The intensity of George Colman’s regard for “good manners and decorum” has no doubt furnished a precedent to later Examiners.  For some time little effort was made again to apply the stage to the purposes of political satire.  Mr. Buckstone informed the Parliamentary Committee that an attempt made about 1846, to represent the House of Commons upon the stage of the Adelphi—­Mr. Buckstone was to have personated the Lord John Russell of that date—­had been promptly forbidden; and the late Mr. Shirley Brooks stated that a project of dramatising Mr. Disraeli’s novel of “Coningsby” had also, in regard to its political bearing, been interdicted by the Chamberlain.  Few other essays in this direction appear worth noting, until we come to a few seasons back, when certain members of the administration were caricatured upon the stage of the Court Theatre, after a fashion that speedily brought down the rebuke of the Chamberlain, and the exhibition was prohibited within his jurisdiction.  But the question of “good manners and decorum” has induced much controversy.  For where, indeed, is discoverable an acceptable standard of “good manners and decorum”?  In such matters there is always growth and change of opinion.  Sir Walter Scott makes mention of an elderly lady, who, reading over again certain books she had deemed in her youth to be of a most harmless kind, was shocked at their exceeding grossness.  She had unconsciously moved on with the civilising and refining influences of her time.  And the question of morality in relation to the drama is confessedly very difficult to deal with.  “It must be something almost of a scandalous character to warrant interference,” says Mr. Donne.  “If you sift the matter to the very dross, two-thirds of the plays of any period in the history of the stage must be condemned.  Where there is an obvious intention, or a very strong suspicion of an intention to make wrong appear right or right appear wrong, those are the cases in which I interfere, or those in which there is any open scandal, or any inducement to do wrong is offered; but stage morality is—­the morality of the stage, and generally, quite as good as the morality of the literature of fiction.”  This does not define the Examiner’s principle of action very clearly.  As instances of his procedure, it may be stated that upon religious grounds he has forbidden such operas as the “Nabuco” of Verdi and the “Mose in Egitto” of Rossini, allowing them to be presented, however, when their names were changed to “Nino” and “Zora” or “Pietro l’Eremita” respectively.  On the other hand, while prohibiting “La Dame aux Camelias"[1] of M. Alexandre Dumas fils, he has sanctioned its performance as the opera “La Traviata.”  “I think,” explained Mr. Donne, “that if there is a musical version of a piece it makes a difference, for the story is then subsidiary to the music and singing.”  Prohibiting “Jack Sheppard” he yet licensed for representation an adaptation of a French version of the same piece.  Madame Ristori was not allowed