Anonymous

“ The action is slight and its setting vague. Sometimes we are in a brothel, crowded with bullies, punks, lords, draymen and linkboys, and managed by Cibber (pp. 11-12) or by Dulness (p. 10) . This setting, together with the claim that Cibber’s own muse is a prostitute (p. 8) , serves as a retort to the Tom-Tit in the brothel story in Cibber’s Letter to Pope and to emphasize the element of literary prostitution in the activities of Cibber and his like. At other times the setting is a regular dunces’ club (pp. 9, 16) of the type chronicled in the pages of The Grub Street Journal. ”

“ There are hints of Paradise Lost too, when Cibber, Satan-like, undertakes his mission (p. 17) and the dunces, Belial-like, agree “they’re better in a cursed State,/Than to be totally annihilate” (p. 5) . But “Scriblerus’” use of Virgil and Milton, unlike Pope’s, does not import some graver meaning into his poem; it provides him with neither a framework of moral symbols nor a continuous narrative thread. ”

“ The attack on Horace is well conceived for Hervey’s purpose and calculated to damage Pope who was in so many eyes, including his own, the modern heir of that ancient poet, but the straight abuse directed [Pg ii] against Pope’s person is sad stuff. Such lines as those on the “yelping Mungril” (p. 6) serve only to show how squarely the “well-bred Spaniels” taunt in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot had hit its target. Hervey’s poem carried a prefatory letter headed “Mr. C—b—er to Mr. P.,” making out that Cibber had a hand in writing the poem itself. ”

“ The satire extends to touch the Administration and the City, with references to Britain’s hitherto inactive part in the War of the Austrian Succession (p. 9) and to the manner in which stock-jobbers used false war news to aid their financial speculations (p. 4) . ”

“ Allusions in the poem are to the theatre’s highly successful 1741-42 season when Garrick sprang to fame as Cibber’s Richard III and also played Tate’s King Lear. On page 26 “Scriblerus” sneers at Garrick’s small stature, [10] and refers to the impropriety of including the figure of Cato in the décor at Goodman’s Fields.
Targets outside the three theatrical companies are chosen from among the obvious ones already attacked by Pope. Mrs. Haywood, who in 1742 had turned publisher under the sign of “Fame,” is shown (p. 21) appropriately enough as the first dunce to recognize the Goddess of Puffs. ”

“ What The Scribleriad tells us of “Ambivius Turpio, the Stage ’Squire” (p. 26) suggests that he is to be identified with Charles Fleetwood, Esq., [8] the wealthy, inexperienced amateur who managed Drury Lane (this even though the original Ambivius Turpio was an actor, while Fleetwood, apparently, was not) . All managers were frequently involved in disputes over actors’ pay, but Fleetwood’s were the most notorious. It was the Drury Lane company that included “the contending POLLYS” (p. 27) —Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. ”

“ George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles; Earl Miner, University of California, Los Angeles; Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles; Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Corresponding Secretary: Mrs. Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
The Society’s purpose is to publish reprints (usually facsimile reproductions) of rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works. All income of the Society is devoted to defraying costs of publication and mailing. ”

“ An anti-Cibber work in prose. It is doubtful that “Scriblerus,” who thought this work did more harm than good to Pope’s cause, would have endorsed the British Museum catalogue’s attribution of it to Pope himself.
7. In The History of the Mimes and Pantomimes (1728) .
8. Some account of Fleetwood may be found in R. W. Buss, Charles Fleetwood, Holder of the Drury Lane Theatre Patent (privately printed, 1915) . ”

“ Epod. 4. Mænas was a Freedman of Pompey the younger; and he deserted from him to Augustus, then back from Augustus to Pompey, and then from Pompey to Augustus again. This is in all the Histories. Appian. Dion.
[e] Et Appiam mannis terit. Epod. 4. ”