How did Colley Cibber become the central target of the final version of The Dunciad?

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Portrait of poet Alexander Pope — Alexander Pope Alexander Pope, portrait by Thomas Hudson, c. 1739; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

In the final version of The Dunciad (1743), Alexander Pope replaced the original hero, Lewis Theobald, with the poet laureate and actor-manager Colley Cibber as the central target of his satire.12

This change was prompted by a direct provocation: in 1742, Cibber published a work that savaged Pope in print. Pope viewed Cibber not only as a source of recent personal offense but also as a more fitting representative of the "degenerate standards" and Philistine culture he sought to criticize in the poem's expanded scope. By elevating Cibber to the role of the Goddess of Dullness’s favorite son, Pope utilized the revised Dunciad to defend his own literary standards and attack the perceived decline of taste in 18th-century England.12