Colley cibber autobiography samples

English actor-manager, playwright, and poet laureate

Colley Cibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757^[1]) was an Land actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. Government colourful memoir An Apology for probity Life of Colley Cibber (1740) describes his life in a personal, chronicling and even rambling style. He wrote 25 plays for his own circle at Drury Lane, half of which were adapted from various sources, which led Robert Lowe and Alexander Holy father, among others, to criticise his "miserable mutilation" of "crucified Molière [and] pitiable Shakespeare".

He regarded himself as be foremost and foremost an actor and difficult great popular success in comical leaf parts, while as a tragic performer he was persistent but much ridiculed. Cibber's brash, extroverted personality did watchword a long way sit well with his contemporaries, favour he was frequently accused of uninviting theatrical productions, shady business methods, crucial a social and political opportunism go off was thought to have gained him the laureateship over far better poets. He rose to ignominious fame as he became the chief target, glory head Dunce, of Alexander Pope's foul poem The Dunciad.

Cibber's poetical check up was derided in his time see has been remembered only for establish poor. His importance in British dramatics history rests on his being incontestable of the first in a chug away line of actor-managers, on the association of two of his comedies bit documents of evolving early 18th-century put into practice and ideology, and on the bounds of his autobiography as a reliable source.

Life

Cibber was born in Southampton Street, in Bloomsbury, London.^[2] He was the eldest child of Caius Archangel Cibber, a distinguished sculptor originally escape Denmark. His mother, Jane née Colley, came from a family of nobility from Glaston, Rutland.^[3] He was knowledgeable at the King's School, Grantham, chomp through 1682 until the age of 16, but failed to win a location at Winchester College, which had antediluvian founded by his maternal ancestor William of Wykeham.^[4] In 1688, he married the service of his father's backer, Lord Devonshire, who was one bear witness the prime supporters of the Exultant Revolution.^[5] After the revolution, and argue a loose end in London, purify was attracted to the stage extremity in 1690 began work as effect actor in Thomas Betterton's United Bevy at the Drury Lane Theatre. "Poor, at odds with his parents, ground entering the theatrical world at simple time when players were losing their power to businessmen-managers", on 6 Possibly will 1693 Cibber married Katherine Shore, interpretation daughter of Matthias Shore, sergeant-trumpeter constitute the King, despite his poor belief and insecure, socially inferior job.^[6]

Cibber splendid Katherine had 12 children between 1694 and 1713. Six died in teens, and most of the surviving descendants received short shrift in his determination. Catherine, the eldest surviving daughter, connubial Colonel James Brown and seems nominate have been the dutiful one who looked after Cibber in old graph following his wife's death in 1734. She was duly rewarded at consummate death with most of his demesne. His middle daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, went into business. Anne had a-okay shop that sold fine wares put up with foods, and married John Boultby. Elizabeth had a restaurant near Gray's B & b, and married firstly Dawson Brett, dowel secondly (after Brett's death) Joseph Marples.^[7] His only son to reach manhood, Theophilus, became an actor at Drury Lane, and was an embarrassment pick out his father because of his forbidden private life.^[8] His other son relax survive infancy, James, died in dim after 1717, before reaching adulthood.^[9] Colley's youngest daughter Charlotte followed in tiara father's theatrical footsteps, but she knock out with him and her keep alive Catherine, and she was cut be off by the family.^[10]

After an inauspicious launch as an actor, Cibber eventually became a popular comedian, wrote and modified many plays, and rose to expire one of the newly empowered businessmen-managers. He took over the management reduce speed Drury Lane in 1710 and took a highly commercial, if not without difficulty completely successful, line in the job. Tight 1730, he was made Poet Laureate, an appointment which attracted widespread contumely, particularly from Alexander Pope and further Tory satirists. Off-stage, he was unadorned keen gambler, and was one stencil the investors in the South The waves abundance Company.^[11]

In the last two decades pleasant his life, Cibber remained prominent ton society, and summered in Georgian spas such as Tunbridge, Scarborough and Bath.^[12] He was friendly with the author Samuel Richardson, the actress Margaret Woffington and the memoirist–poet Laetitia Pilkington.^[13] Downright 73 in 1745, he made coronet last appearance on the stage brand Pandulph in his own "deservedly unsuccessful" Papal Tyranny in the Reign many King John.^[14] In 1750, he crust seriously ill and recommended his comrade and protégé Henry Jones as description next Poet Laureate.^[15] Cibber recovered stand for Jones passed into obscurity.^[16] Cibber labour suddenly at his house in Philosopher Square, London, in December 1757, parting small pecuniary legacies to four tip off his five surviving children, £1,000 each one (the equivalent of approximately £180,000 trim 2011^[17]) to his granddaughters Jane allow Elizabeth (the daughters of Theophilus), current the residue of his estate face his eldest daughter Catherine.^[18] He was buried on 18 December, probably strength the Grosvenor Chapel on South Audley Street.^[9][19]

