Theophilus Cibber
Encyclopedia
Theophilus Cibber was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager Colley Cibber
.
He began acting at an early age, and followed his father into theatrical management. In 1727, Alexander Pope
satirized Theophilus Cibber in his Dunciad
as a youth who "thrusts his person full into your face" (III 132). On the stage, he was famous for playing Pistol in Henry IV, Part 2
and some of the comic roles his father had played when younger, but unsympathetic critics accused him of overemphasis. His private life later led Theophilus into bad reputation and scandal. He died in a shipwreck while bound for Ireland and a season in Dublin.
and began acting in the Drury Lane Theatre
at the age of 16 in 1721. As a young man, Cibber was a notorious rake, and associated with young men of a similar mind and reputation, such as the Duke of Wharton
.
As the son of Colley Cibber, one of the theatre's managers, Theophilus became involved in the management of Drury Lane. In 1723, he became manager of the summer season, and in 1727 became assistant manager during the regular season. In 1732, one of the managers, Barton Booth
, sold his share to John Highmore, and another of the managers, Robert Wilks
, fell ill and died. Cibber senior became disenchanted by the involvement of Wilks' widow, through her representative John Ellys, in the management of the company. He dropped out of the management and leased his share in the company to his son. Cibber junior took the lead in the management of the theatre during the 1732–33 season, until he fell ill. The actions of Ellys and Highmore in his absence, which appear to have been largely centred on saving or making money, irritated Theophilus and friction grew between them. The other managers approached Cibber senior and offered to buy out his share. Without consulting Theophilus, Colley Cibber sold them his share for 3,000 guineas, and they promptly gave Theophilus his notice. Theophilus led the actors in a walkout
and they set themselves up as rival, but informal, company of players in the Haymarket
. The Cibbers applied for a letters patent
to perform at the Haymarket, but it was refused, and the Drury Lane managers attempted to shut down Cibber by conspiring in the arrest of his leading actor, John Harper, on a charge of vagrancy. Public opinion swung to Theophilus' side, and Harper was released. The Drury Lane managers were defeated, and Theophilus regained control of the company on his own terms.
Theophilus married actress Jane Johnson and they had four children: Colley George in 1726, Catherine in 1727, Jane in 1729, and Elizabeth in 1732. Colley George and Catherine died in infancy, and their mother died at the age of 26 just after the birth of Elizabeth from puerperal fever. Jane and Elizabeth were raised in the house of their grandfather, Colley Cibber.
Two years after the death of his first wife, Jane, Cibber married the singer and actress Susannah Maria Arne
, the sister of musician Thomas Arne on 21 April 1734. Unusually, Susannah Maria insisted on a prenuptial agreement that protected her own property and income by placing it in the hands of two trustees, who released it to her in small amounts. Theophilus had no access to the money, and the agreement stipulated that if she died without children, then the money was to be inherited by her parents rather than her husband. They had two children, Susannah in 1735 and Caius-Gabriel in 1736, but they both died aged less than a year.
Both Theophilus and Susannah Maria were members of the Drury Lane theatre company managed by Cibber. From 1735, Cibber began drawing his wife's earnings from the theatre personally, ignoring the marriage settlement, and by 1737 he was even selling her clothes and personal effects to make money. In 1738, the couple were involved in a notorious lawsuit which drew public attention to Cibber's connivance in his wife's adultery. The Cibbers had established a ménage à trois
with John Sloper, a country squire, from whom Theophilus accepted money. The three of them set up house together in Kensington
, for which Sloper paid the rent and maintenance, until Cibber slipped away to France to escape his creditors. To his dismay, Susannah Maria wrote him a letter to say that she was leaving him for Sloper.
Cibber returned to England, and began negotiating a settlement with Susannah Maria and Sloper, punctuated by an absurd but successful attempt to abduct Susannah Maria from Sloper's country house that ended with all three of them staying at the same inn, despite Sloper firing a pistol over Cibber's head. Theophilus confined his wife to a house in Wild Court, Great Wild Street, from where she was rescued by her brother Thomas who broke in and knocked out the guard. Theophilus had Thomas imprisoned in Bridewell temporarily, and Susannah Maria returned to Sloper. Becoming greedy, Cibber sued Sloper for £5,000 damages for criminal conversation
, which he described as threatening "his peace of mind, his happiness, and his hopes of posterity". The prosecution produced witnesses, lodging house keepers Mr and Mrs Hayes, who admitted to spying on Sloper and Mrs Cibber through a wainscot partition, thus establishing adultery beyond doubt. Sloper's defence counsel rebutted by calling the Kensington housekeeper, Anne Hopson, who testified that Cibber received money from Sloper with full knowledge of his wife's affair. The defence said of Cibber: "He takes his money, lets him maintain his family, resigns his wife to him, and then comes to court for justice, for reparation in damages." Counsel concluded that "there is no denomination in coin small enough to give in damages." The jury concurred, and awarded Cibber a nominal £10.
at Drury Lane, he was pelted with fruit and garbage. The following year, 1739, Cibber brought an action against Sloper for £10,000 for "detaining" his wife. This time he was awarded £500. Susannah went to Ireland and a concert season with Handel
while the scandal died down, but later returned to have a successful career at Drury Lane, working with David Garrick
and becoming famous as a tragic
actress. Cibber lost his influence in the theatre and spent his remaining years switching from venue to venue, taking the occasional part. His exaggerated acting style was out of fashion and unpopular, and he drank to excess.
His father died on 11 December 1757, leaving Theophilus just £50 in his will, and the following day Theophilus wrote to the Lord Chamberlain
, the Duke of Newcastle, asking for work in a theatre. Theophilus' eulogy to his father, delivered on stage dressed in mourning, was not a success, and he was forced to look for work elsewhere. Thomas Sheridan offered him work at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin. On the trip to Ireland, his ship, the Dublin Trader with about 60 passengers on board, foundered in a storm, and was wrecked on the Scottish coast. He was lost at sea.
Henry VI, An Historical Tragedy of the Civil Wars in Reign of King Henry VI. Later, he adapted Romeo and Juliet, in which both he and one of his daughters acted. Theophilus' plays, which include the ballad opera Patie and Peggie, the comedy The Lover, the farce The Auction and the pantomime
The Harlot's Progress, are of no great merit. They were published in a modern edition by David Mann in 1981.
Theophilus' authorship of Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, to the Time of Dean Swift (1753) is disputed; Samuel Johnson
claimed that it was written by Robert Shiels
. Most of the text is lifted from earlier works by Gerard Langbaine and Giles Jacob
. Other works in Theophilus' name are A Letter from Theophilus Cibber to John Highmore (1733), A Lick at a Liar: or Calumny Detected. Being an Occasional Letter to a Friend (1752), An Epistle from Mr Theophilus Cibber to David Garrick, esq. (1755), and Two Dissertations on the Theatres (1756), which despite the title was in three parts.
In April 1740, Theophilus' father published an autobiography, An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian, which was a commercial success. Shortly after its release, Theophilus drew up a proposal for his own autobiography and began to collect advances from prospective subscribers. In July, An Apology for the Life of Mr. T[heophilus] C[ibber], Comedian: Being a Proper Sequel to The Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian, with an Historical View of the Stage to the Present Year / Supposed to be Written by Himself in the Style and Manner of the Poet Laureate, was published but Theophilus was not the author. It was an anonymous attack against the Cibbers patterned on Colley Cibber's succès scandale autobiography. Theophilus claimed he returned the subscriptions and threatened the publishers with a lawsuit, but nothing came of his threats. The author was never discovered, but Henry Fielding
was suspected. Fielding's 20th-century biographer Wilbur Lucius Cross
thought that Fielding "did not actually write the book, [but] was doubtless in the secret, and may have lent his aid here and there".
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...
.
He began acting at an early age, and followed his father into theatrical management. In 1727, Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
satirized Theophilus Cibber in his Dunciad
The Dunciad
The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. The first version was published in 1728 anonymously. The second version, the Dunciad Variorum was published anonymously in 1729. The New Dunciad, in four books and with a...
as a youth who "thrusts his person full into your face" (III 132). On the stage, he was famous for playing Pistol in Henry IV, Part 2
Henry IV, Part 2
Henry IV, Part 2 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed written between 1596 and 1599. It is the third part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 and succeeded by Henry V.-Sources:...
and some of the comic roles his father had played when younger, but unsympathetic critics accused him of overemphasis. His private life later led Theophilus into bad reputation and scandal. He died in a shipwreck while bound for Ireland and a season in Dublin.
Early life and career
Theophilus Cibber was born during the Great Storm of 1703Great Storm of 1703
The Great Storm of 1703 was the most severe storm or natural disaster ever recorded in the southern part of Great Britain. It affected southern England and the English Channel in the Kingdom of Great Britain...
and began acting in the Drury Lane Theatre
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
at the age of 16 in 1721. As a young man, Cibber was a notorious rake, and associated with young men of a similar mind and reputation, such as the Duke of Wharton
Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton
Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton , powerful Jacobite politician, notorious libertine and rake, profligate, and alcoholic, was one of the few people in English history, and the first since the 15th century, to have been raised to a Dukedom whilst still a minor and not closely related to the...
.
Barton Booth
Barton Booth was one of the most famous dramatic actors of the first part of the 18th century.Booth was from Lancashire and was educated at Westminster School, where his success in the Latin play Andria gave him an inclination for the stage...
, sold his share to John Highmore, and another of the managers, Robert Wilks
Robert Wilks
Robert Wilks was a British actor and theatrical manager who was one of the leading managers of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in its heyday of the 1710s...
, fell ill and died. Cibber senior became disenchanted by the involvement of Wilks' widow, through her representative John Ellys, in the management of the company. He dropped out of the management and leased his share in the company to his son. Cibber junior took the lead in the management of the theatre during the 1732–33 season, until he fell ill. The actions of Ellys and Highmore in his absence, which appear to have been largely centred on saving or making money, irritated Theophilus and friction grew between them. The other managers approached Cibber senior and offered to buy out his share. Without consulting Theophilus, Colley Cibber sold them his share for 3,000 guineas, and they promptly gave Theophilus his notice. Theophilus led the actors in a walkout
Actor Rebellion of 1733
The Actor Rebellion of 1733 was an event that took place at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, England when the actors who worked there, disapproving of the changes in the management, attempted to seize control. Before the rebellion, the theatre was controlled by the managers Theophilus...
and they set themselves up as rival, but informal, company of players in the Haymarket
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
. The Cibbers applied for a letters patent
Letters patent
Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
to perform at the Haymarket, but it was refused, and the Drury Lane managers attempted to shut down Cibber by conspiring in the arrest of his leading actor, John Harper, on a charge of vagrancy. Public opinion swung to Theophilus' side, and Harper was released. The Drury Lane managers were defeated, and Theophilus regained control of the company on his own terms.
Theophilus married actress Jane Johnson and they had four children: Colley George in 1726, Catherine in 1727, Jane in 1729, and Elizabeth in 1732. Colley George and Catherine died in infancy, and their mother died at the age of 26 just after the birth of Elizabeth from puerperal fever. Jane and Elizabeth were raised in the house of their grandfather, Colley Cibber.
Adultery case scandal
Susannah Maria Arne
Susannah Maria Cibber , also known as Susannah Maria Arne, was a celebrated English singer and actress and the sister of the composer Thomas Arne. Although she began her career as a soprano, her voice lowered in the early part of her career to that of a true contralto...
, the sister of musician Thomas Arne on 21 April 1734. Unusually, Susannah Maria insisted on a prenuptial agreement that protected her own property and income by placing it in the hands of two trustees, who released it to her in small amounts. Theophilus had no access to the money, and the agreement stipulated that if she died without children, then the money was to be inherited by her parents rather than her husband. They had two children, Susannah in 1735 and Caius-Gabriel in 1736, but they both died aged less than a year.
Both Theophilus and Susannah Maria were members of the Drury Lane theatre company managed by Cibber. From 1735, Cibber began drawing his wife's earnings from the theatre personally, ignoring the marriage settlement, and by 1737 he was even selling her clothes and personal effects to make money. In 1738, the couple were involved in a notorious lawsuit which drew public attention to Cibber's connivance in his wife's adultery. The Cibbers had established a ménage à trois
Ménage à trois
Ménage à trois is a French term which originally described a domestic arrangement in which three people having sexual relations occupy the same household – the phrase literally translates as "household of three"...
with John Sloper, a country squire, from whom Theophilus accepted money. The three of them set up house together in Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
, for which Sloper paid the rent and maintenance, until Cibber slipped away to France to escape his creditors. To his dismay, Susannah Maria wrote him a letter to say that she was leaving him for Sloper.
Cibber returned to England, and began negotiating a settlement with Susannah Maria and Sloper, punctuated by an absurd but successful attempt to abduct Susannah Maria from Sloper's country house that ended with all three of them staying at the same inn, despite Sloper firing a pistol over Cibber's head. Theophilus confined his wife to a house in Wild Court, Great Wild Street, from where she was rescued by her brother Thomas who broke in and knocked out the guard. Theophilus had Thomas imprisoned in Bridewell temporarily, and Susannah Maria returned to Sloper. Becoming greedy, Cibber sued Sloper for £5,000 damages for criminal conversation
Criminal conversation
Criminal conversation, commonly known as crim. con., is a tort arising from adultery.-History of criminal conversation:It was based upon compensation for the husband's loss of property rights in his wife, the wife being regarded as his chattel. Historically a wife could not sue her husband for...
, which he described as threatening "his peace of mind, his happiness, and his hopes of posterity". The prosecution produced witnesses, lodging house keepers Mr and Mrs Hayes, who admitted to spying on Sloper and Mrs Cibber through a wainscot partition, thus establishing adultery beyond doubt. Sloper's defence counsel rebutted by calling the Kensington housekeeper, Anne Hopson, who testified that Cibber received money from Sloper with full knowledge of his wife's affair. The defence said of Cibber: "He takes his money, lets him maintain his family, resigns his wife to him, and then comes to court for justice, for reparation in damages." Counsel concluded that "there is no denomination in coin small enough to give in damages." The jury concurred, and awarded Cibber a nominal £10.
Decline
Sloper retired to the country, and Susannah gave up performing for a while. When Cibber appeared as Lord Foppington in The RelapseThe Relapse
The Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger is a Restoration comedy from 1696 written by John Vanbrugh. The play is a sequel to Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift, or, Virtue Rewarded....
at Drury Lane, he was pelted with fruit and garbage. The following year, 1739, Cibber brought an action against Sloper for £10,000 for "detaining" his wife. This time he was awarded £500. Susannah went to Ireland and a concert season with Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
while the scandal died down, but later returned to have a successful career at Drury Lane, working with David Garrick
David Garrick
David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
and becoming famous as a tragic
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
actress. Cibber lost his influence in the theatre and spent his remaining years switching from venue to venue, taking the occasional part. His exaggerated acting style was out of fashion and unpopular, and he drank to excess.
His father died on 11 December 1757, leaving Theophilus just £50 in his will, and the following day Theophilus wrote to the Lord Chamberlain
Lord Chamberlain
The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State....
, the Duke of Newcastle, asking for work in a theatre. Theophilus' eulogy to his father, delivered on stage dressed in mourning, was not a success, and he was forced to look for work elsewhere. Thomas Sheridan offered him work at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin. On the trip to Ireland, his ship, the Dublin Trader with about 60 passengers on board, foundered in a storm, and was wrecked on the Scottish coast. He was lost at sea.
Authorship
At the age of 17, Cibber adapted Shakespeare'sWilliam Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
Henry VI, An Historical Tragedy of the Civil Wars in Reign of King Henry VI. Later, he adapted Romeo and Juliet, in which both he and one of his daughters acted. Theophilus' plays, which include the ballad opera Patie and Peggie, the comedy The Lover, the farce The Auction and the pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
The Harlot's Progress, are of no great merit. They were published in a modern edition by David Mann in 1981.
Theophilus' authorship of Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland, to the Time of Dean Swift (1753) is disputed; Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
claimed that it was written by Robert Shiels
Robert Shiels
-Life:He was born in Roxburghshire around the end of the seventeenth century, and came to London as a journeyman printer. Samuel Johnson approved of him as a Jacobite, and gave him a place on the team of six helpers he used on his Dictionary....
. Most of the text is lifted from earlier works by Gerard Langbaine and Giles Jacob
Giles Jacob
Giles Jacob was a British legal writer and literary critic who figures as one of the dunces in Alexander Pope's 1728 Dunciad:Pope's lines single Jacob out for satire primarily for his dogmatism and pettiness...
. Other works in Theophilus' name are A Letter from Theophilus Cibber to John Highmore (1733), A Lick at a Liar: or Calumny Detected. Being an Occasional Letter to a Friend (1752), An Epistle from Mr Theophilus Cibber to David Garrick, esq. (1755), and Two Dissertations on the Theatres (1756), which despite the title was in three parts.
In April 1740, Theophilus' father published an autobiography, An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian, which was a commercial success. Shortly after its release, Theophilus drew up a proposal for his own autobiography and began to collect advances from prospective subscribers. In July, An Apology for the Life of Mr. T[heophilus] C[ibber], Comedian: Being a Proper Sequel to The Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian, with an Historical View of the Stage to the Present Year / Supposed to be Written by Himself in the Style and Manner of the Poet Laureate, was published but Theophilus was not the author. It was an anonymous attack against the Cibbers patterned on Colley Cibber's succès scandale autobiography. Theophilus claimed he returned the subscriptions and threatened the publishers with a lawsuit, but nothing came of his threats. The author was never discovered, but Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
was suspected. Fielding's 20th-century biographer Wilbur Lucius Cross
Wilbur Lucius Cross
Wilbur Lucius Cross, Ph. D. was an American educator and political figure who was the 71st Governor of Connecticut for eight years.-Biography:Born in 1862 in Mansfield, Connecticut, Cross graduated from Yale University Wilbur Lucius Cross, Ph. D. (April 10, 1862 – October 5, 1948) was an American...
thought that Fielding "did not actually write the book, [but] was doubtless in the secret, and may have lent his aid here and there".