Now it was rather an imprecatory age.  Men swore in those days, not meaning much harm, or particularly conscious of what they were doing, but as a matter of bad habit, in pursuance of a custom certainly odious enough, but which they had not originated, and could hardly be expected immediately to overcome.  In this way malediction formed part of the manners of the time.  How could these be depicted upon the stage in the face of Mr. Colman’s new ordinance?  There was great consternation among actors and authors.  Plays came back from the Examiner’s office so slashed with red ink that they seemed to be bleeding from numerous wounds; line after line had been prohibited; and by Colman of all people!  Critics amused themselves by searching through his own dramatic writings, and cataloguing the bad language they contained.  The list was very formidable.  There were comminations and anathemas in almost every scene.  The matter was pointed out to him, but he treated it with indifference.  He was a writer of plays then; but now he was Examiner of Plays.  His point of view was changed, that was all.  It was no fault of his if there had been neglect of duty on the part of previous examiners.  Mr. Arnold, the proprietor and manager of the Lyceum Theatre, expostulated with him on the subject.  In a play by John Banim, one of the authors of the “Tales of the O’Hara Family,” Colman had forbidden certain lines to be chanted by monks and nuns in a scene of a foreign cathedral.  It was too profane.  What about the singing of “God save the King” upon the stage?  That had been sanctioned by custom, Colman maintained; but he could not regard it as a precedent.  Was he prepared to mutilate Portia’s great speech in the “Merchant of Venice?” Certainly he was; but then custom had sanctioned it, and playgoers were not prepared for any meddling with the text of Shakespeare.  He admitted, however, that he did not trouble himself to ascertain whether his excisions were carried into effect when the plays came to be represented.  “My duty,” he said, “is simply to object to everything immoral or politically dangerous.  When I have marked my objections the play is licensed, subject to the omission of the passages objected to; beyond this I have nothing to do, or an examiner would become a spy as well as a censor on the theatre.”  Any breach of the law was therefore left to be remedied by the action of the “common informer” of the period.

As evidence of Colman’s lack of conscientiousness in this matter, a letter he wrote to Mr. Frederick Yates, in 1829, may be cited.  A dramatic author, the friend both of Colman and Yates, had bitterly complained of the retrenchments made by the Examiner in a certain play, or, to follow Colman’s own words, had stated “that his comedy would be sure to be damned by the public, owing to the removal of some devilish good jokes by the Examiner.”  “Cannot you, my dear Fred, instruct him better?” wrote Colman.  “The play, you know, must be printed in strict accordance with my obliterations; but if the parts be previously given out, it will be difficult to induce the actors to preach from my text!” No doubt upon this hint the actors spake.  Only, in that case, of what good was the Examiner, regarded as a public servant?