Note 14 — Art. V.—AUTO-BIOGRAPHY OF THIEVES.
Reading edition
As many of our readers may not recollect it, we here insert it. Cibber, it should be borne in mind, was poet-laureate.
"In merry old England, it once was a rule, That the king had his poet, and also his fool; But the times are so altered, I'd have you to know it, That Cibber will serve both for fool and for poet!"
Cibber seems so little to have minded this, and the rest of Pope's satire on him in the Dunciad, that he wrote another epigram nearly as pungent on himself! We give the following stanzas as a specimen of it.
"When Bayes thou play'st, thyself thou art; For that by nature fit, No blockhead better suits the part, Than such a coxcomb wit. In Wronghead, too, thy brains we see Who might do well at plough; As fit for Parliament was he, As for the laurel thou."