Event Comment: The
United Company. The date of the first performance is not certain, but it lies between Saturday 9 and Saturday 16 April.
Luttrell,
A Brief Relation (II, 413) stated on 9 April that
the Queen had prohibited its being acted; on 16 April (II, 422) he reports that it has been acted.
Luttrell,
A Brief Relation, II, 422, 16 April:
Mr Dryden s play has been acted with applause, the reflecting passages upon this government being left out. The
Gentleman's Journal, May 1692 (licensed 14 May): I told you in my last, that none could then tell when Mr Dryden's
Cleomenes would appear; since that time, the Innocence and Merit of the Play have rais'd it several eminent Advocates, who have prevailed to have it Acted, and you need not doubt but it has been with great applause. Preface, Edition of 1692:
Mrs Barry, always Excellent, has, in this tragedy, excell'd Herself, and gain'd a Reputation beyond any Woman whom I have ever seen on the Theatre. [See also
Cibber, Apology, I, 160, for a discussion of
Mrs Barry in
Cleomenes.] A song,
No, no, poor suffering heart no change endeavour, the music by
Henry Purcell, is in
Comes Amoris, The Fourth Book, 1693, and also, with the notice that it was sung by
Mrs Butler, in
Joyful Cuckoldom, ca. 1695. See also
Purcell's Works,
Purcell Society, XVI (1906), xviii-xix;
Epistolary Essay to Mr Dryden upon his Cleomenes, in
Gentleman's Journal, May 1692, pp. 17-21. When the play was revived at
Drury Lane, 8 Aug. 1721, the bill bore the heading: Not Acted these Twenty-Five Years