R430213B. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.
The Morning Post, 13 February 1843, p. 3.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 395–398.
Drury Lane.—A new tragic play, in three acts, bearing the above title, was on Saturday night produced at Drury-Lane, and was received with unequivocal success, although we doubt whether it possesses a sufficiently artist-like skill in the distribution of its power to have what is technically called “a run” upon this stage. Nevertheless, it is a play which does Mr. Macready’s judgment credit by its production, for it is a work of genuine genius, conceived with an abundant and spirit-stirring passion, for which we cordially thank the writer, in these bleak and leaf-stripped days of a cold and lifeless literature. We are not of those who would quarrel with the green sprout because it has not grown according to rule, or shot forth in the proper place, so that it be green and have real living leaf folded in it.
The story of the drama is one which may be succinctly told. Henry, Earl of Mertoun, has induced the sister of Thorold, Lord Tresham, to forget her purity in the passion he has inspired her with; but having, in his heart, a real love for the woman who has trusted him with her person and her soul proposes to wipe out the blemish which is as yet known only to themselves and heaven, by making her his wife. The sanction of the brother has already been received, when an old retainer of the family informs him that Mildred Tresham has been in the habit of receiving nightly visits at those times when the hen roosts, owls fly abroad, and the honest sleep. On questioning Mildred, which the brother does with a mingled passion of doubt and sorrow, she declines telling him the name of her lover, but says she is ready to receive Mertoun. Naturally indignant at this, he upbraids her before his brother and her cousin, and leaves them together. Night has fallen, and the lover again prepares to climb to his lady’s chamber, but is seized by Tresham, who drags him out into the light, and forces him to unmuffle and name himself. They fight, and Mertoun falls, while a too late remorse renders Thorold sensible how much his wrath has blinded his reason and his love. He bears the dying words of her lover to Mildred. The blow is too heavy for the poor girl, who has already been so deeply crushed by the weight of her conscious guilt, and after forgiving and blessing her brother, she dies. Thorold’s end is conceived in the same spirit as that of the Countess Tersky in the Wallenstein of Schiller; he has taken poison, and ends his life with the drama—at least, so says the author’s published tragedy, mawkishly altered for the worse by the gentleman who has clipped it for the stage.
In the acting of the drama it was generally very excellent. Phelps took the part which Macready would otherwise have acted, and if we missed a little of that refinement which carries the latter actor so triumphantly through his blotchy mannerism, it is due to Mr. Phelps to say that in other respects he gave a singular passion and power to the proud brother, which we believe could have been shown by no other actor than himself. The whirlwind of rage and hate with which he compels Mertoun to draw were terribly true. The whole soul—its love, its masculine sense, and its reason—seemed lost in the madness of the moment; and each savage phrase was thrown out with a lightning-like rapidity and violence from the cloud and storm of his passion that brought the reality and fear of that dark and momentary insanity singularly home to the listeners. His utterance of these lines was admirable:—
Ha, ha, what should I
Know of your ways? A miscreant like yourself—
How must one rouse his ire?—A blow?—that’s great
No doubt, to him! one spurns him, does one not?
Or sets the foot upon his mouth—or spits
Into his face—come—which, or all of these?
The actor was forgotten in the terrible truth of his fiery utterance. His hearers felt passion had given that hour to the devil, and recognised in the certainty of Mertoun’s death that the unravelling of the tangled love and guilt was one of blood and crime. Equally fine was the manner in which the manslayer suffered the madness of his guilt to subside when the lover of his sister lay dying at his feet. And as an isolated beauty, still earlier in the drama, we may mark the tone in which loathing and affection, and disbelief, were struggling as he bade Mildred “not to lean upon him,” after he has heard from his retainer Gerard the tale which involves her dishonour. Nor was the Mildred of Helen Faucit less instinct with that actuality which constitutes fine acting, although once or twice in the last scene we fancied that she was too strong and vehement for the fragile and heart-broken girl from whose bruised frame the soul was about to pass. The pause before her silent brother, in which she instinctively arrives at the knowledge of her misery—the dashing open of the window, and her frantic gaze into the night gloom, as well as the mute inquiry with which she examines Tresham’s empty scabbard, were all excellencies conceived in a finely poetic spirit, and executed with a finely artistic power. In the earlier part of the character she was quiet and ladylike, although she scarcely gave so full as translation of the loving, yet miserable guilt which the author branded upon his Mildred, as might have been desired. Anderson’s lover was much too savage in the earlier portions of the play, and roared out his love with a violence that said much for his lungs as well as for his earnestness. In his death, however, he displayed much tact and purity of conception. While he gave the physical agony, it was so subdued by the mental pang and trouble of the hour that one did not feel its presence or shrink disgusted from its exhibition. We cannot, of course, say that it was utterly free from stage trick, for this would scarcely be praise, but it was unconventional and feelingly real. Mrs. Stirling acted the cousin and confidante of Mildred with a rich feeling, and a chaste quietude of manner, which we should be glad to see in a stronger part than that of Guendolen; while Mr. Hudson wore the clothes allotted to Austin Tresham, very creditably, and spoke their blank verse with discretion.
