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SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY.

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To Sir Roger, who, as a country gentleman, appears to be a Tory, or, as it is gently expressed, an adherent to the landed interest, is opposed Sir Andrew Freeport, a new man, a wealthy merchant, zealous for the moneyed interest, and a Whig. Of this contrariety of opinions it is probable more consequences were at first intended than could be produced when the resolution was taken to exclude party from the paper. Sir Andrew does but little, and that little seems not to have pleased Addison, who, when he dismissed him from the club, changed his opinions. Steele had made him, in the true spirit of unfeeling commerce, declare that he "would not build an hospital for idle people;" but at last he buys land, settles in the country, and builds, not a manufactory, but an hospital for twelve old husbandmen-for men with whom a merchant has little acquaintance, and whom he commonly considers with little kindness.

Of essays thus elegant, thus instructive, and thus commodiously distributed, it is natural to suppose the approbation general, and the sale numerous. I once heard it observed, that the sale may be calculated by the product of the tax, related in the last number [No. 555] to produce more than twenty pounds a week, and therefore stated at one-and-twenty pounds, or three pounds ten shillings a day; this, at a halfpenny a paper, will give sixteen hundred and eighty for the daily number.46

This sale is not great; yet this, if Swift be credited, was likely to grow less; for he declares that 'The Spectator,' whom he ridicules for his endless mention of the fair sex, had before his recess wearied his readers.47

The next year (1713), in which 'Cato' came upon the stage, was the grand climacteric of Addison's reputation. Upon the death of Cato he had, as is said, planned a tragedy in the time

46 The number of copies daily distributed was at first three thousand. It subsequently increased, and had risen to near four thousand when the stamptax was imposed. That tax was fatal to a crowd of journals. The Spectator,' however, stood its ground, doubled its price, and, though its circulation fell off, still yielded a large revenue both to the state and to the authors.MACAULAY's Essays, 1 vol. ed., p. 710. (Compare Nichols, in 'Tatler,' ed. 1786, vi. 452.)

47 Swift, Journal to Stella, 2 Nov. 1711.

48

of his travels, and had for several years the four first acts finished, which were shown to such as were likely to spread their admiration. They were seen by Pope and by Cibber, who relates 49 that Steele, when he took back the copy, told him, in the despicable cant of literary modesty, that, whatever spirit his friend had shown in the composition, he doubted whether he would have courage sufficient to expose it to the censure of a British audience.

The time, however, was now come when those who affected to think liberty in danger, affected likewise to think that a stage-play might preserve it; and Addison was importuned, in the name of the tutelary deities of Britain, to show his courage and his zeal by finishing his design.

To resume his work he seemed perversely and unaccountably unwilling; and by a request which perhaps he wished to be denied, desired Mr. Hughes to add a fifth act. Hughes supposed him serious; and, undertaking the supplement, brought in a few days some scenes for his examination; but he had in the mean time gone to work himself, and produced half an act, which he afterwards completed, but with brevity irregularly disproportionate to the foregoing parts, like a task performed with reluctance, and hurried to its conclusion.

It may yet be doubted whether 'Cato' was made public by any change of the author's purpose; for Dennis charged him with raising prejudices in his own favour by false positions of preparatory criticism, and with poisoning the town by contradicting in The Spectator' the established rule of poetical justice, because his own hero, with all his virtues, was to fall

48 See Note 21, p. 125.

49 Cibber's Apology, 2nd ed. 8vo., 1740, p. 377.

1st April, 1713. Addison is to have a play on Friday in Easter week: 'tis a tragedy, called 'Cato.' I saw it unfinished some years ago.-SWIFT: Journal to Stella.

6th April, 1713. I was this morning, at ten, at the rehearsal of Mr. Addison's play called 'Cato.' There were not above half a score of us to see it. We stood on the stage, and it was foolish enough to see the actors prompted every moment, and the poet directing them; and the drab [Mrs. Oldfield] that acts Cato's daughter out in the midst of a passionate part, and then calling out "What next?"-SWIFT: Journal to Stella.

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before a tyrant. The fact is certain; the motives we must guess.

Addison was, I believe, sufficiently disposed to bar all avenues against all danger. When Pope brought him the prologue, which is properly accommodated to the play, there were these words, "Britons, arise! be worth like this approved; meaning nothing more than, Britons, erect and exalt yourselves to the approbation of public virtue. Addison was frighted lest he should be thought a promoter of insurrection, and the line was liquidated to "Britons, attend." 50

Now, "heavily in clouds came on the day, the great, the important day," when Addison was to stand the hazard of the theatre. That there might, however, be left as little hazard as was possible on the first night [14th April, 1713], Steele, as himself relates, undertook to pack an audience. This, says Pope, had been tried for the first time in favour of 'The Distrest Mother; and was now, with more efficacy, practised for 'Cato,'52

The danger was soon over. The whole nation was at that time on fire with faction. The Whigs applauded every line in which liberty was mentioned as a satire on the Tories; and the Tories echoed every clap to show that the satire was unfelt. The story of Bolingbroke is well known. He called Booth to his box, and gave him fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator. The Whigs, says Pope, design a second present, when they can accompany it with as good a sentence.54

53

The play, supported thus by the emulation of factious praise, was acted night after night for a longer time than, I believe,

50 Warburton's Pope, ed. 1752, 8vo., iv. 177.

51 Spence.-JOHNSON. Spence by Singer, p. 46.

52 Booth (the original Cato), in a letter to Aaron Hill, states that Addison "took whole years to bespeak and court friends, in order to secure the success of Cato.'"-Letters to Aaron Hill, 12mo., 1751, p. 82.

