Event Comment: By Command of their Majesties. [See Town and Country Magazine this month (pp. 171-72) for two columns on theatrical amusements in England: The English stage is as elegant and well conducted as any theatre in Europe, whether we consider the music, the actors, or the decorations."

Event Comment: Rec'd #59 from various actors for their deficiencies last season, and #4 6d. from Phillips for old cloaths. Paid for a Lottery Ticket No. 51,822, #13 (Account Book). Receipts: #113 7s

Event Comment: Afterpiece: Added By Particular Desire. Rec'd from Mr Baks for his deficiency in 1771 #8 5s. 3d., and from Miss Stede her half value of tickets for same season. Rec'd #34 13s. 9d. from Davis, Curtat, Merrifield and Mrs Hartley for their deficiencies last season (Account Book). [Perhaps pressure was put on these actors and dancers to balance their accounts with the theatre before another benefit could be allowed to them.] Receipts: #229 11s

Event Comment: Both pieces By Command of their Majesties. Present Their Majesties. Gave Yeomen of Guards #2 2s. (Account Book). [Winston MS 10 suggests (from Burney Actor's MS) that Wignell died this day. If so his name is carried in the Bill for the Sylphs until 26 Jan., and he appears regularly upon the payroll through Sat 29 Jan. On this latter occasion he is marked for only half his customary salary, and does not appear thereafter. He would seem to have died in the middle of the week of 22-29 Jan. 1774.] Receipts: #243 1s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: By Particular Desire (Public Advertiser). The Eighth Lecture, The School of Shakespeare, in the Apollo, the Devil's Tavern, Temple Bar, this evening,--instructive and entertaining on the tragedy of Macbeth, in which several celebrated passages of that play will be shewn to have been totally mistaken by the best actors and commentators. Previously to which will be read observations, serious and comic, in answer to correspondents. After the lecture (By Desire) the first act of Falstaff's Wedding. To Begin at Seven o'clock. Admission 2s. [Wm Kenrick's lectures.

Event Comment: Benefit for Aickin. The Tragedy of All for Love, which was to have been performed this evening, is oblig'd to be changed, on account of the indisposition of Mrs Barry and Miss Younge; therefore Mr Aickin humbly hopes that his friends will accept of the Tempest in its stead. Tickets deliver'd for All for Love will be taken. Paid extra flute and hautboy 10s. (Treasurer's Book). Aickin did not act (Winston MS 10). [This month published The Sentimental Spouter; or, Young Actor's Companion. The whole comprising the essence of theatrical delivery, and the beauties of dramatic poetry. Price 1s. 6d. Printed for Wheble (Gentleman's Magazine Register).] Receipts: #123 14s. 6d. Charges: #74 14s. Profit to F. Aickin: #49 6d. (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: [The Westminster Magazine for October presented brief critical comments upon eight new actors at Covent Garden who performed this month: Mr and Mrs Whitefield, Young, Clinch, a young Lady (Mrs Armstead), Lee, Melmoth and Mrs Hunter.

Event Comment: The Managers have given orders that no performer shall appear behind the scenes who is not concerned in the business of the night. The performers now come on and go off without interruption, and the audience in the Upper Boxes are no longer insulted with the monkey tricks of the unemployed actors who used to infest the wings (Folger news clipping from the Morning Post 28 Sept.)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 16 years [not acted since 27 Oct. 1758]. With Alterations [by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Prologue by David Garrick]. The Characters new dressed. This Play is revived with Alterations (by R. B. Sheridan Esq) and a new occasional Prologue written by Mr Garrick? and spoken by Dodd, both well received. Miss Essex made her first Appearance upon this stage in Silvia, a small mean Figure and shocking Actress, so bad that she is to do the Part no more. Reddish was very imperfect in Vainlove from the Beginning, but was so very much so in the last Act, that the Audience hissed very much, and cryed out, 'Off, Reddish, Off!" He went forward, and addressed them as follows, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been honoured with your Favour and Protection for these ten years past, and I am very sorry to give any cause for your Displeasure now; but having undertaken the Part at a very short Warning, in order to strengthen the Bill, and having had but two Rehearsals for it, puts it out of my Power to do Justice to the Part, or myself.' The Play then went on. So great a Lye was never delivered to an Audience by any Actor or Actress before. He had the Part at least six weeks in his Possession, and repeated Notice to be ready in it, and six Rehearsals was called for it,--indeed, he attended but three. Vernon undertook to study the Part at eleven o'clock to-night, and to perform it to-morrow (Hopkins Diary). [Miss Essex was from the hay.] Receipts: #209 6s

