Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Siddons. Part of the Pit [9 rows (London Chronicle, 5 Apr.)] will be laid into the Boxes. To prevent Confusion Ladies are desired to send their Servants by half past Four. Morning Chronicle, 4 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Siddons, No 49, Marlborough-street. Receipts: #412 11s. (212.2.0; 10.18.6; 0.0.6; tickets: 189.10.0) (charge: free)

Event Comment: 3rd piece [1st time; F 2, by Charles Stuart, "from the Spanish"; on 2 Sept. reduced to 1 act. Prologue by the author (see text)]. "The Piece, we understand, was originally founded on some topics that have of late engrossed the conversation of much of the fashionable world...The Lord Chamberlain thought [it] too delicate a nature to appear with the allusions and title it then bore, She would be a Duchess. The consequence was that the offensive bits were expunged and the piece re-christened...It would be unfair to make any observations...in the mutilated stage it was presented" (Public Advertiser, 15 Aug.). "Some part of the plot was supposed to allude to the late occurrences in the family of General John? Gunning, who was indulged with the privilege of erasing [from the MS] that which he disliked, and who reduced it to its present feeble and unconnected form" (Gazetteer, 15 Aug.). [The reference in the original title is to the simultaneous flirtation of Miss Elizabeth Gunning, the General's daughter, with the eldest sons of the Dukes of Marlborough and Argyll (see dnb, under Susannah Gunning). She would be a Duchess: in Larpent MS 915.

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Siddons. To prevent Confusion, Ladies and Gentlemen are desired to send their Servants by Half past Four o'Clock. Mainpiece: In I The Cardinal's Banquet. In II the Court for the Trial of Queen Katharine. In V a Grand Procession to the Christening of Princess Elizabeth. Morning Herald, 7 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Siddons, No. 49, Great Marlborough-street. Receipts: #493 16s. (258.15.6; 25.13.0; 1.16.0; tickets: 207.11.6) (charge: #159 8s. 10d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for R. Palmer. Morning Herald, 17 May: Tickets to be had of R. Palmer, Marlborough-place, Kennington. Receipts: #345 5s. (81.12; 35.13; 8.18; tickets: 219.2) (charge: #173 5s. 8d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for R. Palmer. Morning Herald, 30 July: Tickets to be had of R. Palmer, No. 8, Marlborough Place, Kennington

