is
journalistic mind that his enemy must have the good taste to depart
the pleasures of this life. So he inserted the following paragraph in
his paper:

"Yesterday died Mr. Colley Cibber, late Comedian of the Theatre Royal,
notorious for writing the 'Non-juror.'"

The very day that this obituary appeared Cibber crawled out of the
house, sick-faced but convalescent, and read the notice with keen
interest. Whether he was amused thereat, or dubbed the joke a poor
one, is a matter which he does not record, but he tells us that he
"saw no use in being thought to be thoroughly dead before his time,"
and "therefore had a mind to see whether the town cared to have him
alive again."

"So the play of the 'Orphan' being to be acted that day, I quietly
stole myself into the part of the Chaplain, which I had not been
seen in for many years before. The surprise of the audience at my
unexpected appearance on the very day I had been dead in the news, and
the paleness of my looks, seem'd to make it a doubt whether I was not
the ghost of my real self departed. But when I spoke, their wonder
eas'd itself by an applause; which convinc'd me they were then
satisfied that my friend Mist had told a fib of me. Now, if simply to
have shown myself in broad life, and about my business, after he had
notoriously reported me dead, can be called a reply, it was the only
one which his paper while alive ever drew from me."

The Jacobites could not interfere with the triumph of the "Non-juror,"
but they were shrewd enough to bide their time. That time came, as
they thought, in 1728, when there was unfolded at Drury Lane a comedy
which became famous under the title of "The Provoked Husband." The
rough draft of the play was the work of Vanbrugh, now dead, but the
dialogue and situations had been elaborated by Cibber. Here was a
chance, therefore, to damn the latter writer, and accordingly the
malcontents repaired to the theatre, hissed the performance roundly,
and then went home with the comfortable reflection that they had
gotten their revenge. Their revenge, however, was shortlived, for the
general public liked the comedy, and soon flocked to its rescue.

"On the first day of 'The Provok'd Husband,'" says the Poet Laureate,
"ten years after the 'Non-juror' had appear'd, a powerful party, not
having the fear of publick offence or private injury before their
eyes, appeared most impetuously concerned for the demolition of it; in
which they so far suc