Event Comment: The United Company. This play was in rehearsal before the death of Charles II-see 6 Feb. 1684@5-and was staged shortly after the playhouse reopened. Luttrell's date of acquisition of the separately-printed Prologue and Epilogue is 9 May 1685 (in possession of Pickering and Chatto, Ltd., 1938), and the play may have been first given on that date or during the week preceding Saturday 9 May 1685. For Cibber's account of Mountfort as Sir Courtly, see Cibber, Apology, ed. Lowe, I, 129. The separately-printed Prologue and Epilogue are reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 228-30. A separately-printed Three New Songs in Sir Courtley Nice (1685) contains three songs, with the music by Samuel Ackroyde and an unknown composer. In addition, two songs, As I grazed unaware and O be kind my dear be kind, both composed by R. King, are in The Theater of Music, Second Book, 1685. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, pp. 40-41): The first new Comedy after King James came to the Crown, was Sir Courtly Nice, wrote by Mr Crown:...The Comedy being justly Acted, and the Characters in't new, Crown'd it with a general Applause: Sir Courtly was so nicely Perform'd, that not any succeeding, but Mr Cyber has Equall'd him. Note, Mr Griffin so Excell'd in Surly, Sir Edward Belfond, The Plain Dealer, none succeeding in the 2 former have Equall'd him, except his Predecessor Mr Hart in the latter. The Lover's Session; In Imitation of Sir John Suckling's Session of Poets (in Poems on Affairs of State, II [1703], 162): @Montrath was in Foppery conceiv'd another@Of Whitehall true Breed, Sir Nices Twin Brother:@None could tell, so alike all their Follies did seem,@Whether he acted Mumford, or Mumford him.

Event Comment: According to Anthony Aston, A Brief Supplement to Colley Cibber (in Cibber, Apology, ed. Lowe, II, 314-15) Joseph Haynes had a booth at Bartholomew Fair and presented this droll in the first year of James II's reign

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but the Gentleman's Journal, June 1694 (apparently appearing in late June) indicated that both parts of Don Quixote had by then appeared, and the Songs to Part I were announced in the London Gazette, No. 2983, 11-14 June 1694, to be published on 16 June 1694. Very likely Part I appeared in May 1694. The publication of The Songs in the New Play of Don Quixote, Part the First lists the following pieces. Sing, sing, all ye muses, the first song in Act II, composed by Henry Purcell. Young Chrysostome had vertue, sense, the second song in Act II, was composed by John Eccles. The third song in Act II, Sleep, poor youth, was composedy John Eccles. When the world first knew creation, sung in Act III, was composed by Henry Purcell. Let the dreadful engines, sung for Cardenio in Act IV, was set by Henry Purcell. 'Twas early one morning, in Act IV, for Sancho, was set by John Eccles. With this, this sacred charming wand, in Act V for Montesmo, Mellissa and Urganda, was set by Henry Purcell

Event Comment: See Cibber, Apology, I, 201-2, for his account of the mistake Betterton's Company made in not retaining Williams and Mrs Mountfort-Verbruggen, and of the problems of Rich's Company. In this passage Cibber implies that Hamlet, Othello, and Julius Caesar were acted at Drury Lane soon after the division of the companies