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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Joseph Addison's Cato is the most important English verse drama of the eighteenth century; Allardyce Nicoll calls it “a landmark in the history of tragedy.” In addition, it is of great political interest, for its production in the turbulent year before the death of Queen Anne made it the rallying piece for Whigs and Tories, both of whom enrolled its propaganda on their side. Hence any document which throws new light on its composition is significant for that reason alone. That Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote a critique of Cato before it was produced, and that Addison followed several of her suggestions for improving his tragedy add to the importance of such a discovery. As a letter-writer Lady Mary has a secure reputation, but her brilliant, aggressive intellect impelled her to take a far more active and varied part in the literary scene of her time than has previously been realized. In her serving as play-doctor for such an influential drama as Cato we have further evidence of her versatility.
1 A History of Early Eighteenth Century Drama 1700-1750 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1925), p. 3.
2 Vol. vii, ff. 388-398. The owner of this collection, the Earl of Harrowby, has kindly allowed me to use it.
3 “George Paston”, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Her Times, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1907), pp. 170-173.
4 Spence, Anecdotes, ed. Samuel Weller Singer (London, 1820), p. 46.
6 Journal to Stella, ed. Harold Williams (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), p. 651.
6 An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber Written by Himself, ed. Robert W. Lowe (London, 1889), ii, 128.
7 Addison, Works, ed. Tickell (London: Tonson, 1721), i, xiv.
8 Steele, “Dedication to Congreve”, [Addison], The Drummer; or, The Haunted House, 2nd ed. (London, 1722), p. xv.
9 Spence, p. 196.
10 Spence, p. 151. The only example of Pope's contribution, as given by Spence, is the last line of the play.
11 ye in the MS. Except for the (ye), them (ym), and that (yt), my quotations from the original MS. are exact, and I have not cluttered them with sic.
12 Letters of Addison, ed. Walter Graham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1941), p. 112. Other letters from Addison to Wortley Montagu appear on pp. 22, 29,30, 111, 118, 263, 265.
13 George A. Aitken, Life of Steele (London, 1889), i 234.
14 Journal to Stella (1948), p. 65.
16 The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ed. Lord Wharncliffe, 3rd ed. rev. by W. Moy Thomas (London, 1861), i, 203.
16 Op. cit., i, xiii.
17 “Dedication to Congreve”, p. xvi.
18 Swift describes attending a rehearsal on 6 April: Journal to Stella (1948), p. 654.
19 The Critical Works of John Dennis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1943), ii, 448.
20 She probably refers here to the Spectator No. 267 (5 Jan. 1712), where Addison discusses “unity of action” in epic—not dramatic—poetry.
21 She might have cited Addison's own objection to the “double plot” in tragedy (Spectator No. 40, 16 April 1711). Both Pope and Edward Young stated that the love-plot was inserted to comply with popular taste (Spence, pp. 46, 335). But Lady Mary implies that it was inserted to enrich the barren subject of the play.
22 Act v, Scene i. All my references to Cato are to Addison's Miscellaneous Works, ed. A. C. Guthkelch (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1914), i, 335-420. This critical edition of the play is based on a collation of the early texts.
23 i, i, 25, 108; i, iv, 59, 133.
24 i, vi, 9-10.
26 ii, v, 16.
26 ii, v, 69.
27 ii, v, 85.
28 Further proof that the change of brat to boy was made at this particular place is that elsewhere in the critique Lady Mary writes: “Syphax giving his Love of Juba to the Winds page 31 … ” This expression of Syphax appears in the final version, ii, v, 139; brat appears on “page 29” (MS) and boy, ii, v, 69. Besides the phrase of Syphax, she criticizes one other as unoriginal: the famous
'Tis not in mortals to Command success,
But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll Deserve it. [i, ii, 44-45]
Addison let them both stand.
29 Restoration Tragedy 1660-1720 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929), pp. 64-65; Five Restoration Tragedies (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1928), p. xviii.
30 No. 39 (14 April 1711), ed. George A. Aitken (London, 1898), i, 200.
31 Printed in her Letters and Works (1861), ii, 453. It was first printed in the 1803 edition of her works, [ed. John Dallaway] (London: Richard Phillips), v, 134.
32 Macaulay, Miscellaneotis Works, ed. Lady Trevelyan (New York, 1880), iii, 464.
53 Addisoniana (London, [1803]), ii, 9-10. The full account of this episode appears in the diary of Viscount Percival (afterwards First Earl of Egmont) and is printed in the Hist. MSS. Comm.: Report on MSS. of the Earl of Egmont, i (1920), 10S; it is quoted in George Sherburn, The Early Career of Alexander Pope (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), p. 123.
34 Spence, p. 232.
35 Still unpublished, it is among the Wortley MSS., Vol. vii.
36 Lady Mary, Works (1861), ii, 13-14; W. Thomas, Le Poète Edward Young … (Paris: Hachette, 1901), p. 305.
37 Lady Mary, Works (1861), ii, 19; Wilbur L. Cross, The History of Henry Fielding (Yale Univ. Press, 1918), i, 58-62, 119.
