THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Miss Carolyn Calvert
 
 ROBERT BROWNING.
 
 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER DRAMAS. 
 BY ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 EDITED, WITH NOTES, 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM j. ROLFE, LITT.D., 
 
 AND 
 
 HELOISE E. HERSEY. 
 
 NEW YORK : CINCINNATI : CHICAGO 
 
 AM Kill CAN BOOK COMPANY
 
 Copyright, 1887, by HARPER & BROTHUS 
 
 A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. 
 w. p. 5
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THIS book has been prepared on the same plan as the Select Poems of 
 Browning, edited by Miss Hersey and myself last summer. The intro- 
 duction is, however, much longer than in that volume, and contains con- 
 siderable matter the substance of which would otherwise have been given 
 in the notes. 
 
 The grateful acknowledgments of the editors are due to Mr. Lawrence 
 Barrett for his interesting letter on the production of A Blot in the 
 ^Scutcheon under his management, and for other information on the sub- 
 ject which is incorporated in the notes ; also to Col. T. W. Higginson 
 for the use of his copy of Bells and Pomegranates in collating the texts. 
 
 W.J. R. 
 CAMBRIDGE, April 14, 1887.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 I. BROWNING'S DRAMAS 9 
 
 II. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON BROWNING AS A DRAMATIST 15 
 
 III. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON "A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON" 40 
 
 IV. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON " COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY" 44 
 
 V. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON "A SOUL'S TRAGEDY" 55 
 
 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 61 
 
 ACT 1 63 
 
 " II '. : 82 
 
 "III 98 
 
 COLOMBIA'S BIRTHDAY 113 
 
 ACT 1 115 
 
 " II 128 
 
 III 141 
 
 "IV 155 
 
 " V 170 
 
 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY 185 
 
 ACT 1 187 
 
 " II 201 
 
 NOTES 219
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 i. BROWNING'S DRAMAS. 
 
 BROWNING'S career as a dramatist is included between the 
 years 1837 and 1845. The eight dramas followed each other 
 in quick succession in this order: 
 
 Strafford, 1837 ; Pippa Passes, 1841 ; King Victor and King 
 Charles, 1842 ; The Return of the Druses and A Blot in the 
 'Scutcheon, 1843; Colombe's Birthday^ 1844.; Luria and A 
 Soul's Tragedy, 1845. 
 
 It will be observed that the three plays included in this 
 volume come from the later and riper period of Browning's 
 dramatic utterance. 
 
 Before 1837 Browning had published Pauline and Para- 
 celsus. Strafford, the first drama, was written at the request 
 of Mr. Macready, made half by accident. Mr. Gosse, in an 
 excellent article in Tfie Century for December, 1881, gives an 
 account of the interview which resulted in the connection 
 between the actor and the poet, and of their subsequent 
 relations. 
 
 With whatever impulsiveness Browning began to write dra- 
 ma, he abandoned the form with deliberation. The dedica- 
 tion of Luria to Walter Savage Landor opens thus: " I dedi- 
 cate this last attempt for the present at dramatic poetry to a 
 great dramatic poet." It has been said that the complica- 
 tions incident to the stage presentation of the plays, the 
 disagreements between author and man.i^rr, and the con-
 
 I o INTROD UC TION. 
 
 sequent half- success of Browning's plays, were the chief 
 causes for his abandonment of the drama. All these may 
 have had their share in the result ; but no one can read these 
 plays in chronological order without feeling that there was 
 an inward as well as an outward reason for the change. The 
 work grows less and less dramatic, and approaches more 
 and more the form which Browning has made so entirely 
 his own (he dramatic monologue. In Colombes Birthday 
 and A Soul's Tragedy there is scarcely anything deserving 
 the name of action. There is not even development of 
 character brought about by the complex influences of plot 
 and counterplot. There is, instead, a single soul put into 
 a single, supreme situation. Upon its choice in that crisis 
 depends all its after -history. This motif is familiar to all 
 readers of Mr. Browning's later short poems. It is the fa- 
 vorite theme there. The Statue and the Bust, " Childe Roland 
 to the Dark Tower Came" The Confessional, Ivan Ivanovitch, 
 crowd instantly to the memory as random illustrations of 
 this method of depicting life. 
 
 In the later dramas the dialogue grows more weighty. 
 There is little of the passion that gives its tremendous force 
 to the scene between Ottima and Sebald in Pippa Passes, 
 and none of the sprightliness which makes Guendolen the 
 life of A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. These are supplanted by 
 steady poetic fervor and lofty thoughT 
 
 But even the earliest of these dramas Strajford and Pip- 
 pa Passes, for example have a quality which, for want of a 
 better name, we must call rcnjoieness. As compared with the 
 men and women of Shakespeare, these are removed from us 
 by a perceptible distance. A marked difference is notice- 
 able in the various plays of Shakespeare in this respect. The 
 Tempest is much more remote than The Merchant of Venice, 
 though both deal with situations unusual to our experience. 
 It is easy to see that, in some plays, for a definite artistic 
 reason, the characters act their parts as if on a deep stage
 
 IN TROD UCTIOX. 1 1 
 
 at a considerable distance from the audience , while in oth- 
 ers they crowd up to the very footlights to speak to us. 
 
 Browning is, even in his early career, more in love with 
 this effect of remoteness than Shakespeare, and it becomes 
 finally his most noticeable charactejistic. In A Soul's Trag- 
 edy the characters are so real as to be almost identified with 
 our own selves, yet we see them at a distance so great that 
 one feels the stage to be the clouds of heaven, over which 
 the actors walk as on a pavement. 
 
 In the Introduction to Pippa Passes, in the previous vol- 
 ume of Selections in this series, we called attention to Mr. 
 Browning's indifference to the ordinary requirement that the 
 (//vw^/'/y/vvvi.v/u- >hall <pcak in^naractcr. II'..' Dimply ignores 
 the demand. Pippa soliloquizes like a poet at whose feet 
 Shelley might have sat ; Colombe, a mere girl, talks like the 
 wisest of philosophers ; Tresham finds time and breath for 
 a flight of the imagination when he has the news of Mer- 
 toun's death to impart to Mildred. But all this, which could 
 never have been done by Shakespeare, is a part of Brown- 
 ing's method, and must be judged as such. He does not 
 crudely or ignorantly pursue it. He conceives the office of 
 the poet to be the expression of the feelings, thoughts, and 
 aspirations of dumb humanity. His analyses will not be^ar 
 tne"glare of the footlights, but they hear the light of the soul. 
 " Were we not dumb from our birth, we should so, speak," 
 his creations seem to say to us We can do a poet no great- 
 er injustice than to set up a false standard by which to try 
 him. Shakespeare suffered this posthumous martyrdom for 
 years at the hands of the admirers of the classic school; 
 but at last we judge him after his own deserts. 
 
 The fact that Shakespeare is the only name suggested as 
 we try to deal with Browning's dramatic quality is itself a 
 testimony to the grade of his work. If the first drama in 
 this book does not convince the reader of Browning's ri^ht 
 
 o o 
 
 to be judged as seriously as Shakespeare, then we much
 
 I 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 overrate A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. But those of us who have 
 learned to prixe Browning may remember that his is not 
 the first drama which has "pleased not the million," has 
 been "caviare to the general," though "an excellent play, 
 well digested in the scenes, set down with as much mod- 
 esty as cunning." 
 
 While this volume was in preparation one of the editors 
 begged an interview with Mr. Lawrence Barrett, for the pur- 
 pose of asking him various questions about his experience in 
 the production of A Blot in the ''Scutcheon. The play was 
 originally brought out in London, under Macready's man- 
 agement, with Mr. Phelps in the role of Tresham. With this 
 exception, Mr. Barrett has the honor of being the only actor 
 who has tested the possibilities of the play on the stage. 
 
 He took at once the most cordial interest in the forthcom- 
 ing book, and was ready to give a detailed account of the 
 changes which had been made in the play for the stage, and 
 of its success. He grew so eloquent while talking of Brown- 
 ing as a dramatist that the editor expressed regret at being 
 unable to reproduce verbatim that part of the interview. On 
 this Mr. Barrett, with characteristic enthusiasm, offered to 
 put his views into writing for our benefit. The letter which 
 was the result of this offer is valuable not only from being 
 the only available testimony to the play from an experienced . 
 actor, but also as coming from a trusted friend of Mr. Brown- 
 ing.* It is now, with Mr. Barrett's consent, given a place 
 here: 
 
 " I had learned to value Browning as a dramatic poet be- 
 fore I knew that he was not so considered by his critics. In 
 the midst of a reading which had only professional aims in 
 
 * The various points in the play altered or omitted in Mr. Barrett's pro- 
 duction, and the history of its American presentation, will be given in the 
 Notes.
 
 IN TROD UCT10N. ! 3 
 
 view my attention was called to this poet by one who shares 
 his genius in a remarkable degree, not only as a dramatic 
 poet, but as, indeed, our only American dramatic poet in its 
 highest sense George H. Boker. 
 
 " I had heard My Last Duchess and /// a Gondola read most 
 eloquently by Mr. Boker, and I then turned to the poet's 
 works to find for myself the greatest of dramas in A Blot in 
 the ''Scutcheon. While I was at once arrested by the majesty 
 of the verse, my mind was more attracted by the dramatic 
 quality of the story, which stamped the author at once as a 
 master of theatric form of narration the oldest and the 
 greatest of all forms. 
 
 " I saw in Thorold a clear and perfectly outlined character 
 suited to stage purposes ; in Mildred and Mertoun a pair 
 of lovers whose counterparts may be found only in the im- 
 mortal lovers of Verona, Juliet and Romeo, while they are 
 as distinctly original as those of Shakespeare ; and in Guen- 
 dolen a revival of Imogen herself. I saw that the play, like 
 many plays of the earlier dramatists as well as those con- 
 temporary with this production, was written for an age when 
 the ear of the auditor was more attentive than the eye, and 
 when the appliances of the stage were less ample than now; 
 and I saw that, with a treatment of the text such as all stage 
 managers have freely given even to the plays of the greatest 
 of all dramatists, the Blot in the 'Scutcheon would take a front 
 rank as an acting play. 
 
 "With this idea I awaited my approaching visit to Lon- 
 don, in the hope that I might meet the poet and persuade 
 him to make certain slight alterations, or permit me to stage 
 it in the modern way. I found him as eager for the glory 
 of the theatre as when he produced his Strafford, forty years 
 before, and while he was unable, as he said, to go over the 
 text extensively to meet the stage requirements, he would 
 gladly consent to its presentation with the ordinary changes 
 which the stage manager makes in such matters.
 
 1 4 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 " I had gained only a part of my purpose, but I determined 
 to make the best of such license as he gave me ; and the re- 
 sult was that, with a few verbal inversions and a slight cut- 
 ting of the text, the play was given in Washington before a 
 most distinguished audience with remarkable effect, and it 
 has since taken its place in my repertoire with the other 
 great plays of kindred dramatists. 
 
 "The difficulties have been in finding proper persons to 
 represent the parts. Mertoun and Mildred are especially 
 hard to fill, but in Mr. Mosley and in Miss Allen these char- 
 acters had adequate representatives, while the Guendolen 
 of Miss Gale and the Gerald of Mr. Rogers were portraits 
 worthy of the author. 
 
 " Looking back over the literary and biographical history 
 of the past half-century, no event seems to have borne great- 
 er misfortune to the stage and the drama generally than the 
 misunderstanding between Mr. Browning and Mr. Macready 
 over the initial performance of this play. It is all the more 
 to be regretted that it arose from no ill-intent on the part of 
 either; but it drove from the stage a poet who only needed 
 the experience at the manager's table which all the great 
 dramatists have found so valuable to have given us a new 
 gallery of stage portraits. Here was, again, a poet whose 
 thoughts fell at once into the dramatic form, whose charac- 
 ters unfolded themselves by act and speech, whose treat- 
 ment of subject involved a rising interest and a progressive 
 movement, terminating in an adequate denouement, while the 
 verse bore the impress which lives in Shakespeare and his 
 contemporaries, and in ' Marlowe's mighty line,' an heir to 
 the fellowship of those writers who have made the drama's 
 history sublime and achieved the highest fame. 
 
