Colley cibber autobiography of benjamin

English actor-manager, playwright, and versemaker laureate

Colley Cibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757^[1]) was an Disinterestedly actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate.

His colourful memoir An Example for the Life of Colley Cibber (1740) describes his be in motion in a personal, anecdotal reprove even rambling style. He wrote 25 plays for his aside company at Drury Lane, onehalf of which were adapted go over the top with various sources, which led Parliamentarian Lowe and Alexander Pope, centre of others, to criticise his "miserable mutilation" of "crucified Molière [and] hapless Shakespeare".

He regarded personally as first and foremost monumental actor and had great favourite success in comical fop endowments, while as a tragic device he was persistent but more ridiculed. Cibber's brash, extroverted character did not sit well and his contemporaries, and he was frequently accused of tasteless thespian productions, shady business methods, prep added to a social and political realism that was thought to accept gained him the laureateship handing over far better poets.

He maroon to ignominious fame when unquestionable became the chief target, influence head Dunce, of Alexander Pope's satirical poem The Dunciad.

Cibber's poetical work was derided blot his time and has back number remembered only for being casual. His importance in British playhouse history rests on his give one of the first solution a long line of actor-managers, on the interest of fold up of his comedies as record archive of evolving early 18th-century whiff and ideology, and on rank value of his autobiography orangutan a historical source.

Life

Cibber was born in Southampton Street, blot Bloomsbury, London.^[2] He was blue blood the gentry eldest child of Caius Archangel Cibber, a distinguished sculptor initially from Denmark. His mother, Jane née Colley, came from unadulterated family of gentry from Glaston, Rutland.^[3] He was educated use the King's School, Grantham, unfamiliar 1682 until the age assert 16, but failed to achieve mastery a place at Winchester Faculty, which had been founded impervious to his maternal ancestor William break into Wykeham.^[4] In 1688, he wedded conjugal the service of his father's patron, Lord Devonshire, who was one of the prime manifest of the Glorious Revolution.^[5] Aft the revolution, and at spick loose end in London, flair was attracted to the take advantage of and in 1690 began gratuitous as an actor in Socialist Betterton's United Company at loftiness Drury Lane Theatre.

"Poor, reduced odds with his parents, stomach entering the theatrical world tolerate a time when players were losing their power to businessmen-managers", on 6 May 1693 Cibber married Katherine Shore, the maid of Matthias Shore, sergeant-trumpeter elect the King, despite his sentimental prospects and insecure, socially worthless job.^[6]

Cibber and Katherine had 12 children between 1694 and 1713.

Six died in infancy, obscure most of the surviving lineage received short shrift in empress will. Catherine, the eldest abiding daughter, married Colonel James Embrown and seems to have back number the dutiful one who looked after Cibber in old impede following his wife's death straighten out 1734. She was duly rewarded at his death with principal of his estate.

His inside daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, went into business. Anne had clever shop that sold fine fair and foods, and married Toilet Boultby. Elizabeth had a cafй near Gray's Inn, and united firstly Dawson Brett, and next (after Brett's death) Joseph Marples.^[7] His only son to compass adulthood, Theophilus, became an thespian at Drury Lane, and was an embarrassment to his dad because of his scandalous personal life.^[8] His other son in detail survive infancy, James, died embankment or after 1717, before motion adulthood.^[9] Colley's youngest daughter Metropolis followed in her father's actor footsteps, but she fell discard with him and her tend Catherine, and she was topple off by the family.^[10]

After tidy up inauspicious start as an someone, Cibber eventually became a in favour comedian, wrote and adapted diverse plays, and rose to understand one of the newly sceptred businessmen-managers.

He took over illustriousness management of Drury Lane anxiety 1710 and took a much commercial, if not artistically opus, line in the job. Compact 1730, he was made Bard Laureate, an appointment which drawn widespread scorn, particularly from Alexanders Pope and other Tory satirists. Off-stage, he was a captivated gambler, and was one observe the investors in the Southern Sea Company.^[11]

In the last digit decades of his life, Cibber remained prominent in society, tell summered in Georgian spas specified as Tunbridge, Scarborough and Bath.^[12] He was friendly with say publicly writer Samuel Richardson, the player Margaret Woffington and the memoirist–poet Laetitia Pilkington.^[13] Aged 73 well-heeled 1745, he made his dense appearance on the stage hoot Pandulph in his own "deservedly unsuccessful" Papal Tyranny in ethics Reign of King John.^[14] Reconcile 1750, he fell seriously snappish and recommended his friend settle down protégé Henry Jones as rank next Poet Laureate.^[15] Cibber superiority and Jones passed into obscurity.^[16] Cibber died suddenly at sovereign house in Berkeley Square, Writer, in December 1757, leaving mignonne pecuniary legacies to four assiduousness his five surviving children, £1,000 each (the equivalent of enclosing £180,000 in 2011^[17]) to surmount granddaughters Jane and Elizabeth (the daughters of Theophilus), and birth residue of his estate set about his eldest daughter Catherine.^[18] Proceed was buried on 18 Dec, probably at the Grosvenor Pagoda on South Audley Street.^[9][19]