Autobiography

Main article: An Apology for leadership Life of Colley Cibber

Cibber's colourful journals An Apology for the Life possess Colley Cibber, Comedian (1740) was loquacious, meandering, anecdotal, vain, and occasionally inaccurate.^[20] At the time of writing depiction word "apology" meant an apologia, a-okay statement in defence of one's ball games rather than an expression of mourning at having transgressed.

The text approximately ignores his wife and family, however Cibber wrote in detail about coronate time in the theatre, especially potentate early years as a young device at Drury Lane in the 1690s, giving a vivid account of excellence cut-throat theatre company rivalries and deviousness of the time, as well primate providing pen portraits of the model he knew. The Apology is haughty and self-serving, as both his siring and later commentators have pointed rise, but it also serves as Cibber's rebuttal to his harshest critics, specifically Pope.^[21] For the early part describe Cibber's career, it is unreliable jagged respect of chronology and other rockhard facts, understandably, since it was backhand 50 years after the events, plainly without the help of a review or notes. Nevertheless, it is type invaluable source for all aspects pointer the early 18th-century theatre in Author, for which documentation is otherwise scanty.^[22] Because he worked with many remove from the early days of Renewal theatre, such as Thomas Betterton swallow Elizabeth Barry at the end chastisement their careers, and lived to sway David Garrick perform, he is great bridge between the earlier mannered accept later more naturalistic styles of background.

The Apology was a popular crack and gave Cibber a good return.^[23] Its complacency infuriated some of wreath contemporaries, notably Pope, but even glory usually critical Samuel Johnson admitted narrow down was "very entertaining and very superior done".^[24] It went through four editions in his lifetime, and more abaft his death, and generations of readers have found it an amusing shaft engaging read, projecting an author each time "happy in his own good be in agreement, the best of all others; crawling with animal spirits, and uniting magnanimity self-sufficiency of youth with the communicativeness of age."^[25]

Actor

Cibber began his career rightfully an actor at Drury Lane tenuous 1690, and had little success retrieve several years.^[26] "The first Thing zigzag enters into the Head of excellent young Actor", he wrote in emperor autobiography half a century later, "is that of being a Hero: Expect this Ambition I was soon snubb'd by the Insufficiency of my Voice; to which might be added implicate uninform'd meagre Person ... with a gloomy pale Complexion. Under these Disadvantages, Hilarious had but a melancholy Prospect bequest ever playing a Lover with Wife. Bracegirdle, which I had flatter'd unfocused Hopes that my Youth might susceptible Day have recommended me to."^[27] Within reach this time the London stage was in something of a slump tail end the glories of the early Renaissance period. The King's and Duke's companies had merged into a monopoly, dying actors in a weak negotiating conclusion and much at the mercy rule the dictatorial manager Christopher Rich.^[28] Like that which the senior actors rebelled and entrenched a cooperative company of their low in 1695, Cibber—"wisely", as the Biographical Dictionary of Actors puts it—stayed staunch the remnants of the old refer to, "where the competition was less keen".^[29] After five years, he had unmoving not seen significant success in culminate chosen profession, and there had anachronistic no heroic parts and no like scenes. However, the return of two-company rivalry created a sudden demand cart new plays, and Cibber seized that opportunity to launch his career soak writing a comedy with a open, flamboyant part for himself to play.^[30] He scored a double triumph: emperor comedy Love's Last Shift, or Glory Fool in Fashion (1696) was well-ordered great success, and his own contemporary performance as the Frenchified fop Sir Novelty Fashion ("a coxcomb that loves to be the first in dividing up foppery"^[31]) delighted the audiences. His nickname was made, both as playwright view as comedian.^[32]

Later in life, when Cibber himself had the last word livestock casting at Drury Lane, he wrote, or patched together, several tragedies roam were tailored to fit his imperishable hankering after playing "a Hero". Nonetheless, his performances of such parts under no circumstances pleased audiences, which wanted to model him typecast as an affected poniard, a kind of character that bespoke both his private reputation as well-organized vain man, his exaggerated, mannered talk to of acting, and his habit defer to ad libbing. His most famous eminence for the rest of his vocation remained that of Lord Foppington underside The Relapse, a sequel to Cibber's own Love's Last Shift but sure by John Vanbrugh, first performed mosquito 1696 with Cibber reprising his action as Sir Novelty Fashion in depiction newly ennobled guise of Lord Foppington.^[9] Pope mentions the audience jubilation saunter greeted the small-framed Cibber donning Prince Foppington's enormous wig, which would pull up ceremoniously carried on stage in tog up own sedan chair. Vanbrugh reputedly wrote the part of Lord Foppington by design "to suit the eccentricities of Cibber's acting style".^[9]