 "A little familiarity with the mechanism of the theatre, 
 such as Shakespeare, Alfieri, or Goldoni had, such as all 
 the successful dramatists have had, and we should possess 
 great plays as well as great poems from the pen of Robert
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 Browning. Then the grand traits of his two heroines in the 
 drainage poem /// a Balcony would have shone- in the theat- 
 rical frame resplendent with the Antoinette of Giacometti or 
 the Ophelia and Portia of Shakespeare ; while the Flight of 
 the Duchess and other remarkable poems would have obeyed 
 the grand laws of the dramatic form, and gone into line with 
 the creations of those great poets with whom only Browning 
 may be classed ' the immortal names that were not born 
 to die.' LAWRENCE BARRETT." 
 
 II. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON BROWNING AS A DRAMATIST. 
 
 [From James Russell Lowell's Paper on Browning.*] 
 Are we to suppose that the genius for poetry is entirely 
 exhausted? Or would it not rather be wiser to admit as a 
 possibility that the poems we are criticising may be new and 
 great, and to bestow on them a part at least of that study 
 which we dare not refuse to such as have received the war- 
 rant of time? The writings of those poets who are estab- 
 lished beyond question as great are constantly inculcating 
 upon us lessons of humility and distrust of self. New depths 
 and intricacies of meaning are forever unfolding themselves. 
 We learn by degrees that we had at first comprehended, as 
 it were, only their astral spirit. Slowly, and, as it might 
 seem, almost reluctantly, their more ethereal and diviner soul 
 lets itself become visible to us, consents to be our interpreter 
 and companion. The passage which one mood of our mind 
 found dark and shadowy, another beholds winding as be- 
 tween the pillars of the Beautiful Gate. We discover beauties 
 in exact proportion as we have faith that we shall. And the 
 old poets have this advantage, that we bring to the reading 
 of them a religious and trustful spirit. The realm of Shake- 
 
 * North American Review, April, 1848 (vol. xlvi.). The brief passage 
 from this paper given in our Select Poems of Bi owning (\>. 19) is included 
 in the present longer extract, from which it could not be omitted without 
 injury to the context.
 
 1 6 INTKOD UC T1ON. 
 
 speare, peopled with royal and heroic shades, the sublime 
 solitudes of Milton, bid us take the shoes from off our feet. 
 Flippancy is abashed there, and conceit startles at the sound 
 of its own voice ; for the making of true poetry is almost 
 equally divided between the poet and the reader. To the 
 consideration of universally acknowledged masterpieces we 
 are willing to contribute our own share, and to give earnest 
 study and honest endeavor. Full of meaning was that an- 
 cient belief, that the spirits of wood, and water, and rock, 
 and mountain would grant only an enforced communion. 
 The compulsion they awaited was that of a pure mind and a 
 willing spirit. 
 
 The critic, then, should never compress the book he com- 
 ments on within the impoverishing limits of a mood. He 
 should endeavor rather to estimate an author by what he is 
 than by what he is not. He should test the parts of a poem, 
 not by his own preconceptions, but by the motive and aim 
 of the whole. He should try whether, by any possibility, he 
 can perceive a unity in it toward which the several parts 
 centre. He should remember that very many excellent and 
 enlightened men, in other respects good citizens, have es- 
 teemed poetry to be, not only an art, but the highest of all 
 arts, round which the rest of what we call the fine arts re- 
 volve, receiving light and warmth. He should consider that 
 only they whose understandings are superior to and include 
 that of the artist can criticise his work by intuition. He should 
 feel that his duty is to follow his author, and not to guide 
 him. Above all he should consider that the effort which the 
 poor author has made to please the world was very likely 
 not intended as a personal insult to be indignantly resented, 
 but should make an attempt to read the book he is about to 
 pronounce judgment upon, and that, too, with a civil atten- 
 tion. 
 
 The difference between a true poet and a mere rhymer is 
 not one of degree, but of kind. It is as great as that be'
 
 IN TROD UC TION. T 7 
 
 tween the inventor and the mechanician. The latter can 
 make all the several parts of the machine, and adapt them 
 to each other with a polished nicety. The idea once given, 
 he can always reproduce the complete engine. The product 
 of his labor is the highest finish of which brass and steel are 
 capable, but it remains a dead body of metal still. The in- 
 ventor alone can furnish those strong, weariless limbs with a 
 soul. In his creative intellect resides the spirit of life which 
 shall inspire this earthborn Titan, which shall set him at 
 work in the forge and the mill, and compel him to toil side 
 by side in friendly concert with the forces of nature. There, 
 in the dark, patiently delves the hundred-handed Pyropha- 
 gus, and it is this primal breath of the master's spirit which 
 forever gives motion and intelligence to that iron brain and 
 those nerves of steel. 
 
 The first thing that we have to demand of a poet is that 
 his verses be really alive. Life we look for first, and growth 
 as its necessary consequence and indicator. And it must be 
 an original, not a parasitic life a life capable of reproduc- 
 tion. There will be barnacles which glue themselves fast 
 to every intellectual movement of the world, and seem to 
 possess in themselves that power of motion which they truly 
 diminish in that which sustains them and bears them along. 
 But there are also unseen winds which fill the sails, and stars 
 by which the courses are set. The oak, which lies in the 
 good ship's side an inert mass, still lives in the progeny of 
 its chance-dropped acorns. The same gale which bends the 
 creaking mast of pine sings through the tossing hair of its 
 thousand sons in the far inland. The tree of the mechanic 
 bears only wooden acorns. 
 
 Is Robert Browning, then, a poet ? Our knowledge of him 
 can date back seven years [from 1848], and an immortality 
 which has withstood the manifold changes of so long a pe- 
 riod can be, as immortalities go, no mushroom. How many 
 wooden gods have we seen during that period transformed 
 
 2
 
 1 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 into chopping-blocks, or kindled into unwilling and sputter 
 ing sacrificial fires upon the altar of other deities as ligneous 
 as themselves ! We got our first knowledge of him from two 
 verses of his which we saw quoted in a newspaper, and from 
 that moment took him for granted as a new poet. Since 
 then we have watched him with a constantly deepening in- 
 terest. Much that seemed obscure and formless in his 
 earlier productions has been interpreted by his later ones. 
 Taken by itself, it might remain obscure and formless still, 
 but it becomes clear and assumes definite shape when con- 
 sidered as only a part of a yet unfinished whole. We per- 
 ceive running through and knitting together all his poems 
 the homogeneous spirit, gradually becoming assured of it- 
 self, of an original mind. We know not what higher praise 
 to bestow on him than to say that his latest poems are his 
 best. 
 
 His earlier poems we shall rather choose to consider as 
 parts and illustrations of his poetic life than as poems. We 
 find here the consciousness of wings, the heaven grasped 
 and measured by an aspiring eye, but no sustained flight as 
 yet. These are the poet's justifications of himself to him- 
 self, while he was brooding over greater designs. . . . 
 
 Let us now turn to the Bells and Pomegranates. And here 
 we are met on the very threshold by the difficulty of selec- 
 tion. Not only are the lyrics singularly various in tone and 
 character, but, in the dramas, that interdependence of the 
 parts, which is one of their most striking and singular merits, 
 makes any passage taken by itself do great injustice to the 
 author. These dramas are not made up of a number of 
 beauties, distinct and isolate as pearls, threaded upon the 
 string of the plot. Each has a permeating life and spirit of 
 its own. When we would break off any fragment, we cannot 
 find one which would by itself approach completeness. It 
 is like tearing away a limb from a living body. For these 
 are works of art in the truest sense. They are not aggrega-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 tions of dissonant beauties, like some modern sculptures, 
 against which the Apollo might bring an action of trover 
 for an arm, and the Antinoiis for a leg, but pure statues, in 
 which everything superfluous has been chiselled away, and 
 whose wonderful balance might seem lameness to the ordi- 
 nary observer, who demands strain as an evidence of strength. 
 They are not arguments on either side of any of the great 
 questions which divide the world. The characters in them 
 are not bundles of different characteristics, but their gradual 
 development runs through the whole drama and makes the 
 life of it. We do not learn what they are by what they say 
 of themselves, or by what is said of them, so much as by 
 what they do or leave undone. Nor does any drama seem 
 to be written for the display of some one character which the 
 author has conceived and makes a favorite of. No undue 
 emphasis is laid upon any. Each fills his part, and each, in 
 his higher or lower grade, his greater or less prominence, is 
 equally necessary to the rest. Above all, his personages are 
 not mere mouthpieces for the author's idiosyncrasies. We 
 take leave of Mr. Browning at the end of Sordello, and, ex- 
 cept in some shorter lyrics, see no more of him. His men 
 and women are men and women, and not Mr. Browning mas- 
 querading in different-colored dominos. We implied as much 
 when we said that he was an artist. For the artist-period 
 begins precisely at the point where the pleasure of express- 
 ing self ends, and the poet becomes sensible that his highest 
 duty is to give voice to the myriad forms of nature, which, 
 wanting him, were dumb. The term art includes many lower 
 faculties of the poet ; but this appears to us its highest and 
 most comprehensive definition. Hence Shakespeare, the tru- 
 est of artists, is also nothing more than a voice. We seek 
 in vain in his plays for any traces of his personal character 
 or history. A man may be even a great poet without being 
 an artist. Byron was, through all whose works we find no 
 individual, self-subsistent characters. His heroes are always
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 himself in so many different stage-costumes, and his Don 
 yuan is his best poem, and approaches more nearly a work 
 of art, by just so much as he has in that expressed himself 
 most truly and untheatrically. 
 
 Regarding Mr. Browning's dramas in this light, and es- 
 teeming them as so excellent and peculiar, we shall not do 
 him the injustice of picking out detached beauties, and hold, 
 ing them up as fair specimens of his power. He may be 
 surpassed by one contemporary in finish, by another in mel- 
 ody ; but we shall not try him by comparison, We are 
 thankful to him for being what he is, for contriving to be 
 himself and to keep so. Why, in ordinary society, is it not 
 sometimes the solitary merit of Smith, and all that makes 
 him endurable, that he is not exactly Brown ? We are quite 
 willing to be grateful for whatever gifts it has pleased God 
 to bestow on any musically-endowed spirit. The scale is 
 composed of various notes, and cannot afford to do without 
 any of them, or to have one substituted for another. 
 
 It is not so much for his expression of isolated thoughts 
 as for his power of thinking, that we value Browning. Most 
 readers prefer those authors in whom they find the faculty 
 of observation, to those in whom power of thought is pre- 
 dominant, for the simple reason that sensation is easier than 
 reflection. By observation we mean that quality of mind 
 which discriminates and sets forth particular ideas by and 
 for themselves alone. Thought goes deeper, and employs 
 itself in detecting and exemplifying the unity which embraces 
 and underlies all ideas. A writer of the first class reaches 
 the mass of readers because they can verify what he says by 
 their own experience, and we cannot help thinking tolerably 
 well of those who put us in mind of our own penetration. 
 He requires them only to feel. A writer of the other kind 
 takes the understanding, and demands in turn an exercise 
 of thought on the part of his readers. Both of these facul- 
 ties may, of course, differ in degree, may be more or less ex-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 2 1 
 
 tcrnal, more or less profound, as it may happen. They co- 
 exist in the same mind overlapping one the other by a wider 
 or more limited extent. The predominance of the one or 
 the other determines the tendency of the mind. There are 
 exceptional natures in which they balance each other as in 
 Shakespeare. We may instance Browne and Montaigne as 
 examples in one kind, Bacon as an illustration of the other. 
 It is because we find in Browning eminent qualities as a 
 dramatist, that we assign him his place as a thinker. This 
 dramatic faculty is a far rarer one than we are apt to imag- 
 ine. It does not consist in a familiarity with stage effect, in 
 the capacity for inventing and developing a harmonious and 
 intricate plot, nor in an appreciation of passion as it reveals 
 itself in outward word or action. It lies not in a knowledge 
 of character, so much as in an imaginative conception of the 
 springs of it. Neither each of these singly, nor all of them 
 together, without that unitary faculty which fuses the whole 
 and subjects them all to the motion of a single will, consti- 
 tute a dramatist. Among the crowd of play-writers contem- 
 porary with Shakespeare, we can find poets enough, but 'can 
 we name three who were dramatists in any other than a tech- 
 nical sense ? In endeavoring to eliminate the pure dramatic 
 faculty, by precipitating and removing one by one the grosser 
 materials which it holds in solution, we have left the Greek 
 drama entirely out of the question. The motive of the an- 
 cient tragedy differs from that of the modern in kind. Nor 
 do we speak of this faculty as a higher or lower one, but sim- 
 ply as being distinct and rare. 
 
