Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years. Vernon was so very drunk in the Farce that he could scarcely stand--a Man in the Gallery cryed out, Hold him up--a few hisses at the End of the Trio (Hopkins Diary). Receipts: #146 15s

Event Comment: Characters new Dress'd. Receipts: #244 17s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Bellamy. Mainpiece: Never Acted There. [Thomas Southerne's play adapted by Garrick. See bill 4 May.] Afterpiece: With New Introduction and Conclusion [see Harlequin Statue or the Jealous Farmer Outwitted, 20 May 1765] but with Music, Scenes and Decorations adapted to the whole. Charges #65 6s. Balance to Mrs Bellamy #53 6s. plus #113 4s. from tickets (Box 316; Pit 228) (Account Book). Receipts: #118 12s

Event Comment: Benefit for Bensley. Last time of performing till the Holidays. On Easter Monday (the Sixth Night, for the Author) the New Comedy, of She Stoops to Conquor; or, The Mistakes of a Night (playbill). Charges #67 5s. Profit to Bensley #68 1s. 6d. plus #34 4s. from tickets (Box 135; Pit 3). Paid one-half year's poor's Rate for theatre due Lady Day last #21 17s. 6d. and ditto for House in Bow Passage 15s. 8d. (Account Book). Receipts: #135 6s. 6d

Event Comment: Books of the Songs [in mainpiece] to be had at the Theatre. [London Chronicle, 19 Oct. lists the new songs: in Act I Charming Clorinda by Bowden; in Act II When spring has chac'd the winter's snow by Mrs Wells and When generous wine by Bowden; in Act III The morn, who night adorning and Bright Sol now darts by Mrs Billington.] Receipts: #284 18s. 6d. (283.7.6; 1.11.0)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 20 years. [See 16 April 1751.] With the Decorations prescribed by Shakespeare. The Characters new Dressed in the Haibts of the Times. [The reviewer for Town and Country Magazine preferred Mrs Hartley's acting in Jane Shore to that in Henry VIII, where she frequently sunk into a whining monotony which from the length of some of the speeches became very disagreeable.' She did, however, he thought, do the last scene well.] Receipts: #223 13s. 6d. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: A New Tragedy, acted but once. [See 1 May. N.B. The Account Book states that the bill was altered to The Busy Body and Golden Pippin.] Receipts: #116 8s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Benefit for Hull. Mainpiece: A New Alteration [by Thomas Hull], from Shakespeare and Shadwell. With characteristic Habits, Scenes and Decorations. [Mrs Duill is identified in Lyons, Collectanea.] Public Advertiser, 2 May: Tickets to be had of Hull, Duke's Court, near Dean's-yard, Westminster. Receipts: #80 10s. (77/5; 3/5; tickets: none listed) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first production is not known, but the Gentleman's Journal, February 1692@3 (issued in March) makes clear that it followed Congreve's play: We have had since a Comedy, call'd, The Wary Widow, or Sir Noisy Parrot, by Henry Higden Esq; I send by here the Prologue to it by Sir Charles Sedley, and you are too great an Admirer of Shakespeare, not to assent to the Praises given to the Fruits of his rare Genius (p. 61). The play was announced in the London Gazette, No. 2875, 29 May-June 1693. The music for one song, All hands up aloft, was by Berenclow, and the song appears in D'Urfey, Wit and Mirth, 1699. Dedication, edition of 1693: But now it is forced to beg for your Protection from the malice and severe usage it received from some of my Ill natured Friends, who with a Justice peculiar to themselves, passed sentence upon it unseen or heard and at the representation made it their business to persecute it with a barbarous variety of Noise and Tumult. Gildon, The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton (p. 20): The actors were completely drunk before the end of the third act, and being therefore unable to proceed with this "Pleasant Comedy," they very properly dismissed the audience

Event Comment: Afterpiece: With Alterations and Additions. Not acted these 7 years. [See 23 May 1763.] With New Music, Dresses, Scenes, and Decorations. The First Scene painted by the Late Mr Lambert, the last by Servandoni (playbill). [See 6 Nov. for specification of Scenes.] Receipts: #240 4s. 6d

Event Comment: Afterpiece: By Desire. The New Tragedy of Zobeide deferr'd on account of Indisposition of Mrs Yates. Zobeide publish'd at 1s. 6d. (Winston MS 10). Paid Younger #2 2s. for license for Zobeide. Advanc'd Cushing as per note #37 10s., and Gardner #30 (Account Book). Receipts: #148 10s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Never acted here. Afterpiece: With new Scenes, Dresses, and Decorations. Books of the Masque to be had at the Theatre

