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