If so, the other attacks must have been shattering, since they lacked even the surface good humor of Cibber’s Letter. Pope, at any rate, was concerned enough to tell Spence:
The story published by Cibber, as to the main point, is an absolute lie. I do remember that I was invited by Lord Warwick to pass an evening with him. He carried me and Cibber in his coach to a bawdy-house. There was a woman there, but I had nothing to do with her of the kind that Cibber mentions, to the best of my memory—and I had so few things of that kind ever on my hands that I could scarce have forgot it, especially so circumstanced as he pretends.[18]
An answer to the Letter was demanded, and it was not long in coming. In August/September, Pope wrote his friend Hugh Bethel concerning a copy of the New Dunciad he had sent him:
That poem has not done me, or my Quiet, the least harm; only it provokd Cibber to write a very foolish & impudent Letter, which I have no cause to be sorry for, & perhaps next Winter I shall be thought to be glad of: But I lay in my Claim to you, to Testify for me, that if he should chance to die before a New & Improved Edition of the Dunciad comes out, I have already, actually written (before, & not after his death) all I shall ever say about him.[19]
A Cibber-baiting campaign was undertaken by the poet’s friends, and the actor responded with The egoist, in which he defended himself, as in his Apology, by freely admitting his flaws with infuriating complacency. Then a false leaf of the last Dunciad came into his hands (though certainly not directly from Pope), and he published a second, very brief, letter which indicated some stress. Pope knew, and at least tacitly approved, of these tactics, for in February of 1743, he wrote Lord Marchmont:
I won’t publish the fourth Dunciad as ’tis newset till Michaelmas, that we may have time to play Cibber all the while.... He will be stuck, like the man in the almanac, not deep, but all over. He won’t know which way to turn himself to. Exhausted at the first stroke, and reduced to passion and calling names, so that he won’t be able to write more, and won’t be able to bear living without writing.[20]
Copyright difficulties not mentioned by Pope prevented the Michaelmas publication date, but on 29 October 1743, the final Dunciad appeared with its new hero, for all the world to see.
Cibber kept his promise to “have the last word.” Another Letter from Mr. Cibber to Mr. Pope followed the publication of this Dunciad, stating his grievances with somewhat less humor, a number of scatological references, and an accusation against Warburton for instigating the change. Included was a twenty-page aside on the offending Bishop, revealing a startlingly thorough knowledge of his writings. This was the end. Cibber’s friends were eager for him to keep up his side of the battle, but he, having had his say, resumed his good-humor and refused to speak out again.
It has been suggested that Pope may have planned the change in hero earlier, and aimed the New Dunciad with the express purpose of goading Cibber into just such a reply as the Letter. This is, of course, possible, but it cannot be more than speculation; the final Dunciad does show evidence of hasty revision. Pope was severely ill when his last variation on the dunce theme appeared, and the seven months of life remaining to him were clearly not enough to permit him to polish it to the level of perfection customary in his work. But, as Warburton once noted, quality and posterity have awarded Pope the final say:
Quoth Cibber to Pope, Tho’ in Verse you foreclose,
I’ll have the last Word; for by G—, I’ll write prose.
Poor Colly, thy Reas’ning is none of the strongest,
For know, the last Word is the Word that lasts longest.[21]