Mrs. Cibber would, perhaps, have been one of the happiest women of her day, had she not been cursed with a husband who was no more made for her than Caliban for Miranda. Theophilus could not appreciate her but as a gold winner, and he so abused the treasure, of which he was every way unworthy, as to expose her to temptations by which that unhanged villain hoped to profit; but by yielding to which she got rid of her "most filthy bargain," lost nothing in the public esteem, and acquired a protector and a home,--neither of which she ought to have wanted. There she enjoyed all the becomingnesses of life, save one; and she continued to act with better heart, but under physical infirmities, which her physicians could not understand, nor her applauding audiences believe in, till death struck her down in the very midst of her labours. She was not only of good heart to the last, but apparently as little affected by age as by her domestic trials. She wore spectacles? Yes! I confess that much. There she sits, somewhat past fifty, at Garrick's house, spectacles on nose, reading her part of Coelia, in the "School for Lovers." Now Coelia is but sixteen, and some one suggests, only seeing those spectacles, that it would be better to call her at least twenty-three. Mrs. Cibber looked up smilingly through her "glasses," quietly dissented, and when the piece was acted, she played the young and gentle Coelia with such effect, that no one present thought of Mrs. Cibber being older than the part represented her to be. King George III. has the reputation of having killed Mrs. Cibber, indirectly. His Majesty commanded the "Provoked Wife," in which she was to play Lady Brute. Ill health, for which physicians could not account, had reduced her strength; but the Roman Catholic actress was determined to perform the duty expected from her, to that most Protestant King. But she never trod the stage again. The career which had commenced in 1732, closed in January 1766;[92] and in the month following all that was mortal of this once highly, but, perhaps, fatally gifted lady, was entombed in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, not within the edifice, like Mrs. Oldfield, opposite Congreve's monument, but in the cloisters, whither had preceded her Aphra Behn, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and the father of the restored English stage, "Mr. Betterton, gentleman." Rather more than seven years had then elapsed since Theophilus Cibber had gone down, twelve fathoms deep, to the bottom of the Irish sea; and about the same time, short of a month or so, had gone by since Colley Cibber had been brought hither to rest in the neighbourhood of defunct, but once real, kings and queens. The voice of Mrs. Cibber, the soul of Mrs. Pritchard, and the eye of Garrick, formed a combination which in one actor would, according to Walpole, render him superior to all actors the world had seen or could see. Hitherto it has _not_ been seen.