Event Comment: Samuel Pepys to Robert Southwell, 10 Oct. 1685: To night wee have had a mighty Musique--Entertainment at court for the welcoming home the King and Queen. Wherein the fraequent Returnes of the Words, Arms, Beauty, Triumph, Love, Progeny Peace, Dominion, Glory, &c. had apparently cost our Poet-Prophet more paine to finde Rhimes then Reasons (R. G. Howard, Letters and the Second Diary of Samuel Pepys [London, 1932], p. 171. [The entertainment for this occasion seems not to have survived.

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance ison the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 68: Sr Phoplyn. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. The Earl of Middleton to Sir George Etherege, 7 Dec. 1685: Every week there are plays at court. The last time Sir Fopling appeared with the usual applause, and the King was pleased to tell me that he expected you should put on your socks (Letterbook of Sir George Etherege, ed. Rosenfeld, p. 345)

Event Comment: The United Company. An order (L. C. 5@147, p. 52, in Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 356), dated 19 Dec. 1685, calls for a payment of #20 for the King and Queen at Alexander, but the order does not indicate whether the performance occurred on this date

Event Comment: The United Company. Peregrine Bertie to the Countess of Rutland. 6 Feb. 1685@6: Thursday was acted Mithridates? for the Queen and Goodman played (HMC, 12th Report, Appendix, Rutland MSS., Part V, Vol. II, p. 104). [In L. C. 5@147, is a warrant to pay Mrs Barry for two plays-Valentinian and Mithridates-acted before the King and Queen, #40. The date of the warrant is 8 May 1686. If this warrant represents payment for this performance of Mithridates, probably Valentinian was acted in 1686.

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. 350. A reprint of this play in 1687 has the cast of the 1674 edition

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of this Performance is stated as 16 Feb. (L. C. records) or 17 Feb. (Peregrine Bertie), but as Lent began on Wednesday 17 Feb., the performance probably occurred on Shrove Tuesday. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, P. 125. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 350. Peregrine Bertie to the Countess of Rutland, 17 Feb. 1685@6: To night will be the last play at court, they tell mee 'tis the Mocke Astrologer (HMC, 12th Report, Appendix, Rutland MSS., Part V, p. 105). John Povey to Sir Robert Southwell, 18 Feb. 1685@6: Sir, the enclosed had been sent last post, had it not been detained late by a play at Court which ended our Carnival. The night before the King and Queen were entertained by the Lord President at a ball or masque in Lady Portsmouth's lodgings. The Masquers were twelve couples whose habits were of several nations' and prescribed by a picture sent to each of them from the Queen, and the least habit cost !bove a hundred Pounds, and some above three hundred pounds, besides jewels of which Mrs Fox and some others had above thirty thousand pounds value each (Savile-Finch Correspondence, Add. Mss. 28,569; I owe this quotation to Professor John Harold Wilson)

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

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on L. C. list, 5@147, p. 260: The King & Queene & a Box for ye Maydes of honor. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 351. Langhans, New Restoration Theatre Accounts, pp. 127-28, thinks that acting resumed on 27 Sept. 1686 and continued to 25 June 1687, with 30 Performances from 25 June to 12 Oct

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 260: The King & Queene & a box for ye Maydes of Honor. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 351

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 361: The King & Queene & a Box for ye Maides of Honor at ye Rehearsall. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 351

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 361: The King & Queene & a Box for ye Maides of Honor. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 351

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 361: The King at ye Mistress. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 351. There is no indication as to whether this performance was the premiere. As the play was licensed on 24 May 1687, the premiere may have been as late as 12 May, but possibly was earlier. Sir George Etherege to Will Richards, 19 May 1687: I have heard of the success of The Eunuch, and am very glad the town has so good a taste to give the same just applause to Sir Charles Sedley's writing, which his friends have always done to his conversation (Letterbook, ed. Rosenfeld, p. 212). Sir George Etherege to Middleton, 2O June 1687: I saw a play about ten years ago Called the Eunuch, so heavy a lump the players durst not charge themselves with the dead weight, but it seems Sir Charles Sedley has animated the mighty mass and now it treads the stage lightly (ibid., p. 227). [See also 26 March 1687 and season of 1676-77.] Thomas Shadwell, The Tenth Satyr of Juvenal (licensed, 25 May 1687.) Dedication to Sir Charles Sedley: Your late great obligation in giving me the advantage [presumably the third day's gain] of your comedy, call'd Bellamira, or the Mistress, has given me a fresh subject for my Thanks; and my Publishing this Translation affords me a new opportunity of owning to the world my grateful resentments to you. I am heartily glad that your Comedy (as I never doubted) found such success, that I never met with any Man of Sence but applauded it: And that there is abundance of Wit in it, your Enemies have been forced to confess....For the Judgment of some Ladies upon it that it is obscene, I must needs say they are Ladies of a very quick apprehension, and did not find their thoughts lye very much that way, they could not find more obscenity in that than there is in every other Comedy. A song, Thyrsis unjustly you complain, headed A Song in Bellamira, or, the Mistress. Set by Mr Tho. Shadwell, is in Vinculum Societatis, 1687 (licensed 8 June 1687)

