Event Comment: Benefit for Wathen. 3rd piece: By permission of the Proprietor of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. True Briton, 2 June: Tickets to be had of Wathen, No. 2, Frith-street. Receipts: #358 1s. (54.12.0; 61.13.6; 3.14.0; tickets: 238.1.6) (charge: #212 5s. 6d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Delpini. [1st piece in place of The School for Arrogance, advertised on playbill of 8 June.] 2nd piece [1st time; BALL. P 1, author unknown]. 4th piece: To conclude with a View of the Temple of Magic. True Briton, 2 June: Tickets to be had of Delpini, No. 27, Maiden-lane, Southampton-street, Covent-Garden. Receipts: #211 0s. 6d. (105.5.6; 13.11.6; tickets: 92.3.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Middleton. 1st piece: In IV a Grand Masquerade. True Briton, 7 June: Tickets to be had of Middleton, No. 16, Buckingham-street, York Building. Receipts: #229 11s. (105.18.6; 8.13.0; tickets: 114.19.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Phillimore, Denman, Cooke, Stokes, Miss Tidswell, Miss Heard, Mrs Benson. Morning Herald, 9 June: Tickets to be had of Miss Heard at Mrs Fletcher's, No. 239, Piccadilly; True Briton, 5 June: of Mrs Benson, No. 31, Hart-street, Bloomsbury [no others listed]. Receipts: #78 10s. (35.0.6; 41.2.6; 2.7.0; tickets: none listed) (charge: #224 15s. 3d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Haymes. The Last Night of the Company's performing this Season. Account-Book, 28 June: Received for his Majesty's Box 13 nights #130; for the Princess's Box #65; 1 Aug.: Paid half a year's Land, Commutations, Window & House Taxes #193 19s. True Briton 1 June: Tickets to be had of Haymes, No. 8, Duke-street, St. James's. Receipts: #228 18s. 6d. (109.19.0; after-money not listed; tickets: 118.19.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Bannister. True Briton, 1 Aug.: Tickets to be had of Bannister, No. 7, Suffolk-street, Charing-Cross

Event Comment: Benefit for Munden. Afterpiece: Not acted these 10 years [acted 23 July 1788]. True Briton, 4 Aug.: Tickets to be had of Munden, No. 16, Clement's Inn

Event Comment: Benefit for Suett. True Briton, 8 Aug.: Tickets to be had of Suett at his chambers, No. 10, Hart-street, Covent-Garden

Event Comment: Benefit for Johnstone. 2nd piece [1st time; M. INT 1, but Walley Chamberlain Oulton; music by Thomas Attwood. Larpent MS 1178; not published]. True Briton, 23 Aug.: Tickets to be had of Johnstone, No. 19, Piazza, Covent-Garden

Event Comment: Benefit for Fawcett. 3rd piece: By permission of T. Harris, Esq.; never acted at this theatre. True Briton, 29 Aug.: Tickets to be had of Fawcett at his house, No. 10, Golden-square

Event Comment: Benefit for Elliston [whose 1st appearance as Othello was at Bath, 8 July 1797]. Afterpiece: By permission of the Proprietors of the Theatre-Royal, Drury-Lane. True Briton, 30 Aug.: Tickets to be had of Elliston, No. 3, Frith-street, Soho

Event Comment: Benefit for Jewell, treasurer. True Briton, 2 Sept.: Tickets to be had of Jewell, No. 26, Suffolk-street, Charing-Cross

Event Comment: [Extra night] By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit the Widow of a Baronet [Sir Richard Perrott] and a large Infant Family. [Address by John Taylor (True Briton, 21 Sept.).] Tickets to be had of the Widow, No. 28, Spring-street, Portman-square [and see 28 Jan. 1799]

Event Comment: "In point of voice, there are few women so highly favoured as Mrs Litchfield [whose 1st appearance at cg was on 27 May 1796]; through every gradation of tone it is perfect, combining strength and melody, it is equal to any task which the theatre (large and extensive as it is) can impose. It is suited to the firmness of declamation, the tenderness of pathos, and the burst of indignant passion" (Monthly Mirror, Oct. 1797, p. 226). The Epilogue is not listed on the playbill, but "The audience would not be satisfied without the original Epilogue [by Miles Peter Andrews], which Lewis came forward and spoke" (True Briton, 21 Sept.). [Afterpiece in place of The Poor Soldier, advertised on playbill of 18 Sept.] Receipts: #225 0s. 6d. (195.14.0; 29.6.6)

Event Comment: [Mrs Gibbs was from the Haymarket.] Afterpiece: A Representation of the Defeat of the Dutch Fleet [at Camperdown] by Admiral Duncan, on the Glorious 11th of October [1797; in which Incledon, as a sailor, sang Come, cheer up, my lads, and, with full chorus, Rule Britannia (True Briton, 17 Oct.).] Receipts: #253 18s. 6d. (248.9.6; 5.9.0)

