Event Comment: [Extra night] Benefit for Bonnor. Afterpiece [1st time; INT 1]: Translated [by Charles Bonnor] from a new Production of Dorvigny, entitled La Fete de Campagne; ou, L'Intendant Comedien malgre Lui, now acting in Paris with uncommon Applause [MS: Larpent 664; not published; in later season occasionally acted under the title of Transformation]. Tickets to be had of Bonnor, No. 19, Piazza, Covent Garden. Bonnor begs leave to inform his Friends and the Public that on account of his Absence at the time his Night was to have been appointed he was induced to decline a Benefit in the course of the Season, but the Manager having obligingly made him an Offer of the Theatre, free of all Expense, and the several Performers kindly engaging to assist him, he has fixed on this Day. Receipts: none listed

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Abington. Pit and Boxes will be laid together. Ladies and Gentlemen are most earnestly requested to come early, to prevent Inconvenience in getting to their Places, and to send their Servants to keep them by Four o'clock. "At the close of the entertainment Mrs Abington came forward, and delivered a short poetical address to her fashionable auditory [written by Maurice Morgann (Monthly Mirror, Nov. 1797, p. 263)], apposite to her feelings on the present occasion" (Morning Herald, 11 Feb.). "The character [of Scrub] throughout was well conceived, and executed with a sprightliness and degree of humour that kept the house in a continual roar of laughter" (Public Advertiser, 11 Feb.) "Mrs Abington's voice was in its usual tone; her manners and deportment were inattentive and torpid, rather than active and interesting" (Morning Post, 11 Feb.). "With all her endeavours to give new points to the character, she entirely failed. Her appearance en culottes, so preposterously padded, exceeded nature. Her gestures to look comical could not get the least hold of the audience, though they had seen her before in men's clothes, when playing Portia in The Merchant of Venice, where her figure, dressed as a lawyer in his gown, gave effect to her excellent delivery on mercy, and the audience had been always delighted. But this leu de benefice, comparatively speaking, was disgusting and absurd as she dressed the character ... However, I have heard it originated in a bet she had previously made" (Henry Angelo, Reminiscenes, 11, 281-82). Receipts: #406 13s. 6d. (249/9/6; 1/9/0; tickets: 155/15/0) (charge: free)