The first English Writer who compos'd a regular Tragedy and infus'd a Spirit of Elegance thro' every Part of it, was the illustrious Mr. Addison. His CATO is a Master-piece both with regard to the Diction, and to the Beauty and Harmony of the Numbers. The Character of Cato is, in my Opinion, vastly superiour to that of Cornelia in the POMPEY of Corneille: For Cato is great without any Thing like Fustian, and Cornelia, who besides is not a necessary Character, tends sometimes to bombast. Mr. Addison'''s Cato'' appears to me the greatest Character that was ever brought upon any Stage, but then the rest of them don't correspond to the Dignity of it: And this dramatic Piece so excellently well writ, is disfigur'd by a dull Love Plot, which spreads a certain Languor over the whole, that quite murders it.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The first English Writer who compos'd a regular Tragedy and infus'd a Spirit of Elegance thro' every Part of it, was the illustrious Mr. Addison. His CATO is a Master-piece both with regard to the Diction, and to the Beauty and Harmony of the Numbers. The Character of Cato is, in my Opinion, vastly superiour to that of Cornelia in the POMPEY of Corneille: For Cato is great without any Thing like Fustian, and Cornelia, who besides is not a necessary Character, tends sometimes to bombast. Mr. Addison'''s Cato'' appears to me the greatest Character that was ever brought upon any Stage, but then the rest of them don't correspond to the Dignity of it: And this dramatic Piece so excellently well writ, is disfigur'd by a dull Love Plot, which spreads a certain Languor over the whole, that quite murders it." in the context of "Voltaire, Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733), pp. 178-179" to mean that wisdom is timeless.