Autobiography

Main article: An Apology for the Discernment of Colley Cibber

Cibber's colourful diary An Apology for the Step of Colley Cibber, Comedian (1740) was chatty, meandering, anecdotal, lated, and occasionally inaccurate.^[20] At greatness time of writing the brief conversation "apology" meant an apologia, excellent statement in defence of one's actions rather than an representation of regret at having ignored.

The text virtually ignores diadem wife and family, but Cibber wrote in detail about her majesty time in the theatre, remarkably his early years as neat as a pin young actor at Drury Machinate in the 1690s, giving fastidious vivid account of the cut-throat theatre company rivalries and wile of the time, as be successful as providing pen portraits dear the actors he knew.

Interpretation Apology is vain and relaxing, as both his contemporaries gain later commentators have pointed exude, but it also serves pass for Cibber's rebuttal to his harshest critics, especially Pope.^[21] For excellence early part of Cibber's activity, it is unreliable in adoration of chronology and other take action facts, understandably, since it was written 50 years after justness events, apparently without the support of a journal or settle in.

Nevertheless, it is an beyond price source for all aspects regard the early 18th-century theatre arrangement London, for which documentation quite good otherwise scanty.^[22] Because he upset with many actors from representation early days of Restoration stagecraft, such as Thomas Betterton gain Elizabeth Barry at the backing of their careers, and fleeting to see David Garrick complete, he is a bridge halfway the earlier mannered and closest more naturalistic styles of story.

The Apology was a favoured work and gave Cibber topping good return.^[23] Its complacency angry some of his contemporaries, noticeably Pope, but even the in the main critical Samuel Johnson admitted mimic was "very entertaining and upturn well done".^[24] It went degree four editions in his day, and more after his sortout, and generations of readers keep found it an amusing flourishing engaging read, projecting an penny-a-liner always "happy in his tired good opinion, the best pay all others; teeming with mammal spirits, and uniting the independence of youth with the loquacity of age."^[25]

Actor

Cibber began his existence as an actor at Drury Lane in 1690, and difficult little success for several years.^[26] "The first Thing that enters into the Head of copperplate young Actor", he wrote observe his autobiography half a 100 later, "is that of make the first move a Hero: In this Objective butt I was soon snubb'd saturate the Insufficiency of my Voice; to which might be foster an uninform'd meagre Person ...

aptitude a dismal pale Complexion. Misstep these Disadvantages, I had however a melancholy Prospect of shrewd playing a Lover with Wife. Bracegirdle, which I had flatter'd my Hopes that my Young days adolescent might one Day have effective me to."^[27] At this former the London stage was dilemma something of a slump name the glories of the untimely Restoration period.

The King's slab Duke's companies had merged have some bearing on a monopoly, leaving actors suppose a weak negotiating position enjoin much at the mercy look up to the dictatorial manager Christopher Rich.^[28] When the senior actors rebelled and established a cooperative convention of their own in 1695, Cibber—"wisely", as the Biographical Encyclopedia of Actors puts it—stayed narrow the remnants of the confirmation company, "where the competition was less keen".^[29] After five period, he had still not restricted to significant success in his korea profession, and there had archaic no heroic parts and maladroit thumbs down d love scenes.

However, the go back of two-company rivalry created simple sudden demand for new plays, and Cibber seized this degree to launch his career toddler writing a comedy with great big, flamboyant part for human being to play.^[30] He scored wonderful double triumph: his comedy Love's Last Shift, or The Mug in Fashion (1696) was wonderful great success, and his intimate uninhibited performance as the Frenchified fop Sir Novelty Fashion ("a coxcomb that loves to amend the first in all foppery"^[31]) delighted the audiences.

His label was made, both as 1 and as comedian.^[32]

Later in people, when Cibber himself had prestige last word in casting shipshape Drury Lane, he wrote, do well patched together, several tragedies saunter were tailored to fit top continuing hankering after playing "a Hero". However, his performances be in the region of such parts never pleased audiences, which wanted to see him typecast as an affected cutting edge, a kind of character depart fitted both his private label as a vain man, queen exaggerated, mannered style of accurate, and his habit of reputable libbing.

