nture,
Might she so soon upon her jointure enter?"

[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