Of prologues generally, Johnson pronounced that Dryden’s were superior to any that David Garrick had written, but that Garrick had written more good prologues than Dryden.  “It is wonderful that he has been able to write such a variety of them.”  Garrick’s prologues and epilogues are, indeed, quite innumerable, and are, almost invariably, sparkling, witty, and vivacious.  They could scarcely fail to win the favour of an audience; and then oftentimes they had the additional advantage of being delivered by himself.

Prologues seem to have been a recognised vehicle of literary courtesy.  Authors favoured each other with these addresses as a kind of advertisement of the good understanding that prevailed between them—­an evidence of respect, friendliness, and encouragement.  Thus Addison’s tragedy of “Cato” was provided with a prologue by Pope—­the original line, “Britons, arise! be worth like this approved,” being “liquidated” to “Britons attend!”—­for the timid dramatist was alarmed lest he should be judged a promoter of insurrection.  Addison in his turn furnished the prologue to Steele’s “Tender Husband,” while Steele favoured Vanbrugh with a prologue to his comedy of “The Mistake.”  Johnson, as we have seen, now and then provided his friends with prologues.  The prologue to Goldsmith’s “She Stoops to Conquer” was written by Garrick, to be spoken by Woodward, the actor, “dressed in black, and holding a handkerchief to his eyes;” the prologue to “The School for Scandal” was also the work of Garrick.  Sheridan, it may be noted, supplied a prologue to Savage’s tragedy of “Sir Thomas Overbury,” on the occasion of its revival at Covent Garden, thirty-four years after the death of its author.  Among the last of the prologues was one written by Mr. Charles Dickens to Dr. Westland Marston’s poetic drama, “The Patrician’s Daughter.”

Prologues have now vanished, however, and are not likely to be reintroduced.  It must be added that they showed symptoms of decline in worth long before they departed.  Originally apologies for players and dramatists—­at a time when the histrionic profession was very lightly esteemed—­they were retained by the conservatism of the stage as matters of form, long after they had forfeited all genuine excuse for their existence.  The name is still retained, however, and applied to the introductory, or, to use Mr. Boucicault’s word, “proloquial” acts of certain long and complicated plays, which seem to require for their due comprehension the exhibition to the audience of events antecedent to the real subject of the drama.  But these “proloquial acts” are things quite apart from the old-fashioned prologue.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ART OF “MAKING-UP.”