barring out
are we missing a good definition for barring out? don' t keep it to yourself ...
urltoken the barring out. : a tale. by maria edgeworth. (9781170955758): maria edgeworth: books
goddamnit i & apos; m all barred out, shut it off. damned barred, im all barred out. i & apos; m all barred out tonight dudes .
what made you want to look up barring - out? please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible) .
& apos; man i & apos; m all barred out, turn it off. & apos; & apos; after that night i was all barred out. & apos ;
dude, i can & apos; t remember anything from last night. after a third xanie, i barred out
they' ll remember your face. and they' ll remember the stupid things you did when you were barred out .
what' s crazier than jumping out of a plane? (although i' ll probably try indoor skydiving first. )
joe :
yo, dude you wanna come chill at my place ?
mike :
can & apos; t man. my mom is barring - out about the 6 pack she found under my bed .
joe :
shit, see ya next month
barr, bitch, pms, disappointment, pouting
a form of anterograde amnesia resulting from taking too much xanax (or any other benzodiazepine .) similar to
blacking out .
but with the rest of you who abuse xanax, i’m mad at you. if you and your buddies find it “funny” to get “barred out” every few nights and wake up not remembering what you did just for the hell of it, please remember that there are people out there who suffer from mental illness and sometimes, xanax is their only hope .
but when you decide to get barred out with your buddies then chug your subpar, cheap vodka along with it, i get angry. millions of people across the country are angry at you. because the truth of the matter is, if your “friends” are egging you on to take another bar just so you can black out and be ignorant whilst mentally and physically impaired, they aren’t your friends .
i bet if i got my friends to come with me, it would be like the suite life of zach and cody episode, minus the ghost coming out of the wall but you never know .
the practice of barring - out, was a savage license, practised in many schools to the end of the last century, by which the boys, when the periodical vacation drew near, growing petulant at the approach of liberty, some days before the time of regular recess, took possession of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bade their master defiance from the windows. it is not easy to suppose that on such occasions the master would do more than laugh; yet, if tradition may be credited, he often struggled hard to force or surprise the garrison. the master, when pigot was a school - boy, was barred - out at lichfield, and the whole operation, as he said, was planned and conducted by addison .
because everyone under this umbrella of anxiety disorders is already angry at you. really, really, angry. quit making light and jokes out of a drug that helps us on a weekly, if not daily, basis .
well i & apos; m from houston, and down here
barred out
means to be messed up on xanex
bars .
bars are the most potent of xanex pills in front of blue and purple
footballs .
usually you drink on them and get really fux0rdz .
not to name the school or the masters of men illustrious for literature is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously diminished: i would therefore trace him through the whole process of his education. in 1683, in the beginning of his twelfth year, his father being made dean of lichfield, naturally carried his family to his new residence, and, i believe, placed him for some time, probably not long, under mr. shaw, then master of the school at lichfield, father of the late dr. peter shaw. of this interval his biographers have given no account, and i know it only from a story of a barring - out, told me, when i was a boy, by andrew corbet of shropshire, who had heard it from mr. pigot his uncle .
a widespread custom, up to the 19th century, was the ‘barring - out’ of the schoolteacher by his pupils. on a day sanctioned by custom (but varying from place to place), the pupils contrived to bar the door with the teacher outside, often with his connivance, and refused to let him in until he agreed to their terms, which were usually for a half - holiday, or something similar. by the 19th century the custom was relatively controlled, but in previous generations had been much rougher. on at least one occasion, in scotland in 1595, a magistrate who was helping the teacher gain access to the school was shot dead by one of the pupils. not surprisingly, local authorities waged a continual war against such activities and gradually succeeded in taming and, eventually, eliminating the custom .
and more importantly, quit ticking us off. quit ticking off the 18 percent of americans who suffer from an anxiety disorder, and quit ticking off the 2. 8 percent who suffer from panic disorder. and while you' re at it, quit giving people with anxiety or panic disorder a bad name. i hope you realize every time you get barred out, black out, and wake up on the couch of someone you don' t know, those people know you did xanax. and when you tell them thinking you look like a badass, all they' ll remember when they hear someone suffering from severe anxiety is you .
