Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: And there took up my wife and Ashwell to the Theatre Royall, being the second day of its being opened. The house is made with extraordinary good contrivance, and yet hath some faults, as the narrowness of the passages in and out of the pitt, and the distance from the stage to the boxes, which I am confident cannot hear; but for all other things it is well, only, above all, the musique being below, and most of it sounding under the very stage, there is no hearing of the bases at all, nor very well of the trebles, which sure must be mended. The play was The Humerous Lieutenant, a play that hath little good in it, nor much in the very part which, by the King's command, Lacy now acts instead of Clun. In the dance, the tall devil's actions was very pretty....I am resolved to deny myself the liberty of two plays at court, which are in arreare to me for the months of March and April, which will more than countervail this excess, so that this month of May is the first that I must claim a liberty of going to a Court play according to my oath

Event Comment: This play was presumably acted by the Duke's Company. In the preface to Heraclius, Emperour of the East, published in 1664, the author, Lodowick Carlell, complains that he had submitted his translation of Corneille, only to have it returned the very day that this version appeared on the stage. See also the letter by Katherine Philips, under Pompey the Great, Jan. 1663@4. Pepys, Diary: We made no long stay at dinner; for Heraclius being acted, which my wife and I have a mighty mind to see, we do resolve, though not exactly agreeing with the letter of my vowe, yet altogether with the sense, to see another this month, by coming hither instead of that at court, there having ueen none conveniently since I made my vowe for us to see there, nor like to be this Lent, and besides we did walk home on purpose to make this going as cheap as that would have been, to have seen one at Court, and my conscience knows that it is only the saving of money and the time also that I intend by my oaths....The play hath one very good passage well managed in it, about two persons pretending, and yet denying themselves, to be son to the tyrant Phocas, and yet heire of Mauricius to the crowne. The garments like Romans very well. The little girle is come to act very prettily, and spoke the epilogue most admirably. But at the beginning, at the drawing up of the curtaine, there was the finest scene of the Emperor and his people about him, standing in their fixed and different postures in their Roman habitts, above all that ever I yet saw at any of the theatres

Event Comment: Pepys, on 1 Feb., refers to the acting of The Heiress for the first time Saturday last," i.e., 30 Jan., but he must have mistakenly put down "Saturday" instead of "Friday"

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 68. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. This play was also reprinted in 1686. Memoirs of the Life of William Wycherley, Esq; With a Character of his Writings [by George, Lord Lansdowne, but part possibly by Charles Gildon (1718)], pp. 7-8: [After the death of Wycherley's wife, he was committed to Newgate for debt.] From hence he remov'd himself by a Habeas Corpus to the Fleet, where he continued seven Years in a close Imprisonment, almost forgot by his old Friends, till in the Reign of King James the Second, some of them bespeaking the Plain-Dealer, got the King to the Play, who declaring his Approbation of the Poet's Performance, they improv'd his liking so far as to get him to deliver him from his long Confinement. But here the Modesty of the Man did him a considerable Prejudice, for instead of giving in a full List of his Debts, he only mention'd those, the discharge of which wou'd set him at Liberty, which was done with this additional Bounty, that the same King allow'd him Two hundred Pounds a Years as long as he Reign'd; and this was the reason that made Mr Wycherley always a Jacobite

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but Lord Granville, writing on 5 May 1688, refers to the King's presence on the third day, and since The Squire of Alsatia may have begun its run about 2 May 1688, Crowne's play must have been produced by the end of April. Lord Granville to Sir William Leveson, 5 May 1688: The town is as empty of news as the Court; we have had a new play called The Fall of Darius (written by Crown), by which the poet, though he could get no fame, yet had a most extraordinary third day by reason the King's presence at it; the first day of its acting Mrs Bower [Barry] was taken so violently ill in the midst of her part that she was forced to be carried off, and instead of dying in jest was in danger of doing it in earnest. Mrs Cook is dead and Mrs Boute...is again come upon the stage, where she appears with great applause. We are promised this week another new play of Shadwell's called the Alsatia Bully, which is very much commended by those who have had the private perusal of it (HMC, 5th Report, Part II, pP. 197-98). Dedication, Edition of 1688: A misfortune fell upon this Play, that might very well dizzy the Judgments of the Audience. Just before the Play began, Mrs Barry was struck with a very violent Fever, that took all Spirit from her, by consequence from the Play; the Scenes She acted fell dead from her; and in the 4th Act her distemper grew so much upon her, She cou'd go on no further, but all her part in that Act was wholly cut out and neither Spoke nor Read; that the People went away without Knowning the contexture of the Play, yet thought they knew all....[My] Thanks to His Majesty for the Honor of his Presence, on the Day which was to be for my Advantage; which He was pleased to Grant me. [See L. C. 5@148, p. 195--in Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 356--for a grant of #20 as a gift from the King to Crowne for this play.

