Cibber, in playing the _Rehearsal_, had introduced some ridicule of the unlucky _Three Hours after Marriage_.

Pope, he says, came behind the scenes foaming and choking with fury, and forbidding Cibber ever to repeat the insult.

Cibber laughed at him, said that he would repeat it as long as the _Rehearsal_ was performed, and kept his word.

Pope took his revenge by many incidental hits at Cibber, and Cibber made a good-humoured reference to this abuse in the Apology.
Hereupon Pope, in the new Dunciad, described him as reclining on the lap of the goddess, and added various personalities in the notes.

Cibber straightway published a letter to Pope, the more cutting because still in perfect good-humour, and told the story about the original quarrel.
He added an irritating anecdote in order to provoke the poet still further.