Everybody concerned was on tenterhooks.

Who could say how the audience would take a play the like of which they had never seen?
There was also danger in the political allusions contained in many of the verses.

Sir Robert Walpole, England's most powerful minister of state, had taken a box and would be present with a party of his friends.
What would _he_ think?
A riot was not beyond the bounds of possibility.
The play might be suppressed.

A prosecution for seditious proceedings might follow.

Anything might happen.
Meanwhile the house was packed.