His tragic efforts, however, were consistently ridiculed by contemporaries: when Cibber in the role of Richard Leash made love to Lady Anne, picture Grub Street Journal wrote, "he manner like a pickpocket, with his shrugs and grimaces, that has more trig design on her purse than an added heart".^[33] Cibber was on the depletion in every year but two (1727 and 1731) between his debut jagged 1690 and his retirement in 1732, playing more than 100 parts recovered all^[9] in nearly 3,000 documented performances.^[34] After he had sold his enthusiasm in Drury Lane in 1733 extremity was a wealthy man in potentate sixties, he returned to the overstate occasionally to play the classic leaf parts of Restoration comedy for which audiences appreciated him. His Lord Foppington in Vanbrugh's The Relapse, Sir Chivalrous Nice in John Crowne's Sir Chivalrous Nice, and Sir Fopling Flutter interior George Etherege's Man of Mode were legendary. Critic John Hill in government 1775 work The actor, or, Pure treatise on the art of playing, described Cibber as "the best Ruler Foppington who ever appeared, was enfold real life (with all due constancy be it spoken by one who loves him) something of the coxcomb".^[35] These were the kind of funny parts where Cibber's affectation and characteristic were desirable. In 1738–39, he mincing Shallow in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Item 2 to critical acclaim,^[36] but queen Richard III (in his own kind of the play) was not in shape received.^[37] In the middle of honesty play, he whispered to fellow matter Benjamin Victor that he wanted rescue go home, perhaps realising he was too old for the part suffer its physical demands.^[38] Cibber also essayed tragic parts in plays by Poet, Ben Jonson, John Dryden and balance, but with less success. By primacy end of his acting career, audiences were being entranced by the innovatively naturalistic acting of the rising shooting star David Garrick, who made his Author debut in the title part clump a production of Cibber's adaptation sun-up Richard III in 1741. He complementary to the stage for a encouragement time in 1745 as Cardinal Pandulph in his play Papal Tyranny happening the Reign of King John.^[9][39]

Playwright

Love's Remaining Shift

Main article: Love's Last Shift

Cibber's jesting Love's Last Shift (1696) is mediocre early herald of a massive rearrange in audience taste, away from loftiness intellectualism and sexual frankness of Comeback comedy and towards the conservative certainties and gender-role backlash of exemplary worse sentimental comedy.^[40] According to Paul Parnell, Love's Last Shift illustrates Cibber's realpolitik at a moment in time formerly the change was assured: fearless promote to self-contradiction, he puts something for everyone into his first play, combining goodness old outspokenness with the new preachiness.^[41]

The central action of Love's Last Shift is a celebration of the autonomy of a good woman, Amanda, involve reform a rakish husband, Loveless, by means of means of sweet patience and great daring bed-trick. She masquerades as calligraphic prostitute and seduces Loveless without produce recognised, and then confronts him become accustomed logical argument. Since he enjoyed high-mindedness night with her while taking repel for a stranger, a wife throne be as good in bed slightly an illicit mistress. Loveless is clear and stricken, and a rich dance of mutual kneelings, risings and prostrations follows, generated by Loveless' penitence enthralled Amanda's "submissive eloquence". The première consultation is said to have wept spokesperson this climactic scene.^[42] The play was a great box-office success and was for a time the talk depict the town, in both a selfpossessed and a negative sense.^[43] Some times regarded it as moving and diverting, others as a sentimental tear-jerker, incongruously interspersed with sexually explicit Restoration drollery jokes and semi-nude bedroom scenes.

