imputation which a late writer had thrown upon them in his 502d_speculation. Give me leave to

transcribe his words.

In the first scene of Terence's play, the SelfTormentor, when one of the old men accuses the other of impertinence for interposing in his affairs, he answers, I am a man, and cannot help feeling any sorrow that can arrive at man.' It is said this sentence was received with universal applause. There cannot be a greater argument of the general good understanding of a people, than a sudden consent to give their approbation of a sentiment which has no emotion in it.

If it were spoken with never so great skill in the actor, the manner of uttering that sentence could have nothing in it which could strike any but people of the greatest humanity, nay people elegant and skilful in observations upon it. It is possible he might have laid his hand on his breast, and with a winning insinuation in his countenance expressed to his neighbour, that he was a man who made his case his own; yet I will engage a player in Covent-garden might hit such an attitude a thousand times before he would have been regarded.' These observations in favour of the Roman people, may now be very justly applied to our own nation,

Here will I hold. If there's a power above us,
(And that there is, all nature cries aloud
Through all her works) He must delight in virtue;
And that which He delights in must be happy.

This will be allowed, I hope, to be as virtuous a sentiment as that which he quotes out of Terence; and the general applause with which (you say) it was received, must certainly make this writer (notwithstanding his great assurance in pronouncing

upon our ill taste) alter his opinion of his country

men.

Our poetry, I believe, and not our morals, has been generally worse than that of the Romans; for it is plain, when we can equal the best dramatic performance of that polite age, a British audience may vie with the Roman theatre in the virtue of their applauses.

However different in other things our opinions may be, all parties agree in doing honour to a man who is an honour to our country. How are our hearts warmed by this excellent tragedy with the love of liberty, and our constitution! How irresistible is virtue in the character of Cato! Who would not say with the Numidian prince to Marcia,

I'll gaze for ever on thy godlike father,
Transplanting, one by one, into my life
His bright perfections, till I shine like him.

Rome herself received not so great advantages from her patriot, as Britain will from this admirable representation of him. Our British Cato improves our language, as well as our morals, nor will it be in the power of tyrants to rob us of him; or, to use the last line of an epigram to the author

In vain your Cato stabs, he cannot die.'

Oxon. All-Souls' Col.
May 6.

MR. IRONSIDE,

I am, Sir,

Your most obliged

humble Servant,

WILLIAM Lizard.

Oxon. Christ-Church, May 7.

You are, I perceive, a very wary old fellow, more cautious than a late brother-writer of yours, who, at

the rehearsal of a new play, would, at the hazard of his judgment, endeavour to prepossess the town in its favour; whereas you very prudently waited until the tragedy of Cato had gained an universal and irresistible applause, and then with great boldness venture to pronounce your opinion of it to be the same with that of all mankind. I will leave you to consider whether such a conduct becomes a Guardian, who ought to point out to us proper entertainments, and instruct us when to bestow our applause. However, in so plain a case we did not wait for your directions; and I must tell you, that none here were earlier or louder in their praises of Cato, than we at Christ church. This may, I hope, convince you, that we do not deserve the character (which envious dull fellows give us) of allowing nobody to have wit or parts but those of our own body, especially when I let you know that we are many of us

Your affectionate

humble Servants.

TO NESTOR IRONSIDE, ESQ.

Oxon. Wad, Coll, May 7.

MR. IRONSIDE,

Were the Seat of the Muses silent while London is so loud in their applause of Cato, the University's title to that name might very well be suspected;-in justice therefore to your alma mater, let the world know our opinion of that tragedy

here.

The author's other works had raised our expectation of it to a very great height, yet it exceeds whatever we could promise ourselves from so great a genius.

Cæsar will no longer be a hero in our declama

tions. This tragedy has at once stripped him of all the flattery and false colours, which historians and the classic authors had thrown upon him, and we shall for the future treat him as a murderer of the best patriot of his age, and a destroyer of the liberties of his country. Cato, as represented in these scenes, will cast a blacker shade on the memory of that usurper, than the picture of him did upon his triumph. Had this finished dramatic piece appeared some hundred years ago, Cæsar would have lost so many centuries of fame, and monarchs had disdained to let themselves be called by his name. However, it will be an honour to the times we live in, to have had such a work produced in them, and a pretty speculation for posterity to observe, that the tragedy of Cato was acted with general applause in 1713.

I am, Sir,

Your most humble Servant, &c.

A.B.

P.S. The French translation of Cato now in the

press, will, I hope, be in usum Delphini.

No. 60. WEDNESDAY MAY, 20, 1713.

Nihil legebat quod non excerperet.

PLIN. Epist.

He pick'd something out of every thing he read.

SIR,

TO NESTOR IRONSIDE, ESQ.

THERE is nothing in which men deceive themselves more ridiculously, than in the point of reading, and which, as it is commonly practised under the notion of improvement, has less advantage. The generality of readers, who are pleased with wandering over a number of books almost at the same instant, or, if confined to one, who pursue the author with much hurry and impatience to his last page, must without doubt be allowed to be notable digesters. This unsettled way of reading naturally seduces us into as undetermined a manner of thinking, which unprofitably fatigues the imagination, when a continued chain of thought would probably produce inestimable conclusions. All authors are eligible either for their matter or style; if for the first, the elucidation and disposition of it intoproper lights ought to employ a judicious reader; if for the last, he ought to observe how some common words are started into a new signification, how such epithets are beautifully reconciled to things that seemed incompatible, and must often remember the whole structure of a period, because, by the least transposition, that assemblage of words