Event Comment: Mainpiece: Written by
the late
Mr Congreve,
London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 2 Oct.: Last Night in
the Entertainment of
Dr Faustus...when
the Machine wherein were
Harlequin,
the Miller's Wife,
the Miller and his
the Miller's Man, was got up to
the full Extent of its flying, one of
the Wires which held up
the hind part of
the Car broke first, and
then
the o
ther broke, and
the Machine, and all
the People in it fell down Upon
the Stage; by which unhappy Accident
the young Woman who personated
the Miller's Wife had her Thigh broke, and her Kneepan shatter'd, and was o
therways very much bruised,
the Harlequin had his Head bruised, and his Wrist strained;
the Miller broke his Arm; and
the Miller's Man had his Scull so fractured that his Life in despaired of.
Thomas Gray to
Horace Walpole, 6 Oct.:
Covent Garden has given me a sort of surfeit of
Mr Rich and his cleverness, for I was at [
cg] when
the machine broke t'o
ther night;
the house was in amaze for above a minute, and I dare say a great many in
the galleries thought it very desterously performed, and that
they screamed as naturally as heart could wish, till
they found it was no jest, by
their calling for surgeons, of whom several luckily happened to be in
the pit. I stayed to see
the poor creatures brought out of
the house, and pity poor
Mrs Buchanan not a
little, whom I saw put into a chair in such a fright that as she is big with child, I question whe
ther it may not kill her.-
Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Thomas Gray, I, 113-14