A Letter from Mr. Cibber to Mr. Pope

by Colley Cibber

And thought a Lye, in Verse or Prose the same.

Now, Sir, if you can get all your Readers to believe me as Impudent as you make me, your Verse, with the Lye in it, may have a good Chance to be thought true: if not, the Lye in your Verse will never get out of it.

This, I confess, is only arguing with the same Confidence that you sometimes write; that is, we both flatly affirm, and equally expect to be believ’d. But here, indeed, your Talent has something the better of me; for any Accusation, in smooth Verse, will always sound well, though it is not tied down to have a Tittle of Truth in it; when the strongest Defence in poor humble Prose, not having that harmonious Advantage, takes no body by the Ear: And yet every one must allow this may be very hard upon an innocent Man: For suppose, in Prose now, I were as confidently to insist, that you were an Honest, Good-natur’d, Inoffensive Creature, would my barely saying so be any Proof of it? No, sure! Why then might it not be suppos’d an equal Truth, that Both our Assertions were equally false? Yours, when you call me Impudent; Mine, when I call you Modest, &c. If, indeed, you could say, that with a remarkable Shyness, I had avoided any Places of publick Resort, or that I had there met with Coldness, Reproof, Insult, or any of the usual Rebuffs that Impudence is liable to, or had been reduced to retire from that part of the World I had impudently offended, your Cibberian Forehead then might have been as just and as sore a Brand as the Hangman could have apply’d to me. But as I am not yet under that Misfortune, and while the general Benevolence of my Superiors still suffers me to stand my ground, or occasionally to sit down with them, I hope it will be thought that rather the Papal, than the Cibberian Forehead, ought to be out of Countenance. But it is time to have done with you.

In your Advertisement to your first Satyr of your second Book of Horace, you have this just Observation.

To a true Satyrist, nothing is so odious, as a Libeller.

Now, that you are often an admirable Satyrist, no Man of true Taste can deny: But, that you are always a True (that is a just) one, is a Question not yet decided in your Favour. I shall not take upon me to prove the Injuries of your Pen, which many candid Readers, in the behalf of others, complain of: But if the gross things you have said of so inconsiderable a Man as myself, have exceeded the limited Province of a true Satyrist, they are sufficient to have forfeited your Claim to that Title. For if a Man, from his being admitted the best Poet, imagines himself so much lifted above the World, that he has a Right to run a muck, and make sport with the Characters of all Ranks of People, to soil and begrime every Face that is obnoxious to his ungovernable Spleen or Envy: Can so vain, so inconsiderate, so elated an Insolence, amongst all the Follies he has lash’d, and laugh’d at, find a Subject fitter for Satyr than Himself? How many other different good Qualities ought such a Temper to have in Balance of this One bad one, this abuse of his Genius, by so injurious a Pride and Self-sufficiency? And though it must be granted, that a true Genius never grows in a barren Soil, and therefore implies, that great Parts and Knowledge only could have produced it; Yet it must be allow’d too, that the fairest Fruits of the Mind may lose a great deal of their naturally delicious Taste, when blighted by Ill-nature. How strict a Guard then ought the true Satyrist to set upon his private Passions! How clear a Head! a Heart how candid, how impartial, how incapable of Injustice! What Integrity of Life, what general Benevolence, what exemplary Virtues ought that happy Man to be master of, who, from such ample Merit, raises himself to an Office of that Trust and Dignity, as that of our Universal Censor? A Man so qualified, indeed, might be a truly publick Benefit, such a one, and only such a one, might have an uncontested Right——

————To point the Pen,
Brand the bold Front of shameless, guilty Men;
Dash the proud Gamester, in his gilded Car,
Bare the mean Heart that lurks beneath a Star.

But should another (though of equal Genius) whose Mind were either sour’d by Ill-nature, personal Prejudice, or the Lust of Railing, usurp that Province to the Abuse of it. Not all his pompous Power of Verse could shield him from as odious a Censure, as such, his guilty Pen could throw upon the Innocent, or undeserving to be slander’d. What then must be the Consequence? Why naturally this: That such an Indulgence of his Passions, so let loose upon the World, would, at last, reduce him to fly from it! For sure the Avoidance, the Slights, the scouling Eyes of every mixt Company he might fall into, would be a Mortification no vain-glorious Man would stand, that had a Retreat from it. Here then, let us suppose him an involuntary Philosopher, affecting to be——Nunquam minus solus, quam cùm solus——never in better Company than when alone: But as you have well observed in your Essay——

Not always Actions shew the Man—
Not therefore humble He, who seeks Retreat,
Guilt guides his Steps, and makes him shun the Great.

(I beg your Pardon, I have made a Mistake; Your Verse says Pride guides his Steps, &c. which, indeed, makes the Antithesis to Humble much stronger, and more to your Purpose; but it will serve mine as it is, so the Error is scarce worth a Correction.) But to return to our Satyrical Exile,——Whom though we have supposed to be oftner alone, than an inoffensive Man need wish to be; yet we must imagine that the Fame of his Wit would sometimes bring him Company: For Wits, like handsome Women, though they wish one another at the Devil, are my Dear, and my Dear! whenever they meet: Nay some Men are so fond of Wit, that they would mix with the Devil himself if they could laugh with him: If therefore any of this careless Cast came to kill an Hour with him, how would his smiling Verse gloss over the Curse of his Confinement, and with a flowing animated Vanity commemorate the peculiar Honours they had paid him?