53 Pope to Trumbull, 30th April, 1713. This was a pungent allusion to the attempt which Marlborough had made, not long before his fall, to obtain a patent creating him Captain-General for life.-MACAULAY's Essays, 1 vol. ed., p. 712.

54 Pope to Trumbull, 30th April, 1713.

the public had allowed to any drama before; and the author, as Mrs. Porter long afterwards related," wandered through the whole exhibition behind the scenes with restless and unappeasable solicitude.

When it was printed, notice was given that the Queen [Anne] would be pleased if it was dedicated to her; "but, as he had designed that compliment elsewhere, he found himself obliged," says Tickell, "by his duty on the one side, and his honour on the other, to send it into the world without any dedication."

Human happiness has always its abatements; the brightest sunshine of success is not without a cloud. No sooner was 'Cato' offered to the reader, than it was attacked by the acute malignity of Dennis, with all the violence of angry criticism. Dennis, though equally zealous, and probably by his temper more furious than Addison, for what they called liberty, and though a flatterer of the Whig ministry, could not sit quiet at a successful play, but was eager to tell friends and enemies that they had misplaced their admirations. The world was too stubborn for instruction; with the fate of the censurer of Corneille's Cid,' his animadversions showed his anger without effect, and 'Cato' continued to be praised.

Pope had now an opportunity of courting the friendship of Addison by vilifying his old enemy,56 and could give resentment its full play without appearing to revenge himself. He therefore published [1713] Dr. Norris's Narrative of the Frenzy of Mr. John Dennis'-a performance which left the objections to the play in their full force, and therefore discovered more desire of vexing the critic than of defending the poet.

Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw the selfishness of Pope's friendship, and, resolving that he should have the consequences of his officiousness to himself, informed Dennis by Steele, that he was sorry for the insult; and that,

55 Mrs. Porter was the original Lucia in 'Cato.'

56 Hardly an old enemy, and Dennis in print taxes Pope with having induced him to write against 'Cato.'

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whenever he should think fit to answer his remarks, he would do it in a manner to which nothing could be objected.57

58

The greatest weakness of the play is in the scenes of love, which are said by Pope 5s to have been added to the original plan upon a subsequent review, in compliance with the popular practice of the stage. Such an authority it is hard to reject, yet the love is so intimately mingled with the whole action, that it cannot easily be thought extrinsic and adventitious; for, if it were taken away, what would be left?-or how were the four acts filled in the first draught?

At the publication the wits seemed proud to pay their attendance with encomiastic verses. The best are from an unknown hand, which will perhaps lose somewhat of their praise when the author is known to be Jeffreys."

60

'Cato' had yet other honours. It was censured as a partyplay by a 'Scholar of Oxford,' 61 and defended in a favourable examination by Dr. Sewell. It was translated by Salvini into Italian, and acted at Florence; and by the Jesuits of St. Omer's into Latin, and played by their pupils. Of this version a copy was sent to Mr. Addison : 62 it is to be wished that it could be found, for the sake of comparing their version of the soliloquy with that of Bland.

A tragedy was written on the same subject by Des Champs, a French poet, which was translated, with a criticism on the English play. But the translator and the critic are now forgotten. 63

57 This was done through Lintot. Steele's Letter to Lintot, of 4th Aug. 1713, was printed by Dennis in his 'Remarks upon several Passages in the Preliminaries to the Dunciad,' 8vo., 1729. For Johnson's own views of the quarrel between Addison and Pope, see his Lives of Pope and Tickell.

58 Spence.-JOHNSON. Spence by Singer, p. 46.

59 Actors and authors complain as a weakness (unnoticed by Johnson), that Cato himself does not appear on the stage until the middle of the second act. 60 George Jeffreys, author of the Epilogue to Southerne's Money's the Mistress,' 8vo. 1725. See also 'Gent's. Mag.' for January, 1753, p. 45. 61 Mr. Addison turned Tory,' 1713, 4to.

62

'Mémoires des Hommes illustres,' tom. xxxi. p. 81.

63 The French Cato,' with the criticisms showing how superior it is to Mr. Addison's (which I wickedly ascribed to Madame Dacier), may be suppressed at a reasonable rate, being damnably written.-POPE: An Account of the Poisoning of Edmund Curll. A seventh edition of 'Cato' was published in 1713.