英语词汇what cato did and addison approved cannot be wrong的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong. This old saying has an interesting story behind it. A prolific man of letters who contributed to the Spectator, the Tatler, and the Guardian and later published and edited his own weekly, the Bee, Eustace Budgell was a confidant of Joseph Addison, who was his mother’s cousin, as well as other English literary notables. Budgell, however, was an extravagant eccentric who lost over 20,000 pounds in the infamous South Sea stock scheme and spent huge amounts of money to get elected to Parliament. When his friend and fellow deist Dr. Matthew Tin- dal died, it seemed that Budgell’s financial worries were over, for a legacy of some 2,000 pounds was left him in Tindal’s will. But Tindal’s nephew charged that Budgell had inserted the be- quest in the will, and the courts agreed. Budgell was ridiculed in Pope’s satire Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735): “Let Budgell charge low Grub Street in his quill, / And write whate’er he pleased—except his will.” Scandal plagued him for two years as he vainly tried to prove his innocence in various lawsuits. Fi- nally, on May 4, 1737, after filling his pockets with rocks from the beach, he hired a boat at Somerset-Stairs and, while the wa- terman rowed them under the bridge there, threw himself overboard. Budgell had tried to persuade his daughter, the ac- tress Anne Eustace, to kill herself with him, but she had refused. Found on his desk was a slip of paper on which he had written of his act of suicide: “What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong.” See Phaedo; suicide bomber

词汇	what cato did and addison approved cannot be wrong
词源	What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong. This old saying has an interesting story behind it. A prolific man of letters who contributed to the Spectator, the Tatler, and the Guardian and later published and edited his own weekly, the Bee, Eustace Budgell was a confidant of Joseph Addison, who was his mother’s cousin, as well as other English literary notables. Budgell, however, was an extravagant eccentric who lost over 20,000 pounds in the infamous South Sea stock scheme and spent huge amounts of money to get elected to Parliament. When his friend and fellow deist Dr. Matthew Tin- dal died, it seemed that Budgell’s financial worries were over, for a legacy of some 2,000 pounds was left him in Tindal’s will. But Tindal’s nephew charged that Budgell had inserted the be- quest in the will, and the courts agreed. Budgell was ridiculed in Pope’s satire Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735): “Let Budgell charge low Grub Street in his quill, / And write whate’er he pleased—except his will.” Scandal plagued him for two years as he vainly tried to prove his innocence in various lawsuits. Fi- nally, on May 4, 1737, after filling his pockets with rocks from the beach, he hired a boat at Somerset-Stairs and, while the wa- terman rowed them under the bridge there, threw himself overboard. Budgell had tried to persuade his daughter, the ac- tress Anne Eustace, to kill herself with him, but she had refused. Found on his desk was a slip of paper on which he had written of his act of suicide: “What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong.” See Phaedo; suicide bomber
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