Whigs, said Pope,
design a second present when they can contrive as good a saying.
Bolingbroke was, of course, aiming at Marlborough, and his
interpretation was intrinsically as plausible as any that could have
been devised by his antagonists. Each side could adopt _Cato_ as easily
as rival sects can quote the Bible; and it seems possible that Addison
may have suggested to Pope that nothing in _Cato_ could really offend
his principles. Addison, as Pope also tells us, thought the prologue
ambiguous, and altered "Britons, _arise_!" to "Britons, _attend_!" lest
the phrase should be thought to hint at a new revolution. Addison
advised Pope about this time not to be content with the applause of
"half the nation," and perhaps regarded him as one who, by the fact of
his external position with regard to parties, would be a more
appropriate sponsor for the play.

Whatever the intrinsic significance of _Cato_, circumstances gave it a
political colour; and Pope, in a lively description of the first
triumphant night to his friend Caryll, says, that as author of the
successful and very spirited prologue, he was clapped into a Whig,
sorely against his will, at every two lines. Shortly before he had
spoken in the warmest terms to the same correspondent of the admirable
moral tendency of the work; and perhaps he had not realized the full
party significance till he became conscious of the impression produced
upon the audience. Not long afterwards (letter of June 12, 1713), we
find him complaining that his connexion with Steele and the _Guardian_
was giving offence to some honest Jacobites. Had they known the nature
of the connexion, they need hardly have grudged Steele his contributor.
His next proceedings possibly suggested the piece of advice which
Addison gave to Lady M. W. Montagu: "Leave Pope as soon as you can; he
will certainly play you some devilish trick else."

His first trick was calculated to vex an editor's soul. Ambrose Philips,
as I have said, had published certain pastorals in the same volume with
Pope's. Philips, though he seems to have been less rewarded than most of
his companions, was certainly accepted as an attached member of
Addison's "little senate;" and that body was not more free than other
mutual admiration societies from the desire to impose its own prejudices
upon the public. When Philips's _Distressed Mother_, a close imitation
of Racine's _Andromaque_, was preparing for the stage, the Spectator was
take