Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Martyr. [In 1st piece the playbill retains Mrs Martyr as Dolly, but "Dolly was undertaken at a short notice, by Mrs Chapman, upon the sudden indisposition of Mrs Martyr" (Monthly Mirror, June 1800, p. 366). "In consequence of Mrs Martyr's accouchement...the part of Dolly was sustained by Miss Sims" (Dramatic Censor, II, 140).] 2nd piece [1st time; M. INT 1, author unknown. Not in Larpent MS; not published]: To conclude with a Representation of the Storming the City of Acrev by the French [17 Mar.-20 May 1799], and the Heroic Defence made by the Turkish Troops led on by the British Sailors [under the command of Sir Sidney Smith]. Morning Chronicle, 23 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Martyr, No. 16, Martlett-court, Bow-street, Covent Garden. Receipts: #333 4s. 6d. (118.3.6; 11.16.6; tickets: 203.4.6)

Event Comment: Nothing said abour ye prolog: (Cross). The Music of the Funeral Procession compos'd by Dr Boyce. [See "William Boyce's 'Solemn Dirge' in Garrick's Romeo and Juliet Production of 1750," by Charles Haywood, Shakespeare Quarterly, Spring, 1960.] This day is Publish'd at 1s. 6d. Romeo and Juliet a Tragedy, revised and alter'd from Shakespear by Theophilus Cibber, First revised in September 1744, at the Theatre in the Haymarket; now acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. To which is added a Serio-Comic Apology for Part of the Life of Mr Theophilus Cibber, Comedian, written by himself. Interspers'd with memoirs and anecdotes relating to the Stage Managements, Theatrical Resolutions, &c. also cursory Observations on principal Players: particularly Mr Quin, Mr Ryan, Mrs Woffington, Mrs Ward, and Miss Bellamy; Mr Garrick, Mr Barry, Mrs Cibber, Mrs Clive, Mrs Pritchard, &c. Likewise Original Letters that passed between the late Sir Thomas DeVeil and Mr Theophilus Cibber relating to the Stage Act, Concluding with a copy of Verses, call'd the Contrite Comedian's Confession. Printed for C. Corbett, the Publisher, at Addison's Head, facing St Dunstan's Church, Fleet St; G. Woodfall, at the King's Arms, the corner of Craig's Court, Charing Cross. [See 11 Oct.] Receipts: #170 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit of the New Building of the City of London Lying In Hospital, in the City Road, Old Street. Paid Weston's note to Mr Curtis #5; Mrs Bolter for 25 yds. white and silver silk, #28 15s.; 8 extra Trumpets 4 nights (13th inst. incl.) #12 (Treasurer's Book). This day published The Theatres; a poetical dissection by Sir Nicholas Nipclose (Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser). [It is packed with embittered comments on managerial policy and upon theatrical personalities.] Receipts: #228 18s. 6d. Charges: #84; Profit to Hospital #144 18s. 6d. (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Afterpiece [1st time; co 2, by Henry Bate (later Sir Henry Bate Dudley). Music by William Shield]. Books for both Pieces to be had at the Theatre. Public Advertiser, 15 June 1779: This Day is published The Flitch of Bacon (1s.)

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 361: The King at ye Mistress. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 351. There is no indication as to whether this performance was the premiere. As the play was licensed on 24 May 1687, the premiere may have been as late as 12 May, but possibly was earlier. Sir George Etherege to Will Richards, 19 May 1687: I have heard of the success of The Eunuch, and am very glad the town has so good a taste to give the same just applause to Sir Charles Sedley's writing, which his friends have always done to his conversation (Letterbook, ed. Rosenfeld, p. 212). Sir George Etherege to Middleton, 2O June 1687: I saw a play about ten years ago Called the Eunuch, so heavy a lump the players durst not charge themselves with the dead weight, but it seems Sir Charles Sedley has animated the mighty mass and now it treads the stage lightly (ibid., p. 227). [See also 26 March 1687 and season of 1676-77.] Thomas Shadwell, The Tenth Satyr of Juvenal (licensed, 25 May 1687.) Dedication to Sir Charles Sedley: Your late great obligation in giving me the advantage [presumably the third day's gain] of your comedy, call'd Bellamira, or the Mistress, has given me a fresh subject for my Thanks; and my Publishing this Translation affords me a new opportunity of owning to the world my grateful resentments to you. I am heartily glad that your Comedy (as I never doubted) found such success, that I never met with any Man of Sence but applauded it: And that there is abundance of Wit in it, your Enemies have been forced to confess....For the Judgment of some Ladies upon it that it is obscene, I must needs say they are Ladies of a very quick apprehension, and did not find their thoughts lye very much that way, they could not find more obscenity in that than there is in every other Comedy. A song, Thyrsis unjustly you complain, headed A Song in Bellamira, or, the Mistress. Set by Mr Tho. Shadwell, is in Vinculum Societatis, 1687 (licensed 8 June 1687)

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: After dinner I went to the new Theatre and there I saw The Merry Wives of Windsor acted, the humours of the country gentleman and the French doctor very well done, but the rest but very poorly, and Sir J. Falstaffe as bad as any

