Such, again, is the happy allufion to an old story mentioned in Martial, of this fage going into the theatre, and immediately coming out of it again :

Such plays alone should win a British ear,
As Cato's felf had not difdain'd to hear.

From which he draws an artful panegyric, on the purity and excellence of the play he was celebrating.

WITH respect to sprightly turns and poignancy of wit, the prologues of Dryden have not been equalled. Many, and indeed the moft excellent of them, were written on occafion of the players going to Oxford; a custom, for the neglect of which no good reafon can be affigned; and which was introduced, by that polite scholar, and fenfible governor, Dr. Ralph Bathurst, Dean of Wells, and President of Trinity College, while he was Vice-chancellor of that University*. At this time Dryden was fo famous for his prologues,

* See the Life, &c, of BATHURST, lately published.

that no piece was relished, nor would the theatres Scarcely venture to produce it, if it wanted this fashionable ornament. To this purpose, an anecdote is recorded of Southerne; who, on bringing his first play on the stage, did not fail to bespeak a prologue of the artist vogue. The ufual price had been four guineas. In the prefent cafe, Dryden infifted that he must have fix for his work; "which, faid the mercantile bard, is out of no difrefpect to you, young man ; but the players have had my goods too cheap."

in

THE tragedy of Cato itself, is a glaring instance 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 fentiment had not been particularly tortured,

* When Addison spake of the secretary of state at that time, he always called him, in the language of Shakespeare, "That canker'd Bolingbroke." Notwithstanding this, Addison assured POPE, he did not bring his tragedy on the stage with any party views; nay, defired POPE to carry the poem to the Lords The play, however,

Oxford and Bolingbroke, for their perufal.

was always confidered as a warning to the people, that liberty

was

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 fentiments, copied in a great measure from Lucan, Tacitus, and Seneca the philofopher, 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 ftroke of nature is, in my opinion, worth a hundred fuch thoughts, as,

I

When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The poft of honour is a private station.

CATO is a fine dialogue on liberty, and the love of one's country; but confidered as a

was in danger during that tory miniftry. To obviate the strong impreffions, that fo popular a performance might make on the minds of the audience, Lord Bolingbroke, in the midst of their violent applauses, fent for Booth, who played Cato, one night, into his box, between the acts, and presented him with fifty guineas; in acknowledgment, as he expreffed it with great address, for defending the cause of liberty fo well against a perpetual dictator.

dramatic performance, nay as a model of a juft 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 also 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 fpeeches of the reft may be transferred to any of the perfonages concerned. The fimile drawn from Mount Atlas, and the description of the Numidian traveller fmothered in the defart, are indeed in character, but fufficiently obvious. How Addifon could fall into the false and unnatural custom of ending his three first acts with fimiles, is amazing in so chaft and correct a writer. The loves of Juba and Marcia, of Portius and Lucia, are vicious and infipid episodes, debase the dig nity, and destroy the unity, of the fable.

A& ii. Scene v.

ONE

ONE would imagine, from the practice of our modern play-wrights, that love was the only paffion, capable of producing any great calamities in human life: for this paffion has engroffed, and been impertinently introduced into, all subjects *. In the Cinna of Corneille, which the prince of Condé called "the Breviary of kings," Maximus whines like a shepherd in the Paftor Fido, even in the midst of profound political reflections, that excel those of Tacitus and Machiavel; and while the most important event, that could happen to the empire of the world, was debating. In his imitation of the Oreftes of Sophocles, Cre

* When the refolution of Medea to kill her children, is almost disarmed and destroyed by looking at them, and by their fmiling upon her, she breaks out;

Φευ, φευ τι προσδερκεσθε μ ομμασιν, τεκνα ;

Τι προσγελανε τον πανυταῖον γελων ;

Αί, αντιδράσω καρδία γαρ οιχεία.

Heu, heu cur me oculis afpicitis, liberi?

Cur arridetis hoc extremo rifû ?

Heu, heu! quid faciam ? cor enim mihi difperit!

Euripid. Medea. Ver. 1041.

No fentiments of the Lover can be so tender, and fo deeply

touching, as thefe of the Mother.

billon