Event Comment: Benefit Charles, the Merry Trumpeter of Oxford. At Mrs Lee's Booth on the Bowling Green

Event Comment: WWalpole to H. Mann 14 April: To be performed by three good voices and forty bad ones, from Oxford, Canterbury, and the farces.-Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann, II, 231. An Entertainment of Vocal and Instrumental Musick, consisting of various Motetts, Chorus's, Concerto's & to be divided into three parts, after the manner of an Oratorio. The whole to conclude with the celebrated Piece of Vocal Musick from Rome. [Usual prices.

Event Comment: Benefit Winstone, Taswell, Miss Budgell, Miss Cole. Tickets deliver'd for Sir Courtly Nice will be taken. Yeaterday Morning died, after a short illness, Mr Norton, Author of the new Tragedy call'd Mahomet, Perform'd at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.-General Advertiser. On Friday died the Rev. Mr Miller of Roehampton, author of the Tragedy of Mahomet (which was acted last Friday, for the third time at Drury Lane Theatre), the Humours of Oxford, and other Dramatic performances.-Daily Advertiser, 30 April

Event Comment: At Broughton's Amphitheatre, near Oxford Road. By Desire [A Concert, etc.]. One Shilling for the Concert obtains a bottle of Dorchester or Cyder. 6 p.m

Event Comment: MMiss Haughton did second Constantia-Mrs Cibber gave it up-some days ago ($Cross). [Early in the next year was published The Devil upon Crutches in England; or, Night Scenes in London. By a Gentleman of Oxford. Chapter V gives a Short View of the Theatres including sharp criticism of 'the most barefaced bawdry Farce...that ever disgraced the stage, in which the Manager, who has caused it to be reviv'd, is to perform the principal part. The Play, Sir, is call'd the Chances...and this is the tenth night of its representation to crowded houses...Your fair country women...are fond of the most fulsome obscenity on the stage."] Receipts: #150 (Cross)

Event Comment: By Particular Desire of the Right Honorable and Honorable The Governors (Being the Last Time of performing till the Holidays). Not acted this season. For the Benefit of the General Lying-In Hospital, Quebec Street, Oxford Road. Charges #85 5s., Balance to Hospital #5 6d. Hospital also receiv'd #156 10s. from tickets (Box 544, Pit 116, Gallery 31). Paid for 1 year's watch for theatre due at Xmas #12 10s. and for the House in Bow Passage 12s. 6d. Paid Dunstall the balance due for the theatrical Fund #136 17s. (Account Book). Receipts: #90 5s. 6d. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Benefit for General-Lying-In Hospital, Oxford Road (playbill). Charges #87 17s. Profit to Hospital #11 15s. plus #152 4s. from tickets (Box 511; Pit 115; Gallery 72). Receipts: #99 12s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Paid Pattinson (Tallow Chandler) #38 3s.; Paid Doctor Macdonogh the balance for Bt. for General Lying In Hospital, Oxford Road #11 15s. (Account Book). Receipts: #200 8s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: The Rose is a New Musical performance of Two Acts by Dr Arne a very dull insipid piece. Mr G. protested against its being perform'd its being perform'd it was hiss'd from the beginning & wd not Suffer it to be given out again, therefore Mr King went on & told them it Should not be perform'd again until it be alter'd (Hopkins Diary). [Macmillan's note from Kemble differs slightly. See critical damnation of The Rose in British Theatre Article in The London Magazine, Dec. 1772.] Book of the Entertainment to be had at the Theatre (playbill). Paid Mr Petit for men's cloaths, #8 8s. CTreasurer's Book). [Reviewer for Town and Country Magazine (Theatre, No. XLI) disappointed with the Rose: "We are told that this precious piece of stuff is the production of an Oxford student; it may be so, of this every auditor is certain, that the collegian who penned it was so entirely lost in the pursuit of some abstruse study, that he has totally forgot grammar, common sense, and even his mother tongue...it was unanimously damn'd."] Receipts: #172 6s. (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Benefit for Lying In Hospital, Oxford Road. Tickets delivered for Twelfth Night will be taken. Receipts: #233 19s. Charges: #84. Profits to Hospital: #149 19s. (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Lyric Ode (never performed) "On the Witches, Fairies, and Aerial Beings in Shakespeare. The Music entirely New." [The Westminster Magazine for March commented: "This poem is said to be written by a young gentleman of Oxford, and has many strokes of genius and inagination in it. The music, we hear, is composed by Mr Linley Jr, who has (since his return from Italy) been a student under that most excellent musician Dr Boyce. This composition must be allowed to be an extraordinary effort of genius in so young a man. The Fugue of the overture is masterly. The song of 'There in old Arden's inmost shade,' is well suited to the scene described by the poet....But what we think most deserving of praise is the power our young composer has shown in the chorusses....From the general and sincere applause with which the Ode was received, we may venture to pronounce, that if Mr Linley Jr pursues his studies, he will one day stand foremost in the list of modern composers."