Event Comment: [By Charles Johnson. Date of premiere unknown. Published 15 Jan. 1702.] Preface: It stole into the Theatre in the very Heat of last Summer (as if it would cunningly avoid the Critics, who instead of carping here were at Tunbridge, Bath, etc) was study'd in a Hurry, and play'd by what they call the Young Company

Event Comment: Benefit Robinson and Turner. Mainpiece: Written by the late Mr Dryden. Afterpiece: At the Desire of several Ladies of Quality, we are oblig'd (instead of The What D'Ye Call It) to Act...The Country Wake

Event Comment: Receipts: #69 4s. 6d. Mrs Pendarves to Mrs Ann Granville, 12 Dec. (Delany, Autobiography, I, 101-2): I was to see the opera of Dioclesian, and was very much disappointed, for instead of Purcell's musick which I expected, we had Pepusch's, and very humdrum it was; indeed I never was so tired with anything in my life

Event Comment: By Command of their Highnesses the Princess Amelia and Princess Caroline. [Daily Advertiser lists Granier instead of the Gentleman in The Frolick.]

Event Comment: According to the newspapers, the Prince and Princess were present, but Deutsch, Handel, p. 408, thinks that they may have been at CG instead

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Taken from Plautus, Moliere. Egerton 2320: Receipts: #82. Hamlet Posted for a week but put off upon Mrs Cibber's refusing to do Ophelia for which she was forfeited five pounds--the Miser play'd instead of it

Event Comment: Mainpiece: As 14 and 17 Feb. Afterpiece: A New Pantomime Entertainment. [The edition of 1741 prints Touchbury's parts as by Stitchbury and Hebe (instead of Ganymede) for Mrs Dunstall; it names Devoto as designer of the scenes and Prelleur as composer of music.

Event Comment: Masque: By Particular Desire. The Gentlemen's Magazine for Jan. 1742 (p. 28) in an article On Two Italian Dancers comments rather fully on the Fausans' performance in Le Boufon; or the Idiot: My expectation was rais'd to the height but at their entrance on the stage, they alarm'd me by the inexpressive Agility and descriptive Action, Look and Motion, which were all performed With such mimic Variety, that I defy the most severe Cynic to say that they wou'd not at least raise in him an agreeable surprise, to see all the attitudes, Oddities and mock Gesticulations of the two Idiots, who may be suppos'd to be in Love with one another. It is not any distortion of Body or unnatural transposition of the limbs which they exhibit to the view, but the extravagant Idiotry which the passions of Love, Disdain, Joy, Resentment, would on a real occasion actuate on the personages they represent: Nor do they so manage their Dance that it is ungraceful: they take opportunities to show by actions and movements, that in their comic Humour they have an elegancy. This performance therefore, on Reflection, appear'd to me, instead of an unnatural extravaganza to be founded on the nicest Observations of Human Nature, and prove Signor and Signora to be persons of good judgment, as well as agility. Receipts: #80

Event Comment: Benefit Cross (Prompter), DeMaimbray (Mechanist), and Desse. Tickets deliver'd out by Nodder, Owen, Miss Lee, and others will be taken. [This month in the Gentlemen's Magazine appeared a long essay from Champion No. 5, entitled The Character of an excellent Actor, an appreciative essay on the difficulties of acting, and the excellence of Garrick. The author avows he never exchanged a word with Garrick in his life. In July the Gentlemen's Magazine publish'd a reply to the contention that shewing good plays and giving men a relish for them was a satisfactory method of instructing the young, concluding instead against stage entertainments because they may be and are productive of much ill; and can serve no good end but what may be more effectively attained by other means.

Event Comment: WWalpole to Horace Mann, 14 Aug.: We were thirty subscribers, at two hundred pounds each, which was to last four years, and no other demands ever to be made. Instead of that we have been made to pay 56 pounds over and above the subscription in one winter.--Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, II, 293-94