Event Comment: Benefit for the Fund, established for the Relief of those Performers who, through Infirmity, shall be obliged to retire from the Stage. State of the Theatrical Fund, instituted at Covent Garden in the year 1765, and confirmed by Act of Parliament, 1776. This Institution, calculated to provide for, and relieve aged and infirm Performers and their Families, has not been successful enough during the course of 33 years, to acquire any particular Patronage, but has been raised and supported (some few private Donations and Bequests excepted) merely through the liberal Contributions of its Members. Several aged Persons are now, and have been for many years, oeconomically maintained by it, although the Interest arising from the general Sum already amassed is not equal to one half of the Claims of its Annuitants. The other Portion is entirely supplied from the weekly Contributions of the Performers. Applications to the Public in behalf of this salutary Institution have rarely been made, and sometimes very ineffectually. On these Considerations therefore the Lovers of Dramatic Entertainments are respectfully addressed for their Encouragement at This Evening's Performance. (See Genest, VII, 365-66.) Receipts: #131 7s. (122.13; 1.16; tickets: 6.18)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This apparently was not the first performance, but the time of premiere is not known. Pepys, Diary: My wife and I and Mercer to the Duke's house, and there saw The Rivalls, which is no excellent play, but good acting in it; especially Gosnell comes and sings and dances finely, but, for all that, fell out of the key, so that the musique could not play to her afterwards, and so did Harris also go out of the tune to agree with her. Downes (p. 23): The Rivals, A Play, Wrote by Sir William Davenant; having a very Fine Interlude in it, of Vocal and Instrumental Musick, mixt with very Diverting Dances: M Price introducing the Dancing, by a short Comical Prologue, gain'd him an Universal Applause of the Town....And all the Womens Parts admirably Acted; chiefly Celia, a Shepherdess being Mad for Love; especially in Singing several Wild and Mad Songs