R420600A. King Victor and King Charles.
The Metropolitan Magazine, June 1842, pp. 49–50.
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 6.
This drama is one of considerable power. It is one of those meant to elucidate and illustrate history; and it is worthy of remark, that when an author endeavours thus to adhere to truth, his characters have an invariable semblance to invention rather than to nature. He who portrays the being of his imagination, usually makes him consistent, because he paints up to some impression on his own mind; but he who pictures a real and identical object, copies all the vacillations and discrepancies of his original, and thus the result most generally is, that the fabulist’s heroes have more the air of consistency and reality, than those of the accurate painter of truth. Thus it is with this little drama. Mr. Browning has closely followed out the Sardinian monarchs in their tortuous courses, and has delineated their respective characters with considerable truth and accuracy. The masterly and Sardonic temper of King Victor, his determination of purpose, his unquenched spirit and malignancy, and utter indifference to the nature of the means by which he sought to gain his own ends; the cunning with which he laid the snare by which himself became entrapped, the spreading of the net in which himself became entangled, and the internal malice and lipping mockery which distinguished him when caught in his own toils, are exceedingly well delineated. King Charles is altogether of a different nature; his undeveloped energies have acquired for him the character of imbecility, and his after fitfulnesses of strength and weakness serve only to counterbalance and defeat each other, and render both futile. The ascendency that might have resulted from his vigour, and the peace that might have been the consequence of inanity, are neutralized, by having a mutual existence in the same individual. The over-wiliness of the father, and the vacillating sensibility of the son, have the same effect of shaking the firmness of the positions which they successively fill. The character of Polyxena is singularly beautiful. There is a rare combination of [p. 50→] excellencies in her composition; soothing though decided; gentle though firm; submissive though sustaining; with a clear intellect and a loving heart: in short, Polyxena strikes us as being one of the most admirable creations of the feminine character that could well have been imagined. The minister D’Ormea, whose mind is as crooked as his politics, required a masterly hand to trace its winding subtleties. These four are the sole personages of the drama, of which the plot is simple, and yet powerful. The contest is not one of petty passions, but for thrones and sovereignties. The dialogue is highly characteristic, tender, poignant, sarcastic, as occasion may require, but always energetic, and expressive of the passion or purpose of the speaker.
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. II. King Victor and King Charles (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1842.
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