Event Comment: [The last night of the season, but not so specified in the playbill. Further performances were planned; this playbill carries the advertisements for 10 Apr. But most of the actors in this HAY season were regular members of the DL company. They were, presumably, required for rehearsals for the opening of the new DL theatre on 21 Apr.]

Event Comment: Mainpiece: In II Ovation; or, Entry of Coriolanus into Romev; In V Procession of Roman Matrons to the Volscian Campv. "The business of the stage was extremely incorrect, and some of the performers imperfect. These sometimes fretted [Kemble], and the actor became a manager...and directed the scene" (Oracle. 4 Oct.).] Receipts: #390 17s. 6d. (317.19.0; 69.1.0; 3.17.6)

Event Comment: Afterpiece: In Three Acts. "[Emery] does not disdain the mechanical usages of actors, but makes them secondary and subordinate to more important considerations" (Monthly Mirror, Oct. 1798, p. 233). Receipts: #225 17s. (220.6; 5.11)

Event Comment: [The playbill announces phe 1st night of What a Blunder!, but "In consequence of a severe accident C. Kemble met with yesterday evening by a fall in the last scene of Obi, the new opera of What a Blunder! cannot be acted. This evening will be presented The London Hermit" (MS annotation on hay playbill now at Harvard). "In making his leap from the precipice, the needful precautions to break his fall were not employed With sufficient promptitude. The consequence was that Kemble received several violent contusions, and sprained his back in a dangerous manner...The New Opera, in which that actor was to have performed a principal part, was necessarily postponed, and the above Entertainments substituted in its place. A proper apology was made to the audience, as well on account of the unavoidable disappointment, as the incorrectness which might naturally be expected to occur, from the suddenness of the change, and the absence of some of the regular performers" (Dramatic Censor, III, 83).

Event Comment: Benefit for Fawcett. "We were careful to repair to the Theatre at an early hour. But, to see the whole street lined with carriages and blockaded on both sides with pedestrians vainly pressing for admittance, was more than we had anticipated. Hundreds, who had purchased tickets, were under the necessity of returning home, without passing the threshold of the Theatre...Fawcett exerted the whole scope of his abilities, in grateful return for the patronage with which he was so profusely honoured...Whenever Fawcett moves in his proper sphere, as a comic actor, he is never known to fail" (Dramatic Censor, III, 129). Morning Chronicle, 6 Sept.: Tickets to be had of Fawcett, No. 3, Tanfield-court, Temple

Event Comment: Sixtus Petri Arnoldinus, a Dutchman, visiting in London, saw at the King's Playhouse this day a delightful "Courting-Comedy." See N. W. Zwager, A Visitor to England in 1661, Tijdschrift voor Taal en Letteren, XXVII (1939), 286

Event Comment: Evelyn, Diary: I saw a Comedy acted before the Dutchesse of York at the Cock-pit: The king was not at it

Event Comment: Sir Samuel Tuke's The Adventures of Five Hours was probably intended to have its first performance on this day. The edition of 1663 reads: The Prologue Enters with a Play-Bill in his hands, and Reads, This day being the 15th of December, shall be Acted a New Play, never Plai'd before, call'd The Adventures of Five Hours. [On the other hand, Evelyn, on 23 Dec. 1662, saw a rehearsal of the comedy, and Pepys, 8 Jan.1662@3, refers to a performance on that day as the first one.

Event Comment: See also 15 Dec. 1662. Evelyn, Diary: I went with Sir S. Tuke to heare the Comedians con, & repeate his new Comedy, the Adventures of 5 houres: a play whose plot was taken out of the famous Spanish Poet Calderon

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Evelyn, Diary: Saw a facecious Comedy Cald Love in a Tub

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: I and my wife and Willett to the Duke of York's house, and there saw the Tempest again, which is very pleasant, and full of so good variety that I cannot be more pleased almost in a comedy, only the seaman's part a little too tedious. Thence home, and there to my chamber, and do begin anew to bind myself to keep my old vows, and among the rest not to see a play till Christmas but once in every other week, and have laid aside #10, which is to be lost to the poor, if I do

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Downes (p. 30): This Comedy in general was very well Perform'd. Pepys, Diary: I alone to the Duke of York's house, to see the new play, called The Man is the Master, where the house was, it being not above one o'clock, very full. But my wife and Deb. being there before, with Mrs Pierce and Corbet and Betty Turner, whom my Wife carried with her, they made me room; and there I sat, it costing me 8s. upon them in oranges, at 6d. apiece. By and by the King come; and we sat just under him, so that I durst not turn my back all the play. The play is a translation out of French, and the plot Spanish, but not anything extraordinary at all in it, though translated by Sir W. Davenant, and so I found the King and his company did think meanly of it, though there was here and there something Pretty: but the most of the mirth was sorry, poor stuffe, of eating of sack posset and slabbering themselves, and mirth fit for clownes; the prologue but poor, and the epilogue little in it but the extraordinariness of it, it being sung by Harris and another in the form of a ballet

