In the dull, chaste lover, the sober, moral, worthy gentleman who is largely a result of the sentimental tendency in the drama, such as Lord Morelove in _Woman’s Wit_ and Elder Worthy in _Love’s Last Shift_, Cibber developed and made more important a type which had appeared but had been relatively unimportant in earlier drama. In the comedy of Steele and his followers this character was further developed so that it became the central figure. Cibber and his predecessors seem to have been guided by some such formula as that interesting personality and morality appear in inverse ratio in male characters.
The precocious Miss Prue type, the young woman who is destined to have a lover or a husband, perhaps both, in a short time, is represented by Miss Jenny in _The Provoked Husband_ _and_ Miss Notable in _The Lady’s Last Stake_. This type of character soon disappeared from the drama, as did likewise the Millamant kind of coquette, who appears as Maria in _The Non-Juror_ and as Lady Betty in _The Careless Husband_. Snap and Trappanti are typical menservants, witty and graceless, and we find the mercenary serving woman in _The Provoked Husband_ and _She Would and She Would Not_. Characters of this type continue occasionally in the succeeding drama, where they furnish the comic relief.
9. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CIBBER’S COMEDIES.
Cibber’s themes are taken from contemporary life and its more obvious problems. Of course so far as any serious purpose is concerned, a distinction must be made between those plays designed merely to afford the pleasure of an evening’s entertainment and those written with more serious intent. Cibber often distinguishes between these two classes, and frankly states his purpose in the prologue or dedication to the separate plays.
His attitude toward his audience is somewhat naïve. He frankly states that his “sole dependence being the judgment of an audience, ’twere madness to provoke them.”[88] He again says[89] that “every guest is a judge of his own palate; and a poet ought no more to impose good sense upon the galleries, than dull farce upon undisputed judges. I first considered who my guests were, before I prepared my entertainment.” This would seem to indicate that at times he had no high respect for his audiences; especially when he wrote _The School Boy_ and _Hob in the Well_, if the latter is by him. In this connection one may note that he consciously distinguished stage and closet drama, and made no attempt to write the latter. In his “Remarks to the Reader” of _Ximena_ he says, “though the reader must be charmed by the tenderness of the characters in the original, I have ventured to alter, to make them more agreeable to the spectator.” These statements would seem to indicate that Cibber wrote his sentimental plays because he thought the audiences desired something of the sort.