"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 "Phaedra and
Hippolita," Addison having supplied the work with a prologue
ridiculing the Italian operas.
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