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, and there saw The Silent Woman; the best comedy, I think, that ever was wrote; and sitting by Shadwell the poet, he was big with admiration of it. Here was iy Lord Brouncker and W. Pen and their ladies in the box....Knepp did her part mighty well

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: And my wife being gone abroad with W. Hewer, to see the new play to-day, at the Duke of York's house, Guzman, I dined alone.... I thence presently to the Duke of York's playhouse, and there, in the 18d. seat, did get room to see almost three acts of the play; but it seemed to me but very ordinary. After the play done, I into the pit, and there find my wife and W. Hewer...[and] here I did meet with Shadwell, the poet, who, to my great wonder, do tell me that my Lord of Orrery? did write this play, trying what he could do in comedy, since his heroique plays could do no more wonders. This do trouble me; for it is as mean a thing, and so he says, as hath been upon the stage a great while; and Harris, who hath no part in it, did come to me, and told me in discourse that he was glad of it, it being a play that will not take

Event Comment: The Travels of Cosmo the Third [Tuesday 30 April 1669 NS; Tuesday 20 April 1669 OS]: This day, his highness went to the comedy at the Duke of York's theatre, where the music and dancing, after the English manner, were less pleasing than the operas performed by the comedians; because, being in the English language, the only pleasure which we who heard them, can derive from the latter, is that of observing their action, which it cannot be denied, was supereminently excellent (London, 1821, p. 194)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. lists at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", p. 15. The play was not printed, and the only source of information concerning it is in Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 30: The Woman made a Justice: Wrote by Mr Betterton: Mrs Long, Acting the Justice so Charmingly; and the Comedy being perfect and justly Acted, so well pleased the Audience, it continu'd Acting 14 Days together: The Prologue being spoke to it each Day. [It is possible that this date represents the premiere, since Saturday was frequently a day on which plays were first acted, but there is no certainty on this point.

Event Comment: Newsletter, 8 Nov. 1670: The 4th being the birthday of the Prince of Orange a comedy was prepared at Whitehall to entertain him and all things done that might show what a great value the whole Court had for him (Hastings MSS. HMC, III, 324)

Event Comment: John Aubrey to Anthony a Wood, 26 Oct. 1671: I am writing a comedy for Thomas Shadwell, which I have almost finished since I came here, et quorum pars magna sui.... And I shall fit him with another, The Countrey Rebell, both humours untoucht, but of this, mum! for 'tis very satyricall against some of my mischievous enemies which I in my tumbling up and down have collected (Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. Andrew Clark [Oxford, 1898], I, 52n). See also the season of 1670-71

Event Comment: Evelyn, Diary: I entertained the Maids of honour...at a Comedy, this afternoone

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 2. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 347. The Bulstrode Papers, (I, 254), 27 Dec. 1672: This evening their Matyes and the whole Court are to be diverted with a comedy in the Theater in Whitehall by his Royal Highness's servants called Epsome Wells, at which will be present all the principal persons of quality

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@143, p. 162: At the Fond Husband. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 349. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 36): [This comedy and Otway's The Soldier's Fortune] took extraordinary well, and being perfectly Acted; got the Company great Reputation and Profit. One song, Under the branches of a spreading tree, set by William? Turner, is in Choice Ayres and Songs, The Second Book, 1679. For Nokes and Leigh in this play, see Cibber, Apology, ed. Lowe, I, 149. According to The Guardian, 15 June 1713, Charles II attended three of the first five nights of this play

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C., 5@145, p. 120: Mr Lymberham. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, P. 349. There is no indication as to whether this performance was the premiere, but it probably was part of its initial run, which was limited to three days. Langbaine (English Dramatick Poets): In this Play (which I take to be the best Comedy of his) he so much expos'd the keeping part of the Town, that the Play was stopt, when it had but thrice appear'd on the Stage (p. 164). [In the Dedication to the play, Dryden also refers to its being stopped.

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. The date of the first performance is not known. Luttrell, however, dated the copy he purchased 6 July 1680 (VanLennep, Two Restoration Comedies, pp. 57-58) and attributed it to Mrs Aphra Behn. If copies were available in early July, the play was most probably performed in June 1680. Langbaine (English Dramatick Poets, p. 547) had heard that Mrs Behn was the author, but A Comparison between the Two Stages (p. 11) attributed it to Thomas Betterton. For a discussion of the authorship, see also Ten English Farces, ed. Leo Hughes and A. H. Scouten (Austin, Texas, 1948), pp. 203-4

Event Comment: The Loyal Protestant 23 Feb. 1681@2: London Feb. 22. This evening His Majesty was pleased to divert himself at a Comedy at the Theatre Royal