PROLOGUE TO MR. ADDISON'S TRAGEDY OF CATO.

THE Tragedy of Cato itself, is a glaring inftance of the force of party; fo fententious and declamatory a drama would never have met with fuch rapid and amazing fuccefs, if every line and sentence had not been particularly tortured, and applied to recent events, and the reigning difputes of the times. The purity and energy of the diction, and the loftinefs of the sentiments, copied, in a great measure, from Lucan, Tacitus, and Seneca the philosopher, merit approbation. But I have always thought, that those pompous Roman fentiments are not fo difficult to be produced, as is vulgarly imagined; and which, indeed, dazzle only the vulgar. A stroke of nature is, in my opinion, worth a hundred fuch thoughts, as

"When vice prevails, and impious men bear fway,

The post of honour is a private station.”

Cato is a fine dialogue on liberty, and the love of one's country; but confidered as a dramatic performance, nay, as a model of a just tragedy, as fome have affectedly reprefented it, it must be owned to want action and pathos; the two hinges, I prefume, on which a juft tragedy ought neceffarily to turn, and without which it. cannot fubfift. It wants alfo character, although that be not fo effentially neceffary to a tragedy as action. Syphax, indeed, in his interview with Juba, bears fome marks of a rough African ; the speeches of the reft may be transferred to any of the perfonages concerned. The fimile drawn from Mount Atlas, and the description of the Numidian travellers fmothered in the defart, are indeed in character, but fufficiently obvious. How Addison could fall into the falfe and unnatural custom of ending his three first acts with fimilies, is amazing in so chaste and correct a writer.

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a writer. The loves of Juba and Marcia, of Portius and Lucia, are vicious and infipid episodes, debase the dignity, and deftroy the unity of the fable. Cato was tranflated into Italian by Salvini; into Latin, and acted by the Jefuits at St. Omers; imitated in French by De Champs, and great part of it tranflated by the Abbé Du Bos.

The Prologue to Addifon's Tragedy of Cato, is fuperior to any prologue of Dryden; who, notwithstanding, is fo juftly celebrated for this fpecies of writing. The prologues of Dryden are fatyrical and facetious; this of Pope is folemn and fublime, as the fubject required. Thofe of Dryden contain general topics of criticism and wit, and may precede any play whatsoever, even tragedy or comedy. This of Pope is particular, and appropriated which it was defigned to introduce.

to the tragedy alone,

PROLOGUE TO MR. ADDISON'S

TRAGEDY OF CATO*.

To

o wake the foul by tender ftrokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart,
To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the Tragic Mufe firft trod the ftage,
Commanding tears to ftream through ev'ry age;
Tyrants no more their favage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author fhuns by vulgar fprings to move
The hero's glory, or the virgin's love;
In pitying love, we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deferves its woe.

NOTES.

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10

Here

* This Prologue, and the Epilogue which follows, are the moft perfect models of this fpecies of writing, both in the serious and the ludicrous

way.

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The former is much the better of the two; for fome of Dryden's, of the latter kind, are unequalled.

VER. 7. Tyrants no more] Louis XIV. wished to have pardoned the Cardinal de Rohan, after hearing the Cinna of Corneille.

VER. 11. In pitying love,] Why then did Addifon introduce the loves of Juba and Marcia? which Pope faid to Mr. Spence, were not in the original plan of the play, but were introduced in compliance with the popular practice of the stage.

Here tears shall flow from a more gen'rous cause,
Such tears as Patriots shed for dying Laws:
He bids your breast with ancient ardour rife,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.
Virtue confefs'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your fight displays,
But what with pleasure Heav'n itself furveys,
A brave man struggling in the ftorms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling ftate.
While Cato gives his little Senate laws,

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What bofom beats not in his Country's caufe?
Who fees him act, but envies ev'ry deed?
Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Ev'n when proud Caefar 'midft triumphal cars,

The spoils of nations, and the

pomp

Ignobly vain, and impotently great,

of wars,

Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in ftate; 30
As her dead Father's rev'rend image paft,

The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercaft;
The Triumph ceas'd, tears gufh'd from ev'ry eye;
The world's great Victor pass'd unheeded by;
Her laft good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Caefar's lefs than Cato's fword.

NOTES.

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Britons,

VER. 20. But what with pleasure] This alludes to a famous paffage of Seneca, which Mr. Addison afterwards used as a motto to his play, when it was printed.

W.

VER.27. Ev'n when] The twenty-feventh, thirtieth, thirty-fourth, thirty-ninth, and forty-fifth lines, are artful allufions to the character and history of Cato himself.

Britons, attend: be worth like this approv'd,

And show you have the virtue to be mov'd.

With honest scorn the first fam'd Cato view'd

Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdu'd; Your scene precariously fubfifts too long

On French tranflation, and Italian fong.

Dare to have sense yourselves; affert the stage,
Be justly warm'd with your own native rage:
Such Plays alone should win a British ear,
As Cato's felf had not disdain'd to hear.

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NOTES.

VER. 37. Britons, attend:] Spence told me that Pope had written it-"Britons, arife"; but that Addifon, frightened at fo ftrong an expreffion, as promoting infurrection, lowered and weakened it by the word, attend.

VER. 42. On French tranflation,] He glances obliquely at the Diftreft Mother of his old antagonist Philips, taken, evidently, from Racine. Cato's laft foliloquy is tranflated with great purity and elegance by Bland.

It is a little remarkable that the laft line of Cato is Pope's; and the last of Eloifa is Addifon's.

VER. 45. Such Plays alone] Addifon, having finished and laid by, for feveral years, the first four acts of Cato, applied to Hughes for a fifth; and Dr. Johnfon, from entertaining too mean an opinion of Hughes, does not think the application serious. When Hughes brought his supplement, he found the author himself had finished his play. Hughes was very capable of writing this fifth act. The Siege of Damascus is a better tragedy than Cato; though Pope affected to speak flightingly of its author. An audience was packed by Steele on the first night of Cato; and Addison suffered inexpreffible uneafinefs and folicitude during the representation. Bolingbroke called Booth to his box, and gave him fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty fo well, against a perpetual dictator.

VER. 46. As Cato's felf, &c.] This alludes to that famous ftory of his coming into the Theatre, and going out again, related by Martial.

W,