Event Comment: The Diary of Robert Hooke: Saw the Dutch woeman in Bartholomew fair, very strange

Event Comment: The Diary of Robert Hooke (p. 423): At Bartholomew fair Saw Elephant wave colours, shoot a gun, bend and kneel, carry a castle and a man

Event Comment: BM Egerton 1628, Diary of Edward Southwell: Saw the Morocco Ambassador at the Play

Event Comment: The United Company. That the King saw a play on this evening is indicated by the Newdigate newsletters, but the reference to the play is not by title. The play which most closely fits the brief description is The Duke of Guise. Newdigate newsletters, 24 May 1684: [In] the Evening his Matye is Entertained with Mr Dryden s new play the subject of which is the last new Plott (Wilson, More Theatre Notes from the Newdigate Newsletters, p. 59)

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is known from a playbill. See Eleanore Boswell, A Playbill of 1687, Library, 4th Series, XI (1931), 499-502, and Cecil Price, A Playbill, c. 1686, Notes and Queries, Vol. 194 [1949), p. 519. The bill Price saw is in the State Papers James II, 31@3, ff. 215-16, among documents referring to 1686, but the date and day of the week point to 1687. The bill reads: At the Theatre Royall this present Tuesday being the Twenty second day of February will be presented, A Play called, A King, and No King. Beginning Exact...t Four of the Clock....their Majesties Servants. VIVAT REX

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. The Gentleman's Journal, January 1691@2: The Indian Emperor hath been reviv'd and play'd many times. [In addition, a song, I look'd, I look'd, and saw within the Book of Fate, the music by Henry Purcell, is in The Banquet of Musick, 1692, pp. 14-15. See also Purcell, Works, Purcell Society, XX (1916), xiii-ix. The play was also reprinted in 1692.

Event Comment: Thura, a Danish student, saw this droll. See Seaton, Literary Relationships, p. 339

Event Comment: Rich's Company. The fact that Lady Morley saw a performance on 25 Nov. 1696 and that the play was a success suggests a run of at least six performances

Event Comment: From 16 Jan. 1696@7 to 18 May 1702 James Brydges, afterwards first Duke of Chandos, kept a diary in which he recorded, among other events, his attendance at the theatre. Unfortunately, his first entry dealing with the playhouses, like many other similar entries, does not name the play he saw; on 22 Jan. 1696@7 he wrote: my Uncle Warwick Lake? carried me to ye Playhouse. [For an account of his theatrical entries, see Lucyle Hook, James Brydges Drops in at the Theatre, Huntington Library Bulletin, VIII (1945), 306-11.

Event Comment: James Brydges, Diary: About 5 my Coz: Roberts & I went to ye Playhouse in Covent Garden, but not liking ye play, wee went to that in Lincolns inn fields, & staid till 'twas done. I saw Ld Normanby, Ld Willouby, Sir Rich. Samford &c. here (Huntington MS St 26)

Event Comment: James Brydges, Diary: Toward seven...to ye Playhouse in Lincolns Inn fields; here I saw Mr Freeman, Mr Worsely, Sr Edwd Ernly &c.: from hence I went to ye Playhouse in Covent Garden, thinking to have met my Brother Frank, Sister Jacob &c.: there, but did not. I sat with Mr Cook of Darby, & spoke with Mr Winninton &c. (Huntington MS ST 26)

Event Comment: At the Desire of several Ladies of Quality. Lady Hervey to John Hervey, 26 April: Yesterday I dined with Lady Dalkeith, and she and Lady Katt: supd with me after the Opera, which was as full as ever I saw it at a subscription, but that was by way of party, in order to get it empty on Saturday (Hervey, I, 301)

Event Comment: Post Boy, 26 Sept.: On Friday last, his Royal Highness the Prince came incognito to Southwark-Fair, and saw the Droll at Penkethman's, and after at Bullock and Leigh's Booth

Event Comment: The Spartan Dame advertised, but The Orphan Reviv'd or Powell's Weekly Journal, 19 Dec., states: On Monday Night his Mae Author. The Spartan Dame advertised, but The Orphan Reviv'd or Powell's Weekly Journal, 19 Dec., states: On Monday Night his Majesty came to the playhouse in Drury-Lane, and saw the Comedy of the Busie Body

Event Comment: At Lee's Great Booth, over-against the Hospital Gate. Mainpiece. that celebrated Entertainment (which gave such Satisfaction to all the Quality and Gentry that saw it)

