'His [Colley Cibber's] friends gave out that he [italics] intended [end italics] 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'.