Event Comment: Benefit for Ryder. 1st piece [1st time; F 1, ascribed to Thomas Ryder. Not in Larpent MS; not published]: Taken from Sir Courtly Nice [by John Crowne]. 3rd piece: Never [previously] acted here. [Miss R. Ryder's 1st appearance on the stage was at cg, 16 Apr. 1790.

Event Comment: ["The Lord Ogleby of (The Clandestine Marriage) raised Mr King to the summit of comic excellence, which his more recent great character, Sir Peter Teazle in The School for Scandal, has established him in the unrivalled possession of" (Johnson, ed. Waldron, 169).] Receipts: #245 (211.9; 33.6; 0.5)

Event Comment: 3rd piece [1st time; F 2, by Charles Stuart, "from the Spanish"; on 2 Sept. reduced to 1 act. Prologue by the author (see text)]. "The Piece, we understand, was originally founded on some topics that have of late engrossed the conversation of much of the fashionable world...The Lord Chamberlain thought [it] too delicate a nature to appear with the allusions and title it then bore, She would be a Duchess. The consequence was that the offensive bits were expunged and the piece re-christened...It would be unfair to make any observations...in the mutilated stage it was presented" (Public Advertiser, 15 Aug.). "Some part of the plot was supposed to allude to the late occurrences in the family of General John? Gunning, who was indulged with the privilege of erasing [from the MS] that which he disliked, and who reduced it to its present feeble and unconnected form" (Gazetteer, 15 Aug.). [The reference in the original title is to the simultaneous flirtation of Miss Elizabeth Gunning, the General's daughter, with the eldest sons of the Dukes of Marlborough and Argyll (see dnb, under Susannah Gunning). She would be a Duchess: in Larpent MS 915.

Event Comment: Paid Johnston's bill #7 10s. 6d.; Supernumeraries #6 12s.; Chorus by R. Shaw #10; Mantuamaker #13 5s. 4d.; Foulis for Music Copying #2 8s.; Land Tax 1 Yr. #79 12s. 6d.; Billstickers #3 6s.; Booth, tailor, #14 13s. 1d. "Mrs Jordan has a voice, the tones of which are infinitely more musical and sweet than those of any professional singer we have. There is also an interest about her singing, arising not from what may be called musical feeling, but the impression of the subject. Thus, though sometimes a little untrue, we love her songs, and forbear to weigh them in the diatonic or chromatic scales" (Oracle, 3 Oct.). Receipts: #450 3s. (393.2; 56.3; 0.18)