Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibberwas an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibberdescribes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style. He wrote 25 plays for his own company at Drury Lane, half of which were adapted from various sources, which led Robert Lowe and Alexander Pope, among others, to criticise his "miserable mutilation" of "crucified Molière hapless Shakespeare". He regarded himself as first and foremost an actor and had great...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth6 November 1671
Tea! Thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid, thou innocent pretence for bringing the wicked of both sexes together in a morning; thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wink-tipping cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate thus, and adore thee.
It takes time for the absent to assume their true shape in our thoughts. After death they take on a firmer outline and then cease to change.
Then let not what I cannot have My cheer of mind destroy. Whilst thus I sing, I am a king, Although a poor blind boy!
Possession is eleven points in the law.
A weak invention of the Enemy.
The happy have whole days, and those they choose. The unhappy have but hours, and those they lose.
We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman; scorned, slighted, dismissed without a parting pang.
Oh! How many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding ring.
You know, one had as good be out of the world, as out of the fashion.
Banish that fear; my flame can never waste, For love sincere refines upon the taste.
What have I done? What horrid crime committed? To me the worst of crimes-outliv'd my liking.
So mourn'd the dame of Ephesus her love.
The happy have whole days,
Faint is the bliss, that never past thro' pain.