had not been too powerful for his
understanding_, that from a contention like his with Cibber, the world
seeks nothing but diversion, which is given at the expense of the higher
character." Pope had no contention with Cibber. Two or three times he
had dropped him a blistering word of contempt--once a word of praise to
the _Careless Husband_. But now Pope eyed the brazen bully, and saw in
him the proper hero of the Dunciad. Theobald vacated the throne, and
retired into private life. Cibber was made to reign in his stead--and in
the lines written by Pope on the coronation, the monarch's character is
drawn, if we mistake not, in a style that sufficiently vindicates the
Poet from the Doctor's charge, "that his passion had been too powerful
for his understanding." True, "the world seeks diversion," and she had
it here to her heart's content; but not from any undignified
"contention" with Cibber, which Pope disdained, but from matchless
poetry that "damned to everlasting fame." "Cibber," says Johnson, "had
nothing to lose. When Pope had exhausted all his malignity upon him, he
would rise in the esteem both of his friends and his enemies." Cibber,
then, in the Dunciad, had a triumph over Pope!! Good.

But how, you ask, did Pope contrive to place Cibber in Theobald's shoes,
without injury to the rest of the poem? Why, he did not place Cibber in
Theobald's shoes. Theobald walked off in his shoes into the shades.
Samuel says, that by the substitution, Pope has "depraved his
poem"--inasmuch as he has given to Cibber the "old books, the cold
pedantry and sluggish pertinacity of Theobald." That is not true.
Compare the places in the original Dunciad, in which Theobald figures at
large, with that now filled by Cibber, and you will admire by what
wizard power the transformation is effected. Many lines, far too good to
be lost, are retained--and among them there may be a few more
characteristic of the old Dunce than the new. But Cibber is Cibber all
over--notwithstanding; nor needed Joseph Warton, who was as ready to
indulge in a nap as any one we have known, to object that "to slumber in
the goddess's lap was adapted to Theobald's stupidity, not to the
vivacity of his successor." Pope knew better--

"Dulness with transport eyes the lively Dunce,
Remember she herself was Pertness once."

Here he comes.

"In each she marks her image full exprest,
But chief in Bayes's monster-breeding breast;
Bayes, form'd by Nature