opened obsequiously to him; they then passed through a dismal passage,
and suddenly emerged upon that scene of enchantment, the stage--a dirty
platform encumbered on all sides with piles of scenery in flats. They
threaded their way through rusty velvet actors and fustian carpenters,
and entered the green-room. At the door of this magic chamber Vane
trembled and half wished he could retire. They entered; his apprehension
gave way to disappointment, she was not there. Collecting himself, he was
presently introduced to a smart, jaunty, and, to do him justice,
_distingue_ old beau. This was Colley Cibber, Esq., poet laureate, and
retired actor and dramatist, a gentleman who is entitled to a word or
two.

This Cibber was the only actor since Shakespeare's time who had both
acted and written well. Pope's personal resentment misleads the reader of
English poetry as to Cibber's real place among the wits of the day.

The man's talent was dramatic, not didactic, or epic, or pastoral. Pope
was not so deep in the drama as in other matters, and Cibber was one of
its luminaries; be wrote some of the best comedies of his day. He also
succeeded where Dryden, for lack of true dramatic taste, failed. He
tampered successfully with Shakespeare. Colley Cibber's version of
"Richard the Third" is impudent and slightly larcenic, but it is
marvelously effective. It has stood a century, and probably will stand
forever; and the most admired passages in what literary humbugs who
pretend they know Shakespeare by the closet, not the stage, accept as
Shakespeare's " Richard," are Cibber's.

Mr. Cibber was now in private life, a mild edition of his own Lord
Foppington; he had none of the snob-fop as represented on our
conventional stage; nobody ever had, and lived. He was in tolerably good