Cato, a Tragedy, Part IV: “His Sufferings Shine, and Spread a Glory Round Him”

    If Sempronius, as previously discussed, functions as Addison’s stand-in for his adversaries the Tories, then Cato’s children – Marcus, Portius, and Marcia – were almost certainly intended to represent his colleagues and allies, the Whigs. This comparison excludes Cato himself, of course, though Addison’s portrayal of his hero was most definitely flattering in the extreme, because Addison’s version of that great statesman of ancient Rome was too perfect to be an echo of any actual human being. As aforementioned, Cato is portrayed as being selfless to a fault, extraordinary in his stoicism, noble beyond measure, and almost entirely devoid of human emotion. He cares for everyone but himself, tires only of struggling against such a cruel and vicious world, and at his death seeks only to ensure that his allies and his family are safe and comfortable. Not only would this have represented an insupportable exaggeration of anyone actually involved in contemporary British politics, but the mere fact of their being an individual leader whom so many figures in the play follow and adore runs counter to the basic circumstances of the Stuart/Hanoverian conflict. James Francis Edward Stuart, with some liberties taken, could reasonably be transformed into the unseen but inexorable Julius Caesar. He was an absolutist, a potential dispenser of patronage, and a man for whom loyalty seemed to matter more than honor. But no one on the Hanoverian side of the debate could possibly have been represented by Addison’s version of Cato.    

    The Whigs had no single leader in 1712, being controlled instead by a “Junto” of statesmen who sought to divide responsibility between them for both controlling their party and forming effective governments. Among them, it was true, were Addison’s patrons, John Somers and Charles Montagu. But neither man, in terms of personality, behavior, or policy, came anywhere close to the selflessness which Addison attributed to Cato. Nor, for that matter, did the Stuart pretender’s opposite number, the Elector of Hanover. His mother, Sophia, of course, was the formal heir to the British throne pursuant to the terms of the Act of Succession (1701). But her probable age upon ascending – eighty-two as of 1712 – more or less ensured that her reign would be a short one. At which point, as declared by Parliament, the Crown would pass to George, a German prince who, though not necessarily a tyrant by inclination, was accustomed to directing far more of his country’s affairs than Parliament would ever permit. No, George wasn’t Addison’s Cato, either. The Whigs most definitely favored his ascension – to the point, indeed, of pinning the fate of the British Constitution on his eventual coronation – but they didn’t look to him as a leader or aspire to emulate him as a statesman. Addison’s Cato was rather the embodiment of an ideal – a physical manifestation of the very concept of virtue. He could be worshiping without ever misleading his followers. Human frailty could not touch him. He was perfect. And for that reason, among others, he represented no one at all.

    His children, however, represented actual human beings. Not anyone specific, necessarily – any more than Sempronius represented a specific pro-Stuart Tory – but the membership of the Whig party at large. By following Cato, they follow virtue; by opposing Caesar, they oppose absolutism. They are not perfect, any more than it is possible for humans to be so. Marcus in particular is hot-headed, passionate, and more than a little obsessive. But they aspire to the example of their unimpeachable father. In this sense, their selflessness is made all the more impressive. Unlike Cato, who, because Addison chose not to give him any weaknesses doesn’t really have to master his impulses in order to achieve what he wants to achieve, Marcus, Portius, and Marcia are each shown to struggle in the attempt at reconciling their personal desires with what they feel to be their duty. Marcus feels the weight of being Cato’s son, knows he must live up to his father’s shining example, and wants to, but is continually tortured by his passions. Portius, whom Lucia loves to the exclusion of Marcus, is more stoic than his brother, and continually reminds him of the gravity of their situation, yet also is given to lament the fact that he can never admit his love for the daughter of Lucius for fear of breaking Marcus’s heart. And Marcia, while more like Portius in her resemblance to their father, is similarly torn between behaving as she feels the present circumstances warrant and reciprocating the affections of the ardent Prince Juba. Virtue comes easier to these three than to the likes of Sempronius or Syphax, it seems, but they do still struggle. They are still human.

    The arc traced by Marcus over the course of Addison’s Cato is perhaps the most tragic of any in the cast. Cato’s death, it is true, is a tragic thing in itself, and is very much the focal point of all the drama that proceeds it. That said, because Cato is drawn by Addison as barely being human, his demise ends up lacking a genuine emotional impact. Marcus, by contrast, is such a flawed character to begin with that his eventual fate cannot help but elicit sympathy. Introduced, alongside his brother, in the first scene of Act 1, he is presented to the audience from the very beginning as the more anguished of Cato’s dutiful sons, given to teeth-gnashing and lengthy laments while Portius looks on with patient equanimity. Hearing his brother summarize the state of their shared fortunes thus far with a degree of cool detachment – “The great, the important day, big with fate / Of Cato and of Rome---Our father’s death / Would fill up all the guilt of civil war / And close the scene of blood” – Marcus cannot help but marvel at Portius’s “steady temper.” Surveying the same set of circumstances, he bemoans,

I’m tortured e’en to madness, when I think

On the proud victor—ev’ry time he’s named,

Pharsalia rises to my view!—I see

Th’insulting tyrant, prancing o’er the field,

Strew’d with Rome’s citizens, and drench’d in slaughter;

His horse’s hooves wet with patrician blood!

As a matter of temperament, it seems, the namesake son of Cato the Younger is not nearly as stoic as either his father or brother. The events which they observe with a degree of cool detachment – not unfeeling, mind, but rational – Marcus treats as a kind of psycho-emotional injury. The name of Caesar hurts him to hear. Visions of his countrymen cut down by their fellow Romans at Pharsalus assault his senses. It is almost enough, he claims, to drive him to madness.

    Worse yet, while Portius attempts to console his bother by reminding him that their misery has not been in vain – “His sufferings shine,” he says of their father, “And spread a glory round him; / Greatly unfortunate, he fights the cause / Of honour, virtue, liberty, and Rome” – Marcus goes so far as to question aloud the wisdom of carrying on. “But what can Cato do [,]” he grieves,

            Against a world, a base, degenerate world,

            That courts the yoke, and bows the neck to Caesar?

            […]

            By Heav’n, such virtue, join’d with such success,

            Distracts my very soul! Our father’s fortune,

            Would almost tempt us to renounce his precepts.

The scene proceeds thereafter as these first exchanges would indicate: Marcus is tortured, Portius is composed; Marcus remarks upon all the griefs that “wring his soul” while Portius exhorts him to stand fast and remember what their father has taught them about the inextricable connection between virtue and suffering. Ultimately, they reconcile, Marcus at long last moved by his brother’s compassion for his anguish and given even to apologize for his frequent bouts of angst. “Pardon a weak, distemper’d soul,” he begs of Portius, “That swells / With sudden gusts, and sinks as soon in calms, / The sport of passions.” Fittingly, just as Marcus takes this opportunity to depart, Sempronius enters and picks up conversing with Portius.

    The reason this is fitting is because Sempronius essentially functions as the dramatic opposite of Marcus. Whereas the latter is pained by what he has thus far experienced, views what Caesar has done as the most heinous of crimes, and struggles to contain the anguish thus roiling within them, the former is troubled only by the potential loss of his own fortunes. Far from lamenting the slaughter of his countrymen that has but recently been the order of the day, Sempronius is quietly impressed by what Caesar has accomplished, and only acts enraged so as to cover his true intention to defect at the earliest convenience. Both men speak in the language of the aggrieved – calling Caesar a knave, recalling the Romans dead by his hand, etc. – and both are gently chided by their companions – Portius and Cato, respectively – for being excessively zealous, but only one is being sincere. Sempronius, it becomes clear soon enough, is a master dissembler, very careful to whom he shows his true face and deepest desires, and one for whom passion is a but a convenient mask. By way of contrast, the legitimate sorrow given voice by Marcus – while not necessarily ideal by the standard set by his father – becomes that much easier to forgive. His is overly emotional, to be sure, and too easily distracted from the matter at hand. But Marcus is nothing if not genuine, honest, and compassionate. He does not play at suffering for effect, but truly feels the harm that has come to Rome and to his countrymen as though it has been inflicted upon himself.

