R430212A. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.
The Weekly Chronicle, 12 February 1843, p. 5.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 392–394.
Drury Lane.—Those who have read any of the poems of Robert Browning—poems as yet only known to the few, but those true friends, who admire the greatness of his poetical genius, and hailing him as one of the foremost of his age—would look with an interest almost equal to the author’s for the decision given by the public upon the first dramatic piece he has launched upon the stage. Those who best know his many extraordinary poems, the glints of truth pervading every line, the power of delineating character by side touches apparently the most careless, in a manner that nothing but our elder dramatists ever effected, knew well how he would acquit his task in a literary point of view, but began to doubt for the success of his attempt when he aimed at making himself understood to the general mind. They knew him great, universal, and full of human sympathies; but whether he could move an audience as he could move a reader seeking for thoughts he knew to be worth the finding, however deep he might have to delve, was the question, and one which few felt any certainty upon. He has now been tested, however, and there can be no more any doubt he writes for the many with the same success as for the few. We never in our memory have seen a play so powerfully move an audience as the one we witnessed for the first time last night. A Blot on [sic] the ’Scutcheon, as the author has, with his usual singularity of titles, called it, claims our highest admiration, whether we take it in a dramatic view or as a beautiful poem. The plot, indeed, is the slightest sketch, but how much rich thought has he clustered on its outline—how much poetry beaded upon so slight a thread!—to fully relish which, however, the play should be read at home; for some of its most beautiful passages have been omitted to suit the purposes of drama. The action of the piece commences with an interview between Lord Tresham (Phelps) and Earl Mertoun (Anderson), wherein the latter entreats for the hand of Tresham’s sister, Mildred (Miss H. Faucit), with all success. A beautiful title bit we cannot omit here, where Lord Tresham asks his companion—
Have you seen Lady Mildred, by the way?
Mer. I .. I .. our two demesnes, remember, touch—
I have been used to wander carelessly
After my stricken game—the heron roused
Deep in my woods has trailed its broken wing
Thro’ thicks and glades a mile in yours,—or else
Some eyass ill-reclaimed has taken flight
And lured me after her from tree to tree,
I marked not whither .. I have come upon
The lady’s wondrous beauty unaware,
And—and then .. I have seen her.
The next scene shows Mildred in her chamber, and her sister Guendolen (Mrs. Stirling) describing to her the gallant who is sueing for her hand. When she is left alone she goes to the painted window, and taking a small lamp, suspended before the Virgin’s image in the window, places it by a purple pane. The meaning of this is instantly understood, for a voice is heard beneath singing—
Mil. The voice! Oh, why, why glided sin the snake
Into the Paradise Heaven meant us both?
[The window opens softly.—A low voice sings.
There’s a woman like a dew-drop, she’s so purer than the purest,
And her noble heart’s the noblest, yes, and her sure faith’s the surest:
And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre
Hid i’ the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster,
Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck’s rose-misted marble:
Then her voice’s music—call it the well’s bubbling, the bird’s warble!
[A figure wrapped in a mantle appears at the window.
And this woman says, “My days were sunless and my nights were moonless,
Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark’s heart’s outbreak tuneless,
If you loved me not!” And I who—(ah, for words of flame!) adore her!
Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her—
[He enters—approaches her seat, and bends over her.
I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me,
And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me!
It is the earl who enters, and in the interview between them we learn of her guilty love, and the means he has sought, in the interview with her brother, to wipe out the shame which has fallen upon her; she shrinks, however, from the thought of affecting a grace gone from her, and he replies—
Mer. Oh, Mildred, feel you not
That now, while I remember every glance
Of yours, each word of yours, with power to test
And weigh them in the diamond scales of pride,
Resolved the treasure of a first and last
Heart’s love shall have been bartered at its worth;
—That now I think upon your purity
And utter ignorance of guilt—your own
Or other’s guilt—the girlish undisguised
Delight at a strange novel prize—(I talk
A silly language, but interpret, you!)
If I, with fancy at its full, and reason
Scarce in its germ, enjoined you secrecy,
If you had pity on my passion, pity
On my protested sickness of the soul
To sit beside you, hear you breathe, and watch
Your eyelids and the eyes beneath—if you
Accorded gifts and knew not they were gifts—
If I grew mad at last with enterprise
And must behold my beauty in her bower
Or perish—(I was ignorant of even
My own desires—what then were you?) if sorrow—
Sin—if the end came—must I now renounce
My reason, blind myself to light, say truth
Is false and lie to God and my own soul?
Contempt were all of his!
Mil. Do you believe ..
Or, Henry, I’ll not wrong you—you believe
That I was ignorant. I scarce grieve o’er
The past! We’ll love on—you will love me still!
Mer. Oh, to love less what one has injured! Dove,
Whose pinion I have rashly hurt, my breast—
Shall my heart’s warmth not nurse thee into strength?
Flower I have crush’d, shall I not care for thee?
Bloom o’er my crest my fight-mark and device!
Mildred, I love you and you love me!
They wish good night, and she looks from the casement watching the receding form of her lover.
Farewell! Stay, Henry! wherefore?
His foot is on the yew tree bough—the turf
Receives him—now the moonlight as he runs
Embraces him—but he must go—is gone—
Ah, once again he turns—thanks, thanks, my love!
He’s gone!—Oh! I’ll believe him every word!
I was so young—I loved him so—I had
No mother—God forgot me—and I fell.
There may be pardon yet—all’s doubt beyond,
Surely the bitterness of death is past!
