Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@151, p. 369. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 352. The MS music composed for a revival of this play, apparently at this time, by G. Finger and Daniel Purcell, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Event Comment: The United Company. On this evening William Mountfort, the actor, was killed by Lord Mohun and Captain Hill, but the name of the play given that night seems not to have been mentioned in the testimony at the trial. In a novel based on the event, The Player's Tragedy; or, Fatal Love (1693), Mrs Bracegirdle acted the Wife of Essex in The Unhappy Favourite, and the fiction may have been based on fact. Luttrell, A Brief Relation, II, 637, 10 Dec. 1692: Last night lord Mohun, captain Hill of collonel Earles regiment, and others, pursued Mountfort the actor from the playhouse to his lodgings in Norfolk Street, where one kist him while Hill run him thro' the belly: they ran away, but his lordship was this morning seized and committed to prison. Mountfort died of nis wounds this afternoon. The quarrell was about Bracegirdle the actresse, whom they would have trapan'd away, but Mountfort prevented it, wherefore they murthered him thus. [See also HMC, 14th Report, Appendix, Portland MSS., III, 509; The Ladies Lamentation for their Adonis, 16@2, a poem on Mountfort's death; The Player's Tragedy; or, Fatal Love, 1693, a fictional treatment of the affair; and, particularly, Borgman, The Life and Death of William Mountfort, pp. 123-69. See also Cibber, Apology, I, 108, for an account of Betterton's taking the role of Alexander after Mountfort's death.

Event Comment: Rich's Company. The date of the premiere is not known, but the fact that the play was advertised in the Post Boy, 12-16 Dec. 1695, suggests that it was probably first acted not later than November 1695. The edition of 1696 mentions two songs and their performers: A lass there lives upon the green, the words by an unknown hand, set by Courteville, and sung by the Boy to Miss Cross; and Bright Cynthia's pow'r divinely great, words by Mr Cheek, set by Courtevill, sung by Leveridge. These two songs are also in Deliciae Musicae, The Fourth Book, 1696, as is a third, Celemene, pray tell me, set by Henry Purcell and sung by the Boy and Girl. The words were written by D'Urfey; and the Boy presumably was Bowen, and the Girl, Miss Cross. See Purcell's Works, Purcell Society, XXI (1917), v-vi. A Comparison Between the Two Stages (1702), p. 19: Sullen: Oronooko. Ramble: Oh! the Favourite of the Ladies. Sullen: It had indeed uncommon Success, and the Quality of both Sexes were very kind to the Play, and to the Poet: No doubt it has Merit, particularly the last Scene; but 'tis as certain, that the Comick Part is below that Author's usual Genius. Ramble: I have a particular regard for Mr Southern's Stile and agreeable Manner; there's a Spirit of Conversation in every thing he writes. Sullen: I think very few exceed him in the Dialogue; his Gallantry is natural, and after the real manner of the Town; his acquaintance with the best Company entered him into the secrets of their Intrigues, and no Man knew better the Way and Disposition of Mankind. But yet I must say, his Diction is commonly the best part of him, especially in Comedy; but in Tragedy he has once in this, and in one other, Drawn the Passions very well