Chapter 37

EPILOGUES.

Epilogues went out of fashion with pigtails, the public having at last decided that neither of these appendages was really necessary or particularly ornamental; but a considerable time elapsed before this opinion was definitively arrived at. The old English moralities or moral plays usually concluded, as Mr. Payne Collier notes, with an epilogue in which prayers were offered up by the actors for the king, queen, clergy, and sometimes for the commons; the latest instance of this practice being the epilogue to a play of 1619, "Two Wise Men and All the Rest Fools." "It resteth now," says the "epiloguiser," "that we render you very humble and hearty thanks, and that all our hearts pray for the king and his family's enduring happiness, and our country's perpetual welfare. _Si placet, plaudite._" So also the dancer entrusted with the delivery of the epilogue to Shakespeare's "Second Part of King Henry IV." may be understood as referring to this matter, in the concluding words of his address: "My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good-night: and so kneel down before you--but, indeed, to pray for the queen." And to this old custom of loyal prayer for the reigning sovereign has been traced the addition of the words, "Vivat rex," or "Vivat regina," which were wont to appear in the playbills, until quite recent times, when our programmes became the advertising _media_ of the perfumers.

The main object of the epilogue, however, was as Massinger has expressed it in the concluding address of his comedy, "Believe as you List"--

The end of epilogues is to inquire The censure of the play, or to desire Pardon for what's amiss;

and as Theseus states the matter in "The Midsummer Night's Dream:" "No epilogue, I pray you, for your play needs no excuse." Sometimes a sort of bluntness of speech was affected, as in the epilogue to one of Beaumont and Fletcher's comedies:

Why there should be an epilogue to a play I know no cause. The old and usual way For which they were made was to entreat the grace Of such as were spectators. In this place And time, 'tis to no purpose; for I know, What you resolve already to bestow Will not be altered, whatsoe'er I say In the behalf of us, and of the play; Only to quit our doubts, if you think fit, You may or cry it up or silence it.

It was in order, no doubt, the more to conciliate the audience that epilogues assumed, oftentimes, a playfulness of tone that would scarcely have been tolerated in the case of prologues. The delivery of an epilogue by a woman (i.e. by a boy playing the part of a woman) was clearly unusual at the time of the first performance of "As You Like It." "It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue," says Rosalind; "but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues." There can be little doubt that all Shakespeare's plays were originally followed by epilogues, although but very few of these have been preserved. The only one that seems deficient in dignity, and therefore appropriateness, is that above quoted, spoken by the dancer, at the conclusion of "The Second Part of King Henry IV." In no case is direct appeal made, on the author's behalf, to the tender mercies of the audience, although the epilogue to "King Henry VIII." seems to entertain misgivings as to the fate of the play:

'Tis ten to one this play can never please All that are here. Some come to take their ease, An act or two; but those we fear, We have frighted with our trumpets; so, 'tis clear They'll say, 'tis naught: others to hear the city Abused extremely and to cry--_that's witty!_ Which we have not done neither; that, I fear, All the expected good we're like to hear For this play at this time is only in The merciful construction of good women: For such a one we showed them.

Prospero delivers the epilogue to "The Tempest;" and the concluding lines of "The Midsummer Night's Dream," and of "All's Well that Ends Well"--which are not described as epilogues, and should, perhaps, rather be viewed as "tags"--are spoken by Puck and the King. The epilogues to "King Henry V." and "Pericles" are of course spoken by the Chorus and Gower, respectively, who, throughout those plays, have favoured the spectators with much discourse and explanation. "Twelfth Night" terminates with the clown's nonsense song, which may be an addition due less to the dramatist than to the comic actor who first played the part.

