He soon gave a more remarkable proof of his friendly relations with Addison.
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.