 [from Rev. John Weiss 's Review of Browning.*'] 
 
 We do not find the condensed energy and meaning of Mr. 
 
 Browning an objectionable trait. Hamlet has to be studied 
 
 a little, and we remember that Beethoven's symphonies do 
 
 not possess us till we have heard each half a do/en times. 
 
 * Massachusetts Quartet ly Review, June, 1850 (vol. iv. ').
 
 22 /A' TKOD UC TION. 
 
 Mr. Browning seems to take his poems, after writing them, 
 and crush them together at both ends, till he gets the well- 
 knit symmetry and consistency of a Bedouin ; he succeeds in 
 making a sort of intellectual and spiritual pemmicnn. Some- 
 times, indeed, the desire to produce something dense and 
 nervous gets only obscurity for its result instead of an effect- 
 ive vivacity. When Mr. Browning began to write, we say 
 with deference, that this was his besetting sin. . . . The fan- 
 cies throng to the pen's point, throwing clashes and commas 
 behind them, till they get out of sight of their arch instigator 
 in the first lines. We love to linger over such passages, 
 grudging no time, till we tie the two ends together : then 
 we can enjoy the picture so munificently grouped. It is no 
 condemnation of these pages to sny that few people will con- 
 sent to bestow so much time and labor upon them. The 
 lovers of a smooth poetry, which can be caught at a glance, 
 or of an easy flow of didactic talk which does not harass the 
 average intellect, cannot sit in judgment upon Mr. Brown- 
 ing's involutions and lengthy crescendoes, for they are not 
 the persons who wait to see whether the picture, at first so 
 confused and apparently destitute of a leading group or idea, 
 is worth the contemplation which may finally reproduce the 
 poet's point of view, and thus call a beautiful order out pf 
 the prodigal chaos. . . . 
 
 The fast diminishing space admonishes us that we have 
 yet the greater part of this new archipelago to sail through, 
 and taste the different fruits, while we have hardly indicated 
 the beauties that remain behind. Visit the Jarclin des Plantes 
 to appreciate the hopeless bewilderment of the critic fairly 
 turned into Mr. Browning's menagerie, aviary, flower-garden, 
 and halls of relics, with the door slammed behind him. None 
 of the plays have yet been noticed ; nothing said yet about 
 the innocent Pippa, with her holiday ministry, a pure voice 
 of nature, Heaven's opportunity to redeem many sinful hearts, 
 and each of these hearts, too, worth our sympathy ; no love
 
 INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 yet expressed for Guendolen, who is God's grace and wom- 
 an's fidelity to the erring Mildred, and one of Mr. Brown- 
 ing's most natural characters, beckoned apart from the living 
 throng of the street before she has learned the tricks of self- 
 consciousness ; no hint of the subtle developments in the 
 Soufs Tragedy, with its racy prose, pitting sly papal' reac- 
 tion against a patriotism none of the purest ; and not yet a 
 line of Valence's integrity, enamoured of Colombe, another 
 real woman, unspoiled by a year's splendor, resigned to the 
 legal claimant, Valence, the true Duke's generous rival in 
 love, but at last the husband of simple Colombe Valence, 
 the man, left alone with her undisturbed content when the 
 courtiers rushed like motes to the new magnet. . . . 
 
 To our perception this play {Lurid\ is not so artless and 
 human as the Blot in the 'Scutcheon ; its fortunes do not touch 
 our feelings so deeply. Guendolen and Mildred uncover the 
 heart's well ; they draw for us the pathos of home, and the 
 same draught mingles sadness for the catastrophes of sin 
 with gratitude for home's loyalty and mercy. Yes, we thank 
 Guendolen with our eyes and hearts, for she succeeds in as- 
 suring us that God will yet find the sallied Mildred lovable 
 
 Luria is a lesson ; A Blot in the 'Scutcheon is an experience ; 
 the one is a drama ; the other is a heart's or home's interior. 
 Luria is stately and inspiring ; but Mildred and Guendolen 
 are of us women kiss them ; all sit and weep with them. . . . 
 
 Is it too much to say that, with this pen for sceptre, Mr. 
 Browning can exact the homage of all hearts? He will per- 
 mit us to apply to his conceptions of truth and -beauty what 
 he says of the chief, best way of worship : 
 
 " Let me strive 
 
 To find it, and, when found, contrive 
 My fellows also take their share." 
 
 We tleem that he possesses all the gifts and the exuberant 
 
 life needed by the great artist, and he makes us conscious 
 
 :<-li^ioiiMiess that can command their services for the
 
 24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 good of men. " Give the world a direction toward the good," 
 Schiller says to the artist. " You have given it this direction, 
 if as a teacher you elevate its thoughts to the necessary and 
 eternal ; if, while acting or composing, you transform the nec- 
 essary and eternal with an object of its impulse. Create the 
 conquering truth in the modest stillness of your soul, array 
 it in a form of beauty, that not only thought may pay it hom- 
 age, but sense lovingly comprehend its presence." 
 
 Last words of admiration and gratitude linger on our pen. 
 We bespeak for every future line of Mr. Browning a cordial 
 welcome here. And it is pleasant to think that he cannot 
 regard the warm personal friendships he has unconsciously 
 established here with indifference. . . . 
 
 "Contrive, contrive 
 To rou>e us, Waring ! Who's alive? 
 Our men scarce seem in earnest now ; 
 Distinguished names ! but 'tis somehow 
 As if they played at being names 
 Still more distinguished, like the games 
 Of children. Turn our sport to earnest." 
 
 [From '"Putnam's Mtifiziiif."*] 
 
 Robert Browning's poetry is certainly very hard reading, 
 like Cowley's and Dr. Donne's. But the difference between 
 him and such obscurists is, that with the earlier poets, both 
 the style and the sentiment were equally conceits while 
 Browning's style is the naturally quaint form of a subtle or 
 sinewy thought. In any general classification of English 
 poetry, Browning must be ranked with the modern school 
 for his profound reality and humanity and faithful reliance 
 upon nature. In any classification of poetry in general, he 
 is strictly a dramatist the most purely dramatic genius in 
 English literature since the great dramatic days. 
 
 A great deal of the difficulty in reading his poetry arises 
 from its purely dramatic conception and form. The man 
 * April, 1856 (vol. vii.).
 
 IN TROD UC TION. 2 5 
 
 Browning is not to be- found in his poems, except inferen- 
 tially, like Shakespeare in his dramas. The various play 
 of profound passion is his favorite realm. He loves the 
 South, and Southern character, as Byron loved the East. 
 But Byron's passion, however fiery and intense, is a passion 
 of the senses Browning's is the passion of the soul, includ- 
 ing and deepening the other. In other great English poets 
 there is more daring indecency ; but in none such startling 
 audacity of passionate expression. It is the emotional nature 
 of man with which he deals, and with man everywhere, and 
 under all circumstances. Thus, while the quaint structure 
 of his mind, and his rare and curious reading, show, for in- 
 stance, his natural abstract sympathy with the fantastic hor- 
 rors of the Middle Ages, springing, as they did, out of a kind 
 of cold, religious logic ; yet he dashes in the scene with a 
 living picturesqueness, which invests it with a lurid but ap- 
 propriate splendor. . . . 
 
 The fact of occasional obscurity is not to be denied. Upon 
 the whole, Browning's poetry is harder to follow than that 
 of any other great English poet. But the chief reason is, 
 that he boldly aims to express what is, in its nature, so eva- 
 nescent and shadowy to put into words processes of thought 
 and feeling, so delicately inwrought and fluctuating that only 
 sharp self-observers and students of human character can 
 pursue them. For instance, Luria and A Soufs Tragedy 
 are like transverse sections of human life and human souls. 
 As in the wax physiological models every exquisite detail is 
 preserved, so the finest fibres of feeling, so to speak the 
 most intricate, and, at the same time, delicate convolutions 
 of impulse, policy, and principle are laid open in this po- 
 etry. The poet shrinks from expressing nothing, and there 
 is, therefore, a variety of the profoundest passionate experi- 
 ,n Piiownin^'s poetry, not to be surpassed out of Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 Critics complain that they find no difficulty in understand-
 
 2 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ing Pope and Thomson, and Cowper and Dryden, and Gold- 
 smith and Byron ; but the modern schbol, Keats, Shelley, 
 Coleridge, Tennyson, and Browning, they declare to be be- 
 yond them. They find, in the modern men, a tendency to 
 euphemism, a dazzling range of splendid and voluptuous 
 words, but nothing else. It is contended that the modern 
 men mistake obscurity for profundity, and a glittering epi- 
 thet for a beautiful thought. Now, that Pope and the other 
 poets are, in a certain sense, easier reading than the others, 
 is true enough. But it is easier reading, because it is easier 
 thinking. Shakespeare is no primer, nor so shallowly intel- 
 ligible. The greatest things are simplest, certainly ; but ease 
 is not necessarily simplicity. Tom Moore never perplexes 
 us about his meaning ; but then, Tom Moore never has much 
 meaning. To insist that, if a man has anything to say, he 
 must say it so that everybody can understand it, is merely 
 idle ; for only experience can understand what experience 
 inspires. To complain of Browning, because he is not so 
 intelligible, at a glance, as Pope, is like complaining that 
 Plato is not so easy as Steele. It is as impossible that 
 Browning should write as Pope wrote as it is that Pope 
 should have written like Byron. The truth is, that no poet's 
 style is more profoundly individual and appropriate than 
 Browning's. The very form of his expression helps us often 
 to the significance of the thought ; and when we bear in 
 mind what the character of his mental action is ; how sud- 
 den and unexpected, and vigorous, and subtle, and romantic ; 
 that he is peculiarly a psychologist it may be better, instead 
 of calling him turgid and blind, and asking him to say what 
 he means, to reflect that he has as much to say as any recent 
 poet, and says it as perfectly, although entirely in his own 
 way. . . . 
 
 The power which appears in the quaint and horrible po- 
 ems of our author, which is a power working to most legiti- 
 mate ends for what a prodigious moral in human history
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 27 
 
 and development is thundered from each of the poems we 
 have quoted is no less evident through all his dramas, dra- 
 matic lyrics, and pure love poems. Love is peculiarly his 
 inspiration. Not the love of girls, or sick striplings, but the 
 terrible love of great, strong, passionate natures. Of all 
 modern poets, Browning is the most subtle analyst of the 
 passion, and yet, singularly enough, his poetry is full of its 
 finest fire ; for his knowledge does not come from philosoph- 
 ical investigation, but from the acutest perception. Akin to 
 this is his remarkable appreciation of the passion as it ap- 
 pears in women. No other English poet but Shakespeare 
 has given expression to so many and different moods of love. 
 He is sternly true to nature and experience. The slight in- 
 fluences that so strongly affect deep feeling, the inconsisten- 
 cies, caprices, irrationalities, and surprises of human love, are 
 shown by the poet in their most delicate and evanescent 
 forms and relations. . . . 
 
