R430213A. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.
The Morning Chronicle, 13 February 1843, p. 3.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 394–395.
Drury Lane.—The production of a tragic drama in three acts only at one of the patent houses, is an innovation upon theatrical convention at which some fastidious legitimists may be disposed to be very angry. But there appears to be no valid reason why an insufficient story should be spread over a greater space than it can efficiently fill, merely because there is a custom in favour of the number five over the number three. The legitimacy or illegitimacy of a dramatic production cannot be decided by the division of its parts into a greater or less a number, but must be tested by the higher principles of criticism. A five act piece may be a very sorry melo-drama, while one in three or two acts may be a very admirable comedy. Many plays have been written lately which have been divided into five portions, and have dragged their slow length along before a drowsy audience for half a season, and then been consigned to oblivion, but which, had their matter been judiciously concentrated into three acts, might have won a more lasting popularity, and probably a greater amount of profit to their authors. Something like a feeling that the nature or genius of a dramatic production is not to be determined by its length, or by the number of its divisions only, has been lately exhibited in the anxiety of certain authors to append the title of “comedy” to shorter pieces than those with which we have been accustomed to associate that name. But the worst is, that some of these gentlemen, although perhaps right in one principle—that of length—are grievously mistaken in another, that of quality of material inasmuch as the fabric offered is veritable farce, and that ofttimes not very good of its kind.
It is very probable that Mr. Macready may be attacked for the production of A Blot in the ’Scutcheon (which was played, for the first time, on Saturday night), on the score that it is, in form, a departure from the legitimate drama, which that gentleman has expressed his earnest desire to foster and uphold. But we think Mr. Macready entitled to thanks for the assertion of a principle which may hereafter become very valuable, not only to dramatic authors on the score both of their fame and of their profit, but to the public, as opening an additional source of intellectual gratification and instruction. Is there anything unreasonable in the proposition that a beautiful dramatic story may, from its brevity, be better wrought out in three sections than in five; or in the supposition that in those three divisions the author may exhibit the same acquaintance with the workings of human passion and the motives of human actions as if he had elongated his materials into five parts! Is the acute observer of human nature at once blinded, or the poet deprived of his heaven-born gift, merely because the action of the story he is constructing renders it more convenient that the act drop should be let down twice only instead of four times! These are merely a few hasty remarks upon a point which deserves to be more maturely considered and elaborately treated, but meanwhile we find we have little space left for noticing the drama which has occasioned them. This is injustice to the author, Mr. Browning, but, as his day was quite successful, and himself loudly and perseveringly called for at the conclusion, he is probably better pleased at that practical result than he would be on perusing a column of abstract criticism. The mere story of the piece is simple. Lord Tresham (Mr. Phelps) is a haughty noble, proud of his stainless ’scutche[o]n, his long line of illustrious ancestors, and deeply anxious that the present representatives of the family, himself and his loved sister Mildred (Miss H. Faucit) should transmit to their posterity the lineal honour pure and untarnished as they had received it. The Earl Mertoun (Mr. Anderson) presents himself to Lord Tresham as a suitor for Mildred’s hand, and is accepted by her brother, subject to the lady’s approval, who also consents to listen to the suit of the earl. But after this Gerard (Mr. G. Bennett) an old family domestic, communicates to Lord Tresham the harrowing intelligence that his young sister Mildred—her upon whose vestal purity he would not only have staked his life, but pawned his knightly honour, had fallen from her girl’s innocence, and that night by night a gallant shrouded in mask and cloak had, upon the signal given by the elevation of a lamp, scaled her casement, and entered her apartment. And the old servant’s story is true. But the lover, the masked gallant, is the Earl Mertoun himself. He had long before met Mildred; they had loved in secret, and had fallen from virtue. The earl, however, not seeking to desert the young creature he had wronged—the “flower he had crushed”—only desires that their error may be hidden from the world, and that he may make Mildred his wedded wife. With that view he presents himself to Lord Tresham, almost a stranger, as a claimant for his sister’s hand. On the discovery by Gerard to Tresham of the “blot” thus cast upon his escutcheon by his sister, the haughty lord upbraids his erring relative in burning words, but yet with a brother’s love. He says he will strive to conceal her shame; but, in the agony of his grief and wounded pride, he calls upon her to dictate the terms in which he should write to the Earl Mertoun, who is expected on the morrow to be presented to his future bride. She falters that she is willing “to receive the Earl.” Astounded as he had been by the fall of one he deemed so exalted, the chivalrous noble is stung to very madness by this climax of dishonour and duplicity, he being in total ignorance of the identity of her lover, and casts his sister from his house with a bitter malediction. The same night he watches for the approach of Mildred’s destroyer; he grasps him by the throat; a death struggle ensues, in which Mertoun but feebly resists the furious onslaught of Tresham, and is slain. Here may be said to end the piece, for in the next scene Mildred dies. We have not mentioned Gwendolen Tresham (Mrs. Stirling), or Austin (Mr. Hudson), for these characters contribute but little to the main action of the drama.
We have eschewed criticism, or we might point out many defects of judgment in this play, both in the construction and in the dialogue, while, on the other hand, we might distinguish many redeeming excellences. The author is a bold man, and a clever man; he has trodden upon dangerous ground, but at the same time he has bidden defiance to playhouse conventionalities, which in these days of mere imitation and translation is so much in his favour that we wish to pass by his defects in the hope that in his next production he may amend them. The acting was throughout good, and often excellent. Mr. Phelps, as the sensitive and fiery Tresham, tempered the force of his style with much judgment; and his delivery of the impassioned passages was vigorous and striking. He was called for at the fall of the curtain. The sweet and feminine style of Miss Faucit was admirably brought out in the part of Mildred. We have seldom seen a finer piece of acting than her’s in that scene where she listens, rigid and statue-like, to her brother’s denunciations, until, after she has expressed her willingness to see the earl, Tresham pours forth his dire curse upon her, and then she falls, or rather drops, upon the earth, a motionless inert mass—her love and disgrace alike forgotten in that temporary insensibility which comes upon us when nature can endure no greater amount of anguish. Never were the sufferings of a proud sensitive soul under the agony of shame and detected sin more ably or powerfully depicted.
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. V. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1843.
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