importuned, in the name of the tutelary deities of Britain, to show
his courage and his zeal by finishing his design.

To resume his work he seemed perversely and unaccountably unwilling;
and by a request, which perhaps he wished to be denied, desired Mr.
Hughes to add a fifth act. Hughes supposed him serious; and,
undertaking the supplement, brought in a few days some scenes for
his examination; but he had in the meantime gone to work himself,
and produced half an act, which he afterwards completed, but with
brevity irregularly disproportionate to the foregoing parts, like a
task performed with reluctance and hurried to its conclusion.

It may yet be doubted whether Cato was made public by any change of
the author's purpose; for Dennis charged him with raising prejudices
in his own favour by false positions of preparatory criticism, and
with POISONING THE TOWN by contradicting in the Spectator the
established rule of poetical 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,
"Britains, arise! be worth like this approved;" meaning nothing more
than--Britons, erect and exalt yourselves to the approbation of
public virtue. Addison was frighted, lest he should be thought a
promoter of insurrection, and the line was liquidated to "Britains,
attend."

Now "heavily in clouds came on the day, the great, the important