Event Comment: Mainpiece: Written by the late
Mr Congreve,
London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 2 Oct.: Last Night in the Entertainment of
Dr Faustus...when the Machine wherein were
Harlequin,
the Miller's Wife,
the Miller and his
the Miller's Man, was got up to the full Extent of its flying, one of the Wires which held up the hind part of the Car broke first, and then the other broke, and the Machine, and
all the People in it fell down Upon the Stage; by which unhappy Accident the young Woman who personated the Miller's Wife
had her Thigh broke, and her Kneepan shatter'd, and was otherways very much bruised, the Harlequin
had his Head bruised, and his Wrist strained; the Miller broke his Arm; and the Miller's Man
had his Scull so fractured that his Life in despaired of.
Thomas Gray to
Horace Walpole, 6 Oct.:
Covent Garden has given me a sort of surfeit of
Mr Rich and his cleverness, for I was at [
cg] when the machine broke t'other night; the house was in amaze for above a minute, and I dare say a
great many in the g
alleries thought it very desterously performed, and that they screamed as natur
ally as heart could wish, till they found it was no jest, by their c
alling for surgeons, of whom several luckily happened to be in the pit. I stayed to see the poor creatures brought out of the house, and pity poor
Mrs Buchanan not a little, whom I saw put into a chair in such a fright that as she is big with child, I question whether it may not kill her.-
Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Thomas Gray, I, 113-14