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when he returned to england (in 1702), with a meanness of appearance which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had been reduced, he found his old patrons out of power, and was therefore for a time at full leisure for the cultivation of his mind, and a mind so cultivated gives reason to believe that little time was lost .
so before i go further, please, if you or someone you know suffers from addiction, please seek out your nearest counseling center or call an addiction hotline; there are several great hotline resources available online. (one of which is 1 - 800 - 662 - help [ 4357 ], powered by the u. s. department of health and human services) .
so please, on behalf of those who actually benefit at times from our xanax prescriptions that you don’t, can’t and won’t obtain, please stop. stop making xanax into a joke. stop making prescription drugs in general into a joke. there are people out there who need them, who rely on them, who trust them to get through their hours, days, weeks or months of severe panic and fear .
the 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record - keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. in its determination to preserve the century of revolution, gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. now for the first time these high - quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars. western literary study flows out of eighteenth - century works by alexander pope, daniel defoe, henry fielding, frances burney, denis diderot, johann gottfried herder, johann wolfgang von goethe, and others. experience the birth of the modern novel, or compare the development of language using dictionaries and grammar discourses. + + + + the below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. this data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: + + + + < sourcelibrary > bodleian library (oxford) < estcid > t301012 < notes > drophead title on p. [ 3 ] :
the barring out; or, party spirit
. signatures: a - f { 8 }? p? sg { 5 }. final page is blank. < imprintfull > london: : printed for j. johnson, ... by c. woodfall, ..., 1800. . < collation > 105, [ 1 ], p. ; 8°
but from someone who suffers from severe anxiety and panic disorder, while you’re taking xanax bars and abusing them to make your saturday a little more interesting, there are people out there who rely on xanax to get through some days, some hours even. let me be clear: i am in no way downplaying addiction. and xanax, being highly addictive, is a recipe for disaster if it gets into the hands of someone who doesn’t genuinely need it .
xanax abuse on college campuses has become an epidemic, no doubt about it. the popularity of using xanax in combination with alcohol has become widespread, as the effects of xanax are heavily increased if taken with alcohol. but you guessed it — from a prescription standpoint, it clearly states combining xanax with alcohol can result in horrible side effects, including suicidal thoughts and tendencies, impaired judgment and seizures. not to mention, it’s a surefire way for college kids to “black out” if xanax is taken with alcohol .
i’m not just angry, though. i feel sorry for you people. i feel sorry for the ones who can only find fun in abusing drugs and alcohol. i feel sorry for the ones who think xanax is some big joke when you can’t relate to those who suffer from panic attacks and severe anxiety. i feel bad that the only place you can find comfort or fun is within a bar and a bottle of green label evan williams. i feel bad that you have stooped that low to impress your friends, or a guy, or a girl by getting blacked out of your mind .
his works will supply some information. it appears from his various pictures of the world, that, with all his bashfulness, he had conversed with many distinct classes of men, had surveyed their ways with very diligent observation, and marked with great acuteness the effects of different modes of life. he was a man in whose presence nothing reprehensible was out of danger; quick in discerning whatever was wrong or ridiculous, and not unwilling to expose it. there are, says steele, in his writings many oblique strokes upon some of the wittiest men of the age. his delight was more to excite merriment than detestation, and he detects follies rather than crimes .
addison had enough of the zeal of party, but steele had at that time almost nothing else. the spectator, in one of the first papers, showed the political tenets of its authors; but a resolution was soon taken, of courting general approbation by general topicks, and subjects on which faction had produced no diversity of sentiments; such as literature, morality, and familiar life. to this practice they adhered with very few deviations. the ardour of steele once broke out in praise of marlborough; and when dr. fleetwood prefixed to some sermons a preface, overflowing with whiggish opinions, that it might be read by the queen it was reprinted in the spectator .
joseph addison was born on the first of may, 1672, at milston, of which his father, lancelot addison, was then rector, near ambrosbury in wiltshire, and appearing weak and unlikely to live, he was christened the same day. after the usual domestic education, which, from the character of his father, may be reasonably supposed to have given him strong impressions of piety, he was committed to the care of mr. naish at ambrosbury, and afterwards of mr. taylor at salisbury .
to judge better of the probability of this story, i have enquired when he was sent to the chartreux; but, as he was not one of those who enjoyed the founder' s benefaction, there is no account preserved of his admission. at the school of the chartreux, to which he was removed either from that of salisbury or lichfield, he pursued his juvenile studies under the care of dr. ellis, and contracted that intimacy with sir richard steele which their joint labours have so effectually recorded .
of this memorable friendship the greater praise must be given to steele. it is not hard to love those from whom nothing can be feared, and addison never considered steele as a rival; but steele lived, as he confesses, under an habitual subjection to the predominating genius of addison, whom he always mentioned with reverence, and treated with obsequiousness .
addison, who knew his own dignity, could not always forbear to show it, by playing a little upon his admirer; but he was in no danger of retort: his jests were endured without resistance or resentment .
