"The soul, secur'd in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shall flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds."

So doth noble Cato philosophise when, in Addison's stately tragedy, he
gazes on his sword and plans to admit the Grim Visitor whom the most
of us wish to keep without our threshold until the last fatal moment.
How those lines used to thrill the classic hearts of our ancestors;
how Barton Booth, who

"shook the stage, and made the people stare,"

could put into this mild plea for suicide a fervour that caused Drury
Lane to ring with applause. What mattered it if the actor, as Pope
related, wore a long wig and flowered gown? Cato was none the less
himself for that, nor did Booth's elegance of delivery seem unwelcome
because his clothes pictured the dandified spirit of the eighteenth
century.

"Cato!" The play is forgotten now, but there was magic in its name in
the palmy days of its author, gentle, kindly Joseph Addison. So potent
was that magic, such vivid impression did the fate of the grand old
Roman make on more than one mind, when thus retold in lofty verse,
that the tragedy was cited as a justification of self-destruction.

"What Cato did, and Addison approved
Cannot be wrong."

These lines, written on a scrap of paper by Eustace Budgell, were
found shortly after the death of that odd genius. From being an
honoured contributor to the _Spectator_, Budgell descended to the
depths of infamy, poverty, and despair, and so one day he threw
himself out of a boat under London Bridge, and the waters of the
Thames closed over him for ever. He owed his early prosperity to
Addison, his cousin, and by way of gratitude he sought to throw upon
his benefactor's memory the odium of this moist and melancholy exit
from the world.

Their lies no odium, nevertheless, where Addison is concerned. His
own life may have been clouded towards the last by the mists of
disappointment, but to us admiring moderns he is all sunshine. Not the
fiery sunshine of summer, but the genial, dignified light of an autumn
afternoon when nature seems in most reflective mood. For there was
nothing impetuous or ardent in the composition of this good-humoured
philosopher; and while he railed so well at the petty sins and
vanities of t