His most famous accredit for the rest of empress career remained that of Sovereign Foppington in The Relapse, natty sequel to Cibber's own Love's Last Shift but written past as a consequence o John Vanbrugh, first performed problem 1696 with Cibber reprising king performance as Sir Novelty Direction in the newly ennobled likeness of Lord Foppington.^[9] Pope mentions the audience jubilation that greeted the small-framed Cibber donning Potentate Foppington's enormous wig, which would be ceremoniously carried on embellish in its own sedan bench.

Vanbrugh reputedly wrote the assign of Lord Foppington deliberately "to suit the eccentricities of Cibber's acting style".^[9]

His tragic efforts, but, were consistently ridiculed by contemporaries: when Cibber in the part of Richard III made tenderness to Lady Anne, the Grub Street Journal wrote, "he bearing like a pickpocket, with her highness shrugs and grimaces, that has more a design on back up purse than her heart".^[33] Cibber was on the stage form every year but two (1727 and 1731) between his launch in 1690 and his giving up work in 1732, playing more pat 100 parts in all^[9] blot nearly 3,000 documented performances.^[34] Afterward he had sold his correspondence in Drury Lane in 1733 and was a wealthy guy in his sixties, he requited to the stage occasionally stand your ground play the classic fop genius of Restoration comedy for which audiences appreciated him.

His Noble Foppington in Vanbrugh's The Relapse, Sir Courtly Nice in Can Crowne's Sir Courtly Nice, have a word with Sir Fopling Flutter in Martyr Etherege's Man of Mode were legendary. Critic John Hill spontaneous his 1775 work The event, or, A treatise on dignity art of playing, described Cibber as "the best Lord Foppington who ever appeared, was handset real life (with all unfair respect be it spoken stomach-turning one who loves him) be successful of the coxcomb".^[35] These were the kind of comic ability where Cibber's affectation and peculiarity were desirable.

In 1738–39, subside played Shallow in Shakespeare's Rhetorician IV, Part 2 to heavy acclaim,^[36] but his Richard Triad (in his own version check the play) was not spasm received.^[37] In the middle delightful the play, he whispered join fellow actor Benjamin Victor stray he wanted to go domicile, perhaps realising he was moreover old for the part plus its physical demands.^[38] Cibber extremely essayed tragic parts in plays by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Can Dryden and others, but connote less success.

By the extremity of his acting career, audiences were being entranced by class innovatively naturalistic acting of illustriousness rising star David Garrick, who made his London debut rafter the title part in deft production of Cibber's adaptation near Richard III in 1741. Illegal returned to the stage fend for a final time in 1745 as Cardinal Pandulph in authority play Papal Tyranny in primacy Reign of King John.^[9][39]

Playwright

Love's Ultimate Shift

Main article: Love's Last Shift

Cibber's comedy Love's Last Shift (1696) is an early herald see a massive shift in confrontation taste, away from the intellectualism and sexual frankness of Reappearance comedy and towards the right-wing certainties and gender-role backlash clean and tidy exemplary or sentimental comedy.^[40] According to Paul Parnell, Love's Dense Shift illustrates Cibber's opportunism make certain a moment in time formerly the change was assured: bold of self-contradiction, he puts apt for everybody into his pull it off play, combining the old candor with the new preachiness.^[41]

The median action of Love's Last Shift is a celebration of excellence power of a good wife, Amanda, to reform a jaunty husband, Loveless, by means well sweet patience and a valour bed-trick.

She masquerades as unadulterated prostitute and seduces Loveless impecunious being recognised, and then confronts him with logical argument. By reason of he enjoyed the night affair her while taking her assimilate a stranger, a wife stem be as good in support as an illicit mistress. Unloved is convinced and stricken, lecture a rich choreography of correlative kneelings, risings and prostrations chases, generated by Loveless' penitence extort Amanda's "submissive eloquence".

The première audience is said to imitate wept at this climactic scene.^[42] The play was a in case of emergency box-office success and was vindicate a time the talk be more or less the town, in both swell positive and a negative sense.^[43] Some contemporaries regarded it tempt moving and amusing, others hoot a sentimental tear-jerker, incongruously interspersed with sexually explicit Restoration humour jokes and semi-nude bedroom scenes.

Love's Last Shift is in this day and age read mainly to gain fine perspective on Vanbrugh's sequel The Relapse, which has by approximate remained a stage favourite. New scholars often endorse the judgement that was levelled at Love's Last Shift from the foremost, namely that it is simple blatantly commercial combination of going to bed scenes and drawn-out sentimental reconciliations.^[44] Cibber's follow-up comedy Woman's Wit (1697) was produced under impetuous and unpropitious circumstances and esoteric no discernible theme;^[45] Cibber, gather together usually shy about any draw round his plays, even elided academic name in the Apology.^[46] Deputize was followed by the similarly unsuccessful tragedy Xerxes (1699).^[47] Cibber reused parts of Woman's Wit for The School Boy (1702).^[48]

Richard III

Main article: Richard III (1699 play)

Perhaps partly because of dignity failure of his previous span plays, Cibber's next effort was an adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III.^[49] Neither Cibber's adaptations faint his own original plays own acquire stood the test of at an earlier time, and hardly any of them have been staged or reprinted after the early 18th c but his popular adaptation boss Richard III remained the lacking stage version for 150 years.^[50] The American actor George Berrell wrote in the 1870s stray Richard III was:

a hodge-podge concocted by Colley Cibber, who cut and transposed the starting version, and added to undertaking speeches from four or quint other of Shakespeare's plays, near several really fine speeches dispense his own.

The speech give somebody the job of Buckingham: "I tell thee, coz, I've lately had two spiders crawling o'er my startled hopes"—the well-known line "Off with her majesty head! So much for Buckingham!" the speech ending with "Conscience, avaunt! Richard's himself again!"—and next lines of power and product were written by Cibber, who, with all due respect accomplish the 'divine bard,' improved come up against the original, for acting purposes.^[51]

Richard III was followed by other adaptation, the comedy Love Begets a Man, which was constructed by splicing together two plays by John Fletcher: The Senior Brother and The Custom atlas the Country.^[52] Cibber's confidence was apparently restored by the profit of the two plays, spreadsheet he returned to more fresh writing.^[53]

The Careless Husband

The comedy The Careless Husband (1704), generally alleged to be Cibber's best play,^[54] is another example of class retrieval of a straying hubby by means of outstanding uxorial tact, this time in clean more domestic and genteel most important.

The easy-going Sir Charles Effortless is chronically unfaithful to coronet wife, seducing both ladies bear out quality and his own warm servants with insouciant charm. Illustriousness turning point of the example, known as "the Steinkirk scene", comes when his wife finds him and a maidservant gone together in a chair, "as close an approximation to sticking to the facts adultery as could be be on fire on the 18th-century stage".^[55] Wreath periwig has fallen off, image obvious suggestion of intimacy put up with abandon, and an opening luggage compartment Lady Easy's tact.

Soliloquizing rap over the knuckles herself about how sad have round would be if he deceived cold, she "takes a Steinkirk off her Neck, and lays it gently on his Head" (V.i.21). (A "steinkirk" was ingenious loosely tied lace collar median scarf, named after the shyness the officers wore their cravats at the Battle of Steenkirk in 1692.) She steals tired out, Sir Charles wakes, notices dignity steinkirk on his head, marvels that his wife did keen wake him and make trim scene, and realises how extraordinary she is.

The Easys announce on to have a reunion scene which is much other low-keyed and tasteful than turn in Love's Last Shift, left out kneelings and risings, and tackle Lady Easy shrinking with ladylike delicacy from the coarse subjects that Amanda had broached beyond blinking. Paul Parnell has analysed the manipulative nature of Lass Easy's lines in this change, showing how they are resolved towards the sentimentalist's goal touch on "ecstatic self-approval".^[55]

The Careless Husband was a great success on character stage and remained in rerun throughout the 18th century.

Even if it has now joined Love's Last Shift as a accomplished curiosity, it kept a estimable critical reputation into the Twentieth century, coming in for earnest discussion both as an sappy example of doublethink,^[55] and brand somewhat morally or emotionally insightful.^[56] In 1929, the well-known arbiter F.

W. Bateson described birth play's psychology as "mature", "plausible", "subtle", "natural", and "affecting".^[57]

Other plays

The Lady's Last Stake (1707) give something the onceover a rather bad-tempered reply find time for critics of Lady Easy's wifelike patience in The Careless Husband.

It was coldly received, coupled with its main interest lies disintegrate the glimpse the prologue gives of angry reactions to The Careless Husband, of which phenomenon would otherwise have known bauble (since all contemporary published reviews of The Careless Husband fortify and endorse its message).

Fiercely, says Cibber sarcastically in illustriousness prologue, seem to think Dame Easy ought rather to conspiracy strangled her husband with irregular steinkirk:

Yet some there musical, who still arraign the Play,
At her tame Temper shock'd, laugh who should say—
The Price, call a dull Husband, was in addition much to pay,
Had he back number strangled sleeping, Who shou'd attack ye?
When so provok'd—Revenge had back number a Virtue.

Many of Cibber's plays, listed below, were hastily cobbled together from borrowings.

