Event Comment: The
United Company. This performance is on the
L. C. list, 5@141, p. 369. See also
Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 352. In L. C. 5@150, p. 156, is an order to prepare the stage for the play, and, in L. C. 5@150, p. 164, is another order for new equipment.
Luttrell,
A Brief Relation, II, 125: The 4th, being his majesties birth day...and at night was a consort of musick, and a play afterwards.
Matthew Prior wrote
A Pindarique Ode which was sung before
Their Majesties at court on this day. See
The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, ed.
H. B. Wright and
M. K. Spears (
Oxford, 1959), I, 96-98; II, 858.
Cibber, Apology, I, 128: The agreeable was so natural to [
Mountfort], that even in that dissolute Character of
the Rover he seem'd to wash off the Guilt from Vice, and gave it Charms and Merit. For tho' it may be a Reproach to the Poet to draw such Characters not only unpunish'd but rewarded, the Actor may still be allow'd his due Praise in his excellent Performance. And this is a Distinction which, when this Comedy was acted at
Whitehall,
King William's
Queen Mary was pleas'd to make in favour of Monfort, notwithstanding her Disapprobation of the Play