    The purpose of this juxtaposition on Addison’s part was almost certainly to emphasize for the audience one of the central differences which the Whigs earnestly believed served to separate themselves from their redoubtable Tory rivals. As far as the Whigs were concerned – in view of how the Tories had historically comported themselves – the Tory party were little more than a train of sycophantic courtiers following in the wake of whichever monarch happened to occupy the throne. They claimed to desire the preservation of British liberties and the promotion of the constitutional status quo wrought by the events of the tumultuous 17^th century, but what had their actions shown them to be? Appeasers. Dissemblers. Time and again they favored the prerogatives of the Crown over the rights of Parliament. They claimed, of course, to believe that the authority of the monarchy should be strong enough to balance the authority of the Commons and the Lords, and that from this balance a stable order might be achieved. But hadn’t they always stood to gain from this arrangement? Hadn’t they been rewarded during the Restoration (1660-1688) for their zealous pursuit of the men who had signed the death warrant of Charles I (1600-1649)? And for co-operating with Charles II (1630-1685) when he sought to prevent Parliament from disinheriting his Catholic brother and heir, the Duke of York? Were they not granted pensions for these services? Royal offices? Places at court? Bearing this history in mind – and the more recent ennoblements of the aforementioned Harley and Bolingbroke for their own services to the Crown – the significance of Addison’s characterization of Sempronius would seem to be quite clear.

    Whereas Marcus, the son of Cato, is sincerely troubled by the turmoil Caesar has loosened on the Roman Republic, Sempronius merely mouths the words. And while Marcus seems to want nothing more than justice for his slain countrymen and peace for his benighted country – as well, perhaps, as the favor of fair Lucia – Sempronius wants to be favored by whomever he aids. The latter is thus shown to be little better than a mercenary. His services are for sale; his loyalty is a marketable good. Marcus, ironically, is not stoic enough to successfully adopt such a tack. He cares too much, feels too deeply. But at least he does feel. And while at times his heart might cause him to speak foolishly, he never gives anyone reason to believe that he does not loves what he claims to love. This guilelessness is part of what makes him sympathetic. Indeed, it powerfully contributes to the sense of tragedy which accompanies his eventual demise.

    Marcus’ next appearance – which turns out to be his last appearance – is in Act 3, during which he once more converses with his bother about his abiding passion for Lucia. As before, Portius attempts to counsel his sibling that excesses of passion often lead men to folly. And as before, Marcus will hear none of it, and at length even asks his bother to search out Lucia and determine the nature of her feelings. The lamentations put forward by Marcus during this exchange are more tortured than before, giving notice of the young man’s growing agitation. “Believe me, Portius,” he thus attempts to explain,

In my Lucia’s absence

Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden;

And yet, when I behold the charming maid,

I’m ten times more undone; while hope and fear,

And grief and rage, and love, rise up at once,

And with variety of pain distract me.

To be sure, this does not sound like the principled declaration of someone who is certain of their cause and knows what must be done to serve it. Has he lost sight of what his father is fighting for? Will he be of any use should a final confrontation occur? His response when Portius returns from Lucia further casts his attitude in doubt. Having been told by his brother – whom, again, Lucia truly loves – that the object of his obsession, “Though sworn never to think of love, / Compassionates your pains, and pities you [,]” Marcus once more gives vent to the full depth of his anguish. “What is compassion,” he bemoans, “When ‘tis void of love? […] She pities me! / To one that asks the warm returns of love, / Compassion’s cruelty, ‘tis scorn, ‘tis death— [.]” While his next breath is spent in another apology to his brother – and while the two of them are soon thereafter called away in answer to the mutiny which Sempronius has organized against Cato – one is nonetheless left to wonder what will become of Marcus by the time the drama at hand has concluded. Will he stay true to the ideals of his father, or have the torments of an unrequited passion left him susceptible to folly?

    The answer, it turns out, is as clear as to the question of whether Cato himself would ever give in to Caesar. That is to say, of course he will not. Marcus is Cato’s son and namesake. Riven by passion though he may be, he loves nothing and no one so much as his honor. Cato, for one, never seems to doubt this. Told by Portius that Syphax is attempting to flee the camp at Utica, and that the watch held by Marcus lies squarely in his path, Addison’s eponymous hero shows not the slightest glimmer of apprehension, dread, or uncertainty. “But haste, my son,” he rather says to Portius, “And see / Thy brother Marcus acts a Roman’s part.” His trust in his son is quickly born out when Portius returns but a few lines later to report that his brother has indeed been slain. Not only did Marcus stand, “The shock of a whole host of foes, / Till, obstinately brave, and bent on death, / Oppress’d with multitudes, he greatly fell” – to which Cato’s only response in an uninflected, “I’m satisfied” – but he managed to kill Syphax before he was himself cut down. Cato’s further reaction is yet again somewhat alarming in its stoicism. “Thanks to the gods,” he says, “My boy has done his duty. / —Portius, when I am dead, be sure you place / His urn near mine.” He does expand upon his feelings as the body of his son is brought forth and his fellow Senators gather to offer their condolences, but his manner of mourning for Marcus is not much warmer. “—How beautiful is death,” he remarks,

When earn’d by virtue!

Who would not be that youth? What pity is it,

That we can die but once, to serve our country!

[…]

Portius, behold thy brother, and remember,

Thy life is not thy own when Rome demands it.

    The reaction which his death elicits is in large part what makes the dramatic arc of Marcus such an eminently tragic one. Over the course of the play, the audience is shown repeatedly how profoundly he struggles with his emotions. At various moments, indeed, he is pushed almost to the point of madness. And yet, when the moment of truth arrives, he somehow finds a way to rise to the occasion. He lives up to his father’s pride, gives his life for his father’s ideals, and goes to the grave knowing that he has spent his all. And how, after all this, is he mourned? Does his father cry, tear out his hair, or fall prostrate to the floor in shock and anguish? No. He rather appears eminently satisfied that his son has died rightly. And while, at length, he does go on to wish that he could have taken the young man’s place – as many a parent has done upon being told of the death of their child – his intention is not to spare Marcus his demise. On the contrary, Cato envies his son. He desires to die as Marcus has died because he thinks such an ending is glorious. Then, where this not a strange enough remembrance, he tells the gathered Senators not to take the matter too much to heart. “Let not a private loss / Afflict your hearts [,]” he says. ‘Tis Rome requires our tears.” Such is the fate that awaits even the dutiful and beloved sons of Cato, it seems. They push aside their personal feelings, they die in service of some abstract ideal, and they are buried by a father who would presumably be dissatisfied had they not been willing to give what one noted American statesmen famously referred to as, “The last full measure of devotion.”

    This, of course, was exactly Addison’s point. To live rightly – which, from his perspective, meant to be a Whig – entailed a willingness to give one’s all for the so-called “greater good.” There were rewards that came with being a Tory: high office, ennoblement, pensions. But a Whig was not supposed to be moved by these things. Like the erstwhile sons of Cato the Younger, Whigs were supposed to master their impulses, lay aside their personal desires, and fight with every resource at their disposal for the rights of the British people in Parliament. Might they not also gain from their successes? Would not a stronger Parliament make them stronger in turn? Naturally. But these were not supposed to be the reasons that they labored as they did. Just as Marcus and Portius were supposed to willingly give up their lives if the fate of the Roman Republic demanded they do so, a Whig – again, by Addison’s undeniably biased reckoning – was supposed to willingly sacrifice their wealth, their honor, and their political careers if it meant protecting and expanding the authority of Parliament. They were supposed to be selfless, and honorable, and to risk ruin at a moment’s notice. And if ruin came? No official praise, no monuments, no memorialization of their glorious name. They gave all they had for a cause they knew to be just; what greater reward could there be? As Cato said exactly this of his slain son, Marcus, so Addison was most definitely saying of his fellow Whigs in contemporary Britain. The Tories seems keen, just then, of flouting the Act of Settlement (1701). It would accordingly fall to their partisan rivals to defend the rights of the Parliament, no matter their personal uncertainties and come what may.