The second act commences with a scene with Tresham and the old servitor, who has watched the visits of Mertoun. The acting throughout this scene was most powerfully true. The utter shame and agony of heart of Tresham, when he learns the tale of his sister’s dishonour, was acted in a most powerful manner. Phelps indeed sustained the whole ensuing scene, with an energy and truth far beyond any thing we have seen him in. The whole house was stilled by his suppressed passion, as he listened to the servitor—
Tresh. Since when?
Ger. At least
A month—each midnight has some man access
To Lady Mildred’s chamber.
Tresh. Tush, “access”—
No wide words like “access” to me!
Ger. He runs
Along the woodside, crosses to the south,
Takes the left tree that ends the avenue …
Tresh. The last great yew-tree?
Ger. You might stand upon
The main boughs like a platform .. Then he ..
Tresh. Quick!
Ger. .. Climbs up, and, where they lessen at the top,
—I cannot see distinctly, but he throws,
I think—for this I do not vouch—a line
That reaches to the lady’s casement.
Tresh. Which
He enters not! Gerard—some wretched fool
Dares pry into my sister’s privacy!
When such are young it seems a precious thing
To have approached,—to merely have approached—
Got sight of the abode of her they set
Their frantic thoughts upon! He does not enter?
Gerard?
Ger. There is a lamp that’s full in the midst,
Under a red square in the painted glass
Of Lady Mildred’s ..
Tresh. Leave that name out! Well?
That lamp?
Ger. —Is moved at midnight higher up
To one pane—a small dark-blue pane—he waits
For that among the boughs; at sight of that,
I see him, plain as I see you, my lord,
Open the lady’s casement, enter there …
After the dreadful calm in which this statement is received, a gust of passion succeeded, and he sends to Mildred to deny the tale. He taxes her with it. She moves not; guilt comes over her, and she stands like marble, until her generous feelings are aroused by the demand for her lover’s name:—
Mil. Oh, Thorold, you must never tempt me thus!
To die here in this chamber by that sword
Would seem like punishment—so should I glide
Like an arch-cheat into extremest bliss!
’Twere easily arranged for me! but you—
What would become of you?
Tresh. And what will now
Become of me? I’ll hide your shame and mine
From every eye; the dead must heave their hearts
Under the marble of our chapel floor;
They cannot rise and blast you! You may wed
Your paramour above our mother’s tomb:
Our mother cannot move from ’neath your foot.
We two will somehow wear this one day out:
But with to-morrow hastens here—the earl!
The youth without suspicion—faces come
From Heaven, and hearts from .. whence proceeds such hearts?
I have dispatched last night at your command
A missive bidding him present himself
To-morrow here—thus much is said—the rest
Is understood as it ’twere written down—
“His suit finds favour in your eyes,”—now dictate
This morning’s letter that shall countermand
Last night’s—do dictate that!
Mil. But, Thorold—if
I will receive him as I said?
Tresh. The earl?
Mil. I will receive him!
Tresh. [Staring up.] Ho there! Guendolen!
Tresham, who mistakes her feelings in wishing to receive the earl, indignantly calls in Guendolen and Austin Tresham to listen to his recital of her guilt, until she faints and falls. A very beautiful contrast is shown here to the fury of Tresham, in the true woman’s feelings of the sister, whose affection is strong, and heedless of the errors of Mildred—
Mil. I believe
If once I threw my arms about your neck
And sunk my head upon your breast, that I
Should weep again!
Guen. Let go her hand now, Austin.
Wait for me.—Pace the gallery and think
On the world’s seemings and realities
Until I call you.
Mil. No—I cannot weep!
No more tears from this brain—no sleep—no tears!
O Guendolen, I love you!
Guen. Yes: and “love”
Is a short word that says so very much!
It says that you confide in me.
The third act shows Tresham waiting in the wood by the yew-tree for the accustomed coming of the earl; when he comes his passion allows of no explanation, and the other feeling himself discovered cares not to defend himself, and is mortally wounded. In the second scene we find Mildred in her chamber, and the little lamp burning against the blue pane of the painted window; in the midst of her mad apathy Tresham breaks in upon her, and by his manner soon arouses the suspicion that he has killed her love. The instantaneous thought flashes across her mind, and she thrusts open the window of the casement as if by instinct, but instantly returns and charges him with the death of her lover; and, when she hears her fears confirmed, dies. The death of Tresham very soon follows, and the curtain falls. The only part we have to find fault with is the weakness of the last act; all before was wonderfully sustained, but we cannot make obstinate people believe in people’s dying of passion. In this part, therefore, the play failed; but the beauties of the drama, as a whole, infinitely outweighed any weakness in its parts. We are always delighted with Miss Faucit, but never so much so as last night; her expression of intense suppressed agony was wrought out with the deepest feeling, and her conception of the character, that of a noble spirit struggling with a weight of guilt, was fine in the extreme. Anderson, as the Earl, played but tolerably. We can only give Mrs. Stirling moderate praise either, well as she generally plays; in this instance she did not seem thoroughly to understand her character. Hudson had little to do, but that he did, as usual, very well. In conclusion, we congratulate Mr. Browning on the success of his play. That he can move the general heart is certain; we trust, therefore, that the great stores of his mind will afford us from time to time the same high intellectual treat we experienced last night. The play, which was much cheered throughout, raised a most deafening shout when the curtain fell; and after the audience had called on Phelps, they made a great uproar for the author, but he did not make his appearance.
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. V. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1843.
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