R440100A. The Return of the Druses and A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.
The Foreign & Colonial Quarterly, January 1844, pp. 202–204 and pp. 209–215.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 337–340.
[Also reviewed in this article were Poems by Alfred Tennyson and Gerald; a Dramatic Poem by J.W. Marston. We omit the paragraphs dealing solely with these works.] [p. 203→]
Whatever may be the struggles—foolishly called all-absorbing—which are now transpiring in politics, in theology, and the commercial world; and however convinced each of the different parties may be that nothing else can go right—nor that, indeed, can any thing else be properly attended to—till their particular cause is settled as they wish,—it is manifest that there is quite as great a struggle now going on in our literature, and in that very department which is most neglected by the public—we mean in poetry. The public does not see this; and as poetry is at present so unpopular, the critics do not see the struggle; but let anybody look at the persevering announcements of new poems in advertisements, and read a few of the poems of some half dozen men— beginning with those at the head of this article,—and then the truth of our assertion will become apparent. The energetic spirit at work in various minds, and with different kinds and degrees of power, but still at work, not only without the slightest outward encouragements, but with all manner of opposition in their path, and with certain expenditure of time and worldly means upon their “losing game,” must absolutely possess something genuine in its elements, and in its hopeful and indefatigable continuity.
To every reader of highly cultivated taste and feeling for poetry it cannot now be requisite that we should do more than express our admiration of the fine genius of Mr. Alfred Tenny- [p. 204→] son, and our sympathy with his efforts to elevate the tone of modern poetry by that ideal beauty, the divine presence of which we recognize in almost every poem he writes. Worthy to be mentioned with him, in respect of genius and a devotion to ideal art, is Mr. Robert Browning; yet not to be compared with Mr. Tennyson, because different—essentially different in some respects,—choosing subjects dissimilar, and dissimilar in tone of thought, in general and particular treatment, and in execution. Unlike to all these is Mr. Marston; nor does it appear that his faculties have attained an equally complete developement with those previously named.
[…] [p. 209→]
Mr. Browning’s play of “A Blot in the Scutcheon” was written on the same domestic principle as [Marston’s] “Patrician’s Daughter,” but not presenting itself attired in the atrocious English hat and coat of the present day— “the least, a death to nature” and to ideal art. The play was intended to be nobly and boldly unconventional, and as it was therefore proportionately dangerous, it contained several strong conventional speeches carried to absurdity, with a view to “carry off” the danger. It was full of misgivings in consequence, and at last we did not know which was meant for the true morality. It was finely acted by Mr. Phelps and Miss Faucit; very badly by all the rest; and “put upon the stage” with marked indifference.
In the last Number of this Review some animadversion was made on an error into which Mr. Browning had fallen with regard to certain historical facts which he had mistaken in his tragedy entitled “The Return of the Druses.” We shall now offer a few remarks on the tragedy as a dramatic production. It is worth a thousand of such equivocal tragedies as “Mary Stuart,” and the much puffed “Gisippus.” The objections we have to make to the “Druses” are chiefly matters of structure and detail, and a want of clearness in several respects, independent of a somewhat puzzling nomenclature. A certain difficulty in the Druse names was inseparable from the subject; but when we find Djabal, Raghib, Karshook, &c., accompanied by the Grand Master’s Prefect, the Patriarch’s Nuncio, the Republic’s Admiral, initiated Druses, &c. &c., we see at once that a great number of serious recollections will be required of us, to which we must often look back with care. Probably the author thought that, as the other names were difficult to us “uninitiated Druses,” it would be best not to confuse us with more proper names, and that the Grand Master’s Prefect was therefore better than to call him by a name with all this added to it. But to proceed. The tragedy opens with these emphatic and confounding lines:— [p. 210→]
Karshook.
The moon is carried off in purple fire:
Day breaks at last! Break glory, with the day,
On Djabal, ready to assume his shape
Of Hakeem, as the Khalif vanished erst
On red Mokattam’s brow—our Founder’s flesh,
As he resumes our Founder’s function!
