To this it may be added that, from the essentially undramatic bent of Addison's genius, whenever he contrives a train of incident he manages to make it a little absurd. Dennis has pointed out with considerable humour the consequences of his conscientious adherence to the unity of place, whereby every species of action in the play--love-making, conspiracy, debating, and fighting--is made to take place in the "large hall in the governor's palace of Utica." It is strange that Addison's keen sense of the ridiculous, which inspired so happily his criticisms on the allegorical paintings at Versailles,[56] should not have shown him the incongruities which Dennis discerned; but, in truth, they pervade the atmosphere of the whole play. All the actors--the distracted lovers, the good young man, Juba, and the blundering conspirator, Sempronius--seem to be oppressed with an uneasy consciousness that they have a character to sustain, and are not confident of coming up to what is expected of them. This is especially the case with Portius, a pragmatic young Roman, whose praiseworthy but futile attempts to unite the qualities of Stoical fortitude, romantic passion, and fraternal loyalty, exhibit him in a position of almost comic embarrassment. According to Pope, "the love part was flung in after, to comply with the popular taste;" but the removal of these scenes would make the play so remarkably barren of incident that it is a little difficult to credit the statement. The deficiencies of _Cato_ as an acting play were, however, more than counterbalanced by the violence of party spirit, which insisted on investing the comparatively tame sentiments assigned to the Roman champions of liberty with a pointed modern application. In 1713 the rage of the contending factions was at its highest point. The Tories were suspected, not without reason, of designs against the Act of Settlement; the Whigs, on the other hand, were still suffering in public opinion from the charge of having, for their own advantage, protracted the war with Louis XIV. Marlborough had been accused in 1711 of receiving bribes while commander-in-chief, and had been dismissed from all his employments. Disappointment, envy, revenge, and no doubt a genuine apprehension for the public safety, inspired the attacks of the Whigs upon their rivals; and when it was known that Addison had in his drawers an unfinished play on so promising a subject as _Cato_, great pressure was put upon him by his friends to complete it for the stage. Somewhat unwillingly, apparently, he roused himself to the task. So small, indeed, was his inclination for it, that he is said in the first instance to have asked Hughes, afterwards author of the _Siege of Damascus_, to write a fifth act for him. Hughes undertook to do so, but on returning a few days afterwards with his own performance, he found that Addison had himself finished the play. In spite of the judgment of the critics, _Cato_ was quickly hurried off for