dBooks desire

" "A five-act play and no prologue! Why, the audience
will tear up the benches!" But they did nothing of the kind. They took
not the slightest notice of the omission. After that, little more was
heard of the time-honoured custom which had ruled that prologues
should, according to Garrick's description of them--
Precede the play in mournful verse,
As undertakers stalk before the hearse;
Whose doleful march may strike the harden'd mind,
And wake its feeling for the dead behind.
People, indeed, began rather to wonder why they had ever required or
been provided with a thing that was now found to be, in truth, so
entirely unnecessary.
The prologues of our stage date from the earliest period of the
British drama. They were not so much designed, as were the prologues
of the classical theatre, to enlighten the spectators touching the
subject of the forthcoming play; but were rather intended to bespeak
favour for the dramatist, and to deprecate adverse opinion.
Originally, indeed, the prologue-speaker was either the author himself
in person, or his representative.


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