Event Comment: A Grand Serious Opera; the music by Sacchini, with additions and alterations [by Andreozzi and Mazzinghi]. Under the direction of Mazzinghi. The dresses executed from original drawings of Bartolozzi and Tresham, by Lupino. With dances analogous to the Opera. The Doors to be opened at 6:30. To begin at 7:30 [same throughout season]. Pit 10s. 6d. Gallery 5s. There are a number of green boxes which may be taken on application to Lee, at the Theatre; the entrance to which, and to the Gallery, will be in Oxford-street. Subscriptions will be received by Messrs Wright and Co., Henrietta-street, Covent-garden (only) where tickets are delivering daily; and such Ladies as have not compleated their subscriptions to their boxes are intreated to send their names to the office, in order to have the tickets prepared, as no person can be admitted without producing a ticket. The Nobility and Gentry are intreated to give particular orders to their coachmen to set down and take up with their horses' heads towards Hyde-park. The Doors in Blenheim-mews for chairs only. By Command of His Majesty no person can be admitted behind the scenes during the performance. "We fear that [the Pantheon as converted into a theatre] will gratify only the eye. It must undergo still more changes before the ear will be satisfied. Whether it is that the dome is too high and disproportioned to the breadth, or that the orchestra is sunk too low beneath the audience we cannot tell, but the sound does not swell and spread in equal volume; and it is the most inaudible in the best parts of the Theatre: the Pit and the first and second tier of Boxes hear very indistincly...We found this to be the complaint of every judge of music in the place" (Morning Chronicle, 18 Feb.). "The Pantheon has opened, and is small, they say, but pretty and simple; all the rest ill-conducted, and from the singers to the scene-shifters imperfect; the dances long and bad, and the whole performance so dilatory and tedious, that it lasted from eight to half an hour past twelve" (Walpole [18 Feb. 1791], XIV, 377) [and see 19 Feb.]

Event Comment: The Last Night of the Company's Performing. Account-Book: Tickets delivered by Green, Harris, Doe, Iredale, Savery, Wilkins, Wyat, Hall [carpenter], Robson [music porter], Mott, Rolls, Mrs Rock, Finley, Dosel, Sturgeon will be admitted. Account-Book, 18 June: Paid Hill, Waxchandler, in full, #143 2s. Receipts: #405 4s. 6d. (39.14.6; after-money: none listed; tickets: 365.10.0)

Event Comment: Account-Book: Tickets delivered by Shuter, Simmons, Strahan, Walker, Saby, Green, Young, Hall, Coombes, Keys, Heathcot, Hill, Wyatt, Street, Hall will be admitted. Receipts: #448 1s. (48.19.6; 3.10.6; tickets: 395.11.0)

Event Comment: By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit for Sims. Mainpiece: As altered from Wycherley by David Garrick, Esq. The Doors to be opened at 5:30. To begin at 6:30. Tickets to be had of Sims, the Theatrical Register, Wrekin Tavern, Broad-court, Long-acre; at the Blue Post Coffee-house, Charlotte-street, Rathbone-place; the Tun, Goodge-street, Middlesex Hospital; the Green Man, Union-street, Middlesex Hospital; the Wheat Sheaf, Rathbone-place; of Price, at the Coach and Horses, Holborn; at the Duke of Clarence Coffee-house, Haymarket; Spencer's, Two Blue Posts, Southampton-buildings; and of Rice at the Theatre

Event Comment: Powell: Tit for Tat rehearsed at 10; Gamester at 10 (in Green Room); Haunted Tower at 11. Receipts: #238 6s. 6d. (192.10.6; 45.16.0; 0.0.0)

Event Comment: [1st piece in place of Gretna Green, advertised on playbill of 11 Aug.

