applicability of the last remark is evinced by the extraordinary number of quoted lines, with which Cato, even more than the other poems of Addison, has enriched our language; of this number are the following:

"The woman who deliberates is lost."

"Plant daggers in my heart."

""Tis not in mortals to command success,

But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it." "The pale unripen'd beauties of the north."

""Tis not a set of features, or complexion,

The tincture of the skin that I admire.”

"Painful pre-eminence.”

"Curse on his virtues, they've undone his country!"

"These and others of the fine thoughts and pointed expressions with which the piece abounds, still circulate among us like current coin, though often now passed, it may be feared, with little thought or knowledge of the mint which issued them.

"When Dr. Johnson remarks, that the success of Cato 'has introduced or confirmed among us the use of dialogue too declamatory, of unaffecting elegance and chill philosophy,' he overlooks, or possibly was unskilled to explore, a more probable origin of the faults which he indicates, and which he has himself exemplified. These are found in Philips, Rowe, Hughes, and other contemporaries, to at least as great a degree as in Addison, in whom they are palliated, if not entirely justified, by the nature of his subject and they may surely be traced to imitation of the masters of French tragedy, whose genius, like the ambition of their monarch, had gone near to giving law to all Europe. With respect to Philip's Distressed Mother, this origin is unquestionable, and little less so with respect to Cato; since Addison always expressed himself concerning Corneille and Racine with marked esteem, and seems to have laid the plan and begun the execution of his tragedy during his long sojourn at Blois, while he was making the study of the French language his principal occupation. In the conduct of his plot he has made considerable sacrifices to a rigid observance of the unities of time and place, as laid down by Aristotle, and it can scarcely be doubted that this restraint, unknown to our earlier dramatists, was imposed upon him as an indispensable law by the precepts and practice of the French school of dramatic art.

"That the tragedy of Cato does not appeal strongly to the passions, may be frankly conceded; but whatever be said of its 'unaffecting elegance and chill philosophy,' it is at least free from the error which Boileau so forcibly remarked to Addison himself in the manner of Corneille. The speakers run neither into description nor declamation unconnected with the business of the scene, or unsuited to the persons or the occasion. Severe correctness and good taste preside alike over the sentiments and the diction.

“The versification, though deficient in the richness and variety of pause which charms in our elder dramatists, and like all blank verse at this period, constructed with too much resemblance to the rhymed couplet, is yet easy and graceful; and certainly far preferable to that of Rowe, then the most popular tragic writer.”—AIKIN, Life of Addison, pp. 192–194. ·

VERSES

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE TRAGEDY OF CATO.

WHILE you the fierce divided Britons awe,
And Cato with an equal virtue draw;

While envy is itself in wonder lost,

And factions strive who shall applaud you most;
Forgive the fond ambition of a friend,

Who hopes himself, not you, to recommend,
And join th' applause which all the learn'd bestow
On one, to whom a perfect work they owe.
To my a light scenes I once inscrib'd your name,
And impotently strove to borrow fame:

Soon will that die, which adds thy name to mine;
Let me, then, live, join'd to a work of thine.

THO' Cato shines in Virgil's epic song,
Prescribing laws among th' Elysian throng;
Tho' Lucan's verse, exalted by his name,
O'er gods themselves has rais'd the hero's fame;
The Roman stage did ne'er his image see,
Drawn at full length; a task reserv'd for thee.

a Tender Husband, dedicated to Mr. Addison.

By thee we view the finish'd figure rise,
And awful march before our ravish'd eyes;
We hear his voice asserting virtue's cause ;
His fate renew'd our deep attention draws,
Excites by turns our various hopes and fears,
And all the patriot in thy scene appears.

On Tiber's banks thy thought was first inspir'd;
'Twas there, to some indulgent grove retir'd,
Rome's ancient fortunes rolling in thy mind,
Thy happy muse this manly work design'd:
Or in a dream thou saw'st Rome's genius stand,
And, leading Cato in his sacred hand,
Point out th' immortal subject of thy lays,
And ask this labour to record his praise.

'Tis done—the hero lives, and charms our age !
While nobler morals grace the British stage.
Great Shakespear's ghost, the solemn strain to hear,
(Methinks I see the laurel'd shade appear!)
Will hover o'er the scene, and wond'ring view
His fav'rite Brutus rival'd thus by you.

Such Roman greatness in each action shines,
Such Roman eloquence adorns your lines,
That sure the Sybils' books this year foretold,
And in some mystic leaf was seen enroll'd,

'Rome, turn thy mournful eyes from Afric's shore,
Nor in her sands thy Cato's tomb explore!
When thrice six hundred times the circling sun
His annual race shall thro' the Zodiac run,
An isle remote his monument shall rear,
And every generous Briton pay a tear.'

J. HUGHES.

WHAT do we see! is Cato then become

A greater name in Britain than in Rome?
Does mankind now admire his virtues more,
Tho' Lucan, Horace, Virgil, wrote before?
How will posterity this truth explain?
"Cato begins to live in Anna's reign:"
The world's great chiefs, in council or in arms,
Rise in your lines with more exalted charms;
Illustrious deeds in distant nations wrought,
And virtues by departed heroes taught,
Raise in your soul a pure immortal flame,-
Adorn your life, and consecrate your fame;
To your renown all ages you subdue,
And Cæsar fought, and Cato bled for you.

All-Soul's College, Oxon.

EDWARD YOUNG.

'Tis nobky done thus to enrich the stage,
And raise the thoughts of a degenerate age,
To show, how endless joys from freedom spring:
How life in bondage is a worthless thing.

The inborn greatness of your soul we view,

You tread the paths frequented by the few.

With so much strength you write, and so much ease,
Virtue and sense! how durst you hope to please?
Yet crowds the sentiments of every line

Impartial clapp'd, and own'd the work divine.
Even the sour critics, who malicious came,
Eager to censure, and resolv'd to blame,
Finding the hero regularly rise,

Great, while he lives, but greater, when he dies,