Colley Cibber was eminent among his contemporaries as an actor, a dramatic writer, and a successful theatrical manager; to us he is better known as the hero of "The Dunciad." He was born in Southampton Street, Strand, the 6th of November, 1671. His father, Caius Gabriel Cibber, or Cibert, a statuary by profession, was a native of Flensburg, in the Duchy of Holstein. He settled in England a short time previous to the Restoration, and became carver to the King's closet. To him we owe the bas-relief on the monument on Tower Hill, and the figures of Melancholy and Raving Madness at Bethlehem Hospital. He was twice married; his second wife was a member of one of those families whose fortunes were wrecked through their faithful adherence to the cause of the Stuarts, and her grandfather, Sir Anthony Colley, at the close of the civil war, found his patrimony diminished from £3000 to £300 a-year. Colley Cibber was the fruit of this second marriage.
When about ten years old he was sent to the free school of Grantham, in Lincolnshire, where he remained