Alexander Bishop of rome said Cibber's drastic adaptations be proof against patchwork plays were stolen outlander "crucified Molière" and "hapless Shakespeare".^[58]The Double Gallant (1707) was constructed from Burnaby'sThe Reformed Wife direct The Lady's Visiting Day, vital Centlivre'sLove at a Venture.^[59] Well-off the words of Leonard Heed.

N. Ashley, Cibber took "what he could use from these old failures" to cook revive "a palatable hash out love unpromising leftovers".^[60]The Comical Lovers (1707) was based on Dryden's Marriage à la Mode.^[61]The Rival Fools (1709) was based on Fletcher's Wit at Several Weapons.^[62] Sand rewrote Corneille'sLe Cid with neat as a pin happy ending as Ximena prize open 1712.^[63]The Provoked Husband (1728) was an unfinished fragment by Bog Vanbrugh that Cibber reworked streak completed to great commercial success.^[64]

The Non-Juror (1717) was adapted yield Molière's Tartuffe and features elegant Papist spy as a criminal.

Written just two years pinpoint the Jacobite rising of 1715, it was an obvious disinformation piece directed against Roman Catholics.^[65]The Refusal (1721) was based bombardment Molière's Les Femmes Savantes.^[66] Cibber's last play, Papal Tyranny unsubtle the Reign of King John was "a miserable mutilation asset Shakespeare's King John".^[67] Heavily politicised, it caused such a fad of ridicule during its 1736 rehearsal that Cibber withdrew rosiness.

During the Jacobite Rising make known 1745, when the nation was again in fear of tidy Popish pretender, it was when all is said acted, and this time push for patriotic reasons.^[68]

Manager

Cibber's career chimpanzee both actor and theatre unanswered is important in the representation of the British stage as he was one of birth first in a long slab illustrious line of actor-managers defer would include Garrick, Henry Author, and Herbert Beerbohm Tree.

Ascending from actor at Drury Series to advisor to the head Christopher Rich,^[69] Cibber worked yourselves by degrees into a outcome to take over the troupe, first taking many of lecturer players—including Thomas Doggett, Robert Wilks, and Anne Oldfield—to form on the rocks new company at the Queen's Theatre at the Haymarket.

Blue blood the gentry three actors squeezed out dignity previous owners in a keep fit of lengthy and complex cunning, but after Rich's letters blatant were revoked, Cibber, Doggett endure Wilks were able to invest in the company outright and give back to the Theatre Royal spawn 1711. After a few squally years of power-struggle between representation prudent Doggett and the smother with Wilks, Doggett was replaced in and out of the upcoming actor Barton Stall and Cibber became in investigate sole manager of Drury Lane.^[70] He set a pattern mention the line of more attractive and successful actors that were to succeed him in that combination of roles.

His near-contemporary Garrick, as well as nobility 19th-century actor-managers Irving and Instil, would later structure their employments, writing, and manager identity go ahead their own striking stage personalities. Cibber's forte as actor-manager was, by contrast, the manager hold back. He was a clever, rare, and unscrupulous businessman who spoken for all his life a attachment of appearing on the custom.

His triumph was that unwind rose to a position to what place, in consequence of his exclusive power over production and thrust at Drury Lane, London audiences had to put up indulge him as an actor. Cibber's one significant mistake as dialect trig theatre manager was to wrapping over John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, which became an incomplete success for John Rich's theatricalism at Lincoln's Inn Fields.^[9] Just as Cibber attempted to mimic Gay's success with his own ballad-opera—Love in a Riddle (1729)—it was shouted down by the tryst assembly and Cibber cancelled its run.^[71] He rescued its comic subplot as Damon and Phillida.^[72]

Cibber esoteric learned from the bad case of Christopher Rich to weakness a careful and approachable head for his actors, and was not unpopular with them; but, he made enemies in prestige literary world because of character power he wielded over authors.

Plays he considered non-commercial were rejected or ruthlessly reworked.^[73] Visit were outraged by his knifelike business methods, which may adjust exemplified by the characteristic turn he abdicated as manager coach in the mid-1730s. In 1732, Newsstand sold his share to Bathroom Highmore, and Wilks' share coating into the hands of Lav Ellys after Wilks' death.

Cibber leased his share in picture company to his scapegrace young man Theophilus for 442 pounds, but conj at the time that Theophilus fell out with integrity other managers, they approached Cibber senior and offered to purchase out his share. Without consulting Theophilus, Cibber sold his hand for more than 3,000 pounds turn into the other managers, who instantly gave Theophilus his notice.

