Event Comment: Benefit for Edwin. [Digges's 1st appearance as Shylock was at Edinburgh, 8 Apr. 1772.] Tickets to be had of Edwin, No. 76, Long Acre. Tickets delivered by Stevens will be admitted

Event Comment: Benefit for Fearon, L'Estrange, Thompson & Stevens. Tickets delivered for The Funeral and a favourite Comedy will be admitted. Tickets sold at the Doors will not be admitted. Receipts: #265 18s. (75.10; tickets: 190.8) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Booth, Egan, Stevens & Branson. Afterpiece: Never performed here. Receipts: #259 3s. (72/13; tickets: 186/10) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Tickets delivered by Mrs Bellamy [Account-Book adds Stevens] for a Comedy will be admitted this Evening. Receipts: #137 16s. (122/15; 4/3; tickets: 10/18)

Event Comment: Benefit for Booth, Egan, Stevens & the widow of the late Mr Branson. Receipts: #204 2s. (none listed; tickets: 204/2) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Booth, Guard & Stevens. 3rd piece: Not acted these 12 years [not acted since 25 Apr. 1770]. Receipts: #233 1s. (73/10; tickets: 159/11) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Stevens and Miss Besford [who had hitherto appeared only as a dancer]

Event Comment: Rich's Company. The date of the premiere is not knwon, but the Dedication is dated February 1699@1700, the play was entered in the Term Catalogues in February 1699@1700, and advertised in the Flying Post, 16 March 1699@1700. The latest likely date for the first production is January 1700, but the play may have appeared in late December as a rival to lif's production of I Henry IV early in January 1700. Cibber, Apology, I, 275: But the Master of the Revels, who then licens'd all Plays for the Stage, assisted this Reformation [of the morality of the stage] with a more zealous Severity than ever. He would strike out whole Scenes of a vicious or immoral Character, tho' it were visibly shewn to be reform'd or punish'd; a severe Instance of this kind falling upon my self may be an Excuse for my relating it: When Richard the Third (as I alter'd it from Shakespear) came from his Hands to the Stage, he expung'd the whole first Act without sparing a Line of it. This extraordinary Stroke of a Sic volo occasion'd my applying to him for the small Indulgence of a Speech or two, that the other four Acts might limp on with a little less Absurdity! no! he had no leisure to consider what might be separately inoffensive. [Cibber continues with an explanation of the censor's argument for cutting the act.] Preface to Cibber's Ximena, 1719: Richard the Third, which I alter'd from Shakespear, did not raise me Five Pounds on Third Day

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Henry. [As afterpiece the playbill announces Arthur and Emmeline, but it was not acted. Kemble Mem. lists the substitute play.] Diary, 24 May: Tickets to be had of Mrs Henry, Bruton-street, Berkeley-square. Receipts: #153 12s. (38.6; 21.2; 0.19; tickets: 93.5) (charge: #111 13s. 9d.)

Event Comment: Luttrell, A Brief Relation, II, 437: This being the queen s birth day, a new ode was sung before her upon the occasion: the nobility and gentry, with the lord mayor and aldermen of this citty, attended to compliment thereon. Gentleman's Journal, May 1692: The 30th of April, being Her Majesties Birth-day, was observ'd with all the usual Solemnity. I design'd to have sent you an Attempt of mine in Verse, on that noble Subject: But having happily obtain'd a Copy of those writ by Sir Charles Sidley, it would have been an unpardonable Crime, to have joyn'd my weak Essay to a Piece by so great a Master. [The Ode, Love's Goddess Sure, the music by Henry Purcell, is in Purcell's Works, Purcell Society, XXIV (1926), i.

Event Comment: With the Ceremonial of her Coronation in the same Manner as it was Perform'd in the Play of King Henry the Eighth

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Containing the Distresses and Death of King Henry VI; the Artful acquisition of the Crown by King Richardv; the Murder of young King Edward V, and his brother in the Tower; The landing of the Earl of Richmond, and the death of King Richard in the memorable Battle of Bosworth Fieldv, being the last that was fought between the Houses of York and Lancaster. With many other Historical passages. [This descriptive passage accompanies all notices of the play this season and will not be recorded here further.