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: