Event Comment: N.B. We have engag'd Mr King; & Miss Baker from Ireland, one Mr Moody, a Stroler,-Mr Beard is gone to Covent Garden, 'tis said to be manager Mr Mossop to Ireland. Receipts: #120 (Cross). Boxes 5s. Pit 3s. Gallery 2s. Upper Gallery 1s. Places from Mr Varney at the Stage Door. No admittance behind scenes. [The customary note about prices and admittance will not be noted further here.] [At the opening of the theatres this season appeared an essay in Goldsmith's Bee, giving close observations upon actors, and deploring the relative stiffness and formality of English actors in comparison with the French. Advised English actors to travel abroad. Yet (Vol. 1759, p. 12) commented on the magnificnece of "our theatres as far superior to any others in Europe where plays only are acted. The great care our performers take in painting for a part, their exactness in all minutiae of dress, and other little scenical proprieties has been taken notice of by Riccoboni." Complains of the convention of laying a rug before a dying scene and of the vacant expressions of mutes on stage.

Event Comment: [M$Mrs King was formerly Miss Baker (Genest, V, 115).] Paid Watson and Smith (Box Office Keepers) #20 (Drury Lane Treasurer's Book). [This was operating cash, returned 4 June 1767.] Receipts: #135 14s. 6d. (Drury Lane Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Arne. Afterpiece: By Desire. House Charges #68 16s. 6d. [Profits to Mrs Arne #150 18s. 6d.] Tickets deliver'd for The Beggar's Opera will be admitted. Dido oblig'd to be defer'd a few days. Paid 1 year's Watch for St Martin's #10 2s.; Reynolds Oil bill #46 4s.; Carpue (silk dyer) #7 9s. 6d.; Jennings (glover) #13 12s.; Vernon on note #21; Chorus 1 night #2 5s. 6d.; Hautboy 5s.; Salary list #294 2s. 8d. [Treasurer's Book). Receipts: #219 14s. (Treasurer's Book). At 4 dined at the Chop House in St Clements. At 5 went to Drury Lane to see the Tempest for the benefit of Mrs Arne the prettiest performer at the house...She has a sweet little voice...A grand Dance of Fantastic Spirits in different shapes. At the end of the play a Double Hornpipe by Mr Walker and Miss Tatley. We had the entertainment of Daphne and Amintor with dancing by Sg and Sga George, Sg Tessoni, Miss King, &c. Having a seat in the third row of the Pit, was much pleased as all the principal characters were well played and the scenery is very fine. Had I been later in going, I should not have got in (Neville MS Diary)

Event Comment: Benefit for Baker, Bride, Robinson, J. Robinson. Receipts: #210 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for Stede, Redman, Mrs Bambridge, Miss Minors, Miss Ferguson and Miss Morrison. Tickets deliver'd also by Goodall, Rawlings, Miss Allen, Widow Dupre, Mrs Hitchcock. No charges made, but House receiv'd 1!2 value of all income. Receipts: #16 14s. 6d. @Tickets Box Pit Gallery Value 1!2 Value@Stede 7 74 81 #20 19s. #10 9s. 6d.@Redman 8 71 38 #16 9s. #8 4s. 6d.@Goodall .. 46 34 #14 16s. #7 8s.@Mr Rawlings 16 57 65 #19 1s. #9 10s. 6d.@Miss Minors 17 71 26 #17 10s. #8 15s.@Mrs Ferguson 8 73 91 #22 1s. #11 6d.@Mrs Allen .. 25 19 #5 13s. #2 16s.@Morrison 26 41 55 #18 3s. #9 1s. 6d.@Dupre 10 44 57 #14 16s. #7 8s.@Hitchcock 23 67 34 #19 4s. [Seems to have rec'd full value #77 6s. 6d.]@Total 115 614 530 #173 17s.

Event Comment: Benefit for Shuter and Miss Haughton. Tickets at stage door. [For criticism of Shuter and Miss Haughton, see Genest, IV, p. 363, from The Present State of the Stage in Great Britain and Ireland, 1753. Nineteen of the Fifty-five pages of this pamphlet defend the stage on classicial authority and moral grounds from attacks by the religious bigots, and present an ideal picture of a manager, laying under some contribution, it would seem, the character of a manager presented ten years earlier (1743) in Queries to be Answered. The author especially likes the moral of Tate's alteration of Lear. The remaining pages give a paragraph or two of criticism to the leading actors and actresses in some of their most affecting parts (sixteen pages to Drury Lane Performers, all of whom appear in the author's eye to be either "Excellent" or "Very Good.") The remaining space is devoted to the performers at Covent Garden and at the Theatre Royal in Dublin. All those spoken of fare well in the hands of this bound-to-be pleased critic. Shuter is here commended for ability to play an Old Man convincingly though he was but 22 years old, and to play at all considering his lack of education. He possesses a great fund of drollery, and bids fair to be as great in low comedy as it is possible for man to conceive.' Miss Haughton described as an actress of promise. Seems never to have got the better of a lisp, and a Newcastle manner of pronouncing the letter 'r.'] Receipts: #290 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for Miss Dulisse. Afterpiece By Particular Desire of several Ladies of Quality