Cato, a Tragedy, Part III: “Oh, for a Peal of Thunder”

     As to how the characters and relationships in Cato all maps onto the era in which Addison was writing, the various parallels and allusions would seem obvious enough. Sempronius and Syphax represent the contemporary Tories: alternately self-interested, dissembling, and cruel. While they play at being devoted either to the ideals for which Cato stands (on the part of Sempronius) or the master whom they are bound to serve (on the part of Syphax) they both secretly scorn the idea of loyalty for its own sake and desire only the improvement of their personal situations. Marcus, Portius, and Marcia, meanwhile, represent the contemporary Whigs. They are conscientious, disciplined, and self-sacrificing, willing to forfeit their ease, happiness, and – in the case of Marcus – even their own lives in service to their father and to the virtues which he embodies. Marcus, as aforementioned, is the least sober and stoic of the three, given as he is to a degree of romantic anguish over his feelings for Lucia, but he nevertheless ends up making the greatest sacrifice by the time the play has run its course. Lucius, being something of an appeaser, would seem to stand in for those British statesmen in 1712 who identified with the ideology and objectives of the Whigs but felt that aggressive resistance to the Tories in the latter’s pursuit of a second Restoration was too likely to result in destructive civil conflict to actively pursue. And Caesar, though more a presence than a character, was arguably Addison’s stand-in for James Francis Edward Stuart, the intransigent pretender to the British throne who believed himself favored by God, looked with distaste on constitutional government, and would gladly have rewarded those who aided in delivering him to his rightful coronation.

    In actual fact, the motivations of Julius Caesar were somewhat more complicated than a mere lust for power. He had the inclinations of a tyrant, to be sure, but he was also a populist and a reformer who sought to empower the plebeians and transform the patchwork Roman Republic into a more cohesive and stable administrative unit. James, by contrast, never showed himself to be either interested in, or amenable to, any particular program of restructuring or reform. What he wanted, simply put, was the kingdom that had been taken from his father and the power to rule it as he saw fit. But while casting Caesar in the role of James might have been a trifle unkind, Addison had no cause to pursue a nuanced portrayal of the looming but unseen presence that provides the motive force for his allegorical drama. For the contemporary Whigs – and particularly for those who identified most strongly with the “republican” aspects of the British Constitution and sought inspiration in the lives and careers of ancient statesmen like Cato, Marcus Junius Brutus (85-42 BC), and Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) – Caesar was a villain, plain and simple. He destroyed the Roman Republic, gave rise to the Roman Empire, and caused the deaths of thousands of his countrymen along the way. By using him as a stand-in for the man who would at length become known as “The Old Pretender,” Addison was doubtless attempting to suggest that the Stuart heir was as single-minded in his pursuit of power and as willing to see his nominal subjects killed if they dared to stand in his way. This manner of poetic exaggeration was very much the mode in which Cato was written. The characters therein were not necessarily accurate reflections of either their historical originals – if such existed – or of the contemporary groups or figures that they were intended to represent. Rather, they are caricatures of a sort whose extravagant behaviors and pronouncements were intended to elicit an emotional response in audiences quite probably skeptical of the idea that the looming death of the reigning British sovereign might conceivably result in an out-and-out civil war.

    Consider, by way of example, the deceitful Sempronius. A Senator who presumably fled Rome along with the Optimates and survived Pharsalus and Thapsus only to end up sequestered in Utica with what remained of his colleagues, his ostensible purpose in Cato is to give voice to what Addison seemed to regard as the fundamental self-interest of the Tories and their supporters. In the presence of Cato, his children, or young Juba, he is effusive in his praise of the course that Cato has plotted and eager to bring the fight once more to Caesar’s traitorous legions. But this, the audience learns soon enough, is all a front. In actual fact, though he claimed a moment before that Cato’s virtues, “Strike with something like religious fear, / And make even Caesar tremble at the head / Of armies flush’d with conquest [,]” in truth he believes that Caesar’s victory is inevitable. “Alas!” he thus remarks to Syphax, Juba’s equally devious retainer,

Thou know’st not Caesar’s active soul,

With what a dreadful course he rushes on

From war to war. In vain has nature form’d

Mountains and oceans t’oppose his passage;

He bounds o’er all.

One day more

Will set the victor thund’ring at our gates.

Worse yet, Sempronius is convinced that he chose poorly in following Cato into the deserts of Africa. “Cato has used me ill [,]” he complains,

            He has refused

            His daughter Marcia to my ardent vows.

            Besides, his baffled arms, and ruin’d cause,

            Are bars to my ambition. Caesar’s favor,

            That show’rs down greatness on his friends, will raise me

            To Rome’s first honours.

The best course, Sempronius accordingly concludes, is to play for time, make contact with Caesar, and communicate to him that he has friends in Cato’s camp at Utica who would gladly offer their assistance. 

    Though the quotations cited above are taken only from Act 1, they nevertheless serve to make the motivations of Sempronius abundantly clear. Sempronius is dissembling, two-faced. He praises Cato at one moment and plots against him the next. He does not believe in standing fast against that which one has no hope of defeating – which is to say that he does not think that one ought to die for their principles – and endeavors only to serve that which, and those whom, can attend to his material interests. While, again, forming something of a caricature, this very much encapsulates the contemporary Whig view of their opposition. The Tories – ideologically descended, as they were, from the Cavaliers who had sided with Crown during the English Civil War (1642-1649) – were courtly, pro-monarchy, pro-Church, and anti-Parliament. They had shown themselves to be amenable, in the late 17^th century, to allowing the Crown to wield significant political power – as during the final years of Charles II (1630-1685) – and had formed productive working relationships with King William III and his successor Queen Anne during the early years of the 18^th century for precisely that same reason. Successful as they were, however – or perhaps exactly for that reason – they became known among their Whig rivals as excessively self-interested, craven, and hypocritical. They supported monarchs with Catholic sympathies and then campaigned on the idea that the Church of England was in peril. They endeavored to pull Britain out of a war, for the ostensible purpose of sparing lives and resources, and then attempted to elevate a pretender who really was a Catholic so that they wouldn’t have to face the political consequences. They played the part of selfless public servants while at the same time coveting nothing more than political power.

    Granted, this is a very one-sided portrait of the 18^th-century Tories, but one which Addison would nevertheless have had ample reason to promote. Being a Whig in good standing, and a Member of Parliament, the author of Cato well understood that support for the mechanism of succession which the House of Commons had previously approved would almost certainly end up empowering Parliament even further in the event of its implementation. Tory partisans who argued to the contrary, that it was in fact in the best interests of the nation to disregard the Act of Settlement (1701) and re-empower the monarchy, thus warranted an exceedingly skeptical glance. Being Addison’s stand-in for these selfsame monarchists, Sempronius is accordingly portrayed as enthusiastically unfaithful to the cause which he outwardly claims to honor. Consider, by way of further example, the following pair of scenes. At the beginning of Act 2, during a meeting of what remains of the Senate, Sempronius once more dons the aspect of an unbowed, virtuous Roman. “Rise, fathers, rise!” he exhorts his colleagues,

            ‘tis Rome demands your help;

            Rise, and revenge her slaughtered citizens,

            Or share their fate!—

            To battle!

            Great Pompey’s shade complains that we are slow;

            And Scipio’s ghost walks unrevenged among us.

But while Cato chalks up his colleague’s bloody-minded exhortation to an excess of zeal, Sempronius had earlier communicated to Syphax at the end of Act 1 that he intended to mask his antipathy towards Cato when next they met in a contrived outburst of unfettered passion. “I’ll bellow out for Rome,” he asserted,

            And for my county,

            And mouth at Caesar, till I shake the senate.

            Your cold hypocrisy’s a stale device,

            A worn-out trick; wouldst thou be thought in earnest,

            Clothe thy feign’d zeal in rage, in fire, in fury!