obdurate creditor but the sneer of jocularity was not the worst. steele, whose imprudence of generosity, or vanity of profusion, kept him always incurably necessitous, upon some pressing exigence, in an evil hour borrowed a hundred pounds of his friend, probably without much purpose of repayment; but addison, who seems to have had other notions of an hundred pounds, grew impatient of delay, and reclaimed his loan by an execution. steele felt with great sensibility the obduracy of his creditor; but with emotions of sorrow rather than of anger .
in 1687 he was entered into queen' s college in oxford, where, in 1689, the accidental perusal of some latin verses gained him the patronage of dr. lancaster, afterwards provost of queen' s college; by whose recommendation he was elected into magdalen college as a demy, a term by which that society denominates those which are elsewhere called scholars; young men, who partake of the founder' s benefaction, and succeed in their order to vacant fellowships .
here he continued to cultivate poetry and criticism, and grew first eminent by his latin compositions, which are indeed entitled to particular praise. he has not confined himself to the imitation of any ancient author, but has formed his style from the general language, such as a diligent perusal of the productions of different ages happened to supply .
his latin compositions seem to have had much of his fondness; for he collected a second volume of the musae anglicanae, perhaps for a convenient receptacle, in which all his latin pieces are inserted, and where his poem on the peace has the first place. he afterwards presented the collection to boileau, who from that time conceived, says tickell, an opinion of the english genius for poetry. nothing is better known of boileau, than that he had an injudicious and peevish contempt of modern latin, and therefore his profession of regard was probably the effect of his civility rather than approbation .
three of his latin poems are upon subjects on which perhaps he would not have ventured to have written in his own language. the battle of the pigmies and cranes; the barometer; and a bowlinggreen. when the matter is low or scanty, a dead language, in which nothing is mean because nothing is familiar, affords great coneniences; and by the sonorous magnificence of roman syllables, the writer conceals penury of thought, and want of novelty, often from the reader, and often from himself .
in his twenty - second year he first showed his power of english poetry by some verses addressed to dryden; and soon afterwards published a translation of the greater part of the fourth georgick upon bees; after which, says dryden, my latter swarm is hardly worth the hiving .
about the same time he composed the arguments prefixed to the several books of dryden' s virgil; and produced an essay on the georgicks, juvenile, superficial, and uninstructive, without much either of the scholar' s learning or the critic' s penetration .
his next paper of verses contained a character of the principal english poets, inscribed to henry sacheverell, who was then, if not a poet, a writer of verses; as is shown by his version of a small part of virgil' s georgicks, published in the miscellanies, and a latin encomium on queen mary, in the musae anglicanae. these verses exhibit all the fondness of friendship; but on one side or the other. friendship was afterwards too weak for the malignity of faction .
in this poem is a very confident and discriminative character of spenser, whose work he had then never read. so little sometimes is criticism the effect of judgment. it is necessary to inform the reader, that about this time he was introduced by congreve to montague, then chancellor of the exchequer: addison was then learning the trade of a courtier, and subjoined montague as a poetical name to those of cowley and of dryden .
by the influence of mr. montague, concurring, according to tickell, with his natural modesty, he was diverted from his original design of entering into holy orders. montague alleged the corruption of men who engaged in civil employments without liberal education; and declared, that, though he was represented as an enemy to the church, he would never do it an injury by withholding addison from it .
soon after (in 1695) he wrote a poem to king william, with a rhyming introduction addressed to lord somers. king william had no regard to elegance or literature; his study was only war; yet by a choice of ministers, whose disposition was very different from his own, he procured, without intention, a very liberal patronage to poetry. addison was caressed both by somers and montague .
in 1697 appeared his latin verses on the peace of ryswick which he dedicated to montague, and which was afterwards called by smith the best latin poem since the aeneid. praise must not be too rigorously examined; but the performance cannot be denied to be vigorous and elegant .
having yet no public employment, he obtained (in 1699) a pension of three hundred pounds a year, that he might be enabled to travel. he staid a year at blois, probably to learn the french language; and then proceeded in his journey to italy, which he surveyed with the eyes of a poet .
while he was travelling at leisure, he was far from being idle; for he not only collected his observations on the country, but found time to write his dialogues on medals, and four acts of cato. such at least is the relation of tickell. perhaps he only collected his materials, and formed his plan .
whatever were his other employments in italy, he there wrote the letter to lord halifax, which is justly considered as the most elegant, if not the most sublime, of his poetical productions. but in about two years he found it necessary to hasten home; being, as swift informs us, distressed by indigence, and compelled to become the tutor of a travelling squire, because his pension was not remitted .
