The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Foreword
• Introduction
• The Life of Joseph Addison
• Addison the Essayist
• Cato, a Tragedy
• Editors’ Note
• Acknowledgments
• Cato: a Tragedy
• Prologue By Mr. Pope 2
• Dramatis Personae
• Act I —
• Scene I
• Scene Ii
• Scene Iii
• Scene Iv
• Scene V
• Scene Vi
• Act Ii —
• Scene I
• Scene Ii
• Scene Iii
• Scene Iv
• Scene V
• Scene Vi
• Act Iii —
• Scene I
• Scene Ii
• Scene Iii
• Scene Iv
• Scene V
• Scene Vi
• Scene Vii
• Act Iv —
• Scene I
• Scene Ii
• Scene Iii
• Scene Iv —
• Act V —
• Scene I
• Scene Ii
• Scene Iii
• Scene Iv
• Epilogue By Dr. Garth. 1
• Selected Essays
• Tatler, No. 161
• Tatler, No. 162
• Whig Examiner, No. 5
• Spectator, No. 55
• Spectator, No. 125
• Spectator, No. 169
• Spectator, No. 215
• Spectator, No. 219
• Spectator, No. 231
• Spectator, No. 237
• Spectator, No. 243
• Spectator, No. 255
• Spectator, No. 256
• Spectator, No. 257
• Spectator, No. 287
• Spectator, No. 293
• Spectator, No. 349
• Spectator, No. 446
• Spectator, No. 557
• Guardian, No. 99
• Guardian, No. 161
• Freeholder, No. 1
• Freeholder, No. 2
• Freeholder, No. 5
• Freeholder, No. 10
• Freeholder, No. 12
• Freeholder, No. 13 1
• Freeholder, No. 16
• Freeholder, No. 29
• Freeholder, No. 34
• Freeholder, No. 39
• Freeholder, No. 51
• The Life and Character of M. Cato of Utica [ ]

PROLOGUE BY MR. POPE2

Spoken by Mr. Wilks3

• 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 wondered 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 confest in human shape he draws,
• What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was:
• No common object to your sight displays,
• But, what with pleasure heaven 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?
• Ev’n then proud Caesar, ’midst triumphal cars,
• The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
• Ignobly vain, and impotently great,
• Showed Rome her Cato’s figure drawn in state.

• As her dead father’s reverend image past,
• The pomp was darkened, and the day o’ercast,
• The triumph ceased—tears gushed from every eye,
• The world’s great victor passed unheeded by;
• Her last good man dejected Rome adored,

• And honoured Caesar’s less than Cato’s sword.
•   Britons, attend: be worth like this approved,
• And show you have the virtue to be moved.
• With honest scorn the first famed Cato4 viewed
• 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 warmed with your own native rage.
• Such plays alone should please a British ear,

• As Cato’s self had not disdained to hear.

[2. ]Alexander Pope (1688–1744)—Poet and preeminent literary figure of the early eighteenth century. Among his best known works are An Essay on Man (1733) and The Dunciad (1728). Pope was politically aligned with the Tory party.

[3. ]Robert Wilks (c. 1665–1732) was the leading actor of the Drury Lane company. He played Juba in the production of Cato.

[4. ]Cato the Elder (234–149 b.c.), also called Cato the Censor, was great-grandfather of Cato the Younger. Known for his extremely simple lifestyle and his hatred of luxury, Cato the Elder was a staunch opponent of Scipio Africanus. See Tatler 162 (p. 111) and Cato IV.4 (p. 85, n. 11).