Note 22: George Hobart, third Earl of Buckinghamshire, who had a passion for dramatic entertainments, and for a time became manager of the opera in London.--Ed. Note 23: Richard Brinsley Sheridan was at this period in his twenty-fifth year, and had entered on his mismanagement of Drury Lane Theatre. He had already written "The Rivals," which had not proved a success on its first appearance; "St. Patrick's Day, or the Scheming Lieutenant," a farce; "The Duenna," a comic opera; but he was yet to write "A Trip to Scarborough," and "The School for Scandal." Note 24: In his "History of the Stage," Genest tells us Mrs. Robinson made her first appearance on the stage as Juliet, on the 10th of December, 1776, but leaves us in ignorance regarding the actors who took part in the tragedy. Romeo was evidently played by William Brereton, who had rehearsed the principal scenes with her in the greenroom before Sheridan and Garrick. Genest adds: "Mrs. Robinson was received with great applause. She had an engagement previous to her first appearance, and received what was considered a handsome salary. She was a most beautiful woman, and a very good breeches figure."--Ed. Note 25: According to Genest, the second character she attempted was Statira, in "Alexander the Great," played on the 17th of February, 1777; Amanda, in "The Trip to Scarborough," produced seven nights later, being her third personation.--Ed. Note 26: Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, and afterward King of Hanover, was the fifth son of George III, and perhaps the most profligate and unpopular member of the royal family.--Ed. Note 27: Horace Walpole, writing to his friend, the Rev. William Mason, on the 28th of May, 1780, says: "Lady Craven's comedy, called 'The Miniature Picture,' which she acted herself with a genteel set at her own house in the country, has been played at Drury Lane. The chief singularity was that she went to it herself, the second night, in form; sat in the middle of the front row of the stage box, much dressed, with a profusion of white bugles and plumes, to receive the public homage due to her sex and loveliness.... It was amazing to see so young a woman entirely possess herself; but there is such an integrity and frankness in her consciousness of her own beauty and talents, that she speaks of them with a _naivete_ as if she had no property in them, but only wore them as gifts of the gods. Lord Craven, on the contrary, was quite agitated by his fondness for her, and with impatience at the bad performance of the actors, which was wretched indeed. Yet the address of the plot, which is the chief merit of the piece, and some lively pencilling, carried it off very well, though Parsons murdered the Scotch Lord, and Mrs. Robinson (who is supposed to be the favourite of the Prince of Wales) thought on nothing but her own charms and him." "The Irish Widow" was a farce founded by David Garrick on Moliere's "Le Mariage Force," and produced on the 23d of October, 1772.--Ed.