the love is so intimately mingled
with the whole action that it cannot easily be thought extrinsic and
adventitious; for if it were taken away, what would be left? or how were
the four acts filled in the first draft? At the publication the wits
seemed proud to pay their attendance with encomiastic verses. The best
are from an unknown hand, which will perhaps lose somewhat of their
praise when the author is known to be Jeffreys.

Cato had yet other honours. It was censured as a party-play by a scholar
of Oxford; and defended in a favourable examination by Dr. Sewel. It was
translated by Salvini into Italian, and acted at Florence; and by the
Jesuits of St. Omer's into Latin, and played by their pupils. Of this
version a copy was sent to Mr. Addison: it is to be wished that it could
be found, for the sake of comparing their version of the soliloquy with
that of Bland.

A tragedy was written on the same subject by Des Champs, a French poet,
which was translated with a criticism on the English play. But the
translator and the critic are now forgotten.

Dennis lived on unanswered, and therefore little read. Addison knew the
policy of literature too well to make his enemy important by drawing
the attention of the public upon a criticism which, though sometimes
intemperate, was often irrefragable.

While Cato was upon the stage, another daily paper, called the Guardian,
was published by Steele. To this Addison gave great assistance, whether
occasionally or by previous engagement is not known. The character of
Guardian was too narrow and too serious: it might properly enough admit
both the duties and the decencies of life, but seemed not to include
literary speculations, and was in some degree violated by merriment and
burlesque. What had the Guardian of the Lizards to do with clubs of tall
or of little men, with nests of ants, or with Strada's prolusions?
Of this paper nothing is necessary to be said but that it found many
contributors, and that it was a continuation of the Spectator, with the
same elegance and the same variety, till some unlucky sparkle from a
Tory paper set Steele's politics on fire, and wit at once blazed
into faction. He was soon too hot for neutral topics, and quitted the
Guardian to write the Englishman.

The papers of Addison are marked in the Spectator by one of the letters
in the name of Clio, and in the Guardian by a hand; whether it was, as
Tickell pretends to think, that he was unwilling to u