Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Although this performance is not certainly the premiere, it is the earliest known acting of the play. This performance is on the L. C. lists at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", p. 14. John Boyle, Fifth Earl of Orrery: Master Anthony too the sequel of Guzman was after Lord Orrery's Death brought upon the Stage, but being disrelish'd by the Audience appear'd only one Night. It is probable The Author had not supervis'd and corrected It sufficiently before he died (The Dramatic Works of Roger Boyle, ed. W. S. Clark II, II, 950). If these private notes, written some fifty years after the premiere, are correct, this performance may have been the premiere and the only day of acting it

Event Comment: Newsletter, 7 April: Last evening their Majesties were diverted with a comedy acted at St James's by the little young ladies of the Court, who appeared extraordinarily glorious and covered with jewels (HMC, Fleming MSS. 12th Report, VII, 70). This may have been a performance of The Faithful Shepherdess which was entered by Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington, in his diary, 2 April 1670 [error for 6 April (?)]: I saw Lady Mary, daughter of the Duke of York, and many young ladies act the Faithful Shepherdess very finely (Diary, Volume V, in Chatsworth. I owe this entry to Professor Kathleen Lynch). In Covent Garden Drollery, 1672 (ed. G. Thorn-Drury), p. 68, is an Epilogue spoken by the Lady Mary Mordaunt, before the King and Queen at court, to the Faithful Shepherdess. As Lady Mary was then about twelve, this Epilogue seems to confirm the possibility that the play was The Faithful Shepherdess acted by amateurs

Event Comment: On this day and on Friday the 20th the Duke's players gave The Impertinents; or, The Sullen Lovers or Sir Salomon. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 29) lists these as the two plays presented by the Duke's Company, but no contemporary statement indicates for certain which play was given on each day. The Journal of Sir Richard Bulstrode: Yesterday [19] at five of ye clocke, the Court were entertained with a comedy acted by the Duke's player (The Bulstrode Papers, 1879, I, 139). Saturday 28 May 1670: The absence of the court which continues at Dover till Wensday next makes us very barren of news. There is the greatest gallantry and mirth imaginable. The Dukes players have beene there all the time past came up yesterday and the kings goe downe this day (Aston Papers, Vol. XVI, Add. Mss. 36916, folio 182)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. lists at Harvard, but the entry does not specify the day. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", p. 16. The play was not published until 1706, and the cast in an edition of that year represents one for performances nearer the date of publication. There is no indication of the date of the premiere

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. lists at Harvard: and two Boxes for H. Prince of Orange. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", p. 16

Event Comment: [The King's Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but a letter--see 2 Jan. 1670@1--indicates that the first part had been acted before that date and that Part II was to be shortly staged. The point of the Prologue spoken by Ellen Gwyn seems to have derived from an incident at Dover (see Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 20) in May 1670, when James Nokes attired himself in a ridiculous fashion, including "Broad wast Belts." The speakers of the Epilogue and the Prologue to the Second Part are mentioned in Sir William Haward's MS (Bodl. MS Don. b., pp. 248-49); see The Poems of John Dryden, ed. James Kinsley (Oxford, 1958), IV, 1848-49. In Part I a song Beneath a myrtle shade, with music by John Bannister, is in Choice Songs and Ayres, First Book, 1673. Another, Wherever I am, with music by Alphonso Marsh, is in the same collection, as is also How unhappy a lover am I, the music by Nicholas Staggins. Mrs John Evelyn to Mr Bohun, ca. Jan. 1670@1: Since my last to you I have seen The Siege of Grenada, a play so full of ideas that the most refined romance I ever read is not to compare with it; love is made so pure, and valour so nice, that one would image it designed for an Utopia rather than our stage. I do not quarrel with the poet, but admire one born in the decline of morality should be able to feign such exact virtue; and as poetic fiction has been instructive in former ages, I wish this the same event in ours. As to the strict law of comedy I dare not pretend to judge: some think the division of the story is not so well if it could all have been comprehended in the day's actions (The Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, ed. William Bray, IV, 25). According to John Evelyn--see 9 Feb. 1670@1--Robert Streeter did some of the scenes for this play. In the Preface to The Fatal Discovery, ca. February 1697@8, George Powell, in discussing revivals of Dryden's plays, stated: In relation to our reviving his Almanzor...very hard crutching up what Hart and Mohun could not prop

Event Comment: The Prologue and Epilogue to Sir William Cartwright's The Ordinary were printed in A Collection of Poems Written Upon Several Occasions, 1673, and the play was licensed for a revival, the date of the license being 15 January 1671. See The Plays and Poems of Sir William Cartwright, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Madison, Wisc., 1951), p. 262. The fact that this day falls on Sunday and the fact that the Prologue and Epilogue were printed in 1673, raise the possibility that this date should be regarded as 15 January 1671@2 rather than 15 January 1670@1

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This performance is on the L. C. lists at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", p. 18: The New Utopia. There is no indication as to whether this performance was the premiere. The Preface refers to malice against the plays, and the edition of 1671 has a poem: To the Author of the New Utopia. On the Miscarriage of his Play in Acting

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. The date of the first performance is quite uncertain, but the fact that the Prologue was spoken at Lincoln's Inn Fields and refers to that theatre as "a damn'd House," appropriate to its status before the Company's removal to Dorset Garden (9 Nov. 1671), would place it in the early autumn. The presence of unfamiliar names in the cast and the statement in the Dedication to its "hasty Representation" suggest a summer or early autumn performance before the principals had resumed their places in the Company. See Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 424, for other complications in the dating of this play

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 32) states: The first new Play Acted there, was King Charles the VIII. of France; it was all new Cloath'd, yet lasted but 6 Days together, but 'twas Acted now and then afterwards. Two songs for this play, Too justly alas, set by James Hart, and O love if e'er thou'lt ease a heart, set by Pelham Humphrey, are in Choice Songs and Ayres, First Book, 1673