'Tis penning bows and making legs in rhyme.
'Tis cringing at the door, with simp'ring grin,
When we should show the company within."
But he subsequently wrote in the epilogue to the "Fathers," that—
"Prologue and epilogues—to speak the phrase—
Which suits the warlike spirit of these days—
Are cannons charged, or should be charged, with wit,
Which, pointed well, each rising folly hit."
Garrick, however, only wrote according to the humour of the hour, for elsewhere he describes prologues as "the mere ghosts of wit;" and proposes their abolition. Their alleged falseness of promise he illustrates, in a "Prologue upon Prologues," spoken when none at all was needed, by a story:—
"To turn a penny, once, a wit,