Dennis's pamphlet, _The Stage defended from Scripture, Reason, Experience, and the Common Sense of Mankind for Two Thousand Years_, was published in 1726. In his latter days he suffered from two grievous calamities, poverty and blindness. In 1733 Vanbrugh's play, _The Provoked Husband_, was acted for his benefit, and his old enemy Pope wrote the prologue, of which the sarcasm is more conspicuous than the kindness. There is a story, to which allusion is made in the _Dunciad_, that Dennis had invented some kind of theatrical thunder, and how, being once present at a tragedy, he fell into a great passion because his art had been appropriated, and cried out ''Sdeath! that is _my_ thunder.' The critic was also known to have an intense hatred of the French and of the Pope, and these peculiarities are not forgotten in the prologue.
After saying that Dennis lay pressed by want and weakness, his doubtful friend adds:
'How changed from him who made the boxes groan, And shook the stage with thunders all his own! Stood up to dash each vain Pretender's hope, Maul the French tyrant, or pull down the Pope! If there's a Briton then, true bred and born, Who holds Dragoons and wooden shoes in scorn; If there's a critic of distinguished rage; If there's a senior who contemns this age; Let him to-night his just assistance lend, And be the Critic's, Briton's, Old Man's friend.'
Dennis got £100 by this benefit, but had little time in which to spend it, for he died about a fortnight afterwards at the age of seventy-seven. Upon his death Aaron Hill wrote some memorial verses, in which he prophesies that, while the critic's frailties will be no longer remembered,
'The rising ages shall redeem his name, And nations read him into lasting fame.'
It will be seen that the poets did not all treat Dennis unkindly. If praise were substantial food, he would have had enough to sustain him from 'glorious John' alone.
Colley Cibber holds a more prominent place than Dennis in the list of men whom Pope selected for attack. He could not have chosen one more impervious to assault. The poet's anger excited Cibber's mirth, his satire contributed to his content. The comedian's unbounded self-satisfaction and good humour, his vivacity and spirits, were proof against Pope's malice. Graceless he may have been, but a dullard the mercurial 'King Colley' was not.