The scenery was generally taken from that which was used in the Patrician’s Daughter, and calls for no comment. In dress the drama, was unexceptionable. At its close Mr. Phelps was vociferously called before the curtain; after which the gentle public made their usual ungentlemanly demand for the appearance of the author, whose good taste had taken him from the house—consequently the many-headed monster was compelled to be content without its usual gratification.
We shall now trespass upon the time of our readers while we utter a few remarks upon the character and calibre of Mr. Browning’s play.
We are aware that to the nature of the incident upon which the plot is founded, the prude and the unhealthy moralist may urge many an objection, but we are not disposed ourselves to admit the validity of that censure to which the Blot upon [sic] the ’Scutcheon is thus liable. It is in its very nature the drama of real life; and while murders, revenge, ambition, or lust, are each and all admitted among the licensed mainsprings of the tragic drama, we cannot place the retribution drawn upon itself by an illicit love, among the excluded motivi for the exercise of the poetic power. No thing can be more rigidly just than the moral of Mr. Browning’s drama. Even in the midst of the apparent atonement, a heavy judgment is at work. Remorse has done the work of punishment upon the girl, and beyond remorse comes the actual suffering with which the yielding maiden and the lover—we may hope with the poet—atone on earth for the sin of their too great love. Robert Browning’s mind is essentially cast in a poetic mould, and if it lacks in some degree that perfect and constructive power which is so rarely the companion of genius, does most unmistakeably contain that genius, without which the dramatic manufacture of situation and effect is absolutely nothing. We are not blind to the defects which exist in the poetry of the author of Paracelsus, but we are also alive to his strength, and if we feel that he is not the man to take a foremost rank among the dramatists of all time, are fully convinced that he must and will stand among the first writers for the stage in his own day. Those faults which have heretofore marked his writings—including the Strafford, in which he made so hearty an effort to rid himself of his involved phraseology—are still apparent in this play. He is a mannerist, and forgets the thought too often in its material expression, employing his faculties rather in the weaving of words than in the production of idea. But if he too frequently does this, at times, he thinks and feels. His passion is, where he puts it forth, genuine, manly, and wholesome, without any of the sentimental mawkishness of modern fine writing about it. We love his muse for her humanity, and if at times she wears a quaint garb, or trims her hair with strange and scentless flowers, we are willing to endure her oddities for the sake of her feeling and her beauty. That we may justify what we have said of Mr. Browning, we extract the following powerfully pregnant passage, and more especially call attention to the lines in italics, which have a good, sound, and healthy humanity about them, for which we have but too seldom to thank a living poet:—
All is truth,
She tells you! Well you know, or ought to know,
All this I would forgive in her—I’d con
Each precept the harsh world enjoins, I’d take
Our ancestors’ stern verdicts one by one,
I’d bind myself before them to exact
The prescribed vengeance—and one word of hers,
The sight of her, the bare least memory
Of Mildred, my one sister, my heart’s pride
Above all prides, my all in all so long,
Had scattered every trace of my resolve!
What were it silently to waste away
And see her waste away from this day forth,
Two scathed things with leisure to repent,
And grow acquainted with the grave, and die,
Tired out if not at peace, and be forgotten!
This were not so impossible to bear!
