PROLOGUE BY MR. POPE.

SPOKEN BY MR. WILKS.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the tragic muse first trode the stage,
Commanding tears to stream through every age;
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move
The hero's glory, or the virgin's love;

In pitying love we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deserves its woe.
Here tears shall flow from a more generous cause,

Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws:
He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.
Virtue confest in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure heaven itself surveys;
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state!
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?

Who sees him act, but envies every deed?

Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Even then proud Cæsar 'midst triumphal cars,

The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain, and impotently great,

Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in state,
As her dead father's reverend image past,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercast,
The triumph ceas'd-tears gush'd from every eye,
The world's great victor pass'd unheeded by;
Her last good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Cæsar's less than Cato's sword.

Britons attend: be worth like this approv'd,
And show you have the virtue to be mov'd.
With honest scorn the first fam'd Cato view'd
Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdu'd.
Our scene precariously subsists too long

On French translation, and Italian song:
Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage,
Be justly warm'd with your own native rage.
Such plays alone should please a British ear,

As Cato's self had not disdain'd to hear.

• Britons attend. Altered thus by the author, from "Britons arise," to humour, we are told, the timid delicacy of Mr. Addison, who was in pain least that fierce word "arise," should be misconstrued (see Mr. Warburton's edition of Pope, Imitations of Horace, ep. 1, b. 1.) One is apt, indeed, to think this caution excessive; but there was ground enough for it, as will be seen, if we reflect, that the poet himself had made Sempronius talk in this strain.-"Rise Romans, rise," (act ii. sc. 1;) a clear comment (it would have been said, in that furious time) on the line in question.

SCENE, a large Hall in the Governor's Palace of Utica.

CATO.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

PORTIUS, MARCUS.

PORTIUS. The dawn is overcast, the morning low'rs,

And heavily in clouds brings on the day,

The great, th' important day, big with the fate
Of Cato and of Rome"-Our father's death
Would fill up all the guilt of civil war,

And close the scene of blood. Already Cæsar
Has ravaged more than half the globe, and sees
Mankind grown thin by his destructive sword:
Should he go further, numbers would be wanting
To form new battles, and support his crimes.
Ye gods, what havoc does ambition make
Among your works!

While the present humour of idolizing Shakespear continues, no quarter will be given to this poem; though it be the master-piece of the author, and was the pride of the age in which it was written.-But a time will come, when, not as a tragedy, indeed, (for which the subject was unfit) but, as a work of art and taste, it will be supremely admired by all candid and judicious critics.

This opening of the drama is too solemn and declamatory. The author speaks,-not his "Persona dramatis." Horace has given a caution against this misconduct, in his ridicule of "Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum," which was addressed to the tragic, as well as, epic poet.

MARCUS. Thy steady temper, Portius,"
Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar,
In the calm lights of mild philosophy;
I'm tortured even to madness, when I think
On the proud victor: every time he's named
Pharsalia rises to my view -I see

Th' insulting tyrant, prancing o'er the field

Strow'd with Rome's citizens, and drench'd in slaughter,
His horse's hoofs wet with Patrician blood!
Oh, Portius! is there not some chosen curse,
Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven,
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man,
Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin?

PORTIUS. Believe me, Marcus, 'tis an impious greatness,
And mixt with too much horror to be envy'd:
How does the lustre of our father's actions,

Through the dark cloud of ills that cover him,
Break out, and burn with more triumphant brightness!
His sufferings shine, and spread a glory round him;
Greatly unfortunate, he fights the cause

Of honour, virtue, liberty, and Rome.
His sword ne'er fell but on the guilty head;
Oppression, tyranny, and power usurp'd,

Draw all the vengeance of his arm upon 'em.

MARCUS. Who knows not this? but what can Cato do

Against a world, a base degenerate world,

That courts the yoke, and bows the neck to Cæsar ?

Pent up in Utica he vainly forms

A poor epitome of Roman greatness,

This a little palliates the indecorum, just now observed; and may let us see, that the poet himself was aware of it (so exact was his taste); but it does not wholly excuse it.