Event Comment: Oratorio [1st time in public. It had 1st been performed at Oxford, 8 July 1773, as part of the ceremony of the installation of Lord North as Chancellor.

Event Comment: By Authority [of the Lord Chamberlain]. Benefit for Silvester and Rae. Mainpiece: Not acted these 6 years.Afterpiece: Never performed here. Tickets delivered for The Earl of Essex will be admitted. Tickets to be had of Silvester at Mrs Hobbe's, Stanhope-street, Clare Market; at Iver's Wine Vaults, No. 384, Oxford-street; of Rae, No. 35, Great Pultney-street, Golden-square

Event Comment: Benefit for Fawcett and Sga Crespi. Morning Chronicle, 12 May: Tickets to be had of Fawcett, Craven Buildings, Drury-Lane; of Sga Crespi, No. 26, Poland-street, Oxford-street. Receipts: #194 3s. 6d. (32.8.0; 14.5.6; 0.10.0; tickets: 147.0.0) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: In Act I a Statute Scene. [This was included in all subsequent performances. Miss George had previously sung in the professional concerts held at Oxford. This was her 1st appearance as an actress.]

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Wells. Afterpiece [1st time; F 2, by Edward Topham, with incidental music by Shield. MS not in Larpent; not published. Prologue by George Colman, the younger (European Magazine, May 1786, p. 370)]. "An old and established rule among the youth of Westminster [School will] not permit any exhibition on the stage reflecting upon their body ... In the second act Mrs Wells made her appearance in the dress of a Westminster scholar, when a general uproar [instigated by the scholars] took place, and the [rest of the] piece was prevented from being heard" (Town and Country Magazine, May 1786, p. 235). Public Advertiser, 8 May: Tickets to be had of Mrs Wells, No. 188, Oxford-street. Receipts: #282 17s. (166/0/6; 21/19/6; tickets: 94/17/0) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Crouch. Public Advertiser, 30 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Crouch, No. 56, Tichfield-street, Oxford-street. Mainpiece: Not acted these 3 years.The original Music composed by William? Jackson, and several additional songs. Afterpiece: Not acted these 3 years [not acted since 14 May 1783]. Receipts: #226 9s. 6d. (76.14.0; 24.9.0; 2.11.6; tickets: 122.15:0) (charge: #109 12s. 5d.)

