Note 3 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY

This theatre at Richmond was built two years before Smith’s birth, and was opened in May 1765, by Mr. Love, who spoke a prologue by Garrick. Love was the stage name of James Dance, who, as a son of George Dance, R.A., the City Architect, adopted it that he might not “disgrace his family,” a proceeding on which Genest comments: “Shall we never have done with this miserable cant? Foote, with much humour, makes Papillion say, in The Lyar: ‘As to Player, whatever might happen to me, I was determined not to bring a disgrace upon my family; and so I resolved to turn footman.’” The Devil to Pay, by Charles Coffey, was adapted from a play by Jevon called The Devil of a Wife, first produced at Drury Lane in 1731, when Love played “Jobson” and Mrs. Love “Nell.”