Event Comment: Benefit Nivelon. Receipts: money #58 7s. 6d.; tickets #27 10s. Probable attendance: boxes, 58 by money and 29 by tickets; stage, 12 by money; balcony, 1 by money; pit, 138 by money and 135 by tickets; slips, 14 by money; first gallery, 95 by money; second gallery, 108 by money

Event Comment: [The opening of Covent Garden Theatre.] Written by the late Mr Congreve. The Cloaths, Scenes, and Decorations entirely New. And, on Account of the great Demand for Places, the Pit and Boxes, by Desire, will be laid together at 5s. Gallery 2s. Upper Gallery 1s. And to prevent the Scenes being crowded, the Stage Half a Guinea. All Persons who want Places are desir'd to send to the Stage Door (the Passage from Bow-street leading to it), where Attendance will be given, and Places kept for the following Nights as usual. Receipts: #115

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Never Acted before. [By Hilderbrand Jacob. Edition of 1738 refers to individuals determined to silence the first fruits of the Licensing Act.]

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Written by the late Sir John Vanbrugh, and Colley Cibber, Esq; Poet Laureat. Afterpiece: Not perform'd these Ten Years

Event Comment: By Command of Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and the Princesses Amelia, Caroline, Mary, and Louisa. Mainpiece: Written by Sir George Etherege

Event Comment: Whereas divers Complaints have been made, that Numbers...shift from Box to Box, to the great Annoyance of the Ladies...which Inconvenience appears on Enquiry to be caus'd by many not Paying...an Office is erected in the Lobby to the Boxes, where all Persons (the Ladies Excepted) are asked to take Tickets before they go in. Receipts: #64 19s. (Account Book); #100 (Rylands MS.). Rylands MS.: Cibber ill

Event Comment: [In mainpiece the playbill assigns Lord Lumbcrcourt to Wilson, but "Lee Lewes was the substitute for Wilson, and far indeed better than the man he appeared for" (Public Advertiser, 31 Jan.).] Afterpiece [1st time; P 2, by John O'KeerFe]: The Music composed by Shield. The Scenery designed by Richards and Carver, and executed by them, Hodgins, and others. The 1st Part of this Pantomime is an Alteration of the Last New One [Friar Bacon (see 23 Dec. 1783)], and the 2nd Part entirely new and never before exhibited. Nothing under Full Price will be taken. "If Macklin once loses the Catch Word he is gone irretrievably." At the end of the 3rd act, at half price, some apprentices coming into the pit talked so loudly that "Macklin stopped; he lost himself. ... He came to the Side of the Stage, and stooping down to the Talkers, said, 'Gentlemen, I must beg you to be silent; my Hearing and Recollection are not so perfect as they were; I cannot proceed for your Talking'" (Public Advertiser, 5 Feb.). Receipts: #286 14s. (282/15; 3/19)