C I B 



465 



C I B 



Cibber. 



uc.i dun any other English satirist, but none of that ma- 

 jesty of thought, that pomp of diction, or harmony of 

 numbers, which give the hostility of Dryden in satire the 

 dignity of moral warfare. Cowper gives his character 

 with considerable indulgence, but with some truth, in a 

 passage to his memory. The reader will perhaps need 

 but little criticism to perceive, that there is a confusion 

 of metaphors in Cowper's lines that we allude to, when 

 the poet is first compared to a rider, and, in the next 

 line, placed at his lyre. 



Surly and slovenly, and bold and coarse, 

 Too proud for art, and trusting in mere force ; 

 Spendthrift alike of money and of wit, 

 Always at speed, and never drawing bit. 

 He struck his lyre in such a careless mood, 

 And so disdained the rules he understood- 

 The laurel seemed to wait on his command : 

 He snatched it rudely from the muse's hand. 



w 



CHURN. See DAIRY. 



CHYLE. See ANATOMY, vol. i. p. 730, 801, 822 ; 

 and vol. ii. p. 16. 



GIBBER, COLLEY, an eminent actor and dramatic 

 writer, was born in London on the 6th of November 

 1671, O. S. His father Gabriel Cibber, who was a sta- 

 tuary by profession, came from Holstein to England a 

 little before the restoration, and immortalised himself by 

 the two famous images of raving and melancholy Mad- 

 ness, placed on the piers of the great gate of Bethlehem 

 hospital, and by the basso relievo upon the pedestal of the 

 Monument. 



Young Cibber was sent to the free school of Gran- 

 tham in Lincolnshire at the age of 11, and, after remain- 

 ing there seven years, he stood a candidate for admission 

 into Westminster college. Being disappointed in these 

 views, he was anxious to be sent to one of the English 

 universities, to be educated for the church ; but his fa- 

 ther having taken an active part under the Earl of De- 

 vonshire in the cause of the Prince of Orange, young 

 Cibber repaired to the same standard, and continued for 

 tome time to practise the duties of a soldier. 



As soon as he received his discharge, he became re- 

 markably fond of theatrical exhibitions, and, in the year 

 1689, he came upon the stage for a weekly salary often 

 shillings. Neither his person nor his voice seemed well 

 fitted for any great dramatic effort, and he was accord- 

 ingly employed for a considerable time in the lowest 

 characters. When Queen Mary, ^owever, ordered Con - 

 greve'aDouble Dealer to be acted, Mr Kynastown, who 

 originally played the part of Lord Touchwood, was taken 

 suddenly ill, and upon the recommendation of Congreve, 

 Cibber undertook the character at a very short notice. 

 The ability with which Cibber performed his part, gained 

 him the particular applause of Congreve, who recom- 

 mended him to an increase of salary from 15s. to 20s. per 

 week. About this time, his father settled upon him an 

 annuity of <2Q a year ; and in 1693 he married a Miss 

 Shore, of whose beauty and accomplishments he had been 

 very suddenly enamoured. 



On the opening of Drury-lane theatre in 1695, he 

 wrote an original prologue, which was admitted as the 

 best that had been offered ; but so low was his reputation 

 as an actor, that it was accirpted solely on the condition, 

 that he should relinquish any claim to recite it himself. 



Cibber gained great fame by his performance of 

 Fondlewife, in the Old Bachelor, where he imitated 

 Doggct, the original performer of the part, in the hap- 

 piest and clotest manner ; and his name was raised still 



VOL. VI. PART IF. 



higher by hh first dramatic production, called Ijove'n 

 Last Shift, or the Fool of Fashion, which appeared in 

 169G, and which Lord Dorset, who was then lord cham- 

 berlain, pronounced to be the best play he had ever read. 

 From this time Cibber rose with rapidity in the public 

 estimation. His Woman's Wit, which appeared in 1697, 

 was however ill received. His Xerxes, which was brought 

 out in 1699, was acted only one night ; and his Careless 

 Husband, which appeared in 1704, though by no means 

 a perfect play, has been much admired, and is reckoned 

 his principal comedy. 



In 1711, Cibber became joint manager and patentee of 

 Drury-lane Theatre, along with Collier, Wilkes, and 

 Dogget ; and, in 1717, he brought forward his comedy 

 of the Nonjurors, which, being levelled against the Jaco- 

 bite party, was acted for eighteen successive nights, and 

 obtained for him from the king L. 200, and the office of 

 poet-laureat. In 1740, he published An Apology for the 

 Life of Mr Colley Cibber, Comedian, with an Histori- 

 cal View of the Stage during his own time : a very lively 

 and entertaining work. In 1745, when he was in hi> 

 seventy-fifth year, he acted with great spirit the charac- 

 ter of Pandulph, the pope's legate, in the new tragedy 

 written by himself, and entitled Papal Tyranny in the 

 Reign of King John. The last of Cibber's literary la- 

 bours, was a work entitled Remarkt on Middleton's Life 

 of Cicero, which was published in 1747, and which add- 

 ed nothing to his fame. Worn out with years. Cibber 

 died suddenly on the 12th December 1757, in the 

 eighty-seventh year of his age. His man-servant had 

 talked with him at 6 o'clock in the morning, when ho 

 apparently enjoyed his usual health ; tut, at 9 o'clock, 

 he found he had expired, in the same position in which 

 he had left him. Cibber left behind him a son and a 

 daughter, both of whom disgraced the memory of their 

 father. 



In his dramatic character, Cibber has drawn a very 

 faithful picture of himself, which we shall give in his 

 own words : " I was vain enough to think," says he, 

 " that I had more ways than one to come at applause, 

 and that, in the variety of characters I acted, the chances 

 to win it were the strongest on my side. That if the 

 multitude were not in a roar to see me in Cardinal Wol- 

 aey, 1 would be sure of them in Alderman Fondlewife. 

 If they hated me in lago, in Sir Fopling they took me 

 for a fine gentleman. If they were silent in Syphax, no 

 Italian eunuch was more applauded than I when I sung 

 in Sir Courtly. If the morals of JEsop were too grave 

 for them, Justice Shallow was as simple and as merry an 

 old rake as the wisest of our young ones could wish me ; 

 and, though the terror and detestation raised by King 

 Richard might be too severe a delight for them, yet the 

 more gentle and modern vanities of a Poet Bayes, or the 

 well bred vices of a Lord Fopling, were not at all more 

 than their merry hearts or nicer murals could bear." 



Besides his two Letters to Pope, his Apology for 

 his own Life, and his Remarks on Middleton's Life of 

 Cicero, Cibber wrote the following dramatic pieces : 

 1. Love's last Shift, 1697; 2. Woman's Wit, 1697,- 

 3. Xerxes, 1699; 4. Love makes a Man, 1700; 5. King 

 Richard the Third, 1700; 6. She mould, and s/ic MM 

 not, 1703; 7. Careless Husband, 1704; 8. Petolla and 

 Izidora, 1706; 9. Schoolboi/, 1707; 10. Comical IA- 

 rers, 1707; 11. Double lial'lant, 1707; 12. Lady's last 

 State, 1708; 13. Rival Fools, 1709; 14. Venus and 

 Adonis, 1715; 15. Myrtillo, 1715; 16. Nonjuror, 1718; 

 17. Ximena, 1719; 18. Refusal, 1720; 19. Hob, or the 

 Country Wake, 1720; '20. Casar in Egypt, 1725; 21. 

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C'jbbe-. 



