[ [218] This play was produced at Drury Lane, 16th January, 1717; and the performance of "The Rehearsal" referred to took place on the 7th February.
[ [219] The Earl of Warwick was the young nobleman, and it is said in Dillworth's "Life of Pope" that "the late Commissioner Vaughan" was the other gentleman.
[ [220] "But Pope's irascibility prevailed, and he resolved to tell the whole English world that he was at war with Cibber; and, to show that he thought him no common adversary, he prepared no common vengeance; he published a new edition of the 'Dunciad,' in which he degraded Theobald from his painful pre-eminence, and enthroned Cibber in his stead."—Johnson's "Life of Pope."
[ [221] "Unhappily the two heroes were of opposite characters, and Pope was unwilling to lose what he had already written; he has therefore depraved his poem by giving to Cibber the old books, the old pedantry, and the sluggish pertinacity of Theobald."—Johnson's "Life of Pope."
[ [222] See ante, p. 272.
[ [223] It has been generally stated that Cibber died on 12th December, 1757, but "The Public Advertiser" of Monday, 12th December, announces his death as having occurred "Yesterday morning." The "Gentleman's Magazine" and the "London Magazine," in their issues for December, 1757, give the 11th as the date.
[ [224] Mr. Laurence Hutton, in his "Literary Landmarks of London" (p. 54), gives the following interesting particulars regarding Cibber's last resting-place: "Cibber was buried by the side of his father and mother, in a vault under the Danish Church, situated in Wellclose Square, Ratcliff Highway (since named St. George Street). This church, according to an inscription placed over the doorway, was built in 1696 by Caius Gabriel Cibber himself, by order of the King of Denmark, for the use of such of his Majesty's subjects as might visit the port of London. The church was taken down some years ago (1868-70), and St. Paul's Schools were erected on its foundation, which was left intact. Rev. Dan. Greatorex, Vicar of the Parish of St. Paul, Dock Street, in a private note written in the summer of 1883, says:—
"'Colley Cibber and his father and mother were buried in the vault of the old Danish Church. When the church was removed, the coffins were all removed carefully into the crypt under the apse, and then bricked up. So the bodies are still there. The Danish Consul was with me when I moved the bodies. The coffins had perished except the bottoms. I carefully removed them myself personally, and laid them side by side at the back of the crypt, and covered them with earth.'"
[ [225] Shakespeare's "Richard III." was produced at the Lyceum Theatre on 29th January, 1877. It was announced as "strictly the original text, without interpolations, but simply with such omissions and transpositions as have been found essential for dramatic representation." In Richard Mr. Irving's great powers are seen to special advantage.
The cast of Cibber's play in 1700 was—