“When Thespis rode upon his one-horse cart, The first exponent of the Drama’s art, Earliest of managers, and happiest too, Having a theatre which always drew.” Then followed a comparison of the stationary theatre with the vagrant one, and the brief prologue ended with some jests on the actors, as on himself: “If Pyramus be short, restrain your ire, Remember none of us appear for hire;” and on Crawford:-- “Forgive our Thisbe the moustache she wears, Ladies, you know, _will_ put on little ’airs.” Story, who was to play Snug, hunted through Rome for a lion’s skin, and finally had to content himself with the skin of a tiger. “But now comes one fact I proclaim with glory, Snug is enacted by our attic Story, Who sought a lion’s hide through Rome, a week, Quite a new way of playing hide and seek.” In the first representation Lowell had the part of Pyramus, in the second he was Bottom, and as he intimates made his new prologue more comprehensible by his audience. He pretended to have received a request from Mr. Black to write the prologue, and so begins:-- “‘Dear Bottom, if you can, I wish you’d write A prologue for our comedy to-night; Just tap that comic vein of yours which runs Discharging a continuous stream of puns.’” And that is what the second prologue consists of, with some repetition even of the jokes of the first, ending:-- “Now who plays Pyramus! no, that won’t go well, I cannot get a good thing out of Lowell. Faith, that’s too near the truth, it’s past my power, For I’ve been trying at it half an hour. At all events I can proclaim with glory Snug is enacted by our Attic Story; Who sought a lion’s skin through Rome a week, Quite a nice way of playing hide and seek. But the last lion that was seen in Rome Was Dickens,--and he carried his skin home. Thisbe’s moustache. The Greek girls never had any? I’ll just remind them of Miss Hairyadne. But I can’t do it. Dite al Signore,-- What’s more I won’t--che sono fuori.”[93]