We are
surprised that so remarkable a circumstance as this should have escaped
the notice of all Addison's biographers. There cannot, we conceive, be
the smallest doubt that this scene, in spite of its absurdities and
anachronisms, struck the traveler's imagination, and suggested to him
the thought of bringing Cato on the English stage. It is well known that
about this time he began his tragedy, and that he finished the first
four acts before he returned to England.

On his way from Venice to Rome, he was drawn some miles out of the
beaten road, by a wish to see the smallest independent state in Europe.
On a rock where the snow still lay, though the Italian spring was now
far advanced, was perched the little fortress of San Marino. The roads
which led to the secluded town were so bad that few travellers had ever
visited it, and none had ever published an account of it. Addison could
not suppress a good-natured smile at the simple manners and institutions
of this singular community. But he observed, with the exultation of a
Whig, that the rude mountain tract which formed the territory of the
republic swarmed with an honest, healthy, and contented peasantry, while
the rich plain which surrounded the metropolis of civil and spiritual
tyranny was scarcely less desolate than the uncleared wilds of America.

At Rome Addison remained on his first visit only long enough to catch a
glimpse of St. Peter's and of the Pantheon. His haste is the more
extraordinary because the Holy Week was close at hand. He has given no
hint which can enable us to pronounce why he chose to fly from a
spectacle which every year allures from distant regions persons of far
less taste and sensibility than his. Possibly, travelling, as he did,
at the charge of a government distinguished by its enmity to the Church
of Rome, he may have thought that it would be imprudent in him to assist
at the most magnificent rite of that Church. Many eyes would be upon
him; and he might find it difficult to behave in such a manner as to
give offence neither to his patrons in England, nor to those among whom
he resided. Whatever his motives may have been, he turned his back on
the most august and affecting ceremony which is known among men, and
posted along the Appian Way to Naples.

Naples was then destitute of what are now, perhaps, its chief
attractions. The lovely bay and the awful mountain were indeed there.
But a farmhouse stood on the theatre of Herculaneum, and