Notwithstanding the merit of this play, it is certain that it was indebted to the political circumstances of the times, for that enthusiastic applause with which it was received by the town. The joy or sorrow which an author is certain to experience upon every new production, is far more powerful in the heart of a dramatist than in that of any other writer. The sound of clamorous plaudits raises his spirits to a kind of ecstacy; whilst hisses and groans, from a dissatisfied audience, strike on the ear like a personal ...
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Notwithstanding the merit of this play, it is certain that it was indebted to the political circumstances of the times, for that enthusiastic applause with which it was received by the town. The joy or sorrow which an author is certain to experience upon every new production, is far more powerful in the heart of a dramatist than in that of any other writer. The sound of clamorous plaudits raises his spirits to a kind of ecstacy; whilst hisses and groans, from a dissatisfied audience, strike on the ear like a personal insult, avowing loud and public contempt for that in which he has been labouring to show his skill. Addison, with his timid nature, felt all the excruciating tortures of an ambitious, yet a fearful dramatist. He could not stay at home on the first night of "Cato;" for to be told, at once, that his tragedy was driven from the stage with derision, had been to his tremulous nerves like the dart of death. Not less peril might have befallen him as an auditor-he therefore was neither present on the first performance, nor absent from the theatre;-but, placing himself on a bench in the green-room, his body motionless, his soul in tumult, he kept by his side a friend, whom he dispatched every minute towards the stage, to bring him news of what was passing there. He thus secured, he conceived, progressive information of his fate, without the risk of hearing it from an enraged multitude. But such was the vehemence of applause, that shouts of admiration forced their way through the walls of the green-room, before his messenger could return with the gladsome tidings. Yet, not till the last sentence was spoken, and the curtain fairly dropped upon Cato and his weeping friends, did the author venture to move from the inanimate position in which he was fixed. This acute dread of failure now heightened the joy of success, and never was success more complete. - Taken from "Cato: A Tragedy in Five Acts" written by Joseph Addison
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