The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume V.Cibber, Theophilus
General
The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume V.
Cibber, Theophilus
Poets, English -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Poets, Irish -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
The bulk of his fortune he bequeath'd to Mrs. Blount, with whom he lived
in the strictest friendship, and for whom he is said to have entertained
the warmest affection. His works, which are in the hands of every person
of true taste, and will last as long as our language will be understood,
render unnecessary all further remarks on his writings. He was equally
admired for the dignity and sublimity of his moral and philosophical
works, the vivacity of his satirical, the clearness and propriety of his
didactic, the richness and variety of his descriptive, and the elegance
of all, added to an harmony of versification and correctness of
sentiment and language, unknown to our former poets, and of which he has
set an example which will be an example or a reproach to his successors.
His prose-stile is as perfect in its kind as his poetic, and has all the
beauties proper for it, joined to an uncommon force and perspicuity.
Under the profession of the Roman-Catholic religion, to which he adhered
to the last, he maintained all the moderation and charity becoming the
most thorough and confident Protestant. His conversation was natural,
easy and agreeable, without any affectation of displaying his wit, or
obtruding his own judgment, even upon subjects of which he was so
eminently a master.
The moral character of our author, as it did not escape the lash of his
calumniators in his life; so have there been attempts since his death to
diminish his reputation. Lord Bolingbroke, whom Mr. Pope esteemed to
almost an enthusiastic degree of admiration, was the first to make this
attack. Not many years ago, the public were entertained with this
controversy immediately upon the publication of his lordship's Letters
on the Spirit of Patriotism, and the Idea of a Patriot King. Different
opinions have been offered, some to extenuate the fault of Mr. Pope, for
printing and mutilating these letters, without his lordship's knowledge;
others to blame him for it as the highest breach of friendship, and the
greatest mark of dishonour. It would exceed our proposed bounds to enter
into the merits of this controversy; the reader, no doubt, will find it
amply discussed in that account of the life of this great author, which
Mr. Warburton has promised the public.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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