of these Epilogues, introduced in their farewell Voluntaries a sort of Musick quite foreign to the design of Church-Services, to the great Prejudice of well-disposed People.  Those fingering Gentlemen should be informed, that they ought to suit their Airs to the Place and Business; and that the Musician is obliged to keep to the Text as much as the Preacher.  For want of this, I have found by Experience a great deal of Mischief:  For when the Preacher has often, with great Piety and Art enough, handled his Subject, and the judicious Clark has with utmost Diligence culled out two Staves proper to the Discourse, and I have found in my self and in the rest of the Pew good Thoughts and Dispositions, they have been all in a moment dissipated by a merry Jigg from the Organ-Loft.  One knows not what further ill Effects the Epilogues I have been speaking of may in time produce:  But this I am credibly informed of, that Paul Lorrain [3]—­has resolv’d upon a very sudden Reformation in his tragical Dramas; and that at the next monthly Performance, he designs, instead of a Penitential Psalm, to dismiss his Audience with an excellent new Ballad of his own composing.  Pray, Sir, do what you can to put a stop to those growing Evils, and you will very much oblige

  Your Humble Servant,
  Physibulus.

[Footnote 1: 

  [—­Servetur ad imum
  Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.

Hor. ]

[Footnote 2:  The Prologue was by Steele.  Of the Epilogue Dr. Johnson said (in his Lives of the Poets, when telling of Ambrose Philips),

It was known in Tonson’s family and told to Garrick, that Addison was himself the author of it, and 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.

Johnson calls it

  the most successful Epilogue that was ever yet spoken on the English
  theatre.

The three first nights it was recited twice, and whenever afterwards the play was acted the Epilogue was still expected and was spoken.  This is a fifth paper for the benefit of Ambrose Philips, inserted, perhaps, to make occasion for a sixth (No. 341) in the form of a reply to Physibulus.]

[Footnote 3:  Paul Lorrain was the Ordinary of Newgate.  He died in 1719.  He always represented his convicts as dying Penitents, wherefore in No. 63 of the Tatler they had been called Paul Lorrains Saints. ]

* * * * *

No. 339 Saturday, March 29, 1712.  Addison

[—­Ut his exordia primis Omnia, et ipse tener Mundi concreverit orbis.  Tum durare solum et discludere Nerea ponto Coeperit, et rerum pauliatim sumere formas.

  Virg. [1]]