t,
and Fielding rarely missed an opportunity to use Cibber's "paraphonalia"
against him; that the most merciless parody of his Odes could scarcely
sink to the depths of the originals, did not deter the efforts of the
parodists.[12]

He was not entirely insensible of his weaknesses. The second edition of
_The Provoked Husband_ was silently changed to "Out-did her usual
Excellence," and the spelling of paraphernalia corrected. Dr. Johnson's
testimony supports this view of Cibber's seriousness:

His friends gave out that he _intended_ his birth-day Odes should
be bad: but that was not the case, Sir; for he kept them many
months by him, and a few years before he died he shewed me one of
them, with great solicitude to render it as perfect as might be,
and I made some corrections, to which he was not very willing to
submit.[13]

His unwillingness to take Johnson's advice might be more than mere
egotism, if the Ode was the same one mentioned elsewhere in the _Life_,
"I remember when he brought me one of his Odes to have my opinion of it,
I could not bear such nonsense, and would not let him read it to the
end; so little respect had I for _that great man_! (laughing.)."[14]

The laureateship marked only one of several changes in Cibber's life. In
1730, the triumvirate of actor-managers and their leading lady, a
quartet which had supported Drury Lane through its most prosperous
years, was broken by the death of Anne Oldfield; Wilks followed in 1732,
and Booth, too ill to perform for two years, in 1733. Cibber's royal
appointment meant a sure annual income of L100 (plus a butt of sack
worth L26), his children were grown, and he could afford some freedom
from the demands of the theater at last. He continued to act, but with
lessening frequency, until 1746, when as Cardinal Pandulph in his own
_Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John_, he played the last role of a
career spanning more than half a century.

By 1740, he was far enough removed from the theater to have a slightly
different perspective on language. The _Apology_ betrays a concern for
his reputation beyond the immediate audience, and the need to leave a
written record other than his plays. Cibber had written prefaces and
dedications, but from this point on, he was to pursue his nondramatic
writing with _The egoist; or, Colley upon Cibber Being His Own Picture
retouch'd, to so plain a Likeness, that no One, now, would have the Face
to o