midst of one of our halls in London; that he should appear solus, in
a sullen posture, a drawn sword on the table by him; in his hand
Plato's Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, translated lately
by Bernard Lintot: I desire the reader to consider whether such a
person as this would pass with them who beheld him for a great
patriot, a great philosopher, or a general, or some whimsical person
who fancied himself all these? and whether the people who belonged
to the family would think that such a person had a design upon their
midriffs or his own?

"In short, that Cato should sit long enough in the aforesaid
posture, in the midst of this large hall, to read over Plato's
Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, which is a lecture of two
long hours; that he should propose to himself to be private there
upon that occasion; that he should be angry with his son for
intruding there; then that he should leave this hall upon the
pretence of sleep, give himself the mortal wound in his bedchamber,
and then be brought back into that hall to expire, purely to show
his good breeding, and save his friends the trouble of coming up to
his bedchamber; all this appears to me to be improbable, incredible,
impossible."

Such is the censure of Dennis. There is, as Dryden expresses it,
perhaps "too much horse-play in his railleries;" but if his jests
are coarse, his arguments are strong. Yet, as we love better to be
pleased than to be taught, Cato is read, and the critic is
neglected. Flushed with consciousness of these detections of
absurdity in the conduct, he afterwards attacked the sentiments of
Cato; but he then amused himself with petty cavils and minute
objections.