Dryden's Epilogue to the King and Queen at the Union of the Two Companies, 1682, has: Then for your lacquies ...

A new Prologue and Epilogue were spoken on that occasion; the Prologue was written by Benjamin Martyn esquire; the Epilogue by the hon.

The Epilogue of Faustus might be written across his tombstone: Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel

But Blake's are the flower of the set, you will, I am sure, agree; though some of Montgomery's at the end are pretty, but the Dream awkwardly paraphrased from B. With the exception of an Epilogue for a Private Theatrical, I have written nothing new for near six months.

Also shortly before the epilogue in Shadwell's The Sullen Lovers (1668) we read, 'Enter a Boy in the habit of Pugenello and traverses the stage, takes his chair and sits down, then dances a Jig.'

Dryden's Epilogue on the Union (1682):

In the mean time, Sir, this gloomy Writer, who is so mightily scandaliz'd at a gay Epilogue after a serious Play, speaking of the Fate of those unhappy Wretches who are condemned to suffer an ignominious Death by the Justice of our Laws, endeavours to make the Reader merry on so improper an occasion, by those poor Burlesque Expressions of Tragical Dramas, and Monthly Performances.

" To this aphorism we may be permitted to add that a chasse of cognac or curaçoa at the close of the dinner is like the epilogue at the end of a comedy.

So when the second night of "The Perplexed Lovers" arrived, and a special licence from the Lord Chamberlain had been secured, the actress came valiantly forward and spoke the epilogue with success.

He withers his clothes on a stage, as a saleman is forced to do his suits in Birchin Lane; and when the play is done, if you mark his rising, 'tis with a kind of walking epilogue between the two candles, to know if his suit may pass for current.

Already his fellow-playwrights deemed their success as fearfully uncertain, unless they had secured, price three guineas, a prologue or epilogue from the Laureate.