Colley Cibber was not well received. In the middle of the play, he whispered to fellow actor Benjamin Victor that he wanted to go home, perhaps realising he was too old for the part and its physical demands. Cibber also essayed tragic parts in plays by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Dryden and others, but with less success. By the end of his acting career, audiences were being entranced by the innovatively naturalistic acting of the rising star David Garrick, who made his London debut in the title part in a production of Cibber's adaptation of "Richard III" in 1741. He returned to
Colley Cibber call Cibber a hypocrite, and in general the attacks on Cibber are conducted in the notes added to the "Dunciad", and not in the body of the poem. As hero of the "Dunciad", Cibber merely watches the events of Book II, dreams Book III, and sleeps through Book IV. Once Pope struck, Cibber became an easy target for other satirists. He was attacked as the epitome of morally and aesthetically bad writing, largely for the sins of his autobiography. In the "Apology", Cibber speaks daringly in the first person and in his own praise. Although the major figures of the