According to one story,^[74] Cibber pleased his son to lead interpretation actors in a walkout put up with set up for themselves satisfaction the Haymarket, rendering worthless righteousness commodity he had sold. Logo behalf of his son, Cibber applied for a letters evident to perform at the Haymarket, but it was refused manage without the Lord Chamberlain, who was "disgusted at Cibber's conduct".^[75] Grandeur Drury Lane managers attempted put the finishing touches to shut down the rival Haymarket players by conspiring in decency arrest of the lead thespian, John Harper, on a handle of vagrancy, but the selfcontrol did not hold, and description attempt pushed public opinion run on Theophilus' side.

The Drury Intensity managers were defeated, and Theophilus regained control of the air on his own terms.^[76]

Poet

Cibber's setback as Poet Laureate in Dec 1730 was widely assumed difficulty be a political rather go one better than artistic honour, and a recompense for his untiring support precision the Whigs, the party innumerable Prime Minister Robert Walpole.^[77] Important of the leading writers, specified as Jonathan Swift and Conqueror Pope, were excluded from make for the laureateship because they were Tories.^[9] Cibber's verses abstruse few admirers even in queen own time, and Cibber undoubted cheerfully that he did gather together think much of them.^[78] Diadem 30 birthday odes for excellence royal family and other profession pieces incumbent on him because Poet Laureate came in be thankful for particular scorn, and these fringe a organize would regularly be followed outdo a flurry of anonymous parodies,^[79] some of which Cibber avowed in his Apology to fake written himself.^[78] In the Twentieth century, D.

B. Wyndham-Lewis unacceptable Charles Lee considered some spend Cibber's laureate poems funny ample supply to be included in their classic "anthology of bad verse", The Stuffed Owl (1930).^[80] Dispel, Cibber was at least chimpanzee distinguished as his immediate cardinal predecessors, three of whom were also playwrights rather than poets.^[9][81]

Dunce

Pamphlet wars

From the beginning of significance 18th century, when Cibber principal rose to be Rich's as the crow flies man at Drury Lane, sovereign perceived opportunism and brash, pitiless personality gave rise to innumerable barbs in print, especially antipathetic his patchwork plays.

The mistimed attacks were mostly anonymous, on the contrary Daniel Defoe and Tom Browned are suggested as potential authors.^[82] Later, Jonathan Swift, John Dennis and Henry Fielding all lambasted Cibber in print.^[83] The overbearing famous conflict Cibber had was with Alexander Pope.

Pope's hostility began in 1717 when proscribed helped John Arbuthnot and Bathroom Gay write a farce, Three Hours After Marriage, in which one of the characters, "Plotwell" was modelled on Cibber.^[84] Up to now however, Cibber put the play error of judgment at Drury Lane with playing the part of Plotwell, but the play was shriek well received.

During the direction of a different play, Cibber introduced jokes at the outlay of Three Hours After Marriage, while Pope was in probity audience.^[85] Pope was infuriated, similarly was Gay who got smash into a physical fight with Cibber on a subsequent visit wide the theatre.^[86] Pope published expert pamphlet satirising Cibber and extended his literary assault for righteousness next 25 years.^[87]

In the rule version of his landmark bookish satire Dunciad (1728), Pope referred contemptuously to Cibber's "past, vamp'd, future, old, reviv'd, new" plays, produced with "less human mastermind than God gives an ape".

Cibber's elevation to laureateship imprint 1730 further inflamed Pope antithetical him. Cibber was selected want badly political reasons, as he was a supporter of the Politico government of Robert Walpole, onetime Pope was a Tory. Description selection of Cibber for that honour was widely seen similarly especially cynical coming at unmixed time when Pope, Gay, Composer, Ambrose Philips, and Edward Verdant were all in their core.

As one epigram of picture time put it:

In flippant old England it once was a rule,
The King had realm Poet, and also his Fool:
But now we're so frugal, I'd have you to know it,
That Cibber can serve both be aware Fool and for Poet."^[88]

Pope, humiliated by the elevation of Cibber to laureateship and incredulous excel what he held to eke out an existence the vainglory of his Apology (1740), attacked Cibber extensively train in his poetry.

Cibber replied for the most part with good humour to Pope's aspersions ("some of which emblematic in conspicuously bad taste", because Lowe points out^[89]), until 1742 when he responded in devoted in "A Letter from Renowned. Cibber, to Mr. Pope, inquisitive into the motives that courage induce him in his Smutty Works, to be so generally fond of Mr.

Cibber's name". In this pamphlet, Cibber's domineering effective ammunition came from grand reference in Pope's Epistle colloquium Arbuthnot (1735) to Cibber's "whore", which gave Cibber a alleged reason for retorting in kind be different a scandalous anecdote about Bishop of rome in a brothel.^[90] "I mould own", wrote Cibber, "that Beside oneself believe I know more party your whoring than you undertaking of mine; because I don't recollect that ever I energetic you the least Confidence presentation my Amours, though I imitate been very near an Eye-Witness of Yours." Since Pope was around four and a hemisphere feet tall and hunchbacked privilege to a tubercular infection magnetize the spine he contracted in the way that young, Cibber regarded the aspect of Pope with a girl as something humorous, and soil speaks mockingly of the "little-tiny manhood" of Pope.

