In this same volume[5] it is stated that the failure of the piece was one of the potent causes of the dissolution of the Drury Lane company, though this seems an exaggeration, as does also the effect on Cibber that is ascribed to the failure.
Cibber denies[6] that he had anything to do with the suppression of the second part of The Beggar’s Opera, and gives as his reason for writing that he thought something written in the same form, but recommending virtue and innocence instead of vice and wickedness, “might not have a less pretence to favor.”
The Temple of Dullness (1745), which The Biographia Dramatica[7] states had been ascribed to Cibber, is in two acts of two scenes each, the second scene of each act being the comic “interlude” of Theobald’s Happy Captive (1741). These two scenes have as their principal characters, Signor Capochio and Signora Dorinna.[8] The other two scenes, which give the principal title to the piece, are based, as is stated in the preface, on the fact that Pope in The Dunciad makes the Goddess of Dullness preside over Italian operas. It is inconceivable that either Cibber or Theobald would have based anything of the sort on a hint from The Dunciad and complacently given the credit to Pope, after the way they had both been handled in The Dunciad. There is nothing on the title page to indicate that Cibber had anything to do with the piece. The ascription of the authorship of The Temple of Dullness to Cibber seems to be without foundation, and the probability is that this piece was composed by a third person soon after Theobald’s death, which occurred about four months before it was acted.[9]
Concerning Capochio and Dorinna, The Biographia Dramatica has the following note: “A piece with this title, but without a date, is, in Mr. Barker’s catalogue, ascribed to Colley Cibber. It was probably an abridgment from The Temple of Dullness.” This statement concerning the source of Capochio and Dorinna would seem plausible from the supplementary title of The Temple of Dullness,—With the Humours of Signor Capochio and Signora Dorinna. Capochio and Dorinna is no doubt the two scenes from Theobald’s The Happy Captive which had been used in The Temple of Dullness, as is stated above.
Cibber’s operatic writings belong chiefly to the English type of pastoral drama, rather than to the type of Italian opera. In fact, they are not operas either in the Italian or in the modern sense, but are rather plays interspersed with songs appropriate to the characters who sing them. They show the common characteristics of the pastoral drama of the time.[10] They possess the court element, have the same plot devices, and their characters belong to the same general types. It is noticeable that Cibber here, as well as in his comedies, arrays himself with the moralists, as is seen in his introduction of a moral purpose in Love in a Riddle. These pieces are in verse of varying meters. In Venus and Adonis and Myrtillo there is apparent imitation of the versification of Dryden’s Alexander’s Feast; in Love in a Riddle and Damon and Phillida the dialogue is in blank verse, but in neither case is the verse inspired.
His operas are neither intrinsically nor historically important; they are merely representative of a vogue which was popular but which left no permanent impress on the English drama.
3. Tragedies.
Cibber’s seven tragedies appeared in the following order: Xerxes, 1699; his adaptation of Shakspere’s Richard III, 1700; Perolla and Izadora, 1705; the three translations of Corneille, Ximena, acted 1712, but not published until 1719, Cinna’s Conspiracy, 1713, and Caesar in Egypt, 1725; and finally Papal Tyranny, an adaptation of Shakspere’s King John, 1745. The best stage play is Richard III, but those that make the most agreeable reading are the alterations of Corneille.
Xerxes (1699), which was a failure, belongs to the type of the tragedies of the last decade of the century, in which the material of the heroic play is handled in blank verse, in which there is no comedy, and in which there is in general a following of French models.[11] In its presentation of a story of distressed womanhood, it allies itself with the sentimental tragedy of the school of Southerne and Otway. In its use of the supernatural, in its puerile use of claptrap, and in the bombast and extravagance of emotion, it follows the general usage of the tragedies of the time.
When it was written Cibber was one of the company at Drury Lane, but the play was refused there, and was accepted at Lincoln’s Inn Fields only when Cibber guaranteed the expenses of the production. Notwithstanding the fact that two such great actors as Betterton and Mrs. Barry were in the cast, the play was a failure.[12]