As a writer he had scandalised a whole generation of playgoers. The 'Heir-at-Law' and the 'Poor Gentleman,' comedies with which he has permanently benefited stage literature, do not certainly halt at any extreme. His very appointment as censor was due to the bottle-acquaintance that had sprung up with the regent Prince of Wales. Yet so squeamish did he become when once the official mantle had descended upon his shoulders, that even the exclamations "lud!" and "la!" were ruthlessly expunged from productions submitted to his censorship. The words "Oh, Providence!" were also rigidly excised, and the very names of heaven and hell were flatly condemned as savouring of irreverence. Says Mr. Dutton Cook, in treating of this feature of the Georgian drama:--"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. Critics amused themselves by searching through Colman's 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." The persecution under which Jonson suffered was due to the steady growth of Puritan principles. Measures of austerity were speedily generated by this ascetic philosophy; and among others we find that a scheme for bringing oaths, in a liquidated shape, to the aid of the national resources, was put into operation. Letters patent were granted in the month of July 1635, for establishing a public department for enforcing the laws against swearing. One Robert Lesley was appointed to the office of chief inquisitor, and was authorised to take all necessary steps for carrying out the act in every parish of the kingdom. Whatever moneys might be realised were to be paid over to the bishops for the benefit of the deserving poor. Lesley appointed deputies in the parishes, who, we notice, were at liberty to deduct 2_s._ 6_d._ in the L for their pains. A copy of one of these appointments to a London parish appears among the State papers, but no balance-sheet from which we might learn something of the "turn-over" of the office appears to be forthcoming.[43]