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Siddons. Mainpiece [1st time; T 5, by Arthur Murphy. Prologue by John Philip Kemble (see text). Author of Epilogue unknown; European Magazine, Apr. 1793, p. 306, prints two Epilogues: the one spoken by Mrs Siddons, and the one "as originally written by Thomas? Vaughan"]. Morning Herald, 20 Mar. 1793: This day is published The Rival Sisters (1s. 6d.). Morning Herald, 25 Feb.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Siddons, No. 49, Great Marlborough-street. Receipts: #451 6s. 6d. (243.1.0; 21.18.0; 1.18.0; tickets: 184.9.6) (charge: #154 9s. 8d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Siddons. Mainpiece: Translated from Voltaire. Not acted these 20 years [acted l6 Nov. 1779]. Afterpiece: Not acted these 18 years [not acted since 19 Apr. 1774]. Morning Chronicle, 9 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Siddons, No. 49, Great Marlborough-street. [Mrs Siddons's 1st appearance as Palmyra was at Manchester, 1 Apr. 1778. Adress by Samuel Rogers (European Magazine, May 1795, p. 344). Epilogue by David Garrick.] Receipts: #569 8s. 6d. (293.14.6; 59.10.6; 8.0.0; tickets:208.3.6) (charge:#204 1s.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Middleton. 3rd piece [in place of The Frolics of an Hour, advertised on playbill of 1 June]: Engagement and Funeral Processionv as 6 May. Morning Chronicle, 30 May: Tickets to be had of Middleton, No. 53, Great Marlborough-street, Oxford-street. Receipts: #172 9s. 6d. (106.3.0; 6.9.0; tickets: 59.17.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Siddons, and the Last Night of her Engagement [see 6 and 16 May]. Mainpiece: Never acted here [1st acted at Bath, 1 Jan. 1788, as Such Things Were. Prologue by Richard Graves (Public Advertiser, 28 Jan. 1788)]. Oracle, 18 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Siddons, No. 49, Great Marlborough-street. Receipts: #590 14s. (292.16.0; 51.13.0; 4.10.0; tickets: 235.6.6; odd money: 6.8.6) (charge: #213 17s. 4d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Siddons. 1st piece: Never acted in this Theatre. [Prologue by George Colman, elder. Monologue by Hester Lynch Piozzi (European Magazine, May 1797, p. 343).] True Briton, 12 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Siddons, No. 49, Great Marlborough-street. "The scenery destroyed much of the effect of the tragedy; for the characters are supposed to be 'steeped in poverty to the very lips;' and yet their apartments would have become a family in the meridian of wealth and prosperity. Mrs Siddons was also too well dressed for Mrs Wilmot" (Monthly Mirror, May 1797, p. 308). "In the scene in which [Mrs Siddons's] son having put into her hands a casket to keep, and she having touched a spring it opens and she sees jewels, her husband (Kemble) enters, and in despair exclaims, 'Where shall we get bread?' With her eyes fixed on the jewels, she runs to him, knocks the casket against her breast and exclaims, 'Here! Here!' In Mrs Siddons's tone and in her look there was an anticipation of the murder which was to take place" (Robinson, I, 39). Receipts: #618 2s. (386.8.6; 43.19.0; 2.4.0; tickets: 185.10.6) (charge: #211 1s.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Siddons. [Epilogue by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.] Times, 9 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Siddons, No. 49, Great Marlborough-street. Receipts: #508 8s. 6d. (296.10.0; 58.2.0; 3.12.0; tickets: 150.4.6) (charge: #212 3s. 6d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Siddons. Morning Chronicle, 20 May: Tickets to be had of Mrs Siddons, No. 49, Great Marlborough-street. Receipts: #439 12s. 6d. (228.14.6; 40.6.0; 0.16.0; tickets: 169.16.0) (charge: free)

Event Comment: This performance was recorded by Count Dona of Sweden (Seaton, Literary Relationships, pp. 337-38). Evelyn, Diary: This Evening I saw the Trajedie of Horace (written by the virtuous Mrs Philips) acted before their Majesties: 'twixt each act a Masque & Antique: daunced: The excessive galantry of the Ladies was infinite, Those especially on that...Castlemaine esteemed at 40,000 pounds & more: & far out shining the Queene &c. BM Add. Mss. 36916, folio 62: This night there is a play Acted at court by the Dutchess of Monmouth Countess of Castlemain and others. The Countess is adorned with Jewells to the Value of #200,000 the Crowne Jewells being taken from the Tower for her. There are none but the Nobility admitted to see it. The play is Madam Phillips translation of Corneiles Horace, finished by Sr John Denham

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. See Duffett's burlesque, above. The Diary of Robert Hooke, 6 Dec. 1673: Saw Empress of Morocco at Duke's Theatre. 1s. 6d. Dutchess of York? there

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Newdigate newsletters, 5 Aug. 1682: [Yesterday the] Dutchess goes to ye Dukes Theatre--that and ye Kings house haveing Joyned interests the latter being Discontinued where will be purposely Acted for her Anna Bullen being a deepe Tragedy of the beheading of the said Lady by Henry the 8th (Wilson, Theatres Notes from the Newdigate Newsletters, p. 81). See also London Mercury, 8 Aug. 1682. Juliana Brabazon to the Countess of Rutland, Aug. 1682: The Dutches of Yorke kept her bed the day after seeing Anna Bulloigne acted (HMC, 12th Report, Rutland MSS., Part V, 1889, p. 77)

Event Comment: At the particular Desire of several Ladies of Quality. Receipts: #106 7s. 6d. Rich's Register: Bespoke by the Dutchess of Richmond