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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 trod 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 confess'd in human shape he draws, What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was : No common object to your sight displays, But what with pleasure heav'n 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 when 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 attend1: 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 subdued.
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.

1 This was first written, "Britons arise, be worth like this approv'd:" but as Addison was frighted lest he should be thought a promoter of insurrection, the line was liquidated to

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SCENE, a large hall in the governor's palace of Utica.

САТО.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I.

PORTIUS, MARcus.

PORTIUS. The dawn is overcast, the morning low'r's,

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 ravag'd more than half the globe, and sees
Mankind grown thin by his destructive sword:
Should he go farther, numbers would be wanting
To form new battles, and support his crimes.
Ye gods, what havoc does ambition make
Among your works !–

MARCUS.

Thy steady temper, Portius,
Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar,
In the calm lights of mild philosophy;
I'm tortur'd, even to madness, when I think
On the proud victor: every time he's nam'd
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 heav'n,
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 mix'd with too much horror to be envied :
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 them.

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,
And, cover'd with Numidian guards, directs

A feeble army, and an empty senate;
Remnants of mighty battles fought in vain.

By heavens, such virtues, join'd with such success,
Distract my very soul: our father's fortune
Would almost tempt us to renounce his precepts.

PORTIUS. Remember what our father oft has told us :
The ways of heaven are dark, and intricate,
Puzzled in mazes, and perplex'd with errors:

Our understanding traces them in vain,

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