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 8 years. [See 14 April 1758.] Characters New Dress'd

Event Comment: Afterpiece: Never performed before. Written by Milton, the Music entirely New (playbill). Music by William Jackson (Wyndham, Annals of Covent Garden, I, 178). As condolence on Death of Duke of York (Genest, V, 186). Paid for licensing Lycidas #1 1s. (Account Book). Receipts: #251 11s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Paid Simpson for new music for the orchestra #10 10s. Paid Griffin, bookseller, as per bill #1 3s. 4d. (Account Book). Receipts: #193 4s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: by Particular Desire. Afterpiece: By Desire. Paid one year's Ground Rent for theatre due 10th Inst. #100, minus Land Tax allow'd #13 15s.; total #86 5s.; Paid ditto for New Building Adjoining theatre #30 minus Land tax #4 2s. 6d. Total: #15 17s. 6d. (Account Book). Receipts: #232 3s

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years. [See 11 April 1771.] Paid Mrs Rich the balance of the Benefit for the Dispensary #36 11s. 6d., and paid Garton the balance due the Theatrical Fund #143 3s. (Account Book). [The Westminster Magazine this month comments upon the revival of the pantomime and the new scene of the Pantheonv: "This thought evidently was borrowed from the ludicrous situations of the Macaroni in the pantomime of the Pigmy Revels at the other theatre; but no one in the world borrows with less ceremony than Mr Colman, especially from Mr Garrick."] Receipts: #126 2s. 6d

Event Comment: [In afterpiece the playbill assigns Shelty to Edwin, but "Ryder in the stead of Edwin, who was said to be indisposed, played the part of Shelty" (World, 29 Sept.).] Afterpiece: The Music by Handel, Rizzio, ?J. C.? Bach, Gretry, Corri, Shield. A new Scotch Overture by Shield. Paid Music 25th Inst. #11 7s. 6d.; Properties 2s. 4d.; Kettle Drum 5s.; Wardrobe #5 10s. 6d.; Supernumeraries #8 12s. 6d.; Chorus Singers #2; Cox for Scenemen #28 1s.; Hodgins #4 4s. Receipts: #254 4s. 6d. (250.15.0; 3.9.6)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: 4th Time [i.e in continuation of the reckoning for the previous season. Prologue by Robert Merry. Epilogue by Miles Peter Andrews]. "The Dramatist has undergone considerable alterations" (World, 8 Oct., which also states that the Epilogue was new, i.e. not the one, also by Andrews, spoken the previous season). Receipts: #206 15s. (196.7.6; 10.7.6)

Event Comment: [The King's Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but a letter--see 2 Jan. 1670@1--indicates that the first part had been acted before that date and that Part II was to be shortly staged. The point of the Prologue spoken by Ellen Gwyn seems to have derived from an incident at Dover (see Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 20) in May 1670, when James Nokes attired himself in a ridiculous fashion, including "Broad wast Belts." The speakers of the Epilogue and the Prologue to the Second Part are mentioned in Sir William Haward's MS (Bodl. MS Don. b., pp. 248-49); see The Poems of John Dryden, ed. James Kinsley (Oxford, 1958), IV, 1848-49. In Part I a song Beneath a myrtle shade, with music by John Bannister, is in Choice Songs and Ayres, First Book, 1673. Another, Wherever I am, with music by Alphonso Marsh, is in the same collection, as is also How unhappy a lover am I, the music by Nicholas Staggins. Mrs John Evelyn to Mr Bohun, ca. Jan. 1670@1: Since my last to you I have seen The Siege of Grenada, a play so full of ideas that the most refined romance I ever read is not to compare with it; love is made so pure, and valour so nice, that one would image it designed for an Utopia rather than our stage. I do not quarrel with the poet, but admire one born in the decline of morality should be able to feign such exact virtue; and as poetic fiction has been instructive in former ages, I wish this the same event in ours. As to the strict law of comedy I dare not pretend to judge: some think the division of the story is not so well if it could all have been comprehended in the day's actions (The Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, ed. William Bray, IV, 25). According to John Evelyn--see 9 Feb. 1670@1--Robert Streeter did some of the scenes for this play. In the Preface to The Fatal Discovery, ca. February 1697@8, George Powell, in discussing revivals of Dryden's plays, stated: In relation to our reviving his Almanzor...very hard crutching up what Hart and Mohun could not prop