Event Comment: "The only fault we observed was [Miss Biggs's] mode of turning away at the close of every speech, and retiring towards the back of the stage, as if the character was of no consequence when the speech was ended" (True Briton, 18 Oct.). MS annotation on Kemble playbill: Rehearsals--Cheap Living at 10; Sir Benjamin Backbite's scenes at 11; Irish Widow at 12; Adela'rs scenes, Haunted Tower at 1. Receipts: #247 16s. 6d. (162.0.0; 82.12.6; 3.4.0)

Event Comment: "It was with extreme regret that we perceived the ravages of time in the person of [Mrs Crawford, who had not acted in London since 12 Apr. 1785], tho' we were much consoled in observing that his influence is not equally apparent in her abilities...The blaze is gone, but there is a richness in the setting lustre...Kemble is evidently [Johnston's] model, and he followed him so closely, as even to the crossing of the legs in dying; so that where he was best, his efforts seemed to be the effect of imitation" (True Briton, 24 Oct.). "Mrs Crawford has had her day; but the sun of her genius has long sunk beneath the horizon...Many parts of her performance, we were sorry to observe, evinced the most evident decline of powers, and her tremulous accents, the debility of which was rendered the more striking from the want of several teeth, proclaimed that her days of play and action were nearly brought to a close...She was received with reiterated plaudits throughout...Nature has been very bountiful in supplying [Johnston] with a voice of much compass and melody, but he does not appear to have paid much attention to the cultivation of her favours. His transitions are often abrupt, and sometimes discordant; and the management of his tones is of so strange a nature that it appears more like two distinct voices than a judicious modulation of his natural accents" (Morning Herald, 24 Oct.). Receipts: #260 9s. (253.4.6; 7.4.6)

Event Comment: Under the Patronage of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, H. R. H. the Duke of York, and H. R. H. the Duke of Clarence. Benefit for a Fund for the Relief of the Wounded Seamen, and also for the Widows and Orphans of the Brave Men who fell in the late Glorious Action, under Admiral Lord Viscount Duncan [see 16 Oct.]. The Tickets for the Boxes are issued under the Direction of a Committee consisting of the following Noblemen and Gentlemen, who have obligingly undertaken to attend to the arrangement of the Evening: The Duke of Leeds, The Duke of Bedford, The Earl of Guildford, The Earl of Thanet, The Right Honorable the Lord Mayor [Brook Watson], Mr Alderman Combe, M. P., Mr Alderman Skinner, John Julius Angerstein, Esq. Tickets and Places for the Boxes not disposed of by the Committee to be had of Fosbrook at the Box Office, Little Russell-Street, and at the Bar of Lloyds Coffee House. Ladies and Gentlemen having Privilege of the Theatre are requested by the Stewards to waive the use of it for this Evening. [Address by Richard Cumberland (European Magazine, Nov. 1797, p. 339). True Briton. 23 Nov. 1797, prints a letter from the Chairman of Committee of Subscribers to the performers of the theatre, thanking them for not "accepting the usual emolument on the night of performance."] Receipts: #631 8s. (357.17.6; 57.4.6; 1.11.0; money extra left at the doors: 2.14.6; tickets: 212.0.6) (charge: #161 0s. 6d.)

Event Comment: In consequence of Mme Hilligsberg not being sufficiently recovered from her late Accident, the Dances intended to have been performed this Evening [A Divertisement (i.e. Les Delassemens Militaires) and Cupid and Psyche, both advertised on playbill of 26 Oct.] are unavoidably obliged to be postponed till Tuesday. "Towards the conclusion of Peggy's Love on Tuesday Madame Hilligsberg fell upon the stage, and was so much stunned that she was obliged to be carried off by Didelot" (True Briton, 28 Oct.). Receipts: #252 14s. 6d. (249.3.6; 3.11.0)

Event Comment: [Longley is identified in European Magazine, Dec. 1797, p. 410, but Monthly Visitor, Jan. 1798, p. 64, says that he was Clarke, "from the Shakesperian Theatre at Tottenham Court Road." Afterpiece in place of The Shipwreck, advertised on playbill of 24 Nov.] "[Longley] is not inferior to some Falstaffs we have seen upon the London stage, and he possesses all the traditionary shrugs, winks and bye-play usual in the representation of the part" (True Briton, 27 Nov.). Receipts: #140 18s. (101.15; 38.3; 1.0)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 11 years. III the Procession and Ceremony at the Tomb of Cresphontes. "Since Mrs Crawford's meridian another species of acting has arisen, that adds the graces of demeanour to the ebullitions of passion" (True Briton, 30 Nov.). Receipts: #175 5s. (164.19; 10.6)

Event Comment: "In many instances [C. Kemble] mistook rant for animation" (True Briton, 11 Jan. 1799). [For the naming of the characters in mainpiece, as they were called originally, see 23 Feb. 1792.] Receipts: #228 4s. 6d. (185.3.0; 42.16.6; 0.5.0)

Event Comment: [The playbill retains Fawcett as Trudge, but "On account of the sudden indisposition of Fawcett the part of Trudge was last night assigned to Knight, who supported it with sufficient correctness and humour. The Theatre was but indifferently attended" (True Briton, 7 Jan.).] Receipts: #163 1s. 6d. (147.15.6; 15.6.0)