Event Comment: At the particular Desire of several Ladies of Quality. Written by Shakespear. Daily Journal, 28 Oct.: The same Night [Thursday 26] a Gentlewoman fancying she saw Smoke issue from under the Stage, as she sat in the Pit, during the Play Time,...and at the same time believing she smelt Fire, declared her Opinion so loud, and by her precipitate Endeavours to get out, gave such an Alarm all over the House, as was attended with the fatal Consequence of one Woman big with Child being press'd to Death, and several others Persons were very much bruised. [See also Daily Post, 27 Oct. A reward of #20 was offered by John Rich for the apprehension of the malicious ill designing Persons" who presumably occasioned the incident.-Daily Journal, 31 Oct.

Event Comment: [T+The Necromancer, not advertised, may have been given as an afterpiece, as the Daily Journal, 12 Feb., states that the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, and the Princesses Amelia and Carolina saw it as part of the program.] Receipts: #68 15s. 6d. Probable attendance: boxes, 113 paid and 30 orders; stage, 2 paid; pit, 164 paid and 17 orders; slips, 7 paid and 12 orders; first gallery, 117 paid and 4 orders; second, 123 paid

Event Comment: EEgmont, Diary, I, 207: Then went to the practice of the revived opera Tamerlan, where I saw the Duke of Lorain sing a part

Event Comment: The Princess Royal's Marriage, being deferr'd, the Opera will be perform'd that Day as usual. Daily Courant, 14 Nov.: Last Night their Majesties, his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and the three eldest Princesses . . . saw . . . Otho; but his Highness the Prince of Orange was not there

Event Comment: Benefit Author of Chrononhotonthologos. Note, the Author gives out no Tickets (a few Boxes excepted) depending intirely upon the Courtesy of the Town. Egmont, Diary, II, 40: After dinner I went to the Haymarket playhouse, where among other representations I saw the strong man show one of his feats. Two chairs were placed on the stage at such a distance as that laying himself along, his head and a small part of his shoulders rested on one, and his feet on the other, so that his body and legs were suspended in the air. Then six grown men (two of whom I observed to be remarkably tall) go up, and stood perpendicular upon his body, two on his chest, two on his body, and two on his legs. He bore them all a quarter of a minute, and bending his body downward till it almost touched the ground between the chairs, with a surprising spring and force raised his body with all that weight upon it, not only level as he lay at first, but higher in the air. The mob of the gallery not satisfied with this, hissed, whereupon he refused to show any other of his tricks

Event Comment: [Text by Paul Rollo. Music by Nicholas Porpora.] A New Opera. London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 3 Feb.: On Saturday Their Majesties ...the Prince of Wales, and the Princesses Amelia and Carolina . . . saw the Opera of Polifemo, which was perform'd to one of the greatest Audiences that hath King's been known this Season

Event Comment: Robert Morris saw this play, but does not state where. It was later given, on 29 Sept., at HAY. See Beverly McAnear, "An American in London, 1735-1736," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, LXIV (1940), 376

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Written by the late Mr Congreve, London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 2 Oct.: Last Night in the Entertainment of Dr Faustus...when the Machine wherein were Harlequin, the Miller's Wife, the Miller and his the Miller's Man, was got up to the full Extent of its flying, one of the Wires which held up the hind part of the Car broke first, and then the other broke, and the Machine, and all the People in it fell down Upon the Stage; by which unhappy Accident the young Woman who personated the Miller's Wife had her Thigh broke, and her Kneepan shatter'd, and was otherways very much bruised, the Harlequin had his Head bruised, and his Wrist strained; the Miller broke his Arm; and the Miller's Man had his Scull so fractured that his Life in despaired of. Thomas Gray to Horace Walpole, 6 Oct.: Covent Garden has given me a sort of surfeit of Mr Rich and his cleverness, for I was at [cg] when the machine broke t'other night; the house was in amaze for above a minute, and I dare say a great many in the galleries thought it very desterously performed, and that they screamed as naturally as heart could wish, till they found it was no jest, by their calling for surgeons, of whom several luckily happened to be in the pit. I stayed to see the poor creatures brought out of the house, and pity poor Mrs Buchanan not a little, whom I saw put into a chair in such a fright that as she is big with child, I question whether it may not kill her.-Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Thomas Gray, I, 113-14