R430213C. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.
The Times, 13 February 1843, p. 5.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 398–400.
A hasty enforcement of a rigid law of honour, leading to results by which the very requisitions of honour are frustrated, is a good tragic motive, and one that has not been hacknied. The man of honour in his too great eagerness to seek satisfaction deprives himself of the only solid satisfaction he could obtain. The law of honour is quite universal enough to make a collision between an individual and its decrees one of at least European interest, and a very excellent and impressive tragedy might be constructed on the formula just given. The old Spanish dramatists would have been perfectly at home in their treatment of such a subject, and, in all probability, were we acquainted with the whole extensive range of the dramas of Lope da Vega and Calderon, we should be able to pick out a tragedy that would be precisely a case in point. These, however, would have subtilized their notions of honour too much to have given their play a dramatic interest beyond those precincts where the Castilian code is recognized.
The motive has been adopted by Mr. R. Browning in his tragedy—for, with all its faults, it has a right to be called one—of A Blot in the ’Scutcheon. The man of honour is a gentleman of a high English family, the wrong for which he would seek satisfaction, is an offence against the chastity of his sister, and the over-zeal in exacting vengeance leads to the death of the only man who could have restored the tainted house to its pristine lustre. In this outline there is nothing objectionable; on the contrary, it does great credit to the man who selected it. But it seems a good tragedy was not to be, and accordingly Mr. Browning, though he went to work with a good fundamental idea, though he has displayed much vigour, and though he has poetical qualifications of no common order, has by a defect in the organ of constructiveness produced one of the most faulty dramas we ever beheld. His whole thoughts seem to have been directed to the production of striking effects, and these, in some instances, he certainly has obtained, but it has been at the expense of nature and probability. But we will leave generalities, and by showing the construction of the drama exhibit our opinion and the reasons for it more in detail. Henry, Earl Mertoun (Anderson), offers himself to Thorold, Lord Tresham (Phelps), as the suitor of his sister, Mildred Tresham, and is introduced to the other members of the family. Austin Tresham (Hudson), a younger brother, and Gwendolon [sic] Tresham (Mrs. Stirling), a cousin, betrothed to Austin. The young Earl is well received, and Gwendolon, delighted at so hopeful a match for her cousin Mildred, runs to her with the joyful news. Mildred is first seen in her own chamber; when she is left alone by Gwendolon she raises a lamp at the window, a song is heard behind the scenes, and at the window enters Earl Mertoun himself. We now learn that Mildred and he, both very young, have been carrying on an illicit intercourse for some time, and though all seems safe now the Earl has become an acknowledged suitor, still the lady is uneasy. With the retiring of the Earl again through the window the first act terminates. Even at this early stage we began to suspect that the author was proceeding on a wrong principle. There was a young lady in the most horrible situation that could be conceived; and yet, when the prospect of being removed from that situation offered itself, she felt no joyous emotion. The lover was indulging in generous delight at the certainty of restoring his mistress to honour, while she was uttering mournful subtleties, as to the difficulty she would undergo in assuming the character of a wooed maiden. We grant there was much poetry in the dialogue of this scene, but we detected the tendency in the author to elaborate exceedingly unnatural states of mind, for the purpose of effect—a tendency which was displayed in its full force in the next act.
Lord Tresham is, in the second act, informed by a domestic (G. Bennett) that a man in a muffled cloak has been seen nightly descending from his sister’s chamber. The discovery of a “blot in the ’scutcheon” of his family nearly drives him frantic; he sends for his sister, and tries to elicit the truth:—
“Say, there is no such story men could tell,
And I’ll believe you, tho’ I disbelieve
The world—the world of better men than I,
And women such as I suppose you. Speak!
(A pause.) Not speak! Explain, then! Clear up all, then!
Move
Some of the miserable weight away
That presses lower than the grave! Not speak!
Some of the dead weight, Mildred! Ah, if I
Could bring myself to plainly make their charge
Against you! Must I, Mildred! Silent still!
(Pause.) Is there a gallant that has, night by night,
Admittance to your chamber?
(Pause.) Then, his name!”
Till now I only had a thought for you—
But now—his name!”
