THE LONDON THEATRE. A COLLECTION OF THE Most celebrated Dramatic Pieces. CORRECTLY GIVEN, FROM COPIES USED IN THE THEATRES, BY THOMAS DIBDIN, OF THE THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE. VOLUME III. LONDON: PRINTED FOR WHITTINGHAM AND ARLISS, PATERNOSTER ROW. A Tragedy. BY JOSEPH ADDISON, ESQ. CORRECTLY GIVEN, FROM COPIES USED IN THE THEATRES, BY THOMAS DIBDIN, Author of several Dramatic Pieces: and Printed at the Chiswick Press, FOR WHITTINGHAM AND ARLISS, PATERNOSTER CATO, ONE of the first of our dramatic poems (as it is justly termed by the editor of the Biographia Dramatica), was produced at Drury Lane in 1713, and performed eighteen nights successively; at that time considered a very successful run, particularly for a tragedy. Dr. Johnson, Mr. Pope, Sir Richard Steele, Dr. Garth, Dennis, and other able critics have stamped this tragedy as a British classic; and a succession of audiences for a century have proved that it has deserved "Golden opinions from all sorts of people." It is highly honourable to the British stage and the taste of the British metropolis, that no play is more attractive, or has been more perfectly represented than is this tragedy (one hundred years from its first appearance); while Kemble, heading his "little senate," has so arranged its forms, costume, and character, that the true manners of the ancient Romans are no where with so much propriety exemplified as in the theatre. |