Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Bellamy. Afterpiece: Written by Aaron Hill not acted these 20 years. [See 17 April 1750.] Tickets deliver'd for the Distrest Mother will be taken. Charges #65 10s. Balance to Mrs Bellamy #86 11s. Plus #116 11s. from Tickets (Box 330; Pit 227). Paid the Italian Giant for 10 Nights performance in the Masquerade #38 17s Receipts: #152 1s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: 1st piece [1st time; INT 1 by Francis Godolphin Waldron): Altered from THE FATAL EXTRAVAGANCE of [Joseph] Mitchell and Aaron Hill. "I went on Monday evening with Mrs Darner to the Little Haymarket, to see The Children in the Wood, having heard so much of my favourite, young Bannister, in that new piece; which, by the way, is well arranged, and near being fine. He more than answered my expectation, and all I had heard of him. It was one of the most admirable performances I ever saw: his transports of despair and joy are incomparable, and his various countenances would be adequate to the pencil of Salvator Rosa. He made me shed as many tears as I suppose the original old ballad did when I was six years old. Bannister's merit was the more striking, as, before The Children in the Wood, he had been playing the sailor in No Song No Supper, with equal nature" (Walpole [4 Dec. 1793], XV, 266-67)

Event Comment: Benefit Hill. Written by the late Mr Congreve. Receipts: money #17 19s. 6d.; tickets #120 5s

Event Comment: LLondon Daily Post and General Advertiser, 6 Feb., contains a letter: To Mr John Hill, on his Answer to Mr Rich's Defence

Event Comment: Benefit for a Citizen in Distress. Benefit for Mr Buss. Cash #47 1s. 6d. plus tickets #46 19s. Total income #94 6s. (Treasurer's Book). Tickets to be had at Pinchbeck's Toy Shop, in the Haymarket; the Mitre, Union St., Westminster; The Rummer, Charing Cross, the Gentleman and Porter, Fleet St.; Mr Dickenson, Printseller, Fleet St., Doctor's Commons Coffee House; the Dog Tavern, Garlick Hill; the Three Tuns Aldgate; and of Hobson at the stage door. Tomorrow, the Merchant of Venice, for the Benefit of a Young Gentlewoman under misfortunes, by the bankruptcy of her Guardian (General Advertiser). Receipts: #93 (Cross); charges, #80 (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: [The Young Gentlewoman possibly Miss Pond. See 19 Dec., but she was listed as for her second appearance on stage. Possibly Miss Philips. See 5 Feb. 1756.

Event Comment: Benefit for Miss Baker. [Ralph's Ramble (Larpent MS 254) seems patterned on the Farmer's Return from London. Ralph returns to the Mill and gives impressions, not all complimentary, of his trip to London. A Monologue in Couplets with a song.

Event Comment: Paid Miss Sledge for walking 10 night on the Coronation #2 10s. (Account Book). Receipts: #153 8s. 6d. (Account Book)