 Browning's dramas would amply supply material for another 
 article. Our present object has been rather to show the general 
 character and affluent variety of the poet's genius, and to re- 
 mind the reader that, if there is much of his verse which will 
 demand close study to understand, there is very much which 
 is really as simple and original and beautiful as any poetry. 
 Browning is an objective poet in an age of subjective poetry. 
 His heart beats strongly for the noblest truths. With all his pro- 
 found sympathy with the spirit of many countries and times, he 
 is never, for a moment, recreant to the loftiest spirit of his own 
 age and country. Yet this sympathy never appears directly ; 
 never, by any chance, in the way of preaching. He holds the 
 mirror to mediaeval Germany, Italy, France, and England, and 
 so firmly that the picture is perfect, and is its own criticism. 
 He holds the mirror to his own day as truly, and the reflec- 
 tion is a profound commentary upon the time. . . . 
 
 A poet's poet he has been called. But if a poet's poet, 
 then how much a poet ! We beg the reader not to judge
 
 28 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 this man unheard, nor to believe him only a phrase-monger, 
 because some critics cannot slip along his verses as smooth- 
 ly as they do upon some others. Browning is not less a poet 
 because he is not like other good and true poets. He would 
 be less a poet if he were more like them ; for he would then 
 be less original and individual. His individuality is not a 
 spasmodic use of words for thoughts ; but it is the exquisite 
 perception of a strong and rich mind, using words with a del- 
 icate skill and an inward music. 
 
 [From the "Book of the Poets" by Elizabeth 
 It is advantageous for us all, whether poets or poetasters, 
 or talkers about either, to know what a true poet is, what his 
 work is, and what his patience and success must be, so as to 
 raise the popular idea of these things, and either strengthen 
 or put down the individual aspiration. " Art," it was said 
 long ago, " requires the whole man," and " Nobody," it was 
 said later, "can be a poet who is anything else;" but the 
 present idea of Art requires the segment of a man, and eve- 
 rybody who is anything at all is a poet in a parenthesis. 
 And our shelves groan with little books over which their 
 readers groan less metaphorically ; there is a plague of po- 
 ems in the land apart from poetry ; and many poets who live 
 and are true do not live by their truth, but hold back their 
 full strength from Art because they do not reverence it fully ; 
 and all booksellers cry aloud and do not spare, that poetry 
 will not sell ; and certain critics utter melancholy frenzies, 
 that poetry is worn out forever as if the morning star was 
 worn out from heaven, or " the yellow primrose " from the 
 grass ; and Mr. D'Israeli the younger, like Bildad comfort- 
 
 * London, 1863. This extract has a unique interest as showing the 
 poetic value which Elizabeth Barrett gave to Mr. Browning's work even 
 before she knew hirn. The papers on The English Poets were originally 
 printed in 1842, in the Athenautn. It is scarcely straining a point to 
 suggest that Mrs. Browning's closing quotation applies as well to Brown- 
 ing as to Wordsworth.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 29 
 
 ing Job, suggests that we may content ourselves for the fut- 
 ure with a rhythmetic prose, printed like prose for decency, 
 and supplied, for comfort, with a parish allowance of two or 
 three rhymes to a paragraph. Should there be any whom 
 such a "New Poor Law" would content, we are far from 
 wishing to disturb the virtue. of their serenity ; let them con- 
 tinue, like the hypochondriac, to be very sure that they have 
 lost their souls, inclusive of their poetic instincts. In the 
 meantime the hopeful and believing will hope trust on ; and, 
 better still, the Tennysons and the Brownings, and other high- 
 gifted spirits, will work, wait on, until, as Mr. Horn has said : 
 
 " Strong deeds awake, 
 And, clamoring, throng the portals of the hour." 
 
 It is well for them and all to count the cost of this life of a 
 master in poetry, and learn from it what a true poet's crown 
 is worth ; to recall both the long life's work for its sake 
 the work of observation, of meditation, of reaching past mod- 
 els into nature, of reaching past nature unto God ; and the 
 early life's loss for its sake the loss of the popular cheer, 
 of the critical assent, and of the " money in the purse." It 
 is well and full of exultation to remember now what a silent, 
 blameless, heroic life of poetic duty this man [Wordsworth] 
 has lived ; how he never cried rudely against the world be- 
 cause he was excluded for a time from the parsley garlands 
 of its popularity ; nor sinned morally because he was sinned 
 against intellectually ; nor, being tempted and threatened by 
 paymaster and reviewer, swerved from the righteousness 
 and high aims of his inexorable genius. And it cannot be 
 ill to conclude by enforcing a high example by some noble 
 precepts which, taken from the " Musophilus" of old Danish, 
 do contain, to our mind, the very code of chivalry for poets- 
 " Be it that my unseasonable song 
 
 < 'ome out of time, that fault is in the time ; 
 And I must not <!> virtue s<> ninth wiong 
 
 As love her au-'ht the worse for other's crime.
 
 3 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 And for my part, if only one allow 
 
 The care my laboring spirits take in this, 
 
 He is to me a theatre enow, 
 And his applause only sufficient is : 
 
 " All my respect is bent but to his brow ; 
 
 That is my all, and all I am is his, 
 And if some worthy spirits be pleased too, 
 
 It shall more comfort breed, but not more will. 
 BUT WHAT IF NONE ? It cannot yet undo 
 
 The love I bear unto this holy skill ; 
 This is the thing that I was born to do, 
 
 This is my scene, this part must I fulfil." 
 
 [From George Barrett Smith's Paper on Broivning.*] 
 
 No contemporary poet is greater than the author of The 
 Ring and the Book, and yet the world has been very fickle 
 towards him. It reads him not, save in the spasmodic and 
 painful effort, and if his popularity be measured by that of 
 Tennyson or Longfellow, it may be described as the climax 
 of neglect. His genius is powerful, but irritating ; his poems 
 are full of entangling meshes for the unwary reader ; they 
 are a thorn in the side of this desultory generation. Men 
 like to have the reputation of understanding him, but are 
 unwilling to go through the necessary amount of intellectual 
 labor for the purpose. Critics enlarge upon his perversities of 
 thought and diction, and yet, when all has been said against 
 him that critical ingenuity or popular feeling can suggest, it 
 is universally admitted that this distinguished poet's works, 
 with all their manifest defects, are charged with passages of 
 the very loftiest order of poetry. . . . His soul has always 
 been aflame with poetic thought ; and his ideal and goal 
 have never consisted in mere popular applause. He has 
 sung because he must, and given to his song that articula- 
 tion of which he was capable. . . . 
 
 The life of Browning has been such as we should wish to 
 
 * Intematioital Kcricw^ vol. vi. p. 176 fol.
 
 itiTROD UC TION. 3 1 
 
 associate always with the genuine poet quiet, retired, une- 
 ventful. Though evidently a close student of human nature, 
 his genius has been nurtured in contemplation rather than 
 in the midst of those morbid forms of social and mental ac- 
 tivity which have dwarfed and paralyzed the powers of so 
 many men of letters. Like the oak, Browning has grown to 
 his present stature silently and by assured natural stages ; 
 in retirement in Italy, with the solace and communion of 
 his wife (" Shakespeare's daughter," as a brother poet called 
 her), and since her death, for many years in England, he has 
 been accumulating those vast stores of knowledge which find 
 but their merest indication in his works. . . . His friends are 
 among the most distinguished of Englishmen ; they know 
 his powers, his gifts, and his charms in society ; for when we 
 say that he has shunned the common forms of mental and 
 social activity, it must not be assumed that there is no circle 
 whatever in society which his genius has illumined. Only 
 he is no poser in his works or his life. 
 
 [From the " Christian Examiner." *] 
 
 Rich as are Mr. Browning's powers of imagination and 
 description, his chief excellence lies in his delineation of in- 
 dividual character ; and we know of no other living poet who 
 so thoroughly conceives or* so finely portrays the differing 
 shades of it found in actual life. His personages have a vi- 
 tality and idiosyncrasy of their own, while they are always 
 true to nature, and never degenerate into caricatures. Take 
 almost any one of his principal characters, and we at once 
 perceive this excellence, although we occasionally find them 
 dealing quite too much in metaphysical arguments and dis- 
 cussions about abstract ideas. But, apart from that defect, 
 which is, to a greater or less degree, inherent in nearly all 
 his creations, we have little to object to in his conceptions 
 of character. Among his female characters, the preference, 
 * May, 1850 (vol. xlviii.).
 
 32 INTKODUCT/OK. 
 
 we suppose, will be given to 1'ipp.i, who is one of the sweet- 
 est creations of modem pot-try. It is impossible to resist 
 the beautiful simplicity and purity of her character, as it is 
 developed in the few brief glimpses which we catch of her 
 during her single holiday. Widely different from her and 
 from each other are the clear-headed but faithful Polyxena, 
 the gentle Mildred, the spotless but affectionate Guendolen, 
 the fond mother of Luigi, the tender-hearted and patriotic 
 Colombe, the devoted Anael, the cunning Domizia, and the 
 thoroughly wicked Ottima; yet all are admirably conceived 
 and sharply drawn. We at once pierce to the very heart's 
 core of each of them, and read her whole disposition at a 
 glance. In his delineations of male character, Mr. Brown- 
 ing shows equal skill. Luigi, Sebald, Monsignor, King 
 Victor, King Charles, D'Ormea, Valence, Thorold, Austin, 
 Henry, Gerard, Luria, Puccia, Braccio, and Tiburzio, are all 
 living realities to the mind. 
 
 Mr. Browning's mind is eminently dramatic, and all of his 
 works have a dramatic tone. Even his lyrical and narrative 
 poems are very properly denominated "dramatic lyrics." 
 Most of them, however, are dramatic poems rather than 
 dramas, and might. just as well have been cast in a differ- 
 ent form. They lack those salient points and that brisk- 
 ness of movement which are needful in an effective stage- 
 play 
 
 Colombe's Birthday is a sprightly and pleasant dramatic 
 sketch, in which the interest centres wholly in the two prin- 
 cipal characters, and we care little for the accessories. A 
 Blot in the 'Scutcheon comes next, and is undoubtedly Mr. 
 Browning's masterpiece ; but it must be read as a whole in 
 order to be fairly appreciated, for no extracts can do justice 
 to its great power and beauty. It possesses a simple and 
 massive grandeur to which none of his other works can lay 
 claim. The reader's mind is completely overwhelmed and led 
 captive during its perusal, and he rises from it with the full
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 33 
 
 conviction that no one but a poet of the highest order could 
 thus have chained his attention. ... 
 
 A Soul's Tragedy is properly a dramatic poem, with little 
 incident and only a slight attempt at characterization. The 
 second part, however, is full of quiet humor and pointed sat- 
 ire. Few pieces are more characteristic of Mr. Browning's 
 mind than this second part. 
 
 [from Richard Henry Stoddard's Paper on Browning.*] 
 The characteristics of Mr. Browning are so marked, that 
 but little critical sagacity is required to detect them. In- 
 deed, they force themselves upon his readers, who cannot 
 escape them, except by refusing to read him. He compels 
 attention, even when he excites dislike. The two qualities 
 which strike me most in his poetry are : first, an intensifica- 
 tion of the dramatic faculty ; and, second, the singularity of 
 the method by which it is evolved. Mr. Browning is the 
 greatest dramatic poet since Shakespeare, and, like Shake- 
 speare's, his art is unique. The art of Shakespeare, as I 
 understand it, is large, noble, and obvious. We are never 
 in doubt as to his intention. There are heights in him, per- 
 haps, which few of us can hope to scale, and depths which 
 our plummets fail to sound ; but, in the main, he is equable. 
 We can understand his characters and his situations. Ham- 
 let is not too profound for us, in spite of the mist with which 
 the critics have contrived to surround him ; and we readily 
 perceive the difference between the innate jealousy of Leon- 
 tes and the deceived credulity of Othello. Lear, the most 
 stupendous of mortal creations, is a man fashioned like unto 
 ourselves. Even Ariel and Caliban are within the range of 
 our sympathies. I do not feel this to be the case with the 
 iir<itnatis persona of Mr. Browning. Some few of them I un- 
 derstand, many I do not pretend to. Even these- last, how- 
 ever, sometimes give me an insight into the human nature 
 
 * Afptetorii Journal, Nov. n, 1871 (vol. vi.). 
 3
 
 34 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 they do pot embody clews leading into dark passages and 
 tong labyrinths the sudden opening of doors, with light- 
 ning-like glimpses of chambers beyond. In an instant the 
 doors are shut, the clew is dropped, and I am in the dark. . . . 
 
