It is probable that no first performance of a play upon the English stage ever excited so much interest as that of Addison's _Cato_. It was not only the work of the first man of letters of the day, but it had, or was taken to have, a certain political significance. "The time was come," says Johnson, "when those who affected to think liberty in danger affected likewise to think that a stage-play might preserve it." Addison, after exhibiting more than the usual display of reluctance, prepared his play for representation, and it was undoubtedly taken to be in some sense a Whig manifesto. It was therefore remarkable that he should have applied to Pope for a prologue, though Pope's connexions were entirely of the anti-Whiggish kind, and a passage in _Windsor Forest_, his last new poem (it appeared in March 1713), indicated pretty plainly a refusal to accept the Whig shibboleths. In the _Forest_ he was enthusiastic for the peace, and sneered at the Revolution. Pope afterwards declared that Addison had disavowed all party intentions at the time, and he accused him of insincerity for afterwards taking credit (in a poetical dedication of _Cato_) for the services rendered by his play to the cause of liberty. Pope's assertion is worthless in any case where he could exalt his own character for consistency at another man's expense, but it is true that both parties were inclined to equivocate. It is, indeed, difficult to understand how, if any "stage-play could preserve liberty," such a play as _Cato_ should do the work. The polished declamation is made up of the platitudes common to Whigs and Tories; and Bolingbroke gave the one to his own party when he presented fifty guineas to _Cato_'s representative for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator. The Whigs, said Pope, design a second present when they can contrive as good a saying. Bolingbroke was, of course, aiming at Marlborough, and his interpretation was intrinsically as plausible as any that could have been devised by his antagonists. Each side could adopt _Cato_ as easily as rival sects can quote the Bible; and it seems possible that Addison may have suggested to Pope that nothing in _Cato_ could really offend his principles. Addison, as Pope also tells us, thought the prologue ambiguous, and altered "Britons, _arise_!" to "Britons, _attend_!" lest the phrase should be thought to hint at a new revolution. Addison advised Pope about this time not to be content with the applause of "half the nation," and perhaps regarded him as one who, by the fact of his external position with regard to parties, would be a more appropriate sponsor for the play.