at his return he published his travels, with a dedication to lord somers. as his stay in foreign countries was short, his observations are such as might be supplied by a hasty view, and consist chiefly in comparisons of the present face of the country with the descriptions left us by the roman poets, from whom he made preparatory collections, though he might have spared the trouble had he known that such collections had been made twice before by italian authors .
the most amusing passage of his book, is his account of the minute republick of san marino; of many parts it is not a very severe censure to say that they might have been written at home. his elegance of language, and variegation of prose and verse, however, gains upon the reader; and the book, though a while neglected, became in time so much the favourite of the public, that before it was reprinted it rose to five times its price .
helped by halifax but he remained not long neglected or useless. the victory at blenheim (1704) spread triumph and confidence over the nation; and lord godolphin lamenting to lord halifax, that it had not been celebrated in a manner equal to the subject, desired him to propose it to some better poet. halifax told him that there was no encouragement for genius; that worthless men were unprofitably enriched with public money, without any care to find or employ those whose appearance might do honour to their country. to this godolphin replied, that such abuses should in time be rectified; and that if a man could be found capable of the task then proposed, he should not want an ample recompense. halifax then named addison; but required that the treasurer should apply to him in his own person. godolphin sent the message by mr. boyle, afterwards lord carleton; and addison having undertaken the work, communicated it to the treasurer, while it was yet advanced no further than the simile of the angel, and was immediately rewarded by succeeding mr. locke in the place of commissioner of appeals .
in the following year he was at hanover with lord halifax; and the year after was made under - secretary of state, first to sir charles hedges, and in a few months more to the earl of sunderland .
about this time the prevalent taste for italian operas inclined him to try what would be the effect of a musical drama in our own language. he therefore wrote the opera of rosamond, which, when exhibited on the stage, was either hissed or neglected; but trusting that the readers would do him more justice, he published it, with an inscription to the duchess of marlborough; a woman without skill, or pretensions to skill, in poetry or literature. his dedication was therefore an instance of servile absurdity, to be exceeded only by joshua barnes' s dedication of a greek anacreon to the duke .
his reputation had been somewhat advanced by the tender husband, a comedy which steele dedicated to him, with a confession that he owed to him several of the most successful scenes. to this play addison supplied a prologue .
when the marquis of wharton was appointed lord - lieutenant of ireland, addison attended him as his secretary; and was made keeper of the records in birmingham' s tower, with a salary of three hundred pounds a year. the office was little more than nominal, and the salary was augmented for his accommodation .
employed by wharton interest and faction allow little to the operation of particular dispositions, or private opinions. two men of personal characters more opposite than those of wharton and addison could not easily be brought together. wharton was impious, profligate, and shameless, without regard, or appearance of regard, to right and wrong: whatever is contrary to this, may be said of addison; but as agents of a party they were connected, and how they adjusted their other sentiments we cannot know .
addison must, however, not be too hastily condemned. it is not necessary to refuse benefits from a bad man, when the acceptance implies no approbation of his crime; nor has the subordinate officer any obligation to examine the opinions or conduct of those under whom he acts, except that he may not be made the instrument of wickedness. it is reasonable to suppose that addison counteracted, as far as he was able, the malignant and blasting influence of the lieutenant, and that at least by his intervention some good was done, and some mischief prevented .
when he was in office, he made a law to himself, as swift has recorded, never to remit his regular fees in civility to his friends :
for ,
said he ,
i may have a hundred friends; and, if my fee be two guineas, i shall, by relinquishing my right lose two hundred guineas, and no friend gain more than two; there is therefore no proportion between the good imparted and the evil suffered .
he was in ireland when steele, without any communication of his design, began the publication of the tatler; but he was not long concealed: by inserting a remark on virgil, which addison had given him, he discovered himself. it is indeed not easy for any man to write upon literature, or common life, so as not to make himself known to those with whom he familiarly converses, and who are acquainted with his track of study, his favourite topicks, his peculiar notions, and his habitual phrases .
the tatler if steele desired to write in secret, he was not lucky; a single month detected him. his first tatler was published april 22 (1709), and addison' s contribution appeared may 26. tickell observes, that the tatler began and was concluded without his concurrence. this is doubtless literally true; but the work did not suffer much by his unconsciousness of its commencement, or his absence at its cessation; for he continued his assistance to december 23, and the paper stopped on january 2. he did not distinguish his pieces by any signature; and i know not whether his name was not kept secret, till the papers were collected into volumes .
to the tatler, in about two months, succeeded the spectator; a series of essays of the same kind, but written with less levity, upon a more regular plan, and published daily. such an undertaking showed the writers not to distrust their own copiousness of materials or facility of composition, and their performance justified their confidence. they found, however, in their progress, many auxiliaries. to attempt a single paper was no terrifying labour: many pieces were offered, and many were received .
