Note 3 — CATALOGUE OF HOGARTH'S PRINTS.[1]
Reading edition
No sensible and pretty play, &c. This refers to Cibber's decision on the merits of some piece offered for representation, and, we may suppose, rejected. In a copy of verses addressed to Rich on the building of Covent Garden Theatre, are the following lines, which seem to allude to the rejection already mentioned:
"Poets no longer shall submit their plays To learned Cibber's gilded withered bays; To such a judge the labour'd scene present, Whom sensible and pretty won't content: But to thy theatre with pleasure bear The comic laughter and the tragic tear."