f his forefathers. That for him is the very meaning of
reason and nature. He will write tragedies which must get rid of the
brutalities, the extravagance, the audacious mixture of farce and
tragedy which was still attractive to the vulgar. He has, indeed, a kind
of lurking regard for the rough vigour of the Shakespearian epoch; his
patriotic prejudices pluck at him at intervals, and suggest that
Marlborough's countrymen ought not quite to accept the yoke of the
French Academy. When Ambrose Phillips produced the _Distrest
Mother_--adapted from Racine--all Addison's little society was
enthusiastic. Steele stated in the Prologue that the play was meant to
combine French correctness with British force, and praised it in the
_Spectator_ because it was 'everywhere Nature.' The town, he pointed
out, would be able to admire the passions 'within the rules of decency,
honour, and good breeding.' The performance was soon followed by _Cato_,
unquestionably, as Johnson still declares, 'the noblest production of
Addison's genius.' It presents at any rate the closest conformity to the
French model; and falls into comic results, as old Dennis pointed out,
from the so-called Unity of Place, and consequent necessity of
transacting all manner of affairs, love-making to Cato's daughter, and
conspiring against Cato himself, in Cato's own hall. Such tragedy,
however, refused to take root. Cato, as I think no one can deny, is a
good specimen of Addison's style, but, except a few proverbial phrases,
it is dead. The obvious cause, no doubt, is that the British public
liked to see battle, murder, and sudden death, and, in spite of
Addison's arguments, enjoyed a mixture of tragic and comic. Shakespeare,
though not yet an idol, had still a hold upon the stage, and was
beginning to be imitated by Rowe and to attract the attention of
commentators. The sturdy Briton would not be seduced to the foreign
model. The attempt to refine tragedy was as hopeless as the attempt to
moralise comedy. This points to the process by which the Wit becomes
'artificial.' He has a profound conviction, surely not altogether wrong,
that a tragedy ought to be a work of art. The artist must observe
certain rules; though I need not ask whether he was right in thinking
that these rules were represented by the accepted interpreters of the
teaching of Nature. What he did not perceive was that another essential
condition was absent; namely, that the tragic mood should correspond t