Event Comment: A Concert, etc. At the Great Room, Castle Tavern. [See Comment, 5 May 1752.] To be conducted by Mrs Mary Midnight, author of the Midwife, and his Family. No admittance without Tickets, which are to be had at the Bedford Coffee House, Covent Garden. The Room will be lighted by Wax Candles. To begin at 7 p.m. Price 2s. 6d. [Time and price repeated thus for subsequent performances at the Castle Tavern.

Event Comment: The seventh and last time that these orations will be delivered at the Castle Tavern, Paternoster Row, new matter being provided for the next night. The Ladies are desired to come early, that they may be accommodated with the best Seats, and not be crowded as they were the last two nights. [Advice repeated in subsequent bills.

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Clive. Mainpiece: Not acted in seven years [see 7 May 47]. Altered from Dryden by Colley Cibber, Esq. Part of Pit laid into boxes. Amphitheatre on Stage. Receipts: #220 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Ward. Last time of performing Mainpiece this season. Tickets to be had of Mrs Ward, next door to the Chapel in Little Wild-Street, near Drury Lane; and at the Stage Door of the Theatre, where places for the boxes may be taken. Receipts: #130 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit Mause, Madge. On Tuesday Evening several Performers by an order from the Lord Chamberlain were taken up for acting Plays, or Drolls, at Shepherd's Market, May Fair, and carried before a Magistrate who committed them to Prison on the Vagrant Act (General Advertiser)

Event Comment: Benefit for Macklin. Afterpiece: A New Dramtic Satire in two acts. N.B. As several of the Town have prejudged the Pit the Boxes and Galleries acting their own parts themselves for their diversion, to be of the same species of the Lick at the Town last year; and that it can mean only the ordinary Approbation or Disapprobation of the Audience, Signor Pasquin thinks it incumbent on himself to assure to Publick that all those conjectures are groundless; And farther, he assures them that the Pit, &c. acting their parts has no other meaning than the common literal sense; and that the Audience are really interwoven in the piece; and are to be bona fide part of the Dramatis Personae; and he makes no doubt but that he shall make them perform their parts to a numerous and polite audience, and with universal Applause. But he begs that those Ladies and Gentlemen who intend to perform in the Pit and Galleries will be at the Theatre betimes, for particular reasons; and those who are to act in the Boxes are requested to send their servants to keep their places by three o'clock. Signor Pasquin has received the letters sent by the Town and the Village, and they may depend upon having Places kept for them upon the Stage. The Hiss concerning the Robin Hood Society will be complied with (General Advertiser). [The parts were: Pasquin, Marforio, Sir Eternal Grinn, Sir Conjecture Positive, Sir Roger Ringwood, Bob Smart, Soloman Common Sense; Count Hunt Bubble, Sir John Ketch, hic and Hac (Scribblers), Hydra, Lady Lucy Loveit, Miss Diana Singlelife, Miss Brilliant, Miss Bashfull (Larpent MS 96).

Event Comment: By Particular Desire of several Ladies of Quality. Positively the last Night. [Intended as satire on the Reverend John Henley's Oratory (eccentric preacher, 1692-1756) and as a puff for The Midwife or Old Woman's Magazine, edited by Christopher Smart and John Newberry, 1751-53. The Old Woman's Oratory written and produced by Smart. See the Gentleman's Magazine, 1752, p. 43; and Horace Walpole's letter to Montagu 12 May 1752, as follows: It appeared the lowest buffoonery in the world, even to me who am used to my uncle Horace. There is a bad oration to ridicule, what is too like, Orator Henley; all the rest is perverted music. There is a man who plays so nimbly on the kettle drums, that he has reduced that noisy instrument to be an object of sight; for if you don't see the tricks with his hands, it is no better than ordinary. Another play on a violin and trumpet together; another mimics a bagpipe with a German flute, and makes it full if disagreeable. There is an admired dulcimer, a favourite saltbox and a really curious Jew's Harp. Two or three men intend to persuade you that they play on a broomstick, which is drolly brought in, carefully shrouded in a case, so as to be mistaken for a bassoon or bass viol, but they succeed in nothing but the action. The last fellow imitates farting and curtseying to a French horn. There are twenty medley overtures, and a man who speaks a prologue and epilogue, in which he counterfeits all the actors and singers upon earth' (The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, IX, p. 131). [See 3 Dec. 1751.

Event Comment: Farce not performed for 5 years. [See 25 May 1748.] Receipts: #140 (Cross)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years. [See 8 May 1751.

