Colley Cibber

“ A little too careless, perhaps; rather too much given to gambling and philandering; somewhat more [236] than might be of the young beau about him, even in his old days, when, however, he was happy and resigned under a burthen of years which few men bear with content or resignation.
At the period of Colley Cibber's death, his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Susanna Cibber, was enchanting the town with her Isabella played to Garrick's Biron; and Barry and Mrs. Bellamy were raising melodious echoes within the walls of Covent Garden. ”

“ If this statement is correct, Colley Cibber on this occasion forgave his daughter, since after she had left Drury Lane in a fit of petulance and written against Fleetwood, her former manager, a splenetic piece entitled 'The Art of Management,' 8vo, 1735, which was bought up by Fleetwood and is now of excessive rarity, Cibber was the means of bringing about a reconciliation. Subsequently Cibber withdrew altogether from her and remained deaf to her numerous appeals. Her career from this time becomes hopelessly fantastic. ”

“ Our age indeed has no Colley Cibber to describe their loveliness and celebrate their achievements; but surely if he were living at this hour, that courtly, characteristic, and sensuous writer—who saw so clearly and could portray so well the peculiarities of the feminine nature—would not deem the period of Marie Bancroft and Ellen Terry, of Clara Morris and Ada Rehan, of Sarah Bernhardt and Jane Hading, unworthy of his pen. ”

“ Betterton, gentleman." Rather more than seven years had then elapsed since Theophilus Cibber had gone down, twelve fathoms deep, to the bottom of the Irish sea; and about the same time, short of a month or so, had gone by since Colley Cibber had been brought hither to rest in the neighbourhood of defunct, but once real, kings and queens.
The voice of Mrs. Cibber, the soul of Mrs. Pritchard, and the eye of Garrick, formed a combination which in one actor would, according to Walpole, render him [275] superior to all actors the world had seen or could see. ”

“ CIB. Serve ’em right—a couple of serpents! or rather one boa-constrictor—Soaper slavers, for Snarl to crush (crosses to L.) . But we were all too hard on poor Trip: and if he will accept my apology——
TRIP. Thank you! “Colley Cibber’s Apology” can be got at any book-stall.
CIB. Confound his impertinence! Come along, Jemmy!
QUIN. If ever you paint my portrait——
TRIP. The bear from Hockley Hole shall sit for the head.
QUIN. Curse his impudence! Have with you, Mr. Cibber. ”

“ Colley Cibber," a life which Fielding said he lived only to apologize for. This work has been the most popular of all his productions, and has obtained the praise of men of such diverse tempers as Horace Walpole and Dr. Johnson; the former terming it "Cibber's inimitable treatise on the stage," while Johnson pronounces it to be "very entertaining."
It is a rambling book of gossip, written in a slovenly style, but filled with interesting notices of the most eminent actors and actresses of his time. They, too, were performers of no ordinary merit ”

“ There are early lives of Wilks, all untrustworthy and mostly contradictory of each other. These lives, one anonymous and dedicated to Colley Cibber; a second by Daniel O'Bryan, and a third by Curll, asserting that the two other were unworthy of credit; statements certified to by Mary Wilks, his relict, and by Wilks's brother-in-law, Alex Kingston, were issued within a year of the actor's death, and went through various editions. All are now scarce. Cibber in his Apology supplies much information, often inaccurate. ”

“ The match nevertheless, unfortunately for Miss Arne, took place, and they were married in 1735. Great cordiality subsisted between them for some time; and Colley Cibber, who by the amiable deportment of his daughter-in-law, and seeming reformation of his son, was induced to take the young couple into favour, undertook to teach Mrs. Cibber the art of acting, that she might obtain a better salary, (they were at that time very poor) and more rank upon the stage.
Upon her first attempt to declaim in tragedy, as he informs us, he was surprised at such a variety of powers united. ”

“ It would be extremely difficult to find a more sorrowful story in connection with impecuniosity than that of Colley Cibber’s daughter; and though the degraded character of the greater part of her life has robbed her misfortunes of much of the sympathy that would otherwise have been freely accorded, it would have been well if some who have animadverted so severely upon her shortcomings had remembered that much in her life that was so unwomanly was undoubtedly due to her masculine and defective training. ”

