s
Day), 1751, Garrick substituted _Eastward Hoe_ at Drury Lane for the
annual performance of _The London Cuckolds_, a change not approved by
the audience, who promptly damned their new fare. Ravenscroft's comedy
was given that evening at Covent Garden, and on 9 November, the
following year. It was also performed there in 1753. 9 November, 1754,
George II ordered _The Provoked Husband_. It has often been stated
(e.g. by Professor A. W. Ward--'Ravenscroft'--_Dictionary of National
Biography_) that this royal command gave _The London Cuckolds_ its final
_conge_, but such was neither the intent nor the case. The play is
billed at Covent Garden, 10 November, 1755; in 1757; and 9 November,
1758. Shuter excelled as Dashwell. A two act version was played at
Covent Garden, 10 April, 1782, and repeated on the 12th. This was for
the benefit of Quick, who acted Doodle.

p. 30 _Your Honour . . . must be set down at Long's._ Long's was a
famous Ordinary in the Haymarket. It was here that in 1678 Lord Pembroke
killed Mr. Coney with his fist. He was tried by his Peers and acquitted.
There was at the same period a second tavern in Covent Garden kept by
Ben Long, Long's brother. In Dryden's _Mr. Limberham_ (1678), Brainsick
cries: 'I have won a wager to be spent luxuriously at Long's.' In
Etheredge's _The Man of Mode_ (1676), the following conversation
occurs:--

_Bellair._ Where do you dine?
_Dorimant._ At Long's or Locket's.
_Medley._ At Long's let it be.

p. 30 _the King's Box_. The seats in the boxes of the Restoration
Theatre were let out severally to separate persons, and although the
King had, of course, his own private box when he saw a play, yet when he
was not present even the royal box was apportioned to individuals as the
rest. There are many allusions to this which prove, moreover, that the
front row of the King's box was the most conspicuous and highly coveted
position in the house. In Etheredge's _The Man of Mode_ (1676),
Dorimant, hearing of a young gentlewoman lately come to town and being
taken with his own handsome face, wagers that she must be 'some awkward,
ill-fashioned, country toad, who, not having above four dozen of black
hairs on her head, has adorned her baldness with a large white fruz,
that she may look sparkishly in the forefront of the King's box at an
old play.' In Tom Brown's _Letters from the Dead to the Living_[1] we
have one from Julian, 'late Secretary to the Muses,' to Will. Pierre of
Lin