Event Comment: [Benefit] for 3 orphan Daughters of a Cit of London (Cross). Tickets to be had at Will's and the Union Coffee House in Cornhill; Grigsby's behind the Royal Exchange; Seagoes in Holborn; the Bedford in Covent Garden; George's in the Haymarket, and at the Stage Door of the Theatre, where places for the Boxes may be taken. Receipts: #264 (Cross)

Event Comment: On Friday the 22nd a Benefit for Mrs Allen, Daughter of the late Thomas Allen, Barrister at Law, and Niece to the late Col. James Allen, who has for many years lost the use of her limbs by Palsy,--The Suspicious Husband, with entertainment as will be express'd in the Bill of the Day. Tickets to be had at Searle's Coffee House, Lincoln's Inn; at the Rolls, Chancery Lane; at George's Temple Bar; at Grigsby's behind the Change; at the Southsea Coffee House, Bishopsgate St.; and at the stage door, where places may be taken

Event Comment: Any Person of whatever Party, Perswasion, Countenance, or Country, who is able to entertain the Publick in a singular and agreeable Manner, may enter into present Pay and good Quarters, with Mrs Midnight's Band of Originals, by applying to her at the Theatre in the Haymarket, any evening at five 'oclock. [Notice repeated.] Sixteenth Day

Event Comment: Comedy not performed in 2 years (Winston MS 8). [See 4 May 1751. No Public Advertiser this day.] Receipts: #200 [Cross)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 5 years. [See 2 May 1750.

Event Comment: Benefit for the Author. [For tickets see 9 Feb., add tickets delivered for the third and sixth nights will be taken.] This Tragedy may be had at R. Francklin's in Covent Garden. Receipts: #170 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for the Author. Tickets to be had at Dodsley's, Bookseller and at the King's Arms Tavern, in Pall Mall and at the Stage Door where Places for the Boxes may be taken

Event Comment: Benefit for Arthur. The Ladies may be assured there will not be any Building on the Stage

Event Comment: At the Foundling Hospital. To begin at 12 noon. Price half a guinea each. [Above 800 coaches and chairs and tickets amounted to 925 guineas (London Magazine, May 1753). Tickets brought #706 3s. 10d., Deutsch, Handel, from Minutes of Fondling Hospital.

Event Comment: Benefit for White (Treasurer). Mainpiece: Not acted these 3 years. [See 1 May 1751.

Event Comment: Benefit for Dunstall and Mrs Dunstall. Mainpiece: Acted but once these 14 years [see 4 May 1748]

Event Comment: An Italian Comic Opera by some performers just arriv'd from Paris. Went off pretty well, -a Girl greatly admir'd (Cross). [The girl seems to have been Sga Spiletta.] She plays off with inexhaustible spirits all muscular evolutions of the face and brows; while in her eye wantons a studied archness, and pleasing malignity. Her voice has strength and scope sufficient; has neither too much of the feminine, nor an inclining to the male. Her gestures are ever varying; her transitions quick and easy. Some over-nice critics, forgetting, or not knowing the meaning of the word Burletta, cry that her manner is outre. Wou'd she not be faulty were it otherwise? The thing chargeable to her is (perhaps) too great a luxurience of comic tricks; which (an austere censor would say) border on unlaced lasciviousness, and extravagant petulance of action (Paul Hiffernan, The Tuner, No 1). [Spiletta was the name of the character to whom Sga Nicolina Giordani gave such life that the name stuck to her. See Saxe Wyndham, Annals of Covent Garden Theatre.] [A Comic Opera by G. Giordani, Music by G. Cocchi-Nicoll, English Drama, III, p. 349.] Nothing less than the full price will be taken during the Performance. Printed books of the opera sold at the theatre. Tomorrow, Venice Preserved. [Murphy commented in Gray's Inn Journal (22 Dec.): "A great deal of whatever humour this production may contain, is certainly lost to an English audience; and the manner of acting, being a burlesque upon what people here are not very well acquainted with, is not universally felt. But notwithstanding these disadvantages, there is one among them, Sga Nicolina Giordani, who displayed such lively traces of Humour in her countenance, and such pleasing variety of action, and such variety of graceful deportment, that she is generally acknowledged to be, in that Cast of playing, an excellent comic actress."

Event Comment: Printed books of the opera will be sold at the theatre. Published this day at 1s. Lo Studente A La Moda, dramma comicogiocoso, as it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. With an English Translation. Sold by H. Woodfall...Where may be had Gli Amanti Gelosi, with an English translation. [Opera in there acts in Italian and French. Larpent MS 103. Altered from A. Polomba La Violante. Music by G. B. Pergolesi. Rich applied to the Duke of Grafton (9 Jan.) for license to perform it.

Event Comment: By Command. Prince of Wales, Princess Dowager Prince Ed: & another Girl with. (Cross). A person last Tuesday in the playhouse at Drury Lane, that had some difference with another (whom he don't know) about a seat in the Pit, would be glad of a private conference, to be convinced who was in the fault; the publisher hereof may be seen 'Change at the usual hours every day this week to appoint a place for said conference (Public Advertiser). Receipts: #200 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Bland. Afterpiece: Not played for 12 years. [See 14 May 1742.] Tickets deliver'd for Tamerlane for 21 March will be taken

Event Comment: Benefit for Raftor, Mozeen and Wilder. That this Entertainment may be perform'd with the proper scenes and Decorations, there will be no building on the Stage. Receipts. #130 (Cross)