Event Comment: Benefit for Gibson. Mainpiece: Not acted these 25 years. Written originally by Shakespeare, and reviv'd and adapted to the stage by Mr Theobald. Charges #66 5s. [Profit to Gibson #37 18s. 6d. plus #30 15s. from Tickets (Box 79; Pit 74).] Paid one year's Rector's Rate for the Theatre #8 6s. 8d., and for House in Bow Passage, due at Lady Day 8s. 4d. (Account Book). [Neville attended, noted the information contained in the playbill, but could not hear well from his 2s. seat in the Gallery.] Receipts: #104 3s. 6d. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Doors to open at half past Four. Play to begin at half past Six. Send servants to hold places by Four o'clock. [Mrs Vincent's deficit of 1st instant received #20 3s. 6d.] Paid scavenger's rate for St Martin's due Lady Day #5 1s. Paid printer's bill #9 6s. (Treasurer's Book). Receipts: #262 7s. 6d. (Treasurer's Book). Went to Drury Lane, but could not get in. Stayed from half past 4, sometime at one Pit door, sometime at the other, till past 6, and got in at the right hand side just as the play began, and was dreadfully squeezed, but rewarded by seeing Garrick play Hamlet. The expression in his features, his eyes particularly, surpasses anything I ever saw. He is a little man, but handsome and full of that fire which marks the stronger, and of the softness natural to the tender passions. It is impossible to see his greatest excellencies from ye Gallery. Baddeley and Dodd are pretty well in Polonius and Ostrick. Mrs Baddeley and Yates do Ophelia and ye Grave Digger very well. Mrs Pritchard is great, as usual in ye Queen. Gravedigger's man-Shakespeare">Castle. Horatio-$Mr Packer. Several parts of ye play, as it is in $Shakespeare, are omitted rather improperly...The Prince Brunswick, his wife and Louisa were present (Neville MS Diary)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Dancer. Part of Pit laid into Boxes. Send servants to hold places at 3 o'clock. Afterpiece: Never performed there. [This seems to MacMillan to be the adaptation of Shakespeare's Winter's Tale by McNamara Morgan.

Event Comment: [t the top of the Bill was Shakespeare.

Event Comment: For the House. Mainpiece: By Particular Desire. [Sometime after May, and during 1770 was published Paul Hiffernan's Dramatic Genius in Five Books, dedicated to Garrick (with a 2nd edn., 1772). Book I, delineates a plan for a permanent Temple to be erected to the memory of Shakespeare, in classical taste; Book II, details the invention of the drama, its rise to perfection, and gives a "candid disquisition of the rules laid down by the critics"; Book III, a treatise on the art of acting; Book IV, requisites for dramatic genius, in composition, and in acting; Book V, an essay on Architecture, Painting and the other arts as they relate to theatrical representation. Contains flattering comments on theatrical managers.

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Bradshaw and Mrs Dorman. Mainpiece: Acted but once these forty years. Written by Shakespeare and Revis'd by Theobald

Event Comment: By Order of the Grand Buck. Benefit for Wignell and Barnshaw. Places will be kept in the Boxes for the Brethren of the Most Noble Order, who are desired to meet the Grand Buck and his Council at the Shakespeare's Head, in the Great Piazza, Covent Garden; by Five o'clock, in order to proceed from thence to the Theatre in Procession

Event Comment: Afterpiece: A Masque (in three parts) [by George Colman] never perform'd, in which will be introduc'd the Principal Solemnities at the Installation of the Knights of the Garter. With New Music, composed by Dr Arne, Habits, Decorations and Scenes. Books of the Masque to be had at the Theatre. Receipts: #220 10s. 6d. (Account Book). The greater part is borrowed with some variation from Ben Jonson [Masque of Oberon]. The same liberty has been taken with a few passages of Shakespeare, and a Chorus of the late Gilbert West, Esq. The final chorus is from Dryden...an effort to entertain the public by the combined powers of the most eminent proficients in the arts of Music, Painting and Poetry (Adv. to Printed Edn., Colman's Dramatic Works, IV, London, 1777)

Event Comment: The Tragedy of Hamlet having been greatly Altered by D. G. was perform'd for the first time Mr Garrick playd divinely & Merited the great Applause he receivd It is Alterd much for the better in regard to the part of Hamlet & I think the alterations very fine & proper (Hopkins Diary). [MacMillan's note from Kemble considerably briefer. See "Garrick's Long Lost Alteration of Hamlet," PMLA, Sept. 1934.] Paid Mr George Garrick on account #100; Mr Bulkley for Mr Weston, #2 8s. (Treasurer's Book). [Reviewer for Town and Country Magazine comments unfavorably on the Hamlet alteration: "How far the critics will approve these mutations we will not at present determine; but the admirers of Shakespeare must certainly be displeas'd, whenever they see his immortal works mutilated."] Receipts: #284 5s. 6d. (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Paid for 2 extra Flutes & Guitars (29 ultimo incl.) #2 5s. (Treasurer's Book). [This month was published Bell's edition of Shakespeare's acting plays, 'as performed at the Theatres Royal in London, requlated from the Prompt Books of each House, by permission of the managers, with notes critical and illustrative by the author of the Dramatic Censors, 5 vols. 12 mo. Price 15s."] Receipts: #246 6s. (Treasurer's 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: The Ninth Night of the School of Shakespeare, as 9 March

Event Comment: Oratorio: Written by the late Dr Hawksworth. Set to music by Stanley. Books of the Oratorio may be had of Mr Condell, in Cross St., Bow St., Covent Garden, and at the theatre the night of the performance. Price 1s. [This night Wm. Kenrick delivered his tenth, and apparently last, lecture on The School of Shakespeare. It was on King Lear, and very little could be said in favor of any of his remarks on the passages he selected...[he closed by] presenting the audience an act from Falstaff's Wedding." Monthly Miscellany (April 1774, p. 191), which had reviewed all of his lectures, had commented upon the increasing popularity of them as evidenced by the numbers attending, and presented an engraving of Kenrick in action before his audience.

