Event Comment: With several curious and uncommon performances by the Venetian and his children. Neville MS Diary: At 6 got into the Pit at Sadler's Wells just as the entertainment began with concerts. The singing by Mrs Lampe, Master Herryman, &c. Dancing by Sg Grimaldi, Tassoni, Miss Reynolds from Drury Lane. Tumbling, but not equal to that by Plaida's company. Postures in which the Venetian and his children (a boy and a girl particularly) excel greatly. One stands on his hands, turns his feet backwards to his haunches, and walks in this position or forms an arch with his breast, while the other stands on his head upon it, the father carries one on his hand around his body, one stands on his head on his father's hand. These I mention as a specimen of many more, equally curious, tho' seeing these postures is disagreeable to a humane mind. The Father balances too the slack rope. The whole concluded with the pantomimic entertainment called Merlin

Event Comment: This play was presumably acted by the Duke's Company. In the preface to Heraclius, Emperour of the East, published in 1664, the author, Lodowick Carlell, complains that he had submitted his translation of Corneille, only to have it returned the very day that this version appeared on the stage. See also the letter by Katherine Philips, under Pompey the Great, Jan. 1663@4. Pepys, Diary: We made no long stay at dinner; for Heraclius being acted, which my wife and I have a mighty mind to see, we do resolve, though not exactly agreeing with the letter of my vowe, yet altogether with the sense, to see another this month, by coming hither instead of that at court, there having ueen none conveniently since I made my vowe for us to see there, nor like to be this Lent, and besides we did walk home on purpose to make this going as cheap as that would have been, to have seen one at Court, and my conscience knows that it is only the saving of money and the time also that I intend by my oaths....The play hath one very good passage well managed in it, about two persons pretending, and yet denying themselves, to be son to the tyrant Phocas, and yet heire of Mauricius to the crowne. The garments like Romans very well. The little girle is come to act very prettily, and spoke the epilogue most admirably. But at the beginning, at the drawing up of the curtaine, there was the finest scene of the Emperor and his people about him, standing in their fixed and different postures in their Roman habitts, above all that ever I yet saw at any of the theatres

Event Comment: W. S. Clark (Works of Orrery, 1, 40-41) believes that this is Thomas Middleton's play, not one by Orrery. Henry Savile to George Savile: I am come newly from my Lord of Orrery's new play called The Widow, whose character you will receive from better hands. I will only say that one part of it is the humour of a man that has great need to go to the close stool, where there are such indecent postures as would never be suffered upon any stage but ours, which has quite turn'd the stomach of so squeamish a man as I am, that am used to see nothing upon a theatre that might not appear in the ruelle of a fine lady (Savile Correspondence, ed. W. D. Cooper, Camden Society, LXXI [1858], 4)

Event Comment: The King's Company. This day marks the resumption of acting by the King's Company after the disastrous fire at Bridges Street, Drury Lane; the players turned to the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields which the Duke's Company had recently left. The Prologue was printed in Covent Garden Drollery, 1672. Sloane MS. 4455 folio 26 verso: The Prologue of a Play entitled Witt without Money-Spoken at the Dukes old Theatre (after the Kings was burnt) by the King's players, Feb. 26 1671. The Curtaine being drawne up all the Actors were discover'd on the stage in Melancholick postures, & Moone [Mohun] advancing before the rest speaks as follows, addressing chiefly to ye King then [present]. Langbaine (English Dramatick Poets, p. 216): Wit Without Money: a Comedy which I have seen acted at the Old House in little Lincolns-Inn-Fields with very great Applause: the part of Valentine being Play'd by that compleat Actor Major Mohun deceas'd. This was the first Play that was acted after the Burning the King's House in Drury-lane: a New Prologue being writ for them by Mr Dryden

Event Comment: Benefit Betterton. At the Desire of several Persons of Quality. To which will be added Three Designsv, Representing the Three Principal Actions of the Play, in Imitation of so many great Pieces of History Painting, where all the real Persons concern'd in those Actions will be plac'd at proper distances, in different Postures peculiar to the Passion of each Character. In his Apology (I, 117-18) Cibber said that Betterton...when being suddenly seiz'd by the Gout,...submitted, by extraordinary Applications, to have his Foot so far reliev'd that he might be able to walk on the Stage in a Slipper, rather than wholly disappoint his Audience. He was observ'd that Day to have exerted a more than ordinary Spirit, and met with suitable Applause

Event Comment: Mainpiece: By Particular desire. Afterpiece: Never Acted Before. [The Farce by Fielding is a sequel to The Virgin Unmasked.] Forbidden soon by the Lord Chamberlain. It being supposed that a particular man of quality was pointed at in one of the characters. The prohibition short of duration (Genest, III, 652). See A Letter to a Noble Lord to whom it alone belongs, occasioned by a representation at Drury Lane of a Farce call'd Miss Lucy in Town (1742), [a 20 page pamphlet criticizing the Lord Chamberlain for allowing this farce. Author gives a scene by scene account emphasizing the bawdry and discounting the pious conclusion. He concludes with remarks on theatrical dancing]: As to Dances, I think your province of prohibition does not extend; so the Public cannot owe their gratitude to you for several. I appeal to those who have been on the coast of Malabar and the banks of the Ganges whether we have not had some that have exceeded on posture, or anything of that kind so common amongst the polite Indians of Indostan. Afterpiece: Mrs Clive mimics the Muscovita admirably, and Beard Amorevoli intolerably (H. Walpole to H. Mann, 26 May).-Horace Walpole Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, I, 435. Receipts: #70