Event Comment: PPost Boy, 19 Nov.: We hear the Celebrated Mrs Oldfield is very Ill at her House in Grosvenor-street

Event Comment: Benefit Walker. At the particular Desire of several Persons of Quality. Tickets for Momus and The School Boy taken. Receipts: money #60 17s.; tickets #38

Event Comment: Benefit Thomas Mountier, the Chichester Boy, who sung at Mr Smith's Concert in lif. At the Request of a great Number of Gentlemen and Ladies. Pit and Boxes will be laid together at 5s. Gallery 2s. 6d

Event Comment: At the Desire of several Persons of Quality. Boxes 4s. Pit 2s. 6d. Gallery 1s. 6d. 6:30 P.M. [The Epilogue to Zara by Miss ---- in Boy's Cloaths is in Prompter, 4 July.]

Event Comment: By particular Desire. The Play of Othello is deferr'd till Tomorrow. The Beggar's Opera being desir'd by several Persons of Quality. [Othello and The School Boy had been announced on 6 Dec. for today.

Event Comment: Receipts: #40 (Cross). [The Epilogue Occasioned by the Two Occasional Prologues published in the General Advertiser. Fifty-one lines ending: @"No more shall either rack his brains to teaze ye@But let the Contest be who most shall please ye." [In the form of a story, mocking Garrick and Berry]: "Once on a time two boys were throwing dirt@A gentle youth was one, and one was somewhat pert.@Each to his Master with his tale retreated,@Who gravely heard their different parts repeated,@How Tom was rude, and Jack poor lad ill treated."

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Clive. Part of Pit will be rail'd into the Boxes. Servants allow'd to keep places. Send servants by 3 o'clock. Tickets and places to be had of Mrs Clive at the Naked Boy in Henrietta St., Covent Garden. Mainpiece: Not acted these 7 years [see 18 Nov. 1754]. Afterpiece: With alterations and an additional scene. Mr Havard's benefit play, which should have been acted some day this month, is deferr'd on account of his Indisposition, to the 12th of April, when the new Masque of Alfred will be perform'd, with its proper Scenes, Dances, Music, and Machinery. Receipts: #230 (Cross)

Event Comment: This day at noon will be published at 6d. A Letter to Mr Henry Woodward, Comedian, occasioned by his letter to the Inspector. by Simon Partridge, the facetious Cobbler of Pall Mall, and son to the late Mr Partridge, famous for his dispute with Isaac Bickerstaff. "Barbarian to attack, a chymist, Critick, Journalist, and Quack" (Anon). Printed for H. Jeffrey in Pope's Head Alley, Cornhill. [Another mock defense of Hill, casting opprobrium on him in the manner of the eightenth-century bully boys of the bathroom. A second edition of Sampson Edwards' Letter to Woodward appeared this day. See Comment, 9 Dec.] Receipts: #130 (Cross)

Event Comment: No Performance Passion Week (Cross). We hear that a new Tragedy call'd Creusa Queen of Athens, written by the author of the Roman Father is now in rehearsal at Drury Lane, in which Miss Macklin will play the part of a boy

Event Comment: Taken from a Midsummer Night's Dream written by Shakespear. The Songs from Shakespear, Milton, Waller, Dryden, Lansdown, Hammond. Music-Smith. [First edition Text by John Christopher Smith; see Garrick to James Murphey French, Dec. 1756; H. Walpole to R. Bentley 23 Feb. 1755.] Besides our own Singers, we had Sg Guadagni, Sga Passerini, Miss Potier [i.e., Mrs Vernon], and Savage's Boys. Very great Applause; Sabatini danced after it and fell down, not hurt (Cross). [See A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Hands of Garrick and Colman, G. W. Stone Jr, PMLA (June 1939).] Receipts: #200 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for furnishing the new Wards in the Middlesex Hospital. Paid Charlotte Lane for altering a cloth coat, and green corded silk waistcoat lac'd with silver for Mr Wm. Smith, 5s. 6d.; shalloos back & bod lining to coat & stiffening, 3s. (MS list in Davies, Life of Garrick II, 332). [The Occasional Prologue, written by Mr Boyce was publish'd in the Public Advertiser 19 Dec. 1755]: @And, Britons, Godlike charity is yours...@'Tis yours to silence Misry's plaintive moan@And make the grief of others all your own...@Give balm to Nature's accidental woes,@And sooth th'impovrish'd matron's pregnant throes...@ [The Epilogue, written by C. Smart, and spoken by Shuter in the character of a Man-midwife, was published in the same paper: Shuter enters with a child]: @Whoe'er begot thee has no cause to blush:@Thou'rt a brave chopping boy (child cries) nay, hush, hush, hush.@.......................@Nay if you once begin to puke and cough@Go to the nurse. Within, here, take him off.@Well Heav'n be prais'd, it is a peopling age,@Thanks to the Bar, the Army, and the Stage...

Event Comment: By Command. Afterpiece: Written by Mr Garrick. Acted by children. Prince of Wales & 4 more went off very well (Cross). New Scenes, Habits and Decorations. Full prices. Prologue-writ by Garrick, spoken by Woodward; Epilogue-Lady Flimnap. [The run of seventeen performances of the afterpieces seems to contradict the judgement of the author of the Theatrical Examiner (1757, p. 89): Lilliput is, I think, the most petit, trifling, indecent, immoral, stupid parcel of rubbish, I ever met with; and I can't help judging it a scandal to the public, to suffer such a thing to pass a second night, which at best was alone calculated to please boys and girls, and fools of fashion; it may gratify them; the manager to debauch the minds of infants, by putting sentiments and glances in their breasts and eyes, that should never be taught at any years, which are sufficiently bad when naturally imbibed. The question of Gulliver, in answer to the infant lady's gross adresses, is horrid, if we allow an audience a common share of delicacy, what should we do with her? and what the devil does it mean. Finally where is the instruction, or even tolerable language, to gild the dirt over. O tempora! O mores!"] Receipts: #210 (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for Jefferson and Champnes. Mainpiece: By Desire. Tickets delivered for Love Makes a Man will be taken. Yesterday Five Guineas were paid into the Hands of Justice Fielding by Miss Macklin, for the use of the Marine Society, towards clothing men and boys for the sea, to go on board His Majesty's ships (Public Advertiser). Receipts: #130 (Cross)

Event Comment: We Play'd at Covent Garden the Beggars Opera & ye School Boy for Mr Morgan's Benefit, several of our Company play'd, with leave from ye Managers (Cross)

Event Comment: Benefit for the Marine Society, for cloathing Men and Boys to go to Sea. Tickets 5s. at the Door. To begin at 7 p.m. Tea, Coffee are included. At Ranelagh House