"'SYPH. But is it true, Sempronius, that your senate
Is called together? Gods! thou must be cautious;
Cato has piercing eyes.'

"There is a great deal of caution shown, indeed, in meeting in a
governor's own hall to carry on their plot against him. Whatever
opinion they have of his eyes, I suppose they have none of his ears,
or they would never have talked at this foolish rate so near:--

"'Gods! thou must be cautious.'

Oh! yes, very cautious: for if Cato should overhear you, and turn
you off for politicians, Caesar would never take you.

"When Cato, Act II., turns the senators out of the hall upon
pretence of acquainting Juba with the result of their debates, he
appears to me to do a thing which is neither reasonable nor civil.
Juba might certainly have better been made acquainted with the
result of that debate in some private apartment of the palace. But
the poet was driven upon this absurdity to make way for another, and
that is to give Juba an opportunity to demand Marcia of her father.
But the quarrel and rage of Juba and Syphax, in the same act; the
invectives of Syphax against the Romans and Cato; the advice that he
gives Juba in her father's hall to bear away Marcia by force; and
his brutal and clamorous rage upon his refusal, and at a time when
Cato was scarcely out of sight, and perhaps not out of hearing, at
least some of his guards or domestics must necessarily be supposed
to be within hearing; is a thing that is so far from being probable,
that it is hardly possible.