Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Siddons. Part of the Pit will be laid into the Boxes. To prevent confusion Ladies are desired to send their Servants by half past Four o'clock. Mainpiece: Not acted these 4 years [acted 15 May 1782]. Afterpiece: Not acted these 5 years [not acted since 25 Mar. 1775]. [In mainpiece the playbill assigns Banquo to Bensley, but "Poor Bensley's illness last night took him off; but on another night he will give and take in the triumph" {Public Advertiser, 4 Feb.). In afterpiece he is assigned to The Guardian. On the Kemble playbill in both cases his name is deleted and MS annotations substitute Hull's.] "Macbeth at Drury-lane will. . . gag the drivellers who, on the failure of Constance [in King John], ventured a sweeping prophecy of condemnation that 'the Siddons never could play Shakespeare.' Would it not have been better to have borrowed Farren, rather than Hull, for Banquo?" (Public Advertiser, 4 Feb.). "'Why,'say some of the critics, 'should Mrs Siddons wear a white dress in her last scene of Lady Macbeth? She is supposed to be asleep, not mad.' What reason except custom can be given for a mad heroine appearing in white we know not [and see DL, 20 Dec. 1782]. Yet there is an obvious reason why a person walking in their sleep should wear a white dress of the loose kind worn by Mrs Siddons ... It [is] the nearest resemblance which theatrical effect will admit, to the common sort of night-dresses" (Public Advertiser, 7 Feb.). Receipts: #346 16s. (198/10/0; 7/2/6; 0/8/6; tickets: 140/15/0) (charge: free)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: Mr Creed and I to White-Fryars, where we saw The Bondman acted most excellently, and though I have seen it often, yet I am every time more and more pleased with Betterton's action

Event Comment: This was probably acted by the King's Company, which acted the play several times in 1660-61. Pepys, Diary: At White Hall by appointment, Mr Creed carried my wife and I to the Cockpitt, and we had excellent places, and saw the King, Queen, Duke of Monmouth, his son, and my Lady Castlemaine, and all the fine ladies; and The Scornfull Lady, well performed. They had done by eleven o'clock

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: By coach to White Hall, thinking to have met at a Committee of Tangier, but nobody being there but my Lord Rutherford, he would needs carry me and another Scotch Lord to a play, and so we saw, coming late, part of The Generall, my Lord Orrery's (Broghill) second play; but, Lord! to see how no more either in words, sense, or design, it is to his Harry the 5th is not imaginable, and so poorly acted, though in finer clothes, is strange. And here I must confess breach of a vowe in appearance, but I not desiring it, but against my will, and my oathe being to go neither at my own charge nor at another's, as I had done by becoming liable to give them another, as I am to Sir W. Pen and Mr Creed; but here I neither know which of them paid for me, nor, If I did, am I obliged ever to return the like

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: I away before to White Hall and into the new play-house there, the first time I ever was there, and the first play I have seen since before the great plague. By and by Mr Pierce comes, bringing my wife and his, and Knipp. By and by the King and Queene, Duke and Duchesse, and all the great ladies of the Court; which, indeed, was a fine sight. But the play being Love in a Tub, a silly play, and though done by the Duke's people, yet having neither Betterton nor his wife, and the whole thing done ill, and being ill also, I had no manner of pleasure in the play. Besides, the House, though very fine, yet bad for the voice, for hearing. The sight of the ladies, indeed, was exceeding noble; and above all, my Lady Castlemayne. The play done by ten o'clock. I carried them all home, and then home myself, and well satisfied with the sight, but not the play

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage," p. 14. Pepys, Diary: My wife and I to White Hall; and there, by means of Mr Cooling, did get into the play, the only one we have seen this winter: it was The Five Hours' Adventure: but I sat so far I could not hear well, nor was there any pretty woman that I did see, but my wife, who sat in my Lady Fox's pew with her. The house very full; and late before done, so that it was past eleven before we got home

Event Comment: London Gazette, No. 923, 21-24 Sept. 1674: At Mr John Banisters house in White-Fryers, called the Musick School, will be several Masters performing Vocal and Instrumental Musick, on Tuesday next, and every evening for the future. Beginning exactly at five of the clock

