Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Powell. "If we make allowances for embarrassment and imperfect study, the performance of Mrs Powell was by no means indifferent" (Monthly Mirror, May 1796, p. 50). Afterpiece: Not acted these 4 years. Morning Herald, 2 May: Tickets to be had of Mrs Powell, No. 22, Henrietta-street, Covent-Garden. Receipts: #466 11s. 6d. (189.3.6; 53.1.6; 4.14.6; tickets: 216.15.0) (charge: #212)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Jordan. [In mainpiece the playbill retains King as Sir Peter Teazle, but "Murray, on account of the indisposition of King, was the Sir Peter to Mrs Jordan's Lady Teazle" (Monthly Mirror, May 1797, p. 311).] Tickets delivered for the 15th [for which day the benefit was first announced] will be admitted. "On the whole, Mrs Jordan's Lady Teazle, if not excellent, was respectable; and at a time when it was thought that it would be impossible to personify her Ladyship [i.e. after the retirement of Miss Farren], Mrs Jordan is commendable in having endeavoured it...[Sir Peter] was a part well suited to Murray, who excels in the still and the pathetic...In the screen scene his mirth in revealing to Charles the story of the French milliner, and his amazement the moment after when Charles, throwing down the screen, presented that milliner in the shape of Lady Teazle, must confirm the reputation of Murray. 'Lady Teazle!' (exclaimed he, turning from her towards the door, and in an accent alarmingly impressive), 'Lady Teazle, by all that is damnable!" (Monthly Visitor, June 1797, pp. 531-32). True Briton, 6 May: Tickets to be had of Mrs Jordan, No. 14, Somerset-street, Portman-square. Receipts: #550 3s. (232.4.0; 72.2.0; 7.10.6; tickets: 238.6.6) (charge: free)

Event Comment: Account-Book: Tickets delivered by Mrs Hall (b[ox-keeper]), Warwhick, Robson (p[it door-keeper]), W. Ansell, W. Linton, West, Purkins, Standen, Ashwin, Hill, Morris will be admitted. Receipts: #334 0s. 6d. (35.18.0; 3.13.0; tickets: 294.9.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mr and Mrs Follett. Receipts: #309 6s. (66.3.6; 5.13.6; tickets: 237.9.0)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Gibbs. 1st piece: Never acted here. 2nd piece [1st time; M. INT 1. In it the playbill lists Dicky Gossip by Suett, but "Fawcett came forward with an apology, stating that Suett had been suddenly taken ill, and was unable to attend the theatre. The galleries...insisted on Fawcett's singing the song in Suett's stead. Fawcett pleaded his incapacity, and at length, by dint of a little buffoonery and grimace (talents essentially necessary on such occasions) succeeded in a appeasing the tumult" (Dramatic Censor, III, 127)]

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: And my wife, and by coach to the King's playhouse, and meeting Creed took him up, and there saw The Scornfull Lady well acted; Doll Common [Mrs Corey] doing Abigail most excellently, and Knipp the widow very well, and will be an excellent actor, I think. In other parts the play not so well done as used to be, by the old actors. Anon to White Hall by coach, thinking to have seen a play there to-night, but found it a mistake, so back again

Event Comment: The King's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@12, p. 17: King here. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 344. See Noyes, Ben Jonson on the English Stage, p. 307, for a letter to Lady Sunderland on this performance, and, p. 308, for an anecdote from The Life of the Late Famous Comedian, Jo. Haynes, concerning Haynes and Hart in a scene. For another allusion to the action, see Henri Ferneron, Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth (London, 1807), p. 179n. Pepys, Diary: 15 Jan. 1668@9: It is about my Lady Harvy's being offended at Doll Common's [Mrs Corey's] acting of Sempronia, to imitate her; for which she got my Lord Chamberlain, her kinsman, to imprison Doll: when my Lady Castlemayne made the King to release her. Mrs John Evelyn to Mr Terryll, 10 Feb. 1668@9: There has not been any new lately revived and reformed, as Catiline, well set out with clothes and scenes (Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, ed. William Bray, IV, 14). See also 7 and 11 Dec. 1667

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but it very probably occurred not later than May 1691, as the play was advertised in the London Gazette, 4-8 June 1691. For discussions of it, see E. W. White, Early Performances of Purcell's Operas, Theatre Notebook, XIII (1958-59), 44-45, and R. E. Moore, Henry Purcell and the Restoration Theatre, Chapter III. Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 42: King Arthur an Opera, wrote by Mr Dryden: it was Excellently Adorn'd with Scenes and Machines: The Musical Part set by Famous Mr Henry Purcel; and Dances made by Mr Jo. Priest: The Play and Musick pleas'd the Court and City, and being well perform'd, twas very Gainful to the Company. Roger North: I remember in Purcell's excellent opera of King Arthur, when Mrs Butler, in the person of Cupid, was to call up Genius, she had the liberty to turne her face to the scean, and ner back to the theater. She was in no concerne for her face, but sang a recitativo of calling towards the place where Genius was to rise, and performed it admirably, even beyond any thing I ever heard upon the English stage....And I could ascribe it to nothing so much as the liberty she had of concealing her face, which she could not endure should be so contorted as is necessary to sound well, before her gallants, or at least her envious sex. There was so much of admirable musick in that opera, that it's no wonder it's lost; for the English have no care of what's good, and therefore deserve it not (Roger North on Music, ed. John Wilson [London, 1959], p. 217-18)

Event Comment: The United Company. As 9 Nov. 1692 is known to be the second day, it is assumed that 8 Nov. 1692 represents the first performance. (See entry for 9 Nov. 1692.) The authorship is uncertain; William Mountfort signed tne Dedication, but its authorship is linked with that of Edward III (November 1690), which may have been by Bancroft. Gentleman's Journal, October 1692 (not issued until November): Henry the Second, King of England, A new Play, by the Author of that call'd Edward the Third, which gave such universal satisfaction, hath been acted several times with applause. It is a Tragedy with a mixture of Comedy....Had you seen it acted, you would own that an Evening is pass'd very agreeably, when at a Representation of that pleasing Piece. [Alfred Harbage, Elizabethan-Restoration Palimpsest, Modern Language Review, XXXV (1940), 312-18, argues that this play is the Elizabethan Henry II once in the possession of Moseley. A song, In vain 'gainst Love I strove, composed by Henry Purcell and sung by Mrs Dyer, not in the printed play, is in Comes Amoris, 1693, and Joyful Cuckoldom 1695. See Purcell's Works, Purcell Society, XX (1916), vii

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 Knight

Event Comment: Benefit Corey and Mrs Mills. At the Desire of several Laides of Quality. Wirtten by Sir George Etheridge

Event Comment: Benefit Mrs Finch and Mrs Kent. See also Tatler, 24 May

Event Comment: Benefit Mrs Moore. At the Desire of several Persons of Quality. Mainpiece: Written by the late Mr Mountfort

Event Comment: Benefit Mrs Mills. Written by Ben. Johnson

Event Comment: Benefit Weller, Higginson, Hilton, Mrs Boman

Event Comment: Not Acted these Twenty Years. Written by the late Ingenious Mrs Behn

Event Comment: Written by Mrs Behn

Event Comment: [By Mrs J. Robe.] Dedication: Whatever cold Encouragement it met with upon the Stage, I am induc'd...to believe it might very reasonably be attributed to the Season of the Year. Receipts: #17s 13s. 6d