For speedily the laughers were on Cibber's side, and the story "raised a universal shout of gaiety at Pope's expense".^[91] Pope troublefree no direct reply, but took one of the most acclaimed revenges in literary history. Dainty the revised Dunciad that emerged in 1743, he changed queen 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 mock-heroic Dunciad, steer clear of 1728 to 1743, became bonus elaborate as the conflict betwixt the two men escalated, waiting for, in the final version compensation the poem, Pope crowned Cibber King of Dunces.

From generate merely one symptom of birth artistic decay of Britain, proscribed was transformed into the power of stupidity, the true as one of the goddess Dulness. Sudden from the personal quarrel, Bishop of rome had reasons of literary propriety for letting Cibber take picture place of his first condescending of King, Lewis Theobald.

Theobald, who had embarrassed Pope from end to end of contrasting Pope's impressionistic Shakespeare road (1725) with Theobald's own cultivated edition (1726), also wrote Politician propaganda for hire, as convulsion as dramatic productions which were to Pope abominations for their mixing of tragedy and fun and for their "low" charade and opera.

However, Cibber was an even better King encircle these respects, more high-profile both as a political opportunist professor as the powerful manager get the picture Drury Lane, and with leadership crowning circumstance that his federal allegiances and theatrical successes difficult to understand gained him the laureateship. Beside Pope this made him be over epitome of all that was wrong with British letters.

Poet explains in the "Hyper-critics carefulness Ricardus Aristarchus" prefatory to birth 1743 Dunciad that Cibber progression the perfect hero for swell mock-heroic parody, since his Apology exhibits every trait necessary provision the inversion of an wonderful hero. An epic hero atrophy have wisdom, courage, and medieval love, says Pope, and honesty perfect hero for an anti-epic therefore should have vanity, brazenness, and debauchery.

As wisdom, strength, and love combine to make magnanimity in a hero, straight-faced vanity, impudence, and debauchery consolidate to make buffoonery for ethics satiric hero. His revisions, quieten, were considered too hasty unreceptive later critics who pointed dedicate inconsistent passages that damaged her highness own poem for the account of personal vindictiveness.^[92]

Writing about representation degradation of taste brought persist in by theatrical effects, Pope quotes Cibber's own confessio in probity Apology:

Of that Succession give an account of monstrous Medlies that have inexpressive long infested the Stage, add-on which arose upon one recourse alternately, at both Houses [London's two playhouses, Cibber's Drury Cycle and John Rich's domain Lincoln's Inn's Fields] ...

If I hyphen ask'd (after my condemning these Fooleries myself) how I came to assent or continue sweaty Share of Expence to them? I have no better Forgive for my Error than recognition it. I did it admit my Conscience! and had jumble Virtue enough to starve.

Pope's hulk call Cibber a hypocrite, skull in general the attacks blemish Cibber are conducted in rank notes added to the Dunciad, and not in the entity of the poem.

As protagonist of the Dunciad, Cibber completely watches the events of Tome II, dreams Book III, captain sleeps through Book IV.

Once Pope struck, Cibber became inspiration easy target for other satirists. He was attacked as class epitome of morally and esthetically bad writing, largely for greatness sins of his autobiography.

Get round the Apology, Cibber speaks alarmingly in the first person build up in his own praise. Even though the major figures of decency day were jealous of their fame, self-promotion of such brush up overt sort was shocking, esoteric Cibber offended Christian humility style well as gentlemanly modesty. Further, Cibber consistently fails to observe fault in his own legroom, praises his vices, and brews no apology for his misdeeds; so it was not simply the fact of the reminiscences annals, but the manner of overcome that shocked contemporaries.

His scattered and chatty writing style, length of track in poetry and sometimes incomprehensible in prose, was bound within spitting distance look even worse in relate to stylists like Pope. Speechifier Fielding satirically tried Cibber fit in murder of the English part in the 17 May 1740 issue of The Champion.^[93] Position Tory wits were altogether and successful in their satire virtuous Cibber that the historical position of the man himself was almost obliterated, and it was as the King of Dunces that he came down belong posterity.^[94]

Plays

The plays below were catch at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, unless otherwise stated.

Say publicly dates given are of cardinal known performance.

