What can atone (oh ever-injur'd shade !) Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid? No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear Pleas'd thy pale ghoft, or grac'd thy mournful bier:

By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,

55

60

By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd!
What tho' no friends in fable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances, and the public show?
What tho' no weeping Loves thy afhes grace,
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face?
What tho' no facred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?
Yet fhall thy grave with rifing flow'rs be dreft,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breaft:
There fhall the morn her earliest tears beftow, 65
'There the first rofes of the year shall blow;
While Angels with their filver wings o'erfhade
The ground, now facred by thy reliques made.
So peaceful refts, without a ftone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
How lov'd, how honour'd once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;

A heap of duft alone remains of thee,

69

'Tis all thou art, and all the proud fhall be!

74

Poets themselves muft fall, like those they fung,

Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. Ev'n he, whofe foul now melts in mourful lays, Shall shortly want the gen'rous tear he pays;

I

Then

Then from his clefing eyes thy form shall part,
And the laft pang fhall tear thee from his heart.
Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,

The Mufe forgot, and thou beloy'd no more!

PRO

PROLOGUE

то

Mr. ADDISON's Tragedy

O F

CATO.

T

O wake the foul by tender strokes of art,

To raife 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 Mufe first trod the stage, Commanding tears to stream thro' ev'ry age; Tyrants no more their favage nature kept, And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept. Our author fhuns by vulgar fprings to move The hero's glory, or the virgin's love; In pitying Love, we but our weakness show, And wild Ambition well deferves its woe. Here tears fhall flow from a more gen'rous cause, Such Tears as Patriots fhed for dying Laws: He bids your breafts with ancient ardour rife, And calls forth koman drops from British eyes.

5

1'5

Virtue

Virtue confefs'd in human fhape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was:
No common object to your fight displays,
But what with pleasure Heav'n itself surveys,
A brave man ftruggling in the ftorms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little Senate laws,
What bofom beats not in his Country's cause?
Who fees him act, but envies ev'ry deed?

20:

25

Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed? Ev'n when proud Cæfar, 'midft 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 ftate; 30 As her dead Father's rev'rend image past,

35

The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercaft;
The Triumph ceas'd, tears gufh'd from ev'ry eye;
The World's great Victor pafs'd unheeded by;
Her laft good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Cæfar's lefs than Cato's fword.
Britons, attend: be worth like this approv❜d,
And show, you have the virtue to be mov❜d.
With honeft fcorn the first fam'd Cato view'd
Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdu'd;

Your

VER. 20. But what with pleasure] This alludes to a famous paffage of Seneca, which Mr. Addison afterwards ufed as a motto to his play, when it was printed.

VER. 37. Britons, attend] Mr. Pope had- written it arife, in the fpirit of Poetry and Liberty; but Mr. Addifon frightend at fo daring an expreffion, which, he thought, fquinted at rebellion, would have it alter'd, in the fpirit of Profe and Politics, to attend.

Your scene precariously fubfifts too long
On French tranflation, and Italian fong.
Dare to have fense yourselves; affert the stage,
Be juftly warm'd with your own native rage:
Such Plays alone should win a British ear,
As Cato's felf had not disdain'd to hear.

VER. 46. As Cato felf, etc.] This alludes to the fa mous ftory of his going into the Theatre, and imme diately coming out again.

EPI.