be vanity in me to take shame to myself for not being found a wise man? Really, sir, my appetites were in too much haste to be happy, to throw away my time in pursuit of a name I was sure I could never arrive at.

Now the follies I frankly confess, I look upon as in some measure discharged; while those I conceal are still keeping the account open between me and my conscience. To me the fatigue of being upon a continual guard to hide them is more than the reputation of being without them can repay. If this be weakness, defendit numerus, I have such comfortable numbers on my side, that were all men to blush that are not wise, I am afraid nine parts in ten of the world ought to be out of countenance: but since that sort of modesty is what they do not care to come into, why should I be afraid of being stared at for not being particular? Or if the particularity lies in owning my weakness, will my wisest reader be so inhuman as not to pardon it? But if there should be such a one, let me at least beg him to show me that strange man who is perfect? Is any one more unhappy, more ridiculous, than he who is always labouring to be thought so, or that is impatient when he is not thought so? Having brought myself to be easy under whatever the world may say of my undertaking, you may still ask me, why I give myself all this trouble? Is it for fame, or profit to myself, or use or delight to others? For all these considerations I have neither fondness nor indifference: if I obtain none of them, the amusement, at worst, will be a reward that must constantly go along with the labour. But behind all this there is something inwardly inciting, which I cannot express in few words; I must therefore a little make bold with your patience.

A man who has passed above forty years of his life upon a theatre, where he has never appeared to be himself, may have naturally excited the curiosity of his spectators to know what he really was when in nobody's shape but his own; and whether he, who by his profession had so long been ridiculing his benefactors, might not, when the coat of his profession was

off, deserve to be laughed at himself; or from his being often seen in the most flagrant and immoral characters, whether he might not see as great a rogue when he looked into the glass himself, as when he held it to others.

It was doubtless from a supposition that this sort of curiosity would compensate their labours, that so many hasty writers have been encouraged to publish the lives of the late Mrs Oldfield, Mr Wilks, and Mr Booth, in less time after their deaths than one could suppose it cost to transcribe them.

Now, sir, when my time comes, lest they should think it worth while to handle my memory with the same freedom, I am willing to prevent its being so oddly besmeared (or at best but flatly white-washed) by taking upon me to give the public this as true a picture of myself as natural vanity will permit me to draw; for to promise you that I shall never be vain, were a promise that, like a looking-glass too large, might break itself in the making: nor am I sure I ought wholly to avoid that imputation, because, if vanity be one of my natural features, the portrait would not be like me without it. In a word, I may palliate and soften as much as I please; but upon an honest examination of my heart, I am afraid the same vanity which makes even homely people employ painters to preserve a flattering record of their persons, has seduced me to print off this chiaro oscuro o. my mind.

And when I have done it, you may reasonably ask me, of what importance can the history of my private life be to the public? To this indeed I can only make you a ludicrous answer; which is, that the public very well knows my life has not been a private one; that I have been employed in their service ever since many of their grandfathers were young men ; and though I have voluntarily laid down my post, they have a sort of right to inquire into my conduct (for which they have so well paid me) and to call for the account of it during my share of administration in the state of the theatre. This work therefore, which I hope they will not expect a man of hasty head should confine to

any regular method (for I shall make no scruple of leaving my history, when I think a digression may make it lighter for my reader's digestion)-this work, I say, shall not only contain the various impressions of my mind (as in Louis XIV's cabinet you have seen the growing medals of his person from infancy to old age) but shall likewise include with them the theatrical history of my own time, from my first appearance on the stage to my last exit.

If then what I shall advance on that head may any ways contribute to the prosperity or improvement of the stage in being, the public must of consequence have a share in its utility.

This, sir, is the best apology I can make for being my own biographer. Give me leave therefore to open the first scene of my life from the very day I came into it; and though (considering my profession) I have n reason to be ashamed of my original, yet I am afraid a plain dry account of it will scarcely admit of a better excuse than what my brother Bayes makes for prince Prettyman in the "Rehearsal," viz. I only do it for fear I should be thought to be nobody's son at all; for if I have led a worthless life, the weight of my pedigree will not add an ounce to my intrinsic value. But be the inference what it will, the simple truth is this.

