Event Comment: [Opening night, under the management of John Rich.] By the Company of Comedians under Letters Patents granted by King Charles the Second. Beginning exactly at Six. No Persons are to be admitted behind the Scenes, nor any Money to be return'd after the Curtain is drawn up. Receipts: #143. Weekly Packet, 18 Dec.: This Day the New Play-House...is to be open'd...by the Company that act under the Patent; tho' it is said, that some of the Gentlemen who have left the Theatre in Drury-Lane for that Service, are order'd to return to their Colours, upon Pain of not exercising their Lungs anywhere; which may in Time prove of ill Service to the Patentee; that has been at vast Expence to make his Theatre as convenient for the Reception of an Audience as any one can possibly be

Event Comment: [By Charles Molloy.] Never Acted before. [The Preface states that at the premiere it was roundly attacked and that its enemies gave out that it had failed, but it made a recovery.] Receipts: #76 12s. 6d

Event Comment: Benefit Charles Weideman. At 7 p.m

Event Comment: Benefit Charles, the Merry Trumpeter of Oxford. At Mrs Lee's Great Booth on the Bowling-Green. At 6 p.m

Event Comment: Afterpiece: [By Charles Coffey. For an extended comment on this performance, see The Auditor, 6 Feb. 1733.

Event Comment: Benefit Charles, the Merry Trumpeter of Oxford. At Mrs Lee's Booth on the Bowling Green

Event Comment: Daily Courant, 2 Feb.: We are credibly informed, that Charles Fleetwood, Esq; of Bromley-Hall, in the county of Stefford . . . hath purchased all the shares of the Patentees of the Theatre in Drury-Lane

Event Comment: A New Comedy. [By Mrs E. Cooper. Apparently not printed. The characters named in the bill are: Lord Belamour, Sir Roger Wrangle, Sir Charles Cumberland, Froward, Wary, Young Wrangle, Peinter, Snare, Lady Cumberland, Felicia, Ready. See also a puff by Mrs Cooper in Daily Advertiser, 17 May.]

Event Comment: At the Desire of several Persons of Quality. Mainpiece: Written by Shakespear. [Tickets for Charles Coffey taken.]

Event Comment: For a puff of The Death of King Charles the First, see Daily Advertiser, 8 Feb

Event Comment: Benefit Master Charles Poitier

Event Comment: [Not allowed to be performed. Macklin's faction rioted.] N.B.: This caused riot House taken [apart].--Winston MS. [See The Case of Charles Macklin. Macklin did not return to dl until 19 Dec. 1744.

Event Comment: Tomorrow Morning will be publish'd A Full Answer to a False and scandalous Libel, entitled the Case of Charles Macklin, Comedian. In which will be inserted several original letters relating to that Dispute, by David Garrick

Event Comment: Mainpiece never acted there. [Originally produced at dl, 27 April 1714.] The Tragedy of Regulus, written by the Author of King Charles the First [Wm. Havard] is now in rehearsal at Drury Lane and will be perform'd there in a short time

Event Comment: Prologue written by Macklin: (Cooke, Memoirs of Charles Macklin, pp. 150-51.) From scheming, pelting, famine, and despair, Behold to grace restored an exil'd Play'r: Your Sanction yet his fortune must compleat, And give him privilege to laugh and eat. No revolution plots are mine again; You see, thank Heaven, the quietest of men. I pray that all domestic feuds might cease; And beggar'd by the war, solicit peace; When urg'd by wrongs, and prompted to rebel; I sought for freedom, and for freedom fell; What could support me in the sevenfold dame? I was no Shadrak and no angel came. Once warn'd, I meddle not with state affairs; But play my part, retire and say my pray'rs. Let nobler spirits plan the vast design, Our green-room swarms with longer heads than mine; I take no part-no private jars foment, But hasten from disputes I can't prevent; Attack no rival brother's fame, or ease; And raise no struggle, but who most shall please. United in oursdlves, by you approv'd. Tis ours to make the slightest muse belov'd; So may the stage again its use impart, And ripen Virtue, as it warms the heart. May discord, with her horrid trump, retreat, Nor drive the frighted Beauty from her seat; May no contending parties strive for sway, But judgmemt govern, and the stage obey

Event Comment: A historical note about the patent for May Fair by Edward Shepherd. Daily Advertiser, 1 May: Whereas a Patent was granted by King Charles the First, and confirm'd by King James II, to the Proprietor of Great and Little Brookfield, then in the Parish of St. Martin in the Fields, now in the Parish of St. George, Hanover Square, to hold a Fair during the Space of fifteen Days, to begin the 1st Day of May next, and every May Day forever: the present Proprietor thinks it proper to apprize the Publick thereof, that it may not be thought that he attempts to do any thing but by Virtue of the said Patent, and no Ways to disturb the Publick Peace, or act in Contradiction to the Laws of the Realm. [Alluded to in 2 May news of the Daily Advertiser, as being proclaimed by Edward Shepherd.

