While praising others he is ever ready to disparage himself; and he as heartily ridicules his insufficient voice, his meagre person, and his pallid complexion, as any enemy might have done for him. He exalts the spirit, ease, and readiness of Vanbrugh, and denounces the puerility and frothy stage-language of his own earlier dramas, accepting heartily Congreve's judgment on "Love's Last Shift," which "had in it a great many things that were like wit, that in reality were not wit." He courageously pronounces the condemnation of his "Love in a Riddle," to be the just judgment of an enlightened audience. In the casting of a play, Colley was contented to take any part left to him, after the other great men had picked, chosen, rejected, and settled for themselves; and a couple of subordinate characters in the "Pilgrim" were as readily undertaken by him and as carefully acted as his Richard, Sir Francis, or Master Slender.
To his own alteration of Shakspeare's "Richard III.," he alludes with some diffidence. There is no trace of self-complacency in his remarks. Colley's adversaries, however, have denounced him for this act as virulently as if he had committed a great social crime. But whatever may be said as to our old friend's "mangling of Shakspeare," the piece which he so mangled has ever since kept the stage, and it is Cibber's and not Shakspeare's "Richard" which is acted by many of our chief players, who have the coolness, at the same time, to protest that their reverence for Shakspeare's text is a pure homage rendered to a divine inspiration.
There were actors of Cibber's days who disliked to play villains like Richard, lest the audience should mistake the counterfeit for the real character. But if people thought Cibber vicious because he played a vicious fellow to the life, he took it as a compliment. His voice was certainly too weak and piping for tragedy, but as he philosophically remarks, "If the multitude were not in a roar, to see me in Cardinal Wolsey, I could be sure of them in Alderman Fondlewife. If they hated me in Iago, in Sir Fopling they took me for a fine gentleman. If they were silent at Syphax, no Italian Eunuch was more applauded than I when I sung in Sir Courtly. If the morals of Æsop were too grave for them, Justice Shallow was as simple and as merry an old rake as the wisest of our young ones could wish me."
Cibber had a fine perception of the good and the true. That the "Beggar's Opera" should beat "Cato" by a run of forty nights does not induce him to believe that any man would be less willing to be accounted the author of the tragedy than of the opera, the writer of which, he says with some humour, "I knew to be an honest, good-natured man, and who, when he had descended to write more like one in the cause of virtue, had been as unfortunate as others of that class."
Colley had quite as just a perception of the different value of fair and unfair criticism. Of theatrical criticism, in the proper sense of the word, there was, in those days, none. But this lack of effective criticism was not caused by incapacity for the task on the part of writers; as may be seen in the admirable critical sketches in Cibber's "Life." Indeed, the capability existed from a remote period,—a fact acknowledged by those who have read Sir Thomas Overbury's finished summary of the character of an "Actor."
In place of criticism, however, there was a system of assault by the means of unfounded reports. Mist's Journal was foremost in attacking Cibber and his colleagues, but "they hardly ever hit upon what was really wrong in us," says Colley, who took these would-be damaging paragraphs, founded upon hearsay, with perfect indifference. Wilks and Booth were much more sensitive, and preferred that public answer should be made; but Cibber, secure, perhaps too secure, he says, in his contempt for such writers, would not consent to this. "I know of but one way to silence authors of that stamp," he says, "which was, to grow insignificant and good for nothing, and then we should hear no more of them. But while we continued in the prosperity of pleasing others, and were not conscious of having deserved what they said of us, why should we gratify the little spleen of our enemies, by wincing to it, or give them fresh opportunities to dine upon any reply they might make to our publicly taking notice of them?"
