Event Comment: Account-Book: Tickets delivered by Ledger, Claremont, Goostree. Mrs Dick, Mrs Egan will be admitted. 2nd piece [1st time; M. INT 1, by Richard Cumberland. Larpent MS 1111; not published]: To conclude with an Illumination, Transparency, and a Rural Procession. The Music partly selected, and partly composed, by Shield. The Harp by Weippert. The Bells by Lawrence. With appropriate Scenery, Dresses, and Decorations. [Written in honour of the Royal Marriage" [see dl, 13 May] (Morning Herald, 19 May). "If we are to have these repeated Congratulations, let them be written by men of spirit and invention. The public are miserably placed, in cases like the present: between a respect for their King and a respect for their own understandings, they know not how to act" (Monthly Visitor, May 1797, pp. 454-55, which also includes a brief synopsis of the plot). Receipts: #254 9s. 6d. (84.0.0; 11.2.6; tickets: 159.7.0)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 4 years. [In mainpiece the playbill assigns Acasto to Murray, but "An apology was made for Murray, who was prevented by illness from playing Acasto, which, at a short notice, was taken by Hull" (True Briton, 14 Oct.).] "This whole of [Mrs Spencer's] performance was marked by such unaffected simplicity that it was almost impossible to consider it as the mere fiction of the scene. This lady is really a great aquisition to the house" (True Briton, ibid). Receipts: #254 6s. 6d. (244.18.6; 9.8.0)

Event Comment: Account-Book: Tickets delivered by Blurton, Young, Coates, Bent, Wilkins, Sturgeon, Brice, Goodwin, Anselmo, Roberts, Robson, Bonsor, Mrs Morris, Keeting, Akery, Ashwin, Hawtin will be admitted. Receipts: #409 13s. 6d. (25.12.0; 2.3.6; tickets: 381.18.0)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. L. C. 5@139, p. 125, lists it for 3 March, but as this date falls on Sunday, it is probably an error in dating. The play was licensed on 22 May 1667. Pepys, Diary: To the Duke's playhouse...and I in and find my wife and Mrs Hewer, and sat by them and saw The English Princesse, or Richard the Third; a most sad, melancholy play, and pretty good; but nothing eminent in it, as some tragedys are; only little Mis. Davis did dance a jig after the end of the play, and there telling the next day's play; so that it come in by force only to please the company to see her dance in boy's clothes; and, the truth is, there is no comparison between Nell's dancing the other day at the King's house in boy's clothes and this, this being infinitely beyond the other. Downes (p. 27): Wrote by Mr Carrol, was Excellently well Acted in every Part;...Gain'd them an Additional Estimation, and the Applause from the Town, as well as profit to the whole Company