Servetur ad imum
Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.
Hor.
The Prologue was by Steele. Of the Epilogue Dr. Johnson said (in his Lives of the Poets, when telling of Ambrose Philips),
'It was known in Tonson's family and told to Garrick, that Addison was himself the author of it, and 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.'
Johnson calls it
'the most successful Epilogue that was ever yet spoken on the English theatre.'
The three first nights it was recited twice, and whenever afterwards the play was acted the Epilogue was still expected and was spoken. This is a fifth paper for the benefit of Ambrose Philips, inserted, perhaps, to make occasion for a sixth (