Event Comment: The
King's Company. This performance is known through a document summarized in
The Theatrical Inquisitor and Monthly Mirror, July 1816, p. 25, and summarized in
Fitzgerald,
A New History, I, 145. Although this performance is the first certainly known, it is probably not the premiere, for the attendance (see below) was too small for the premiere of a new work by
John Dryden. Since the play was entered in the
Stationers' Register, January 1678, the first production was probably not long before this performance. The document in
The Theatrical Inquisitor gives this information:
The King's Box, no receipts;
Mr Hayles' boxes, #3 (probably 15 spectators);
Mr Mohun's boxes, #1 12s. (probably 8 spectators);
Mr Yeats' boxes, 12s. (probably 3 spectators);
James' boxes, #2 (probably 10 spectators).
Mr Kent's
pitt, 82 spectators, and
Mr Britan's
pitt, 35 spectators, a total of 117, paying #14 12s. 6d.
Mr Bracy's gallery, 42 spectators; and
Mr Johnson's gallery, 21 spectators; a total of 63 spectators, who paid #4 14s. 6d.
Mr Thomson's gallery, 33 spectators, paying #1 13s. The total attendance appears to have been 249; the receipts were #28 4s. The house rent came to #5 14s.
Downes (
Roscius Anglicanus, p. 11) gives a cast which is identical except for omissions