 I have endeavored to indicate some of the characteristics 
 of Mr. Browning, and by comparing his method with that of 
 Shakespeare, to show his merits and his defects. The rela- 
 tion which he holds to the poets of his time and the place 
 which he holds in English Literature are not so readily de- 
 termined. Certain elements at work in Poetry shortly be- 
 fore "Mr. Tennyson arose went far to make him what he is ; 
 and of these, without entering into particulars, it is sufficient 
 to remark that they existed in Keats ; as, for example, in his 
 Ode to a Nightingale, which is perhaps the most poetical 
 poem ever written. Certain other elements went to the 
 making of Mr. Browning ; but these are not so easy to de- 
 tect. They existed in no author before him, but in the liter- 
 ary life of the time, of which they are the result; a result the 
 most unexpected and, so far, the least rewarded. 
 
 The renaissance of English Poetry in the first years of the 
 present century, and the forms which it chiefly assumed, are 
 so well known that it would be a waste of word's to dwell 
 upon them, further than to say that whatever the Form, the 
 Spirit was always that of Story, or Narrative. From the 
 days of Chaucer, Narrative Poetry, Story Poetry, had slum- 
 bered. It was awakened by Southey, and Scott, and Byron. 
 Dramatic Poetry slumbered also, from the days of Shake- 
 speare and his immediate successors, and many strove to 
 awaken it. Miss Baillie wrote plays, which dealt with single 
 passions. Coleridge wrote a tragedy ; Wordsworth wrote a 
 tragedy ; Shiel, Milman, Croly, Maturin, Byron, Miss Mit- 
 ford, wrote tragedies, some of which were played with differ- 
 ent degrees of success. There was a demand for plays then, 
 as there is now, and for the same reason, that there were act- 
 ors who wanted plays. The actors of that period were men
 
 INTKODUCTION. 
 
 35 
 
 of genius the Kembles, Kean, and others and what they 
 sought was worthy of their genius ; what the actors of the 
 present period seek is worthy, I suppose, of their genius. An 
 attempt was made to revive the Poetic Drama, and it con- 
 tinued down to the "little hour" of Talfourd and Knowles, 
 when it was abandoned. Mr. Macready was the last actor 
 of note who had faith in it. It was "faith without works." 
 
 It is instructive to read the modern Poetic Drama to see 
 what beauties it has how sweet, and tender, and manly 
 much of it is, and how little it really accomplished. 
 
 At last there came a poeX who, in all probability, knew 
 nothing about this certainly a poet who. cared nothing for 
 it, if he knew it ; and it is to him that we must pay homage 
 for whatever is good, great, and profound in the second pe- 
 riod of the Poetic Drama of England. It is not what his 
 predecessors sought to find ; it is not what Shakespeare 
 found without seeking ; it is something never found, and 
 never sought before. That so strange a flower should spring 
 from such roots is marvellous. It is the Body blossoming 
 into Soul. 
 
 Such I conceive is Robert Browning and his work. 
 
 [From the " North British Keview." *] 
 
 It will be impossible for us to do any sort of justice to Mr. 
 Browning's dramas by quotation or otherwise. Yet these 
 alone ought to be sufficient to build up the fame of a true 
 and great poet. King Victor and King Charles is a profound 
 study of statecraft and human nature, finely intervolved and 
 as finely evolved. The Return of the Druses is likewise most 
 subtle and intense, with its perplexity of motives solved by 
 passionate action, and the complexity of life made all clear 
 by death. The conclusion of this tragedy is grand as a sun- 
 set. The Duchess Colombe is one of our especial favorites ; 
 our ' play queen ' so natural and brave on her birthday. And 
 * May, 1861 (vol. xxxiv.).
 
 3 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Pippa, everybody's favorite with her one day's holiday, going 
 about like an unwitting missionary of heaven, doing good 
 without knowing it. ... A Blot in the 'Scutcheon is full of 
 deep, moving power. The characters are living, breathing, 
 loving, and suffering human souls, real enough to stir the 
 profoundest human feelings. By the nearest and dearest 
 ties they are bound up in the dark web of a bitter fate. We 
 see how they might be saved, but cannot save them. We 
 behold them striving in the toils, and the great shadow- 
 ing cloud overhead coming straight down, big and black to 
 bursting. Life and death are Brought to the fine turning- 
 point of a single word, and it cannot be spoken. Thus an 
 interest is created intensely tragic. We have before men- 
 tioned the passionate pathos of this drama. The pathos of 
 that last parting betwixt Arthur and Guinevere in Tenny- 
 son's fourth Idyl is very noble, but this is yet more pieicing. 
 
 [From Darmesteter* s " Essais de IMteratitre Anglaise." *] 
 The obscurity of Browning does not proceed, as with 
 Hugo and Tennyson, in their latest period, from the vague 
 immensity of the subjects considered, from the indefiniteness 
 of his ideas, from the predominance of metaphysical abstrac- 
 tions, but, on the contrary, from the very precision of the 
 ideas and sentiments, studied in their remotest ramifications, 
 in all their varied complications, and then presented in a 
 mass of abstractions and metaphors, now with the infinite 
 minuteness of scholastic argument, now with sudden leaps 
 over abysses of deeper significance. Browning is, par excel- 
 lence, the psychological poet. "Mine," he says 
 
 " Mine be man's thoughts, loves, hates !" 
 
 Hence his obscurity, because he plunges to the very depths ; 
 but hence, also, his force. No English poet since Shake- 
 speare say the critics, even the most severe, who have stucl- 
 * Essais de Litterature Aiiglaise, par James Darmesteter (Paris, 1883).
 
 INTRODUCTION. 37 
 
 ied Browning most thoroughly has had in a higher degree 
 the dramatic quality, that is to say, the power of going out 
 of one's self, and of entering into another soul ; he is the most 
 objective poet in an age in which each of us has only one 
 soul, his own, and in which all poetry is only a confession ; 
 he is, perhaps, the only poet of our time who creates souls. 
 
 [From Sym<>tis's " Introduction to the Study of Browning" *] 
 
 There is another popular misconception to which also a 
 word in passing may as well be devoted. This is the idea 
 that Mr. Browning's personality is apt to get confused with 
 his characters', that his men and women are not separate 
 creations, projected from his brain into an independent ex- 
 istence, but mere masks or puppets through whose mouths 
 he speaks. This fallacy arises from the fact that not a few 
 of his imaginary persons express themselves in a somewhat 
 similar fashion ; or, as people too rashly say, " talk like 
 Browning." The explanation of this apparent paradox, so 
 far as it exists, is not far to seek. All art is a compromise, 
 and all dramatic speech is in fact impossible. No persons 
 in real life would talk as Shakespeare or any other great 
 dramatist makes them talk. Nor do the characters of Shake- 
 speare talk like those of any other great dramatist, except 
 in so far as later playwrights -have consciously imitated 
 Shakespeare. Every dramatic writer has his own style, and 
 
 * An Introduction to the Study of Browning, by Arthur Symons (Lon- 
 don, 1886), p. 1 8. 
 
 This book, which has appeared since our Select Poems of Browning was 
 published, should be added to the list of the " Helps to the Study of the 
 I'oct " given in that volume (p. 13). If the works there mentioned are 
 valuable to the student, this is invaluable. It is compact, clear, unaffected, 
 exhaustive. Of course it does not aim to say all that may well be said 
 of Browning, but in its well-defined sphere it is complete. There is at 
 present so much insincere attitudinizing which passes under the name 
 of enthusiasm for our poet that it is a genuine relief to meet with a work 
 at once simple, virile, and appreciative.
 
 38 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in this style, subject to modification, all his characters speak. 
 Just as a soul, born out of eternity into limr. takes on itself 
 the impress of earth and the manners of human life, so a 
 dramatic creation, pure essence in the shaping imagination 
 of the poet, takes on itself, in its passage into life, something 
 of the impress of its abode. "The poet, in short, endows 
 his creations with his own attributes ; he enables them to 
 utter their feelings as if they themselves were poets, thus 
 giving a true voice even to that intensity of passion which 
 in real life often hinders expression."* If this fact is rec- 
 ognized that dramatic speech is not real speech, but po- 
 etical speech, and poetical speech infused with the individ- 
 ual style of each individual dramatist, modulated, indeed, 
 but true to one keynote then it must be granted that Mr. 
 Browning has as much right to his own style as other dram- 
 atists have to theirs, and as little right as they to be accused 
 on that account of putting his personality into his work. 
 But as Mr. Browning's style is very 'pronounced and origi- 
 nal, it is more easily recognizable than that of most drama- 
 tists so far, no doubt, a defect! and for this reason it has 
 come to seem relatively more prominent than it really is. 
 This consideration, and not any confusion of identity, is the 
 cause of whatever similarity of speech exists between Mr. 
 Browning and his characters, or between individual charac- 
 ters. The similarity is only skin-deep. Take a convenient 
 
 * " Realism in Dramatic Art,'' New Quarterly Magazine, Oct., 1879. 
 
 t Allowing at its highest valuation all that jieed be allowed on this 
 score, we find only that Mr. Browning has the defects of his qualities ; 
 and from these who is exempted ? By virtue of this style of his he hns 
 succeeded in rendering into words the very inmost thoughts and finest 
 shades of feeling of the " men and women fashioned by his fancy," and in 
 such a task we can pardon even a fault for such a result we can overlook 
 even a blemish ; as Lessing, in Laokooii, remarking on an error in Ra- 
 phael's drapery, finely says, " Who will not rather praise him for having 
 had the wisdom and the courage to commit a slight fault, for the sake of 
 greater fulness of expression ?"
 
 IN TROD UC TION, 
 
 39 
 
 instance, The Ring and the Book. I have often seen it stated 
 that the nine tellings of the story are all told in the same 
 style, that all the speakers Guido and Pompilia, the Pope 
 and Tertium Quid alike speak like Browning. I cannot 
 see it. On the contrary, I have been astonished, in reading 
 and rereading the poem, at the variety, the difference, the 
 wonderful individuality in each speaker's way of telling the 
 same story at the profound art with which the rhythm, the 
 metaphors, the very details of language, no less than the 
 broad distinctions of character and the subtle indications of 
 bias, are adapted and converted into harmony. A certain 
 general style, a certain general manner of expression, are 
 common to all, as is also the case in, let us say, The Tem- 
 pest. But what distinction, what variation of tone, what del- 
 icacy and expressiveness of modulation ! As a simple mat- 
 ter of fact, few writers have ever had a greater flexibility of 
 style than Mr. Browning. 
 