Cibber cared not for Mist's Journal while such a man as Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, made a friend of him. To this Duke, a dull Earl once expressed his opinion that Mr. Cibber was not sufficiently "good company" for his grace. "He is good enough for me," said the Duke; "but I can believe that he would not suit you." A peer who, at least, had wit enough to enjoy Quin's society, had the ill-manners to say, "What a pity it is, Mr. Quin, you are an actor!" "Why," said ever-ready James, "what would you have me be?—A lord?" Cibber, like Quin, was proud of his vocation. Colley originated nearly eighty characters during his career, from 1691 to his retirement in 1733. Among them are the grand old fops, the crafty or the inane old men, the dashing soldier, and the impudent lacquey. In tragedy, he was nearly always wrong. Of middle size, fair complexion, and with a shrill voice, apt to crack, and therefore to make him ridiculous in serious parts, he was, of "shape, a little clumsy," says one sketcher of his character,—while "his shape was finely proportioned," is the account of a second. Mr. Urban says that when Cibber had to represent ridiculous humour, there was a mouth in every nerve, and he was eloquent, though mute. "His attitudes were pointed and exquisite; his expression was stronger than painting; he was beautifully absorbed by the character, and demanded and monopolised attention; his very extravagances were coloured with propriety." That the public highly appreciated him is clear from the enthusiasm with which they hailed his occasional returns to the stage, between 1733 and 1745, when he finally withdrew, after acting Pandulph in his "Papal Tyranny." His Shallow, in those occasional days, was especially popular. "His transition from asking the price of ewes, to trite but grave reflections on mortality, was so natural, and attended by such an unmeaning roll of his small pigs'-eyes, that perhaps no actor was ever superior in the conception and execution of such solemn insignificancy."
The general idea of Cibber has been fixed by the abuse and slander of Pope. In the dissensions of these two men, Cibber had the advantage of an adversary who keeps his temper while he sharpens his wit, and maintains self-respect while courteously crushing his opponent;[81] but even Pope, who so hated Cibber, could praise the "Careless Husband;" and a man, lauded by Pope, who detested him; by Walpole, who despised players; and by Johnson, who approved of his "Apology," must have been superior to many of his contemporaries. He wrote the best comedy of his time, was the only adapter of Shakspeare's plays whose adaptation survives—to show his superiority, if not over the original poet, at least over all other adapters; and of all borrowers from the French, not one reaped such honour and profit as he did by his "Nonjuror," which also still lives in "The Hypocrite." Of all English managers, he was the most successful and prosperous—only to be approached in later days by Garrick. Of all English actors, he is the only one who was ever promoted to the laureateship, or elected a member of White's Club. None laughed louder than he did at the promotion, or at those friends of his to whom it gave unmixed dissatisfaction. If a sarcasm was launched at him from the stage, on this account, he was the first to recognise it, by his hilarity, in the boxes. Further, when necessity compelled him to plead in person in a suit at the bar, his promptitude, eloquence, and modest bearing, crowned by success, demonstrated what he might have accomplished, had he been destined to wear the wig and gown. To sum up all—after more than forty years of labour, not unmixed by domestic troubles, he retired, with an ample fortune, to enjoy which he had nearly a quarter of a century before him. Such a man was sure to be both hated and envied—though only by a few.
Of Cibber's being elected to White's Club House, Davies sneeringly remarks:—"And so, I suppose, might any man be who wore good clothes, and paid his money when he lost it. He fared most sumptuously with Mr. Arthur (the proprietor) and his wife, and gave a trifle for his dinner. After he had dined, when the club-room door was opened, and the laureate was introduced, he was saluted with the loud and joyous acclamation of, 'Oh, King Coll! come in, King Coll! Welcome, King Colley!' And this kind of gratulation," adds Davies, "Mr. Victor thought was very gracious and very honourable!" Considering the time, about 1733, such a greeting had nothing offensive in it. If there had been, Cibber was just the man to resent it, at the sore cost of the offender, whether the latter were Chesterfield or Devonshire, Cholmondeley or Rockingham, Sir John Cope, Mrs. Oldfield's General Churchill, or, the last man likely to be so audacious—Bubb Doddington himself.
Among them all, Colley kept his own to the last. A short time before that last hour arrived, Horace Walpole hailed him, on his birthday, with a good morrow, and "I am glad, sir, to see you looking so well." "Egad, sir," replied the old gentleman—all diamonded, and powdered, and dandified, "at eighty-four, it's well for a man that he can look at all." Therein lay one point of Cibber's character,—the making the best of circumstances.