    The lengths to which Addison has Sempronius go in pursuit of his desired ends, and the means by which he characterizes himself and what he seeks, speak yet further to the disdain with which the author of Cato viewed the contemporary Tories. When a plot, instigated by Sempronius, to spur a mutiny among the weary soldiers under Cato’s command fails in Act 3 when Cato himself shames the men involved, Sempronius makes a point of volunteering to carry out their execution. Upbraiding the soldiers – both earnestly and for show – as, “Base, grov’ling, worthless wretches,” he then proceeds with uncharacteristic frankness to describe the nature of the trap he had earlier set for them. “Know, villains,” he thus explains,

When such paltry slaves presume

To mix in treason, if the plot succeeds,

They’re thrown neglected by; but if it fails,

They’re sure to die like dogs, as you shall do.

Then, when the leader of the mutineers shortly attempts a counter, Sempronius once more covers himself in the guise of loyalty and diligence. “Dispatch them quick,” he orders, “But first pluck out their tongues / Lest with their dying breath they sow sedition.” Not only, it seems, is Sempronius a hypocrite, a liar, and a traitor, but he is likewise cruel and ruthless in his devotion to himself. He uses men, discards men, intends they die to fulfill his personal ambitions and has them killed when they fail so that his schemes do not become known. He is, in many ways, avarice embodied.

    The extent of the rapaciousness represented by Sempronius is made clearest near the end of Act 3 when he is goaded by his erstwhile co-conspirator Syphax into revealing the nature of his obsession with Cato’s daughter, Marcia. The aforementioned mutiny having failed, and Syphax having suggested that the pair flee while they are yet unsuspected, Sempronius first laments having to leave Marcia behind before going on to explain the true nature of his interest. “Think not thy friend can ever feel the soft / Unmanly warmth and tenderness of love [,]” he assures his companion,

            Syphax, I long to clasp that haughty maid,

            And bend her stubborn virtue to my passion:

            When I have gone thus far, I’d cast her off.

When Syphax responds by suggesting that Sempronius disguise himself as Juba and attempt to kidnap Marcia from her bedchamber, the Senator’s elation at the prospect is similarly disturbing. “Heavens, what a thought is there!” he exclaims.

            Marcia’s my own!

            How will my bosom swell with anxious joy,

            When I behold her struggling in my arms,

            With glowing beauty, and disorder’d charms,

            While fear and anger, with alternate grace,

            Pant in her breast, and vary in her face!

There is little cause to doubt that Addison’s intention herein was to conjure the image of rape. Indeed, Sempronius all but says outright that he intendeds to assault Marcia and then discard her. He wants her to struggle, to be angry, and fearful. He wants her to resist him so that his eventual conquest will be all the sweeter. These are not the expressions of a man who is besotted, like Juba; someone who cares more for the happiness of their beloved than they do for their own. Rather, these are the twisted desires of one who can truly love nobody but themselves. Compassion is unknown to them, or tenderness, or selflessness.

    Again, it bears admitting that this does not amount to a very balanced understanding of contemporary Tories like Robert Harley or Lord Bolingbroke. Their desire to re-empower the House of Stuart as a means of avoiding political punishment was most definitely a craven thing, it must be said. Nevertheless, it would difficult to find fault with the action itself for which they were seeking to avoid responsibility. The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), though of enduring strategic significance to contemporary Britain’s imperial ambitions, had grown increasingly unpopular with the British public by the beginning of the 1710s. The most recent election – in 1710 itself – had seen the incumbent Whigs suffer an unexpected defeat at the hands of the resurgent Tories precisely because the former had campaigned on the idea that peace could not be achieved until certain concession had been extracted from France, and the newly-empowered Tories – under the aforementioned Robert Harley – were accordingly eager to secure a settlement with the French and Spanish, recall British troops from the Continent, and consolidate the commercial gains that Britain’s victories had won thus far. One could hardly call this a dishonorable motive. Great Britain – and England before it – had been embroiled in some manner of pan-European conflagration or internal civil conflict almost continuously since the days of the English Civil War. And for that matter, the War of the Spanish Succession had itself been going on for the better part of a decade. If the British people had indeed grown tired of war taxes, and trade disruptions, and sending their fathers, sons, and bothers off to die so that the French couldn’t conquer the Dutch, there was nothing unreasonable or immoral about the Tories under Harley seeking an end to the conflict Britain was then in the midst of so as to save some lives and preserve some treasure.

    This fact in itself, of course, wasn’t Addison’s issue. He had reason, to be sure, to disagree with the Tories in their ultimately successful efforts to pull Britain out of the war with France. He was a Whig, after all, and the Whigs were resolutely in favor of ensuring that a French prince never held the throne of Spain. That this came to pass all the same, however – that Britain left the alliance, that the French prince in question was ratified as King Phillip V (1683-1746) of Spain – was assuredly not the reason that Addison so savagely pilloried the Tories in the form of the deceitful and self-interested Sempronius. Rather, it was that the Tories seemingly refused to suffer the consequences of their actions as truly selfless statesmen should have. Political exile – at the hands of the future king George I – was the cost which their decision required them to pay. That they could not – or rather simply would not – was accordingly a mark of cowardice. Evidently, the Tories were incapable of selflessness, incapable of love. All that they cared about was themselves and their fortunes, and they would sacrifice anyone and anything to protect and enlarge them. Thus, did Addison characterize Sempronius, his arch-Tory villain: grasping, covetous, ruthless, and insatiable. He will destroy that which he desires, loves nothing and no one but himself.

    Even in death – his plans foiled, his ambition cut short – Sempronius remains an ignoble portrait of Tory self-interest. Having sought, as Syphax suggested, to disguise himself as Prince Juba so as to steal into Marcia’s bedchamber and carry her away before departing for Caesar’s battle lines, Sempronius is instead accosted by Juba at the beginning of Act 4 and swiftly cut down. In his dying moment, however, rather than repent for the deeds that brought him to such an abrupt and shameful end – thereby demonstrating some faint glimmer of integrity before expiring – Sempronius instead curses his fate, his killer, and the object of his late pursuit. “Am I then doom’d to fall [,]” he laments, “By a boy’s hand, disfigured in a vile / Numidian dress, and for a worthless woman?” Then, in a final fit of self-importance, he makes a plea that his death be recognized by the world at large. “Oh,” he cries out, “For a peal of thunder, that would make / Earth, sea, and air, and heav’n, and Cato tremble!” Consider, for a moment, the significance of this final exhortation. Sempronius has been struck down, wounded mortally, and is not long for this earth. He knows his time is short, that his schemes have all come to naught, and that his jealousies, hatreds, and ambitions will be of no use to him in the Underworld, where he must surely believe his is bound. Despite the opportunity thus afforded him to shed his ego and find some sense of peace, however, Sempronius simply cannot let go. To his dying breath, though it can do him no good, he curses those who stood in his way. Not only that, but he actually appeals for a sign of his passing from the Gods. “Sempronius cannot die unremarked,” he seems to feel. “Jupiter himself must announce my departure.” It would be difficult to imagine a more egotistical final sentiment.

    In actual fact, it bears repeating a final time, the leadership of the contemporary Tory faction were not nearly so cartoonish in their sense of personal or professional vanity. Harley, though somewhat careless with matters of national security and perfectly willing to manipulate public perceptions of his governments by way of his connections with the press, was also famously something of a moderate and a conciliator among his fellow partisans. Twice he survived attempted assassination, often he pursued policies intended to reconcile Tory and Whig principles, and in the short term his service as Chancellor of the Exchequer did much to revive the sagging British economy as the War of the Spanish Succession dragged on into his tenth year. Much the same could be said of Harley’s colleague-cum-rival, Bolingbroke, though the latter enjoyed a somewhat lesser degree of public acclaim. He was a noted orator and a talented parliamentarian, a supporter of the Anglican establishment, and a capable wartime administrator. He was easily made jealous, it was true; his elevation as Viscount Bolingbroke in 1712 was soured by the knowledge that Harley was at the same time made Earl of Oxford. And he was personally given to licentiousness and indulgence, once remarking that he wished to be known – in reference to a famous courtier in the retinue of Roman Emperor Nero (37-68 BC) – as the Petronius of his age. But neither he nor Harley were the out-and-out villains that Addison portrayed in the form of Sempronius. This was rather the point, of course. Cato was not intended to provide a fair and unbiased assessment of the balance of virtue and corruption in contemporary British political culture. Sempronius represented what Addison believed about the Tories – not what they really were, but what he felt them to be. The audience was supposed to find his personality vile, his motivations unjustifiable, and his actions inexcusable, and then to transfer these feelings back onto the Tories themselves. Were any of their number as despicable as Sempronius? Unlikely. But in a moment of tension – as the years between 1710 and 1714 arguably were – and with the right presentation, an audience might be convinced all the same.