The Druses, Act I. Scene I.
Now, the reader, who even if a Druse, is, most probably, an “uninitiated Druse,” does not know who or what Djabal is; nor who Hakeem may be, nor what “his shape;” nor what Khalif is referred to, nor the geographical and historical relations of “red Mokattam’s brow,” which may belong to a blood-red demon or a mountain; nor anything about this particular Founder’s flesh or function! The whole of the first scene is in this strain of implicit faith in the reader’s knowledge of all these matters. As the tragedy developes, we are made sufficiently acquainted with all that went before; but this is reversing the dramatic principle. In this case, an opening dialogue between one or two who had no faith in Djabal’s mission, and Khalil, who was devoted to him, would at once have put the reader in full possession of the state of affairs, provided this was made the simple, straightforward business of the scene. Something of the kind occurs on Khalil’s entrance, but it is so mixed up with the confusion of the Druses seeking plunder, and so overlaid with intricate statements and allusions, that it “darkens knowledge,” and the opportunity is smothered and wasted. In like manner, at the close of the First Act, there is a marked reference made to “Djabal’s story of some Count Dreux, who, sick of wandering from Bouillon’s war, left his old name in Lebanon.” This caused us much pause and speculation, first to understand why it was introduced, then why by Djabal, then if it were true or not—and if not, why not? Certainly, it is no easy matter to construct a five-act drama of any kind, which can bear, as it always ought to bear, a close examination in all its parts and as a whole. At the close of the Fourth Act, we found the solution we desired, clearly made out—it was a lie told by Djabal to flatter the vanity, attach the affections, and secure the interest of Loÿs de Dreux to the Druse cause. The author had it all in his mind safe enough, but he should have helped us sooner. Puzzling the head does not excite and suspend an interest, but delays or prevents our feeling an interest. The first speech of Act II. is also very difficult to understand grammatically, though it may be correct nevertheless; and there seems to be some vacillation on the part of Anael as to her love for Djabal, and a certain leaning towards Loÿs, (who also hesitates about protesting “a love he dare not feel,” yet subse- [p. 211→] quently says that Anael loves him,) while, on the part of Djabal, there is a conflict maintained, even to the close of the Fifth Act, as to his devoted love, or resistance of love, with regard to Anael,—all of which keeps our understanding so continually on the alert, that it checks the free progress of the imagination and sympathetic emotions. We do not infer, that any of these conditions of feeling are naturally or dramatically wrong; all we mean to say is, that from a want of clearness and precision in the marking out, the subtle working has the effect of a puzzle. We think such positions need a more material form; a more hard, out-spoken statement, to render them successful on the stage; a sort of matter-of-fact declaration of the state of affairs, which shall almost make an audience say, “Does he take us for fools?”—the answer to which many a dramatist will readily mutter through his teeth, to himself. The main requisites for a successful acting tragedy are character and passionate action—and these the “Druses” possesses in the highest degree; the next requisite is the perspicuous distribution of the action—and here this tragedy is deficient, but in a way that might easily be remedied, and with far less trouble than is always taken with the works of Mr. Knowles, or Sir E. L. Bulwer, or with any of the “great discoveries” and failures of Mr. Macready.
The character of Djabal is a masterpiece, and of the highest order of dramatic portraiture. It is at once complicated and clear; the motives intervolved and conflicting, yet “palpable to feeling as to sight;” and all his actions, their results, and his own end, are perfectly in harmony with these premises. Anything in him that puzzles us, is only in the progress of the drama; for eventually he stands out in the finest relief, as though upon “the mountain” to which his dying steps lead on his emancipated people. Moreover, he himself knows what he is, and thus explains all difficulties:—
Djabal.
I perish—yet do I, can I repent?
I, with an Arab instinct thwarted ever
By my Frank policy,—and, in its turn,
A Frank brain thwarted by my Arab heart—
While these remained in equipoise I lived
Nothing; had either been predominant,
As a Frank schemer or an Arab mystic
I had been something;—now, each has destroyed
The other—and behold from out their crash
A third and better nature rises up—
My mere Man’s-nature! And I yield to it—
I love thee—I—who did not love before!
