But it is with "Cato" that Booth is identified. Fortunate it was for him that the play Addison had kept so long in his desk was not printed, according to Pope's advice, for readers only. Fortunate, too, was the actor in the political coincidences of the time. Marlborough, now a Whig, had asked to be appointed "commander-in-chief for life." Harley, Bolingbroke, and the other Tories, described this as an attempt to establish a perpetual dictatorship. The action and the sentiment of "Cato" are antagonistic to such an attempt, and the play had a present political, as well as a great dramatic interest. Common consent gave the part of the philosopher of Utica to Booth; Addison named young Ryan, son of a Westminster tailor, as Marcus, and the young fellow justified the nomination. Wilks, Cibber, and Mrs. Oldfield filled the other principal parts. Addison surrendered all claim to profit, and on the evening of April 14, 1713, there was excitement and expectation on both sides of the curtain.
Booth really surpassed himself; his dignity, pathos, energy, were all worthy of Betterton, and yet were in nowise after the old actor's manner. The latter was forgotten on this night, and Booth occupied exclusively the public eye, ear, and heart. The public judgment answered to the public feeling. The Tories applauded every line in favour of popular liberty, and the Whigs sent forth responsive peals to show that they, too, were advocates of popular freedom.[127] The pit was in a whirlwind of delicious agitation, and the Tory occupants of the boxes were so affected by the acting of Booth, that Bolingbroke, when the play was over, sent for the now greatest actor of the day, and presented him with a purse containing fifty guineas, the contributions of gentlemen who had experienced the greatest delight at the energy with which he had resisted a perpetual dictatorship, and maintained the cause of public liberty! The managers paid the actor a similar pecuniary compliment, and for five-and-thirty[128] consecutive nights "Cato" filled Drury Lane, and swelled the triumph of Barton Booth. There was no longer anything sad in the old exclamation of Steele—"Ye gods! what a part would Betterton make of Cato!" The managers, Wilks, Cibber, and Dogget, were as satisfied as the public, for the share of profit to each at the end of this eventful season amounted to £1350! When Booth and his fellow-actors, after the close of the London season, went to Oxford to play "Cato," before a learned and critical audience, "our house was in a manner invested, and entrance demanded by twelve o'clock at noon, and, before one, it was not wide enough for many who came too late for places. The same crowds continued for three days together (an uncommon curiosity in that place), and the death of Cato triumphed over the injuries of Cæsar everywhere. At our taking leave, we had the thanks of the Vice-Chancellor, 'for the decency and order observed by our whole society;' an honour," adds Cibber, proudly, "which had not always been paid on the same occasion." Four hundred and fifty pounds clear profit were shared by the managers, who gave the actors double pay, and sent a contribution of fifty pounds towards the repairs of St. Mary's Church.
The church, of which Booth was intended to be a minister, added its approbation, through Dr. Smalridge, Dean of Carlisle, who was present at the performance in Oxford. "I heartily wish all discourses from the pulpit were as instructive and edifying, as pathetic and affecting, as that which the audience was then entertained with from the stage." This is a reproach to church-preachers at the cost of a compliment to Booth; and old Compton, ex-dragoon, and now dying Bishop of London, would not have relished it. Some of the metropolitan pulpits were, no doubt, less "entertaining" than the stage, but many of them were held to good purpose; and, as for the Nonconformist chapels, of which Smalridge knew nothing—there enthusiastic Pomfret and Matthew Clarke were drawing as great crowds as Booth; Bradbury, that cheerful-minded patriarch of the Dissenters, was even more entertaining; while Neale was pathetic and earnest in Aldersgate Street; and John Gale, affecting and zealous, amid his eager hearers in Barbican. There is no greater mistake than in supposing that at this time the whole London world was engaged in resorting exclusively to the theatres, and especially to behold Booth in Cato.
The grandeur of this piece has become somewhat dulled, but it contains more true sayings constantly quoted than any other English work, save Gray's Elegy. It has been translated into French, Italian, Latin, and Russian, and has been played in Italy and in the Jesuits' College at St. Omer. Pope adorned it with a prologue; Dr. Garth trimmed it with an epilogue; dozens of poets wrote testimonial verses; tippling Eusden gave it his solemn sanction, while Dennis, with some "horseplay raillery," but with irrefutable argument, inexorably proved that, despite beauties of diction, it is one of the most absurd, inconsistent, and unnatural plays ever conceived by poet. But, Johnson remarks truly, "as we love better to be pleased than to be taught, Cato is read, and the critic is neglected."
Booth reaped no brighter triumph than in this character, in which he has had worthy, but never equally able successors. Boheme was respectable in it; Quin imposing, and generally successful; Sheridan, conventional, but grandly eloquent; Mossop, heavy; Walker, a failure; Digges, stagy; Kemble, next to the original; Pope, "mouthy;" Cooke, altogether out of his line; Wright, weak; Young, traditional but effective; and Vandenhoff, classically correct and statuesque. In Cato, the name of Booth stands supreme; in that, the kinsman of the Earls of Warrington was never equalled. It was his good fortune, too, not to be admired less because of the affection for Betterton in the hearts of surviving admirers. This is manifest from the lines of Pope:—
"On Avon's bank where flow'rs eternal blow,
If I but ask,—if any weed can grow?—
One tragic sentence if I dare deride,
Which Betterton's grave action dignified,