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.