Event Comment: [As afterpiece the playbill announces the 31st night of The Touchstone (see 20 Feb.), but "The entertaiment at Covent-garden theatre was obliged to be changed last night, on account of Lee Lewes being seized with a most violent inflammation in his right arm...Hand-bills, announcing that The Reprisal would be the farce, were distributed at each door of the theatre as the company came in; when the tragedy, however, was ended, some persons in the galleries...began an alarming disturbance, calling out vociferously for the pantomime...and continued throughout the farce to behave in the most savage manner, pelting every actor and actress as fast as either came on the stage. Mrs Morton stood their fire of oranges, apples, and pieces of wood, with more heroism than prudence. At length the brutes aimed at her head with an orange, which struck her a violent blow, and she fainted immediately" (Morning Chronicle, 16 Feb.).

Event Comment: Benefit for Mme Simonet. Public Advertiser, 21 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mme Simonet, No. 5, Dover-street, Piccadilly. "[Vestris's] forcible manner of characterising the passions in the part of Jason distinguished him as an actor superior to all his contemporaries. Mme Simonet in Medea, it is said by the judges, is equal to him as an actress" (London Magazine, Apr. 1781, p. 156)

Event Comment: Afterpiece: Written by the Author of The Son-in-Law [John O'Keeffe]. The Overture and New Musick composed by Dr Arnold. "The same person who, in the play, performed the school-fellow of the Nabob with a great deal of nature, and original humour, here acted the part of the school-master; his name is Edwin, and he is, without doubt, one of the best actors of all that I have seen ... [He], in all his comic characters, still preserves something so inexpressibly good tempered in his countenance, that notwithstanding all his burlesques, and even grotesque buffoonery, you cannot but be pleased with him . . . Nothing could equal the tone and countenance of self-satisfaction, with which he answered one who asked him whether he was a scholar? 'Why, I was a master of scholars.' A Mrs Webb represented a cheesmonger, and played the part of a woman of the lower class, so naturally, as I have no where else ever seen equalled. Her huge, fat, and lusty carcase, and the whole of her external appearance seemed quite to be cut out for it" (Carl Philipp Moritz, Travels in England in 1782, London, 1924, pp. 73-74)

Event Comment: Benefit for Brereton. Part of the Pit will be laid into the Boxes. To prevent Confusion Ladies are desired to send their Servants by Half past Four o'clock. "I could wish an actor of Brereton's merit would avoid tones in speaking which approach to something like singing" (Davies, m, 251). Receipts: #311 7s. (131/15/0; 6/9/6; 0/1/6; tickets: 173/1/0) (charge: #106 10s. 6d.)

Event Comment: "Holman [was sitting] in a Side Box. This should never happen: there an actor should never appear" {Public Advertiser, 17 Mar.)

Event Comment: A new Comic Opera; the music by Paisiello. Under the direction of Storace. [Sga Storace was from the Opera, Vienna.] Morelli "was an actor such as the Italian stage has seldom witnessed. He was, I used to think, in his prime, quite upon a par with King of Drury Lane Theatre. Like him, he was distinguished for neat articulation, and an unremitting attention to the business of the whole stage" (Boaden, Kemble, I, 449). Receipts: #165 19s. 6d. [non-subscription]

Event Comment: [Extra night] Benefit for the Widow and three youngest Children of the late Dr Glover. [Dr William Frederick Glover, a surgeon, had died on 25 Feb. in straitened circumstances. A subscription--in behalf of which this Benefit was organized--had been set on foot for the relief of his family (see Gentleman's Magazine, Mar. 1787, p. 276). In the 1760's he was for some years an actor on the Dublin stage (see Tate Wilkinson, Memoirs, III, 198).] Tickets to be had at the Thatched-House Tavern, St. James's Street; at Free-Mason's Tavern, Great Queen Street; the Antigallican Coffee House, Royal Exchange; the Globe Tavern, Fleet Street; at Messrs Robinsons, booksellers, Paternoster Row; and of the Printer of the Morning Chronicle, Dorset Street, Salisbury Square. Received from Their Majesties for Box [for season] #70; from the Princess Royal for Box #35. Receipts: #127 11s. (125.5; 2.6; tickets: none listed)

