Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Billington. Part of the Pit will be laid into the Boxes. Tickets delivered for the 9th will be taken. Public Advertiser, 12 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Billington, No. 53, Poland-street. Receipts: #293 10s. 6d. (163.18.6; 6.17.0; tickets: 122.15.0)

Event Comment: Benefit for Fosbrook, box-book and housekeeper. Afterpiece: Not acted these 2 years. Receipts: #291 (44.1; 10.13; 0.10; tickets: 235.16) (charge: #115 6s.)

Event Comment: [Mainpiece in place of The Provok'd Husband, advertised on playbill of 12 Sept. In it the playbill assigns Millamant to Miss Farren, but "Miss Farren ill, Mrs Goodall played Millamant" (Kemble Mem.). Miss Hagley's 1st appearance was at this theatre, 28 May 1789.] Receipts: #112 16s. 6d. (70.15.0; 39.13.6; 2.8.0)

Event Comment: The Doors to be opened at 5:30. To begin at 6:30 [see 2 Nov.]. Places for the Boxes to be taken of Brandon at the Theatre. No Money to be returned. 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.] Mainpiece: In I a Masquerade Scene [incident to the Play. Receipts: #216 9s. 6d. (213.11.0; 2.18.6)

Event Comment: 3rd piece [1st time; F 2, by Charles Stuart, "from the Spanish"; on 2 Sept. reduced to 1 act. Prologue by the author (see text)]. "The Piece, we understand, was originally founded on some topics that have of late engrossed the conversation of much of the fashionable world...The Lord Chamberlain thought [it] too delicate a nature to appear with the allusions and title it then bore, She would be a Duchess. The consequence was that the offensive bits were expunged and the piece re-christened...It would be unfair to make any observations...in the mutilated stage it was presented" (Public Advertiser, 15 Aug.). "Some part of the plot was supposed to allude to the late occurrences in the family of General John? Gunning, who was indulged with the privilege of erasing [from the MS] that which he disliked, and who reduced it to its present feeble and unconnected form" (Gazetteer, 15 Aug.). [The reference in the original title is to the simultaneous flirtation of Miss Elizabeth Gunning, the General's daughter, with the eldest sons of the Dukes of Marlborough and Argyll (see dnb, under Susannah Gunning). She would be a Duchess: in Larpent MS 915.

Event Comment: Benefit for Bannister. [Wathen had 1st appeared in London at Lord Barrymore's private theatre, Savile Row, 22 July 1790.] Morning Herald, 16 Aug.: Tickets to be had of Bannister, No. 7, Suffolk-street

Event Comment: [Account-Book: Tickets delivered by Wathen and Miss Arne will be admitted.] Receipts: #326 19s. 6d. (128.17.6; 55.0.6; 2.13.6; tickets: 139.17.0, of which Wathen sold 84.6.0, and Miss Arne 55.11.0; odd money: 0.11.0)

Event Comment: H. B. Wilson, The History of the Merchant-Taylors' School (London, 1814), 1, 344n: 15 March 1664@5. There was this day presented to the court, the bill of charges in erecting the Stage and Seates and other necessaries in the hall, when the Schollers of the companies schoole, at St Laurence Pounctneys, London, acted the play called Love's Pilgrimage, amounting unto seventeen Poundes, Tenn-shillings, and nine-pence

Event Comment: This work apparently was not published. It was referred to in Domestick Intelligence, 19 Dec 1679: Acted by Scholars of a Latin School in Cannon Street

Event Comment: Henry Purcell composed the music for a song performed at Mr Maidwell's School, on this day, the words by one of Maidwell's scholars. See Works of Henry Purcell, Purcell Society, XXVII (1957), XV

Event Comment: The Epilogue to the afterpiece is printed in Flying Post, 3-5 March

Event Comment: The Prologue was published on 10 March

Event Comment: London Journal, 12 May: Was acted at Mr Newcomb's School, formerly Mr Morland's School, at Clapton, near Hackney, the late Mr Hugh's Play...with great Applause, they having the proper Habits and Decorations. Tis said, the Lad that acted the Lady was adorned with Jewels to the Value of Six Thousand Pounds; there was a great Number of Gentry to see the Performance

Event Comment: Their Habits were very rich, after the Roman Manner, and the performance of all the Parts was so just that it gave general Satisfaction, and gained the Applause of a very numerous Audience

Event Comment: Receipts: #31 1s. In Daily Courant, 25 Oct., the dancers were advertised as Mr Dupre's Scholars

Event Comment: By Plautus. [The Duke present.