to teach the minuter decencies and inferior duties, to regulate the practice of daily conversation, to correct those depravities which are rather ridiculous than criminal, and remove those grievances which, if they produce no lasting calamities, impress hourly vexation, was first attempted by casa in his book of manners, and castiglione in his courtier; two books yet celebrated in italy for purity and elegance, and which, if they are now less read, are neglected only because they have effected that reformation which their authors intended, and their precepts now are no longer wanted. their usefulness to the age in which they were written is sufficiently attested by the translations which almost all the nations of europe were in haste to obtain .
this species of instruction was continued, and perhaps advanced, by the french; among whom la bruyere' s manners of the age, though, as boileau remarked, it is written without connection, certainly deserves great praise, for liveliness of description and justness of observation .
before the tatler and spectator, if the writers for the theatre are excepted, england had no masters of common life. no writers had yet undertaken to reform either the savageness of neglect, or the impertinence of civility; to show when to speak, or to be silent; how to refuse, or how to comply. we had many books to teach us our more important duties, and to settle opinions in philosophy or politicks; but an arbiter elegantiarum, a judge of propriety, was yet wanting, who should survey the track of daily conversation, and free it from thorns and prickles, which tease the passer, though they do not wound him .
for this purpose nothing is so proper as the frequent publication of short papers, which we read not as study but amusement. if the subject be slight, the treatise likewise is short. the busy may find time, and the idle may find patience .
this mode of conveying cheap and easy knowledge began among us in the civil war, when it was much the interest of either party to raise and fix the prejudices of the people. at that time appeared mercurius aulicus, mercurius rusticus, and mercurius civicus. it is said, that when any title grew popular, it was stolen by the antagonist, who by this stratagem conveyed his notions to those who would not have received him had he not worn the appearance of a friend. the tumult of those unhappy days left scarcely any man leisure to treasure up occasional compositions; and so much were they neglected, that a complete collection is no where to be found .
these mercuries were succeeded by l' estrange' s observator, and that by lesley' s rehearsal, and perhaps by others; but hitherto nothing had been conveyed to the people, in this commodious manner, but controversy relating to the church or state; of which they taught many to talk, whom they could not teach to judge .
it has been suggested that the royal society was instituted soon after the restoration, to divert the attention of the people from public discontent. the tatler and the spectator had the same tendency; they were published at a time when two parties, loud, restless, and violent, each with plausible declarations, and each perhaps without any distinct termination of its views, were agitating the nation; to minds heated with political contest, they supplied cooler and more inoffensive reflections; and it is said by addison, in a subsequent work, that they had a perceptible influence upon the conversation of that time, and taught the frolick and the gay to unite merriment with decency; an effect which they can never wholly lose, while they continue to be among the first books by which both sexes are initiated in the elegances of knowledge .
the tatler and spectator adjusted, like casa, the unsettled practice of daily intercourse by propriety and politeness; and, like la bruyere, exhibited the characters and manners of the age. the persons introduced in these papers were not merely ideal; they were then known and conspicuous in various stations. of the tatler this is told by steele in his last paper, and of the spectator by budgell in the preface to theophrastus; a book which addison has recommended, and which he was suspected to have revised, if he did not write it. of those portraits, which may be supposed to be sometimes embellished, and sometimes aggravated, the originals are now partly known, and partly forgotten .
but to say that they united the plans of two or three eminent writers, is to give them but a small part of their due praise; they superadded literature and criticism, and sometimes towered far above their predecessors; and taught, with great justness of argument and dignity of language, the most important duties and sublime truths .
all these topicks were happily varied with elegant fictions and refined allegories, and illuminated with different changes of style and felicities of invention .
it is recorded by budgell, that of the characters feigned or exhibited in the spectator, the favourite of addison was sir roger de coverley, of whom he had formed a very delicate and discriminated idea, which he would not suffer to be violated; and therefore when steele had shown him innocently picking up a girl in the temple and taking her to a tavern, he drew upon himself so much of his friend' s indignation, that he was forced to appease him by a promise of forbearing sir roger for the time to come .
the reason which induced cervantes to bring his hero to the grave, para mi solo nacio don quixote, y yo para el, made addison declare, with an undue vehemence of expression, that he would kill sir roger; being of opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand would do him wrong .
it may be doubted whether addison ever filled up his original delineation. he describes his knight as having his imagination somewhat warped; but of this perversion he has made very little use. the irregularities in sir roger' s conduct seem not so much the effects of a mind deviating from the beaten track of life, by the perpetual pressure of some overwhelming idea, as of habitual rusticity, and that negligence which solitary grandeur naturally generates .
the variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason, without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit, that addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design .
to sir roger, who, as a country gentleman, appears to be a tory, or, as it is gently expressed, an adherent to the landed interest, is opposed sir andrew freeport, a new man, a wealthy merchant, zealous for the moneyed interest, and a whig of this contrariety of opinions, it is probable more consequences were at first intended, than could be produced when the resolution was taken to exclude party from the paper. sir andrew does but little, and that little seems not to have pleased addison, who, when he dismissed him from the club, changed his opinions. steele had made him, in the true spirit of unfeeling commerce, declare that he would not build an hospital for idle people; but at last he buys land, settles in the country, and builds not a manufactory, but an hospital for twelve old husbandmen, for men with whom a merchant has little acquaintance, and whom he commonly considers with little kindness .
of essays thus elegant, thus instructive, and thus commodiously distributed, it is natural to suppose the approbation general and the sale numerous. i once heard it observed, that the sale may be calculated by the product of the tax, related in the last number to produce more than twenty pounds a week, and therefore stated at one and twenty pounds, or three pounds ten shillings a day: this, at a halfpenny a paper, will give sixteen hundred and eighty for the daily number .
this sale is not great; yet this, if swift be credited, was likely to grow less; for he declares that the spectator, whom he ridicules for his endless mention of the fair sex, had before his recess wearied his readers .
cato the next year (1713), in which cato came upon the stage, was the grand climacterick of addison' s reputation. upon the death of cato, he had, as is said, planned a tragedy in the time of his travels, and had for several years the four first acts finished, which were shown to such as were likely to spread their admiration. they were seen by pope, and by cibber; who relates that steele, when he took back the copy, told him, in the despicable cant of literary modesty, that, whatever spirit his friend had shown in the composition, he doubted whether he would have courage sufficient to expose it to the censure of a british audience .
the time however was now come, when those who affected to think liberty in danger, affected likewise to think that a stage - play might preserve it: and addison was importuned, in the name of the tutelary deities of britain, to show his courage and his zeal by finishing his design .
to resume his work he seemed perversely and unaccountably unwilling; and by a request, which perhaps he wished to be denied, desired mr. hughes to add a fifth act. hughes supposed him serious; and, undertaking the supplement, brought in a few days some scenes for his examination; but he had in the mean time gone to work himself, and produced half an act, which he afterward completed, but with brevity irregularly disproportionate to the foregoing parts; like a task performed with reluctance, and hurried to its conclusion .
it may yet be doubted whether cato was made public by any change of the author' s purpose; for dennis charged him with raising prejudices in his own favour by false positions of preparatory criticism, and with poisoning the town by contradicting in the spectator the established rule of poetical justice, because his own hero, with all his virtues, was to fall before a tyrant. the fact is certain; - the motives we must guess .
addison was, i believe, sufficiently disposed to bar all avenues against all danger. when pope brought him the prologue, which is properly accommodated to the play, there were these words, britons, arise, be worth like this approved; meaning nothing more than, britons, erect and exalt yourselves to the approbation of public virtue. addison was frighted lest he should be thought a promoter of insurrection, and the line was liquidated to britons, attend .
now, heavily in clouds came on the day, the great, the important day, when addison was to stand the hazard of the theatre. that there might, however, be left as little to hazard as was possible, on the first night steele, as himself relates, undertook to pack an audience. this, says pope, had been tried for the first time in favour of the distrest mother; and was now, with more efficacy, practised for cato .
the danger was soon over. the whole nation was at that time on fire with faction. the whigs applauded every line in which liberty was mentioned, as a satire on the tories; and the tories echoed every clap, to show that the satire was unfelt. the story of bolingbroke is well known. he called booth to his box, and gave him fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator. the whigs, says pope, design a second present, when they can accompany it with as good a sentence .
the play, supported thus by the emulation of factious praise, was acted night after night for a longer time than, i believe, the public had allowed to any drama before; and the author, as mrs. potter long afterwards related, wandered through the whole exhibition behind the scenes with restless and unappeasable solicitude .
when it was printed, notice was given that the queen would be pleased if it was dedicated to her; but as he had designed that compliment elsewhere, he found himself obliged, says tickell, by his duty on the one hand, and his honour on the other, to send it into the world without any dedication .