Event Comment: "Palmer and Bannister having withdrawn from the theatre, The School for Scandal and The Quaker, which were intended for the opening pieces, were changed" (Town and Country Magazine, Oct. 1787, p. 445). [These two actors thought themselves ill-used because of the refusal of the dl management to acknowledge their right to open the Royalty (see 20 June 1787). Oulton, 1796, II, 1-8, prints an exchange of letters between Palmer, Bannister, and King (the dl acting manager) relating to this situation.] "Some twenty of thirty bars of Handel, on the approach of the court to the play [in III. ii of mainpiece]...made a fine preparation for the scene which followed" (World, 19 Sept.). Boxes 5s. Pit 3s. 1st Gallery 2s. Upper Gallery 1s. Places for the Boxes to be taken of Fosbrook at the Theatre. The Doors to be opened at 5:30. To begin at 6:30 [see 13 Nov.]. Receipts: #186 5s. 6d. (151.0.0; 35.4.6; 0.1.0)

Event Comment: "Miss Hilligsberg cannot be praised enough for her exertions and sucess in the execution of [the second] ballet, which has given her an opportunity of making herself perfect in her profession [this being her 1st season on the stage]...The scenery has no doubt by Noverre, and if it is not more magnificent it is not for want of genius on his part, but to spare the purse of the Managers...The Palace of Cupidv for the reception of Psiche in the first, and that of Venus in the last act, with the appearance of Jupiter, &c. in the skies, were very well executed, and beautifully arranged by the actors" (Public Advertiser, 7 Feb.). Receipts: #202 11s. (non-subscription]

Event Comment: Places for the Boxes to be taken of Fosbrook, at the Theatre. The Doors to be opened at 5.30. To begin at 6:30 [see 3 Nov.]. [No playbill this season lists the various prices of admission; they were probably, as usual: Boxes 5s. Pit 3s. 1st Gallery 2s. Upper Gallery 1s.] Afterpiece: To conclude with a Grand Representation of Regattav. Kemble Mem.: No Manager [i.e. King had resigned as acting manager; but see 23 Sept.]. Ivory Tickets introduced. [These tickets, also called "bones," were for the use of actors and other members of the company in gaining admission for themselves or their friends to the front of the house. They replaced paper orders (World, 18 Oct. 1788).] Receipts: #112 3s. 6d. (75.6.0; 35.10.0; 1.7.6)

Event Comment: "Edwin condescended to make a buffoon of himself [in The Dramatist], for all he had to do was to amuse the audience with his knob of hair, and his versicolor'd knee strings. It is cruel to expose a great actor in such unmeaning characters" (Prompter, 28 Oct.). Receipts: #177 1s. 6d. (166.15.6; 10.6.0)

Event Comment: [In 2nd piece the playbill assigns Orlando to Kemble, but "On account of indisposition, Barrymore last night performed Orlando for Kemble" (Oracle, 4 Oct.).] 3rd piece: To conclude with the Glorious Defeat of the Spanish Armada, and a Grand Procession. "Equal to any actor I ever saw, as far as his line extends, is Mr Parsons; his conception and expression of Sir Fretful Plagiary, in Mr Sheridan's Critic, are as strong and masterly as were Garrick's in Kitely [in Every Man in his Humour]; and his 'laughing without mirth' therein equally admirable" (Jonson, ed. Waldron, 171). Receipts: #251 4s. 6d. (213.6.6; 37.0.0; 0.18.0)

Event Comment: ["We were sorry to see such an actor as Dodd descend into Buffoonery; in the dying scene of Roderigo he reminded us of the death of the Clown in Harlequin Skeleton" (Thespian Magazine, June 1793, p. 1).] Receipts #164 1s. (156.4; 7. 17)