But if the solicitor or counsel consulted
by him were asked for a guarantee that neither of these works was
a libel, he would have to reply that he could give no such
guarantee; that, on the contrary, it was his duty to warn his
client that both of them are obscene libels; that King Lear,
containing as it does perhaps the most appalling blasphemy that
despair ever uttered, is a blasphemous libel, and that it is
doubtful whether it could not be construed as a seditious libel
as well. As to Ibsen's Brand (the play which made him popular
with the most earnestly religious people) no sane solicitor would
advise his client even to chance it except in a broadly
cultivated and tolerant (or indifferent) modern city. The lighter
plays would be no better off. What lawyer could accept any
responsibility for the production of Sardou's Divorcons or Clyde
Fitch's The Woman in the Case? Put the proposed King's Proctor in
operation to-morrow; and what will be the result? The managers
will find that instead of insuring them as the Lord Chamberlain
does, he will warn them that every play they submit to him is
vulnerable to the law, and that they must produce it not only on
the ordinary risk of acting on their own responsibility, but at
the very grave additional risk of doing so in the teeth of an
official warning. Under such circumstances, what manager would
resort a second time to the Proctor; and how would the Proctor
live without fees, unless indeed the Government gave him a salary
for doing nothing? The institution would not last a year, except
as a job for somebody.
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