It was too profane.
What about the singing of "God save the King" upon the stage?
That had been sanctioned by custom, Colman maintained; but he could not regard it as a precedent.

Was he prepared to mutilate Portia's great speech in the "Merchant of Venice ?" Certainly he was; but then custom had sanctioned it, and playgoers were not prepared for any meddling with the text of Shakespeare.

He admitted, however, that he did not trouble himself to ascertain whether his excisions were carried into effect when the plays came to be represented.

"My duty," he said, "is simply to object to everything immoral or politically dangerous.

When I have marked my objections the play is licensed, subject to the omission of the passages objected to; beyond this I have nothing to do, or an examiner would become a spy as well as a censor on the theatre." Any breach of the law was therefore left to be remedied by the action of the "common informer" of the period.
As evidence of Colman's lack of conscientiousness in this matter, a letter he wrote to Mr.Frederick Yates, in 1829, may be cited.