Cato, a Tragedy, Part II: The Play’s the Thing

            There is a great deal to be said about what, exactly, Joseph Addison was driving at when he wrote Cato, a Tragedy in 1712. Likewise, there is much to be said about what, exactly, the likes of George Washington saw in the same drama over half a century later. As aforementioned, Addison was writing in the midst of a rather fraught moment in British history, and made ample use of the talents at his disposal to communicate to prospective audiences which of the choices then facing their country he believed they ought to embrace. Just so, while the transformative moment which Washington himself later became a part of was doubtless far beyond Addison’s ability to imagine, the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army nevertheless had good reason to see the crisis wracking the Anglo-American world in the 1760s and 1770s as being very much reflected in Addison’s dramatic interpretation of the Hannoverian Succession. For the moment, however, further discussions of each of these subjects will have to be put aside. Before one can come to an understanding of what Addison said – and what Washington saw – one must first attempt to grasp how any of what was, and is, important in Cato was actually communicated. That is to say, one must be able to answer the question: what is Cato actually about?

            Thankfully – for the sake of analysis, as well as in consideration of his audience – Addison chose for his drama a fairly limited scope and scale. At five acts – with most acts no more than one scene in length – Cato is quite brief, with a cast of characters numbering less than a dozen and a singular setting requiring the construction of only a handful of sets in the event of a full-scale production. The protagonist, unsurprisingly, is Marcus Porcius Cato (95-46 BC), known also as Cato the Younger to distinguish him from his equally famous great-grandfather, Cato the Elder (234-149 BC). A Senator and famed orator active during the twilight of the Roman Republic, Cato the Younger – henceforth to be referred to simply as “Cato” – was notorious for his hatred of corruption, his unshakable integrity, and his stubborn resistance to the rising power of Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 BC). Consider, by way of background, the events of his life up to the moments depicted by Addison.

During the life of the First Triumvirate (60-53 BC), an unofficial power-sharing agreement whereby Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (106-48 BC) and Marcus Licinius Crassus (115-53 BC) sought to pool their influence for the purpose of taking complete control of the Roman Republic, Cato very often – and very successfully – stood in opposition to the ambitions of the triumvirs by way of his stirring oratory and parliamentary acumen. When Pompey, upon his return from a campaign in Asia, wished to stand for election as Consul and celebrate a Triumph – a kind of civil/religious ceremony intended to mark the accomplishments of a given individual – Cato convinced his fellow senators to force the general to choose one or the other by way of establishing that Pompey’s authority did still have limits. When Caesar attempted to pursue the same goal – an outcome which would have required that he break with tradition and stand for Consul in absentia – Cato filibustered the resulting vote and likewise forced Caesar to choose between public glory or political influence. Cato struck a blow against the third triumvir, Crassus, when he next obstructed a tax collection scheme which would have required the Senate to refund an overly generous bid made by a syndicate of contractors with Crassus’s backing. Rome’s business interests were displeased, but Cato paid them no notice. His only interest was the integrity of the Roman state.

            Having thus marked himself out as an avowed enemy of Caesar and his fellow triumvirs, Cato’s treatment at Caesar’s hands became increasingly harsh as the future Dictator moved with mounting haste to secure his control over the levers of power in Rome. When Cato sought to prevent Caesar – newly elected as Consul – from awarding land meant to provide for the income of the Republic to veteran soldiers who had served under Pompey, Caesar had his bodyguards physically drag Cato out of the Senate chamber in the middle of his climactic speech. Shortly thereafter, having succeeded in forcing the vote on land allocations to take the form of a public referendum, Caesar had Cato assaulted when the latter tried to convince his fellow citizens of the wisdom of voting in the negative. When Cato next sought to oppose the appointment of Caesar as Governor of the province of Cisalpine Gaul, he likewise met with failure. Exile followed, in the form of an administrative appointment in Roman Cyprus intended either to tempt Cato to betray his prior convictions – Cyprus being an exceptionally wealthy province with many opportunities for personal enrichment – or at least keep him out of Rome while Caesar and his allies further consolidated their power. Cato accepted his commission, reluctantly but dutifully, and proceeded to acquit himself with characteristic honesty and diligence. He kept scrupulous accounts, raised a tremendous amount of money for the Roman treasury, and upon his return was offered a lavish reception, yet another high appointment, and various other extraordinary privileges. Considering these things to be beyond the authority of the Senate to offer, Cato refused them all. Instead, in concert with his remaining allies – a group of conservative Senators and statesmen broadly referred to as the Optimates – he conspired to drive a wedge between Caesar and Pompey in an effort to break the power of the First Triumvirate for good.

            The result of Cato’s efforts – among other causes – was indeed the fracturing of the alliance between Caesar and Pompey. The seed of this schism lay in Caesar’s refusal to surrender the legal immunity he enjoyed as Proconsul and Governor in Cisalpine Gaul when his term in office was set to expire in 49 BC. Cato’s wish – and that of his fellow Optimates – was for Caesar to return to Rome as a private citizen to face potential prosecution for his actions on the far side of the Alps. Pompey had long sought to block this outcome, in recognition of his longstanding personal alliance with Caesar, but by the time of this last request he had grown suspicious of his fellow triumvir’s mounting influence among the common people of Rome. In consequence – despite having previously been something of a populist himself – Pompey gave his tacit support to the Optimates when they sought another resolution ending Caesar’s command in Gaul and recalling him to the capital. Caesar attempted, at length, to negotiate, going so far as to volunteer to relinquish all but one legion and one province if it meant he could keep his immunity, but his efforts were ultimately for naught. Pompey relented, perhaps seeking at the last moment to preserve the alliance by which he had thus far gained a great deal, but Cato and the Optimates remained steadfast to the end. Caesar was recalled, refused to submit himself to the judgement of the Senate, and proceeded to march on Rome. The civil war that would destroy the republic had begun.

            The events of the next several years were as chaotic as they often were brutal. Having been declared by the Senate to be an enemy of the Roman state, Caesar proceeded to chase the Optimates – now led by Pompey and consisting of most of the Senate – out of Rome and into Greece, where the latter attempted to raise an army and prepare themselves for Caesar’s inevitable arrival. For his part, seeking to secure its valuable supply of grain, Cato proceeded first to Sicily, doubtless hoping to starve Caesar’s army into submission before it could be successfully deployed in the east. When Caesar dispatched a full four legions under Gaius Scribonius Curio (?? – 49 BC) Cato had no choice but to flee yet again, joining his senatorial allies in time enough to participate in their victory at Dyrrachium (July, 48 BC), on the coast of the Adriatic. This first flush of victory was followed by a catastrophic loss at Pharsalus (August, 48 BC) in Thessaly, wherein Caesar’s severely outnumber legions managed to turn the tide in their favor before proceeding to slaughter several thousand of their countrymen. Now forced to flee to northern Africa, the Optimates next eked out a minor victory at Ruspina (January 46 BC) on the Mediterranean in what is now Tunisia, thanks in no small part to an alliance with Juba I (85-46 BC), King of Numidia and friend of Pompey. Pompey himself was dead two years at this point, having fled to Egypt after his loss at Pharsalus. Seeking the protection of another powerful friend, Pharaoh Ptolemy XII (117-51 BC), he was instead assassinated by mercenaries in the employ of the old king’s successor, Ptolemy XIII (61-47 BC), in the hope of currying favor with the fast-approaching Caesar. The leadership of the Optimates thus effectively beheaded, their final defeat appeared to most contemporary observers to be increasingly near at hand. Another crushing defeat at Thapsus (April, 46 BC), further up the coast of Tunisia, served to drive this point home. With few allies left, a much-diminished corps of fighting men, and dwindling supplies, what remained of the senatorial forces thereafter retreated to the city of Utica, there to await Caesar’s pending arrival and whatever result yet another battle would bring.                   