Event Comment: See Herbert, Dramatic Records, p. 117. The King's Company. The Prologue is in Thomas Jordan's A Royal Arbour of Loyal Poesie (1664). Andrew Newport to Sir Richard Leveson, 15 Dec.: Upon our stages we have women-actors, as beyond seas (HMC, 5th Report, Part I, 1876, p. 158). For a discussion of actresses who may have played Desdemona on this day, see Wilson, All the King's Ladies, pp. 6-8. Possibly Clun acted Iago. See An Elegy Upon the Most Execrable Murther of Mr Clun, 1664

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: Sir W. Pen, my wife and I to the Theatre, and there saw The Country Captain, the first time it hath been acted this twenty-five years, a play of my Lord Newcastle's, but so silly a play as in all my life I never saw, and the first that ever I was weary of in my life. Herbert (Dramatic Records, p. 118) lists Love's Mistress for this date for Vere St., but the item is out of the normal order of the entries. To move it to 26 Oct. 1662 would place it on a Sunday. The play had been given previously (2 March 1661, 11 March 1661, 25 March 1661) by both the Duke's Company and King's Company. Possibly Herbert entered it on the wrong day. On Herbert's list, following Love's Mistress, are two plays, The Contented Collinell [Brenoralt] and Love at First Sight, each listed without a date. The former, under the title Brenoralt, had been acted at Vere St. on 23 July 1661; the second was soon to be acted there on 29 Nov. 1661

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: Sir W. Pen and I to the Theatre, and there saw The Country Captain, a dull play

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, where The Heyress, notwithstanding Kinaston's being beaten, is acted: and they say the King is very angry with Sir Charles Sedley for his being beaten, but he do deny it. But his part is done by Beeston, who is fain to read it out of a book all the while, and thereby spoils the part, and almost the play, it being one of the best parts in it; and though the design is, in the first conception of it, pretty good, yet it is but an indifferent play, wrote, they say, by my Lord Newcastle, But it was pleasant to see Beeston come in with others, supposing it to be dark, and yet he is forced to read his part by the light of the candles. and this I observing to a gentleman that sat by me, he was mightily pleased therewith, and spread it up and down. But that, that pleased me most in the play is, the first song that Knepp sings, she singing three or four; and, indeed, it was very finely sung, so as to make the whole house clap her.... My wife being in mighty ill humour all night, and in the morning I found it to be from her observing Knepp to wink and smile on me, and she says I smiled on her; and, poor wretch! I did perceive that she did, and do on all such occasions, mind my eyes. I did, with much difficulty, pacify her, and were friends, she desiring that hereafter, at that house, we might always sit either above in a box, or, if there be [no] room, close up to the lower boxes

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. The Diary of Robert Hooke (p. 108): To Hoskins with Sir Ch. Wren. By water with him to the Playhouse. Saw Tempest. Paid 3sh

Event Comment: The King's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 359. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 346. There is no certainty that this performance is the premiere, but as the play was licensed for printing on 9 Jan. 1676@7, this performance may well be the first one. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, pp.9-10) lists the same cast except for the ommission of Letice. It is not certain which Mrs Knight played Letice. Possibly it was Frances Maria Knight (see Wilson, All the King's Ladies, where she is tentatively listed for that role), but the presence of Mrs Ursula Knight on an undated L. C. list, 3@24, with the date of her swearing into the company given as 12 March 1676@7, it is quite likely that she played this role. (I owe this reference to Ursula Knight to Professor John Harold Wilson.) John Dennis: And when upon the first representations of the Plain Dealer, the Town, as The Authour has often told me, appeard Doubtful what Judgment to Form of it; the foremention'd gentlemen [The Duke of Buckingham, Earl of Rochester, Earl of Dorset, Earl of Mulgrave, Savil, Buckly, Sir John Denham, Waller] by their loud aprobation of it, gave it both a sudden and a lasting reputation (Defense and Defects of Dramatick Poetry, 1725, in The Works of John Dennis, ed. Hooker, II, 277)

Event Comment: Betterton's Company. John Coke (see below), writing on 16 March 1696@7, referred to a "new farce" appearing at this theatre on this day, but no "new farce" is known at this period; on the other hand, an edition of Mountfort's farce published in 1697 indicates a revival in this season and is a likely possibility for this date. John Coke to Thomas Coke, 16 March 1696@7: Saturday a new farce was acted at the new house, which did not take. The Mourning Bride was acted till Saturday, and was full to the last (HMC, 12th Report, Part II, Cowper MSS., II, 368). Robert Shirley to Thomas Coke, 13 March 1696@7: I am, dear Sir, indebted to you in sending me so ingenious an account of Mr Congreve's tragedy, which I hear on all sides far exceeded what the world expected from him in that part of dramatic poetry (ibid)

Event Comment: Rich's Company. This performance is known by a playbill in the Folger Shakespeare Library: At the New Theatre, in Little Lincolns-Inn Fields, this present Wensday the 27th of October, will be presented, A Comedy call'd, The Committee, or The Faithful Irishman. No Persons to Stand on the Stage. Nor any Money to be after Return'd [sic] the Curtain is Drawn up. By his Majesties Servants. Vivat Rex. [The playbill is reproduced, opposite page 230, in William VanLennep, Some Early English Playbills, Harvard Library Bulletin, VIII (1954).