Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: So my wife and I out of doors thinking to have gone to have seen a play, but when we came to take coach, they tell us there are none this week, being the first of Lent. But, Lord! to see how impatient I found myself within to see a play, being at liberty once a month to see one. [This is a puzzling statement. Ash Wednesday fell on 24 Feb. 1663@4, and the customary practice seems to have been not to act on Fridays in Lent (a custom not universally followed), sometimes not to act on Wednesdays, and, of course, not to act at all in Passion Week.

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: My wife and I by coach to The Duke's house, where we say The Unfortunate Lovers; but I know not whether I am grown more curious than I was or no, but I was not much pleased with it, though I know not where to lay the fault, unless it was that the house was very empty, by reason of a new play at the other house. Yet here was my Lady Castlemaine in a box. In An Elegy on the Death of Edward Angel, 1673, two lines suggest that Angel acted Friskin: @Adieu, dear Friskin: Unfort'nate Lover weep,@Your mirth is fled, and now i' th' Grave must sleep.

Event Comment: This play was presumably acted by the Duke's Company. In the preface to Heraclius, Emperour of the East, published in 1664, the author, Lodowick Carlell, complains that he had submitted his translation of Corneille, only to have it returned the very day that this version appeared on the stage. See also the letter by Katherine Philips, under Pompey the Great, Jan. 1663@4. Pepys, Diary: We made no long stay at dinner; for Heraclius being acted, which my wife and I have a mighty mind to see, we do resolve, though not exactly agreeing with the letter of my vowe, yet altogether with the sense, to see another this month, by coming hither instead of that at court, there having ueen none conveniently since I made my vowe for us to see there, nor like to be this Lent, and besides we did walk home on purpose to make this going as cheap as that would have been, to have seen one at Court, and my conscience knows that it is only the saving of money and the time also that I intend by my oaths....The play hath one very good passage well managed in it, about two persons pretending, and yet denying themselves, to be son to the tyrant Phocas, and yet heire of Mauricius to the crowne. The garments like Romans very well. The little girle is come to act very prettily, and spoke the epilogue most admirably. But at the beginning, at the drawing up of the curtaine, there was the finest scene of the Emperor and his people about him, standing in their fixed and different postures in their Roman habitts, above all that ever I yet saw at any of the theatres

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This play apparently was not printed. Pepys, Diary: and then with my wife by coach to the Duke's house, and there saw The German Princess acted, by the woman herself; but never was any thing so well done in earnest, worse performed in jest upon the stage; and indeed the whole play, abating the drollery of him that acts her husband, is very simple, unless here and there a witty sprinkle or two

Event Comment: This play, possibly an adaptation from Corneille, was apparently not printed. It bears, however, some resemblances to Walter Hawkesworth's Latin comedy, Labyrinthus (which was first acted at Trinity College, Cambridge, in March 1602@3); and this Restoration play may be a variation on Hawkesworth's. Pepys, Diary: To the King's Playhouse...my wife and I and Madamoiselle. I paid for her going in, and there saw The Labyrinth, the poorest play, methinks, that ever I saw, there being nothing in it but the odd accidents that fell out, by a lady's being bred up in men's apparel, and a man in a woman's

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: So my wife and I abroad to the King's playhouse, she giving me her time of the last month, she having not seen any then; so my vowe is not broke at all, it costing me no more money than it would have done upon her had she gone both her times that were due to her. Here we saw Flora's Figarys. I never saw it before, and by the most ingenuous performance of the young Jade Flora, it seemed as pretty a pleasant play as ever I saw in my life

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys does not indicate that this performance is the premiere, and Summers, The Playhouse of Pepys, p. 137, states, without offering his evidence, that the play first appeared on 11 Aug. 1664. The play also appears in Herbert, Dramatic Records, p. 138. If Pepys saw the premiere, the play was possibly given on 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24 Aug. Pepys, Diary: Mr Creed dining with me I got him to give my wife and me a play this afternoon, lending him money to do it, which is a fallacy that I have found now once, to avoyde my vowe with, but never to be more practised I swear, and to the new play, at the Duke's house, of Henry the Fifth; a most noule play, writ by my Lord Orrery; wherein Betterton, Harris, and Ianthe's parts are most incomparably wrote and done, and the whole play the most full of height and raptures of wit and sense, that ever I heard; having but one incongruity, or what did not please me in it, that is, that King Harry promises to plead for Tudor to their Mistresse, Princesse Katherine of France, more than when it comes to it he seems to do; and Tudor refused by her with some kind of indignity, not with a difficulty and honour that it ought to have been done in to him. Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, pp. 27-28: This Play was Splendidly Cloath'd: The King, in the Duke of York's Coronation Suit; Owen Tudor, in King Charle's: Duke of Burgundy, in the Lord of Oxford's, and the rest all New. It was Excellently Perform'd, and Acted 10 Days Successively

Event Comment: The King's Company, presumably. For a version of this play, see R. G. Howarth, "A Manuscript of James Shirley's Court Secret," Review of English Studies, VII (1931), 302-13. The manuscript is in the Worcester College Library (Plays 9. 21). Pepys, Diary: My wife going to-day to dine with Mrs Pierce, and thence with her and Mrs Clerke to see a new play, The Court Secret. [The play had not been acted before the Restoration.

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This apparently was not the first performance, but the time of premiere is not known. Pepys, Diary: My wife and I and Mercer to the Duke's house, and there saw The Rivalls, which is no excellent play, but good acting in it; especially Gosnell comes and sings and dances finely, but, for all that, fell out of the key, so that the musique could not play to her afterwards, and so did Harris also go out of the tune to agree with her. Downes (p. 23): The Rivals, A Play, Wrote by Sir William Davenant; having a very Fine Interlude in it, of Vocal and Instrumental Musick, mixt with very Diverting Dances: M Price introducing the Dancing, by a short Comical Prologue, gain'd him an Universal Applause of the Town....And all the Womens Parts admirably Acted; chiefly Celia, a Shepherdess being Mad for Love; especially in Singing several Wild and Mad Songs

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: My wife not being come home from my Lady Jemimah, with whom she had been at a play and at court to-day

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Downes' comments (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 33) probably refer to a later production. This play is also on Herbert's list, Dramatic Records, p. 138. Pepys, Diary: With my wife to tne Duke's house to a play, Macbeth, a pretty good play, but admirably acted

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: Alone to the Kings' house, to a play, The Traytor, where, unfortunately, I met with Sir W. Pen, so that I must be forced to confess it to my wife, which troubles me. Thence walked home, being ill-satisfied with the present actings of the House, and prefer the other House before this infinitely

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: With my wife to the King's house, there to see Vulpone, a most excellent play; the best I think I ever saw, and well acted

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: With Creed, my wife, and Mercer to a play at the Duke's, of my Lord Orrery's, called Mustapha, which being not good, made Betterton's part and Ianthe's but ordinary too, so that we were not contented with it at all...All the pleasure of the play was, the King and my Lady Castlemayne wer there; and pretty witty Nell Gwin?, at the King's house, and the younger Rebecca? Marshall sat next us; which pleased me mightily. Downes (p. 26): All the Parts being new Cloath's with new Scenes, Sir William's great Care of having it perfect and exactly perform'd, it produc'd to himself and Company vast Profit

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This play was apparently not printed. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 26): Wrote by Mr Holden. Pepys, Diary: Being called by my wife, we all to a play, The Ghosts, at the Duke's house, but a very simple play

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: I with my wife, Knipp, and Mercer, by coach to Moorefields, and there saw Polichinello, which pleases me mightily

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary And so back to Moorfields, and shewed Batelier, with my wife, Polichinello, which I like the more I see it

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: Sir W. Pen and my wife and Mercer and I to Polichinelly, but were there horribly frighted to see Young Killigrew come in with a great many more young sparks; but we hid ourselves, so as we think they did not see us. By and by they went away, and then we were at rest again; and so, the play being done

Event Comment: The Duke's Company, presumably. Richard Legh, writing to his wife, 3 Jan. 1667@7, stated that he had seen The Valiant Cid but he did not indicate on what day he saw the play. See Lady Newton, The House of Lyme (London, 1917), p. 240

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. Richard Legh, writing to his wife, 3 Jan. 1667@7, reported to her concerning this play: which is so damn'd bawdy that the Ladyes flung their peares and fruites at the Actors (Lady Newton, The House of Lyme, p. 240). Pepys, Diary: Alone to the King's House, and there saw The Custome of the Country, the second time of its beind acted, wherein Knipp does the Widow well; but, of all the plays that ever I did see, the worst--having neither plot, language, nor anything in the earth that is acceptable; only Knipp sings a little song admirably. But fully the worst play that ever I saw or I believe shall see

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: With my wife, to the Duke's house, and there saw Mustapha, a most excellent play for words and design as ever I did see. I had seen it before but forgot it, so it was wholly new to me, which is the pleasure of my not committing these things to my memory

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's house, and there saw The Humerous Lieutenant: a silly play, I think; only the Spirit in it that grows very tall, and then sinks again to nothing, having two heads breeding upon one, and tihen Knipp's singing, did please us. Here, in a box above, we spied Mrs Pierce; and, going out, they called us, and so we staid for them; and Knipp took us all in, and brought to us Nelly, a most pretty woman, who acted the great part of Coelia to-day very fine, and did it pretty well: I kissed her, and so did my wife; and a mighty pretty soul she is. We also saw Mrs Hall, which is my little Roman-nose black girl, that is mighty Pretty: she is usually called Betty

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: With my wife by coach to the Duke of York's play-house, expecting a new play, and so stayed not no more than other people, but to the King's house, to The Mayd's Tragedy; but vexed all the while with two talking ladies and Sir Charles Sedley; yet pleased to hear their discourse, he being a stranger. And one of the ladies would, and did sit with her mask on, all the play, and, being exceeding witty as ever I heard woman, did talk most pleasantly with him; but was, I believe, a virtuous woman, and of quality. He would fain know who she was, but she would not tell.... By that means lost the pleasure of the play wholly, to which now and then Sir Charles Sedley's exceptions against both words and pronouncing were very pretty

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: After dinner, with my wife, to the King's house to see The Mayden Queene, a new play of Dryden's, mightily commended for the regularity of it, and the strain and wit; and, the truth is, there is a comical part done by Nell, which is Florimell, that I never can hope ever to see the like done again, by man or woman. The King and Duke of York were at the play. But so great performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before as Nell do this, both as a mad girle, then most and best of all when she comes in like a young gallant; and hath the motions and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her