Event Comment: The King's Company. For
the identification of this play and details of its performance, see
W. J. Lawrence, "
Foreign Singers and Musicians at the Court of Charles II,"
Musical Quarterly, IX (1923), 217-25, and
James G. McManaway, "
Entertainment for the Grand Duke of Tuscany,"
Theatre Notebook, XVI (1961), 20-21.
The Travels of Cosmo the Third [Monday 3 June 1669 NS; Monday 24 May 1669 OS]: In
the afternoon his highness left home earlier than usual to make his visits, that he might be at
the King's
Theatre in time for
the comedy, and a ballet set on foot and got up in honor of his highness by my
Lord Stafford, uncle of
the Duke of Norfolk. On arriving at
the theatre, which was sufficiently lighted on
the stage and on
the walls to enable
the spectators to see
the scenes and
the performances, his highness seated himself in a front box, where, besides enjoying
the pleasure of
the spectacle, he passed
the evening in conversation with
the Venetian ambassador,
the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Stafford, and o
ther noblemen. To
the story of
Psyche,
the daughter of
Apollo, which abounded with beautiful incidents, all of
them adapted to
the performers and calculated to express
the force of love, was joined a well-arranged ballet, regulated by
the sound of various instruments, with new and fanciful dances after
the English manner, in which different actions were counterfeited,
the performers passing gracefully from one to ano
ther, so as to render intelligible, by
their movements,
the acts
they were representing. This spectacle was highly agreeable to
his highness from its novelty and ingenuity; and all parts of it were likewise equally praised by
the ladies and gentlemen, who crouded in great numbers to
the theatre, to fill
the boxes, with which it is entirely surrounded, and
the pit, and to enjoy
the performance, which was protracted to a late hour of
the night (pp. 347-48). In
BM Add. Mss. 10117, folio 230,
Rugge's Diurnall states that towards
the end of May 1669
Cosmo, Prince of Tuscany had several plays acted for him