R441000A. Colombe’s Birthday.
The New Quarterly Review, October 1844, pp. 563–564.
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 9.
We have received, and read with great pleasure, Mr. Browning’s last play, “Colombe’s Birthday.” We have been truly delighted with it, as a whole; we should act most ungratefully in deferring our public expression of admiration. “Colombe’s Birthday,” then, is, to sum up its merits in a few words,—a masterpiece of dramatic unity, both in conception and execution, and a poetical embodiment of a simple tale which realises our most happy visions of the “Pure Ideal.” The tale may be told in few words:—It is the birthday of Colombe, the young Duchess of Juliers. On this very day, Prince Berthold, a claimant to her Duchy,—whose right has been acknowledged by the Emperor and the King of France,—approaches, to wrest his birthright from Colombe’s hands. Her courtiers, though they have been long aware of the probability of this event, had concealed the approaching danger altogether from young Colombe: they are now compelled to speak out, having just received a missive from the new heir to the Duchy, ordering them to prepare Colombe for his arrival, and her expulsion on that day. Feeling ashamed to confess that they have so long hidden the truth, they employ Valence, an advocate of Cleves,—who has come to plead the wrongs of the people before the Duchess,—to convey Prince Berthold’s missive to her. This he does, unconscious of its contents; Colombe, in contemptuous indignation for her courtiers’ selfish silence, at once resolves to resign the Duchy. The courtiers strengthen her in her resolve; Valence alone, who secretly loves her, entreats her not so soon to abandon her rights. For his sake she resumes her crown, and resolves to combat to the last. Berthold arrives, and demands the Duchy. Valence, in Colombe’s name, rejects his demand with vehemence. Berthold, admiring Colombe’s courage, resolves to seek her hand in marriage. In the mean time he lays before her the proofs of the justice of his claim, and begs her herself to decide. She delivers these documents to Valence, telling him that she will abide by his decision. Valence half suspects she loves him, and thinks she may be his if she loses her Duchy. He is therefore in the depths of his heart glad to find after a due examination, that Berthold’s right is indefeasible. He is about to declare this, in Colombe’s name, to the Prince, when the latter informs him that he is ready to abandon his claims altogether, if Colombe will accept his hand. Valence feels all but confident that Colombe will not marry the man she loves not, for [p. 564→] the sake of power and splendour. A beautiful scene follows betwixt her and him, in which he at last reveals his love; though not till he is all but compelled by her to do so. She thought that his motive in standing by her was pure loyalty, and thus she at first feels disappointed;—nay—she almost doubts whether she should not accept Berthold’s hand, who appears to her to act so nobly—so disinterestedly. The courtiers, fearing that Colombe will never forgive them for having deserted her, tell the Prince that she and Valence have confessed their love to one another. Colombe will not deny nor affirm that it is so. Valence is summoned to declare the truth. He sees what honour demands of him, and fully exonerates her from the courtiers’ charge. He is then about to retire, but Colombe stays him:—
I take him—give up Juliers and the world.
This is my Birthday!
She says; and thus the piece ends with the retirement of the lovers to blest though obscure happiness and love. Such is a brief sketch of the leading events embodied in this play; but all that is episodical has of course been past over in silence. Thus the development of the character of Prince Berthold is a masterpiece of dramatic portraiture, that it is impossible to praise too highly. As for Colombe, she is one of those pure and delicate creatures, those most beautiful and truly feminine beings, the secret of whose characters seems to pertain peculiarly to Robert Browning. “Pippa,” “Lady Mildred,” “Anael,” “Polyxena,”—what a galaxy of grace and beauty and noble virtue do these names recall to our minds. By all lady-readers Robert Browning should be indeed enthusiastically honoured, for he is “par excellence” the poet of woman. Not that sterner portraitures are less successfully drawn by him;—his “Berthold,” in this very play, is the perfect embodiment of a noble and firm nature encased in the selfish panoply of conventionalism, such as we, alas! too often see in the real world around us. Equally admirable as portraitures, are the young and chivalric but gentle Mertoun, and the truly noble, but too proud Tresham, in the “Blot in the Scutcheon.” But we have no space to dilate at greater length upon our author’s beauties;—we have no space to give such extracts from “Colombe’s Birthday,” as should prove clearly to our readers, that our praise is rather under than over the due mark. We will conclude, therefore, by simply declaring, that with the exception of such needless obscurity as arises from the substitution of dashes for colons and other stops, and the omission of stage directions, the only reproof which we would administer to Robert Browning is one most admirably conveyed in a line of his own “Colombe’s Birthday”—
Ah, well! He o’er refines: the scholar’s fault.
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. VI. Colombe’s Birthday (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1844.
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