The epilogues of the Elizabethan stage, so far as they have come down to us, are, as a rule, brief and discreet enough; but, after the Restoration, epilogues acquired greater length and much more impudence, to say the least of it, while they clearly had gained importance in the consideration of the audience. And now it became the custom to follow up a harrowing tragedy with a most broadly comic epilogue. The heroine of the night--for the delivering of epilogues now devolved frequently upon the actresses--who, but a few moments before, had fallen a most miserable victim to the dagger or the bowl, as the case might be, suddenly reappeared upon the stage, laughing, alive, and, it may be said, kicking, and favoured the audience with an address designed expressly, it would seem, so to make their cheeks burn with blushes that their recent tears might the sooner be dried up. It is difficult to conceive now that certain of the prologues and epilogues of Dryden and his contemporaries could ever have been delivered, at any time, upon any stage. Yet they were assuredly spoken, and often by women, apparently to the complete satisfaction of the playgoers of the time. But, concerning the scandalous condition of the stage of the Restoration, there is no need to say anything further. The ludicrous epilogue, which has been described as the unnatural tacking of a comic tale to a tragical head, was certainly popular, however, and long continued so. It was urged, "that the minds of the audience must be refreshed, and gentlemen and ladies not sent away to their own homes with too dismal and melancholy thoughts about them." Certain numbers of "The Spectator" were expressly devoted to the discussion of this subject, in the interest, it is now apparent, of Ambrose Philips, who had brought upon the stage an adaptation of Racine's "Andromaque," and who enjoyed the zealous friendship of Addison and Steele. To the tragedy of "The Distressed Mother," as it was called, which can hardly have been seen in the theatre since the late Mr. Macready, as Orestes, made his first bow to a London audience in 1816, an epilogue had been added which had the good fortune to be accounted the most admirable production of its class. Steele, under the signature of "Physibulus," wrote to describe his visit to Drury Lane, in company with his friend Sir Roger, to witness the new performance. "You must know, sir, that it is always my custom, when I have been well entertained at a new tragedy, to make my retreat before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that these pieces are often very well written, but, having paid down my half-crown, and made a fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the poet's art can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry some of it home with me, and cannot endure to be at once tricked out of all, though by the wittiest dexterity in the world." He describes Sir Roger as entering with equal pleasure into both parts, and as much satisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety as he had been before with Andromache's greatness; and continues: "Whether this were no more than an effect of the knight's peculiar humanity, pleased to find that, at last, after all the tragical doings, everything was safe and well, I do not know; but, for my own part, I must confess I was so dissatisfied, that I was sorry the poet had saved Andromache, and could heartily have wished that he had left her stone dead upon the stage. I found my soul, during the action, gradually worked up to the highest pitch, and felt the exalted passion which all generous minds conceive at the sight of virtue in distress.... But the ludicrous epilogue in the close extinguished all my ardour, and made me look upon all such achievements as downright silly and romantic." To this letter a reply, signed "Philomedes," appeared in "The Spectator" a few days later, expressing, in the first place, amazement at the attack upon the epilogue, and calling attention to its extraordinary success. "The audience would not permit Mrs. Oldfield to go off the stage the first night till she had repeated it twice; the second night, the noise of the _ancoras_ was as loud as before, and she was obliged again to speak it twice; the third night it was still called for a second time, and, in short, contrary to all other epilogues, which are dropped after the third representation of the play, this has already been repeated nine times." "Philomedes" then points out that, although the prologue and epilogue were real parts of ancient tragedy, they are on the English stage distinct performances, entirely detached from the play, and in no way essential to it. "The moment the play ends," he argues, "Mrs. Oldfield is no more Andromache, but Mrs. Oldfield; and though the poet had left Andromache 'stone dead upon the stage' ... Mrs. Oldfield might still have spoken a merry epilogue;" and he refers to the well-known instance of Nell Gwynne, in the epilogue to Dryden's tragedy of "Tyrannic Love," "where there is not only a death but a martyrdom," rising from the stage upon which she was supposed to be lying stone dead--an attempt having been made to remove her by those gentlemen "whose business it is to carry off the slain in our English tragedies"--and breaking out "into that abrupt beginning of what was a very ludicrous but at the same time thought a very good epilogue:

"Hold! are you mad? you damned confounded dog, I am to rise and speak the epilogue!"

"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 unaccountable 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.

The epilogue to Home's tragedy of "Douglas" is simply a remonstrance against the employment of "comic wit" on such an occasion:

An Epilogue I asked; but not one word Our bard will write. He vows 'tis most absurd With comic wit to contradict the strain Of tragedy, and make your sorrows vain. Sadly he says that pity is the best And noblest passion of the human breast; For when its sacred streams the heart o'erflow In gushes pleasure with the tide of woe; And when its waves retire, like those of Nile, They leave behind them such a golden soil That there the virtues without culture grow, There the sweet blossoms of affection blow. These were his words; void of delusive art I felt them; for he spoke them from his heart. Nor will I now attempt with witty folly To chase away celestial melancholy.

