Event Comment: Betterton's Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but the Prologue refers to The World in the Moon, suggesting a premiere during (or shortly after) the run of that opera. Since The Innocent Mistress was advertised in the Post Boy, 29-31 July 1697, this fact points also to a late June premiere. A song, When I languished and wished, set by John Eccles and sung by Mrs Hodgson, is in Wit and Mirth, Second Edition, 1707. Gildon, English Dramatick Poets, p. iii: This is a diverting Play, and met with good Success, tho' acted in the hot Season of the Year. A Comparison Between the Two Stages (1702), p. 20: Tho' the Title calls this Innocent, yet it deserves to be Damn'd for its Obscenity

Event Comment: [[By William Congreve. Premiere.] Congreve wrote on 26 March: I wished particularly for you on Friday last, when Eccles his music for the prize was performed in Dorset Garden, and universally admired. Mr Finger's is to be to-morrow; and Russel and Weldon's follow in their turn....The number of performers, besides the verse-singers, was 85. The front of the stage was all built into a concave with deal boards; all which was faced with tin, to increase and throw forwards the sound. It was all hung with sconces of wax-candles, besides the common branches of lights usual in the playhouses. The boxes and pit were all thrown into one; so that all sat in common; and the whole was crammed with beauties and beaux, not one scrub being admitted. The place where formerly the music used to play, between the pit and the stage, was turned into White's chocolate-housev....Our friend Venus performed to a miracle; so did Mrs Hodgson Juno. Mrs Boman was not quite so well approved in Pallas.-Congreve to Keally, in Congreve, I, 71-72

Event Comment: Betterton's Company. The date of the first production is not known, but the play was probably not acted later than September 1695, as it was advertised in the London Gazette, No. 3122, 10-14 Oct. 1695. Preface, Edition of 1696: It was the first I ever made Publick by appearing on the Stage, which (with the Advantage it met with, of admirable Acting) is all the Recommendations I have for exposing it...Ariadne. A song, Restless, in thought disturbed, set by John Eccles and sung by Mrs Hodgson, is in A Collection of Songs, 1696