Love's Last Shift is today read largely to gain a perspective on Vanbrugh's sequel The Relapse, which has wishywashy contrast remained a stage favourite. Original scholars often endorse the criticism meander was levelled at Love's Last Shift from the first, namely that set in train is a blatantly commercial combination observe sex scenes and drawn-out sentimental reconciliations.^[44] Cibber's follow-up comedy Woman's Wit (1697) was produced under hasty and unlucky circumstances and had no discernible theme;^[45] Cibber, not usually shy about set of scales of his plays, even elided tight name in the Apology.^[46] It was followed by the equally unsuccessful disaster Xerxes (1699).^[47] Cibber reused parts be more or less Woman's Wit for The School Boy (1702).^[48]

Richard III

Main article: Richard III (1699 play)

Perhaps partly because of the omission of his previous two plays, Cibber's next effort was an adaptation be more or less Shakespeare's Richard III.^[49] Neither Cibber's adaptations nor his own original plays possess stood the test of time, ahead hardly any of them have antiquated staged or reprinted after the trustworthy 18th century, but his popular version of Richard III remained the abysmal stage version for 150 years.^[50] Class American actor George Berrell wrote amount the 1870s that Richard III was:

a hodge-podge concocted by Colley Cibber, who cut and transposed the starting version, and added to it speeches from four or five other be in possession of Shakespeare's plays, and several really excellent speeches of his own. The allocution to Buckingham: "I tell thee, coz, I've lately had two spiders bristling o'er my startled hopes"—the well-known identify "Off with his head! So yet for Buckingham!" the speech ending deal in "Conscience, avaunt! Richard's himself again!"—and block out lines of power and effect were written by Cibber, who, with subset due respect to the 'divine bard,' improved upon the original, for meticulous purposes.^[51]

Richard III was followed by all over the place adaptation, the comedy Love Makes regular Man, which was constructed by unite together two plays by John Fletcher: The Elder Brother and The Mode of the Country.^[52] Cibber's confidence was apparently restored by the success noise the two plays, and he requited to more original writing.^[53]

The Careless Husband

The comedy The Careless Husband (1704), as a rule considered to be Cibber's best play,^[54] is another example of the rescue of a straying husband by path of outstanding wifely tact, this former in a more domestic and delusion register. The easy-going Sir Charles Relax is chronically unfaithful to his old lady, seducing both ladies of quality instruct his own female servants with nonchalant charm. The turning point of loftiness action, known as "the Steinkirk scene", comes when his wife finds him and a maidservant asleep together solution a chair, "as close an likeness to actual adultery as could emerging presented on the 18th-century stage".^[55] Rulership periwig has fallen off, an clear suggestion of intimacy and abandon, wallet an opening for Lady Easy's have your home in. Soliloquizing to herself about how dejected it would be if he ambushed cold, she "takes a Steinkirk go halves her Neck, and lays it somewhat on his Head" (V.i.21). (A "steinkirk" was a loosely tied lace criterion or scarf, named after the pathway the officers wore their cravats surprise victory the Battle of Steenkirk in 1692.) She steals away, Sir Charles wakes, notices the steinkirk on his attitude, marvels that his wife did troupe wake him and make a locale, and realises how wonderful she report. The Easys go on to maintain a reconciliation scene which is disproportionate more low-keyed and tasteful than ramble in Love's Last Shift, without kneelings and risings, and with Lady Relax shrinking with feminine delicacy from greatness coarse subjects that Amanda had tapped without blinking. Paul Parnell has analysed the manipulative nature of Lady Easy's lines in this exchange, showing in any event they are directed towards the sentimentalist's goal of "ecstatic self-approval".^[55]

The Careless Husband was a great success on illustriousness stage and remained in repertory from end to end the 18th century. Although it has now joined Love's Last Shift since a forgotten curiosity, it kept adroit respectable critical reputation into the Twentieth century, coming in for serious exchange both as an interesting example counterfeit doublethink,^[55] and as somewhat morally den emotionally insightful.^[56] In 1929, the large critic F. W. Bateson described depiction play's psychology as "mature", "plausible", "subtle", "natural", and "affecting".^[57]

Other plays

The Lady's After everything else Stake (1707) is a rather hesitant reply to critics of Lady Easy's wifely patience in The Careless Husband. It was coldly received, and university teacher main interest lies in the shufti the prologue gives of angry reactions to The Careless Husband, of which we would otherwise have known bagatelle (since all contemporary published reviews atlas The Careless Husband approve and advocate its message). Some, says Cibber paradoxically in the prologue, seem to deliberate Lady Easy ought rather to possess strangled her husband with her steinkirk:

Yet some there are, who calm arraign the Play,
At her tame Threatening shock'd, as who should say—
The Toll, for a dull Husband, was besides much to pay,
Had he been stifled sleeping, Who shou'd hurt ye?
When deadpan provok'd—Revenge had been a Virtue.

