Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 361. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 351. The date of the first performance of this revision is not known. As it is somewhat unlikely that a play would have its premiere at court, the first production possibly appeared earlier in the month. See 6 Nov. 1668 for an earlier revision of this work. The title-page of the edition of 1687 states: As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal. Reviv'd with Alterations

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the premiere is not known, but as the play was licensed to be published, 21 May 1688, it was probably first acted early in April 1688, perhaps in late March. In 1688, also was separately printed New Songs Sung in The Fool's Preferment: In I, I sigh'd and pin'd and There's nothing so fatal as Woman, the music composed by Henry Purcell. In III, Fled is my love, the music composed by Henry Purcell, and sung by Mountfort. 'Tis death alone and I'le mount to yon blue coelum, the music composed by Henry Purcell. In IV, I'le sail upon the Dog-star, and A Dialogue by Jockey and Jenny, Jenny, gin you can love, the composer not stated. In V, If thou wilt give me back my love, composed by Henry Purcell and sung by Mountfort. See also Purcell's Works, The Purcell Society, XX (1916), iv-vi. When this play was revived at Drury Lane on 16 July 1703, the bill was headed: Not Acted these Fifteen Years

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@151, p. 369: Ye Q: a Box & a Box for ye Maids Honor Amphitrion. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 352. The date of the first performance is not known, and it is doubtful that this one is the first; the premiere may have occurred early in October. The Songs and Music were published in 1690 and again in 1691, and have been edited by the Purcell Society, XVI (1906), iii-vi. Dedication, Edition of 1690: But what has been wanting on my part, has been abundantly supplied by the Excellent Composition of Mr Purcell; in whose person we have at length found an English Man equal with the best abroad. At least, my Opinion of him has been such, since his happy and judicious performances in the late opera [The Prophetess], and the experience I have had of him, in the setting my three Songs for this Amphitryon": To all which, and particularly to the composition of the Pastoral Dialogue, the numerous Quire of Fair Ladies gave so just an Applause on the Third Day. Cibber, Apology, I, 113: As we have sometimes great Composers of Musick who cannot sing, we have as frequently great Writers that cannot read; and though without the nicest Ear no Man can be Master of Poetical Numbers, yet the best Ear in the World will not always enable him to pronounce them. Of this Truth Dryden, our first great Master of Verse and Harmony, was a strong Instance: When he brought his Play of Amphytrion to the Stage, I heard him give it his first Reading to the Actors, in which, though it is true he deliver'd the plain Sense of every Period, yet the whole was in so cold, so flat, and unaffecting a manner, that I am afraid of not being believ'd when I affirm it