Event Comment: The King's Company. This play is on L. C. list, 5@12, p. 17: ye king here. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 344. The play was apparently designed for the opening of the Bridges St playhouse in November 1666 but was not then acted. The edition of 1667 gives a intended cast. Bonhomme-Cartwright; Valerio-$C. Hart; Ergasto-$W. Winterson [$Wintershall]; Don Buisson-Burt; La Fleur-$E. Keninston [$Kynaston]; Sganarelle-J. Lacy; Mascarillio-$M. Moon [$Mohun]; Jodelet-R. Shatterel; Housekeepers-$Alexander, $Wilbraham; Mary and Anne-$The Two Marshalls; Isabella-$Mrs Rutter; Lysette-$Nel Guin; Prologue Intended for the Overture of the Theatre, 1666; Epilogue. [In this list the names Alexander and Wilbraham are not otherwise known and may represent errors in the printed list.

Event Comment: The King's Company. For the identification of this play and details of its performance, see W. J. Lawrence, "Foreign Singers and Musicians at the Court of Charles II," Musical Quarterly, IX (1923), 217-25, and James G. McManaway, "Entertainment for the Grand Duke of Tuscany," Theatre Notebook, XVI (1961), 20-21. The Travels of Cosmo the Third [Monday 3 June 1669 NS; Monday 24 May 1669 OS]: In the afternoon his highness left home earlier than usual to make his visits, that he might be at the King's Theatre in time for the comedy, and a ballet set on foot and got up in honor of his highness by my Lord Stafford, uncle of the Duke of Norfolk. On arriving at the theatre, which was sufficiently lighted on the stage and on the walls to enable the spectators to see the scenes and the performances, his highness seated himself in a front box, where, besides enjoying the pleasure of the spectacle, he passed the evening in conversation with the Venetian ambassador, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Stafford, and other noblemen. To the story of Psyche, the daughter of Apollo, which abounded with beautiful incidents, all of them adapted to the performers and calculated to express the force of love, was joined a well-arranged ballet, regulated by the sound of various instruments, with new and fanciful dances after the English manner, in which different actions were counterfeited, the performers passing gracefully from one to another, so as to render intelligible, by their movements, the acts they were representing. This spectacle was highly agreeable to his highness from its novelty and ingenuity; and all parts of it were likewise equally praised by the ladies and gentlemen, who crouded in great numbers to the theatre, to fill the boxes, with which it is entirely surrounded, and the pit, and to enjoy the performance, which was protracted to a late hour of the night (pp. 347-48). In BM Add. Mss. 10117, folio 230, Rugge's Diurnall states that towards the end of May 1669 Cosmo, Prince of Tuscany had several plays acted for him

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 2. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 347. This performance may well be the premiere. In the Preface the author states that the play was asked for on Shrove Tuesday and he wrote it within a week; a premiere, then, before this date would allow very little time for rehearsal. This play is certainly a "Lenten" performance, for it was acted on a Wednesday in Lent and was referred to in the Prologue as a "Lenten Play." See the discussion under The Spanish Rogue (March 1673) and Gray, pp. 785-86. See also J. G. McManaway, The Copy for The Careless Lovers," MLN, XLVI (1931), 406-9. Preface to the edition of 1673: [This play] was written at the Desire of the Young Men of the Stage, and given them for a Lenten-Play, they ask't it not above a Week before Shrove-Tuesday

Event Comment: It is not certain what work this is. Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, pp. 111-12, doubts W. J. Lawrence's suggestion that it was Ariadne, which seems not to have been produced until 30 March 1674. It is possible, but perhaps not likely, that it is the Ballet et Musique which is herein assigned to early February 1674

Event Comment: The King's Company. This performance (entitled The French Opera) is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 73. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 345. The edition of 1674 (appearing in both an English and a French version) states: An Opera, or, a Vocal Representation. First Compos'd by Monsieur P. P. Now put into Musick by Monsieur Grabut, Master of His Majesties Musick. And Acted by the Royall Academy of Musick, At the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden. The names of the singers for this production are not known, but it is possible that some of the French singers who appeared in Calisto in the following season, 1674-75, were in London for this production. See Boswell, Restoration Court Stage, pp. 201, 222, and W. J. Lawrence, Early French Players in England, The Elizabethan Playhouse and Other Studies, p. 145. French dancers in the opera were Pecurr [Preux], LeTemps, Shenan, D'muraile. See L. C. 5@140, p. 472, in Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 355

Event Comment: Henry Savile to the Earl of Rochester, 17 Dec. 1677: I had allmost forgott for another argument to bring you to towne that a French troop of comaedians bound for Nimeguen were by adverse winds cast into this hospitable port and doe act at Whitehall soe very well that it is a thousand pittyes they should not stay, especially a young wench of fifteen, who has more beauty and sweetnesse than ever was seen upon the stage since a friend of our left it (HMC, Bath MSS., 1907, II, 161). W. J. Lawrence (Early French Players in England, pp. 148-49) identifies the French actress as Francoise Pitel, later Mlle Raisin

Event Comment: Lord Preston (in Paris) to the Duke of York, 22 Sept. 1683, N.S.: I should not have presumed to give your Highness the trouble of this if something of charity had not induced me to it. I do it at the instance of a poor servant of his Majesty's who some time since was obliged by a misfortune to leave England. It is Mr Grahme [Grabut?], sir, whom perhaps your Highness may remember. Mr Betterton coming hither some weeks since by his Majesty's command, to endeavour to carry over the Opera, and finding that impracticable, did treat with Monsr Grahme to go over with him to endeavour to represent something at least like an Opera in England for his Majesty's diversion. He hath also assured him of a pension from the House, and finds him very willing and ready to go over. He only desireth his Majesty's protection when he is there, and what encouragement his Majesty shall be pleased to give him if he finds that he deserves it (HMC, 7th Report, Part I, p. 290). W. J. Lawrence (Early French Players in England, p. 149) argued that Grahme should be Grabut, who had once been Master of the King's Music (to 1674) and who had settled in Paris. Grabut was certainly back in London in the spring of 1684

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)