[Footnote B:  It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that in the private correspondence between Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough, the former signed herself “Mrs. Morley,” while her friend masqueraded as “Mrs. Freeman.”]

The comedy is about to begin as a common-looking person makes his appearance in the box.  He is a dull, heavy fellow, who suggests nothing more strongly than a fondness for brown October ale and a good dinner into the bargain.  Anne turns towards him with as affectionate a glance as she thinks it seeming to bestow in public.  Is he not her husband, George of Denmark, and the father of all those children whom she never has succeeded in rearing to man’s, or woman’s, estate?  He is a faithful consort, too, which is saying not a little in the days when Royal constancy, on the male side, is the rarest of jewels.  George has vices, to be sure, but they belong to the stomach rather than the heart—­that obese heart which, such as it is, the good Queen can call her own.

“Hath your Royal Highness ever seen this Cibber act?” asked the Duchess, by way of making conversation.  She never stands on ceremony with soft-pated George, and does not wait to speak until she is spoken to.

“Cibber—­Cibber—­who be Cibber?” queries the Prince, a beery look in his eye, a foreign accent on his tongue.

“He’s the son of the sculptor, Caius Gabriel Cibber, your Highness.”

“I do not know—­I do not know,” mutters George drowsily.  Then he falls asleep in the box, and snores so deeply that Manager Rich, who has been in the front of the house, pokes his inquisitive face into the poorly-lighted auditorium, and quickly pokes it back again.

But hush!  Wake up, Prince, and look at the stage.  The play has begun, and some member of the company, we know not who, has recited the archaic prologue, which asks: 

  “What are the Charmes, by which these happy Isles
  Hence gain’d Heaven’s brightest and eternal smiles? 
  What Nation upon Earth besides our own
  But by a loss like ours had been undone? 
  Ten Ages scarce such Royal worths display
  As England lost, and found in one strange Day. 
  One hour in sorrow and confusion hurld,
  And yet the next the envy of the World.”

[Illustration:  Colley cibber

In the character of “Sir Novelty Fashion, newly created Lord Foppington,” in Vanbrugh’s play of “The Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger.”

From the Painting by J. GRISONI, the property of the Garrick Club]

The King is dead!  Long live the Queen!  The prologue was written in honour of his most Catholic Majesty James II. and his consort, Marie Beatrice of Modena, but the opening lines are admirably adapted to flatter Anne, and so they are retained, even though what follows happens to be new.[A]

[Footnote A:  The remainder of the original prologue, had it been recited, would have raised a storm.]