But this—that, fresh from last night’s pledge renewed
Of love with the successful gallant there,
She’ll calmly bid me help her to entice,
Inveigle an unconscious trusting youth,
Who thinks her all that’s chaste, and good, and pure,
—Invite me to betray him—who so fit
As honour’s self to cover shame’s arch deed?
—That she’ll receive Lord Mertoun—(that’s her phrase)—
This who could bear? Why, you have heard of thieves,
Stabbers—the earth’s disgrace—who yet have laughed,
“Talk not of tortures to me—I’ll betray
No comrade I’ve pledged my faith to”—you have heard
Of wretched women—all but Mildreds—tied
In wild illicit ties to losels vile
You’d tempt them to forsake, and they’ll reply
“Gold, friends, repute, I left for him, I have
In him, why should I leave him then for gold,
Repute, or friends?” and you have felt your heart
Respond to these poor outcasts of the world
As to so many friends; bad as you please,
You’ve felt they were God’s men and women still
So not to be disowned by you! but she
That stands there, calmly gives her lover up
As means to wed the Earl that she may hide
Their intercourse the safelier! and, for that,
I curse her to her face before you all!
Shame hunt her from the earth! Then heaven do right
To both! It hears me now—shall judge her then!
The struggling passion which pervades the first part of this, and the utter abandonment of his soul to its scorn, for her apparently shameless deceit in professing herself ready to receive the Earl are nobly indicated, while the very spirit of the most philosophical humanity is concentrated in the passionate vigour with which he draws the comparison between her and the bravo who cannot betray his friend, or the mistress who will not desert her lover. As we have never shrunken from the exposure of incompetency, so are we willing and delighted to recognise in the midst of quaintness of style, inversion of sense, and muddiness of expression, that pure dramatic strength which is the undoubted characteristic of Robert Browning’s poetry. We do not select our next quotation as anything in itself abstractedly great, but in relation to the character of the brother, as one of surpassing beauty:—
Mertoun—Unhand me—peasant, by your grasp! Here’s gold.
’Twas a mad freak of mine. I said I’d pluck
A branch from the white-blossomed shrub beneath
The casement there! Take this, and hold your peace.
Tresham—Into the moonlight yonder, come with me!
—Out of the shadow!
Mer. I am armed, fool!
Tresh. Yes,
Or no?—You’ll come into the light or no?
My hand is on your throat—refuse!—
Mer. That voice!
Where have I heard—no—that was mild and slow.
I’ll come with you!
[They advance to the front of the stage.
Tresh. You’re armed—that’s well.
Your name—who are you?
Mer. Tresham!—she is lost!
Tresh. Oh, silent! Do you know, you bear yourself
Exactly as in curious dreams I’ve had
How felons, this wild earth is full of, look
When they’re detected, still your kind has look’d!
The bravo holds an assured countenance—
The thief is voluble and plausible—
But silently the slave of lust is crouched
When I have fancied it before a man!
Your name?
Mer. I do conjure Lord Tresham—ay,
Kissing his foot, if so I might prevail—
That he for his own sake forbear to ask
My name! As Heaven’s above, his future weal
Or woe depends upon my silence! Vain!
I read your white inexorable face!
Know me, Lord Tresham!
[He throws off his disguises.
Tresh. Mertoun!
(After a pause.) Draw now!
Mer. Hear me
But speak first!
Tresh. Not one word least on your life!
Be sure that I will strangle in your throat
The least word that informs me how you live
And yet are what you are! No doubt ’twas you
Taught Mildred still to keep that face and sin!
We should join hands in frantic sympathy
If you once taught me the unteachable,
Explained how you can live so, and so lie!
With God’s help I will keep despite my sense
The old belief—a life like yours is still
Impossible! Now draw!
Mer. Not for my sake,
Do I entreat a hearing—for your sake,
And most, for her sake!
The words which follow are those passionate and withering cries of angry agony, thirsting for revenge, which we have quoted in our allusion to the manner in which Phelps acted the brother. But the charm of the whole drama is the abundance of its passion. It grapples fearlessly and freely with the human heart, plucking out its sin and its virtues, because they are realities and truths, without reference to their prettiness or their propriety. Seldom, indeed, have we read with more delight a line which painted the fullness and love of the female soul than we have read that which Mildred gives utterance to in the midst of her own guilt-conscious sadness when taking Mertoun’s hand, she says—
Come what come will, you have been happy.
