"Ramble. Ay, marry, that Play was the Philosopher's Stone; I think it did wonders.
Sullen. It did so, and very deservedly; there being few Comedies that came up to't for purity of Plot, Manners and Moral: It's often acted now a daies, and by the help of the Author's own good action, it pleases to this Day."
[ [241] Davies ("Dram. Misc.," iii. 437) says: "So little was hoped from the genius of Cibber, that the critics reproached him with stealing his play. To his censurers he makes a serious defence of himself, in his dedication to Richard Norton, Esq., of Southwick, a gentleman who was so fond of stage-plays and players, that he has been accused of turning his chapel into a theatre. The furious John Dennis, who hated Cibber for obstructing, as he imagined, the progress of his tragedy called the Invader of his Country, in very passionate terms denies his claim to this comedy: 'When the Fool in Fashion was first acted (says the critic) Cibber was hardly twenty years of age—how could he, at the age of twenty, write a comedy with a just design, distinguished characters, and a proper dialogue, who now, at forty, treats us with Hibernian sense and Hibernian English?'"
[ [242] This same accusation was made against Cibber on other occasions. Dr. Johnson, referring to one of these, said: "There was no reason to believe that the Careless Husband was not written by himself."—Boswell's Johnson, ii. 340.
[ [243] "The Relapse; or, Virtue in Danger," was produced at Drury Lane in 1697. Cibber's part in it, Lord Foppington, became one of his most famous characters. The "Comparison between the two Stages," p. 32, says: "Oronoko, Æsop, and Relapse are Master-pieces, and subsisted Drury-lane House, the first two or three Years."
[ [244] "The Provoked Wife" was produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1697; and, as Cibber states, "Æsop" was played at Drury Lane in the same year. It seems (see Prologue to "The Confederacy") that Vanbrugh gave his first three plays as presents to the Companies.
[ [245] "Comparison between the two Stages," p. 12: "In the meantime the Mushrooms in Drury-Lane shoot up from such a desolate Fortune into a considerable Name; and not only grappled with their Rivals, but almost eclipst 'em."
[ [246] The last performance of this comedy which Genest indexes was at Covent Garden, 14th February, 1763.
[ [247] Davies ("Dram. Misc.," iii. 469) says: "The truth is, Cibber was endured, in this and other tragic parts, on account of his general merit in comedy;" and the author of "The Laureat," p. 41, remarks: "I have often heard him blamed as a Trifler in that Part; he was rarely perfect, and, abating for the Badness of his Voice and the Insignificancy and Meanness of his Action, he did not seem to understand either what he said or what he was about."
[ [248] "The Laureat," p. 44: "Whatever the Actors appear"d upon the Stage, they were most of them Barbarians off on't, few of them having had the Education, or whose Fortunes could admit them to the Conversation of Gentlemen."
[ [249] Davies praises Cibber in Fondlewife, saying that he "was much and justly admired and applauded" ("Dram. Misc.," iii. 391); and in the same work (i. 306) he gives an admirable sketch of Cibber as Justice Shallow:—