Event Comment: Benefit for Mr and Mrs H. Johnston. 1st piece: Not acted these 2 years. 3rd piece: Not acted here these 10 years [never previously acted at this theatre]. Morning Chronicle, 16 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mr and Mrs Johnston, No. 24, Bedford-street, Covent Garden. The Doors to be opened at 5:30, and to begin at 6:30, and so continue for the remainder of the Season. Receipts: #380 11s. 6d. (168.5.6; 17.1.0; tickets: 195.5.0)

Event Comment: Henry Muddiman, 29 Nov. 1666: The Players have upon great proffers of disposing a large share to charitable uses prevailed to have liberty to act at Both Houses, which they begin this day (CSPD, Charles II, clxxcii, 6, in Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 250). A manuscript prologue for the opening of the theatre in Bridges Street is in J. Payne Collier's MS Restoration Stage History, Part I, p. 106, in the Houghton Library, Harvard. The Diary of John Milward, Esq., ed. Caroline Robbins (Cambridge, 1938), p. 49: This day at my coming to the House [of Commons] it moved that plays might be tolerated and acted in the common theatres, and whether any members of the House of Commons should be admitted to go to acts of the playhouses, but it was not resolved

Event Comment: Henry Savile to the Earl of Rochester, 17 Dec. 1677: I had allmost forgott for another argument to bring you to towne that a French troop of comaedians bound for Nimeguen were by adverse winds cast into this hospitable port and doe act at Whitehall soe very well that it is a thousand pittyes they should not stay, especially a young wench of fifteen, who has more beauty and sweetnesse than ever was seen upon the stage since a friend of our left it (HMC, Bath MSS., 1907, II, 161). W. J. Lawrence (Early French Players in England, pp. 148-49) identifies the French actress as Francoise Pitel, later Mlle Raisin

Event Comment: Henry Cromwell to Alexander Pope, 7 Dec.: We have had a poor comedy of Johnson's (not Ben) which held seven nights, and has got him three hundred pounds, for the town is sharpset on new plays (Pope, I, 136)

Event Comment: Henry II oblig'd to be deferr'd on account of Clarke's Illness. [Bensley took his part in Alexander the Great.

Event Comment: Henry the Eighth [announced on playbill of 3 Jan.] is obliged to be deferred, on Account of the Indisposition of a Principal Performer. Receipts: #209 6s. (205/18; 3/8)

Event Comment: Benefit the Two Sisters, Miss Robinson the Dancer, and Miss Robinson Jr, Captain of the Lilliputians. At the particular Desire of several Ladies of Quality

Event Comment: By Castrucci, first Violin of the Opera. At 7 p.m

Event Comment: Benefit Castrucci, First Violin to the Opera. 7 p.m

Event Comment: At the particular Desire of several Ladies of Quality. Written by the late Sir John Vanbrugh

Event Comment: A Comic Opera (1st time [in London; 1st performed at Rome, 1777]); the Music entirely new, by Anfossi. With new Scenes, painted by Novosielski; new Dresses and Decorations by Sestini, both for the Opera and Dances. By their Majesties Command No Person can be admitted behind the Scenes. Pit 10s. 6d. 1st Gallery 5s. 2nd Gallery 3s. The Doors to be opened at 6:00, and begin exactly at 7:00 [see 7 June 1785]. Subscriptions are received at Messrs Ransom, Moreland and Hammersley's, bankers, No. 57, Pall-mall; who will deliver the Subscription Tickets. The Nobility and Gentry, Subscribers to the Opera-House, are respectfully intreated to send for them, as, in order to prevent future mistakes, no body can be admitted without producing a Ticket

Event Comment: [Not Acted these Sixteen Years. Written by Shakespear, and revis'd by the late Mr Betterton

Event Comment: Mainpiece: A new Comic Opera (in 2 acts); the music by Sacchini. Afterpiece: A serious Opera [1st time; SER I, author unknown; a pasticcio]. The music selected from several eminent Composers [BUC lists only Bertoni]

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 3 years. [Epilogue by David Garrick.] Receipts: #244 15s. 6d. (230.7.0; 13.8.0; 1.0.6)

Event Comment: A Serious Opera [1st time; SER 3, author unknown; a pasticcio]. The Music by several celebrated Composers, and conducted [i.e. arranged] by Bianchi. Public Advertiser, 4 Dec.: Roncaglia was welcomed with merited and very flattering Applause, yet he seemed hurt at sharing with Ansani those marks of public Favour. We exhort them both to remember that Persons of their superior Talents ought to lay aside every petty Prejudice and personal Animosity. "[Ansani] had a finely toned, full, and commanding voice, was a spirited actor, and in the first opera, called Ricimero, sustained the most prominent and important part. But he was unfortunately of a most peevish, quarrelsome temper; Roncaglia was saucy and conceited, and neither could brook the superiority claimed by the other. Their mutual jealousy, and the importance assumed by the tenor soon produced an irreconcilable breach, Ansani threw up his engagement, and the season went on heavily to its close for want of him"(Mount-Edgcumbe, p. 29)

Event Comment: Benefit for Lepicq. Tickets to be had of Lepicq, No. 9, facing the Opera-house, Hay-market. [Public Advertiser, 14 Mar.: La Bigueule composed by Lepicq; music by Borghi.]