Event Comment: London Gazette, No. 958, 21-25 Jan. 1674@5: Mr John Bannister that lived in White-Fryers, is removed to Shandois-street, Covent-garden, and there intends to Entertain, as formerly, on Tuesday next, and likewise every Evening for the future, Sundays only excepted

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: Benefit Mrs White, the Boxkeeper's Widow. At the particular Desire of several Ladies of Quality. Written by Mr Congreve. Receipts: money #9 19s. 6d.; tickets #54 13s

Event Comment: Written by Colly Cibber Esq. Benefit Theophilus Cibber. No persons to be admitted into the Boxes, or behind the scenes, but by Box ticket, which will be deliver'd at White's Chocolate House in St. James' St.; Tom's Coffee House in Covent Garden, and of Mr Bradshaw, &c. Places for the stage (which will be form'd into Boxes and carefully enclos'd) may be taken at Mrs Moor's in the Playhouse passage. Tickets for the Boxes and the stage will also be deliver'd at the proper offices of the theatre. Receipts: #150

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Comedie du Nouveau Theatre Italien. Received from Four Representations acted...#188 18s. 4d.; 56 Subscriptions at Five Guineas each #294; From a Subscription by Mr Arthur, Master of White's Coffee House #367 10s. (British Magazine, V (August, 1750), p. 322)

Event Comment: [The Advertisement of 17 May for the Suspicious Husband repeated for the fourth time, now, however, specifying the Grand Scotch Dance and a concluding Country Dance to round off the evening's entertainment for the benefit of M Monet. Tickets at White's Chocolate House in St James's St., and at the stage door. Being positively the last time of the Company's performing this season. The announcement accompanied by the following statement]: Mr Monett, the innocent tho' unfortunate cause of disgusting the Public by his attempting to represent French Plays, most humbly implores their assistance, by the means of this Benefit Play, to extricate him out of his present most deplorable situation. Without such relief his Misfortunes must detain him a ruined Man in England; a severity which he is persuaded never was proposed as any part of the purpose of the most disoblig'd, or determined against his Undertaking. With this relief he hopes to be able to return to France, and promises never again to risque their favours. He most submissively hopes he shall not be the only the single instance that may seem to contradict the hitherto unimpeached Good Nature and Humanity, which is universally acknowledged the Characteristic of the English Nation (General Advertiser)

Event Comment: Benefit At the particular desire of several persons of quality for Mr Cibber. Mainpiece: Not acted these 8 years [see 15 Feb. 1746]. N.B. The Boxes not being equal to the demand for places, Servants will be allow'd to keep places on the stage, which for the better accommodation of the Ladies, and to preserve the Decorum of the Play, will be enclosed in the manner of an amphitheatre. Ladies are desired to send servants by 3 o'clock. Tickets to be had at White's Chocolate House, St James's, and at the stage door (playbill). For Th: Cibber a prisoner in ye King's Bench--he did Wolf and ye Epilogue of Nobody. Receipts: #220 (Cross)

Event Comment: Paid to Charlotte Lane for cleaning for Mr Dyer a white cloth Suit lac'd with silver, 2s. 6d. For Altering and mending ditto, silk &c., 6s. (MS list in Folger Library, Davies Life of Garrick, II, 322)

Event Comment: Paid Charlotte Lane for making Osman's dress for Mr Clarke, #1; Sewing, Silk, &c., 3s.; 7 yards slezia linnen at 14d.-8s. 2d.; 2yds Blue stuff & 4 yds linnen for interlining, 8s.; wadding to fill the breast & 2 yds silk lace, 1s. Making a white flannel waistcoat with sleeves 7s. Total #2 7s. 2d. (MS list Davies, Life of Garrick, II, 322)

Event Comment: For the Benefit of the Wid. Kraus & her children whose Husband was murder'd by Robbers near Chelsea (Cross). Tickets to be had at White's Chocolate House, and the St James Coffee House, St James St.; at Allmack's Coffee House, Halfmoon St.; The Mount Coffee House, Grosvenor St.; Sam's Coffee House and The Jerusalem Coffee House, Exchange Alley; of Mrs Kraus, at her house in Halfmoon St., Picadilly, and of Mr Varney at the stage Door, where places may be taken. Receipts: #200 (Cross)