o think liberty
in danger affected likewise to think that a stage-play might preserve
it; and Addison was importuned, in the name of the tutelary deities of
Britain, to show his courage and his zeal by finishing his design.

To resume his work he seemed perversely and unaccountably unwilling; and
by a request, which perhaps he wished to be denied, desired Mr. Hughes
to add a fifth act. Hughes supposed him serious; and, undertaking the
supplement, brought in a few days some scenes for his examination; but
he had in the meantime gone to work himself, and produced half an
act, which he afterwards completed, but with brevity irregularly
disproportionate to the foregoing parts, like a task performed with
reluctance and hurried to its conclusion.

It may yet be doubted whether Cato was made public by any change of the
author's purpose; for Dennis charged him with raising prejudices in
his own favour by false positions of preparatory criticism, and with
POISONING THE TOWN by contradicting in the Spectator the established
rule of poetical justice, because his own hero, with all his virtues,
was to fall before a tyrant. The fact is certain; the motives we must
guess.

Addison was, I believe, sufficiently disposed to bar all avenues against
all danger. When Pope brought him the prologue, which is properly
accommodated to the play, there were these words, "Britains, arise! be
worth like this approved;" meaning nothing more than--Britons, erect
and exalt yourselves to the approbation of public virtue. Addison was
frighted, lest he should be thought a promoter of insurrection, and the
line was liquidated to "Britains, attend."

Now "heavily in clouds came on the day, the great, the important day,"
when Addison was to stand the hazard of the theatre. That there might,
however, be left as little hazard as was possible, on the first night
Steele, as himself relates, undertook to pack an audience. "This," says
Pope, "had been tried for the first time in favour of the Distressed
Mother; and was now, with more efficacy, practised for Cato." The danger
was soon over. The whole nation was at that time on fire with faction.
The Whigs applauded every line in which liberty was mentioned, as a
satire on the Tories; and the Tories echoed every clap, to show that
the satire was unfelt. The story of Bolingbroke is well known; he called
Booth to his box, and gave him fifty guineas for defending the cause of
liberty so well against a perpetual d