Event Comment: Newdigate newsletters (Folger Shakespeare Library), 22 Oct. 1687: There are to be 5 Pageants on the Ld Mayors day one representing Liberty by a Beautifull young Lady attended with Riches Plenty and ffreedom &c. (transcribed by Professor John Harold Wilson). Luttrell (A Brief Relation, I, 418): The 29th was the anniversary of the lord mayors show, the new one, sir John Shorter, now entring on his office; the shew was splendid and the entertainment great, according to custome: his majestie, with the prince of Denmark, did the citty the honour to dine with them at Guildhall, as also the nobility, foreign ministers, amongst which was the popes nuncio (who was invited particularly by some of the aldermen): the streets were new gravell'd all that morning on one side of the way, from Charing-crosse to the citty, for his majesties passage. His majestie was well satisfied with the whole entertainment. The Duke of Beaufort to the Duchess, 29 Oct. 1687 [a summary, apparently]: Has just come from the greatest entertainment he ever saw at a Lord Mayor's feast in the city, and the best ordered, though there was the greatest concourse there and in the streets that was ever known, and the greatest acclamations, all through the city as the King passed. The Queen did not dare venture, remembering that the Bristol entertainment had put her out of order, but all the nobility in town, and the foreign ministers were there. The Pope's Nuncio in particular was invited by the Lord Mayor and nobly entertained (HMC, 12th Report, Appendix, Beaufort MSS., Part IX, pp. 90-91)

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@148, p. 145. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 351. By this time Henry Purcell had apparently composed the Act tunes for this play. See Purcell, Works, The Purcell Society, XVI (1906), xxxii. Luttrell [A Brief Relation, I, 431): The 6th was observed as a festival of joy for the king s comeing to the crown;...and at night was a play at court

Event Comment: The United Company. BM Sloane MS 3929, newsletter: 19 May 1688: On Munday last the King prince and princess were to see a play called the Squire of Alsatia. [I owe this quotation to Professor John Harold Wilson.

Event Comment: Luttrell, A Brief Relation: The 18th, upon the water before Whitehall, in a great barge, was performed an exercise of musick, vocall and instrumental, by the kings musick (I, 445). B. M. Sloane MS 3929, newsletter, 23 June 1688: on Monday night a great performance was upon the water of Vocal and Instrumental Musique in a Barge borrowed from one of the Companies of London stuck around with lighted fflambeaux, and many of the Nobility and Gentry invited thereto (transcribed by Professor John Harold Wilson). J. Pulver, A Biographical Dictionary of Old English Music (London, 1927), under John Abell: The Barge was decorated and illuminated by numerous torches....The performers, vocal and instrumental, amounted to one hundred and thirty....Nobility and company that was upon the water gave three shouts to express their joy and satisfaction; and all the gentlemen of the musick went to Mr Abell's house, which was nobly illuminated and honoured with the presence of a great Company of the nobility

Event Comment: In The Theatre of Compliment, 1688, are verses similar to those apparently referring to August 1686: @Here is the Rarity of the whole Fair,@Pimper-la-Pimp, and the Wise Dancing Mare;@Here's valiant St George and the Dragon, a farce;@Here's Vienna Besieged, a most delicate thing;@And here's Punchinello, shown thrice to the King.@ John Verney entertained some of his wife's family who were in town to see Bartholomew Fair. See Memoirs of the Verney Family, ed. Margaret M. Verney (London, 1699), IV, 435

Event Comment: London Gazette, No 2500, 24-28 Oct. 1699: Whereas the Consort of Musick, lately in Bow-street, being remov'd to York Buildings, intended to have begun this present Munday, but upon an urgent occasion, are forc'd to defer it till the Monday after the King's Birth-day, being the 11th of November, and so continue every Munday for the future. [See also 17 Oct. 1689.