Event Comment: Benefit Jones, Mrs Bland, Mrs Gondou, Miss Ferguson, Miss Morrison (General Advertiser). Benefit Charles Jones, son of the late Jere Jones who formerly kept the Selectation Tavern at Billingsgate (Daily Advertiser)

Event Comment: Benefit Mrs Cross, Mrs Bridges, Miss Young. The General Advertiser included the following Puff: Sir, As I am continually searching for latent Curiosities, out of a sincere regard for the Public Satisfaction, I think it my Duty (lest among the Multitude of Diversions now flourishing, some other might engross the attention of the Curious) to inform the world, that the Farce which will be perform'd this Evening at Drury Lane theatre, call'd May Day, or the Merry Milkmaids of Islington, was written by the particular desire of King Charles II who had it first performed at Newmarket; how agreeably that jovial Monarch was entertained, every person, who thinks it worth his while to see it, according to his abilities, will be a competent judge, Yours, &c A. Virtuoso. [Part of the Multitude of Diversions referred to included announcement in the same paper for a Rehearsal of the whole Band of Music at Ruckholt House, the following Monday; a paragraph Puff on the diversions at Sadler's Wells in consequence of the late happy Victory of the Duke of Cumberland over the Rebels, with special notice of a New Interlude of Music call'd Strephon's Return, or the British Hero, perform'd this night with many advantages of Dress and Decoration, and a new Ballet by Matthews; and further notice of the Representation of the Battle near Culloden House which had met with universal applause, and which would continue to be repeated at the New Wells in Goodman's Fields. The Farce at Drury Lane this evening was advertised as not having been played for 20 years. It was taken from Thomas Nabbes' Totenham Court Road, by the Compiler of the Muse of Newmarket, 1680. The MS Occasional Prologue praising Cumberland is in the Larpent Collection.

Event Comment: Gift for ye Sufferers by ye fire in Cornhill (Cross). [A column and a half "Letter to the Author" appeared in the General Advertiser this day, laying historical background for Ford's Lover's Melancholy]. The history of the stage before the Restoration is like a Foreign Land, in which no Englishman had ever travelled; we know there were such things as Playhouses, and one Shakespear a great writer, but the historical traces of them are so imperfect, that the manner in which they existed is less known to us, than that of Eschylus or the theatres of Greece. For this reason, 'tis hoped that the following Gleaning of Theatrical History will readily obtain a place in your paper. 'Tis taken from a Pamphlet written in the reign of Charles I, with this quaint title, "Old Ben's Light Heart made heavy by young John's Melancholly Lover"; and as it contains some historical anecdotes and altercations concerning Ben Johnson, Ford, Shakespear, and the Lover's Melancholy it is imagined that a few extracts from it at this juncture, will not be unentertaining to the Public. [The substance of the remainder retails Jonson's critical cantankerousness and his wounded pride at the failure of the New Inn, quoting some epigrams made at Jonson's expense on his allegation that Ford was a plagiary. This second "puff" for the play, presumably also written by Macklin, formed the basis for a Steevens-Malone controversy late in the century, centering on the existence or nonexistence of the pamphlet referred to by Macklin as "Old Ben's Light Heart made Heavy, &c." A summary account of the evidence appears in the Dramatic Works of John Ford, by Henry Weber (Edinburgh, 1811) I, Intro. XVI, XXXI.] Receipts: #210 (Cross); #208 1s. (Powel)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Macklin. Mainpiece [by John Ford]: Reviv'd not acted these Hundred years. Afterpiece: A New Farce never acted before by Charles Macklin. Note: Tickets deliver'd out for 22 April will be taken. Tickets to be had of Mrs Macklin in Bow St., and of Hobson at the Stage door. Cross: The play lik'd--farce not. Receipts: #93 (Cross); house charges, #60 (Powel); cash, #80 19s. 6d.; tickets, #12 15s. (Clay MS)

Event Comment: [G$Garrick] promised me the Part of Tressel; when the Play was given out, and I prepar'd for it, I saw in the Bills next Morn, another Person's Name [Blakes].-Charles Adams to John Gilbert-Cooper, quodet in Theatre Notebook, XI (1957) p. 136. Receipts: #180 (Cross); #182 9s. 6d. (Powel)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 10 Years. Afterpiece: Not acted these 20 years. Music, Dances and Other Decorations for afterpiece entirely new. [In a letter to John Gilbert-Cooper, the actor Charles Adams states that "the Prompter gave me a little Part in the Emperor of the Moon...I appear'd in it thrice." He was "paid Twenty Shilling Pr Week." See Theatre Notebook, XI (1957), p. 136. The only male parts left were Baliardo's servant Peter and the figures in the tableau of the final scene.] Receipts: #160 (Cross); #158 11s. (Powel)

Event Comment: Benefit for Charles James Gaylard. A Concert, etc. at the New Theatre, James St. Prices: 3s., 2s., 1s. (Daily Advertiser).

Event Comment: By Ye King's Command but not (by order) in ye Bills (Cross). Present His Majesty, 2nd time this season. [The George Garrick Drury Lane MS Treasurer's Book makes its first entry Mon. 30 Oct. 1749, indicating an expenditure to date of #1,733 2s. 7d. as against an income of #3,455 6s. 6d. and that Mon. was the twenty-ninth night of performance. The Treasurer's Book carries full entries until the 165th night, Sat. 28 April 1750. First itemizing of expenditures begins Wed. 1 Nov. 1749 as follows: Paid to Pipe & Tabor to Sat., 10s. 6d.; to 2 French Horns and a Kettle Drum, 15s.; to 12 1!2 lbs. Wax Candles, #1 11s. 3d.; To Properties and King's servants, #3 2s. 5d. [N.B. The use of extra musical instruments (horns, flutes, cymbols, kettle drum) averaged 6s. per night for the 165 nights. The season extended to 174 nights; so the approximate total cost for instruments came to #52 4s. Properties expense averaged 5s. per night. The approximate total cost was #43 11s. No further itemization of these will be made.] This month was publish'd The Rosciad; a Poem, by Charles Churchill (Gentleman's Magazine, Register of Books). Receipts: #70 (Cross); #73 2s. 6d. (Treasurer's Book)