Event Comment: The King's Company. The date of the premiere is not known, but a licensing date of 28 March 1678 suggests a first performance not later than February 1678. One song, One night while all the village slept, with music by Louis Grabu and words by Sir Car Scroop, is in Choice Ayres and Songs, The Third Book, 1681. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 17): Major Mohun...[in] Mithridates, &c. An Eminent Poet seeing him Act this last, vented suddenly this Saying: Oh Mohun, Mohun! Thou little Man of Mettle, if I should write a 100 Plays, I'd Write a Part for thy Mouth; in short, in all his Parts, he was most Accurate and Correct. [Downes, p. 12, gives an identical cast except for omissions.] Princess Anne apparently played Ziphares and Frances Apsley played Semandra in a production of this drama, probably at St James's Palace or at Sir Allen Apsley's house in St James's Square, between January 1677@8 and August 1679. See Benjamin Bathurst, Letters of Two Queens (London, 1924), p. 61

Event Comment: [In mainpiece the playbill retains Dodd as Sir Benjamin Backbite, but he "being taken suddenly ill Yesterday Evening, his character in The School for Scandal was obliged to be supplied by Burton" (Public Advertiser, 1 Jan. 1782).] Receipts: #217 15s. (187/8; 30/7; 0/0)

Event Comment: "The only fault we observed was [Miss Biggs's] mode of turning away at the close of every speech, and retiring towards the back of the stage, as if the character was of no consequence when the speech was ended" (True Briton, 18 Oct.). MS annotation on Kemble playbill: Rehearsals--Cheap Living at 10; Sir Benjamin Backbite's scenes at 11; Irish Widow at 12; Adela'rs scenes, Haunted Tower at 1. Receipts: #247 16s. 6d. (162.0.0; 82.12.6; 3.4.0)

Event Comment: DDaily Advertiser, 19 Feb. Yesterday died of an Astmatick Disorder, at his Chambers in Clement's Inn, Mr Benjamin Griffin, a celebrated Comedian, belonging to Drury-Lane Theatre