Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/408

 him, for a great patriot, a great philosopher, or a general, or some whimsical person, who fancied himself all these? and whether the people, who belonged to the family, would think that such a person had a design upon their midrifs or his own?

In short, that Cato should sit long enough in the aforesaid posture, in the midst of this large hall, to read over Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, which is a lecture of two long hours; that he should propose to himself to be private there upon that occasion; that he should be angry with his son for intruding there; then, that he should leave this hall upon the pretence, of sleep, give himself the mortal wound in his bedchamber, and then be brought back into that hall to expire, purely to shew his good breeding, and save his friends the trouble of coming up to his bedchamber; all this appears to me to be improbable, incredible, impossible."

Such is the censure of Dennis. There is, as Dryden expresses it, perhaps "too much horse-play in his raillery;" but if his jests are coarse, his arguments are strong. 5