Event Comment: Miss Poole having a violent Cold and Hoarseness, LOVE IN A VILLAGE [advertised on playbill of 25 Oct.] is obliged to be deferr'd. [Afterpiece in place of THE MIDNIGHT HOUR, advertised as above.] Receipts: #173 8s. (138/5; 35/3)

Event Comment: Benefit for Quick, Fox, Hamilton and Bates. Tickets sold at the doors will not be admitted. Charges #65 14s. 6d. Deficit to each actor #5 9s. 1 1!2d., covered by income from tickets: Quick #45 13s. (Box 40; Pit 169; Gallery 103); Fox #54 13s. (Box 60; Pit 219; Gallery 68); Hamilton #28 12s. (Box 40; Pit 72; Gallery 78); Bates #27 3s. (Box 28; Pit 69; Gallery 98). Paid Mr Osborne the Balance due for Benefit of New General Lying in Hospital the 22d Dec. last #10 17s. 6d. Half values from tickets receiv'd from Rose, Wilkinson, Mrs Griffiths, Flight, Roberts, Robson, Norbury, Fransdorf, Miller, and Walker (Account Book). Receipts: #43 18s

Event Comment: Mainpiece: A New Comedy (never performed) [by George Colman]. Paid Miller for performing 11 nights in The Sylphs #2 15s. Paid Mr Anderson for 2 suits of women's cloaths #21 (Account Book). [The mainpiece received a scourging review in the Westminster Magazine for Feb. 1774. Gibbon attended, "We dined at the Shakespeare and went in a body to support it....Though we got a verdict for our client his cause was but a bad one. It is a very confused miscellany of several plays and tales" (John Hampden@Journal, p. 18).] Receipts: #258 3s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: By Authority of the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit for Walker. Afterpiece [1st time; F 2]: by a Gentleman from Edinburgh [unidentified. Larpent MS 433; not published. Authors of Prologues unknown. Mrs Moss is identified on playbill of 22 Apr. 1777]. Boxes 5s. Pit 3s. 1st Gallery 2s. Upper Gallery 1s. The Doors to be opened at 5:00. To begin at 6:00. Tickets to be had of Walker, No. 4, New Round-court, Strand; of McIntosh, the King's Head, near Marybone-street; at the St. Andrew, Wapping; at the Mount-street Coffee-house, Grosvenor-square

Event Comment: [D$DuBellamy, as would appear from a letter to the Printer of the Public Advertiser, 20 Sept. "Being at the Opera House last week to see the Conscious Lovers and As You Like It, not to mention the various and allowed excellencies of each performer, I was most agreeably surprized at the songs, in the bills said to be sung by a Gentleman, which indeed his genteel figure and polite address, at first sight well authenticated; but for the songs, viz. If Love's a Sweet Passion,--Blow, Blow Thou Winter's Wind,--with some others I must confess I never heard the like; his voice was finely masculine, strong, sweet, clear and articulate; his manner not servilely confined to the pedantic stiffness of some, or the affectation of others; in a word he sung like a Gentleman; and the sound, as Milton elegantly expresses it, 'Floated the Wings of silence.' This is not intended (by doing justice to Mr D. B@@y) to depreciate any....I am told he has applied to Mr Beard, with what success I know not, [hopes he will be one of the new singers at Covent Garden] signed T. S."]

Event Comment: [T+Theatrical Monitor, No VI appeared this day with a blast, in the form of an occasional Epilogue, at the morals, language and plan of the Oxonian in Town. This was the first performance of Macklin's afterpiece in London. It had been played in Dublin. "Its curious idiom, half-brogue, and half Cockney, puzzled the audience, as did its highly topical Irish allusions. With his usual candor, Macklin observed: 'I believe the audience are right. (The play was withdrawn after this single performance.) There's a geography in humor as well as in morals, which I had not previously considered--'" Cooke, Macklin, p. 270. According to Kirkman, in his curtain speech Macklin "courageously admitted: 'Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very sensible tha there are several passages in this play which deserve to be probated and I assure you that they shall never offend your ears again!' As soon as Mr Macklin had finished this address, the audience testified their approbation of his determination, by loud and reiterated plaudits" (Kirkman, Memoirs of the Life of Macklin, II, 3). See Also Charles Macklin: An Actor's Life by William W. Appleton (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), p. 141.

Event Comment: Boxes and Balconies on the Stage 5s. Boxes 4s. Pit 2s. 6d. Gallery 1s. 6d

Event Comment: The Afterpiece a New Pantomime [by Henry Woodward, satirizing Garrick's Jubilee] with New Music by Fisher. New Scenes painted by Messrs Dahl and Richards. Nothing under Full Prices will be taken. [Full Prices notice throughout the run of the pantomime this season. Town and Country Magazine (from Theatre No XIII) comments: "In the Pageant scene several of the characters that walk at Drury Lane are highly ridiculed, particularly Mark Antony and Cleopatra, who dance off with their black retinue to the playing of casquets." The scene closes with the descent of the statue of the late Mr Rich under the name of Lun, and the Harlequins all pay him honour.] Receipts: #250 6s