“ Cibber was long employed by the fourth earl of Devonshire, and many fine specimens of his work are to be seen at Chatsworth. Under that nobleman he took up arms in 1688 for William of Orange, and was appointed in return carver to the king’s closet. He died rich, and, according to Horace Walpole, built the Danish church in London, where he lies buried beside his second wife, to whom he erected a monument. She was a Miss Colley of Glaiston, grand-daughter of Sir Anthony Colley, and the mother of his son Colley Cibber. ”

“ Theo. Cibber ("Life of Booth," p. 7) says that Colley Cibber and Booth "used frequently to set out, after Play (in the Month of May) to Windsor, where the Court then was, to push their different Interests." Chetwood ("History," p. 93) states that the other Patentees "to prevent his solliciting his Patrons at Court, then at Windsor, gave out Plays every Night, where Mr. Booth had a principal Part. ”

“ In "The Egotist: or, Colley upon Cibber," p. 49, Cibber is made to say: "An Ode is a Butt, that a whole Quiver of Wit is let fly at every Year!"
[47] "The Laureat" says: "The Things he calls Verses, carry the most evident Marks of their Parent Colley."—p. 24.
[48] A Line in the Epilogue to the Nonjuror.
[49] This allusion to time shows that Cibber began his "Apology" about 1737.
[50] Fielding has many extremely good attacks on Cibber's style and language. ”

“ To this Duke, a dull Earl once expressed his opinion that Mr. Cibber was not sufficiently "good company" for his grace. "He is good enough for me," said the Duke; "but I can believe that he would not suit you." A peer who, at least, had wit enough to enjoy Quin's society, had the ill-manners to say, "What a pity it is, Mr. Quin, you are an actor!" "Why," said ever-ready James, "what would you have me be?—A lord?" Cibber, like Quin, was proud of his vocation. Colley originated nearly eighty characters during his career, from 1691 to his retirement in 1733. ”

“ Colley Cibber, actor and dramatist, was born in 1671. He was admirable alike as an actor of comic parts and a critic of acting, and some of his comedies are excellent. In 1714 Cibber became associated with Steele in the management of Drury Lane Theatre. After his retirement from the stage in 1733 he published his famous "Apology" (1740) . He died in 1757. Steele wrote several times in his praise in the Spectator (Nos. 370, 546) . ”

“ Colley Cibber, an Author, and an Actor, of a good share of Wit and uncommon Vivacity, which are much improv’d by the Conversation he enjoys, which is of the best,” &c.
Then say you,
“Mr. Jacob omitted to remark, that he is particularly admirable in Tragedy.”
Ay, Sir, and your Remark has omitted too, that (with all his Commendations) I can’t dance upon the Rope, or make a Saddle, nor play upon the Organ.—Augh! my dear, dear Mr. Pope! how could a Man of your stinging Capacity let so tame, so low a Reflexion escape him? ”

“ Colley Cibber denied her any 'greater claim to beauty than what the most desirable brunette might pretend to,' but states that 'it was even a fashion among the gay and young to have a taste or tendre for Mrs. Bracegirdle.' She inspired the best authors to write for her, and two of them, Congreve and Rowe, 'when they gave her a lover, in her play, seemed palpably to plead their own passion, and made their private court to her in fictitious character.' Aston, bitter in tongue as he ordinarily is, shared his father's belief in her purity, and has left a sufficiently tempting picture of her. ”

“ Now George—being an Indian, being a Paiute—had never heard of Colley Cibber, else he might have been [103] reminded that “we shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman—scorned! slighted! dismissed without a parting pang.” Neither did George—being a Paiute Indian—know the meaning of the word “Nemesis.”
That was more than twenty years ago; and for more than twenty years the woman, Sophy, made his life a series of persecutions. If he builded aught at the camp, it was torn down; what he raised in his garden was destroyed ”

“ In 1706 Cibber left Drury Lane for the Haymarket, but when the two companies united two years later he rejoined his old theatre through the influence of his friend Colonel Brett, a shareholder. Brett made over his share to Wilks, Estcourt and Cibber. Complaints against the management of Christopher Rich led, in 1709, to the closing of the theatre by order of the crown, and William Collier obtained the patent. After a series of intrigues Collier was bought out by Wilks, Doggett and Cibber, under whose management Drury Lane became more prosperous than it ever had been. ”

