Event Comment: The
United Company. This performance is on the
L. C. list, 5@141, p. 369. See also
Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 352. In L. C. 5@150, p. 156, is an order to prepare the stage for the play, and, in L. C. 5@150, p. 164, is another order for new equipment.
Luttrell,
A Brief Relation, II, 125: The 4th, being his majesties birth day...and at night was a consort of musick, and a play afterwards.
Matthew Prior wrote
A Pindarique Ode which was sung before
Their Majesties at court on this day. See
The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, ed.
H. B. Wright and
M. K. Spears (
Oxford, 1959), I, 96-98; II, 858.
Cibber, Apology, I, 128: The agreeable was so natural to [
Mountfort], that even in that dissolute Character of
the Rover he seem'd to wash off the Guilt from Vice, and gave it Charms and Merit. For tho' it may be a Reproach to the Poet to draw such Characters not only unpunish'd but rewarded, the Actor may still be allow'd his due Praise in his excellent Performance. And this is a Distinction which, when this Comedy was acted at
Whitehall,
King William's
Queen Mary was pleas'd to make in favour of Monfort, notwithstanding her Disapp
robation of the Play
Performances
Mainpiece Title: The Rover