"Non satis est risu diducere rictum Auditorus: et est quædam tamen his quoque virtus."[51]--HORAT. If we may trust the author's statement to Pope, this admirable comedy was written when Wycherley was twenty-one years of age, in the year 1661-2. It is impossible to fix with certainty the date of its first performance. The Duke's Company, then under the management of the widow of Sir William Davenant, opened its new theatre in Dorset Gardens, near Salisbury Court, on the 9th of November, 1671, with a performance of Dryden's _Sir Martin Mar-all_, and Wycherley's "Prologue to the City" points to the production of his play in the new theatre shortly after its opening. Genest states, on the authority of Downes, that "_The Gentleman Dancing-Master_ was the third new play acted at this theatre, and that several of the old stock plays were acted between each of the new ones." _Sir Martin Mar-all_, having been three times performed, was succeeded by Etherege's _Love in a Tub_, which, after two representations, gave place to a new piece, Crowne's tragedy of _Charles the Eighth_. This was played six times in succession, and was followed, probably after an interval devoted to stock pieces, by a second novelty, an adaptation by Ravenscroft from Molière, entitled _The Citizen turn'd Gentleman, or Mamamouchi_, which ran for nine days together. _The Gentleman Dancing-Master_ was then acted, probably after another short interval, and must therefore have been produced either in December, 1671, or in January, 1672. Genest, in fact, places it first on his list of plays performed at the Dorset Gardens Theatre during the year 1672, although, in his list for the preceding year, immediately after _The Citizen turn'd Gentleman_, he mentions Lord Orrery's comedy of _Mr. Anthony_ as "nearly certain" to have been brought out in the season of 1671-2. But this, again, was a new piece, making the third produced at Dorset Gardens, without including _The Gentleman Dancing-Master_, and must consequently have been brought forward later than Wycherley's play. Of _The Gentleman Dancing-Master_ Genest observes that "it was not much liked, and was acted only six times." But it is by no means clear that the first performance at Dorset Gardens was the actual first performance of our comedy. The opening verses of the prologue, indeed, seem to imply a previous and unsuccessful performance, probably by the same company, at their old theatre in Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. This, at least, as it seems to me, is the most obvious interpretation of the following lines: "Our author (like us) finding 'twould scarce do At t'other end o' th' town, is come to you; And, _since 'tis his last trial,_ has that wit To throw himself on a substantial pit."