He only stole the play;—he writ the title-page."
[ [142] Genest says it was acted twenty-three times.
[ [143] Genest remarks (ii. 616) that "Cibber deserved all the abuse and enmity that he met with—the Stage and the Pulpit ought NEVER to dabble in politics."
Theo. Cibber, in a Petition to the King, given in his "Dissertations" (Letter to Garrick, p. 29), says that his father's "Writings, and public Professions of Loyalty, created him many Enemies, among the Disaffected."
[ [144] "Mist's Weekly Journal" was an anti-Hanoverian sheet, which was prominent in opposition to the Protestant Succession. Nathaniel Mist, the proprietor, and, I suppose, editor, suffered sundry pains and penalties for his Jacobitism. In his Preface to the second volume of "Letters" selected from his paper, he relates how he had, among other things, suffered imprisonment and stood in the pillory.
[ [145] There can be little doubt that the "Nonjuror" was one of the causes of Pope's enmity to Cibber. Pope's father was a Nonjuror. See "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," where the poet says of his father:—
"No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dar'd an oath, nor hazarded a lie."
[ [146] Produced 10th January, 1728. See vol. i. p. 311, for list of characters, &c.
[ [147] Meaning, no doubt, that the post of Poet Laureate was given to him as a reward for his services to the Government.