[Footnote A:  This is a coy reference to Pyrrhus, who was murdered while his marriage to Hector’s widow was being celebrated with royal pomp.  As he fell, it will be remembered, the King placed his crown upon the head of Andromache.]

An epilogue leading off with these lines was hardly an appropriate ending to a tragedy, yet are we fastidious enough in these days to sneer at the anomaly?  We have banished prologue and afterpiece as something old-fashioned and inartistic, but never turn one solitary eyelash when Hamlet follows up his death by rushing before the curtain and grinning his thanks.  Desdemonas who come forward, after the smothering scene, to receive flowers, and Romeos and Juliets who rise from the tomb that they may bow and smirk before an audience—­while we have such as these among us, let us not cast stones at the early playgoer.

Addison has left, in the Spectator, a delightful story of dear old Sir Roger de Coverley’s experience with the “Distressed Mother.”  Sir Roger, it appears, confessed that he had not seen a play for twenty years, and was very anxious to know “who this distressed mother was; and upon hearing that she was Hector’s widow, he told me that her husband was a brave man, and that when he was a schoolboy he had read his life at the end of the dictionary."[A] So the old gentleman, accompanied by the Spectator, Captain Sentry, and a retinue of servants, set out in state for Drury Lane, and on arriving there went into the pit.

[Footnote A:  Spectator, No. 335.]

“As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up, and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertainment.  I could not but fancy to myself, as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper centre to a tragic audience.  Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the knight told me, that he did not believe the king of France himself had a better strut.  I was indeed very attentive to my old friend’s remarks, because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism, and was well pleased to hear him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end.  One while he appeared much concerned for Andromache; and a little while after for Hermione; and was extremely puzzled to think what would become of Pyrrhus.

“When Sir Roger saw Andromache’s obstinate refusal to her lovers importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that he was sure she would never have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinary vehemence, ’You can’t imagine, sir, what it is to have to do with a widow.’  Upon Pyrrhus’s threatening afterwards to leave her, the knight shook his head, and muttered to himself, ‘Ay, do if you can.’  This part dwelt so much upon my friend’s imagination, that at