Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: After dinner my wife and I to the Duke's playhouse, where we saw the new play acted yesterday, The Feign Innocence, or Sir Martin Marr-all; a play made by my Lord Duke of Newcastle, but, as every body says, corrected by Dryden. It is the most entire piece of mirth, a complete farce from one end to the other, that certainly was ever writ. I never laughed so in all my life. I laughed till my head [ached] all the evening and night with the laughing; and at very good wit therein, not fooling. The house full, and in all things of mighty content to me

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, my eyes being so bad since last night's straining of them, that I am hardly able to see, besides the pain which I have in them. The play was a new play; and infinitely full: the King and all the Court almost there. It is The Storme, a play of Fletcher's; which is but so-so, methinks; only there is a most admirable dance at the end, of the ladies, in a military manner, which indeed did please me mightily....And there comes my wife home from the Duke of York's playhouse. Two songs, printed somewhat later in Choice Songs and Ayres, The First Book, 1673, may have been prepared for this revival: Hark the storm grows, set by Robert Smith; and Cheer up my mates, set by Pelham Humphrey

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: With my wife abroad to the King's playhouse, to shew her yesterday's new play, which I like as I did yesterday, the principal thing extraordinary being the dance, which is very good

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 31) lists it as one of several plays whose runs expired on the third day. Pepys, Diary: To the Duke of York's playhouse, but the house so full, it being a new play, The Coffee House, that we could not get in...The Journals of John Lauder Lord Fountainhall (ed. Donald Crawford, 1900), pp. 174-75: heir is the Dukes playhouse, wheir we saw Tom Sydserfes Spanish Comedie Tarugo's Wiles, or the Coffee House, acted....He could not forget himselfe: was very satyricall sneering at the Greshamers for their late invention of the transfusion of blood, as also at our covenant, making the witch of Geneva to wy it and La Sainte Ligue de France togither

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: [After looking in at lif], and so to the King's house: and there, going in, met with Knepp, and she took us up into the tireing-rooms: and to the women's shift, where Nell was dressing herself, and was all unready, and is very Pretty, prettier than I thought. And so walked all up and down the house above, and then below into the scene-room, and there sat down, and she gave us fruit: and here I read the questions to Knepp, while she answered me, through all her part of Flora's Figary's which was acted to-day. But, Lord! to see how they were both painted would make a man mad, and did make me loath them; and what base company of men comes among them, and how lewdly they talk! and how poor the men are in clothes, and yet what a shew they make on the stage by candle-light, is very observable. But to see how Nell cursed, for having so few people in the pit, was pretty; the other house carrying away all the people at the new play, and is said, now-a-days, to have generally most company, as being better players. By and by into the pit, and there was the play, which is pretty good

Event Comment: Because of the losses in the plague and fire, the pageantry was again omitted from the swearing in of the new Lord Mayor of London

Event Comment: [The Duke's Company. For Harris' role, see Pepys, 11 May 1668. For Angel as Stephano, see An Elegy Upon...Mr Edward Angell, reprinted in A Little Ark, pp. 38-39: @Who shall play Stephano now? your Tempest's gone@To raise new Storms i' th' hearts of every one.@ For Underhill as Trincalo, note his nickname of Prince Trincalo. (For Mary Davis as Ariel and Mrs Long as Hypolito, see J. H. Wilson, All the King's Ladies, pp. 140, 166.) Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 33): The Tempest...Acted in Lincolns-Inn-Fields...alter'd by Sir William Davenant and Mr Dryden before 'twas made into an Opera. Pepys, Diary: At noon resolved with Sir W. Pen to go see The Tempest, an old play of Shakespeare's, acted, I hear, the first day; and so my wife, and girl, and W. Hewer by themselves, and Sir W. Pen and I afterwards by ourselves; and forced to sit in the side balcone over against the musique-room at the Duke's house, close by my Lady Dorset and a great many great ones. The house mighty full; the King and Court there: and the most innocent play that ever I saw; and a curious piece of musique in an echo of half sentences, the echo repeating the former half, while the man goes on the latter, which is mighty pretty. The play [has] no great wit, but yet good, above ordinary plays. Thence home with Sir W. Pen, and there all mightily pleased with the play

