To
H. T. Swedenberg, Junior

founder, protector, friend

The verse and emblem are from George Wither, A Collection of Emblems, Ancient and Modern (London, 1635), illustration xxxv, page 35.

The lines of poetry (123-126) are from “To My Honoured Kinsman John Driden,” in John Dryden, The Works of John Dryden, ed. Sir Walter Scott, rev. and corr. George Saintsbury (Edinburgh: William Patterson, 1885), xi, 78.

The Augustan Reprint Society

COLLEY CIBBER

A

LETTER

FROM

Mr. CIBBER

TO

Mr. POPE

(1742)

Introduction by
Helene Koon

PUBLICATION NUMBER 158
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
University of California, Los Angeles
1973

INTRODUCTION

In the twentieth century, Colley Cibber’s name has become synonymous with “fool.” Pope’s Dunciad, the culmination of their long quarrel, has done its work well, and Cibber, now too often regarded merely as a pretentious dunce, has been relegated to an undeserved obscurity.

The history of this feud is replete with inconsistencies.[1] The image Cibber presents of himself as a charming, good-natured, thick-skinned featherbrain is as true as Pope’s of himself as a patient, humorous, objective moralist. Each picture is somewhat manipulated by its creator. The reasons behind the manipulation are less matters of outright untruth than of complex personalities disclosing only what they regard as pertinent. Cibber, the actor, always tries to charm his audience; Pope, the satirist, proffers those aspects best suited to his moral purpose.

Although the fact of their differences is evident in Pope’s writings after 1730, explanations of the cause, continuation and climax tend to be muddled. The cause generally cited is Cibber’s story in the Letter concerning Three Hours after Marriage and The Rehearsal. This is not only a one-sided version, it is not even strongly substantiated. As Norman Ault pointed out, it was not reported in any of the periodicals at a time when such incidents were seized upon by journalists hungry for gossip.[2] The only confirmation aside from Cibber is Montagu Bacon’s letter to his cousin James Montagu, which gives a slightly less vivacious account:

A more likely cause is the second story in the Letter, the visit to the bawdy house. If, as Ault goes on to suggest, there is even a shadow of truth in it, Pope’s attitude, as well as his reluctance to reveal its cause, is understandable. The question then becomes: why did he continually provoke Cibber, knowing the latter had such a story at hand? This, however, might not be so illogical as it appears. Pope’s work in the thirties abounds in sneers at the actor, but none of them is equal in scale to the full attack launched against Theobald. In comparison with the 1735 portraits of Atticus and Sporus, the comments on Cibber are minor barbs that could be ignored by a man whose reputation was secure in its own right. Cibber evidently believed he was in such a position, for he offered no defense before 1740, and took no offensive action before 1742.

The “wicked wasp of Twickenham” is supposed to have meditated long and fiendishly before bursting forth against his enemies, yet the Dunciad of 1728 reveals no evidence of long fermentation. The choice of Theobald as king of the Dunces obviously derives from Shakespeare Restored; or a Specimen of the many errors as well committed as unamended by Mr. Pope, in his late edition of that Poet (1726). Theobald’s remarks on Pope’s slipshod editing of Shakespeare are not couched in diplomatic terms, and would be especially galling if Warburton’s note is true: