Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the Theatre, and Shewed [Mrs Pierce and Mrs Clifford] The Chances

Event Comment: The King's Company. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 16) refers to Hart's acting Don John. Wilson (All the King's Ladies, p. 170) lists Rebecca Marshall as possibly play1ng First Constantia. The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher (1711), p. ix: Mr Hart played the Part of Don John to the highest Satisfaction of the Audience, the Play had a great run, and ever since has been follow'd as one of the best Entertainments of the Stage. Pepys, Diary: And took them [Mrs Pepys and Betty Michell] against my vowes, but I will make good my forfeit, to the King's house, to show them a play, The Chances. A good play I find it, and the actors most good in it; and pretty to hear Knipp sing in the play very properly, All night I weepe; and sung it admirably. The whole play pleases me well; and most of all, the sight of many fine ladies--among others, my Lady Castlemayne and Mrs Middleton

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, and there saw The English Monsieur; sitting for privacy sake in an upper box: the play hath much mirth in it as to that particular humour. After the play done, I down to Knipp, and did stay her undressing herself; and there saw the several players, men and women go by; and pretty to see how strange they are all, one to another, after the play is done. Here I saw a wonderful pretty maid of her own, that come to undress her, and one so pretty that she says she intends not to keep her, for fear of her being undone in her service, by coming to the playhouse. Here I hear Sir W. Davenant is just now dead; and so who will succeed him in the mastership of the house is not yet known. The eldest Davenport is, it seems, gone from this house to be kept by somebody; which I am glad of, she being a very bad actor.... [Mrs Knepp] tells me mighty news, that my Lady Castlemayne is mightily in love with Hart of their house; and he is much with her in private, and she goes to him, and do give him many Presents; and that the thing is most certain, and Becke Marshall only privy to it, and the means of bringing them together, which is a very odd thing; and by this means she is even with the King's love to Mrs Davis

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: With Brouncker, to the King's house, and saw The Surprizall, where base singing, only Knepp, who come, after her song in the clouds, to me in the pit, and there, oranges, 2s

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: So she [Mrs Pepys] and I to the King's playhouse, and there sat to avoid seeing Knepp in box above where Mrs Williams happened to be, and there saw The Usurper; a pretty good play, in all but what is designed to resemble Cromwell and Hugh Peters, which is mighty silly

Event Comment: Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 8) gives a cast for Julius Caesar [by William Shakespeare] which includes Richard Bell, who died in the Drury Lane fire at the end of this month. It is not known when a performance of this play occurred, but a Prologue to Julius Caesar is in Covent Garden Drollery, 1672. Downes lists: Julius Caesar-$Bell; Cassius-$Major Mohun; Brutus-$Hart; Anthony-$Kynaston; Calphurnia-$Mrs Marshal. [Downes adds Portia-$Mrs Corbet, but this probably refers to a later performance.

Event Comment: The King's Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@141, p. 116. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 345. There is no certainty that this is the premiere, but the frequency of performance of The Tempest during September-October-November would make November 1674 a suitable time for a burlesque of this sort. A small quarto, The Songs & Masque in the New Tempest (in the Huntington Library, 122925), without a title page, contains what are apparently the songs and concluding masque of the play. It may have been issued during the run of the play and sold at the theatre. It does not name any performers. Langbaine (English Dramatick Poets, p. 177): This Play was to draw the Town from the Duke's Theatre, who for a considerable time had frequented that admirable reviv'd Comedy call'd The Tempest

Event Comment: The play is not known, but Mrs Moyle spoke an Epilogue: The Epilogue Spoken by Mrs Moyle, At Oxford July the 18th. 1682. Luttrell's copy (Huntington Library) bears his acquisition date of 3 Aug. 1682. The Epilogue is reprinted in Wiley, Rare Prologues and Epilogues, pp. 127-28

Event Comment: The United Company. Constatijn Huygens, 16 Jan. 1692@2 O. S. [translation]: In the afternoon I went with Preswitz to the comedy, by Covent Garden, where there was a play about Henry II, but I could not very well understand the comedians, neither what they said. Mrs Barry played the King's wife and Mrs Bracegirdle his mistress, who let the King be poisoned in her presence. Sayer came and sat with us. The best places were for the English crown (Journaal van Constantijn Huygens, Publication of the Dutch Historical Society, New Series, XXV [Utrecht, 1877], 168)