The Druses, Act V. Scene I. [p. 212→]
This is to write drama and psychological history at the same time. We merely, however, advert in passing to the expression of “I, who did not love before,” as one of those instances of unnecessary confusion induced by a want of care in previous expressions,—for certainly, at pages 7, 8, 9, 13, and 14, we had very good grounds for suspecting that he did love before.
The characters of Anael, of Loÿs, of the Prefect, and the Nuncio, are scarcely less admirably drawn as characters, though not so elaborately finished, as Djabal. Indeed, there is scarcely room in the space of an acting drama to elaborate more than one or two characters; and the elaboration of four or five characters in some of Shakspeare’s plays, is only a proof of the statement, inasmuch as none of his plays are acted as written, but curtailed, in some cases, by perhaps a third part. The whole of the scene with the Nuncio, in the Fifth Act, is finely worked up, and would be eminently effective on the stage, if well acted; though perhaps nobody at present before the public could play the Nuncio but Mr. Macready,—who could not, however, play Djabal. He would never feel that he rightly understood the character. But one of the finest scenes in this great tragedy, and we select it because the most intelligible as an extract, is that which takes place between Loÿs and the old, scheming, mercenary, voluptuous, hyæna-like Prefect, who is deposed—and whom Djabal has plotted to murder in the alcove.
Enter the Prefect with Guards, and Loÿs.
The Prefect.
[To Guards.] Back, I say, to the galley every guard!
That’s my sole care now—see each bench retains
Its complement of rowers—I embark
O’ the instant, since this Knight will have it so.
Alas me! Could you have the heart, my Loÿs?
[To a Guard who whispers.] Oh, bring the holy Nuncio here forthwith!
[Exeunt Guards.
Loÿs, a rueful sight, confess, to see
The grey discarded Prefect leave his post,
With tears i’ the eye! So you are Prefect now?
You depose me—you succeed me? Ha, ha!
Loÿs.
And dare you laugh, whom laughter less becomes
Than yesterday’s forced meekness we beheld …
Prefect.
… When you so eloquently pleaded, Loÿs,
For my dismissal from the post?—Ah, meek
With cause enough, consult the Nuncio else! [p. 213→]
And wish him the like meekness—for so staunch
A servant of the church can scarce have bought
His share in the Isle, and paid for it, hard pieces!
You’ve my successor to condole with, Nuncio!
I shall be safe by then i’ the galley, Loÿs!
Loÿs.
You make as you would tell me you rejoice
To leave your scene of…
Prefect.
Trade in the dear Druses?
Blood and sweat traffic? Spare what yesterday
We had enough of! Drove I in the Isle
A profitable game? Learn wit, my son,
Which you’ll need shortly! Did it never breed
Suspicion in you all was not pure profit,
When I, the rapacious … and so forth … was bent
On having an associate in my rule?
Why did I yield this Nuncio half the gain,
If not that I might also shift … what on him?
Half of the peril, Loÿs!
Loÿs.
Peril?
Prefect.
Hark you!
I’d love you if you’d let me—this for reason,
You save my life at price of … well, say risk
At least, of yours. I came a long time since
To the Isle: our Hospitallers bade me tame
These savage wizards, and reward myself.
Loÿs.
The Knights who so repudiate your crime?
Prefect.
Loÿs, the Knights—we doubtless understand
Each other; as for trusting to reward
From any friend beside myself … No, no!