            It is at this time and in this place – Utica, at the end of a long and costly flight from Rome, to Greece, to Africa – that Addison’s drama begins. Accompanying Cato in his exile are his two sons, Marcus – based on the real-life Marcus Porcius Cato (73-42) – and Portius – an invention of Addison – and his daughter, Marcia – based very loosely on the real-life Porcia Catonis (70-43 BC). Also present are two of Cato’s fellow Senators, the scheming Sempronius and the equivocating Lucius, the latter joined by his daughter, Lucia, and the Numidian prince, Juba, joined by his duplicitous servant, Syphax. Marcus and Portius are each in love with Lucia, who loves Portius in return and thinks Marcus too impetuous, and Juba is in love with Marcia, who feels the situation at hand to be wholly unsuitable for personal declarations of love and devotion. Sempronius, meanwhile, covets Marcia in a disturbingly possessive sort of way while also secretly despising her father for standing in the way of his desire to join with Caesar and thus begin to repair his fortunes. Syphax is similarly eager to throw Cato aside and embrace Caesar as an ally and spends nearly all of his time attempting to convince Juba that he should kidnap Marcia and ride away to the enemy camp. Juba refuses, having become enraptured by what he sees as Cato’s particularly Roman virtues, and instead takes every opportunity – as do Marcus, Portius, Marcia, and Lucius – to praise the man and signal their undying devotion.

            If this all sounds rather complex and melodramatic, it most certainly is that. Love is much talked of, and virtue, and devotion, and duty. Marcus is entirely devoted to his father, but also something of a hothead. He leads with his heart, and sometimes says things that are ill-considered. Portius, by contrast, is cool and composed. Much more his father’s son, he remains stoic and resolute in the face of adversity. Marcia is fair, kind, and equally devoted to her father. Lucia is fair, kind, and eager to spare the feelings of Marcus by refusing to confess her feelings for Portius. Sempronius is unfailingly selfish, deceitful, and jealous, and Syphax is as devious and cunning as Juba is sincere and valiant. Emotions run high, people are constantly expressing their deepest hopes, and fears, and ambitions, and anxieties, and much is made of topics like justice, and loyalty, and righteousness. Little of this touches Cato himself, however. Appearing for this first time only in Act 2 – during which he attempts to hold together what remains of his allies and fields an offer from Caesar to surrender and accept a pardon – the protagonist of Addison’s drama first enters the consciousness of the audience as something more like a presence than a man. He is spoken about by his children, his allies, and his enemies, praised and pilloried, but almost always alluded to as something more or less than human. Indeed, his is talked about as though he is virtue rather than just a noted exemplar of the same. He is incorruptible, immovable; a shining beacon to those who love him and an intractable obstacle to those who hate him. And while, in the end, Cato does eventually betray a degree of human feeling and human frailty – he worries sincerely after the fate of his friends, and expresses great weariness at the state of the world around him – he remains almost wholly unselfish, seeking nothing for himself and devoting everything to his country.

            The effect of this portrayal, on the whole, is that Addion’s Cato is a very static figure. Events seem to happen around him – for good or ill – without effecting him nearly as much as they effect his family, friends, and enemies. The result, as aforementioned, is that Cato is treated more like the embodiment of an ideal than a human being. His allies and his children look to him as a source of inspiration: sometimes kind, sometimes cold, but always worthy of emulation. His enemies, meanwhile, see him as a roadblock; a thing which must be removed in order that they might gain what they covet so dearly. What does Cato want? Nothing human, it seems. He rejects enrichment, rejects comfort, rejects the power and influence that Caesar could offer him. He rejects Caesar’s offer of a pardon, his freedom being something which he asserts has never been Caesar’s to give or take away. And ultimately, after his son Marcus is killed when Syphax attempts to flee, he goes so far as to reject life itself. In word and deed, and with his final breath, Addison’s Cato seeks to give truth to the notion that there are some people who are simply too good for this wicked world, and that perhaps the best they can do for their fellow man is leave behind an example worth following that can nevermore be tarnished. 

Cato, a Tragedy, Part I: Context

    The funny thing, in the realm of history, when one attempts to trace how and why a particular event took place – or for what reasons a particular historical actor behaved a certain way – is that the resulting investigation can often lead one much further afield than might initially have seemed likely. Arguably, this hold true in terms of subject matter as well as it does of time and place. In order to understand what brought about the fall of the Roman Empire, for example, one might conceivably find oneself studying the fall of the Roman Republic. In attempting to investigate the founding of the Dutch Republic in the late 16^th century, a person might very easily find their attention gravitating towards the life and ambitions of Charles the Bold (1433-1477), a man who died over one hundred years prior. In this respect, the American Revolution is no different from most other historical events. While its immediate causes are fairly obvious, and easy enough to trace, close attention can and will produce surprising results. The Founding Generation, it’s true, was moved to action in large part by harsh tax imperial policies, a clumsy British reaction to various contemporary economic and political considerations, the lasting legacy of 17^th century Whig political philosophy, and the lingering effects of the recently-concluded Seven Years War (1754-1763). But there was also a great deal more at work than just these primary factors alone. The way that successive British governments in the 1760s and 1770s responded to American calls for redress may well have had a great deal to do with the influence of late 18^th century radical politics in Britain proper. Likewise, the behavior of colonists in contemporary New England towards British tax and commerce laws might be understood in the completest sense though a study of confessional politics in mid-17^th century Britain, the Puritan Migration (1620-1640), and the English Civil War (1642-1651).   

    This revelation brings us, as it must, to a subject which has appeared many times in these pages but has yet to be discussed at length. Namely, a play written by the English essayist, poet, and statesman Joseph Addison (1672-1719) entitled, Cato, a Tragedy (1712). On its surface, no doubt, it would appear to have very little to do with the founding of the American republic. It was written by an Englishman, after all, published over sixty years before the Thirteen Colonies declared their independence from Great Britain, and takes as its subject matter the life and death of an ancient Roman orator and statesman. Bear in mind certain notable facts, however, and one might reasonably be given to elevate its significance. At the time of its publication, for one thing, it was very popular in Great Britain and its various imperial possessions. In 1749 it became a part of the inter-familial struggle between George II (1683-1760) and his son, Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-1751) when the latter staged a production in order to make clear to his future subjects that he was a friend of English liberty as opposed to the “Germanic tyranny” of his father. Four of Frederick’s children starred in that production, among them the future George III (1738-1820). By the 1770s, the play was still much-read and much-admired in the American colonies, with figures as illustrious as Patrick Henry (1736-1799), Nathan Hale (1755-1776), and George Washington (1732-1799) freely quoting or paraphrasing from its text in their speeches and correspondence. Hale’s famous last words, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country," bear a striking resemblance to a passage from Act IV, Scene 4, for example. And Washington’s praise of Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) – “It is not in the power of any man to command success; but you have done more—you have deserved it” – was clearly intended to echo a similarly-phrased line from Act I, Scene 2. Washington supposedly had the play performed for his men at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in order to lift their spirits during the famously brutal winter of 1777-1778. It was even quoted by conservative Whig statesman Edmund Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and enjoyed a celebrated revival in London in 1816.