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@149, p. 368: The Queene a Box, and a Box for the Maids Honor at Don Sebastian King of Portugal. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 352. There is no certainly that this is the first performance. The play was entered in the Stationers' Register, 15 Dec. 1689. See also Charles E. Ward, The Life of John Dryden (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1961), pp. 242-46. Preface, Edition of 1690: I am...to acknowledge, with all manner of gratitude, their civility; who were pleas'd to endure it with so much patience....Above twelve hundred lines have been cut off from this tragedy since it was first deliver'd to the actors. They were indeed so judiciously lopt by Mr Betterton, to whose care and excellent action I am equall y oblig'd, that the connexion of the story was not lost. Does a cryptic remark by Huygens, 3 Dec. 1689 OS, refer to this play: Dat dat geklap met de handen in comedie, onlanxgebeurt, als er gesproken wierd van een Coning, die wederom quam in sign rijck, van seer quade consequentie was. Dat voorseker de Con. too mercifull was, en dat er mosten exempelen gestatueert werden (Journal van Constantijn Huygens, Dutch Historical Society Transactions, New Series, XXIII [Utrecht, 18-212)

Event Comment: Luttrell (A Brief Relation, II, I): The same day [1 Jan.] the king and queen came to Whitehall, where many of the nobility and gentry came to wish them a happy new year; and there was a great consort of musick, vocal and instrumental, and a song composed by the poet laureat

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but the fact that the separately printed Prologue and Epilogue bear a licensing date of 17 March 1689@90 suggests a first performance near that date, as on many Previous occasions the separately-printed prologues and epilogues appeared almost simultaneously with the first performance. The Prologue and Epilogue are reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 287-89. A song, I once had virtue, wealth, and fame, the music by R. King, is in The Banquet of Musick, The Fifth Book, 1691

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but the Dedication is dated 5 May 1690; the play was entered in the Term Catalogues, May 1690; and it was advertised in the London Gazette, No. 2557, 12-15 May 1690. Although the play may not have been first acted until mid-April, it may have been given in late March 1690. Dedication, Edition of 1690: I have no reason to complain of the reception of this Play. A song, The fire of love in youthful blood, the music composed by R. King, is in Apollo's Banquet, 1691

Event Comment: The United Company. This play was apparently never published, but it was mentioned in the Prologue to King Edward the Third (ca. Nov. 1690) and again in tne Gentleman's Journal, Jan. 1691@2. Gentleman's Journal, Jan. 1691@2: You have often ask'd me, who was the author of that, call'd The Gordian Knot unty'd; and wondred, with many more, why it was never printed. I hear that Gentleman who writ lately a most ingenious Dialogue concerning Women, now translated into French, is the Author of that witty Play, and it is almost a Sin in him to keep It and his name from the world. [This statement points to William Walsh's A Dialogue Concerning Women, Being a Defence of the Sex. Written to Eugenia (London, 1691).] Henry Purcell wrote the instrumental music for this work. See Purcell's Works, Purcell Society, XX (1916), vii

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 369. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 352. In L. C. 5@150, p. 156, is an order to prepare the stage for the play, and, in L. C. 5@150, p. 164, is another order for new equipment. Luttrell, A Brief Relation, II, 125: The 4th, being his majesties birth day...and at night was a consort of musick, and a play afterwards. Matthew Prior wrote A Pindarique Ode which was sung before Their Majesties at court on this day. See The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, ed. H. B. Wright and M. K. Spears (Oxford, 1959), I, 96-98; II, 858. Cibber, Apology, I, 128: The agreeable was so natural to [Mountfort], that even in that dissolute Character of the Rover he seem'd to wash off the Guilt from Vice, and gave it Charms and Merit. For tho' it may be a Reproach to the Poet to draw such Characters not only unpunish'd but rewarded, the Actor may still be allow'd his due Praise in his excellent Performance. And this is a Distinction which, when this Comedy was acted at Whitehall, King William's Queen Mary was pleas'd to make in favour of Monfort, notwithstanding her Disapprobation of the Play