He who gives woman such a feeling in the depth of her own anguish has studied the heart well ere he placed its language on the lip. With equal sweetness and more abundant dramatic beauty has the author conceived the forgiveness of Thorold, by the heart-broken and death-marked girl. Its completeness and its utter unselfishness are woman’s to the very core. In one part of the drama, the author has exhibited a want of dramatic perception which is strange enough as contrasted with his generally correct feelings. After the death of Mertoun, it was not needed that Tresham should talk to the trees in his paternal woods. Such an excess of verbal agony tears agony to tatters, or wears it out at elbows; both of which states of the mental wardrobe are equally disgusting. As a last extract we shall take the dying girl’s forgiveness of her brother; and should have added Thorold’s description of the brother’s love for the sister in the second act, but for that crippling argument—want of space.
There, Mildred, is the truth! and you—say on—
You curse me?
Mil. As I dare approach that Heaven
Which has not bade a living thing despair,
Which needs no code to keep its grace from stain,
But bids the vilest worm that turns on it
Desist and be forgiven,—I—forgive not,
But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of souls!
[Falls on his neck.
There! do not think too much upon the Past!
The cloud that’s broke was all the same a cloud
While it stood up between my friend and you!
You hurt him ’neath its shadow—but is that
So past retrieve! I have his heart, you know—
I may dispose of it—I give it you!
It loves you as mine loves! Confirm me, Henry!
But while we have frankly and honestly recognised the poetry of Mr. Browning’s mind, we cannot be blind to the grave absurdities of construction in which it indulges. As an artist he is yet but a child, and may possibly never be more. The poeta nascitur non fit applies solely to the inspiration, and not to the art. The idea and the power may be instinctive, but the skill never is. As instances of this lack of constructive nicety we would especially point out the strange improbability of Mildred Tresham’s refusing to own her lover’s name, and the subsequent blindness with which Tresham slays the lover after knowing that he is ready and willing to atone for the previous sin against the honour of his family. It is true that Mr. Browning has smoothed over these improbabilities with much executional skill, and has, perhaps, made the brother’s indignation at that deceit which Mertoun has taught Mildred one of the finest poetical portions of the drama; but still they are improbabilities, and were felt as such by the audience. One of the most bewildering excellencies which can attend the young poet is that facility of verbal form which enables him to gloss the absurdities of plot or arrangement with the reconciling ease of his technical expression. The author of Paracelsus and Sordello possesses this faculty to a great extent; and we trust that, for the future, it will not induce him to neglect that artistic attention to the arrangement of his story without which no dramatist can retain his place upon the stage. It is to such neglect that the very giants of dramatic poetry—the passionate Ford and the vigorous Massinger, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Marlowe—owe their banishment to the library. Nay, it is to this that three out of every four of Shakspere’s plays owe that theatrical oblivion which has fallen upon them, for the casual and unenduring revivals with which ill-judging enthusiasts have called them from their sleep have but the more strongly marked out its necessity. In this prime sin against art, lies Mr. Browning’s chief fault. In style he is mannerist, in art a baby; but in thought and passion a true poet. This last quality it was which carried the Blot upon the ’Scutcheon through the evening. But it will be insufficient to place it permanently upon the stage. In our last demand for novelty at Mr. Macready’s hands we had not anticipated so soon having to thank him for it. Nor must we, in justice, say were we prepared to see him so decidedly give the poet rather than the playwright the patronage of one of the patent houses. Of one thing he may be sure, that whatever may be the faults of Mr. Marston or Mr. Browning’s insufficiencies, the change in his theatrical policy which the selection of these dramas indicate will be both felt and appreciated.
Our criticism of the Blot upon the ’Scutcheon has run to such a length that we must apologise to our readers for dismissing the farce of the Thumping Legacy, which followed it, with a hearty but short eulogy upon its merits. It is one of the best farces of the season, and was received with a thorough comprehension of its humour.
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. V. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1843.
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