ation. 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.]

But what care we for the prologue when the first scene is on and
Violante and Leonora are confessing their respective love affairs, as
women always do--on the stage. Leonora has a dragon of a brother who
would compel her to marry that pink of empty propriety, Sir Courtly,
but she rebels against the admirer selected for her, as all well-bred
young women should in plays, and sets her heart upon another. In
consequence there is trouble of the dear old romantic kind.

"I never stir out, but as they say the Devil does, with chains and
torments," Leonora tells Violante. "She that is my Hell at home is so
abroad."

"Vio. A New Woman?

"LEO. No, an old Woman, or rather an old Devil; nay, worse than an old
Devil, an