ol in Fashion_ (1696). Of this comedy Congreve said that
it had "a great many things that were like wit in it"; and Vanbrugh
honoured it by writing his _Relapse_ as a sequel. Cibber played the part
of Sir Novelty Fashion, and his performance as Lord Foppington, the same
character renamed, in Vanbrugh's piece, established his reputation as an
actor. In 1698 he was assailed, with other dramatists, by Jeremy Collier
in the _Short View_. In November 1702 he produced, at Drury Lane, _She
Wou'd and She Wou'd Not; or the Kind Impostor_, one of his best
comedies; and in 1704, for himself and Mrs Oldfield, _The Careless
Husband_, which Horace Walpole classed, with Cibber's _Apology_, as
"worthy of immortality." In 1706 Cibber left Drury Lane for the
Haymarket, but when the two companies united two years later he rejoined
his old theatre through the influence of his friend Colonel Brett, a
shareholder. Brett made over his share to Wilks, Estcourt and Cibber.
Complaints against the management of Christopher Rich led, in 1709, to
the closing of the theatre by order of the crown, and William Collier
obtained the patent. After a series of intrigues Collier was bought out
by Wilks, Doggett and Cibber, under whose management Drury Lane became
more prosperous than it ever had been. In 1715 a new patent was granted
to Sir Richard Steele, and Barton Booth was also added to the
management. In 1717 Cibber produced the _Nonjuror_, an adaptation from
Moliere's _Tartuffe_; the play, for which Nicholas Rowe wrote an abusive
prologue, ran eighteen nights, and the author received from George I.,
to whom it was dedicated, a present of two hundred guineas. Tartuffe
became an English Catholic priest who incited rebellion, and there is
little doubt that the Whig principles expressed in the _Nonjuror_ led to
Cibber's appointment as poet laureate (1730). It also provoked the
animosity of the Jacobite and Catholic factions, and was possibly one of
the causes of Pope's hostility to Cibber. Numerous "keys" to the
_Nonjuror_ appeared in 1718. In 1720 Drury Lane was closed for three
days by order of the duke of Newcastle, ostensibly on account of the
refusal of the patentees to submit to the authority of the lord
chamberlain, but really (it is asserted) because of a quarrel between
Newcastle and Steele, in which the former demanded Cibber's resignation.
In 1726 Cibber pleaded the cause of the patentees against the estate of
Sir Richard Steele before Sir Josep