[Footnote A:  Just as the school of Racine and Boileau set its face against the extravagances of the romantic coteries, so Addison and his English followers, adopting the principles of the French classicists, applied them to the reformation of the English theatre.  Hence arose a great revival of respect for the political doctrines of Aristotle, regard for the unities of time and place, attention to the proprieties of sentiment and diction—­in a word, for all those characteristics of style afterwards summed up in the phrase “correctness.”—­W.J.  COURTHOPE’S “Addison.”]

“When Mr. Addison,” related Pope, “had finished his ‘Cato,’ he brought it to me, desired to have my sincere opinion of it, and left it with me for three or four days.  I gave him my opinion of it sincerely, which was, ’that I thought he had better not act it, and that he would get reputation enough by only printing it.’  This I said as thinking the lines well written, but the piece was not theatrical enough.  Some time after Mr. Addison said ’that his own opinion was the same with mine, but that some particular friends of his, whom he could not disoblige, insisted on its being acted,’”

These particular friends who were not to be disobliged seem to have been shining lights of the Whig party.  It was feared that the Tories were conspiring to reinstate the male line of Stuart the moment Queen Anne should take herself to another world, and the friends of the Hanoverian succession grew sorely anxious.  They were filled with delight, therefore, on hearing that Addison had, peacefully slumbering in his desk, a drama which, as Maynwaring explained, was written not for the love scenes, “but to support the old Roman and English public spirit."[A] Here was a chance to inspire the people with a passion for liberty; the story of Cato, served up in all the elegance of French style, should point a moral against the claims of the Pretender, and pure politics might thus be taught from the rostrum of a theatre!

[Footnote A:  Those who affected to think liberty in danger, and had affected likewise to think that a stage play might preserve it.—­DR. JOHNSON.]

So it came about that one fine day the company at Drury Lane began the rehearsal of “Cato,” under circumstances, however, which hardly pointed to a successful production.  There appears to have been some difficulty in the assignment of parts, and it is easy to imagine that at first the players exercised their prerogative of growling—­a prerogative not calculated to dispel the doubts fast assailing Addison as to the outcome of the performance.  Nance Oldfield made no fuss at playing Marcia, Cato’s daughter, for she was ever disposed to be tractable; but when it came to casting the noble Roman himself the trouble began.  The story runs that the part was first offered to Cibber, and that he sensibly refused it.  Colley might make a delightful fop, but the playing of dandies could hardly lead one up very gracefully to the handling of Cato.