“Cato was not so much the wonder of Rome in his days as he is of Britain in ours; and though all the foolish industry possible had been used to make it thought a party play, yet what the author said of another may the most properly be applied to him on this occasion:
‘Envy itself is dumb, in wonder lost,
And factions strive who shall applaud him most!’[59]
The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side of the theatre were echoed back by the Tories on the other, while the author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause proceeding more from the hand than the head. This was the case, too, with the Prologue-writer, who was clapped into a staunch Whig at the end of every two lines. I believe you have heard that, after all the applauses of the opposite faction, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played Cato, into the box, between one of the acts, and presented him with fifty guineas, in acknowledgment, as he expressed it, for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator. The Whigs are unwilling to be distanced this way, and therefore design a present to the same Cato very speedily; in the meantime they are getting ready as good a sentence as the former on their side; so betwixt them it is probable that Cato (as Dr. Garth expressed it) may have something to live upon after he dies.”
The Queen herself partook, or feigned to partake, of the general enthusiasm, and expressed a wish that the play should be dedicated to her. This honour had, however, been already designed by the poet for the Duchess of Marlborough, so that, finding himself unable under the circumstances to fulfil his intentions, he decided to leave the play without any dedication. Cato ran for the then unprecedented period of thirty-five nights. Addison appears to have behaved with great liberality to the actors, and, at Oxford, to have handed over to them all the profits of the first night’s performance; while they in return, Cibber tells us, thought themselves “obliged to spare no pains in the proper decorations” of the piece.
The fame of Cato spread from England to the Continent. It was twice translated into Italian, twice into French, and once into Latin; a French and a German imitation of it were also published. Voltaire, to whom Shakespeare appeared no better than an inspired barbarian, praises it in the highest terms. “The first English writer who composed a regular tragedy and infused a spirit of elegance through every part of it was,” says he, “the illustrious Mr. Addison. His Cato is a masterpiece, both with regard to the diction and the harmony and beauty of the numbers. The character of Cato is, in my opinion, greatly superior to that of Cornelia in the Pompey of Corneille, for Cato is great without anything of fustian, and Cornelia, who besides is not a necessary character, tends sometimes to bombast.” Even he, however, could not put up with the love-scenes:
“Addison l’a déjà tenté;
C’étoit le poëte des sâges,
Mais il étoit trop concerté,
Et dans son Caton si vanté
Les deux filles en vérité,
Sont d’insipides personages.
Imitez du grand Addison
Seulement ce qu’il a de bon.”
There were, of course, not wanting voices of detraction. A graduate of Oxford attacked Cato in a pamphlet entitled Mr. Addison turned Tory, in which the party spirit of the play was censured. Dr. Sewell, a well-known physician of the day—afterwards satirised by Pope as “Sanguine Sewell”—undertook Addison’s defence, and showed that he owed his success to the poetical, and not to the political, merits of his drama. A much more formidable critic appeared in John Dennis, a specimen of whose criticism on Cato is preserved in Johnson’s Life, and who, it must be owned, went a great deal nearer the mark in his judgment than did Voltaire. Dennis had many of the qualities of a good critic. Though his judgment was often overborne by his passion, he generally contrived to fasten on the weak points of the works which he criticised, and he at once detected the undramatic character of Cato. His ridicule of the absurdities arising out of Addison’s rigid observance of the unity of place is extremely humorous and quite unanswerable. But, as usual, he spoiled his case by the violence and want of discrimination in his censure, which betrayed too plainly the personal feelings of the writer. It is said that Dennis was offended with Addison for not having adequately exhibited his talents in the Spectator when mention was made of his works; and he certainly did complain in a published letter that Addison had chosen to quote a couplet from his translation of Boileau in preference to another from a poem on the battle of Ramilies, which he himself thought better of. But the fact seems to have been overlooked that Dennis had other grounds for resentment. In the 40th number of the Spectator the writer speaks of “a ridiculous doctrine of modern criticism, that they (tragic writers) are obliged to an equal distribution of rewards and punishments, and an impartial execution of poetical justice.” This was a plain stroke at Dennis, who was a well-known advocate of the doctrine; and a considerable portion of the critic’s gall was therefore expended on Addison’s violation of the supposed rule in Cato.
Looking at Cato from Voltaire’s point of view—which was Addison’s own—and having regard to the spirit of elegance infused through every part of it, there is much to admire in the play. It is full of pointed sentences, such as—
“’Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we’ll do more, Sempronius, we’ll deserve it.”
It has also many fine descriptive passages, the best of which, perhaps, occurs in the dialogue between Syphax and Juba respecting civilised and barbarian virtues: