"
Thus, at last, more than a century after the passing of the Licensing
Act, certain of its more mischievous restrictions were in effect
repealed. A measure of free trade in theatres was established. The
Lord Chamberlain was still to be "the lawful monarch of the stage,"
but in the future his rule was to be more constitutional, less
absolute than it had been. The public were no longer to be confined to
Drury Lane and Covent Garden in the winter, and the Haymarket in the
summer. Actors were enabled, managers and public consenting, to
personate Hamlet or Macbeth, or other heroes of the poetic stage, at
Lambeth, Clerkenwell, or Shoreditch, anywhere indeed, without risk of
committal to gaol. It was no longer necessary to call a play a
"burletta," or to touch a note upon the piano, now and then, in the
course of a performance, so as to justify its claim to be a musical
entertainment; all subterfuges of this kind ceased.
It was with considerable reluctance, however, that the Chamberlain, in
his character of Licenser of Playhouses, divested himself of the
paternal authority he had so long exercised.
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