Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/384

 elegant language, than a representation of natural affections, or of any state probable or possible in human life. Nothing here "excites or assuages emotion;" here is "no magical power of raising phantastick terror or wild anxiety." The events are expected without solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents we have no care; we consider not what they are doing, or what they are suffering; we wish only to know what they have to say. Cato is a being above our solicitude; a man of whom the gods take care, and whom we leave to their care with heedless confidence. To the rest, neither gods nor men can have much attention; for there is not one amongst them that strongly attracts either affection or esteem. But they are made the vehicles of such sentiments and such expression, that there is scarcely a scene in the play which the reader does not wish to impress upon his memory.

When Cato was shewn to Pope, he advised the author to print it, without any theatrical exhibition; supposing that it Rh