Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/343

 justice, because his own hero, with all his virtues, was to fall before a tyrant, The fact is certain; the motives we must guess.

Addison was, I believe, sufficiently disposed to bar all avenues against all danger. When Pope brought him the prologue, which is properly accommodated to the play, there were these words, "Britons, arise! be worth like this approved;" meaning nothing more than, Britons, erect and exalt yourselves to the approbation of publick virtue. Addison was frighted, lest he should be thought a promoter of insurrection, and the line was liquidated to "Britons, attend."

Now, "heavily in clouds came on the day, the great, the important day," when Addison was to stand the hazard of the theatre. That there might, however, be left as little hazard as was possible, on the first night Steele, as himself relates, undertook to pack an audience. This, says Pope ", had been tried for the first time in favour of the Distrest Mother; and was now, with more efficacy, practised for Cato. Rh