assured by the Standers by, that _Mercury_ would have taken it off, if
he had seen it."

These attacks in the _Champion_ do not appear to have received any
direct response from Cibber. But they were reprinted in a rambling
production issued from "Curll's chaste press" in 1740, and entitled the
_Tryal of Colley Cibber, Comedian, &c._ At the end of this there is a
short address to "the _Self-dubb'd Captain_ Hercules Vinegar, _alias_
Buffoon," to the effect that "the malevolent Flings exhibited by him and
his Man _Ralph_," have been faithfully reproduced. Then comes the
following curious and not very intelligible "Advertisement:"--

"If the Ingenious _Henry Fielding_ Esq.; (Son of the Hon. Lieut. General
_Fielding_, who upon his Return from his Travels entered himself of the
_Temple_ in order to study the Law, and married one of the pretty Miss
_Cradocks of Salisbury_) will _own_ himself the AUTHOR of 18 strange
Things called Tragical _Comedies_ and Comical _Tragedies_, lately
advertised by _J. Watts_, of _Wild-Court_, Printer, he shall be
_mentioned_ in Capitals in the _Third_ Edition of Mr. CIBBER'S _Life_,
and likewise be placed _among_ the _Poetae minores Dramatici_ of the
Present Age: Then will both his _Name and Writings be remembered on
Record_, in the immortal _Poetical Register_ written by Mr. GILES
JACOB."

The "poetical register" indicated was the book of that name, containing
the _Lives and Characteristics of the English Dramatic Poets_, which Mr.
Giles Jacob, an industrious literary hack, had issued in 1723. Mr.
Lawrence is probably right in his supposition, based upon the foregoing
advertisement, that Fielding "had openly expressed resentment at being
described by Cibber as 'a broken wit,' without being mentioned by name."