The Step-Mother :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Step-Mother

Colman, George (1732-1794)

THE STEP-MOTHER;

PROLOGUE.

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PROLOGUE.

This play is call'd The Step-Mother. When first
It was presented, such a hurricane,
A tumult so uncommon interven'd,
It neither could be seen, nor understood:
So taken were the people, so engag'd
By a rope-dancer!—It is now brought on
As a new piece: and he who wrote the play,
Suffer'd it not to be repeated then,
That he might profit by a second sale.
Others, his plays, you have already known;
Now then, let me beseech you, know this too.

Calamitas. This word is used in the same sense in the first scene of the Eunuch.—Nothing can be more evident than that this was the prologue to the second attempt to exhibit this comedy.

See the last note to the second prologue.

According to Vossius, the Step-Mother was not attempted to be revived till after the representation of the Brothers. If so, they had already seen all the rest of Terence's pieces. Dacier.