I was born in London, on the 6th of November 1671, in Southampton-street, facing Southamptonhouse. My father, Caius Gabriel Cibber, was a native of Holstein, who came into England some time before the restoration of king Charles II, to follow his profession, which was that of a statuary, &c. The basso relievo on the pedestal of the great column in the city, and the two figures of the lunatics, the raving and the melancholy, over the gates of Bethlehem hospital, are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist. My mother was the daughter of William Colley, esq. of a very ancient family of Glaiston in Rutlandshire, where she was born. My mother's brother, Edward Colley, esq. (who gave me my christian name) being the last heir male of it, the family is now extinct. I shall

only add, that in "Wright's History of Rutlandshire," published in 1684, the Colleys are recorded as sheriffs and members of parliament from the reign of Henry VII to the latter end of Charles I, in whose cause chiefly sir Anthony Colley, my mother's grandfather, sunk his estate from three thousand to about three hundred per annum.

In the year 1682, at little more than ten years of age, I was sent to the free school of Grantham in Lincolnshire, where I staid till I got through it, from the lowest form to the uppermost. And such learning as that school could give me, is the most I pretend to; (which, though I have not utterly forgot, I cannot say I have much improved by study;) but even there I remember I was the same inconsistent creature I have been ever since; always in full spirits, in some small capacity to do right, but in a more frequent alacrity to do wrong; and consequently often under a worse character than I wholly deserved. A giddy negligence always possessed me, and so much, that I remember I was once whipped for my theme, though my master told me, at the same time, what was good of it was better than any boy's in the form. And (whatever shame it may be to own it) I have observed the same odd fate has frequently attended the course of my later conduct in life. The unskilful openness, or in plain terms the indiscretion, I have always acted with from my youth, has drawn more ill-will towards me, than men of worse morals and more wit might have met with. My ignorance, and want of jealousy of mankind, has been so strong, that it is with reluctance I even yet believe any person I am acquainted with can be capable of envy, malice, or ingratitude; and to show you what a mortification it was to me, in my very boyish days, to find myself mistaken, give me leave to tell you a school story.

A great boy, near the head taller than myself, in some wrangle at play had insulted me; upon which I was fool-hardy enough to give him a box on the ear; the blow was soon returned, with another that brough: me under him and at his mercy. Another lad, whom

I really loved, and thought a good-natured one, cried out with some warmth to my antagonist (while I was down) "Beat him, beat him soundly!" This so amazed me, that I lost all my spirits to resist, and burst into tears. When the fray was over, I took my friend aside, and asked him, how he came to be so earnestly against me?

To which, with some glouting confusion, he replied, "Because you are always jeering and making a jest of me to every boy in the school." Many a mischief have I brought upon myself by the same folly in riper life. Whatever reason I had to reproach my companion's declaring against me, I had none to wonder at it, while I was so often hurting him: thus I deserved his enmity by my not having sense enough to know I had hurt him; and he hated me, because he had not sense enough to know that I never intended to hurt him.

As this is the first remarkable error of my life I can recollect, I cannot pass it by without throwing out some further reflections upon it; whether flat or spirited, new or common, false or true, right or wrong, they will be still my own, and consequently like me; I will therefore boldly go on; for I am only obliged to give you my own, and not a good picture, to show as well the weakness as the strength of my understanding. It is not on what I write, but on my reader's curiosity, I rely to be read through: at worst, though the impartial may be tired, the ill-natured (no small number) I know will see the bottom of me.

What I observed then, upon my having undesignedly provoked my schoolfriend into an enemy, is a common case in society; errors of this kind often sour the blood of acquaintance into an inconceivable aversion, where it is little suspected. It is not enough to say of your raillery, that you intended no offence; if the person you offer it to has either a wrong head, or wants a capacity to make that distinction, it may have the same effect as the intention of the grossest injury: and in reality, if you know his parts are too slow to return it in kind, it is a vain and idle inhumanity, and some