Event Comment: Benefit Mlle Anne Roland. By Command of Her Royal Highness the Princess Amelia. [Tickets at Mrs Anne Roland's, Golden Ball and Dove, Great Newport Street.]

Event Comment: Benefit for Pope. 1st piece [1st time; D 4. Larpent MS 1249; not published synopsis of plot in Universal Magazine, Apr. 1799, p. 273]: Translated from [Der Graf von Burgund, by August Friedrich Ferdinand von? Kotzebue (Author of The Stranger, Lover's Vows, &c.) by Miss Anne? Plumptre, and adapted to the English Stage by Alexander? Pope. Morning Chronicle, 25 26 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Pope at his house, No. 5, Half Moon-street, Piccadilly. [This was Mrs Abington's last appearance on the stage.] "The perpetuated evidence of youth was in character with her person and her powers; the slimness of her figure, the fulness of her voice, the freshness of her spirits, the sparkle of her eye, and the elasticity of her limbs, savoured alike of a juvenility that puzzled the mind, whilst it pleased it: of her it was justly said that 'she had been on the stage thirty years; she was one-and-twenty when she came, and one-and-twenty when she went!'" (John Bernard, Retrospections of the Stage, 1830, II, 228-29). Receipts: #334 19s. 6d. (194.1.0; 2.5.0; tickets: 138.13.6)

Event Comment: Benefit Quin. Written by Shakespear. In which will be restor'd Scenes, Soliloquies, and other Circumstances, originally in the Part of Falstaff, which have been for many Years omitted. [Daily Advertiser lists Prologue as representing the Ghost of Falstaff.]

Event Comment: Benefit Anne Auretti. By Command of Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales. Tickets to be had of Anne Auretti at Mr Chisholm's, the Golden Head in Great Newport St., near Long Acre

Event Comment: Benefit for Anne Auretti. Mainpiece: By Command of their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales. Seven rows of Pit will be rail'd into the Boxes. Stage to be form'd into front and side Boxes. Receipts: #270 (Cross); house charges, #50 (Powel)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mlle Anne Auretti. Five rows of the Pit will be laid into the boxes, &c. [as on 7 March]. Tickets to be had at Mlle Auretti's at the second House on the left hand, the corner of Panton St., Leicester Fields, and of Hobson at the stage door. Receipts: #180 (Cross); house charges, #63 (Powel)

Event Comment: Written by Shakespear. Paid Quin #142 (Account Books, Egerton 2268). Receipts: #110 3s

Event Comment: The Tragedy of Othello is deferr'd on account of the Indisposition of Quin

Event Comment: By Command of Prince and Princess of Wales. A Free Benefit for Quin. Receipts: #88 13s., plus #136 15s. from tickets. [Garrick had written Quin he was too ill to play in the mainpiece but would act in his farce. Notice of 23 March about Amphitheatre repeated.] Tickets deliver'd out for 9 March will be taken. To prevent mistakes none will be admitted into the Boxes but by tickets deliver'd by Quin, and at the Office in the Box Lobby.--General Advertiser. If any Gentlemen or Ladies shall be displeased with the alteration in the Performance of the Play [i.e., Garrick's absence] the money shall be return'd.--Theatrical Clippings, Folger Library

Event Comment: Play a Tragedy by James Thomson. Brought to the stage by the efforts of Lord Lyttleton and Quin (Baker, Biographia Dramatica). [Genest, IV, 279, notes that Mrs Woffington had painted her beautiful face with wrinkles to suit the character of Venturia.

Event Comment: Benefit for Quin. Mainpiece: By Command of their Royal Highnesses Prince George, Prince Edward, Prince William, Prince Henry, Lady Augusta and the Lady Elizabeth. Six rows of the Pit will be laid into the Boxes. Stage will be Enclosed and form'd into an Amphitheatre. Paid Quin in full of his agreement #122; Advanced Servandoni #5 5s. [The Account Book itemizes the income this night as #93 15s. in money; #99 5s. in tickets, a total of #193 without stage (i.e., presumably without counting money to Quin gained from friends invited to sit in the Amphitheatre on stage.) This was also a "Free Benefit," i.e., clear of costumary house charges.] Receipts: #193

