Event Comment: Whereas it has been industriously given out in order to prejudice Mr Barry, that he has frequently of late refused to act, when his health would have permitted; He takes this opportunity of assuring the publick, whose favour it is his highest ambition to deserve, that he scorns to make use of tricks or Evasions of this kind, and that nothing but real illness has, or shall ever oblige him to decline his duty as an actor (General Advertiser). Receipts: #130 (Cross); #144 12s. 6d. (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Afterpiece: By command of the Royal Family. Receipts: #53 9s. 6d

Event Comment: Mainpiece: By Particular Desire. Tickets for Merope will be taken. Benefit for Mr Holland. Tickets at Holland's lodgings, a Peruke-Maker's, opposite Cecil St., Strand. While he was speaking his first Speech to the Ghost, an Ignorant man took up his hat & clapt it upon his head, Holland unconcern'd play'd with it so, & went off wth it, (great Prudence) (Cross). Receipts: #270 (Cross)

Event Comment: Receipts: #74 19s. (Account Book). Mr Barry is engaged at Covent Garden, and will perform the part of King Lear on Monday next

Event Comment: This Farce is suppos'd to be written by Mr King. & was tolerably well receiv'd. The Tunes are very dull (Hopkins). Farce well receiv'd (Cross Diary). Receipts: #144 2s. 6d. (MacMillan)

Event Comment: Both pieces By Particular Desire. Present, The King of Denmark. Receipts: #244 7s. 6d. (Account Book)

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: After dinner I went to the theatre, and there saw Love's Mistress done by them, which I do not like it some things so well as their acting in Salsbury Court. [Although Pepys saw this play on 2 March 1660@1 at Salisbury Court, done by the Duke's Company, here he appears to indicate a rival performance of it by the King's Company in Vere St.]

Event Comment: The King's Company. This play is on the L. C. list, 5@12., p. 17. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 344. Pepys, Diary: And in the evening I do carry them to White Hall, and there did without much trouble get into the playhouse, there in a good place among the Ladies of Honour, and myself also sat in the pit; and there by and by come the King and Queen, and they begun Bartholomew Fayre. But I like no play here so well as at the common playhouse; besides that, my eyes being very ill since last Sunday and this day se'nnight, with the light of the candles, I was in mighty pain to defend myself now from the light of the candles

Event Comment: Peregrine Bertie to the Countess of Rutland, 11 Feb. 1685@6: To-day was the French opera. The King and Queen were there, the musicke was indeed very fine, but all the dresses the most wretched I ever saw; 'twas acted by none but French. A Saturday the Court goes to another play, to take their leaves of those vanitys till after Lent (HMC, 12th Report, Appendix, Rutland MSS., Part V, Vol. II, p. 104). [This performance is on the L. C. list 5@147, p. 125: The King & Queene & a Box for ye Maydes of honor at ye French Opera [the charge for the royal box was increased from #20 to #25 on this occasion]. W. J. Lawrence conjectured that this French opera was Cadmus et Hermione and that Jacques Rousseau, a scene painter of Paris, provided the decor. See W. J. Lawrence, The French opera in London; A Riddle of 1686, TLS, 28 March 1936, p. 268

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 125: The King & Queene & a Box for ye Maydes of honor. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 351. General Patrick Gordon, 6 May 1686: I saw the Scots Batallion exercized in the Hide Park before the King and Queen, and saw the comedy, Rehearsal, acted (Passages from the Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auckleuchbies [Aberdeen, 1859], p. 133)

Event Comment: By Elkanah Settle. Luttrell, A Brief Relation, 29 Oct. 1692: This day the usuall show of lord mayors, where the king and queen dined, most of the nobility, &c., but the prince and princesse were not invited: the feast was at charge of lord mayor and court of alderman: the lord mayor subscribed 300#, each she rife, 150#, and the aldermen 50# apeice: the kings regiment of foot guards was all in new cloths, and the horse guards too: the militia of Middlesex were as a guard in the Strand, and the artillery, with silver and steell headpeices, lined tne streets where the mayor came

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Pritchard. Mainpiece: Not acted these 7 years [see 2 May 1744]. Tickets and places of Mrs Pritchard, at her house next the chapel in Great Queen St., Lincoln's Inn Fields, and of Hobson at the Stage Door. Five rows of Pit will be rail'd into the Boxes. [Stage as of 10 March.] Paid Blandford (Tallow Chandler) #18 17s. 3d.; Paid Blakes for 2 wiggs #3 3s.; Paid Mrs Pritchard for a ticket as per agreement #10 10s.; Norton 1 chorus 5s. (Treasurer's Book). Receipts: #220 (Cross); charges, #60 (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Pritchard. By Particular Desire. Part of Pit laid into Boxes. Servants admitted to keep places on the Stage. Ladies are desired to send servants by 3 o'clock. Play to begin at 6. Tickets and places to be had of Mrs Pritchard in Great Queen Street, and at the stage door of the theatre. Receipts: #200 (Cross)

Event Comment: Text--Goldoni; first performance in England. Music by Sg Vinceni Ciampi. Play a New Italian Burletta. Printed books of the opera will be sold at the theatre. Ladies send servants at half three. [The Epilogue (Larpent MS 117) suggests lovemaking in crowded theatres (see 8 Jan. 1755)]: @Close pack'd they sit and woo with secret squeeze,@Attracting elbows, sympathetic knees...

Event Comment: By Command of their Majesties. King and Queen (Cross Diary)