The stage direction “pause” expresses the pauses which Lord Tresham makes in hopes of an answer from Mildred. The lady, however, remains silent, and at the end of the speech confesses her guilt, but refuses to give the name of her partner in sin. Why does she not do this? Why does she not lessen the agony of her brother by letting him know that her paramour is the man who the day before has asked her hand, who has thus willingly come forward to make all the reparation in his power, and whose alliance is, moreover, most advantageous! Having acknowledged her guilt she has told the worst, and all the rest would make the matter better—only, then there would be no tragedy. She now says that, in spite of her dishonoured condition, she will receive the Earl as a suitor, which again stirs up the fury of Tresham, and he instantly calls in his brother and female cousin to proclaim Mildred’s infamy. Strange conduct this! The man of such nice honour, directly he feels disgraced, sends for a collateral relative to proclaim the fact! He then reproves Mildred with that rude violence which is the blemish of Mordaunt in the Patrician’s Daughter; principally charging her, not with a breach of chastity, but for endeavouring to inveigle Earl Mertoun:—
“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.”
Now, this charge Mildred might have rebutted most successfully, by declaring that the “unconscious, trusting youth,” and the midnight stranger were the same. Another opportunity offers, but still she will not avail herself of it; but, after hearing a very long and a very opprobrious speech, she falls senseless. The cousin, Guendolon, remains her friend, but her sympathy weakens the effect of a situation on which the drop-scene should instantly have fallen; and which, though it is brought out most inartificially, is a powerful one.
In the third act Lord Tresham watches in the avenue through which the midnight lover must pass. The Earl appears muffled in a cloak, and is stopped by Tresham. He discovers himself, and here surely the tragic termination might have been prevented. It is now known that the paramour and the accepted lover are the same, that a marriage will repair the blemish of the house; but still Tresham insists on fighting the Earl, and succeeds in killing his man. Hitherto we have seen him as a ferocious savage, and perhaps the author might adduce this ferocity as an excuse for the extraordinary silence of Mildred in the previous act. But we cannot conceive that Mildred anticipated that her brother was such an extraordinary madman as to fling away the chance of removing the “blot in the ’scutcheon” by killing her lover, and therefore with us this explanation would not avail. Granted, however, that Tresham is such a blind savage, that when once angered no power can restrain him, and that this character is an interesting one, we are now astounded, directly he has wounded Mertoun, at finding him changed into a sentimental mourner, asking pardon of his victim, and finding excuses for the faux pas in his youth. We almost expected the dying Mertoun to cry out—“Why the deuce did not you think of that before?” The exclamation of Tresham over the body of Mertoun, “How young he is!” is exceedingly beautiful, but it will not account for the change in the mind of that sanguinary man. In the agony of remorse he hurries to his sister. The news kills her, and then he dies himself, with this moral, “Vengeance is God’s, not man’s.” This ends a piece, the merit of which consists in the vigour with which some of the situations, when once obtained, are impressed upon the audience; but this merit is much overbalanced by the obvious defects in construction, and the strange idiosyncracies which the author has given to his characters, on purpose to force them into difficulties. Hence, though there were many who applauded the piece, there was very little sympathy. The griefs of the dramatis personæ were great, but they were founded on accident, laboriously introduced, and there was nothing to touch humanity. We would also observe that the breach of chastity was not kept sufficiently in the background, but that the position of the lady, in the first act particularly, when the peculiar situation in which she stands with her lover is revealed in a dialogue between the two, is a painful one for the actress. Miss Faucit acted, as she always does, with tenderness and feeling; but the character, excepting in the strong situations in the second act, did not tell much with the audience. Phelps alone made a decided sensation, for the horror with which he first interrogated his sister as to the circumstances of her guilt was very finely acted. He, however, degenerated into rant in the subsequent parts of the same scene. The author was called for at the conclusion by his more violent applauders, but there was quite enough of disapprobation expressed to account for his unwillingness to appear. On Mr. Anderson coming forward and stating that the author was not in the house, according to his knowledge, the contest subsided. The fate of A Blot in the ’Scutcheon is a “moderate success.”
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. V. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1843.
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