R430218F. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.
The Spectator, 18 February 1843, pp. 159–160.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 402.
The new tragedy produced at Drury Lane on Saturday is in three acts; an innovation that, so far from being objectionable, is a welcome improvement: many recent five-act inflictions might have been advantageously compressed into three: in the present instance, the story would have been better told in one—and best left untold. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon is brief, yet tedious, shocking, but unimpressive; and melodramatic, without being effective. The incidents are few, but of a revolting character. Lord Tresham, a man proud of his high and unspotted lineage, discovers that his young sister Mildred, for whose hand he had just sanctioned a noble suitor, receives a gallant in her chamber nightly. The incensed brother taxes his sister with her guilt; which she does not deny; and in the presence of their kindred he denounces her shamelessness. Lord Tresham intercepts the midnight visitor, whom he kills in a duel; notwithstanding he recognizes in him the young Earl of Merto[u]n, who had got his consent to wed Mildred. The guilty girl dies broken-hearted, and her brother poisons himself out of remorse. The unchasteness of the heroine, for whose frailty no palliation is offered, is fatal to dramatic sympathy: the lover falls a sacrifice to her mysterious silence; while the brother, in his blind fury, slays a wrong-doer willing to make reparation, and thus destroys the only means of wiping off the “blot in his ’scutcheon.” The subject, in itself, is unfit for tragedy; and Mr. Browning, in his endeavours to excite strong emotions by making what is disagreeable horrible, defeats his purpose. Aversion is the predominant feeling created. This was audibly, though not loudly expressed, on two or three occasions during the first representation; but it took a ludicrous turn towards the close, and the catastrophe elicited an involuntary titter. In the construction of the drama, stage-effect has been studied, but so unskilfully, that after a scene is enacted the audience are obliged to listen to an account of what they have witnessed. The motives, situation, and purpose of the characters, are alike unaccountable: neither soliloquy nor dialogue throws much light upon either; the author’s ideas being so farfetched, and his phraseology so quaint, that the drift of the speeches is scarcely understood.
The acting was more than adequate to the merits of the drama. [p. 160→] Phelps as Lord Tresham, though occasionally too loud and violent, gave vent to the rage and indignation of the proud noble with force and vehemence; tempering his fury with tenderness in the scenes with his sister. Miss H. Faucit depicted the shame and wretchedness of the guilty girl with an intensity that would have been pathetic had there been room for sympathy. Anderson was a seemly gallant; but he breathed both his vows and lamentations monotonously, and his dying groans were much too sonorous. Hudson and Mrs. Sterling were a pair of lively lovers, whose levity was always malapropos; and both these and the old servant who tells of his young mistress’s faux pas—well played by G. Bennett —might have been dispensed with.
There was considerable applause on the first night; and the author was called for, as usual—though he very properly kept in the background: but the piece cannot retain possession of the stage.
[The review concludes with comments on A Thumping Legacy, here omitted.]
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. V. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1843.
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