" From Cibber's version of
"Richard III.," the first act was wholly expunged, lest "the
distresses of King Henry VI., who is killed by Richard in the first
act, should put weak people too much in mind of King James, then
living in France." 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.
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