“ But [Pg 66] if Solitude pleases you, who shall say you are not in the right to enjoy it? Perhaps too, by this time you may be upon a par with Mankind, and care as little for their Company as they do for Yours: Though I rather hope you have chosen to be so shut up, in order to make yourself a better Man. If you succeed in that, you will indeed be, what no body else, in haste will be, A better Poet, than you Are. And so, Sir, I am, just as much as you believe me to be,
Your Humble Servant,
Colley Cibber. ”

“ It is possible that Stevenson's words here are an unconscious reminiscence of Colley Cibber's letter to the novelist Richardson. This unabashed old profligate celebrated the Christmas Day of his eightieth year by writing to the apostle of domestic virtue in the following strain: "Though Death has been cooling his heels at my door these three weeks, I have not had time to see him. The daily conversation of my friends has kept me so agreeably alive, that I have not passed my time better a great while. If you have a mind to make one of us, I will order Death to come another day." ”

“ When Garrick commenced his career as actor, he was twenty-five years of age, and, according to Pond's portrait, a very handsome fellow. In the first burst of his triumph, Cibber thought the new player "well enough," but Foote, with the malice that was natural to him, remarked, "Yes, the hound has something clever, but if his excellence was to be examined, he would not be found in any part equal to Colley Cibber's Sir John Brute, Lord Foppington, Sir Courtly Nice, or Justice Shallow." ”

“ In 1757 he succeeded Colley Cibber as Poet Laureate. He wrote plays of only moderate quality, including The Roman Father and Creusa, tragedies, and The School for Lovers, a comedy; also poems, The Enthusiast and Variety. ”

“ The mob, indeed, loved a riot quite as dearly as the "quality," and were especially ungallant to the aspiring young ladies on the stage. West's tragedy of "Hecuba" entirely failed at Drury Lane, in 1726, through the Vandalism of the galleries, who, as capricious as my lords below, hissed the "young actresses" from beginning to end; and yet those "young actresses" were Mrs. Cibber, and other "darlings" of the town.
Colley Cibber once pleaded the gracious presence of a prince in order to win propriety of conduct from an audience; at other times, the more gracious presence of a poet won respect. ”

“ Mrs. Wilks retained her share, but Mrs. Booth had sold her remaining half-share to Hen259ry Giffard, [202] the manager of Goodman's Fields Theatre, at which, eight years later, Garrick made his first appearance. Highmore had scarcely entered upon his fuller authority when a revolt was spirited up among his actors, the chief of whom left him in a body to open the little theatre in the Haymarket. Shameful to relate, the ringleader in this mutiny was Theophilus Cibber; and, what is still more disgraceful, Colley Cibber lent them his active countenance. ”

“ He once cut Dean Swift dead at a fashionable gathering—the doughty Dean, who delighted in making men and women alike crawl to him—and this won him the admiration of Colley Cibber, who immortalized the scene in a sonnet. People liked Handel, or they did not, and among the Old Guard who stood by him, let these names, among others, be remembered: Colley Cibber, Gay, Arbuthnot, Pope, Hogarth, Fielding and Smollett.
People who through incapacity are unable to comprehend or appreciate music, are prone to wax facetious over it—the feeble joke is the last resort of the man who268 does not understand. ”

“ Colley Cibber's account here inserted, who was well qualified to judge, and who, in his History of the Stage, has drawn the most striking pictures that ever were exhibited; even the famous lord Clarendon, whose great excellence is characterising, is not more happy in that particular, than the Laureat; no one can read his portraits of the players, without imagining he sees the very actors before his eyes, their air, their attitudes, their gesticulations.
Mr. Betterton was a man of great study and application ”

“ On 2 July 1737 there appeared in the ‘Craftsman’ an ironical letter purporting to come from Colley Cibber, the poet laureate, in which it was suggested that the new act for licensing plays should be extended to old as well as new works, and pointed out that there was a good deal which might be construed as seditious in the works of Shakespeare and other writers. ”