Event Comment: Doors to open at half past Four. Play to begin at half past Six. Send servants to hold places by Four o'clock. [Mrs Vincent's deficit of 1st instant received #20 3s. 6d.] Paid scavenger's rate for St Martin's due Lady Day #5 1s. Paid printer's bill #9 6s. (Treasurer's Book). Receipts: #262 7s. 6d. (Treasurer's Book). Went to Drury Lane, but could not get in. Stayed from half past 4, sometime at one Pit door, sometime at the other, till past 6, and got in at the right hand side just as the play began, and was dreadfully squeezed, but rewarded by seeing Garrick play Hamlet. The expression in his features, his eyes particularly, surpasses anything I ever saw. He is a little man, but handsome and full of that fire which marks the stronger, and of the softness natural to the tender passions. It is impossible to see his greatest excellencies from ye Gallery. Baddeley and Dodd are pretty well in Polonius and Ostrick. Mrs Baddeley and Yates do Ophelia and ye Grave Digger very well. Mrs Pritchard is great, as usual in ye Queen. Gravedigger's man-Castle. Horatio-$Mr Packer. Several parts of ye play, as it is in $Shakespeare, are omitted rather improperly...The Prince Brunswick, his wife and Louisa were present (Neville MS Diary)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Martyr. Public Advertiser, 7 May: Tickets to be had of Mrs Martyr, No. 32, St. Martin's-strcet, Leicester-fields. 1st piece [1st time; CO 2, by Horatio Edgar Robson. MS: Larpent 657; not published. Composer of music unknown]: The Music partly new and partly compiled. With a New Overture. Receipts: #181 i5s. (99/16; tickets: 81/19) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Bannister. 3rd piece [1st time; F 1, by Horatio Edgar Robson, based on La Bonne Mere, by Jean Pierre Claris de Florian]: Now reading with universal Applause by Mons. LeTexier. Public Advertiser, 9 Aug.: Tickets to be had of Bannister, No. 7, Suffolk-street. Ibid., 8 Oct. 1788: This Day is published Look before You Leap (1s.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Ryder. Public Advertiser, 20 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Ryder at his house, No. 5, Bow-street, Covent-garden. 1st piece: The Overture, Airs, &c. by Dr Arnold. The selected by Handel, Vento, Giordani, Giardini, Bertoni, Dr Arne, Carolan the Irish Bard. 2nd piece: 1st time Here. Translated from the French of La Bonne Mere, by Horatio Edgar? Robson, and at this Time reading with great success and general applause by LeTexier in Lisle-Street [and 1st acted at the hay, 22 Aug. 1788]. 3rd piece [1st time; F 2, by Thomas Ryder, altered from The Man of Parts, by Isaac Jackman; not published]. Receipts: #271 0s. 6d. (191.15.6; 5.7.0; tickets: 73.18.0)

Event Comment: Benefit for Johnstone. Afterpiece [1st time; MF 2. Larpent MS 980; not published]: By a Gentleman of the Bar [Horatio Edgar Robson]. The Story partly founded on the celebrated old Scotch Ballad of the Heir of Lynne. The Irish, Scotch, Italian and French Airs selected, and the new Music and Medley Overture composed by Reeve. Books of the Songs to be had at the Theatre. Morning Herald, 24 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Johnstone, No. 19, Piazza, Covent-Garden. Receipts: #488 9s. 6d

Event Comment: WWilliam Hint in a Letter (Daily Gazetteer, 31 Oct.): Mr Sheridan? was cast most improperly, into the part of Horatio; which naturally call'd for Mr Delane? in that house....but why was Mr Garrick? left out of the play. Would he not have look'd, spoke and acted Lothario?

Event Comment: Benefit for Whitfield. 2nd piece: Written by George Colman, Esq. Not acted these 10 years [acted 20 Dec. 1777]. After which, a Grand Procession of the principal Characters of Shakespeare, as exhibited at the Jubilee at Stratford upon Avon [in Sept. 1769]. Public Advertiser, 5 May: Tickets to be had of Whitfield at his house, Leicester Court, Castle Street, Leicester Fields. Receipts: #114 4s. (45/18; tickets: 68/6) (charge: #105)