 I am doubtful whether full justice has been done to one 
 section of Mr. Browning's dramatic work his portraits of 
 women. The presence of Woman is not perhaps relatively 
 so prominent in his work as it is in the work of some other 
 poets ; he has nothing of that exclusive preoccupation with 
 the subject, nothing of that adoring or reviling fascination 
 which we sometimes see ; but as faithful and vital represen- 
 tations, I do not hesitate to put his portraits of women quite 
 on a level with his portraits of men, and far beyond those of 
 any other English poet of the last three centuries. In some 
 of them, notably in Pompilia, there is a something. I can 
 hardly describe it which always seems to me almost incred- 
 ible in a man : an instinct that one would have thought only 
 a woman could feel or see. And his women, good or bad, 
 are always real women, and they are represented without 
 bias. Mr. Browning is one of the very few men Mr. Mere- 
 dith, whose women are, perhaps, the consummate flower of 
 his work, is the only other now living in Kngl.md who can
 
 40 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 paint women without idealization or degradation, not from 
 the man's side, but from their own ; as living equals, not as 
 goddesses or as toys. His women live, act, and suffer 
 even think; not assertively, mannishly for the loveliest of 
 them have a very delicate charm of girlishness but with 
 natural volition, on equal rights with men. Any one who 
 has thought at all on the matter will acknowledge that this 
 is the highest praise that could be given the highest and 
 rarest. Mr. Browning's women are not indeed as various as 
 his men; but from Ottima to Pompilia from the "great 
 white queen, magnificent in sin," to the "lily of a maiden, 
 white with intact leaf" what a range and gradation of 
 character! These are the two extremes; between them, as 
 earth lies betwixt heaven and hell, are stationed all the oth- 
 ers, from the faint and delicate dawn in Pauline, Michal, and 
 Palma, on through Pippa and Mildred and Colombe and 
 Constance and the Queen, to Balaustion and Elvire, Fifine 
 and Clara and the heroine of the Inn Album, and the lurid 
 close in Cristina. I have named only a few, and how many 
 there are to name ! 
 
 III. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON " A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON." 
 
 [from Symons's "Introduction to the Study of Brcnv ning." *] 
 A Blot in the ''Scutcheon is the simplest, and perhaps the 
 deepest and finest of Mr. Browning's plays. The Browning 
 Society's performance, and Mr. Barrett's in America, have 
 proved its acting capacities, its power to hold and thrill an 
 audience. The language has a rich simplicity of the highest 
 dramatic value, quick with passion, pregnant with thought, 
 and masterly in imagination ; the plot and characters are 
 perhaps more interesting and affecting than in any other of 
 the plays ; while the effect of the whole is impressive from 
 its unity. The scene is English; the time somewhere in the 
 eighteenth century; the motive, family honor and clishon- 
 * Page 62 fol.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 4 1 
 
 or. The story appeals to ready popular emotions, emotions 
 which, though lying nearest the surface, are also the most 
 deeply-rooted. The whole action is passionately pathetic, 
 and it is infused with a twofold tragedy the tragedy of the 
 sin, and that of the misunderstanding the last and final 
 tragedy, which hangs on a word, a word spoken only when 
 too late to save three lives. This irony of circumstance is 
 at once the source of earth's saddest discords, and the mo- 
 tive of art's truest tragedies. It takes the place, in our 
 modern world, of the 'Avayioj, the irresistible Fate of the 
 Greeks ; and is not less impressive because it arises from 
 the impulse and unreasoning wilfulness of man rather than 
 from the implacable insistency of God. It is with perfect 
 justice, both moral and artistic, that the fatal crisis, though 
 mediately the result bf accident, of error, is shown to be the 
 consequence and the punishment of wrong. A tragedy re- 
 sulting from the mistakes of the wholly innocent would jar 
 on our sense of right, and could never produce a legitimate 
 work of art. Even CEdipus suffers, not merely because he 
 is under the curse of a higher power, but because he is wil- 
 ful, and rushes upon his own fate. Timon suffers, not be- 
 cause he was generous and good, but from the defects of his 
 qualities. So, in this play, each of the characters calls down 
 upon his own head the suffering which at first seems to be a 
 mere caprice and confusion of chance. Mildred Tresham 
 and Henry Mertoun, both very young, ignorant, and un- 
 guarded, have sinned. They attempt a late reparation, ap- 
 parently with success, but the hasty suspicion of Lord Tresh- 
 am, Mildred's brother, diverted indeed into a wrong channel, 
 brings down on both a terrible retribution. Tresham, who 
 shares the ruin he causes, ft-els, too, that his punishment is 
 his due. He has acted without pausing to consider, and he 
 is called on to pay the penalty of "evil wrought by want of 
 thought." 
 
 The character of Mildred, "more sinned against than sin-
 
 4 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ning," is exquisitely and most tenderly drawn. We see her, 
 and we see and feel 
 
 " the good and tender heart, 
 Its girl's trust and its woman's constancy, 
 How pure yet passionate, how calm yet kind, 
 How grave yet joyous, how reserved yet free. 
 As light -where friends are " 
 
 as her brother, in a memorable passage, describes her. She 
 is so thrillingly alive, so beautiful and individual, so pathetic 
 and pitiful in her desolation. Every word she speaks comes 
 straight from her heart to ours. " I know nothing that is so 
 affecting," wrote Dickens in a letter to Forster, "nothing in 
 any book I have ever read, as Mildred's recurrence to that 
 'I was so young I had no mother.'"* Not till Pompilia 
 do we find so pathetic a portrait of a woman. 
 
 In Thorold, Earl Tresham, we have an admirable picture 
 of the head of a great house, proud above all things of the 
 honor of the family and its yet stainless 'scutcheon, and 
 proud, with a deep brotherly tenderness, of his sister Mildred : 
 a strong and fine nature, one whom men instinctively cite as 
 " the perfect spirit of honor." Mertoun, the apparent hero 
 of the play, is a much less prominent and masterly figure 
 than Tresham, not so much from any hick of skill in his de- 
 lineation, as from the essential ineffectualness of his nature. 
 Guendolen Tresham, the Beatrice of the play her lover 
 Austin is certainly no Benedick is one of the most pleas- 
 antly humorous characters in Mr. Browning's works. Her 
 gay, light-hearted talk brightens the sombre action like a 
 gleam of sunlight. And, like her prototype, she has a true 
 woman's heart. As Beatrice stands by the calumniated 
 Hero, so Guendolen stands by Mildred, and by her quick 
 woman's heart and wit, her instinct of things, sees and seizes 
 the missing clew, though too late, as it proves, to avert the 
 impending catastrophe. 
 
 * Forster's Life of Dickens, vol. ii. p. 24.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 43 
 
 The play contains one of Mr. Browning's most delicate 
 and musical lyrics the serenade beginning, "There's a 
 woman like a dew-drop." This is the first of the love-songs 
 in long lines which Mr. Browning has so frequently written 
 of very recent years, and so seldom before. 
 
 [From Forstei^s "Life of Dickens." *] 
 
 This was the date of Mr. Browning's tragedy of the Blot 
 in the 'Scutcheon, which 1 took upon myself, after reading it in 
 the manuscript, privately to impart to Dickens ; and I was 
 not mistaken in the belief that it would profoundly touch him. 
 " Browning's play," he wrote, " has thrown me into a perfect 
 passion of sorrow. To say that there is anything in its sub- 
 ject save what is lovely, true, deeply affecting, full of the best 
 emotion, the most earnest feeling, and the most true and tender 
 source of interest, is to say that there is no light in the sun, and 
 no heat in blood. It is full of genius, natural and great thoughts, 
 profound and yet simple and beautiful in its vigor. I know 
 nothing that is so affecting, nothing in any book I have ever 
 read, as Mildred's recurrence to that ' I was so young I had 
 no mother.' I know no love like it, no passion like it, no 
 moulding of a splendid thing after its conception, like it. 
 And I swear it is a tragedy that MUST be played ; and must 
 be played, moreover, by Macready. There are some things 
 I would have changed if I could (they are very slight, mostly 
 broken lines) ; and I assuredly would have the old servant 
 begin his tale upon the scene ; and be taken by the throat, or 
 drawn upon, by his master, in its commencement. But the 
 tragedy I never shall forget, or less vividly remember than I 
 do now. And if you tell Browning that I have seen it, tell 
 him that I believe from my soul there is no man living (and 
 not many dead) who could produce such a work." 
 
 Vol. ii. p. 46.
 
 44 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IV. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON "COLOMBfi's BIRTHDAY. 1 ' 
 [From Symons's "introduction to the Study of Browning.'"*} 
 
 Colombe's Birthday, a drama founded on an imaginary ep- 
 isode in the history of a German duchy of the seventeenth 
 century, is the first play which is mainly concerned with in- 
 ward rather than outward action ; in which the characters 
 themselves, what they are in their own souls, what they think 
 of themselves, and what others think of them, constitute the 
 chief interest, the interest of the characters as they influence 
 one another or external events being, however intense in 
 itself, distinctly secondary. The point on which the action 
 turns is this. Colombe of Ravestein, Duchess of Juliers and 
 Cleves, is surprised, on the first anniversary of her accession 
 (the day being also her birthday), by a rival claimant to the 
 duchy, Prince Berthold, who proves to be in fact the true 
 heir. Berthold, instead of pressing his claim, offers to marry 
 her. But he conceives the honor and the favor to be suf- 
 ficient, and makes no pretence at offering love as well. On 
 the other hand, Valence, a poor advocate of Cleves, who 
 has stood by Colombe when all her other friends failed, 
 offers her his love, a love to which she can only respond by 
 "giving up the world " in other words, by relinquishing her 
 duchy, and the alliance with a Prince who is on the road to 
 be Emperor. Now, we have nothing to do with the question 
 of who has the right and who has the might : that matter is 
 settled, and the succession agreed on, almost from the be- 
 ginning. Nor are we made to feel that any disgrace or rep- 
 utation of weakness will rest on Colombe if she gives up her 
 place ; not even that the pang at doing so will be over-acute 
 or entirely unrelieved. All the interest centres in the purely 
 personal and psychological bearings of the act. It is per- 
 haps a consequence of this that the style is somewhat differ- 
 
 * Page 65 foL
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 45 
 
 ent from that of any previous play. Any one who notices 
 the stage directions will see that the persons of the drama 
 frequently speak " after a pause." The language which they 
 use is, naturally enough, more deliberate and reflective, the 
 lines are slower and more weighty, than would be appropri- 
 ate amid the breathless action of A Blot in the 'Scutcheon or 
 The Return of the Druses. A certain fiery quality, a thrill- 
 ing, heart-stirred and heart-stirring tone, which we -find in 
 these is wanting ; but the calm sweep of the action carries 
 with it some of the finest harmonies of line and metaphor 
 since Paracelsus. 
 
 Colombe, the veritable heroine of the drama, is, if not 
 " the completes! full-length portrait of a woman that Mr. 
 Browning has drawn," certainly both one of the sweetest 
 and one of the completest. Her character develops during 
 the course of the play as she herself says, 
 
 " This is indeed my birthday soul and body, 
 Its hours have done on me the work of years " 
 
 and it leaves her a nobler and stronger, yet not less charm- 
 ing woman than it found her. Hitherto she has been a mere 
 "play-queen," shut in from action, shut in from facts and the 
 world, and required only to be gay and amused. But now, 
 at the first and yet final trial, she is proved and found to be 
 of noble metal. The gay girlishness of the young Duchess, 
 her joyous and generous light heart ; her womanliness, her 
 earnestness, her clear, deep, noble nature, attract us from her 
 first words, and leave us, after the hour we have spent in her 
 presence, with the inalienable uplifting memory that we have 
 of some women whom we meet, for an hour or a moment, in 
 the world or in books. 
 