Event Comment: The composition of the drama with the characters of the King, Prince of Wales, Hotspur, and Falstaff will be particularly illustrated. [This is Kenrick's School of Shakespeare; repeated 9, 16, 20 (Falstaff's Wedding and Merchant of Venice), 29 (Cozeners and Falstaff's Wedding).

Event Comment: hg [Garrick gave a grand Entertainment at Hampton Gardens. Illuminated also Shakespeare's Temple with 6,000 lamps and fireworks (Winston MS 10).

Event Comment: Benefit for Lee. Last Performance but two before the Holidays. Afterpiece: Never acted there. In the comic scenes will be introduced (as they were sung in Masqued and other Characters) the favorite songs, Ye Warwickshire Lads and Lasses, Sweet Willy O, The Mulberry Tree, and the Roundelay of Sisters of the Tuneful Strain. In the second act, a Statue of Shakespeare will be erected, and the ode on Dedicating a Temple to that great poet recited, with proper Airs and Chorusses-Particularly Sweetest Bard that Ever Sung, Tho' Crimes from Death and Torture Fly, the Characteristic Song on Falstaff, More Gentle than the Southern Gale, and Thou Soft-Flowing Avon. Part of Pit laid into boxes

Event Comment: Paid salary list #630 1s. 6d. (Treasurer's Book). Tuesday Next, not acted these 2 years. George Barnwell, to which will be added, first time these 6 years, The Jubilee, in honor of Shakespeare. Receipts: #247 17s. (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Lyric Ode (never performed) "On the Witches, Fairies, and Aerial Beings in Shakespeare. The Music entirely New." [The Westminster Magazine for March commented: "This poem is said to be written by a young gentleman of Oxford, and has many strokes of genius and inagination in it. The music, we hear, is composed by Mr Linley Jr, who has (since his return from Italy) been a student under that most excellent musician Dr Boyce. This composition must be allowed to be an extraordinary effort of genius in so young a man. The Fugue of the overture is masterly. The song of 'There in old Arden's inmost shade,' is well suited to the scene described by the poet....But what we think most deserving of praise is the power our young composer has shown in the chorusses....From the general and sincere applause with which the Ode was received, we may venture to pronounce, that if Mr Linley Jr pursues his studies, he will one day stand foremost in the list of modern composers."

Event Comment: Afterpiece: A Dramatic Entertainment of Singing, Dancing and Dialogue in Honour of Shakespeare. In which a Pageant. The Music by Dibdin. Receipts: #257 11s. (234.12.0; 20.4.6; 2.14.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Hopkins, prompter, and Mrs Hopkins. Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years. Afterpiece: A Dramatic Entertainment (in two parts) of Singing, Dancing and Dialogue in Honour of Shakespeare. In which a Pageant. The Music by Dibdin. Public Advertiser, 10 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Hopkins, No. 7, Little Russel-street, Covent Garden. Receipts: #280 7s. (169.5; 21.0; 1.2; tickets: 89.0) (charge: #64 4s.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Hopkins, prompter, and Mrs Hopkins. Mainpiece: Not acted these 7 years [acted 18 Feb. 1773]. Afterpiece: A Dramatic Entertainment (in 2 parts) of Singing, Dancing and Dialogue. In Honour of Shakespeare. In which will be introduced a Pageant. The Music by Dibdin. Public Advertiser, 27 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Hopkins, No. 7, Little Russel-street, Covent Garden. Receipts: #229 9s. (129.14; 30.18; 2.10; tickets: 66.7) (charge: #64 4s.)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: With alterations [by David Garrick]. "The managers, to our astonishment, continue to play with Garrick's alterations. [The original play] is materially injured by those which Garrick adopted in compliance to the French criticks" (Morning Chronicle, 20 Sept.). [For a summary of these alterations see my Shakespeare in the Theatre, II, 188-89.] Boxes 5s. Pit 3s. Ist Gallery 2s. Upper Gallery 1s. Places for the Boxes to be had of Fosbrook, at the Stage-door. No Money to be taken at the Stage-Door, nor any Money returned after the Curtain is drawn up. The Doors to be opened at 5:30. To begin at 6:30 [see 30 Oct.]. Receipts: #174 6s. 6d. (135.1.0; 38.17.6; 0.8.0)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: As originally written by Shakespeare. Paid Properties 18s. 4d.; Mantuamaker #5 19s. 9d.; Butler, carpenter, #15; Lampmen #3 18s.; Billstickers #3 3s. Receipts: #189 14s. 6d. (147/3/0; 42/8/6; 0/3/0)

Event Comment: Benefit for Whitfield. 2nd piece: Written by George Colman, Esq. Not acted these 10 years [acted 20 Dec. 1777]. After which, a Grand Procession of the principal Characters of Shakespeare, as exhibited at the Jubilee at Stratford upon Avon [in Sept. 1769]. Public Advertiser, 5 May: Tickets to be had of Whitfield at his house, Leicester Court, Castle Street, Leicester Fields. Receipts: #114 4s. (45/18; tickets: 68/6) (charge: #105)