"Their Majesties' Servants." Annals of the English Stage (Volume 2 of 3)Doran, Dr. (John)
History
"Their Majesties' Servants." Annals of the English Stage (Volume 2 of 3)
Doran, Dr. (John)
Actors -- Great Britain; Theater -- Great Britain -- History
Such is the substance of his famous but unavailing remonstrance. The
bill, not to protect morality, but to spare the susceptibilities
of statesmen and place-men, passed; and the result was a "job." In
the ensuing spring, Chetwynd was appointed, under the Chamberlain,
licenser of plays, with a salary of £400 per annum; and to help
him in doing little, Odell was named a deputy-licenser, with
£200 yearly;--and therewith the job was consummated; and the
deputy-licenser began to break the law he was appointed to see
strictly observed. When the Act was passed, his most sacred majesty,
who commanded unsavoury pieces occasionally to be played before
him, prorogued the parliament, after lamenting the spirit of
insubordination and licentiousness which pervaded the community!
The government made use of its authority, by prohibiting plays, and
the public took their revenge, by hissing those that were licensed.
Among the prohibited, were Brooke's "Gustavus Vasa;" Thomson's
"Edward and Eleanora;" and Fielding's "Miss Lucy in Town;"[30]--the
first, as dangerous to public order; the second, as too freely
alluding to royal family dissensions; the third (after it had been
licensed) as satirising "some man of quality!" To these must be added
"Arminius," by Paterson, Thomson's deputy in his post of Surveyor
of the Leeward Islands. The deputy had copied out his principal's
"Edward and Eleanora;" and as "Arminius" was in the same hand, it
was forbidden, as being, probably, an equally objectionable piece by
the same author! The prohibition applied to it was profitable; for
he published his play by subscription, and gained £1000 by it,--not
for the reason that it was a good, but because it was a forbidden
drama.[31]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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