"This diverting manner," "Philomedes" proceeds, "was always practised by Mr. Dryden, who, if he was not the best writer of tragedies in his time, was allowed by everyone to have the happiest turn for a prologue or an epilogue." And he further cites the example of a comic epilogue known to be
written by Prior, to the tragedy of "Phædra and Hippolita," Addison having supplied the work with a prologue ridiculing the Italian operas. He refers also to the French stage: "Since everyone knows that nation, who are generally esteemed to have as polite a taste as any in Europe, always close their tragic entertainment with what they call a petite pièce, which is purposely designed to raise mirth and send away the audience well pleased. The same person who has supported the chief character in the tragedy very often plays the principal part in the petite pièce; so that I have myself seen at Paris Orestes and Lubin acted the same night by the same man."
This famous epilogue to "The Distressed Mother" is spoken by Andromache, and opens with the following lines, which are certainly flippant enough:
I hope you'll own that with becoming art
I've played my game and topped the widow's part!
My spouse, poor man, could not live out the play,
But died commodiously on his wedding-day;
While I, his relict, made, at one bold fling,
Myself a princess, and young Sty a king.
Of this address the reputed author was Eustace Budgell, of the Inner Temple, whose name is usually found printed in connection with it—"the worthless Budgell," as Johnson calls him—"the man who calls me cousin," as Addison used contemptuously to describe him. In Johnson's Life of Ambrose Philips, however, it is stated that Addison was himself the real author of the epilogue, but that "when it had been at first printed with his name he came early in the morning, before the copies were distributed, and ordered it to be given to Budgell, that it might add weight to the solicitation which he was then making for a place." It is probable, moreover, that Addison was not particularly anxious to own a production which, after all, was but a following of an example so questionable as Prior's epilogue to "Phædra," above mentioned. The controversy in "The Spectator" was, without doubt, a matter of pre-arrangement between Addison and Steele, for the entertainment of the public and the increase of the fame of Philips; and the letter of "Philomedes," which with the epilogue in question has been often ascribed to Budgell, was probably also the work of Addison. For all the rather un
accountable zeal of Addison and Steele on behalf of their friend, however, the reputation of Philips has not thriven; he is chiefly remembered now by the nickname of Namby-Pamby, bestowed on him by Pope, who had always vehemently contested his claims to distinction. As Johnson states the case: "Men sometimes suffer by injudicious kindness; Philips became ridiculous, without his own fault, by the absurd admiration of his friends, who decorated him with honorary garlands which the first breath of contradiction blasted." Johnson, by-the-way, had at the age of nineteen written a new epilogue to "The Distressed Mother," for some young ladies who designed an amateur performance of that still-admired tragedy. The epilogue was intended to be delivered by "a lady who was to personate the ghost of Hermione."
But although protests were now and then, as in the case of "The Distressed Mother," raised against the absurdity of the custom, comic epilogues to tragic plays long remained in favour with the patrons of the stage. Pointed reference to this fact is contained in the epilogue spoken by the beautiful Mrs. Hartley to Murphy's tragedy of "Alzuma," produced at Covent Garden in 1773:
Our play is o'er; now swells each throbbing breast
With expectation of the coming jest.
By Fashion's law, whene'er the Tragic Muse
With sympathetic tears each eye bedews;
When some bright Virtue at her call appears.
Waked from the dead repose of rolling years;
When sacred worthies she bids breathe anew,
That men may be what she displays to view;
By fashion's law with light fantastic mien
The Comic Sister trips it o'er the scene;
Armed at all points with wit and wanton wiles,
Plays off her airs, and calls forth all her smiles;
Till each fine feeling of the heart be o'er,
And the gay wonder how they wept before!
To Murphy's more famous tragedy of "The Grecian Daughter," Garrick supplied an epilogue, which commences:
The Grecian Daughter's compliments to all;
Begs that for Epilogue you will not call;
For leering, giggling, would be out of season,
And hopes by me you'll hear a little reason, &c.