    The questions which most obviously arise from all of this should be fairly obvious. How was it have possible that a play about a Roman orator written by an Englishman in 1712 became variously the favorite of liberal British royalty in the 1740s, radical American revolutionaries in the 1770s, and conservative British statesmen in the 1790s? Who was Joseph Addison? What was this thing he created, and how did it become so enduringly influential? The notion of its influence would seem of particular interests given that the play has since been almost entirely forgotten. Indeed, its existence at this stage has largely been boiled down to a minor point of reference. It was a favorite of Washington; it was paraphrased by Hale. Knowing these things, however, still begs the question of why. Why was George Washington so fond of this tragedy? What did he see in it that so captured his heart? And to what extent – if any – did it influence his thinking? This might seem, on first blush, like a rather silly line of inquiry; a bit like asking how Napoleon’s taste in fiction impacted his decision to lead the Grande Armée into Russia. But clearly, as the examples cited above make manifest, Cato not infrequently had an outsized effect on very important people. If the man who believed he was soon to become King of Great Britain and Ireland thought to use it to draw a line between himself and his supposedly tyrannical father, then there must be something there beyond pretty words and touching scenes.

    The best place to begin such an inquiry, of course, is with how and why the subject in question came to be. Answering how is simple enough: as mentioned previously, it was written by Joseph Addison and publish in 1712. As to why, well…that gets to be a bit more complicated. Notwithstanding the political attitudes of some of Cato’s most famous admirers, Addison’s life was not exactly that of a radical republican provocateur. The eldest child of Anglican clergyman and scholar Lancelot Addison (1632-1703), his employment and experiences up to the year 1712 seemed to place him very much in the mainstream of the contemporary Whig movement’s cultural and political discourse. He was very well educated, first at the Charterhouse School in Surrey and then at Queen’s College, Oxford. He excelled in the classics, became a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford, and began publishing original works of poetry and translations of Latin texts at the beginning of the 1690s. And at about the turn of the 18^th century he was given a pension in recognition of his burgeoning literary career by two of the most powerful Whig statesmen in Britain – Lord Somers (1651-1716) and the Earl of Halifax (1661-1715) – so that he might travel and study in Europe while continuing to write. While this proved, in the immediate, to be a fruitful proposition, it came to an abrupt end in 1702 when, upon the death of William III (1650-1702), Addison’s patrons lost their positions in government and his income promptly evaporated.

    Failing to find employment for the full year that followed his return to Britain in 1703, he managed once again to parlay his literary abilities into an award of patronage in 1704 when the Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Godolphin (1645-1712) commissioned him to write a poem commemorating Britain’s victory over the French at the recent Battle of Blenheim. So pleased was the government with the resulting effort – entitled The Campaign – that Addison was appointed to the position of Commissioner of Appeals. But while his entry into politics came about through his service to a Tory government, his prior patronage by notable Whig statesmen seemed to exert the more lasting influence on his personal convictions. When the Whigs came to power in 1705, he accordingly allied himself with that faction and was swiftly elevated to the office of Under-Secretary of State. Shortly thereafter he accompanied his former patron Halifax on a diplomatic mission to the German state of Hanover, and in 1708 he was elected for the first time as a Member of Parliament for the “rotten borough” of Lostwithiel thanks to the sponsorship of fellow Whig Lord Edgcumbe (1680-1758). In that same year he became Chief Secretary for Ireland under the new Lord Lieutenant, the Marquess of Wharton (1648-1715), and in 1709 – at Wharton’s urging and with his aid – he was elected as Member of Parliament in the Irish House of Commons for the riding of Cavan Borough. The following year, in 1710, he traded Lostwithiel in Cornwall for Malmesbury in Wiltshire, the seat he would hold until his passing in 1719.

    Throughout this period, despite the seemingly whirlwind pace of these political activities, Addison maintained his status as a man of letters though his membership in the so-called “Kit-Cat Club” and via a renewed friendship with former Charterhouse school-mate Richard Steele (1772-1729). The former was an association of Whig statesmen and literary figures who met at a tavern in the London district of Holborn for the purpose of cultivating personal and political relationships as well as seeking ways to promote the major Whig objectives of the day – i.e. a strong Parliament, a limited monarchy, and a Protestant succession to the throne. The latter, Steele, was an Irish-born Protestant writer and statesman who spend the late 1690s and early 1700s in the British Army and became a successful playwright with a series of well-liked comedies that drew the favorable attention of William III. Having reconnected with Steele thanks to their common membership in the aforementioned organization, Addison proceeded to cooperate with his childhood companion on a series of literary ventures which would go on to contribute the greatest share to their respective reputations.

    Their first venture was a society journal known as The Tatler, published thrice-weekly beginning in April of 1709 and releasing its final issue in January of 1711. The mood of The Tatler was playful, yet cultivated, with Steele mixing coffeehouse gossip with invented stories for the stated purpose of educating his readers on proper manners by correcting the shortcomings of the emerging middle-class. His intentions were, he claimed, apolitical, but the values espoused by himself and his contributors – a number which included Addison as well as noted satirist and pamphleteer Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) – were decidedly Whiggish. Steele’s next venture, after he liquidated The Tatler, was the similarly structured Spectator, to which Addison contributed to an even greater degree. Intended, like its predecessor, “To enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality,” The Spectator became a major influence on the contemporary British middle-class, a staple of coffeehouse reading material, and an outlet for the political and social convictions of its founders, contributors, and sponsors. Of the six hundred and thirty-five essays that were ultimately published therein between 1711 and 1712, Addison was responsible for two hundred and seventy-four. His style was relaxed and conversational – to a fault, said those who detested his use of dangling prepositions – and his subject matter lively and varied. He wrote dialogues and narratives, treatises, and even hymns. In 1707, he began writing for the theater, perhaps influenced by the successes of his friend, Steele. And in 1713, his tragedy, Cato, was successfully produced to the widespread acclamation of Whig and Tory alike.

    Based on this biography alone, one is doubtless given to wonder how a man like Joseph Addison – a mainstream man of letter, statesman, and friend of the powerful – came to write something as ostensibly sympathetic to republicanism and hostile to monarchy as Cato would seem to be. Why would someone who owed their success in large part to the patronage of royal favorites pen a drama so unambiguously critical of the idea of arbitrary political authority? The simplest answer, and the correct one, is that this was never the play’s original intention. The time and place in which Cato was written, published, and originally staged, recall, was one of marked domestic political tension. A generation prior, it was true, the Glorious Revolution (1688) had ushered in a major shift in Britain’s constitutional status quo by removing the increasingly pro-Catholic James II (1733-1701) and codifying the rights of Parliament in direct opposition to the traditional prerogatives of the British Crown. But the concomitant ascension of the aforementioned William III ultimately did not provide a conclusive answer to the question of who would rule and by what standard of authority, in large part because William and his wife, Mary II (1662-1694), remained childless. Lacking a Protestant heir, and with William’s death set to bring about the ascension of his equally childless sister-in-law, Anne (1665-1714), it became obvious to the governing Whigs – whose number included the aforementioned Somers and Halifax – that a clearer description of the line of succession was rather urgently required.

    The result, in the immediate, was the drafting and passage of the Act of Settlement (1701). Among various other provisions intended to secure the authority of Parliament more fully against potential encroachment by the prerogatives of the Crown – i.e. ensuring that those holding royal offices or receiving royal pensions could not serve in the House of Commons, prohibiting royal pardons from being granted to those who had been impeached, etc. – this piece of legislation essentially culled the existing order of royal succession in order to eliminate all professed Roman Catholics and those wedded to the same. Dozens of individuals were accordingly passed over in favor of the youngest daughter of the eldest daughter of William III’s wife’s great-grandfather, James I (1566-1625). Sophia (1630-1714), whose own father had been the Elector Palatine in the Holy Roman Empire, was in her early seventies, the widow of one Elector of Hanover and mother to another. And while she was pleased enough to have been named heir presumptive to one of the most powerful realms in the early 18^th-century world, she was also clear-eyed enough to see that her ascension was by no means guaranteed.