Apart from the epilogues that pertained to particular plays, and could hardly be detached from them, were the "occasional epilogues," written with no special relevancy to any dramatic work, but rather designed to be recitations or monologue entertainments, that could be delivered at any time, as managers, players, and public might decide. Garrick, who highly esteemed addresses of the class, was wont, in the character of "a drunken sailor," to recite a much-admired "occasional epilogue." Early comedians, such as Joe Haines and Pinkethman, now and then entered upon the scene, "seated upon an ass," to deliver "an occasional epilogue," with more mirthful effect. Extravagances of this kind have usually been reserved for benefit-nights, however. In Tom Brown's works, 1730, there is a print of Haines, mounted on an ass, appearing in front of the stage, with a view of the side boxes and pit. An "occasional epilogue" was delivered in 1710, by Powell and Mrs. Spiller, "on the hardships suffered by lawyers and players in the Long Vacation."

For some years before their extinction, epilogues had greatly declined in worth, although their loss of public favour was less apparent. They were in many cases wretched doggerel, full of slang terms and of impertinence that was both coarse and dull. With a once famous epilogue-writer--Miles Peter Andrews, who was also a dramatist, although, happily, his writings for the stage have now vanished completely--Gifford deals severely in his "Baviad." "Such is the reputation this gentleman has obtained for epilogue writing, that the minor poets of the day, despairing of emulating, are now only solicitous of assisting him--happy if they can obtain admission for a couplet or two into the body of his immortal works, and thus secure to themselves a small portion of that popular applause so lavishly and so justly bestowed on everything that bears the signature of Miles Andrews!" A few lines make havoc of quite a covey of "bards" of that period:

Too much the applause of fashion I despise; For mark to what 'tis given and then declare, Mean though I am, if it be worth my care. Is it not given to Este's unmeaning dash, To Topham's fustian, Colman's flippant trash, To Andrews' doggerel, when three wits combine, To Morton's catchword, Greathead's idiot line, And Holcroft's Shug Lane cant, and Merry's Moorfields whine, &c.

Criticism was not mealy-mouthed in Gifford's day.

The "tag" appears to be following the epilogue to oblivion; for though it is difficult to differentiate them, the tag must not be confused with the epilogue, or viewed as merely an abbreviated form of it. As a rule, the epilogue was divided from the play by the fall of the curtain, although this could hardly have been the case in regard to the epilogue mentioned above, delivered by "Mrs. Ellen," as Dryden calls her, after the tragedy of "Tyrannic Love." But the tag is usually the few parting words addressed by the leading character in a play, before the curtain descends upon it, to "our kind friends in front," entreating their applause. The final _couplets_ of a French vaudeville, it may be noted, usually contained an appeal of this kind; otherwise, tags, and epilogues are alike eschewed upon the French stage. But this "coming forward" of the player, to deliver his tag, is a practice of old date. The concluding speech in Massinger's "New Way to Pay Old Debts," addressed to the audience, and commencing--

Nothing wants then But your allowance--and in that our all Is comprehended--

is, according to the old stage direction, to be spoken by Wellborn "coming forward." So also Cozimo is directed to "come forward," to address to the audience the last lines of "The Great Duke of Florence."

Epilogues have rarely been employed as supplementary acts, continuing and completing the action of a play, as prologues in modern times have been converted into introductory chapters, explanatory of events to be presently exhibited upon the scene. Yet the interminable drama of "Marie Antoinette," by Signor Paolo Giacometti, in which Madame Ristori was wont to perform, presents an instance of this kind. "Marie Antoinette" is in five acts, with a prologue exhibiting the queen's life at Versailles, in 1786, and an epilogue showing her imprisonment in the Conciergerie, and her march to the guillotine in the custody of Samson the executioner.

* * * * *

The epilogue spoken, the entertainments are indeed terminated. The audience move from their seats towards the portals of the playhouse. The lights are being extinguished; the boxes are about to be covered over with brown-holland draperies; the prompter has closed his book and is thinking of moving homewards.

It remains for us only to interchange "Good-byes"--and to separate.

THE END.