human happiness has always its abatements; the brightest sunshine of success is not without a cloud. no sooner was cato offered to the reader, than it was attacked by the acute malignity of dennis, with all the violence of angry criticism. dennis, though equally zealous, and probably by his temper more furious than addison, for what they called liberty, and though a flatterer of the whig ministry, could not sit quiet at a successful play; but was eager to tell friends and enemies, that they had misplaced their admirations. the world was too stubborn for instruction; with the fate of the censurer of corneille' s cid, his animadversions shewed his anger without effect, and cato continued to be praised .
pope had now an opportunity of courting the friendship of addison, by vilifying his old enemy, and could give resentment its full play without appearing to revenge himself. he therefore published a narrative of the madness of john dennis; a performance which left the objections to the play in their full force, and therefore discovered more desire of vexing the critic than of defending the poet .
addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw the selfishness of pope' s friendship; and, resolving that he should have the consequences of his officiousness to himself, informed dennis by steele, that he was sorry for the insult; and that whenever he should think fit to answer his remarks, he would do it in a manner to which nothing could be objected .
the greatest weakness of the play is in the scenes of love, which are said by pope to have been added to the original plan upon a subsequent review, in compliance with the popular practice of the stage. such an authority it is hard to reject; yet the love is so intimately mingled with the whole action that it cannot easily be thought extrinsick and adventitious; for if it were taken away, what would be left? or how were the four acts filled in the first draught ?
at the publication the wits seemed proud to pay their attendance with encomiastick verses. the best are from an unknown hand, which will perhaps lose somewhat of their praise when the author is known to be jeffreys .
cato had yet other honours. it was censured as a party - play by a scholar of oxford, and defended in a favourable examination by dr. sewel. it was translated by salvini into italian, and acted at florence; and by the jesuits of st. omer' s into latin, and played by their pupils. of this version a copy was sent to mr. addison: it is to be wished that it could be found, for the sake of comparing their version of the soliloquy with that of bland .
a tragedy was written on the same subject by des champs, a french poet, which was translated, with a criticism on the english play. but the translator and the critic are now forgotten .
dennis lived on unanswered, and therefore little read: addison knew the policy of literature too well to make his enemy important, by drawing the attention of the public upon a criticism, which, though sometimes intemperate, was often irrefragable .
while cato was upon the stage, another daily paper, called the guardian, was published by steele. to this addison gave great assistance, whether occasionally or by previous engagement is not known .
the character of guardian was too narrow and too serious: it might properly enough admit both the duties and the decencies of life, but seemed not to include literary speculations, and was in some degree violated by merriment and burlesque. what had the guardian of the lizards to do with clubs of tall or of little men, with nests of ants, or with strada' s prolusions ?
of this paper nothing is necessary to be said, but that it found many contributors, and that it was a continuation of the spectator with the same elegance, and the same variety, till some unlucky sparkle from a tory paper set steele' s politics on fire, and wit at once blazed into faction. he was soon too hot for neutral topicks and quitted the guardian to write the englishman .
the papers of addison are marked in the spectator by one of the letters in the name of clio, and in the guardian by a hand; whether it was, as tickell pretends to think, that he was. unwilling to usurp the praise of others, or as steele, with far greater likelihood, insinuates, that he could not without discontent impart to others any of his own. i have heard that his avidity did not satisfy itself with the air of renown, but that with great eagerness he laid hold on his proportion of the profits .
many of these papers were written with powers truly comic, with nice discrimination of characters, and accurate observation of natural or accidental deviations from propriety; but it was not supposed that he had tried a comedy on the stage, till steele, after his death, declared him the author of the drummer; this, however, steele did not know to be true by any direct testimony; for when addison put the play into his hands, he only told him, it was the work of a gentleman in the company; and when it was received, as is confessed, with cold approbation, he was probably less willing to claim it. tickell omitted it in his collection; but the testimony of steele, and the total silence of any other claimant, has determined the public to assign it to addison, and it is now printed with his other poetry. steele carried the drummer to the playhouse, and afterwards to the press, and sold the copy for fifty guineas .
to the opinion of steele may be added the proof supplied by the play itself, of which the characters are such as addison would have delineated, and the tendency such as addison would have promoted. that it should have been ill received would raise wonder, did we not daily see the capricious distribution of theatrical praise .
he was not all this time an indifferent spectator of public affairs. he wrote, as different exigencies required (in 1707), the present state of the war, and the necessity of an augmentation; which, however judicious, being written on temporary topicks, and exhibiting no peculiar powers, laid hold on no attention, and has naturally sunk by its own weight into neglect. this cannot be said of the few papers entitled the whig examiner, in which is employed all the force of gay malevolence and humorous satire. of this paper, which just appeared and expired, swift remarks, with exultation, that it is now down among the dead men. he might well rejoice at the death of that which he could not have killed. every reader of every party, since personal malice is past, and the papers which once inflamed the nation are read only as effusions of wit, must wish for more of the whig examiners; for on no occasion was the genius of addison more vigorously exerted, and on none did the superiority of his powers more evidently appear. his trial of count tariff, written to expose the treaty of commerce with france, lived no longer than the question that produced it.
