Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: We met with Mr Salisbury, who took Mr Creed and me to the cockpitt to see The Moore of Venice, which was well done. Burt acted the Moore; by the same token, a very pretty lady that sat by me, called out, to see Desdemona smothered. Possibly Clun acted Iago. Pepys (6 Feb. 1668@9) refers to his playing that role, and a reference to Clun as Iago appears in A Most Execrable Murther in A Little Ark, ed. G. Thorn-Drury, pp. 30-31. See also entry of 14 Aug. 1660

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: I to a play, The Scornfull Lady. [Because this play was offered at Vere Street on 21 Nov. 1660 and because Pepys had been attending that playhouse, it seems likely that this was also a production of the King's Company.

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: [Mrs Pepys] and I by coach to the Opera and Theatre, but coming too late to both, and myself being a little out of tune we returned

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: And so carried her [Mrs Pepys] to the fayre [bf], and showed her the monkeys dancing on the ropes, which was strange, but such dirty sport that I was not pleased with it. There was also a horse with hoofs like rams hornes, a goose with four feet, and a cock with three. Thence to another place, and saw some German Clocke works, the Salutation of the Virgin Maryv, and several Scriptural stories; but above all there was at last represented the sea, with Neptune, Venus, mermaids, and Ayrid on a dolphin, the sea rocking, so well done, that had it been in a gaudy manner and place, and at a little distance, it had been admirable

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: I got her [Mrs Pepys] to rise and abroad with me by coach to Bartholomew Fayre, and our boy with us, and there shewed them and myself the dancing on the ropes, and several other the best shows

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: And had she [Mrs Pepys] not been ill...and that it were not Friday (on which in Lent there are no plays) I had carried her to a play

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: [After looking in at lif], to Charing Cross, there to see Polichinelli. [It being begun, Pepys did not stay. See Speaight, English Puppet Theatre, p. 75.

Event Comment: Pepys' comment implies that he saw the Duke's Company, Pepys, Diary: With my wife to a play, and the girl--Macbeth, which we still like mightily, though mighty short of the content we used to have when Betterton acted, who is still sick

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: I took them [Mrs Pepys and Deb.] to the Nursery, where none of us ever were before; where the house is better and the musique better than we looked for, and the acting not much worse, because I expected as bad as could be: and I was not much mistaken, for it was so. However, I was pleased well to see it once, it being worth a man's seeing to discover the different ability and understanding of people, and the different growth of people's abilities by practise. Their play was a bad one, called Jeronimo is Mad Again, a tragedy. Here was some good company by us, who did make mighty sport at the folly of their acting, which I could not neither refrain from sometimes, though I was sorry for it.... I was pretthly served this day at the playhouse-door, where, giving six shillings into the fellow's hand for us three, the fellow by legerdemain did convey one away, and with so much grace faced me down that I did give him but five, that, though I knew the contrary, yet I was overpowered by his so grave and serious demanding the other shilling, that I could not deny him, but was forced by myself to give it him

Event Comment: Pepys does not name the theatre in which he saw this play, but previous performances of the play were given by the King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To a play, Love's Cruelty.... Play part 2s. Oranges, 1s

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: Pepys, Diary, 6 June 1660: My letters tell me...that the two Dukes do haunt the Park much, and that they were at a play, Madam Epicene, the other day

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: So that I could not do as I had intended, that is to...go the the Red Bull Playhouse, but I took coach and went to see whether it was done so or no, and I found it done

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: So we returned and landed at the Bear at the Bridge foot, where we saw Southwark Fair (I having not all seen Bartholomew Fair)

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: Mr Moore coming to me, my wife staid at home, and he and I went out together...and so home with him to the cockpit, where, understanding that "Wit without money" was acted, I would not stay

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: in the afternoon, to ease my mind, I went to the cockpit all alone, and there saw a very fine play called The Tamer tamed, very well acted

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: And then out to the red bull (where I had not been since plays come up again)...where I was led by a seaman that knew me, but is here as a servant, up to the tireing-room, where strange the confusion and disorder that there is among them in fitting themselves, especially here, where the clothes are very poor, and the actors but common fellows. At last into the pitt, where I think there was not above ten more than myself, and not one hundred in the whole house. And the play, which is called All's lost by Lust, poorly done; and with so much disorder, among others, that in the musique-room the boy that was to sing a song, not singing it right, his master fell about his ears and beat him so, that it put the whole house in an uprore. Nicoll (Restoration Drama, p. 309) argues that George Jolly probably occupied the red bull in St John's Street, Clerkenwell. When Richard Walden saw the red bull players at Oxford in July 1661, Anne Gibbs acted Dionysia in All's Lost by Lust. It is possible that she played that role on this day. See Walden's Io Ruminans, 1662

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: So back to the Cockpitt [Whitehall], and there, by the favour of one Mr Bowman, he [Creed] and I got in, and there saw the King, and Duke of York and his Duchess (which is a plain woman, and like her mother, my Lady Chancellor). And so saw The Humersome Lieutenant acted before the King, but not very well done. But my pleasure was great to see the manner of it, and so many great beauties, but above all Mrs Palmer, with whom the King do discover a great deal of familiarity. Sometime before the Coronation of Charles II, on 23 April 1661, there may have been acted The Merry Conceited Humours of Bottom the Weaver. An edition of 1661 refers to its being "often publikely acted by some of his Majesties Comedians" and the Dedication suggests that it would make a good entertainment at the mirthful time of the Coronation. The edition lists no actors' names, no prologue, no epilogue

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: Captain Ferrers and I to the Opera, and saw The Witts, again, which I like exceedingly. The Queen of Bohemia was here, brought by my Lord Craven

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: Then my wife and I to Drury Lane to the French comedy, which was so ill done, and the scenes and company and everything else so nasty and out of order and poor, that I was sick all the while in my mind to be there. See also Boswell (Restoration Court Stage, p. 280). W. J. Lawrence (Early French Players in England, The Elizabethan Playhouse and Other Studies (1912), pp. 139-40) argues that the play was Chapoton's Le Mariage d'Orphee et d'Eurydice. See also The Description of the Great Machines of the Descent of Orpheus into Hell. Presented by the French Comedians at the cockpit in Drury Lane. The Argument Taken out of the Tenth and Eleventh Books of Ovid's Metamorphosis (1661). Rugg's Diurnal the French players (BM Add. Mss. 10116, f243v)

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: At noon comes Luellin to me, and he and I to the tavern and after that to Bartholomew fair, and there upon his motion to a pitiful alehouse, where we had a dirty slut or two come up that were whores, but my very heart went against them, so that I took no pleasure but a great deal of trouble in being there and getting from thence in fear of being seen. From hence he and I walked towards Ludgate and parted. I back to the fair all alone , and there met with the ladies Jemimah and Paulina, with Mr Pickering and Madamoiselle, at seeing the monkeys dance, which was much to see, when they could be brought to do so, but it troubled me to sit among such nasty company