nature,' and to have forgotten Shakspeare. That man must have forgotten
Shakspeare, indeed, and from _ramollissement_ of the brain, who could
admire 'Cato.' 'But,' says Schlosser, 'it was only a 'fashion;' and the
English soon repented.' The English could not repent of a crime which they
had never committed. Cato was not popular for a moment, nor tolerated for
a moment, upon any literary ground, or as a work of art. It was an apple
of temptation and strife thrown by the goddess of faction between two
infuriated parties. 'Cato,' coming from a man without Parliamentary
connections, would have dropped lifeless to the ground. The Whigs have
always affected a special love and favor for popular counsels: they have
never ceased to give themselves the best of characters as regards public
freedom. The Tories, as contradistinguished to the Jacobites, knowing that
without _their_ aid, the Revolution could not have been carried, most
justly contended that the national liberties had been at least as much
indebted to themselves. When, therefore, the Whigs put forth _their_
man Cato to mouth speeches about liberty, as exclusively _their_ pet,
and about patriotism and all that sort of thing, saying insultingly to the
Tories, 'How do you like _that_? Does _that_ sting?' 'Sting, indeed!'
replied the Tories; 'not at all; it's quite refreshing to us, that the
Whigs have not utterly disowned such sentiments, which, by their public
acts, we really thought they _had_.' And, accordingly, as the popular
anecdote tells us, a Tory leader, Lord Bolingbroke, sent for Booth
who performed Cato, and presented him (_populo spectante_) with fifty
guineas 'for defending so well the cause of the people against a perpetual
dictator.' In which words, observe, Lord Bolingbroke at once asserted the
cause of his own party, and launched a sarcasm against a great individual
opponent, viz., Marlborough. Now, Mr. Schlosser, I have mended your
harness: all right ahead; so drive on once more.

But, oh Castor and Pollux, whither--in what direction is it, that the man