mself in time to a single
day, and in place to rigorous unity. The scene never changes, and the
whole action of the play passes in the great hall of Cato's house at
Utica. Much, therefore, is done in the hall for which any other place
had been more fit; and this impropriety affords Dennis many hints of
merriment and opportunities of triumph. The passage is long; but as such
disquisitions are not common, and the objections are skilfully formed
and vigorously urged, those who delight in critical controversy will not
think it tedious:--

"Upon the departure of Portius, Sempronius makes but one soliloquy,
and immediately in comes Syphax, and then the two politicians are at it
immediately. They lay their heads together, with their snuff-boxes in
their hands, as Mr. Bayes has it, and feague it away. But, in the
midst of that wise scene, Syphax seems to give a seasonable caution to
Sempronius:--

"'SYPH. But is it true, Sempronius, that your senate
Is called together? Gods! thou must be cautious;
Cato has piercing eyes.'

"There is a great deal of caution shown, indeed, in meeting in a
governor's own hall to carry on their plot against him. Whatever opinion
they have of his eyes, I suppose they have none of his ears, or they
would never have talked at this foolish rate so near:--

"'Gods! thou must be cautious.'

Oh! yes, very cautious: for if Cato should overhear you, and turn you
off for politicians, Caesar would never take you.

"When Cato, Act II., turns the senators out of the hall upon pretence of
acquainting Juba with the result of their debates, he appears to me to
do a thing which is neither reasonable nor civil. Juba might certainly
have better been made acquainted with the result of that debate in
some private apartment of the palace. But the poet was driven upon
this absurdity to make way for another, and that is to give Juba an
opportunity to demand Marcia of her father. But the quarrel and rage of
Juba and Syphax, in the same act; the invectives of Syphax against the
Romans and Cato; the advice that he gives Juba in her father's hall to
bear away Marcia by force; and his brutal and clamorous rage upon his
refusal, and at a time when Cato was scarcely out of sight, and perhaps
not out of hearing, at least some of his guards or domestics must
necessarily be supposed to be within hearing; is a thing that is so far
from being probable, that it is hardly possible.

"Sempronius, in the second