[3] In _The Celebrated Mrs. Centlivre_ (1952). Sherburn had contended that Phoebe Clinket in the play was aimed at Mrs. Centlivre rather than at Lady Winchilsea as the tradition had it. Bowyer pins the satire to Lady Winchilsea once more and it seems this must be generally correct; the reference in the epilogue to "our well-bred poetess" seems intended for Lady Winchilsea rather than for Mrs. Centlivre.
[4] The report was not far wrong--the amount that Lintot paid Gay, on January 8, was £43, 2s, 6d (Nichols, _Literary Anecdotes_, VIII (1814), 296).
That in all this sweetness and light there should have been a plan to make Cibber ridiculous, and he too stupid to realize this until he had trod the stage as Plotwell and felt the impact of the lines directed at him personally, is unbelievable on the face of it. How could the alleged plotters have been sure that when Colley came to cast the play he would not frustrate their deep-laid plan by assigning Plotwell to some other actor, if only by mere chance?
The theory has fed on some misreadings of the play that must have an end put to them if this ghost is to be laid. If the reader, then, will pardon the obviousness of the following, it is true that Cibber wrote plays, but the name Plotwell should not be taken in this sense, but merely as suggesting the gallant skilled in the stratagems which, in the older comedies, males of this class had been accustomed to use in their cuckolding operations. Plotwell in the play has never set pen to paper except for notes sent to wives, and he is not an "actor-manager" or the like. He and Underplot are simply gentlemen who spend so much of their time in intrigues in real life that they would have no time for play-writing.[5] In the part of _Three Hours_ that has led scholars down this false path--the scene in which the manuscript is judged by Sir Tremendous and the players--it must be kept in mind that the actual author of the work being dismembered is Phoebe Clinket, not Plotwell, who, since he is merely fronting for her, is enabled to meet such strictures as "Between you and I, this gentleman knows nothing of poetry" with perfect sang-froid; it is Phoebe whose withers are comically wrung. Thus there was nothing in the part to offend Cibber, much less can resentment on his part be deduced from the intermission of the play after the seventh night.[6]