The comedian Charles Lee Lewes (1740-1803) in depicted here as Harlequin speaking the playwright Oliver Goldmith's prologue about pantomime and playing Harlequin which began: Hold! Prompter hold! A word before your nonsense/ I'd speak a word or two to ease my conscience. /My pride forbids it ever should be said/ My heels eclipsed the honours of my head;/ That I found humour in a piebald vest/Or ever thought that jumping was a jest'. The stage direction then noted: 'Takes off his mask'. Later came the lines: 'How hast thou filled the scene with all thy brood/ Of fools pursuing, and of fools pursued!/ Whose ins and outs no ray of sense discloses/ Whose only plot it is to break our noses;/Whilst from below the trap-door demons rise; And from above the dangling deities.' It continued with the words: 'And shall I mx in this unhallowed crew?/May rosined lightning blast me if I do!' - printed here as 'Rosins Lightening' [sic]. Harlequin goes on to say how he longs to act with: 'tragic rage' instead - to play a Shakespearean part such as Richard III, but realises that this is just a dream: 'for now there's no retreating/ If I cease Harlequin, I cease from eating.' At the end of his prologue the stage direction notes: 'Taking a jump through the floor'.

Lewes (originally Lewis) first appeared at Covent Garden on 23rd September 1767 as Prince Henry in King John. Perhaps to avoid confusion with the actor Philip Lewis (also at Covent Garden), he was now billed as Lee Lewes. He played various supporting roles during the 1767-8 season, and after appearing in Bristol returned to Covent Garden where he remained for sixteen seasons, playing Harlequin in the 1770-71 season in The Rape of Prosperine, Harlequin's Jubilee, and Mother Shipton. Lewes played Young Marlow in the first performance of Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer in March 1773, and for Lewes's Benefit on 7th May 1773, Goldsmith added this prologue for Lewes to speak.

Sometimes described as an epilogue, the words asking the Prompter to wait: 'before your nonsense' means it probably was a prologue as is stated on this print. When originally presented in March 1773 the play featured a prologue spoken by the comedian and Harlequin Henry Woodward, and no epilogue.