a fierce and outrageous torrent, bear down all opposition before
them."

He then condemns the neglect of poetical justice, which is one of
his favourite principles:--

"'Tis certainly the duty of every tragic poet, by the exact
distribution of poetical justice, to imitate the Divine
Dispensation, and to inculcate a particular Providence. 'Tis true,
indeed, upon the stage of the world, the wicked sometimes prosper
and the guiltless suffer; but that is permitted by the Governor of
the World, to show, from the attribute of His infinite justice, that
there is a compensation in futurity, to prove the immortality of the
human soul, and the certainty of future rewards and punishments.
But the poetical persons in tragedy exist no longer than the reading
or the representation; the whole extent of their enmity is
circumscribed by those; and therefore, during that reading or
representation, according to their merits or demerits, they must be
punished or rewarded. If this is not done, there is no impartial
distribution of poetical justice, no instructive lecture of a
particular Providence, and no imitation of the Divine Dispensation.
And yet the author of this tragedy does not only run counter to
this, in the fate of his principal character; but everywhere,
throughout it, makes virtue suffer, and vice triumph: for not only
Cato is vanquished by Caesar, but the treachery and perfidiousness
of Syphax prevail over the honest simplicity and the credulity of
Juba; and the sly subtlety and dissimulation of Portius over the
generous frankness and open-heartedness of Marcus."

Whatever pleasure there may be in seeing crimes punished and virtue