own strength, was hushed in death. After a short illness she died on 30 Jan. 1766 at her house in Scotland Yard, Westminster, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. When Garrick heard of her death, he exclaimed, 'Then tragedy is dead on one side,' and in his prologue to his own and Colman's 'Clandestine Marriage,' produced in 1766, he paid a grateful tribute to her memory, coupling it with that of Quin, who had died only nine days before her. She appears in the list of dramatic writers as the authoress of a comedy in one act, called 'The Oracle,' produced in 1752.
[Biographia Dramatica; Charles Dibdin's Professional Life; Victor's History of the Theatres of London; Memoirs of Tate Wilkinson; Dr. Burney's Memoirs; Genest's History of the English Stage; Davies's Life of Garrick and Dramatic Miscellanies; The Dramatic Censor; Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.]
CIBBER, THEOPHILUS (1703–1758), actor and playwright, a son of Colley Cibber [q. v.], was born on 26 Nov. 1703, received his education at Winchester College, and made his first appearance on the stage in 1721, when he played the part of Daniel in the 'Conscious Lovers' at Drury Lane. Possessing considerable ability, and aided both by his father's influence and the patronage of Steele, he came quickly into favour with the public. 'The features of his face,' says Baker, 'were rather disgusting,' and his voice was peculiarly shrill; but these defects were largely balanced by his knowledge of stage business and his vivacity of manner. From 1 Sept. 1731 to 1 June 1732 he was a patentee of Drury Lane Theatre in the place of Colley Cibber, who had delegated the office to his son for 442l. At the end of that period Colley Cibber sold his patent, and the younger Cibber migrated to the little theatre in the Haymarket. In 1733 Cibber took the part of Bajazet in Rowe's 'Tamerlane' at Bartholomew Fair. His first wife, an actress of some slight distinction (Jenny Johnson), died in that year, leaving two daughters; and in April 1734 he married Susannah Maria Arne [see Cibber, Susannah Maria], then known only as a singer, but afterwards very famous as an actress. He returned in 1734 to Drury Lane, where for some time he was acting-manager. Pecuniary difficulties, caused by his incurable habits of extravagance, induced him to take a journey into France early in 1738 in order to be out of the reach of his creditors. Returning in the winter, he brought an action against a country gentleman named Sloper for criminal conversation with Mrs. Cibber. He claimed 5,000l., but the jury assessed the damages at 10l., as it was clearly established, in course of evidence, that Cibber had connived at the intimacy. In the following year he brought another action against Sloper for detaining Mrs. Cibber; he claimed 10,000l. damages, but was awarded only a twentieth part of that amount. About this time he entertained the notion of publishing by subscription his autobiography. His proposal had barely been laid before the public when there appeared 'An Apology for the Life of Mr. T… C… supposed to be written by himself,' London, 1740, a caustic review (ascribed to Fielding) of a not too reputable career. 'Who the low rogue of an author was,' wrote Cibber thirteen years afterwards (Lives and Characters of the most Eminent Actors), 'I could never learn.' When this 'Apology' was published, Cibber abandoned his project, and returned (he assures us) the subscriptions that he had received. In 1741-2 he was playing at Drury Lane, and in 1742-3 at Lincoln's Inn Fields. His services were engaged in the summer of 1743 at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, on which occasion he had a lively passage of arms with Thomas Sheridan. The dispute, which passed into a paper war, arose from Sheridan's refusal to act the part of Cato in Addison's play (Cibber personating Syphax) on finding that he was unable to obtain a certain robe that he considered indispensable to the part. In 1744 Cibber acted at the Haymarket, and from 1745 to 1749 at Covent Garden. Among his most successful characters were Lord Foppington in the 'Careless Husband,' Sir Francis Wronghead in the 'Provoked Husband,' Abel in the 'Committee,' and Ancient Pistol. In 1753 he published 'The Lives and Characters of the most Eminent Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and Ireland,' part i., to which is prefixed A Familiar Epistle...to Mr. William Warburton,' 8vo. In the introduction he states that he intended to write 'a regular account of the English and Irish stage with the lives of the deceased actors of whom I can speak more fully from the year 1720.' Part i., which contained a life of Barton Booth, was the beginning and the end of this undertaking. The epistle to Warburton was an answer to Warburton's attacks on Colley Cibber in the notes to the 'Dunciad.' In 1753 appeared 'An Account of the Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland,' 5 vols. 12mo, with the name of 'Mr. Cibber' on the title-page of the first volume, and with Theophilus Cibber's name attached to the later volumes. Dr. Johnson told Boswell that Cibber, who was then in the king's bench, accepted ten guineas from the book-
