In truth, the Examiner is simply the employe of the Chamberlain, appointed by him, and holding the office only so long as the superior functionary shall deem fitting.  There is no instance on record, however, of the displacement of an Examiner, or of the cancelling by one Chamberlain of the appointment made by his predecessor.  Power of this kind, however, would seem to be vested in the Chamberlain for the time being.  Colman’s evidence, it may be noted, is of no present worth.  He was appointed as a consequence of the old Licensing Act, repealed in 1843.

The first Licenser of Plays sworn in after the passing of the Licensing Act of 1737 was William Chetwynd, with a salary of L400 a-year.  But this deputy of the Chamberlain was in his turn allowed a deputy, and one Thomas Odell was appointed assistant examiner, with a salary of L200 a-year.  Strange to say, it was this Odell who had first opened a theatre in Goodman’s Fields, which, upon the complaint of the civic authorities, who believed the drama to be a source of danger to the London apprentices of the period, he had been compelled forthwith to close.  He applied to George II, for a royal license, but met with a peremptory refusal.  In 1731 he sold his property to one Giffard, who rebuilt the theatre, and, dispensing with official permission, performed stage plays between the intervals of a concert, until producing Garrick, and obtaining extraordinary success by that measure, he roused the jealousy of the authorities, and was compelled to forego his undertaking.

The Licenser’s power of prohibition was exercised very shortly after his appointment, in the case of two tragedies:  “Gustavus Vasa,” by Henry Brooke, and “Edward and Eleonora,” by James Thomson.  Political allusions of an offensive kind were supposed to lurk somewhere in these works.  “Gustavus Vasa” was especially forbidden “on account of some strokes of liberty which breathed through several parts of it.”  On the Irish stage, however, over which the Chamberlain had no power, the play was performed as “The Patriot;” while, by the publication of “Gustavus Vasa,” Mr. Brooke obtained L1000 or so from a public curious as to the improprieties it was alleged to contain, and anxious to protest against the oppressive conduct of the Licenser.  In 1805, with the permission of the Chamberlain, the play was produced at Covent Garden, in order that Master Betty, the Young Roscius, might personate the hero.  But the youthful actor failed in the part, and the tragedy, being found rather dull, was represented but once.  At this time Mr. Brooke had been dead some years.  In a preface to his play he had vouched for its purity, and denounced the conduct of the Licenser, as opposed to the intention of the Legislature, Dr. Johnson assisting his cause by the publication of an ironical pamphlet—­“A Vindication of the Licenser from the malicious and scandalous aspersions of Mr. Brooke.”  Modern readers may well be excused for knowing little of the