I find in my journal the
following minute of our conversation, which, though it will give but a
very faint notion of what passed, is in some degree a valuable record;
and it will be curious in this view, as shewing how habitual to his mind
were some opinions which appear in his works.
'Colley Cibber, Sir, was by no means a blockhead; but by arrogating to
himself too much, he was in danger of losing that degree of estimation
to which he was entitled. His friends gave out that he INTENDED his
birth-day Odes should be bad: but that was not the case, Sir; for he
kept them many months by him, and a few years before he died he shewed
me one of them, with great solicitude to render it as perfect as might
be, and I made some corrections, to which he was not very willing to
submit. I remember the following couplet in allusion to the King and
himself:
"Perch'd on the eagle's soaring wing,
The lowly linnet loves to sing."
Sir, he had heard something of the fabulous tale of the wren sitting
upon the eagle's wing, and he had applied it to a linnet.
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