Event Comment: [Afterpiece in place of The First Floor, advertised on playbill of 3 Jan.] Receipts: #460 8s. (390.3; 64.17; 5.8)

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; C 5, by Thomas Morton; with incidental music by John Moorehead. Prologue by William Thomas Fitzgerald; Epilogue by Miles Peter Andrews (see text)]: With New Scenes [by Richards (Universal Magazine, Feb. 1800, p. 157)] and new Dresses. Morning Chronicle, 8 July 1800: This day is published Speed the Plough (2s.). Receipts: #256 7s. (253.4.6; 3.2.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Barrymore and Wathen. Morning Chronicle, 12 May: Tickets to be had of Barrymore, No. 20, Judd Place, West, Somers Town; of Wathen, No. 4, Park-row, Knightsbridge. Receipts: #148 (84.18.6; 59.8.6; 3.13.0; tickets: none listed) (charge: #218 12s. 5d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Crouch. [Miss Jacobs, who had previously appeared at this theatre as a chorus singer, is identified in MS list in Kemble playbills of new performers for this season. Afterpiece in place of The Pannel, advertised on playbill of 5 June.] Morning Chronicle, 22 May: Tickets to be had of Mrs Crouch, No. 9, New Lisle-street, Leicester-square. Receipts: #520 16s. 6d. (233.11.0; 60.19.6; 0.4.0; tickets: 226.2.0) (charge: #213 0s. 4d.)

Event Comment: The King's Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but the fact that the play was entered in the Term Catalogues in February 1681@2 and advertised in The Loyal Protestant, 7 March 1681@2, suggests a premiere in December 1681. A certain performance on 14 Jan. 1681@2 may indicate, however, that the play did not have its first performance until that month. A song for this play, Retired from mortal's sight, set by Henry Purcell, is in Choice Ayres and Songs, 1683

Event Comment: The United Company. This performance is on the L. C. list, 5@147, p. 361: The King at ye Mistress. See also Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 351. There is no indication as to whether this performance was the premiere. As the play was licensed on 24 May 1687, the premiere may have been as late as 12 May, but possibly was earlier. Sir George Etherege to Will Richards, 19 May 1687: I have heard of the success of The Eunuch, and am very glad the town has so good a taste to give the same just applause to Sir Charles Sedley's writing, which his friends have always done to his conversation (Letterbook, ed. Rosenfeld, p. 212). Sir George Etherege to Middleton, 2O June 1687: I saw a play about ten years ago Called the Eunuch, so heavy a lump the players durst not charge themselves with the dead weight, but it seems Sir Charles Sedley has animated the mighty mass and now it treads the stage lightly (ibid., p. 227). [See also 26 March 1687 and season of 1676-77.] Thomas Shadwell, The Tenth Satyr of Juvenal (licensed, 25 May 1687.) Dedication to Sir Charles Sedley: Your late great obligation in giving me the advantage [presumably the third day's gain] of your comedy, call'd Bellamira, or the Mistress, has given me a fresh subject for my Thanks; and my Publishing this Translation affords me a new opportunity of owning to the world my grateful resentments to you. I am heartily glad that your Comedy (as I never doubted) found such success, that I never met with any Man of Sence but applauded it: And that there is abundance of Wit in it, your Enemies have been forced to confess....For the Judgment of some Ladies upon it that it is obscene, I must needs say they are Ladies of a very quick apprehension, and did not find their thoughts lye very much that way, they could not find more obscenity in that than there is in every other Comedy. A song, Thyrsis unjustly you complain, headed A Song in Bellamira, or, the Mistress. Set by Mr Tho. Shadwell, is in Vinculum Societatis, 1687 (licensed 8 June 1687)

Event Comment: Tom Brown, writing to George Moult, 30 Aug. 1699: As I have observ'd to you, this noble Fair is quite another thing than what it was in the last Age; it not only deals in the humble stories of Crispin and Crispianus, Whittington's Cat, Bateman's Ghost, with the merry Conceits of the Little Pickle-herring; but it produces Opera's of its own Growth, and is become a formidable Rival to both the Theatres. It beholds Gods descending from Machines, who express themselves in a language suitable to their dignity; it trafficks in Heroes; it raises Ghosts and Apparitions; it has represented the Trojan Horse, the Workmanship of the divine Epeus; it has seen St. George encounter the Dragon, and overcome him; In short, for Thunder and Lightning, for Songs and Dances, for sublime Fustian and magnificent Nonsense, it comes not short of Drury-Lane or Lincolns-Inn-Fields (in Thomas Brown, Works, 4th edition, 1715, I, 212-13). [For a colorful account of Bartholomew Fair at the turn of the century, see The London Spy Compleat, 1703, Parts X and XI, particularly pages 228-58.]

Event Comment: [Mainpiece by Charles Boyle. Premiere.] Benefit Mrs Porter, who performs a part in it she never acted before. [Since Mrs Porter is not in the cast in the edition of 1703, the meaning of this statement is not clear.] At the Desire of several Persons of Quality

Event Comment: Written by the Author of the Careless Husband [Colley Cibber]. Never Acted before

Event Comment: [By Susanna Centlivre.] Never Acted before. Whincop (pp. 189-90): On the first Day there was a very poor House, scarce Charges. Under these Circumstances, it cannot be supposed the Play appeared to much Advantage, the Audience only came there for want of another Place to go to, but without any Expectation of being much diverted; they were yawning at the Beginning of it, but were agreeably surprized, more and more every Act, till at last the House rung with as much Applause as was possible to be given by so thin an Audience

Event Comment: At the Desire of several Ladies of Quality. [See Tatler, 26 Nov., on the competitive elements of two playhouses.

Event Comment: To which Note: Mr Penkethman acts six Days more for the Subscribers to bring their Tickets. Boxes 2s. 6d. Pit 1s. 6d. Gallery 1s