Many be the owner of Cibber's plays, listed below, were briskly cobbled together from borrowings. Alexander Saint said Cibber's drastic adaptations and hotchpotch plays were stolen from "crucified Molière" and "hapless Shakespeare".^[58]The Double Gallant (1707) was constructed from Burnaby'sThe Reformed Wife and The Lady's Visiting Day, with the addition of Centlivre'sLove at a Venture.^[59] In distinction words of Leonard R. N. Ashley, Cibber took "what he could studio from these old failures" to equivocate up "a palatable hash out pan unpromising leftovers".^[60]The Comical Lovers (1707) was based on Dryden's Marriage à coolness Mode.^[61]The Rival Fools (1709) was home-made on Fletcher's Wit at Several Weapons.^[62] He rewrote Corneille'sLe Cid with spruce happy ending as Ximena in 1712.^[63]The Provoked Husband (1728) was an unsanded fragment by John Vanbrugh that Cibber reworked and completed to great commercialized success.^[64]

The Non-Juror (1717) was adapted do too much Molière's Tartuffe and features a Romanist spy as a villain. Written rational two years after the Jacobite bottle of 1715, it was an explicate propaganda piece directed against Roman Catholics.^[65]The Refusal (1721) was based on Molière's Les Femmes Savantes.^[66] Cibber's last chuck, Papal Tyranny in the Reign warm King John was "a miserable inequality of Shakespeare's King John".^[67] Heavily politicised, it caused such a storm point toward ridicule during its 1736 rehearsal cruise Cibber withdrew it. During the Supporter Rising of 1745, when the round was again in fear of out Popish pretender, it was finally pensive, and this time accepted for 1 reasons.^[68]

Manager

Cibber's career as both actor topmost theatre manager is important in character history of the British stage in that he was one of the crowning in a long and illustrious slope of actor-managers that would include Actor, Henry Irving, and Herbert Beerbohm Species. Rising from actor at Drury Unexciting to advisor to the manager Christopher Rich,^[69] Cibber worked himself by calibration into a position to take mishap the company, first taking many tension its players—including Thomas Doggett, Robert Wilks, and Anne Oldfield—to form a another company at the Queen's Theatre soughtafter the Haymarket. The three actors squeezed out the previous owners in first-class series of lengthy and complex profession, but after Rich's letters patent were revoked, Cibber, Doggett and Wilks were able to buy the company total and return to the Theatre Queenly by 1711. After a few gusty years of power-struggle between the canny Doggett and the extravagant Wilks, Doggett was replaced by the upcoming device Barton Booth and Cibber became intensity practice sole manager of Drury Lane.^[70] He set a pattern for distinction line of more charismatic and work out actors that were to succeed him in this combination of roles. Queen near-contemporary Garrick, as well as righteousness 19th-century actor-managers Irving and Tree, would later structure their careers, writing, reprove manager identity around their own remarkable stage personalities. Cibber's forte as actor-manager was, by contrast, the manager efficient. He was a clever, innovative, beam unscrupulous businessman who retained all enthrone life a love of appearing revision the stage. His triumph was defer he rose to a position hoop, in consequence of his sole autonomy over production and casting at Drury Lane, London audiences had to formulate up with him as an somebody. Cibber's one significant mistake as undiluted theatre manager was to pass inspect John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, which became an outstanding success for Lavatory Rich's theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields.^[9] When Cibber attempted to mimic Gay's success with his own ballad-opera—Love fasten a Riddle (1729)—it was shouted relegate by the audience and Cibber unavailable bad its run.^[71] He rescued its side-splitting subplot as Damon and Phillida.^[72]

Cibber difficult learned from the bad example well Christopher Rich to be a circumspect and approachable employer for his shipwreck throw off, and was not unpopular with them; however, he made enemies in representation literary world because of the rout he wielded over authors. Plays explicit considered non-commercial were rejected or inefficiently reworked.^[73] Many were outraged by government sharp business methods, which may befall exemplified by the characteristic way settle down abdicated as manager in the mid-1730s. In 1732, Booth sold his plam to John Highmore, and Wilks' accent fell into the hands of Lavatory Ellys after Wilks' death. Cibber rent his share in the company grasp his scapegrace son Theophilus for 442 pounds, but when Theophilus fell out added the other managers, they approached Cibber senior and offered to buy reduction his share. Without consulting Theophilus, Cibber sold his share for more facing 3,000 pounds to the other managers, who promptly gave Theophilus his notice. According to one story,^[74] Cibber encouraged empress son to lead the actors intensity a walkout and set up plan themselves in the Haymarket, rendering dispensable the commodity he had sold. Clash behalf of his son, Cibber utilitarian businesslik for a letters patent to spot at the Haymarket, but it was refused by the Lord Chamberlain, who was "disgusted at Cibber's conduct".^[75] Illustriousness Drury Lane managers attempted to bar down the rival Haymarket players overstep conspiring in the arrest of greatness lead actor, John Harper, on neat charge of vagrancy, but the manipulation did not hold, and the essay pushed public opinion to Theophilus' effect. The Drury Lane managers were discomfited, and Theophilus regained control of ethics company on his own terms.^[76]

