Event Comment: Mainpiece: Never performed. Founded [by Thomas Hull] on a Play wrote by the late Sir Samuel Tuke [Adventures of Five Hours]. The Afterpiece: A Masque (perform'd but once) [by Thomas Hull], With New Music, Dresses and Scenery. The Music by Mr Bach. Books of the Masque to be had at the Theatre. Paid for The Perplexities #2 2s. (Account Book). Receipts: #226 16s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Never Perform'd. Founded on Beaumont and Fletcher. Music by Thomas Linley. A Comic Opera the Music entirely new. [By Thomas Hull altered from The Royal Merchant; or the Beggar's Bush (Biographia Dramatica). See 19 Dec. 1767 for further note on Music.] Paid Mr Horne for 4 Tambourines #1 10s. (Account Book). Went into the Pit to see the opera founded on Beaumont and Fletcher, performed for the first time....The music may be good, but the piece is trifling and childish, barren of incident and character except that of Clause played by Bensley and the frightened peasant. The performers are in the Flemish dresses of the times, and do the piece much justice. At the beginning of the 2nd act some fellows in the 2s. Gallery began a disturbance, but were turn'd out and carried before Sir John Fielding, where they confessed that they were hired to disturb this performance by a publican, but refused to say whom....Stood in the well (Neville MS Diary). Receipts: #225 1s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; MD 5, by Thomas Morton. Prologue by William Thomas Fitzgerald. Epilogue by Miles Peter Andrews (see text)]: The Scenes, principally new, designed and painted by Richards, Hodgins, Pugh, Walmsley, and assistants. With entire new Dresses and Decorations. "The management of the earthquake in which the Temple of the Sun is destroyed was a very fine piece of stage mechanism; the effect of which was considerably heightened by the improved performance of the Bold Thunder, and that also of his Electrical Harbinger. The gradations and cadences of the first were superior to anything of the kind we remember within the walls of the theatre...The scene of the rising sun was uncommonly dingy" (Public Advertiser, 3 Dec.). "Mr Morton in full for Columbus #214 10s. 6d." [MS annotation on BM playbill, 26 Dec. 1792 (cg, Vol. VIII)]. Morning Herald, 14 Dec. 1792: This day at noon will be published Columbus (1s. 6d.). Receipts: #301 8s

Event Comment: The King's Company. This play appears on Herbert's List, following the entry for 26 Oct. 1661. (See William VanLennep, "Thomas Killigrew prepares his Plays for Production," J. Q. Adams Memorial Studies (Washington, D. C., 1948, p. 803.) Pepys, Diary: W. Pen and I to the Theatre, but it was so full that we could hardly get any room, so he went up to one of the boxes, and I into the 18d. places, and there saw Love at first sight, a play of Mr Killigrew's and the first time that it hath been acted since before the troubles, and great expectation there was, but I found the play to be a poor thing, and so I perceive every body else do. BM Add. Mss. 34217, fol. 31b, in Hotson Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 246: @First then to speake of his Majestys Theatre@Where one would imagine Playes should be better@Love att the first sight did lead the dance@But att second sight it had the mischance@To be so dash'd out of Countenance as@It never after durst shew itts face@All though its bashfullnesse as tis thought@Be far from being the Authors ffault.

Event Comment: A New English Opera. [Text by Thomas Lediard.] Set to Musick after the Italian Manner by Mr John Frederick Lampe. The Scenes and Cloaths are entirely New. With the Representation of a Transparent Theatre. Curiously Illuminated, and adorn'd with a great Number of Emblems, Mottos, Devices, and Inscriptions; and embellish'd with Machines, in a Manner entirely new. N.B. The Illuminations and other Preparations for this Opera are such, that no Person whatever can be admitted to the Stage. Pit and Boxes put together at 6s. Gallery 3s. 6 p.m. [For a discussion of Lediard and this work, see a series of articles by Ifan Kyrle Fletcher, Sybil Rosenfeld, and Richard Southern in Theatre Notebook, II (1948), 42-54.

Event Comment: Benefit Cross (Prompter) and Mrs Cross. Mainpiece not acted for 40 years [see 22 Dec. 1710]. Written by the author of The Yeoman of Kent [Thomas Baker]. Tickets deliver'd by Mr Burton will be taken. Tickets to be had of Cross at his lodgings over against the Rose Tavern in Russell St., Covent Garden