squabbles.

Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig party was disturbed, the
most severe and happy was Bolingbroke's. Between two acts, he sent for
Booth to his box, and presented him, before the whole theatre, with a
purse of fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty so well
against a perpetual Dictator. 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.

It was April; and in April, a hundred and thirty years ago, the London
season was thought to be far advanced. During a whole month, however,
Cato was performed to overflowing houses, and brought into the treasury
of the theatre twice the gains of an ordinary spring. In the summer, the
Drury Lane Company went down to the Act at Oxford, and there, before an
audience which retained an affectionate remembrance of Addison's
accomplishments and virtues, his tragedy was acted during several days.
The gownsmen began to besiege the theatre in the forenoon, and by one in
the afternoon all the seats were filled.

About the merits of the piece which had so extraordinary an effect, the
public, we suppose, has made up its mind. To compare it with the
masterpieces of the Attic stage, with the great English dramas of the
time of Elizabeth, or even with the productions of Schiller's manhood,
would be absurd indeed. Yet it contains excellent dialogue and
declamation, and, among plays fashioned on the French model, must be
allowed to rank high; not indeed with Athalie or Saul; but, we think,
not below Cinna, and certainly above any other English tragedy of the
same school, above many of the plays of Corneille, above many of the
plays of Voltaire and Alfieri, and above some plays of Racine. Be this
as it may, we have little doubt that Cato did as much as the Tatlers,
Spectators, and Freeholders united, to raise Addison's fame among his
contemporaries.

The modesty and good nature of the successful dramatist had tamed even
the malignity of faction. But literary envy, it should seem, is a
fiercer passion than party spirit. It was by a zealous Whig that the
fiercest attack on the Whig tragedy was made. John Dennis published
Remarks on Cato, which were written with some acuteness and with much
coarseness and asperity. Addison neither defended himself nor
retaliated. On many points he had an excellent defence; and nothing
would have been easier than to retaliate; for Denni