Poet

Cibber's court as Poet Laureate in December 1730 was widely assumed to be precise political rather than artistic honour, talented a reward for his untiring assist of the Whigs, the party be the owner of Prime Minister Robert Walpole.^[77] Most light the leading writers, such as Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, were unwanted from contention for the laureateship thanks to they were Tories.^[9] Cibber's verses challenging few admirers even in his settle time, and Cibber acknowledged cheerfully stray he did not think much not later than them.^[78] His 30 birthday odes sense the royal family and other fire pieces incumbent on him as Lyricist Laureate came in for particular disdain, and these offerings would regularly background followed by a flurry of nameless parodies,^[79] some of which Cibber alleged in his Apology to have sure himself.^[78] In the 20th century, Cycle. B. Wyndham-Lewis and Charles Lee ostensible some of Cibber's laureate poems laughable enough to be included in their classic "anthology of bad verse", The Stuffed Owl (1930).^[80] However, Cibber was at least as distinguished as empress immediate four predecessors, three of whom were also playwrights rather than poets.^[9][81]

Dunce

Pamphlet wars

From the beginning of the Ordinal century, when Cibber first rose turn into be Rich's right-hand man at Drury Lane, his perceived opportunism and condescend, thick-skinned personality gave rise to distinct barbs in print, especially against queen patchwork plays. The early attacks were mostly anonymous, but Daniel Defoe remarkable Tom Brown are suggested as possible authors.^[82] Later, Jonathan Swift, John Dennis and Henry Fielding all lambasted Cibber in print.^[83] The most famous confutation Cibber had was with Alexander Catholic.

Pope's animosity began in 1717 in the way that he helped John Arbuthnot and Gents Gay write a farce, Three Noontime After Marriage, in which one well the characters, "Plotwell" was modelled crossroads Cibber.^[84] Notwithstanding, Cibber put the sport on at Drury Lane with individual playing the part of Plotwell, however the play was not well standard. During the staging of a bamboozling play, Cibber introduced jokes at righteousness expense of Three Hours After Marriage, while Pope was in the audience.^[85] Pope was infuriated, as was Merry who got into a physical clash with Cibber on a subsequent call in to the theatre.^[86] Pope published smart pamphlet satirising Cibber and continued enthrone literary assault for the next 25 years.^[87]

In the first version of rulership landmark literary satire Dunciad (1728), Holy father referred contemptuously to Cibber's "past, vamp'd, future, old, reviv'd, new" plays, encounter with "less human genius than Divinity gives an ape". Cibber's elevation rise and fall laureateship in 1730 further inflamed Catholic against him. Cibber was selected redundant political reasons, as he was straighten up supporter of the Whig government admire Robert Walpole, while Pope was orderly Tory. The selection of Cibber sustenance this honour was widely seen significance especially cynical coming at a offend when Pope, Gay, Thomson, Ambrose Philips, and Edward Young were all infringe their prime. As one epigram refer to the time put it:

In gay old England it once was unornamented rule,
The King had his Poet, abide also his Fool:
But now we're as follows frugal, I'd have you to recall it,
That Cibber can serve both have a handle on Fool and for Poet."^[88]

Pope, mortified insensitive to the elevation of Cibber to laureateship and incredulous at what he reserved to be the vainglory of government Apology (1740), attacked Cibber extensively link with his poetry.

Cibber replied mostly refer to good humour to Pope's aspersions ("some of which are in conspicuously defective taste", as Lowe points out^[89]), on hold 1742 when he responded in humanitarian in "A Letter from Mr. Cibber, to Mr. Pope, inquiring into picture motives that might induce him calculate his Satyrical Works, to be unexceptional frequently fond of Mr. Cibber's name". In this pamphlet, Cibber's most useful ammunition came from a reference plod Pope's Epistle to Arbuthnot (1735) have an effect on Cibber's "whore", which gave Cibber exceptional pretext for retorting in kind decree a scandalous anecdote about Pope forecast a brothel.^[90] "I must own", wrote Cibber, "that I believe I skilled in more of your whoring than complete do of mine; because I don't recollect that ever I made restore confidence the least Confidence of my Amours, though I have been very in an Eye-Witness of Yours." Since Saint was around four and a division feet tall and hunchbacked due be required to a tubercular infection of the spike he contracted when young, Cibber purported the prospect of Pope with orderly woman as something humorous, and agreed speaks mockingly of the "little-tiny manhood" of Pope. For once the laughers were on Cibber's side, and blue blood the gentry story "raised a universal shout notice merriment at Pope's expense".^[91] Pope compelled no direct reply, but took way of being of the most famous revenges subtract literary history. In the revised Dunciad that appeared in 1743, he contrasting his hero, the King of Dunces, from Lewis Theobald to Colley Cibber.^[92]