barring out is the former custom in english schools of barring a schoolmaster from the premises . a typical example of this practice was at the school in bromfield , cumbria , where it was the custom " for the scholars , at fasting 's even ( the beginning of lent ) to depose and exclude the master from the school for three days . " during this period the school doors were barricaded and the boys armed with mock weapons . if the master 's attempts to re-enter were successful , extra tasks were inflicted as a penalty , and willingly performed by the boys . on the third day terms of capitulation , usually in latin verse , were signed , and these always conceded the immediate right to indulge in football and a cockfight . the custom was long retained at eton college and figures in many school stories , including the story " the barring out : or party spirit " in the parent 's assistant by maria edgeworth ( 1796 ) , and the 1948 billy bunter story " barring out " . ) more serious incidents of barring out reportedly took place at the royal school , armagh , and belfast royal academy in northern ireland ; and at the royal high school , edinburgh . dr. samuel johnson reports a story that joseph addison , when a schoolboy , was the ringleader of a barring out at his school . the custom extended to some early american colonial schools , such as william and mary college in virginia , where students barred out dr. james blair and shot at him with pistols when he attempted to enter . according to david hackett fischer , the custom became common in the southern highlands and the ohio and mississippi valleys , though occasionally taking place elsewhere in the colonies . barring out continued in falstone , a village in northumberland , until 1940 when the headmaster william moody , who was unaware of the custom , demanded entrance to his school and the students eventually relented and let him enter . 
barring out is the former custom in english schools of barring a schoolmaster from the premises. a typical example of this practice was at the school in bromfield, cumbria, where it was the custom " for the scholars, at fasting's even (the beginning of lent) to depose and exclude the master from the school for three days. " during this period the school doors were barricaded and the boys armed with mock weapons. if the master's attempts to re-enter were successful, extra tasks were inflicted as a penalty, and willingly performed by the boys. on the third day terms of capitulation, usually in latin verse, were signed, and these always conceded the immediate right to indulge in football and a cockfight. the custom was long retained at eton college and figures in many school stories, including the story " the barring out: or party spirit " in the parent's assistant by maria edgeworth (1796), and the 1948 billy bunter story " barring out " .) more serious incidents of barring out reportedly took place at the royal school, armagh, and belfast royal academy in northern ireland; and at the royal high school, edinburgh. dr. samuel johnson reports a story that joseph addison, when a schoolboy, was the ringleader of a barring out at his school. the custom extended to some early american colonial schools, such as william and mary college in virginia, where students barred out dr. james blair and shot at him with pistols when he attempted to enter. according to david hackett fischer, the custom became common in the southern highlands and the ohio and mississippi valleys, though occasionally taking place elsewhere in the colonies. barring out continued in falstone, a village in northumberland, until 1940 when the headmaster william moody, who was unaware of the custom, demanded entrance to his school and the students eventually relented and let him enter.
barring out is the former custom in english schools of barring a schoolmaster from the premises. a typical example of this practice was at the school in bromfield, cumbria, where it was the custom " for the scholars, at fasting's even (the beginning of lent) to depose and exclude the master from the school for three days. " during this period the school doors were barricaded and the boys armed with mock weapons. if the master's attempts to re-enter were successful, extra tasks were inflicted as a penalty, and willingly performed by the boys. on the third day terms of capitulation, usually in latin verse, were signed, and these always conceded the immediate right to indulge in football and a cockfight. the custom was long retained at eton college and figures in many school stories, including the story " the barring out: or party spirit " in the parent's assistant by maria edgeworth (1796), and the 1948 billy bunter story " barring out " .) more serious incidents of barring out reportedly took place at the royal school, armagh, and belfast royal academy in northern ireland; and at the royal high school, edinburgh. dr. samuel johnson reports a story that joseph addison, when a schoolboy, was the ringleader of a barring out at his school. the custom extended to some early american colonial schools, such as william and mary college in virginia, where students barred out dr. james blair and shot at him with pistols when he attempted to enter. according to david hackett fischer, the custom became common in the southern highlands and the ohio and mississippi valleys, though occasionally taking place elsewhere in the colonies. barring out continued in falstone, a village in northumberland, until 1940 when the headmaster william moody, who was unaware of the custom, demanded entrance to his school and the students eventually relented and let him enter.