Event Comment: [Mainpiece in place of The Force of Ridicule; afterpiece of Richard Coeur de Lion, both advertised on playbill of 28 Nov.] "The new Comedy last night was deferred upon the pretext of Miss Farren's illness...The Manager sent after Mrs Siddons, who was found at Covent-Garden Theatre, seeing Abroad and at Home. Brandon, however, ordered her a chair, and she kindly performed Isabella. Wroughton read the Father" (Oracle, 30 Nov.). "For near an hour the audience waited patiently...At half past seven Palmer addressed the audience" He said that Miss Farren was ill, that to those who preferred to leave the theatre their money would be returned, and that instead of the new play Mrs Siddons would act Isabella, "as soon as the dresses could be prepared for that purpose. This address was by no means favourably received, and hundreds of persons immediately left the house. A few minutes after eight, the Curtain drew up to the tragedy, which was well performed, and much applauded by the few who remained to witness it" (Morning Herald, 30 Nov.). "November 30. Miss Farren last night refused to appear in a new Play at Drury Lane which made much confusion in the House. The cause assigned was indisposition but that was not believed by the audience; and the fact Lysons says is, that as she cannot obtain payment from the Theatre, she resolutely told them she wd. not appear unless her demands were paid...Such is the unprincipled conduct of Sheridan" (Diary of Joseph Farington, 1922, I, 174). [On 1 Dec. Morning Herald prints a letter from Miss Farren, from Green-street, Grosvenor-square. saying that she really was ill. The editor of the paper adds a note in which he affirms his positive knowledge that rumours about a dispute as to Miss Farren's unpaid salary were without foundation.] Receipts: #134 2s. (82.2; 50.18; 1.2)

Event Comment: Benefit for Palmer

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