarket Theatre but could not get into ye Pit or first Gallery, so stood on ye last row of the shilling Gallery, tho' I could see little, to see how ye Taylors, a new tragedy for warm weather, would go off, being the first night of its performance. 3rd Act hiss'd-ye Gods in ye shilling Gallery called for ye Builder's Prologue-hissed off ye part of ye Old Maid twice and Davies who came to make an excuse. The Gentlemen, many of whom were there, cried No Prologue" but to no purpose. At last Foote said if he knew their demands he would be ready to comply with them. The noise ceasing, after some time he was told the Builder's Prologue was desired. He said he had done all in his power to get the performers, having seen them. After some time he came and informed them he had got the performers together, and if the House would be pleased to accept of ye Prologue in our dresses as we are you shall have it." This was followed by great clapping which shows the Genius of our English mobility ever generous after victory. Left ye House after ye Farce began. [Flints were journeymen tailors who refused to comply with the masters' terms and the regulations of the magistrate, in contradistinction to those who submitted and were in derision stiled Dungs. The term dates from 1764-OED. An extract from the Occasional Prologue (the Builder's Prologue) in prose on the opening of the Theatre Royal in the Haymarket, by Foote published in the London Magazine July 1767, p. 351. Foote, Scaffold, and Prompter are the three participants. Foote tells Scaffold he will be paid by the audience. Scaffold notes that the audience must in that case be pleased at all times. Foote promises no long processions [will] crowd my narrow scenes." He assumes that any of the reforms he plans will but echo the public voice. The Prompter then calls the actors on.

Event Comment: [Was this performed? See 13 Aug. for first appearance of Arthur and Constance.]