 Berthold, the weary and unsatisfied conqueror, is a singu- 
 larly unconventional figure. He is a man of action, with 
 some of the sympathies of the scholar and the lover ; reso- 
 lute in the attainment of ends whicji he sees to be, in them- 
 selves, vulgar ; his ambition rather an instinct than something
 
 4 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to be pursued for itself, and his soul too keenly aware of the 
 joys and interests he foregoes to be quite satisfied or con- 
 tent with his lot and conduct. The grave courtesy of his 
 speech to Colombe, his somewhat condescending but not 
 unfriendly tone with Valence, his rough home-truths with the 
 parasitical courtiers, and his frank confidence with Melchior, 
 are admirably discriminated. Melchior himself, little as he 
 speaks, is a fine sketch of the contemplative, bookish man 
 who finds no more congenial companion and study than a 
 successful man of action. His attitude of detachment a 
 mere spectator in the background is well in keeping with 
 the calm and thoughtful character of the play. Valence, the 
 true hero of the piece, the " pale fiery man " who can speak 
 with so moving an eloquence, whether he is pleading the 
 wrongs of his townsmen or of Colombe, the rights of Ber- 
 thold or himself, is no less masterly a portrait than the Prince, 
 though perhaps less wholly unconventional a character. His 
 grave earnestness, his honor as a man and passion as a lover, 
 move our instinctive sympathy, and he never for a moment 
 forfeits it. Were it for nothing else, he would win our last- 
 ing remembrance from the mere fact that he is one of the 
 speakers in that most delightful of love-duets, the incompara- 
 ble scene at the close of the fourth act. "I remember well 
 to have seen," wrote Mr. Moncure D. Conway in 1854, "a 
 vast miscellaneous crowd in an American theatre hanging 
 with breathless attention upon every word of this interview, 
 down to the splendid climax when, in obedience to the Duch- 
 ess's direction to Valence how he should reveal his love to 
 the lady she so little suspects herself to be herself, he kneels 
 every heart evidently feeling each word as an electric touch, 
 and all giving vent at last to their emotion in round after 
 round of hearty applause." 
 
 All the minor characters are very good and lifelike, par- 
 ticularly Guibert, the shrewd, hesitating, talkative, cynical, 
 really good-hearted old courtier, whom not even a court has
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 47 
 
 deprived of a heart, though the dangerous influence of ilu- 
 conscienceless Gaucelme, his fellow, has in its time played 
 sad pranks with it. He is one of the best of Mr. Browning's 
 minor characters. 
 
 The performance, in 1885, of Colombes Birthday, under 
 the auspices of the Browning Society, has brought to light 
 unsuspected acting qualities in what is certainly not the most 
 "dramatic" of Mr. Browning's plays. "Colombe's Birth- 
 day" it was said on the occasion, " is charming on the boards, 
 clearer, more direct in action, more full of delicate surprises, 
 than one imagines it in print. With a very little cutting it 
 could be made an excellent acting play."* 
 
 [from Mr. G. f. Charley's Review of " Bells and Pomegranates" t] 
 It is a question whether any creation exists more chival- 
 rous in its tone than this legend ; that is, if we somewhat 
 refine the epithet, and (by courtesy of poetical fiction) admit 
 it to include loyalty, delicacy a recognition that there are 
 few who have not some touches of a higher nature than dis- 
 tinguishes the churl and the worshipper of Mammon. Co- 
 lombes Birthday is a tale of humanity and grace and poetry, 
 vindicating themselves in that place where, of all others, it 
 has been deemed the least possible to find them a court: 
 of Ambition, in the 'moment of its triumph, compelled to con- 
 fess to itself and to the world its own haggard weariness 
 its inability to rest, its indifference to attempt new conquests 
 written with all the noble generosity of youth, and all the 
 ripe experience of middle age. This and A Blot in the 
 'Scutcheon are the only two of the dramas in Mr. Browning's 
 Bells which could be made available on the stage as the 
 stage stands. . . . 
 
 It appears from the play that, some time in the seven- 
 teenth century, the Duchy of Juliers and Cleves fell for a 
 
 * A. Mary K. Robinson, in Boston Literary W*irld, December 12, 1885. 
 t The People's Jainnat t vol. ii. p. 38 fol.
 
 48 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 twelvemonth under the government of a young and fair lady, 
 supposed to be rightful heiress to a little kingdom. She had 
 been brought up at Ravestein, an old castle down upon the 
 Meuse ; her youth, it would seem, left to its own guidance 
 .and innocence. And so she had taken state upon her light- 
 ly had enjoyed, like an innocent girl who has seen few pag- 
 eants, a gay reception which her subjects of Cleves had 
 prepared for her and had queened it so brightly and gently 
 that her presence seemed to throw something of grace and 
 humanity over the faded, formal functionaries of her little 
 court the Sieurs Guibert, Gaucelme, Maufroy, and Clugnet ; 
 insomuch that it was with something more than selfish anxi- 
 ety for their wands and gold chains with a touch of regret 
 that they received the tidings how Duchess Colombe's claims 
 to her inheritance were disputed by a wise and powerful rival, 
 Prince Berthold, who was on his way to Juliers to maintain 
 his rights. Rumors of such a revolution had been for some 
 time menacing them ; but the bolt fell (so to say) in the 
 tidings of the immediate coming of Prince Berthold, on no 
 luckier day than the gentle Colombe's birthday. Little con- 
 scious of such instant peril, that gracious and delicate lady 
 was preparing to hold her court, and to receive the good 
 wishes of her subjects. The drama opens at the moment 
 when the four courtiers were waiting in the ante - chamber, 
 at a loss how to break the calamity to their mistress, sav- 
 ing themselves the while. A coarser chronicler would have 
 forgotten their reluctance in their selfish uneasiness have 
 made the troop all equally mechanical. But Mr. Browning 
 knows that there is a difference even among automatons. 
 Sir Guibert had a touch of better nature than his fellows. 
 Some slight intercourse with the people, it may be, had ren- 
 dered him a trifle less wooden and metallic than his mates. 
 He had had dealings in Cleves; had been beholden to one 
 Valence, an advocate there, in winning some contest which 
 involved his property ; and was disposed to be as generous,
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 49 
 
 and considerate, and pitiful as a weak and mean man can 
 be. At that precise moment of his perplexity, that very ad- 
 vocate just mentioned had come to court on the Duchess's 
 birthday ; all her. old flatterers being kept away from her 
 presence by the rumor of her tottering fortunes. And Val- 
 ence even was come to sue, not to congratulate ; to present 
 a memorial on the wretchedness of Cleves, not to soothe fair 
 Colombe with sweet wishes of many happy returns of so fair 
 a day. Now Valence was a sour, thin man of common pres- 
 ence, in a thread-bare coat, and too full, it seemed, of his 
 business to have studied the right way of presenting himself. 
 The ushers would not let him enter the corridor, and had 
 driven him back again and again ; till, espying Sir Guibert, 
 Valence forced his way in, and claimed the offices of the 
 courtier whose estate he had saved to bring him to a speech 
 . with Duchess Colombe. A bright thought struck Sir Gui- 
 bert, how to pay his debt of gratitude, and relieve himself of 
 an unpleasant responsibility in one and the same moment. 
 He undertook to present Valence, on condition that the lat- 
 ter would place in the Duchess's hand the memorial of Prince 
 Berthold's claim ! The anxious advocate of the people un- 
 suspecting, and absorbed in his own duties fell into the trap. 
 The doors were opened, and the four courtiers, and with them 
 Valence, passed into the presence-chamber. 
 
 There was waiting the sweet Duchess Colombe, and with 
 her one faithful bower- woman, Sabyne. She must have been 
 more, or less, than woman, not to have been vexed at the 
 thinness of the rank who came to pay court to her, as com- 
 pared with the throng of the past year. Her strugglings 
 with her misgivings her consciousness, that, once having 
 been made a ruler, she can no more return to the pleasures 
 of girlhood are beautifully expressed : 
 
 " Well sunshine's everywhere, and summer too. 
 Next year 't is the old place again, perhaps 
 The water breeze again, the birds again. 
 
 It cannot be ! It is too late to be !" 
 4
 
 5 o INTRODUCTION. 
 
 And then the sudden heartening of herself up to believe what 
 she \vislu-s, when she sees the courtiers enter: 
 
 " (Aside.) The same words, the same faces, the same love ! 
 
 I have been over-fearful. These are few 
 
 But these at least stand firmly these are mine ! 
 
 As many come as may ; and if no more, 
 
 'T is that these few suffice they do suffice ! 
 
 What succor may not next year bring me ! Plainly 
 
 I feared too soon !" 
 
 It was new for Advocate Valence to be dazzled by an ap- 
 parition of such youth and graciousness ! He had much to 
 do, when permitted to speak, to plead the cause of the starv- 
 ing people of Cleves before her ! But though bewildered, he 
 was not silenced. Out spake he ! told that fair and dainty 
 lady that the dream in which she had lived, and the pomp in 
 which she had moved abroad, had hidden from her the mis- 
 ery of her people ; prayed her to redress their wrongs ; and, 
 moved by his own earnestness, though still confused by so 
 fairy-like a presence, placed in her hand not the petition 
 of the starving sufferers of Cleves but the memorial of 
 Prince Berthold ! The Duchess read ; too proud to own 
 herself insulted, too young and delicate not to confess her 
 loneliness, and to ask upbraidingly why had her courtiers 
 brought her from Ravenstein, if their loyalty could protect 
 her no better than this ! She ended by taking off her coro- 
 net, and thanking God she was no longer Duchess of such a 
 heartless people ! At the sight of her nobility flashed out the 
 generous spirit of the people's advocate more courteous in 
 all his uncourtliness than any of Colombe's cowardly follow, 
 ers. " Sir Guibert/' said he, advancing indignantly 
 
 " Sir Guibert ! knight they call you ! this of mine 
 Is the first step I ever set at court. 
 You dared make me your instrument, I find; 
 For that, so sure as you and I are men, 
 We reckon to the utmost presently ! 
 But as you are a courtier and I none, 
 Your knowledge may instruct me. I already
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 1 
 
 Have too far outraged, by my ignorance 
 
 Of courtier- ways, this lady, to proceed 
 
 A second step, and risk addressing her. 
 
 I am degraded you let me address ! 
 
 Out of her presence all is plain enough 
 
 What I shall do but in her presence, too, 
 
 Surely there 's something proper to be done. 
 
 (To the others.} You gentles, tell me if I guess aright 
 
 May I not strike this man to earth?" 
 
 This burst of generous spirit stirred Sir Guibert, mean as 
 he was, to make humble apology, on bended knee, to the 
 lady. It did yet more it stirred the young Duchess to 
 feel and to know that loyalty might mean a nobler thing than 
 observance out of book and flattery from the lips, not from 
 the heart. She bent at once an eager and respectful ear to 
 her new champion and counsellor listened to his eloquent 
 tale of the woes of Cleves ; and, absolving the cowardly, half- 
 penitent courtiers from further suit and service, declared that, 
 so long as such men as Valence were among her subjects, 
 she would not yield up her Duchy till the right was tried ! 
 and there and then invested him with all the offices her ser- 
 vants had laid down. 
 
 While these things were passing, Prince Berthold arrived, 
 unguarded; having left his men-at-arms at Aix, and being 
 only accompanied by Melchior, his philosopher-in-ordinary. 
 For Prince Berthold, though an ambitious man, marking 
 Juliers as one step to be gained towards 
 
 "Aix, Cologne, Frankfort, Milan, Rome!" 
 
 was not the common, vulgar usurper half swordsman, half 
 sensualist by aid of whom, one poorer or coarser in imagi- 
 nation than Mr. Browning would have wrought out his con- 
 trast. He had a taste for what was refined and beautiful 
 when young, had wooed a rosy maiden, Priscilla, under a 
 gray convent wall ; and had not forgotten, even now that 
 he was a hard, experienced statesman, how he had wooed
 
 5 2 IN TROD UC TJON. 
 
 in vain ! Further, though desirous of conquest, none was 
 readier than Prince Berthold to despise the courtier crew, 
 who, appalled by his presence, and each man anxious to 
 hold fast his place, welcomed him obsequiously; and told 
 him with a sneer that Duchess Colombe denied his claim, 
 and defied himself advised, doubtless, by " that blustering 
 advocate." These glimpses of a brave spirit in the lady sug- 
 gested, with lightning quickness, a measure to the Prince, 
 who had never forgotten his love failure. Why not woo and 
 wed this high-hearted Colombe? why not win the Duchy 
 without discrowning its gentle Duchess? The thought 
 pleased ; and ere it had passed, the lady had entered with 
 Valence at her side ; her pride and the new interest which 
 the advocate's noble words had awakened- making her 
 beauty more beautiful. But so courteous was Prince Ber- 
 thold as at once to deprive her of half her indignation. Al- 
 most he seemed to apologize to her ; he, who could have 
 enforced for preferring his claim ; put aside, with disdain, 
 the intervention of the cast-off courtiers ; and listened with 
 grave deference to the strangely-won friend to whom the 
 Duchess referred him. Well might he listen when Valence 
 could speak for his lady and himself so nobly as he did 
 speak. I know of few things in heroic poetry finer than the 
 appeal : 
 
 "Berthold. Where 
 
 Stand those should answer ? 
 
