sellers for allowing them to prefix his name to the lives, and that he had no hand in the authorship of the book, which was mainly written by Robert Shiels (Johnson's amanuensis); but the truth is that Gibber revised and improved the whole work and wrote some of the lives himself, receiving from the booksellers an honorarium of twenty guineas (Boswell's, Johnson, ed. Croker, 1848, pp. 504, 818). The book is largely based on earlier compilations by Langbaine, Jacob, Coxeter, and others, and contains little original matter of importance. In 1756 Cibber acted at the Haymarket, and was afterwards engaged at Covent Garden. In 1756 he published 'Dissertations on Theatrical Subjects as they have several times been delivered to the Public. . . . With an appendix which contains several matters relative to the Stage, not yet made public,' 8vo. The first dissertation contains an inquiry into the conduct of the patentees of Drury Lane Theatre and a protest against the growing popularity of farces; in the second dissertation Gibber draws a comparison between Garrick's acting of Lear and Barry's, giving the preference to the latter. Among the contents of the appendix is an epistle (which had been published in the previous year) to Garrick, in which Cibber complains of having received very ungenerous treatment from the great actor. Following the epistle are some letters to the Duke of Grafton, the lord-chamberlain, setting forth Cibber's grievances. In October 1758 Gibber embarked at Parkgate to cross to Dublin, where his services had been engaged by Sheridan to support the Theatre Royal in opposition to the newly opened theatre in Crow Street. The vessel was driven from its course and wrecked off the coast of Scotland; a few of the passengers were saved, but Cibber perished.
Cibber's dramatic pieces are: 1. 'The Lover,' 1730, 8vo, acted at Drury Lane with no great success. It is dedicated to his first wife. 2. 'Patie and Peggy; or, the Fair Foundling. A Scotch ballad opera,' 1730, 8vo (in one act), founded on Ramsay's 'Gentle Shepherd;' acted at Drury Lane. The writer says it was planned and finished in one day. 3. 'The Harlot's Progress; or, the Ridotto al Fresco,' 1733, 4to, acted at Drury Lane; a short 'grotesque pantomime,' dedicated to Hogarth. Portraits of Hogarth and of Cibber (as Pistol) are prefixed. 4. 'The Auction,' 1757, 8vo, a farce acted at the Haymarket ; it consists merely of a few scenes from Fielding's 'Historical Register.' Two unprinted pieces have been ascribed to Cibber — 'Damon and Daphne,' a pastoral in two acts, performed (without success) at Drury Lane in May 1733; and 'The Mock Officer,' s. d. He also published alterations of 'Henry VI' (n. d., second edit. 1724), and of 'Romeo and Juliet' (1748). Appended to 'Romeo and Juliet' is 'A Serio-Comic Apology for part of the life of Mr. Theophilus Cibber, Comedian,' containing an account of his endeavours to get a license for the Haymarket. In 1733 Gibber published 'A Letter to J. Highmore,' in which he complained of the harsh treatment he had received from the patentees of Drury Lane, and in 1752 defended himself in 'A Lick at a Liar, or Calumny detected, being an occasional letter to a friend,' from the charge of having defrauded his creditors.
[Biographia Dramatica, ed. Stephen Jones; Genest's History of the Stage, iii. 112, 423, 542-4, iv. 171, 530-6; The Tryals of two causes between Theophilus Cibber, gent., and William Sloper, esq., defendant (1740); Boswell's Johnson, ed. Croker, 1848, pp. 57, 504, 818; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. xii. 217, 2nd ser. vii. 410.]
CILIAN, Saint (d. 697), apostle of Franconia, whose name is also written Kilian, Ghillianus, Gselianus, Quillianus, was an Irish bishop who was martyred at Wiirzburg, at about the age of fifty-three, in 697. No Irish life of him has been printed, and the Latin lives have no early Irish characteristics. He was born, according to local tradition, in the southern part of the kingdom of Breifne, and present county of Cavan. The sacred spot is believed by the inhabitants to be a level piece of ground, at the foot of a long ridge of pasture, on the boundary of the townlands of Cloghwallybeg and Longfield, and on the left of the road leading from the Gates of Mullagh to Virginia. Some traces of a cairn among the roots of an old thorn tree mark the site of a well, and near this was a very ancient church dedicated to St. Cilian, and built like that of St. Gregory at Rome, on the site of the house of the saint's father. The thick wall, a few yards from the site, though of ancient appearance, was built by Henry Brooke the novelist, and no traces of the church exist. When after the war of 1641 the church of Virginia was built, the great blocks of stone which formed its walls were removed for use in that structure. Some of these large squared stones may be traced in the existing church at Virginia, and they are of the kind used in the very early Irish churches. Children born in the district are sometimes called after the saint, and the local legend of his life agrees with the lives in the Acta Sanctorum (Acta SS. Antwerp, 1721, July, vol. ii.) He was already a bishop before he left Ireland about 689 (Baronius, xii. 89).
