Event Comment: The Lord Mayor's Show. By John Tatham. The author mentions as his assistants: Andrew Dakers and William Lightfoot, painters; Thomas Whiting, joyner; and Richard Clear, carver

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: My wife and I to the Duke's playhouse, and there did see King Harry the Eighth; and was mightily Pleased, better than I ever expected, with the history and shows of it. We happened to sit by Mr Andrews, our neighbour, and his wife

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: The Duke's Company. The play was not printed. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@145, p. 120. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 349. Andrew Marvell to Sir Edw. Harley, 17 Nov. 1677: To-day is acted the first time Sir Popular Wisdom or the Politician, where my Lord Shaftesbury and all his gang are sufficiently personated. I conceive the King will be there (HMC, 14th Report, Appendix, Part II, 1894, Portland MSS., Volume III, p. 357)

Event Comment: Luttrell, A Brief Relation, I, 186: There [has] been a tall Irish man to be seen in Bartholomew-fair. The Epilogue to a revival of Mithridates (See mid-October 1681) has some lines which refer to recent activities at Bartholomew Fair: @Have not you seen the Dancing of the Rope?@When Andrew's wit was clean run off the Score,@And Jacob's Cap'ring Tricks could do no more,@A Damsel does to the Ladders Top advance@And with two heavy Buckets drags a Dance;@The Yawning Crowd pearch't up to see the sight,@And slav'r'd at the Mouth for vast delight.

Event Comment: In the Bindley Collection, William Andrews Clark@Jr@Library, is a broadside: A Lenten Prologue Refus'd by the Players. Luttrell's date of acquisition is 11 April 1683

Event Comment: The United Company. Newdigate newsletters, 2 June 1683: The same day [31 May] their Royall highnesses... in ye afternoone Countenanced a new play with their presences (Wilson, More Theatre Notes from the Newdigate Newsletters, p. 59). Wilson proposes that this play is Dame Dobson, as the separately Printed Prologue bears Luttrell's acquisition date of 1 June 1683 (Bindley Collection, William Andrews Clark@Jr@Library). The separately printed Prologue and Epilogue are reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 176-78

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but Luttrell's copy of the separately printed Prologue and Epilogue bears the date 12 Nov. 1683 (item 87, Sotheby's sale, 12 June 1939), and the premiere probably occurred shortly before that date. A revised version of the Epilogue, correcting errors, appeared almost immediately after the one first published; it bears Luttrell's date of 14 Nov. 1683. The Epilogue, in the revised version, bears the note: Written by Mr Dryden. The Prologue and both versions of the Epilogue are reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 183-87. In addition, a song, Awake O Constantine awake, with music by Thomas Farmer, is in The Theater of Music, 1865; it also appeared in A Collection of the Newest and Choicest Songs, 1864 (which bears Luttrell's date, 10 March 1683@4, Bindley Collection, William Andrews Clark@Jr@Library)

Event Comment: The United Company. An order, 9 Feb. 1683@4, in L. C. 5@145, p. 14 (Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 356), and another, L. C. I, specify requirements for a play to be acted at Whitehall on 11 Feb. 1683@4, and name Valentinian as the drama. The first Prologue and the Epilogue Written by a Person of Quality were printed separately; Luttrell's copy (Bindley Collection, William Andrews Clark@Jr@Library) is dated 20 Feb. 1683@4. They are reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 249-51. It is not certain on what date the first performance occurred, for premieres at court are quite rare in the Restoration period. In Nahum Tate's Poems by Several Hands (1685): Sir Francis Fane: A Masque Made at the Request of the Earl of Rochester, for the Tragedy of Vadentinian. Downes (p. 40): The well performance, and the vast Interest the Author made in Town, Crown'd the Play, with great Gain of Reputation; and Profit to the Actors. For an intended cast of Rochester's alteration of the play by John Fletcher, see the introductory note to the season of 1675-76. In A Pastoral in French by Lewis Grabu (published in 1684; advertised in the London Gazette, No. 1947, 17 July 1684) are two songs for this play for which Grabu apparently composed the music: Injurious charmer of my vanquished heart and Kindness hath resistless charms. In Choice Ayres and Songs, The Fourth Book, 1684, is: A new Song in the late reviv'd Play, call'd Valentinian: Where would coy Aminta run [the composer of the music not being indicated]