the attempt too far. Posterity must have a high idea of the taste
and good sense of the British nation, when they are informed, that
twenty-thousand of these papers were sometimes sold in a day. [4]

The Guardian, a paper of the same tendency, entertained the town in the
years 1713 and 1714, in which Mr. Addison had likewise a very large
share; he also wrote two papers in the Lover.

In the year 1713 appeared his famous Cato. He entered into a design of
writing a Tragedy on that subject, when he was very young; and when
he was on his travels he actually wrote four acts of it: However, he
retouched it on his return, without any design of bringing it on the
stage; but some friends of his imagining it might be of service to the
cause of liberty, he was prevailed upon to finish it for the theatre,
which he accordingly did. When this play appeared, it was received with
boundless admiration; and during the representation on the first night,
on which its fate depended, it is said that Mr. Addison discovered
uncommon timidity; he was agitated between hope and fear, and while he
remained retired in the green-room, he kept a person continually going
backwards and forwards, from the stage to the place where he was, to
inform him how it succeeded, and till the whole was over, and the
success confirmed, he never ventured to move.

When it was published, it was recommended by many Copies of Verses
prefixed to it, amongst which the sincerity of Mr. Steele, and the
genius of Eusden, deserve to be distinguished: But, as I would not omit
any particulars relative to this renowned play, and its great author, I
shall insert a letter of Mr. Pope's to Sir William Turnbull, dated
the 30th of April 1713, in which are some circumstances that merit
commemoration.

SIR,

'As to poetical affairs, I am content at present to be a bare looker on,
and from a practitioner turn an admirer; which as the world goes, is not
very usual. Cato was not so much the wonder of Rome in his Days, as he
is of Britain in ours; and though all the foolish industry possible had
been used to make it thought a party play, yet what the author once said
of another, may the most properly in the world be applied to him on this
occasion.

Envy itself is dumb, in wonder lost,
And factions strive who shall applaud him most.

The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party, on the one side of the
theatre, were ecchoed back by the Tories on the other; while the
autho