much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart--

at once roused the audience to a sense of his merits. "His salary was
immediately increased by the manager; and he proved afterwards a great
ornament of the stage."

The delivery of a prologue by an actress--that is to say, of course,
by a boy in female dress, personating the character of a
woman--appears to have been an unusual proceeding upon the Elizabethan
stage. Mr. Collier has noted instances, however. In the case of the
prologue to "Every Woman in her Humour," 1609, spoken by the heroine
Flavia, "Enter Flavia as a Prologue," runs the stage direction; and
she begins--"Gentles of both sexes and of all sorts, I am sent to bid
ye welcome. I am but instead of a prologue, for a she prologue is as
rare as a usurer's alms." And the prologue to Shirley's "Coronation,"
1640, was also delivered by one of the representatives of female
character. A passage is worth quoting, for its description of ordinary
prologue-speaking at this time:

Since 'tis become the title of our play,
A woman once in a Coronation may
With pardon speak the prologue, give as free
A welcome to the theatre, as he
That with a little beard, a long black cloak,
With a starched face and supple leg hath spoke
Before the plays this twelvemonth. Let me then
Present a welcome to these gentlemen.
If you be kind and noble you will not
Think the worse of me for my petticoat.

It would seem that impatience was sometimes expressed at the poetic
prologues and lengthy Inductions of the dramatists. The prologue to
Beaumont and Fletcher's "Woman Hater," 1607, begins: "Gentlemen,
Inductions are out of date, and a prologue in verse is as stale as a
black velvet cloak and a bay garland; therefore you have it in plain
prose, thus----." But the alteration did not please, apparently; at
any rate, upon a subsequent production of the play, the authors
furnished it with a prologue in verse of the old-established pattern.

The Elizabethan dramatists often took occasion in their prologues to
lecture the audience upon their conduct in the theatre, exhorting them
to more seemly manners, and especially informing them that nothing of
an indecorous nature would be presented upon the scene. The prologue
to "The Woman Hater," above mentioned, pronounces "to the utter
discomfort of all twopenny gallery men," that there is no impropriety
contained in the play, and bids them depart,