Why did Samuel Johnson write A Compleat Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage?

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Painting of Samuel Johnson showing Johnson seated at a desk with a quill in hand and papers before him, wearing a brown coat and white wig. — Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson, oil on canvas by Sir Joshua Reynolds, c. 1756; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Samuel Johnson wrote A Compleat Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage (1739) as an ironic satire to attack the government of Sir Robert Walpole.1

The work serves as a mock defense of the Stage Licensing Act of 1737, which mandated that all new plays receive approval from the lord chamberlain before performance. By adopting an ironic tone, Johnson criticized the government's efforts to censor theatrical expression, which had recently led to the prohibition of Henry Brooke's play Gustavus Vasa—a work that used Swedish history to critique the British monarch and his prime minister. Influenced by the literary style of Jonathan Swift, the piece was part of a series of satiric works Johnson published during this period to oppose the ruling administration.21