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not precisely known, but a broadside copy of the Epilogue, in the Bodleian Library, has a licensing date of 20 Aug. 1685, a MS date of 24 Aug. 1685. The play was licensed on 11 Sept. 1685. These dates suggest a premiere in mid-to late-August 1685. For Anne Bracegirdle as Clita and speaker of the Epilogue, see Lucyle Hook, Anne Bracegirdle's First Appearance, Theatre Notebook, XIII (1959), 135. The Prologue and Epilogue, separately printed, are reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 239-41. The broadside Prologue has a more detailed heading than that in the edition of 1686: Prologue To A Commonwealth of Women, Spoke by Mr Haynes, Habited like a Whig, Captain of the Scyth-men in the West, a Scythe in his Hand. Two songs, set by Samuel Ackroyde, are in The Theater of Musick, The Third Book, 1686

Event Comment: [By Theophilus Cibber.] Alter'd from Shakespear. Containing the Marriages of King Edward the Fourth , and young Prince Edward , with Lady Gray , and Lady Anne . The Distresses of Queen Margaret . The Deposing King Henry the Sixth . The Battles Fought at St. Albans, Wakefield, Mortimer's-Cross, and Tewkesbury. The Deaths of Lord Clifford of Cumberland , and his Son, the Duke of York , his Steward. And many other True Historical Passages

Event Comment: Full Prices. There will not be room behind the Scenes for more than the persons acting in the coronation, [Others] cannot possibly be admitted. The coronation of their Majesties was followed by a stage representation of it at both houses...Garrick knew that Rich would spare no expense in the presentation of his show; he knew too that he had a taste in the ordering, dressing, and setting out these pompous processions, superior to his own; he therefore was contented with the old dresses which had been occasionally used from 1721-1761. This show he repeated for near forty nights successively, sometimes at the end of a play, and at other times after a farce. The exhibition was the meanest, and the most unworthy of a theatre, I ever saw. The stage was...opened into Drury Lane; and a new and unexpected sight surprised the audience, of a real bonfire, and the populace huzzaing and drinking porter to the health of Queen Anne Bullen. The Stage in the meantime, amidst the parading of Dukes, duchesses, archbishops, peeresses, heralds &c. was covered with a thick fog from the smoke of the fire, which served to hide the tawdry dresses of the processionalists. During this idle piece of mockery, the actors, being exposed to the suffocations of smoke, and the raw air from the open street, were seized with colds, rheumatisms, and swelled faces. At length the indignation of the audience delivered the comedians from this wretched badge of nightly slavery, which gained nothing to the managers but disgrace and empty benches. Tired with the repeated insult of a show which had nothing to support it but gilt copper and old rags, they fairly drove the exhibitors of it from the stage by hooting and hissing, to the great joy of the whole theatre....Rich...fully satisfied [the publick's] warmest imaginations (Davies, Life of Garrick, I, 365 ff.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Dibdin. In Act IV of mainpiece the Procession from the Abbey at the Coronation of Anne Bullenv. Paid John Doe for sticking Black Bills #6 3s. Receipts: none listed (charge: #84)

Event Comment: In Act IV of mainpiece the Procession from the Abbeyv at the Coronation of Anne Bullenv. [Abergavenny is not listed in playbill, but is referred to in review of the performance in Morning Chronicle, 28 Oct.

Event Comment: In Act I of mainpiece the Banquetv; In Act IV the Procession from the Abbeyv at the Coronation of Anne Bullenv; To conclude with the Ceremonial of a Royal Christeningv. The Music and a Chorus composed by Shield. Receipts: #180 6s. 6d. (179.2.6; 1.4.0)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years. With the Procession from the Abbey at the Coronation of Anne Bullen. Receipts: #207 2s. (204/14; 2/8)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: With the Procession from the Abbey at the Coronation of Anne Bullen. Afterpiece: To end with a Representation of the Lord Mayor's Show on the Water. After which will be an Historical Procession of the Several Companies, with their respective Pageants, and the Chief Magistrates belonging to the City of London, from its Foundation. Books of the Songs, with an Explanation of the Procession, to be had at the Theatre. Receipts: #198 8s. 6d. (195/9/0; 2/19/6)