Event Comment: A Grand Serious Opera; the music by Sacchini, with additions and alterations [by Andreozzi and Mazzinghi]. Under the direction of Mazzinghi. The dresses executed from original drawings of Bartolozzi and Tresham, by Lupino. With dances analogous to the Opera. The Doors to be opened at 6:30. To begin at 7:30 [same throughout season]. Pit 10s. 6d. Gallery 5s. There are a number of green boxes which may be taken on application to Lee, at the Theatre; the entrance to which, and to the Gallery, will be in Oxford-street. Subscriptions will be received by Messrs Wright and Co., Henrietta-street, Covent-garden (only) where tickets are delivering daily; and such Ladies as have not compleated their subscriptions to their boxes are intreated to send their names to the office, in order to have the tickets prepared, as no person can be admitted without producing a ticket. The Nobility and Gentry are intreated to give particular orders to their coachmen to set down and take up with their horses' heads towards Hyde-park. The Doors in Blenheim-mews for chairs only. By Command of His Majesty no person can be admitted behind the scenes during the performance. "We fear that [the Pantheon as converted into a theatre] will gratify only the eye. It must undergo still more changes before the ear will be satisfied. Whether it is that the dome is too high and disproportioned to the breadth, or that the orchestra is sunk too low beneath the audience we cannot tell, but the sound does not swell and spread in equal volume; and it is the most inaudible in the best parts of the Theatre: the Pit and the first and second tier of Boxes hear very indistincly...We found this to be the complaint of every judge of music in the place" (Morning Chronicle, 18 Feb.). "The Pantheon has opened, and is small, they say, but pretty and simple; all the rest ill-conducted, and from the singers to the scene-shifters imperfect; the dances long and bad, and the whole performance so dilatory and tedious, that it lasted from eight to half an hour past twelve" (Walpole [18 Feb. 1791], XIV, 377) [and see 19 Feb.]

Event Comment: Benefit for Mme Theodore D'Auberval. Tickets to be had of Mme Theodore D'Auberval, No. 52, Poland-street, Oxford-road. 2nd ballet: With new Decorations painted by Munich [recte Moench], late painter to the Theatre in the Haymarket, and new Machinery by Bernard. The Dresses entirely new, invented and executed by Lupino

Event Comment: By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit for Berry. Afterpiece: Written by the late Samuel Foote, Esq. The Doors to be opened at 5:30. To begin at 6:30. Tickets to be had at Mrs Richman's@Masquerade@Warehouse, Oxford-street; of Berry, at the George in the Haymarket; and of Rice at the Theatre, where Places for the Boxes may be taken. No Money to be returned

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Billington. Mainpiece: Not acted these 3 years [acted 13 May 1790]. Public Advertiser, 28 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Billington, No. 53, Poland-street, Oxford-road. Receipts: #320 4s. 6d. (205.14.6; 3.10.0; tickets: 111.0.0) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit for the Gentleman who performs the Part of Zanga [in THE REVENGE], and Mr and Mrs Simpson. Mainpiece: Written by the celebrated Dr Young, Author of the Night Thoughts, &c. Afterpiece: As an After-piece [i.e. reduced from 5 to 3 (?) acts]. The Doors to be opened at 5:30. To begin at 6:30. Tickets to be had of Longman and Broderip, Cheapside and Haymarket; Pass, No. 53, High Holborn; Bland's Music Warehouse, No. 45, High Holborn; Strutt, Bookseller, No. 20, Little Queen-street, Lincoln's Inn Fields; Ellwick, Musical Instrument Maker, No. 55, Long Acre, comer of Phoenix O>urt; Padbury, Coal Merchant, No. 24, Henrietta-street, Covent Garden; Evan, Bookseller, No. 351, near the Pantheon, Oxford Road; and of Simpson, at No. 33, St. Martin's-street, Leicester-square

Event Comment: Benefit for Middleton. 3rd piece [in place of The Frolics of an Hour, advertised on playbill of 1 June]: Engagement and Funeral Processionv as 6 May. Morning Chronicle, 30 May: Tickets to be had of Middleton, No. 53, Great Marlborough-street, Oxford-street. Receipts: #172 9s. 6d. (106.3.0; 6.9.0; tickets: 59.17.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Serres. 3rd piece: To conclude as 15 Apr. Morning Herald, 15 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Serres, No. 70, Berners-street, Oxford-road. Receipts: #288 2s. 6d. (159.3.6; 11.17.6; tickets: 117.1.6)