The old Licensing Act of 1737
was absolutely repealed; yet, unaccountably enough, Mr. Donne's
appointment, bearing date 1857, and signed by the Marquis of
Breadalbane, then Lord Chamberlain, began: "Whereas in consequence of
an Act of Parliament, made in the tenth year of the reign of His late
Majesty King George the Second," &c. &c.
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.
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