    These was still the matter of Anne, for one thing. Though William III’s sister-in-law did ultimately succeed to the Crown in 1702, her childlessness and her chronic ill-health conspired to place herself and her ministers in a somewhat precarious position. Seeking to ensure a smooth and timely transition upon Anne’s increasingly likely demise – and motivated in no small part by the fact that Anne’s Catholic half-brother, James Francis Edward Stuart (1688-1766), lived physically closer to London than Sophia – it was proposed that Sophia remove herself to England and establish a household there, a proposition which Sophia herself reacted to with enthusiasm. Such an outcome never came to pass, however, because of what the presence of Sophia in London would have represented for the ill and heirless queen. Though older than Anne by some thirty-five years, Sophia was in much better health, and in consequence appeared far more vigorous and vital than the sickly and anemic monarch. Not only would Anne thus have likely been shamed by Sophia’s presence, but the proximity of a designated heir who was neither a child nor a particularly close relative was likely to result in a certain degree of tension both between the two women and within the contemporary apparatus of government. If Anne was likelier to die than Sophia, after all, and Sophia was herself in London where ministers and courtiers could confer with her at their leisure, why should anyone pay any more attention than necessary to the reigning Queen? Everyone knew that her remaining time on the throne was limited. And everyone knew that she had failed in her essential duty to produce a healthy, Protestant heir. Bringing Sophia to England would only have emphasized these facts in a way that those ministers ultimately responsible for extending the invitation concluded would have been unnecessarily cruel. In evident recognition of this thought process – being invited to London for fairly sound reasons, then uninvited for somewhat trivial ones – Sophia was eventually given to conclude that her status as heir to the English throne was more theoretical than anything. “What Parliament does one day,” she remarked, “It undoes the next.” As it turned out, the Dowager Electress was more right than she knew.  

    Notwithstanding both the outcome of the Glorious Revolution (1688) and the passage of the Act of Settlement (1701), there remained in both England and Scotland in the early 18^th century certain elements of the political establishment who were more inclined towards a continuation of the rule of the House of Stuart than the imposition of some foreign monarch who just happened to be a Protestant. This sentiment was strongest among the Tories, long known for their loyalty to the Stuart monarchs, and resulted in certain clandestine communications taking place between prominent Tory statesmen and the aforementioned half-brother of the reigning Queen Anne. Though born in London during his father’s reign and avowed thereupon as Prince of Wales and heir apparent, the young James Francis Edward Stuart was every bit the devoted scion of a deposed royal house. Like his uncle, Charles II (1630-1685), he was the exiled son of a toppled king who lived under the conviction that he must one day seize his rightful throne. And like his father, James II, he was a member of a religious community whose privileges had been severely curtailed by successive English governments. The young James accordingly had every reason to harbor a degree of personal, political, and confessional resentment towards the contemporary political establishment in England, and to look upon the Whigs in particular – whose pro-Parliamentary stance had its origins in 17^th century opposition to the latent absolutism of the Stuart monarchs – as upstarts in need of proscription and punishment.

    Likely cognizant of this lingering sense of animus on the part of the Stuart heir to the throne, Tory statesman and Lord High Treasurer Robert Harley (1661-1724) nevertheless sought to facilitate his ascension in exchange for a promise to convert to the Anglican faith. James was understandably resistant to such a proposition, viewing both his faith and his kingdom as matters between himself and the Almighty, but Harley and fellow Tory minister Lord Bolingbroke (1678-1751) persisted all the same. Their reasoning, in the end, was as much tactical as it was principled. Granting that the Tories were habitually inclined towards support for the House of Stuart, and that the prospect of a foreign-born monarch who knew nothing of English customs or culture was far from pleasing, the efforts of the reigning Tory government to secure Britain’s extrication from the ongoing War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) most definitely gave cause for Harley and his allies to fear the ascension of Sophia or her eldest son. George, Elector of Hanover (1660-1727), was one of Britain’s principle allies in the conflict against France and Spain. And while the Tories under Harley had ample reason to desire an end to Britain’s involvement – the cost, in blood and treasure, had thus far been distressingly high – they were also aware that seeking a premature peace with France would inevitably result in George’s displeasure. In the immediate, of course, this was of little consequence. In the long term, however, with George very likely to become King of Great Britain upon the deaths of the sickly Anne and his own elderly mother, the Tories were likely to face punishment in the form of a loss of royal patronage. If the Act of Settlement was simply ignored, however, and if the young Stuart heir could be convinced to trade his faith for a crown, then such an outcome might be safely avoided. Indeed, the preeminence of the Tories might be guaranteed for a further generation if they once more managed to demonstrate their fealty to the House of Stuart.

    This, in essence, is the context from which Joseph Addison’s Cato emerged. While, circa 1712, the Act of Settlement had been in force for over a decade, and Sophia of Hanover remained stubbornly vital and alive, events of a more recent vintage had nonetheless conspired to cast the succession of the British Crown into doubt. Beyond their historical fondness for the Stuarts and their tendency towards an active, empowered monarchy, the Tories had succeeded in placing themselves in a position whereby their political fortunes very much depended on rejecting the ascendancy of the House of Hanover and embracing the exiled son of the deposed James II. Their desired outcome was not a certainty, of course – young James was as stubborn as he was devout. But actions were nevertheless being taken in Britain at the beginning of the 1710s with the aim of clearing the way for a second Restoration. Individuals were censured by the Tories in government for publishing materials supportive of the Hanoverian succession, and military figures suspected of favoring the ascension of Sophia – be they Whig or Tory – were summarily dismissed. Even the Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722), a career soldier who got his start as a page in the household of James II and whose leadership during the ongoing War of Spanish Succession was beyond reproach, became a victim in turn. Eager to demonstrate to the French and the Spanish that they were indeed prepared to cease hostilities and negotiate a settlement, the Tories under Harley made sure to remove Marlborough from his position as Captain-General of the Queen’s forces on a series of trumped-up charges, forcing their fellow Tory into exile in Europe.

    For the likes of Joseph Addison – a lifelong Whig and a sitting member of House of Commons – the choice which he and his fellow Britons were being asked to make as the reign of Queen Anne inexorably drew to a close was as clear as the desired outcome was obvious. On one hand was the path favored by the Tories: the restoration of the House of Stuart, an empowered monarchy, a suitably weakened Commons, and a potentially vengeful monarch. Tory power would be secured, the rule of Parliament substantially weakened. On the other hand was what the Whigs desired: a Hanoverian sovereign, an empowered Commons, a limited monarchy, and a monarch so unfamiliar with British culture and British politics that they would have no choice but to depend on the council of their British ministers and advisors. In practice, it must be said, the division was not as clear cut as all that. There were Tories, like Marlborough, who supported the Hanoverian succession – whose support would indeed prove instrumental in securing the ultimately peaceful ascension of George I in 1714. That being said, the Stuart/Hanover divide did align rather neatly with the existing factional divisions in contemporary British politics.

    The Tories believed in the ability of the Crown – suitably empowered – to balance the authority of Parliament, a position which a theoretical King James III would most definitely have accommodated. The Whigs, meanwhile, asserted that the only legitimate role for the sovereign was to facilitate the administration of the state in accordance with the principles of the British Constitution. Parliament was to have the final say in all substantial political decisions, up to and including who would ascend the throne. Being a man of rather rigid convictions and possessed of ample personal and political justification to rankle at such limitations upon his authority as king, James Stuart was unlikely to respect such an arrangement. A Queen Sophia or a King George, by contrast, would have had little choice in the matter. Speaking no English, and knowing little of British political affairs beyond the fact that the Tories under Harley had lately slighted their Hanoverian allies, they would be given to rely on Whig statesmen and ministers who would counsel them accordingly that though their dignity and prestige were indeed second-to-none, their practical authority was actually quite limited. Being, as aforementioned, a Whig in good standing, Addison naturally supported the latter position. And since he was a man of letters as well as a statesman, he turned his pen to the cause. The result, at length, was Cato, a Tragedy, a drama in which a man who has dedicated his life to public service and believes in government by deliberation battles stubbornly – and ultimately in vain – against the arbitrary authority of a single, charismatic leader and his self-interested supporters.