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 from the plot, in which it formed an essential element, and returned the copy duly endorsed with a licence over his signature that it 'may with the reformations bee acted publikely'. One more point shows some development of censorial practice as between Tilney and Buck. The latter, presumably with the Act to Restrain Abuses of Players in his mind, concerns himself not only with politics but with propriety. It is a perfunctory business enough. In half a dozen places such expletives as 'life' and 'heart' are excised; in many more these and others, such as 'mass' and 'faith', which one would have supposed to be as much or as little objectionable, remain unquestioned.

It has been the experience of many governments that the most rigid censorship of the 'books' of plays does not afford a complete guarantee of the inoffensiveness of the performances actually given upon the stage. A few lines of 'gag' are easily inserted; an emphasis, a gesture, a 'make-up' may fill with malicious intention a scene which read harmlessly enough in the privacy of the censor's study. And as nothing draws like topical allusions, it sometimes happened that the activities of the Master of the Revels did not prevent the players from overstepping the boundaries of what the somewhat arbitrary susceptibilities of the government would tolerate. It must not be supposed that the Elizabethan injunction against any intermeddling with politics or religion on the stage was to be taken with absolute literalness. Up to a point the players had a fairly free hand even with contemporary events. They might represent, if they would, such feats of English arms as the siege of Turnhout with all realism. They might mock at foreign potentates, if they did not, as was sometimes the