Event Comment: The King's Company.
Pepys, Diary: It being almost twelve o'clock, or a little more, and carried [
Mercer,
Mrs Horsfield, and
Mrs Gayet] to
the King's playhouse, where
the doors were not
then open; but presently
they did open; and we in, and find many people already come in, by private ways, into
the pit, it being
the first day of
Sir Charles Sidly's new play, so long expected,
The Mulberry Garden, of whom, being so reputed a wit, all
the world do expect great matters. I having sat here awhile, and eat nothing to-day, did slip out, getting a boy to keep my place...And so to
the play again, where
the King and
Queen, by and by, come, and all
the Court; and
the house infinitely full. But
the play, when it come, though
there was, here and
there, a pretty saying, and that not very many nei
ther, yet
the whole of
the play had nothing extraordinary in it, at all, nei
ther of language nor design; insomuch that
the King I did not see laugh, nor pleased
the whole play from
the beginning to
the end, nor
the company; insomuch that I have not been less pleased at a new play in my life, I think. And which made it
the worse was, that
there never was worse musick played--that is, worse things composed, which made me and
Captain Rolt, who happened to sit near me, mad. So away
thence, very little satisfied with
the play, but pleased with my company. [For
Bannister's setting a song for
Mrs Knepp for this play, see 7 May 1668.