* * * * * * *
With this alcove’s delicious memories
Got to be mingled visions of gaunt fathers,
Quick-eyed sons, fugitives from the mine, the oar,
Stealing to catch me: brief, when I began
To quake with fear—(I think I hear the Chapter
Solicited to let me leave, now all
Worth staying for was gained and gone!)—I say
That when for the remainder of my life
All methods of escape seemed lost—just then
Up should a young hot-headed Loÿs spring,
Talk very long and loud—in fine, compel
The Knights to break their whole arrangement, have me [p. 214→]
Home for pure shame—from this safehold of mine
Where but ten thousand Druses seek my life,
To my wild place of banishment, San Gines
By Murcia, where my three fat manors lying,
Purchased by gains here and the Nuncio’s gold,
Are all I have to guard me,—that such fortune
Should fall to me I hardly could expect!
Therefore, I say, I’d love you!
Loÿs.
Can it be?
I play into your hands then? Oh, no, no!
The Venerable Chapter, the Great Order
Sunk o’ the sudden into fiends of the pit?
But I will back—will yet unveil you!
Prefect.
Me?
To whom?—perhaps Sir Galeas, who in Chapter
Shook his white head thrice—and some dozen times
My hand this morning shook for value paid?
To that Italian Saint Sir Cosimo?—
Indignant at my wringing year by year
A thousand bezants from the coral-divers,
As you recounted; felt he not aggrieved?
Well might he—I allowed for his half share
Merely one hundred! To Sir …
Loÿs.
See! you dare
Inculpate the whole Order; yet should I,
A youth, a sole voice, have the power to change
Their evil way had they been firm in it?
Answer me!
Prefect.
Oh, the son of Bretagne’s Duke,
And that son’s wealth, the father’s influence, too,
And the young arm, we’ll even say, my Löys,
—The fear of losing or diverting these
Into another channel by gainsaying
A novice too abruptly, could not influence
The Order! You might join, for aught they cared,
Their red-cross rivals of the Temple! Well,
I thank you for my part at all events!
Stay here till they withdraw you! You’ll inhabit
This palace—sleep, perchance, in this alcove;
Good! and now disbelieve me if you can:
This is the first time for long years I enter
Thus [lifts the arras], without feeling just as I lifted
The lid up of my tomb! [p. 215→]
Loÿs.
They share his crime!
God’s punishment will overtake you yet!
Prefect.
Thank you it does not! Pardon this last flash:
I bear a graver visage presently
With the disinterested Nuncio here—
His purchase-money safe at Murcia too!
Let me repeat—for the first time no draught
Coming as from a sepulchre salutes me.
When we next meet this folly may have passed,
We’ll hope—Ha, ha! [Exit through the arras.
The whole character of the Prefect, his long life of greedy villany, his heartless sensuality, carried into the very gloating of imbecility, and the wide field of bribery and corruption of which he has been the centre, is all clearly developed in this masterly scene. We cannot conclude without remarking on the profound instinctive sympathy with a tragical position displayed by the poet in the last speech, where the Prefect entering the alcove, where he will presently be murdered,—utters words of ghastly merriment, like the “last flash” of one who will bear a “graver visage presently,” although, strange to say, for “the first time no gust of air as from a sepulchre salutes his entrance!” All this is exactly the half consciousness of an instinctive feeling of approaching fate, mingled with just those delusive circumstances which lull and disperse apprehension, and lure a victim onward to his doom!
We take our leave of this production of Mr. Browning, by observing, that we consider it, “as a whole,” to be one of the finest of modern dramatic works, and that with no more than the usual adaptation, it would be a good acting drama. Strange to say, it has never yet received anything in the shape of adequate review, or even notice from the press.
How much remains to be said with reference to the prospects of imaginative literature, and how much illustration our remarks would require, must be very apparent.
All that can be done in the present paper is to point out the signs of the poetical spirit—not of “the time,” but the spirit which is at work as an under-current of time; and which we anticipate will gather accumulating force as it proceeds, and sooner or later produce a great change in the quality and tendency of our literature. Meanwhile, let our readers, both at home and abroad, be assured that whatever they may find to admire, and to recognize as evidences of our position, in the fine extracts quoted from the poets previously discussed, their several works abound with passages of equal excellence.
[Richard Hengist Horne]
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. IV. The Return of the Druses (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1843.
Bells & Pomegranates. No. V. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1843.
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