Event Comment: Benefit for James, Stoppelaer, Mrs Bland

Event Comment: Benefit for Cooke. [The Devil to Pay was advertised in today's bill, but "Mrs Clive was taken ill, the Anatomist was Play'd" (Cross). Stage and Pit arranged as of 7 March.] Tickets and places to be had of Cooke at Mr Clarke's an Upholsterer in James St., Covent Garden. Receipts. #200 (Cross); charges, #60 (Powel)

Event Comment: Benefit for Matthews and James. Rec'd Cash #44 9s., plus #116 12s. from tickets. Total #161 1s. Paid Mr Barsanti for music by order of Garrick #1 11s. 6d. Paid Mr Williams 1!2 year's rent K: passage #11 15s. (Treasurer's Book). Mr Mills bury'd at St Marks [Cross). Receipts: #160 (Cross); charges, #63 (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Afterpiece [1st time; C 3, by James Wild]: Reduced [from the same by Henry Fielding] into 3 Acts. Receipts: #287 8s. 6d. (282.2.6; 5.6.0)

Event Comment: "...Richard III, which I saw performed at Drury-lane theatre at the beginning of the present season...The dresses of the characters which here make their appearance are in the usual half-and-half mode, made up from portraits of Charles I's reign, and from unrestrained fancy. Richard's habit, indeed, shews a faint hint, at the costume of his day; but how modernized! A fancy cap and feather,with a milliner's white-ribband rose, sewed thereon. A deep ruff, of that make not known until the reign of James I From the neck depends a ribband With the George: this decoration never seen in paintings till about the fashions of the abovementioned monarch's court. On his legs and feet, white silk stockings, white shoes, and red roses. These latter ornaments unknown before Elizabeth or James I's modes of dress prevailed; at any rate, they should have been white ones to have accorded with the party-badge in his cap." Writer signing himself "An Artist and an Antiquary" in Gentleman's Magazine, Apr. 1800, p. 319. Receipts: #225 16s. 6d. (178.3.6; 47.12.0; 0.1.0)

Event Comment: [The King's Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but a letter--see 2 Jan. 1670@1--indicates that the first part had been acted before that date and that Part II was to be shortly staged. The point of the Prologue spoken by Ellen Gwyn seems to have derived from an incident at Dover (see Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 20) in May 1670, when James Nokes attired himself in a ridiculous fashion, including "Broad wast Belts." The speakers of the Epilogue and the Prologue to the Second Part are mentioned in Sir William Haward's MS (Bodl. MS Don. b., pp. 248-49); see The Poems of John Dryden, ed. James Kinsley (Oxford, 1958), IV, 1848-49. In Part I a song Beneath a myrtle shade, with music by John Bannister, is in Choice Songs and Ayres, First Book, 1673. Another, Wherever I am, with music by Alphonso Marsh, is in the same collection, as is also How unhappy a lover am I, the music by Nicholas Staggins. Mrs John Evelyn to Mr Bohun, ca. Jan. 1670@1: Since my last to you I have seen The Siege of Grenada, a play so full of ideas that the most refined romance I ever read is not to compare with it; love is made so pure, and valour so nice, that one would image it designed for an Utopia rather than our stage. I do not quarrel with the poet, but admire one born in the decline of morality should be able to feign such exact virtue; and as poetic fiction has been instructive in former ages, I wish this the same event in ours. As to the strict law of comedy I dare not pretend to judge: some think the division of the story is not so well if it could all have been comprehended in the day's actions (The Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, ed. William Bray, IV, 25). According to John Evelyn--see 9 Feb. 1670@1--Robert Streeter did some of the scenes for this play. In the Preface to The Fatal Discovery, ca. February 1697@8, George Powell, in discussing revivals of Dryden's plays, stated: In relation to our reviving his Almanzor...very hard crutching up what Hart and Mohun could not prop

Event Comment: Benefit Woolley and Mrs James. Mainpiece: Written by the late Mr Gay. Afterpiece: By particular Desire

Event Comment: Benefit for Simpson, Raftor, Usher. Tickets and places of Hobson at the stage door. Receipts: #180 (Cross); charges, #63 (Powel). [This month, the Gentleman's Magazine Register of Books listed as published Remarks on Three Plays of B. Johnson, viz: The Fox, Silent Woman, and Alchymist, by James Upton.] This week will be published The Hen Peck'd Captain,...as it was intended to be acted...on Saturday last. Taken from The Campaigners; or, the pleasant Adventures at Brussels with a Preface by R. Cross, prompter (General Advertiser)

Event Comment: Benefit James, Eyre, and Mrs Ratcliff