Note 12 — INTRODUCTION

Cibber's piece may have opened as early as 12 March 1733 in the pantomime house at Sadler's Wells, which had been reconstructed from a seventeenth century Music Room (see LS, 3, I, xxxix). Cibber's The Harlot's Progress had a successful run at Drury Lane in the spring of 1733, from 31 March until 28 May, when the actor-manager dispute led to a closing of the playhouse (see LS, 3, I, 304). It played as an afterpiece to such works as Cato and The Provok'd Husband, and on 26 April a playbill announced the "Royal Family expected to attend" (LS, 3, I, 293). Thereafter it had a career at the fairs, beginning with the Lee-Harper-Petit Booth on Tottenham Court on 30 August 1733 (LS, 3, I, 310), moving on 23 August to Bartholomew Fair and on 28 September to Mile End Green, where the harlot's name is listed as "Moll Hackabout" (LS, 3, I, 321). On 27 October 1733 it had a command performance at Drury Lane (LS, 3, I, 330). It played frequently during that winter and in the spring, on 26 April, the seceding actors returned to Drury Lane to perform in The Conscious Lovers and The Harlot's Progress. The cast list is the same as that in the text reprinted here (LS, 3, I, 390). The successful run continued through October 1734; after that it was only played a couple of times before the 1736 season (LS, 3, I, passim). Scouten observes: "a remarkable feature" is that this piece "places a Jewish merchant in a favorable light, treating him not with sympathy but with respect as a pillar of trade" (LS, 3, I, xcvi).