In vain did Cibber petition the Master of the Revels “for the small indulgence of a speech or two, that the other four acts might limp on with a little less absurdity.  No!  He had not leisure to consider what might be separately inoffensive!” So, too, some eight years before the passing of the Licensing Act, Gay’s ballad opera of “Polly,” designed as a sequel to “The Beggar’s Opera,” incurred the displeasure of the Chamberlain, and was denied the honours of representation.

Nor was it only on political grounds that the Lord Chamberlain or the Master of the Revels exercised his power.  The “View of the Stage,” published by the nonjuring clergyman, Jeremy Collier, in 1697, first drew public attention to the immorality and profanity of the dramatic writers of that period.  The diatribes and rebukes of Collier, if here and there a trifle overstrained, were certainly, for the most part, provoked by the nature of the case, and were justified by the result.  Even Cibber, who had been cited as one of the offenders, admits that “his calling our dramatic writers to this strict account had a very wholesome effect upon those who wrote after this time.  They were now a great deal more upon their guard ... and, by degrees, the fair sex came again to fill the boxes on the first day of a new comedy, without fear of censure.”  For some time, it seems, the ladies had been afraid of venturing “bare-faced” to a new comedy, till they had been assured that they could do it without risk of affront; “or if,” as Cibber says, “their curiosity was too strong for their patience, they took care, at least, to save appearances, and rarely came upon the first days of acting but in masks, then daily worn and admitted in the pit, the side-boxes, and gallery.”  This reform of the drama, it is to be observed, was really effected, not by the agency of the Chamberlain or any other court official, but by force of the just criticism, strenuously delivered, of a private individual.  But now, following the example of Collier, the Master of the Revels, in his turn, insisted upon amendment in this matter, and oftentimes forbade the performance of whole scenes that he judged to be vicious or immoral.  He had constituted himself a Censor Morum; a character in which the modern Licenser of Plays still commends himself to our notice.

Moreover, the Chamberlain had arrogated to himself the right of interfering in dramatic affairs upon all occasions that he judged fitting.  Upon his authority the theatres were closed at any moment, even for a period of six weeks, in the case of the death of the sovereign.  If any disputes occurred between managers and actors, even in relation to so small a matter as the privileges of the latter, the Chamberlain interfered to arrange the difficulty according to his own notion of justice.  No actor could quit the company of one patent theatre, to join the forces of the other, without the permission of the Chamberlain, in addition to the formal discharge of