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Downes (p. 29): It took well, but Inferior to Love in a Tub. Pepys, Diary: I to the Duke of York's playhouse; where a new play of Etherige's called She Would if she Could; and though I was there by two o'clock, there was 1000 people put back that could not have room in the pit: and I at last, because my wife was there, made shift to get into the 18d. box, and there saw; but, Lord! how full was the house, and how silly the play, there being nothing in the world good in it, and few people pleased in it. The King was there; but I sat mightily behind, and could see but little, and hear not all. The play being done...here was the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly sat in the pit; and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sidly, and Etherige, the poet; the last of whom I did hear mightily find fault with the actors, that they were out of humour, and had not their parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing, nor could so much as sing a ketch in it; and so was mightily concerned: while all the rest did, through the whole pit, blame the play as a silly, dull thing, though there was something very roguish and witty; but the design of the play, and end, mighty insipid. Thomas Shadwell, Preface to The Humorists (1671): The last (viz.) imperfect Action, had like to have destroy'd She Would if she could, which I think (and I have the Authority of some of the best Judges in England for't) is the best Comedy that has been written since the Restauration of the Stage: And even that, for the imperfect representation of it at first, received such prejudice, that, had it not ben for the favour of the Court, in all probability it had never got up again; and it suffers for it, in a great measure, to this very day

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: By one o'clock to the King's house: a new play, The Duke of Lerma, of Sir Robert Howard's: where the King and Court was; and Knepp and Nell spoke the prologue most excellently, especially Knepp, who spoke beyond any creature I ever heard. The play designed to reproach our King with his mistresses, that I was troubled for it, and expected it should be interrupted; but it ended all well, which salved all. The play a well-writ and good play, only its design I did not like of reproaching the King, but altogether a very good and most serious play

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Downes (p. 30): This Comedy in general was very well Perform'd. Pepys, Diary: I alone to the Duke of York's house, to see the new play, called The Man is the Master, where the house was, it being not above one o'clock, very full. But my wife and Deb. being there before, with Mrs Pierce and Corbet and Betty Turner, whom my Wife carried with her, they made me room; and there I sat, it costing me 8s. upon them in oranges, at 6d. apiece. By and by the King come; and we sat just under him, so that I durst not turn my back all the play. The play is a translation out of French, and the plot Spanish, but not anything extraordinary at all in it, though translated by Sir W. Davenant, and so I found the King and his company did think meanly of it, though there was here and there something Pretty: but the most of the mirth was sorry, poor stuffe, of eating of sack posset and slabbering themselves, and mirth fit for clownes; the prologue but poor, and the epilogue little in it but the extraordinariness of it, it being sung by Harris and another in the form of a ballet

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, and there saw The English Monsieur; sitting for privacy sake in an upper box: the play hath much mirth in it as to that particular humour. After the play done, I down to Knipp, and did stay her undressing herself; and there saw the several players, men and women go by; and pretty to see how strange they are all, one to another, after the play is done. Here I saw a wonderful pretty maid of her own, that come to undress her, and one so pretty that she says she intends not to keep her, for fear of her being undone in her service, by coming to the playhouse. Here I hear Sir W. Davenant is just now dead; and so who will succeed him in the mastership of the house is not yet known. The eldest Davenport is, it seems, gone from this house to be kept by somebody; which I am glad of, she being a very bad actor.... [Mrs Knepp] tells me mighty news, that my Lady Castlemayne is mightily in love with Hart of their house; and he is much with her in private, and she goes to him, and do give him many Presents; and that the thing is most certain, and Becke Marshall only privy to it, and the means of bringing them together, which is a very odd thing; and by this means she is even with the King's love to Mrs Davis

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: So my wife not speaking a word, going nor coming, nor willing to go to a play, though a new one

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: And so she [Mrs Pepys] and I alone to the King's house, and there I saw this new play my wife saw yesterday, and do not like it, it being very smutty, and nothing so good as The Maiden Queen, or The Indian Emperour, of his making, that I was troubled at it; and my wife tells me wholly (which he confesses a little in the epilogue) taken out of the Illustre Bassa

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: [Creed] and I to the King's playhouse, and saw an act or two of the new play again, but like it not. Calling this day at Herringman's, he tells me Dryden do himself call it but a fifth-rate play

Event Comment: The King's Company. This play was apparently acted by 1665--see Dec. 1664--and was now revived, although it was not published until 1672. This play is on the L. C. lists, 5@139, p. 129, and 5@12, p. 17. The second list adds: king here. Pepys, Diary: To the King's house, to see the first day of Lacy's Monsieur Ragou, now new acted. The King and Court all there, and mighty merry--a farce

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the Duke of York's house, and there saw Cupid's Revenge, under the new name of Love Despised, that hath something very good in it, though I like not the whole body of it. This day the first time acted here

