Event Comment: Betterton's Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but the fact that it was advertised in the Post Boy, 27-29 Feb. 1695@6 and entered in the Term Catalogues, February 1695@6, suggests that it was probably acted not later than January 1695@6. It may have appeared around the turn of the year. One song, While Phillis does drink, set by John Eccles and sung by Coper; and another, So well Corinna likes the joy, the composer not named but sung by Young Laroch, a Boy of seven, are in Deliciae Musicae, The First Book of the Second Volume, 1696. Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 45: A Comedy, wrote by Mr George Greenvil, when he was very Young; Extraordinary Witty, and well Acted; but offending the Ears of some Ladies who set up for Chastity, it made its Exit. A Comparison Between the Two Stages (1702), p. 20: And a good Comedy, tho it had the Misfortune to be ill receiv'd

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Martyr. 3rd piece [1st time: F 2, by Edmund John Eyre. Text (Shrewsbury: P. Sandford, 1791) correctly assigns Prolix to Wilson. Prologue by John Wolcot (see text)]. Morning Chronicle, 29 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Martyr, No. 16, Martlett-court, Bow-street, Covent Garden. Receipts: #318 4s. (153.3; 2.5; tickets: 162.16)

Event Comment: By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Under the Patronage of several Persons of Distinction. Beneath the immediate Direction of a Venerable Veteran of the Stage. Afterpiece [1st time; C 2, author unknown. Not in Larpent MS; not published]: Reduced into Two Acts, from The Provok'd Wife

Event Comment: For reports on the Lord Mayor's Day, see Luttrell, A Brief Relation, I, 139-40, and The Impartial Protestant Mercury, No 55, 28 Oct.-1 Nov. 1681

Event Comment: Benefit the Author, Mr Johnson of Chesire. Never Acted before. [See Remains of John Byrom, Vol. I, Part II, pp. 349-50.

Event Comment: By Thomas Jordan. Luttrell (A Brief Relation, I, 232). There was little or no show by land. The expenditures for the Procession came to #139 9s. 10d. See R. T. D. Sayle, Lord Mayors' Pageants of the Merchant Taylors' Company in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, p. 139

Event Comment: At Cushing's Booth, facing the King's Head, Smithfield. The tragedy contains the barbarous contrivances of King John against his nephew Prince Arthur; his method of persuading Hubert to undertake the cruel murder of that youth; the sufferings of Arthur in his confinement, where Hubert attempts to put out eyes with a red-hot iron, til moved to compassion by the tender entreating of the young prince, he quits his horrid purpose. The manner of Arthur's leaping from the battlements of the tower where he was imprisoned, when by attempting to escape his severe treatment he loses his life. The terrors that attended the villainous Uncle King John, and at length his dreadful death, who is poisoned in the midst of all his glory, and in terrible anguish and distraction, pays his nephew's blood with the price of his own. The comic contains the exquisite drolleries of Sir Lubberly and his man, their whimsical journey from Cumberland, and no less whimsical exploits in London; the odd reception they met with from their three faithful friends, Tom Rash the Porter, Jeffrey Holdfast the Constable, and Moll Tatter the Beggar Woman, the one getting a wife, the other a bastard

Event Comment: Benefit Delane. Mainpiece: As written by Shakespear. Tickets deliver'd for Monday the 9th will be taken. Tickets to be had of Delane at his lodgings at the Unicorn in New Exchange Row in the Strand. Places of Hobson at the stage door. There is now in rehearsal at the Theatre Royal [dl] and speedily will be acted, a new Petit Piece in imitation of that species of writing on the French Theatre call'd The Suspicious Husband Criticiz'd; or the Plague of Envy (General Advertiser). [A Folger edition of 1750 entitled Chorus for Shakespear's Tragedy of King John lists songs by Sullivan, Mrs Lampe, Mrs Storer, and Mrs Mozeen; the play had no other performance at a London theatre in the interim between 1747 and 1750.