ou will
forgive me an extravagant fancy, I will here set it down. I could
not but fancy, if my soul had at that moment quitted my body, and
descended to the poetical shades in the posture it was then in, what
a strange figure it would have made among them. They would not have
known what to have made of my motley spectre, half comic and half
tragic, all over resembling a ridiculous face, that, at the same time,
laughs on one side, and cries on the other. The only defence, I think,
I have ever heard made for this, as it seems to me the most unnatural
tack of the comic tail to the tragic head, is this, 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:
for who knows the consequence of this? We are much obliged indeed to
poets for the great tenderness they express for the safety of our
persons, and heartily thank them for it. But if that be all, pray,
good Sir, assure them, that we are none of us like to come to any
great harm; and that, let them do their best, we shall, in all
probability, live out the length of our days, and frequent the
theatres more than ever. What makes me more desirous to have some
reformation of this matter is, because of an ill consequence or two
attending it: for a great many of our church musicians being related
to the theatre, they have, in imitation of these epilogues, introduced
in their farewell voluntaries, a sort of music 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 clerk has with the utmost diligence called
out two staves proper to the discourse, and I have found in myself,
and in the rest of the pew, good thoughts and dispositions, they have
been all in a moment dissipated by a merry jig 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[A] has resolved upon a very sudden reformation in
his tragical dramas; and that, at the next monthly performance, he
desi