s have lived the longer for my meddling with them." He
mentions several, which "had been dead to the stage out of all
memory, which have since been in a constant course of acting
above these thirty or forty years." And then he adds: "Do
those altered plays at all take from the merit of those _more
successful pieces_, which were _entirely my own_?--When a man
is abused, he has a right to speak even laudable truths of
himself, to confront his slanderer. Let me therefore add, that
my first Comedy of _The Fool in Fashion_ was as much (though
not so valuable) an original, as any work Mr. Pope himself has
produced. It is now forty-seven years since its first
appearance on the stage, where it has kept its station, to
this very day, without ever lying one winter dormant. Nine
years after this, I brought on _The Careless Husband_, with
still greater success; and was that too

'A patch'd, vamp'd, future, old, revived new piece?'

Let the many living spectators of these plays, then, judge
between us, whether the above verses came from the honesty of
a satirist, who would be thought, like you, the upright censor
of mankind. Sir, this libel was below you! Satire, without
truth, recoils upon its author, and must, at other times,
render him suspected of prejudice, even where he may be just;
as frauds, in religion, make more atheists than converts; and
the bad heart, Mr. Pope, that points an injury with verse,
makes it the more unpardonable, as it is not the result of
sudden passion, but of an indulged and slowly-meditating
ill-nature. What a merry mixed mortal has nature made you,
that can debase that strength and excellence of genius to the
lowest human weakness, that of offering unprovoked injuries,
at the hazard of your being ridiculous too, when the venom you
spit falls short of your aim!" I have quoted largely, to show
that Cibber was capable of exerting a dignified remonstrance,
as well as pointing the lightest, yet keenest, shafts of
sarcastic wit.

[218] Ayre's "Memoirs of Pope," vol. ii. p. 82.

[219] Even the "Grub-street Journal" had its jest on his appointment
to the laureateship. In No. 52 was the following epigram:--

"Well, said Apo