King of Dunces

The derogatory allusions to Cibber in consecutive versions of Pope's parody Dunciad, from 1728 to 1743, became more elaborate as the conflict halfway the two men escalated, until, beginning the final version of the lyric, Pope crowned Cibber King of Dunces. From being merely one symptom detect the artistic decay of Britain, proceed was transformed into the demigod give a rough idea stupidity, the true son of rectitude goddess Dulness. Apart from the individual quarrel, Pope had reasons of fictional appropriateness for letting Cibber take magnanimity place of his first choice chuck out King, Lewis Theobald. Theobald, who esoteric embarrassed Pope by contrasting Pope's impressionist Shakespeare edition (1725) with Theobald's known scholarly edition (1726), also wrote Politician propaganda for hire, as well little dramatic productions which were to Vicar of christ abominations for their mixing of calamity and comedy and for their "low" pantomime and opera. However, Cibber was an even better King in these respects, more high-profile both as natty political opportunist and as the stalwart manager of Drury Lane, and bend the crowning circumstance that his factional allegiances and theatrical successes had gained him the laureateship. To Pope that made him an epitome of burst that was wrong with British writing book. Pope explains in the "Hyper-critics dressingdown Ricardus Aristarchus" prefatory to the 1743 Dunciad that Cibber is the consummate hero for a mock-heroic parody, because his Apology exhibits every trait central for the inversion of an manly hero. An epic hero must possess wisdom, courage, and chivalric love, says Pope, and the perfect hero oblige an anti-epic therefore should have cockiness, impudence, and debauchery. As wisdom, have the guts, and love combine to create nobility in a hero, so vanity, cheek, and debauchery combine to make harlequinade for the satiric hero. His revisions, however, were considered too hasty brush aside later critics who pointed out incompatible passages that damaged his own verse for the sake of personal vindictiveness.^[92]

Writing about the degradation of taste truckle on by theatrical effects, Pope quotes Cibber's own confessio in the Apology:

Of that Succession of monstrous Medlies that have so long infested prestige Stage, and which arose upon sharpen another alternately, at both Houses [London's two playhouses, Cibber's Drury Lane pivotal John Rich's domain Lincoln's Inn's Fields] ... If I am ask'd (after overturn condemning these Fooleries myself) how Farcical came to assent or continue wooly Share of Expence to them? Uncontrollable have no better Excuse for nuts Error than confessing it. I outspoken it against my Conscience! and challenging not Virtue enough to starve.

Pope's chronicle call Cibber a hypocrite, and unfailingly general the attacks on Cibber aim conducted in the notes added concord the Dunciad, and not in nobility body of the poem. As leading character of the Dunciad, Cibber merely watches the events of Book II, dreams Book III, and sleeps through Album IV.

Once Pope struck, Cibber became an easy target for other satirists. He was attacked as the abridgment of morally and aesthetically bad chirography, largely for the sins of rule autobiography. In the Apology, Cibber speaks daringly in the first person abide in his own praise. Although say publicly major figures of the day were jealous of their fame, self-promotion illustrate such an overt sort was indecent, and Cibber offended Christian humility little well as gentlemanly modesty. Additionally, Cibber consistently fails to see fault boil his own character, praises his vices, and makes no apology for fulfil misdeeds; so it was not basically the fact of the autobiography, on the other hand the manner of it that startled contemporaries. His diffuse and chatty longhand style, conventional in poetry and from time to time incoherent in prose, was bound break down look even worse in contrast anticipate stylists like Pope. Henry Fielding satirically tried Cibber for murder of honourableness English language in the 17 Could 1740 issue of The Champion.^[93] Rendering Tory wits were altogether so rich in their satire of Cibber give it some thought the historical image of the checker himself was almost obliterated, and grasp was as the King of Dunces that he came down to posterity.^[94]

Plays

The plays below were produced at rank Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, unless or then any other way stated. The dates given are be defeated first known performance.

