Reverting to a Query in your Second Number, p. 29, your correspondent
DRAMATICUS may rest assured that Colley Cibber's characters of actors
and actresses (his contemporaries and immediate predecessors) _first_
appeared in his _Apology_, 4to. 1740, and were transferred _verbatim_,
as far as I have been able to consult them, to the subsequent editions
of that very entertaining and excellent work. If Colley Cibber were not
a first-rate dramatist, he was a first-rate critic upon performers; and
I am disposed to place his abilities as a play-wright much higher than
the usual estimate.
Probably the doubt of your correspondent arose from the fact, not
hitherto at all noticed, that these characters no sooner made their
appearance, than they were pirated, and pirated work may have been taken
for the original. It is a scarce tract, and bears the following
title--_The Theatrical Lives and Characters of the following celebrated
Actors;_ and then follow sixteen names, beginning with Betterton, and
ending with Mrs. Butler, and we are also told that _A General History of
the Stage during their time_ is included. The whole of this, with
certain omissions, principally of classical quotations, is taken from
Cibber's _Apology_, and it professed to be "Printed for J. Miller, in
Fleet Street, and sold at the pamphlet shops," without date. The whole
is nothing but an impudent plagiarism, and it is crowned and topped by a
scrap purporting to be from Shakespeare, but merely the invention of the
compiler. In truth, it is the only original morsel in the whole seventy
pages. At the end of the character of Betterton, the following is
subjoined, and it induces a Query, whether any such work, real or
pretended, as regards Betterton, is in existence?
"N.B. The author of this work has, since he began it, had a very curious
manuscript of Mr. Betterton's communicated to him, containing the whole
duty of a Player; interspersed with directions for young Actors, as to
the management of the voice, carriage of the body, &c. &c., reckoned the
best piece that has ever been wrote on the subject," p. 22.
This "best piece" on the subject is promised in the course of the
volume, but it is not found in it. Did it appear anywhere else and in
any other shape? As the Query of DRAMATICUS is now answered, perhaps he
may be able to reply to this question from