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, to see a new play, acted but yesterday, a translation out of French by Dryden [see 14 Sept. 1668], called The Ladys a la Mode; so mean a thing as, when they come to say it would be acted again to-morrow, both he that said it, Beeson [Beeston], and the pit fell a-laughing, there being this day not a quarter of the pit full

Event Comment: [The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: My wife and Mercer, and W. Hewer and Deb., to the King's playhouse, and I afterwards by water with them, and there we did hear the Eunuch (who, it seems, is a Frenchman, but long bred in Italy) sing, which I seemed to take as new to me, though I saw him on Saturday last [see 10 Oct. 1668], but said nothing of it; but such action and singing I could never have imagined to have heard, and do make good whatever Tom Hill used to tell me. [The Eunuch may be Baldassare Ferri.

Event Comment: The King's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@12, p. 17. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 344. Newsletter, 9 Nov.: A play, The tanner tanned, is appointed for this evening in the new theatre at Whitehall (HMC, Fleming MSS., 12th Report, Appendix, Part VII, p. 60)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the Duke of York's house, where mighty full again, but we come time enough to have a good place in the pit, and did hear this new play again, where, though I better understood it than before, yet my sense of it and pleasure was just the same as yesterday, and no more, nor any body else's about us

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: In L. C. 5@12, p. 212, is a list of plays formerly acted at Blackfriars and now allowed (ca. 12 Jan. 1668@9) to the King's Company: Everyman in his Humour. Everyman out of his Humour. Cyntheas Revells. Sejanus. The ffox. The Silent Weoman. The Alchymist. Catilin. Bartholomew ffayre. Staple of Newes. The Devills an Asse. Magnitick Lady [The Humours Reconciled]. Tale of a Tubb. New Inn [or The Light of Heart]. Beggers Bush [by John Fletcher, with Philip Massinger?]. Bonduca. Custome of ye Country. The Captaine. The Chances. The Coxcombe. The Double Marriage. The ffrench Lawyer. The ffalse One. The fayre Mayd of ye Inn. The Humorous Leivt. The Island Princes. The Knights of Malta. Nathan Field. The Loyall Subject. The Lawes of Candye. Loves Progresse [The Lover's Progress; or, The Wandering Lovers. The Winters Tale. King John. Richard the Second. Loues Cure [or The Martial Maid]. Loues Pilgrimage. The Noble Gentlemen. The Nice Valour [or, The Passionate Madman]. The Prophetesse. The Marshall Mayd [see Love's Cure]. The Pilgrim. The Queene of Corinth. The Spanish Curate. The Sea Voyage. Valentinian. The Weomans Prize [or, The Tamer Tamed]. A Wife for a Moneth. The Wyd Goose-Chase. The Elder Brother. The ffaythfull Shepherdesse. A King & noe King. The Maydes Tragedie. Phylaster. Rollo Duke of Normandy [or, The Bloody Brother]. The Scornefull Lady. Thiery & Theodorat. Rule a Wife. The Gentlemen of Verona. The Merry Wives of Windsor. The Comoedy of Errors. Loves Labour Lost. Midsomer Nights Dreame. The Merchant of Venice. As you like it. The Tameing of ye Shrew. Alls well yt ends well. Henry ye fourth. The Second part Henry IV. The Royall Slaue

Event Comment: Mrs John Evelyn to Mr Terryll: The censure of our plays comes to ee at the second hand. There has not been any new lately revived and reformed, as Catiline, well set out with clothes and scenes; Horace, with a farce and dances between every act composed by Lacy and played by him and Nell, which takes; one of my Lord of Newcastle's, for which printed apologies are scattered in the assembly by Briden's order, either for himself who had some hand in it, or for the author most; I think both had right to them (The Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, ed. Bray, IV, 14)

Event Comment: Pepys' remarks suggest that Shadwell's The Royal Shepherdess may once have been intended to have its premiere on this day. Pepys, Diary: By a hackneycoach followed my wife and the girls, who are gone by eleven o'clock, thinking to have seen a new play at the Duke of York's house. But I do find them staying at my tailor's, the play not being to-day.... Thence to the Duke of York's playhouse, and there, finding the play begun, we homeward

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse...and there saw The Faithfull Shepherdesse. But, Lord! what an empty house, there not being, as I could tell the people, so many as to make up above #10 in the whole house! The being of a new play at the other house, I suppose, being the cause, though it be so silly a play that I wonder how there should be enough people to go thither two days together, and not leave more to fill this house. The emptiness of the house took away our pleasure a great deal, though I liked it the better; for that I plainly discern the musick is the better, by how much the house the emptier