It is here republished, and recommended as a closet piece [i.e., for private reading], to recreate an intelligent mind in a vacant hour:  for vacant the reader must be, from every strong prepossession, in order to relish an entertainment, quod nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum, which cannot be enjoyed to the degree it deserves, but by those of the most polite Taste among Scholars, the best Breeding among Gentlemen, and the least acquainted with sensual Pleasure among the Ladies.

The Editor [THOMAS TICKELL] is pleased to relate concerning CATO, that a Play under that design was projected by the Author very early, and wholly laid aside; in advanced years, he reassumed the same design; and many years after Four acts were finished, he wrote the Fifth; and brought it upon the Stage.

All the Town knows, how officious I was in bringing it on, and you (that know the Town, the Theatre, and Mankind very well) can judge how necessary it was, to take measures for making a performance of that sort, excellent as it is, run into popular applause.

I promised before it was acted (and performed my duty accordingly to the Author), that I would bring together so just an audience on the First Days of it, it should be impossible for the vulgar to put its success or due applause at any hazard:  but I don’t mention this, only to shew how good an Aide-de-Camp I was to Mr. ADDISON; but to shew also that the Editor does as much to cloud the merit of this Work, as I did to set it forth.

Mr. TICKELL’s account of its being taken up, laid down, and at last perfected, after such long intervals and pauses, would make any one believe, who did not know Mr. ADDISON, that it was accomplished with the greatest pain and labour; and the issue rather of Learning and Industry than Capacity and Genius:  but I do assure you, that never Play which could bring the author any reputation for Wit and Conduct, notwithstanding it was so long before it was finished, employed the Author so little a time in writing.

If I remember right, the Fifth Act was written in less than a week’s time!  For this was particular in this Writer, that when he had taken his resolution, or made his Plan for what he designed to write; he would walk about the room and dictate it into Language, with as much freedom and ease as any one could write it down:  and attend to the Coherence and Grammar of what he dictated.

I have been often thus employed by him; and never took it into my head, though he only spoke it and I took all the pains of throwing it upon paper, that I ought to call myself the Writer of it.

I will put all my credit among men of Wit for the truth of my averment, when I presume to say that no one but Mr. ADDISON was, in any other way, the Writer of the Drummer.

At the same time, I will allow, that he sent for me (which he could always do, from his natural power over me, as much as he could send for any of his clerks when he was Secretary of State), and told me that a Gentleman then in the room had written a play that he was sure I would like; but it was to be a secret:  and he knew I would take as much pains, since he recommended it, as I would for him.