Event Comment: Benefit Sir John (General Advertiser). Boxes 3s. Pit 2s. 6d. First Gallery 2s. Upper Gallery 1s

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Written by the late Sir John Vanbrugh. Not acted these 8 years

Event Comment: By His Majesty's Command. Play Written by Sir John Vanbrugh

Event Comment: MMrs Jeffries made her first appearance on this stage in Belinda.--not perfect.--was pretty well received.--is a little smart figure (Hopkins MS Notes). At 15 minutes past 4, took my place in the Pit at Drury Lane to see the Provok'd Wife. Mr Garrick is inimitable as Sir John Brute, Palmer does Heartfree, and Mrs Abington Lady Fanciful (with a song not printed in the play) very well. Constant by Cautherly, whose figure and manner I do not like, Vernon in Col. Bully sings a song (Neville MS Diary)

Event Comment: SSir John Brute, Mr Garrick (Cross Diary)

Event Comment: SSir John Brute, Mr Garrick (Cross Diary). The Fair Penitent was advertised for Wednesday the 11th: a Rehearsal was call'd on Tuesday the 10. About nine o'clock in the morning Mr Barry sent for & told me he was so ill that would be impossible for him to play for sometime & that he would give up his salary till he was able to play (Hopkins MS Memorandum Book)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mr Love--Sir John Brute. A fat performance (and as Mr L--- says) he wanted breath to blow the Jokes out (Hopkins Diary). On 1 April 4 n[umbers] of Dramatic Censor published (Winston MS 10)

Event Comment: Sir John Brute, Mr Garrick (Cross Diary)

Event Comment: Benefit for Cautherly. Don John Mr Cautherly-la, la! (Hopkins Diary). Mainpiece: With Alterations. Not acted these 14 years. [See 13 April 1758.] Receipts: #159 18s. 6d. Charges: #62 13s. 6d. Profits to Cautherley: #97 6s. (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Benefit for Palmer. Mainpiece: Never performed here [so stated on playbill of 18 Aug.]. Public Advertiser, 13 Aug.: Tickets to be had of Palmer at his house in Bow-street, Bloomsbury. [Henderson's 1st appearance as Don John was at Bath, 23 Oct. 1773.

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Never performed here. [Digges's 1st recorded appearance as Sir John Brute was at Edinburgh in 1757.

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 3 years. Afterpiece: With a Grand Procession. [Both the dance and the procession were included in all subsequent performances, except on 23 Apr. 1778. For Henderson as Don John see hay, 19 Aug. 1777.] Receipts: #153 11s. 6d. (125.19.0; 18.0.6; 9.12.0)

Event Comment: Benefit for Henderson. Ode: With the Songs, Chorusses, &c. The Music by Dr Arne. "When I recited Mr Garrick's Ode in a private room, I felt what I said, and I believe gave it some effect. Very different was it upon the stage. My feelings were weakened and confounded by the band, my voice lost its scale, and was overpowered by the music in the orchestra" (Ireland, p. 47). Public Advertiser, 26 Feb.: Tickets to be had of Henderson at his house, Great Buckingham-street, York Buildings. [His 1st appearance as Sir John Brute was at Bath, 1 Jan. 1774.] Receipts: #234 13s. 6d. (charge:#105). Account-Book notes that Henderson sold 319 tickets for the boxes and 85 for the pit, together worth #92 10s., and that tickets sold at the doors were worth #142 3s. 6d

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time: CO 3, by John Burgoyne, based on Silvain, by Jean Francois Marmontel]: With entirely new Music [by William Jackson], Scenes, Dresses, and Decorations. The Scenery designed by DeLoutherbourg, and executed under his direction. Public Advertiser, 3 Apr. 1781: This Day is published The Lord of the Manor (price not listed). Receipts: #226 19s. (216.15; 9.16; 0.8)

Event Comment: [In mainpiece the playbill retains Miss Farren, "but on account of the sudden indisposition of Miss Farren her part in the play was read by Mrs Ward, who gave it with great effect, and having studied Miss Farren's manner, was a very tolerable substitute" (Diary, 2 May).] Afterpiece [1st time; C 3, by John Philip Kemble]: Taken from [The Country Lasses; or] The Custom of the Manor [by Charles Johnson]. Diary, 6 May 1789: This Day is published The Farm House (1s.). And see 6 May. Receipts: #165 3s. (125.12.0; 34.18.6; 4.12.6)

Event Comment: Afterpiece [1st time: F 2, by John O'Keeffe]. Receipts: #248 3s. 6d. (247.16.0; 0.7.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Quick. 1st piece [1st time; PREL I, altered anonymously from the anonymous Bickerstaff's Unburied Dead]. 3rd piece [1st time; INT 1, by John Cartwright Cross]. Oracle, 11 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Quick, No. 98, High Holborn. Receipts: #424 (207.2; 5.8; tickets: 211.10)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This play is on the L. C. lists at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", p. 14. A song in this play, Thus all our Lives, with music by John Banister, is in Choice Songs and Ayres, 1673. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 31): [Concerning several plays] All which Expir'd the third Day, save the Royal Shepherdess, which liv'd Six. Pepys, Diary: To the Duke of York's house, and there before one, but the house infinite full, where, by and by, the King and Court come, it being a new play, or an old one new vamped, by Shadwell, called The Royal Shepherdesse!; but the silliest for words and design, and evepything, that ever I saw in my whole life, there being nothing in the world pleasing in it, but a good martial dance of pikemen, where Harris and another do handle their pikes in a dance to admiration; but never less satisfied with a play in my life

Event Comment: Benefit for Wild, prompter. 1st piece: Not acted these 20 years; altered from Dryden (by Joseph George Holman (Not. Dram.)]. 2nd piece [Ist time; M.INT 1, probably by John Cartwright Cross. MS: Larpent 1028; not published]. 3rd piece: In which an Engagement between an English and a French Man of War, a Shipwreck, and a Grand Military Procession as it pass'd, when the French Colours taken by the British Army were conveyed from St. James's to St. Paul's Cathedral [on 17 May 1794]. The above Procession is represented by Moving Figures, in which the Horse and Foot Guards, the Band of Music, the French Colours, &c. are seen to pass in the exact order they appeared on that memorable occasion. Morning Herald, 17 May: Tickets to be had of Wild, No. 46, Drury-lane. Receipts: #293 2s. 6d. (112/17/6; 14/2/0; tickets: 166/3/0)

Event Comment: "Edwin condescended to make a buffoon of himself [in The Dramatist], for all he had to do was to amuse the audience with his knob of hair, and his versicolor'd knee strings. It is cruel to expose a great actor in such unmeaning characters" (Prompter, 28 Oct.). Receipts: #177 1s. 6d. (166.15.6; 10.6.0)