Event Comment: The King's Company.
The date of
the first performance is not known.
Wilson (
Six Restoration Play-Dates, pp. 222-23) argues from a number of references (principally in
the Epilogue) to events of early 1681 which point to a premiere near May 1681: to
the dissolution of
Parliament, 28 March 1681; to
the comet which appeared in November 1680 and disappeared in January 1680@1; to
the Hatfield Maid; to
William Lilly,
the astrologer, who is referred to as though alive, thus suggesting a premiere before
his death, 9 June 1681. It is possible that
the premiere may have been earlier than t
his. In 1681 was published
Poeta de Tristibus; or, The Poet's Complaint, whose
author had obviously read
the Prologue and
Epilogue to
The Unhappy Favourite. He represents himself as a disappointed dramatist whose tragedy has been rejected by both houses because "
their Summer-store@Will all t
his Winter last." With
the work entered in
the Term Catalogues in 1682 and a copy purchased by
Narcissus Luttrell with
his note "4d 1681 12 Nov" (see
A Bibliography of John Dryden, ed.
Macdonald, pp. 235-36),
his quotations from
the Epilogue to
The Unhappy Favourite and references to
the Prologue would offer no difficulties if it were not that
the "
Author's Epistle" in which
the references are made is dated "at
Dover the Tenth day of January 1680@1," thus suggesting that he had seen
the Prologue and Epilogue before that date. Never
theless, some of
the references in
the Epilogue (to
Heraclitus Ridens, beginning on 1 Feb. 1680@1, and
Democritus Ridens, beginning on 14 March 1680@1) preclude a January premiere for
the Prologue and Epilogue. Possibly
the dating of
the "
Author's Epistle" is in error