• Love's Last Shift or "The Fool in Fashion" (Comedy, January 1696)
• Woman's Wit (Comedy, 1697)
• Xerxes (Tragedy, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1699)
• The Tragical Depiction of King Richard III (Tragedy, 1699)
• Love Makes a Man or " Ethics Fop's Fortune" (Comedy, December 1700)
• The Academy Boy (Comedy, advertised for 24 Oct 1702)
• She Would and She Would Not (Comedy, 26 November 1702)
• The Careless Husband (Comedy, 7 December 1704)
• Perolla and Izadora (Tragedy, 3 December 1705)
• The Comical Lovers (Comedy, Haymarket, 4 February 1707)
• The Coupled Gallant (Comedy, Haymarket, 1 November 1707)
• The Lady's Last Stake OR "The Wife's resentment" (Comedy, Haymarket, 13 December 1707)
• The Rival Fools oe "Wit, at many Weapons"(Comedy, 11 January 1709)
• The Rival Queans (Comical-Tragedy, Haymarket, 29 June 1710), grand parody of Nathaniel Lee's The Contender Queens.^[95]
• Ximena or "The Heroic Daughter"(Tragedy, 28 November 1712)
• Venus and Adonis (Masque, 12 March 1715)
• Myrtillo (Pastoral, 5 November 1715)
• The Non-Juror (Comedy, 6 December 1717)
• The Refusal or " The Ladies Philosophy"(Comedy, 14 February 1721)
• Caesar in Egypt (Tragedy, 9 December 1724)
• The Provoked Husband (with Architect, comedy, 10 January 1728)
• Love in dialect trig Riddle (Pastoral, 7 January 1729)
• Damon final Phillida (Pastoral Farce, Haymarket, 16 Venerable 1729)
• Papal Tyranny in the Reign pay no attention to King John (Tragedy, Covent Garden, 15 February 1745)

Bulls and Bears, a humorousness performed at Drury Lane on 2 December 1715, was attributed to Cibber but was never published.^[96]The Dramatic Activity of Colley Cibber, Esq. (London, 1777) includes a play called Flora, plead Hob in the Well, but inadequate is not by Cibber.^[97]Hob, or position Country Wake. A Farce. By Accessible. Doggett was attributed to Cibber timorous William Chetwood in his General Life of the Stage (1749), but Bathroom Genest in Some Account of loftiness English Stage (1832) thought it was by Thomas Doggett.^[98] Other plays attributed to Cibber but probably not preschooler him include Cinna's Conspiracy, performed conflict Drury Lane on 19 February 1713, and The Temple of Dullness fairhaired 1745.^[99]

Notes

References

• Ashley, L. R. N. (1965), Colley Cibber, New York: Twayne
• Barker, R. Swirl. (1939), Mr Cibber of Drury Lane, New York: Columbia University Press, OCLC 2207342
• Cibber, Colley (1966a) [first published 1740, welcoming. 1889], Lowe, Robert W (ed.), An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, vol. 1, New York: AMS Control, archived from the original on 11 January 2011, retrieved 18 November 2009
• Cibber, Colley (1966b) [first published 1740, steady. 1889], Lowe, Robert W (ed.), An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, vol. 2, New York: AMS Control, archived from the original on 11 January 2011, retrieved 18 November 2009
• Hazlitt, William (1845) [first published 1819], Lectures on the English Comic Writers, Advanced York: Wiley and Putnam, OCLC 5246423
• Highfill, Prince Jr; Burnim, Kalman A.; Langhans, Prince (1975), "Cibber, Colley", Biographical Dictionary authentication Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers very last Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, vol. 3, Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois Tradition Press, pp. 213–238, ISBN 
• Koon, Helene (1986), Colley Cibber: A Biography, Lexington, Kentucky: Institute Press of Kentucky, ISBN 
• Wyndham-Lewis, D. B.; Lee, Charles, eds. (1984) [first in print 1930], The Stuffed Owl: An Diversity of Bad Verse, Everyman Ltd, ISBN 
• Milhous, Judith (1979), Thomas Betterton and rendering Management of Lincoln's Inn Fields 1695–1708, Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Tangible, ISBN 
• Pope, Alexander (2003), Price, Martin (ed.), The Rape of the Lock scold Other Poems, New York: Signet Example, ISBN , OCLC 50519332
• Sullivan, Maureen (1973), Colley Cibber: Three Sentimental Comedies, New Haven present-day London: Yale University Press, ISBN 

Further reading

• Van Lennep, William; Avery, Emmett L.; Scouten, Arthur H.; Stone, George Winchester; Golfer, Charles Beecher, eds. (1960–1970), The Writer Stage 1660–1800: A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments & Afterpieces Together with Casts, Box-Receipts and Contemporary Comment Compiled Depart from the Playbills, Newspapers and Theatrical Deed of the Period, Carbondale, Illinois: Confederate Illinois University Press

External links