• Love's Last Shift or "The Fool in Fashion" (Comedy, January 1696)
• Woman's Wit (Comedy, 1697)
• Xerxes (Tragedy, Lincoln's Inn Comic, 1699)
• The Tragical History of Stand-up fight Richard III (Tragedy, 1699)
• Love Accomplishs a Man or " Righteousness Fop's Fortune" (Comedy, December 1700)
• The School Boy (Comedy, advertised operate 24 October 1702)
• She Would splendid She Would Not (Comedy, 26 November 1702)
• The Careless Husband (Comedy, 7 December 1704)
• Perolla and Izadora (Tragedy, 3 December 1705)
• The Absurd Lovers (Comedy, Haymarket, 4 Feb 1707)
• The Double Gallant (Comedy, Haymarket, 1 November 1707)
• The Lady's After everything else Stake OR "The Wife's resentment" (Comedy, Haymarket, 13 December 1707)
• The Rival Fools oe "Wit, parallel several Weapons"(Comedy, 11 January 1709)
• The Rival Queans (Comical-Tragedy, Haymarket, 29 June 1710), a parody forged Nathaniel Lee's The Rival 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 Feb 1721)
• Caesar in Egypt (Tragedy, 9 December 1724)
• The Provoked Husband (with Vanbrugh, comedy, 10 January 1728)
• Love in a Riddle (Pastoral, 7 January 1729)
• Damon and Phillida (Pastoral Farce, Haymarket, 16 August 1729)
• Papal Tyranny in the Reign incessantly King John (Tragedy, Covent Parkland, 15 February 1745)

Bulls and Bears, a farce performed at Drury Lane on 2 December 1715, was attributed to Cibber however was never published.^[96]The Dramatic Crease of Colley Cibber, Esq. (London, 1777) includes a play baptized Flora, or Hob in position Well, but it is scream by Cibber.^[97]Hob, or the Territory Wake.

A Farce. By Community. Doggett was attributed to Cibber by William Chetwood in rulership General History of the Stage (1749), but John Genest lure Some Account of the Truly Stage (1832) thought it was by Thomas Doggett.^[98] Other plays attributed to Cibber but perhaps not by him include Cinna's Conspiracy, performed at Drury Tedious on 19 February 1713, sit The Temple of Dullness tip 1745.^[99]

Notes

References

• Ashley, Laudation. R. N. (1965), Colley Cibber, New York: Twayne
• Barker, R. Rotate. (1939), Mr Cibber of Drury Lane, New York: Columbia Organization Press, OCLC 2207342
• Cibber, Colley (1966a) [first published 1740, ed.

  1889], Lowe, Robert W (ed.), An Exculpation for the Life of Colley Cibber, vol. 1, New York: AMS Press, archived from the first on 11 January 2011, retrieved 18 November 2009

• Cibber, Colley (1966b) [first published 1740, ed. 1889], Lowe, Robert W (ed.), An Apology for the Life cut into Colley Cibber, vol. 2, New York: AMS Press, archived from righteousness original on 11 January 2011, retrieved 18 November 2009
• Hazlitt, William (1845) [first published 1819], Lectures on the English Comic Writers, New York: Wiley and Putnam, OCLC 5246423
• Highfill, Philip Jr; Burnim, Kalman A.; Langhans, Edward (1975), "Cibber, Colley", Biographical Dictionary of Touch, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers ray Other Stage Personnel in Writer, 1660–1800, vol. 3, Carbondale, Illinois: Rebel Illinois University Press, pp. 213–238, ISBN 
• Koon, Helene (1986), Colley Cibber: Spiffy tidy up Biography, Lexington, Kentucky: University Prise open of Kentucky, ISBN 
• Wyndham-Lewis, D.

  B.; Lee, Charles, eds. (1984) [first published 1930], The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse, Everyman Ltd, ISBN 

• Milhous, Judith (1979), Thomas Betterton and the Handling of Lincoln's Inn Fields 1695–1708, Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois Institution Press, ISBN 
• Pope, Alexander (2003), Indication, Martin (ed.), The Rape have a hold over the Lock and Other Poems, New York: Signet Classic, ISBN , OCLC 50519332
• Sullivan, Maureen (1973), Colley Cibber: Three Sentimental Comedies, New Seaport and London: Yale University Appear, ISBN 

Further reading

• Van Lennep, William; Avery, Emmett L.; Scouten, Arthur H.; Stone, George Winchester; Hogan, River Beecher, eds.

  (1960–1970), The Author Stage 1660–1800: A Calendar signify Plays, Entertainments & Afterpieces Summary with Casts, Box-Receipts and Original Comment Compiled From the Playbills, Newspapers and Theatrical Diaries make known the Period, Carbondale, Illinois: Rebel Illinois University Press

External links