That made a Consul of a Horse,
And this a Laureate of an Ass."
In "The Egotist: or, Colley upon Cibber," p. 49, Cibber is made to say: "An Ode is a Butt, that a whole Quiver of Wit is let fly at every Year!"
[ [47] "The Laureat" says: "The Things he calls Verses, carry the most evident Marks of their Parent Colley."—p. 24.
[ [48] A Line in the Epilogue to the Nonjuror.
[ [49] This allusion to time shows that Cibber began his "Apology" about 1737.
[ [50] Fielding has many extremely good attacks on Cibber's style and language. For instance:—
"I shall here only obviate a flying Report ... that whatever Language it was writ in, it certainly could not be English.... Now I shall prove it to be English in the following Manner. Whatever Book is writ in no other Language, is writ in English. This Book is writ in no other Language, Ergo, It is writ in English."—"Champion," 22nd April, 1740.
Again ("Joseph Andrews," book iii. chap. vi.), addressing the Muse or Genius that presides over Biography, he says: "Thou, who, without the assistance of the least spice of literature, and even against his inclination, hast, in some pages of his book, forced Colley Cibber to write English."
[ [51] In later editions the expression was changed to "She here outdid her usual excellence."