The trouble about putting on a play here is that our managers are afraid of libel suits.

The chances are that if I should write a play with Cassius as the hero, Cassius would go to the first night's performance with a dagger concealed in his toga, with which to punctuate his objections to the lines put in his mouth.

There is nothing I'd like better than to manage a theatre in this place, but think of the riots we'd have! Suppose, for an instant, that I wrote a play about Bonaparte! He'd have a box, and when the rest of you spooks called for the author at the end of the third act, if he didn't happen to like the play he'd greet me with a salvo of artillery instead of applause." "He wouldn't if you made him out a great conqueror from start to finish," said Tennyson.
"No doubt," returned Shakespeare, sadly; "but in that event Wellington would be in the other stage-box, and I'd get the greeting from him." "Why come out at all ?" asked Johnson.
"Why come out at all ?" echoed Shakespeare.

"What fun is there in writing a play if you can't come out and show yourself at the first night?
That's the author's reward.

If it wasn't for the first-night business, though, all would be plain sailing." "Then why don't you begin it the second night ?" drawled Ward.
"How the deuce could you ?" put in Carlyle.
"A most extraordinary proposition," sneered Johnson.
"Yes," said Ward; "but wait a week--you'll see the point then." "There isn't any doubt in my mind," said Shakespeare, reverting to his original proposition, "that the only perfectly satisfactory life is under a system not yet adopted in either world--the one we have quitted or this.