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; T 5, by William Henry Ireland; incidental music by William Linley. Prologue by Sir James Bland Burges; Epilogue by Robert Merry (see text)]: With new Scenes, Dresses & Decorations. The Scenes designed and excuted by Greenwood and Capon. The Dresses by Johnston, Gay & Miss Rein. Printed slip attached to Kemble playbill: A malevolent and impotent attack on the Shakspeare MSS. [i.e. those forged by W. H. Ireland, of which this play was one] having appeared, on the Eve of representation of Vortigern, evidently intended to injure the interest of the Proprietor of the MSS., Mr Samuel? Ireland [W. H. Ireland's father] feels it impossible, within the short space of time that intervenes between the publishing and the representation, to produce an answer to the most illiberal and unfounded assertions in Mr Malone's enquiry [i.e. Edmond Malone, An Inquiry into the Authenticity of certain Papers attributed to Shakspeare, Queen Elizabeth, and Henry, Earl of Southampton, 1796]. He is therefore induced to request that Vortigern may be heard With that Candour that has ever distinguished a British Audience. The Play is now at the Press, and will in a very few days be laid before the Public. [But it was not issued until 1799 (see below). See also Bernard Grebanier, The Great Shakespeare Forgery, London, 1966.] 4 Apr., states that the first three acts were listened to with patience, but beginning with the fourth act the play was damned, when "one tremendous yell of indignation from the pit burst simultaneously." "At four o'clock the doors of the theatre were besieged; and, a few minutes after they were opened, the pit was crowded solely with gentlemen. Before six not a place was to be found in the boxes, and the passages were filled...The audience betrayed symptoms of impatience early in the representation; but, finding its taste insulted by bloated terms, which heightened the general insipidity, its reason puzzled by discordant images, false ornaments, and abortive efforts to elevate and astonish, pronounced its sentence of condemnation at the conclusion of the play" (Gentleman's Magazine, Apr. 1795, pp. 346-47). "Irelands play of Vortigern I went to. Prologue spoken at 35 minutes past 6 [see 29 Mar.]: Play over at 10. A strong party was evidently made to support it, which clapped without opposition frequently through near 3 acts, when some ridiculous passages caused a laugh, mixed with groans-Kemble requested the audience t o hear the play out abt. the end of 4th act and prevailed.-The Epilogue was spoken by Mrs Jordan who skipped over some lines which claimed the play as Shakespeares. Barrymore attempted to give the Play out for Monday next but was hooted off the stage. Kemble then came on, & after some time, was permitted to say that "School for Scandal would be given," which the House approved by clapping. Sturt of Dorsetshire was in a Stage Box drunk, & exposed himself indecently to support the Play, and when one of the stage attendants attempted to take up the green cloth [i.e. a carpet which, by custom, was laid on the stage during the concluding scene of a tragedy], Sturt seized him roughly by the head. He was slightly pelted with oranges" (Joseph Farington, Diary, 1922, I, 145). Account-Book, 4 Apr.: Paid Ireland his share for the 1st Night of Vortigern #102 13s. 3d. Morning Chronicle, 29 Mar. 1799: This Day is published Vortigern and Henry the Second (4s.). Receipts: #555 6s. 6d. (528.6.0; 26.9.6; 0.11.0)

Event Comment: [The aftyrpiece was not concluded, because of a false alarm of fire which caused a serious panic. "One gentleman lost his life, having lexped from the Green Boxes into the Orchestra; in his fall, he broke the harpsichord, and fractured his skull" (Gentleman's Magazine, Aug. 1796, p. 698).

Event Comment: [Mainpiece in place of The Force of Ridicule; afterpiece of Richard Coeur de Lion, both advertised on playbill of 28 Nov.] "The new Comedy last night was deferred upon the pretext of Miss Farren's illness...The Manager sent after Mrs Siddons, who was found at Covent-Garden Theatre, seeing Abroad and at Home. Brandon, however, ordered her a chair, and she kindly performed Isabella. Wroughton read the Father" (Oracle, 30 Nov.). "For near an hour the audience waited patiently...At half past seven Palmer addressed the audience" He said that Miss Farren was ill, that to those who preferred to leave the theatre their money would be returned, and that instead of the new play Mrs Siddons would act Isabella, "as soon as the dresses could be prepared for that purpose. This address was by no means favourably received, and hundreds of persons immediately left the house. A few minutes after eight, the Curtain drew up to the tragedy, which was well performed, and much applauded by the few who remained to witness it" (Morning Herald, 30 Nov.). "November 30. Miss Farren last night refused to appear in a new Play at Drury Lane which made much confusion in the House. The cause assigned was indisposition but that was not believed by the audience; and the fact Lysons says is, that as she cannot obtain payment from the Theatre, she resolutely told them she wd. not appear unless her demands were paid...Such is the unprincipled conduct of Sheridan" (Diary of Joseph Farington, 1922, I, 174). [On 1 Dec. Morning Herald prints a letter from Miss Farren, from Green-street, Grosvenor-square. saying that she really was ill. The editor of the paper adds a note in which he affirms his positive knowledge that rumours about a dispute as to Miss Farren's unpaid salary were without foundation.] Receipts: #134 2s. (82.2; 50.18; 1.2)

Event Comment: Benefit for Fawcett. 3rd piece [1st time; F 1, by George Colman, ynger, based on L'Anglais; ou, Le Fou Raisonnable, by Joseph Patrat]. Times, 6 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Fawcett, No. 41, Frith-street, Soho, and at Brook-Green, Hammersmith. Receipts: #501 18s. (226.13.0; 3.0.6; tickets: 272.4.6)

Event Comment: Account-Book: Received of Green, lent to pay the Company, #400. Receipts: #264 2s. 6d. (184.12.6; 79.5.6; 0.4.6)