The Licenser’s keenness in scenting a political allusion oftentimes, indeed, entailed upon him much and richly-merited ridicule.  The production, some fifty years ago, of a tragedy called “Alasco” furnishes a notable instance of the absurdity of his conduct in this respect.  “Alasco” was written by Mr. Shee, a harmless gentleman enough, if at that time a less fully-developed courtier than he appeared when, as Sir Martin Archer Shee, he occupied the presidential chair of the Royal Academy.  Possibly some suspicion attached to the dramatist by reason of his being an Irishman and a Roman Catholic.  In any case, the Licenser found much to object to in “Alasco.”  The play was in rehearsal at Covent Garden; but so many alterations and suppressions were insisted on, that its representation became impracticable.  We may note a few of the lines expunged by the Licenser: 

    With most unworthy patience have I seen
    My country shackled and her sons oppressed;
    And though I’ve felt their injuries, and avow
    My ardent hope hereafter to avenge them, &c.

    Tyrants, proud lord, are never safe, nor should be;
    The ground is mined beneath them as they tread;
    Haunted by plots, cabals, conspiracies,
    Their lives are long convulsions, and they shake,
    Surrounded by their guards and garrisons!

          Some slanderous tool of state,
    Some taunting, dull, unmannered deputy!

The words in italics were to be expunged from the following passages: 

Tis ours to rescue from the oblivious grave Where tyrants have contrived to bury them, A gallant race—­a nation—­and her fame; To gather up the fragments of our state, And in its cold, dismembered body, breathe The living soul of empire.

Fear God and love the king—­the soldier’s faith—­ Was always my religion; and I know No heretics but cowards, knaves, and traitors—­ No, no, whate’er the colour of his creed, The man of honour’s orthodox.

It is difficult now to discover what offence was contained in these lines, and many more such as these, which were also denounced by the Licenser.  Shee expostulated—­for he was not a meek sort of man by any means, and he knew the advantages of a stir to one aiming at publicity—­appealed from the subordinate to the superior, from the Examiner to the Chamberlain, then the Duke of Montrose, and wrote to the newspapers; but all in vain.  The tragedy could not be performed.  That the stage lost much it would be rash to assert.  “Alasco” was published, and those who read it—­they were not many—­found it certainly harmless; but not less certainly pompous and wearisome.  However, that Shee was furnished with a legitimate grievance was generally agreed, although in “Blackwood’s Magazine,” then very intense in its Toryism, it was hinted that the dramatist, his religion and his nationality being considered, might be in league