CHAPTER XII.
PROLOGUES.
"It is singular," Miss Mitford wrote to Mr.Fields, her American publisher, "that epilogues were just dismissed at the first representation of one of my plays--'Foscari,' and prologues at another--'Rienzi.'" "Foscari" was originally produced in 1826; "Rienzi" in 1828.

According to Mr.Planche, however, the first play of importance presented without a prologue was his adaptation of Rowley's old comedy, "A Woman never Vext," produced at Covent Garden on November 9th, 1824, with a grand pageant of the Lord Mayor's Show as it appeared in the time of Henry VI.

At one of the last rehearsals, Fawcett, the stage manager, inquired of the adapter if he had written a prologue?
"No." "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.