 Valence (advancing'). The lady is alone ? 
 
 Berthold. Alone, and thus ? So weak and yet so bold ? 
 
 Valence. I said she was alone 
 
 Berthold. And weak I said. 
 
 Valence. When is man strong until he feels alone? 
 It was some lonely strength at first, be sure, 
 Created organs, such as those you seek, 
 By which to give its varied purpose shape 
 And naming the selected ministrants, 
 Took sword and shield and sceptre, each a man ! 
 That strength performed its work and passed its -,ray.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 53 
 
 You see our lady : there the old shapes stand 
 
 A Marshal, Chamberlain, and Counsellor 
 
 ' Be helped their way, into their death put life 
 
 And find advantage !' so you counsel us ! 
 
 But let strength feel alone, seek help itself, 
 
 And as the inland-hatched sea-creature hunts 
 
 The sea's breast out, as littered mid the waves, 
 
 The desert brute makes for the desert's joy, 
 
 So, I am first her instinct fastens on, 
 
 And prompt I say, as clear as heart can speak, 
 
 The people will not have you, nor shall have ! 
 
 It is not merely I shall go bring Cleves 
 
 And fight you to the last though that does much, 
 
 And men and children ay, and women too, 
 
 Fighting for home, are rather to be feared 
 
 Than mercenaries fighting for their pay 
 
 But, say you beat us, since such things have been, 
 
 And, where this Juliers laughed, you set your foot 
 
 Upon a steaming bloody plash what then ? 
 
 Stand you the more our lord, as there you stand ? 
 
 Lord it o'er troops whose force you concentrate, 
 
 A pillared flame whereto all ardours tend 
 
 Lord it 'mongst priests whose schemes you amplify, 
 
 A cloud of smoke, 'neath which all shadows brood, 
 
 But never, in this gentle spot of earth 
 
 Can you become our Colombe, our play-queen 
 
 Whom we, to furnish lilies for her hair 
 
 Would pour our veins out to enrich the soil ! 
 
 Our conqueror ? Yes ! Our despot ? Yes ! Our Duke ? 
 
 Know yourself, know us !" 
 
 The remainder of the tale must be told more briefly, since 
 the characters are now set in all their many-colored hues 
 before the reader, and he will be able to follow out the story 
 without minute explanation ; or, what is better, he is by this 
 time eager to turn to the book and read the rest for himself. 
 Knough to say that Prince Berthold courteously intrusted to 
 V.ilence the exammation of his claims; and that these, alas 
 for Colombe, were proved to be valid. That the Prince also 
 confided to the advocate's skill his project for repairing the 
 lady's losses, by offering to her his hand and the Duchy.
 
 54 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 But the lady meanwhile has discovered, not only that her 
 new chamberlain was loyal to his Duchess but that the 
 man of the people who could speak so gloriously, think so 
 nobly, was devoted to the woman who could meet danger so 
 heroically ! Somewhat of the Duchess training clung to 
 her somewhat of the girl's wilfulness. Prince Berthold's 
 noble offer flattered her fancy and soothed her pride, for 
 youth is more dazzled by grandeur than age, which has 
 learned its utter hollowness. And then, it was sweet to try 
 how noble her pale, earnest servitor could be ! What living 
 being thus enforced would not have wavered ? The victory 
 had been nothing without the struggle. And Colombe did 
 waver for an hour. But there was victory ; and after having 
 fathomed to its most secret depths one of the truest and na 
 blest hearts which ever God created finding at every touch 
 a new and answering fountain of high thoughts and unselfish 
 purposes up-springing in her own Colombe, the Duchess, 
 ended her birthday by choosing the better part yielding up 
 empty power, and embracing life with its duties, love with 
 its rewards. Prince Berthold went his way, leaving a "black 
 Barnabite" behind him as viceroy, to enforce from the court- 
 iers the duty they were in such agony to tender and the 
 advocate returned to Cleves with a fond and fair lady. 
 
 The closing act of this beautiful drama, rich in the loftiest 
 poetry, could have been dwelt and drawn upon, to the pleas- 
 ure of every one ; most of all my own. But enough has been 
 said to indicate and that is the purpose of these poor 
 sketches. There is small hope of any one's progress in ap- 
 preciating poetry, if, after having made the slight effort which 
 Mr. Browning's style demands, he who has begun Colombe s 
 Birthday can lay it down till the play be played out and the 
 curtain has fallen. I repeat that if it be too fine for the 
 stage, the fault is that our actors are too coarse, not that our 
 audiences are incapable of relishing fancies so "chaste and 
 noble !"
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 55 
 
 V. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON "A SOUI/S TRAGEDY." 
 [From Symons's "Introduction to the Study of Browning." '*] 
 
 The development of Mr. Browning's genius, as shown in 
 his plays, has been touched on in dealing with Colombe's 
 Birthday. That play, as I intimated, shows the first token 
 of transition from the comparatively conventional dramatic 
 style of the early plays to the completely unconventional 
 style of the later ones, which in turn lead almost impercepti- 
 bly to the final pausing-place of the monologue. From A 
 Blot in the 'Scutcheon to Colombe's Birthday is a step ; from 
 Colombes Birthday to A Soul's Tragedy and Luria another 
 step ; and in these last we are not more than another step 
 from Men and Women and its successors. In A SouFs 
 Tragedy the action is all internalized. Outward action there 
 is, and of a sufficiently picturesque nature ; but here, con- 
 siderably more than even in Colombes Birthday, the interest 
 is withdrawn from the action, as action, and concentrated on 
 a single character, whose " soul's tragedy," not his mere 
 worldly fortunes, strange and significant as these are, we 
 are called on to contemplate. Chiappino fills and possesses 
 the scene. The other characters are carefully subordinated, 
 and the impression we receive is not unlike that received 
 from one of Mr. Browning's most vivid and complete mono- 
 logues, with its carefully placed apparatus of side-lights. 
 
 The character of Chiappino is that of a Djabal degener- 
 ated ; he is the second of Mr. Browning's delineations of the 
 half-deceived and half-deceiving nature, the moral hybrid. 
 Chiappino comes before us as a much-professipg yet appar- 
 ently little-performing person, moody and complaining, envi- 
 ous of his friend Luitolfo's better fortune, a soured man and 
 a discontented patriot. But he is quite sure of his own com- 
 plete probity. He declaims bitterly against his fellow-towns- 
 men, his friend, and his love all of whom, he asseverates, 
 * Page 79 fol.
 
 cj6 INTKODUC1ION. 
 
 treat him unjustly, and as lie never could, by any possibility, 
 treat them. While he is thus protesting to Eulalia, his 
 friend's betrothed, to whom for the first time he avows his 
 own love, a trial is at hand, and nearer than he or we ex- 
 pect. Luitolfo rushes in. He has gone to the Provost's 
 palace to intercede on behalf of his banished friend, and in 
 a moment of wrath has struck and, as he thinks, killed the 
 Provost: the guards are after him, and he is lost. Is this 
 the moment of test? Apparently; and apparently Chiap- 
 pino proves his nobility. For, with truly heroic unselfish- 
 ness, he exchanges dress with his friend, induces him, in a 
 sort of stupefaction of terror, to escape, and remains in his 
 place, "to die for him." But the harder test has yet to 
 come. Instead of the Provost's guards, it is the enthusias- 
 tic populace that burst in upon him, hailing him as saviour 
 and liberator. The people have risen in revolt, the guards 
 have fled, and the people call, on the striker of the blow to 
 be their leader. Chiappino says nothing. "Chiappino?" 
 says Eulalia, questioning him with her eyes. "Yes, I under- 
 stand," he rejoins, 
 
 " You think I should have promptlier disowned 
 This deed with its strange unforeseen success, 
 In favor of Luitolfo. But the peril, 
 So far from ended, hardly seems begun. 
 To-morrow, rather, when a calm succeeds, 
 We easily shall make him full amends ; 
 And meantime if we save them as they pray, 
 And justify the deed by its effects? 
 
 Eulalia. You would, for worlds, you had denied at once. 
 
 Chiappino. I know my own intention, be assured ! 
 All 's well. Precede us, fellow-citizens !" 
 
 Thus ends act first, " being what was called the poetry of 
 Chiappino's life ;" and act second, " its prose," opens after a 
 supposed interval of a month. 
 
 The second act exhibits, in very humorous prose, the 
 
 gradual and inevitable deterioration which' the silence and
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 57 
 
 the deception have brought about. Drawn on and on, upon 
 his own lines of thought and conduct, by Ogniben, the Pope's 
 legate, who has come to put down the revolt by diplomatic 
 measures, Chiappino denies his political principles finding 
 a democratic rule not at all so necessary when possibly the 
 provostship may fall to himself; denies his love, for his 
 views of love are, he finds, widened ; and, finally, denies his 
 friend, to the extent of arguing that the very blow which, as 
 struck by Luitolfo, has been the factor of his fortune, was 
 practically, because .logically, his own. Ogniben now agrees 
 to invest him with the Provost's office, making at the same 
 time the stipulation that the actual assailant of the Provost 
 shall suffer the proper penalty. Hereupon Luitolfo comes 
 forward and avows the deed. Ogniben orders him to his 
 house ; Chiappino "goes aside for a time ;" "and now," con- 
 cludes the legate, addressing the people, "give thanks to 
 God, the keys of the Provost's palace to me, and yourselves 
 to profitable meditation at home." 
 
 Besides Chiappino, there are three other characters, who 
 serve to set off the main figure. Eulalia is an observer, Lui- 
 tolfo a foil, Ogniben a touchstone. Eulalia and Luitolfo, 
 though sufficiently wrought out for their several purposes, 
 .are but sketches, the latter perhaps more distinctly outlined 
 than the former, and serving admirably as a contrast to Chi- 
 appino. But Ogniben, who does so much of the talking in 
 the second act, is a really memorable figure. His portrait 
 is painted with more prominent effect, for his part in the 
 play is to draw Chiappino out, and to confound him with his 
 own weapons : " I help men," as he says, " to carry out their 
 own principles ; if they please to say two and two make five, 
 I assent, so they will but go on and say, four and four make 
 ten." His shrewd Socratic prose is delightfully wise and 
 witty. This prose the only dramatic prose written by Mr. 
 Browning, with the exception of that in Pippa Passes is, in 
 its way, almost as good as the poetry ; admirably keen, vi-
 
 5 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 vacious, full-thoughted, picturesque, and singularly original. 
 For instance, Chiappino is expressing his longing for a wom- 
 an who could understand, as he says, the whole of him, to 
 whom he could reveal alike his strength and weakness. 
 
 " Ah my friend," rejoins Ogniben, "wish for nothing so foolish ! Wor- 
 ship your love, give her the best of you to see ; be to her like the west- 
 ern lands (they bring us such strange news of) to the Spanish Court; 
 send her only your lumps of gold, fans of feathers, your spirit-like birds, 
 and fruits and gems. So shall you, what is unseen of you, be supposed 
 altogether a paradise by her, as these western lands by Spain : though 
 I warrant there is filth, red baboons, ugly reptiles and squalor enough, 
 which they bring Spain as few samples of as possible." 
 
 There is in all this prose, lengthy as it is, the true dramatic 
 note, a recognizable tone of talk. But A Soul's Tragedy is 
 for the study, not the stage. 
 
 [From the " Contemporary Review.' 1 '' *] 
 
 Next to this {Pippa Passes\ in clearness, with nothing but 
 the simplest of plots, and with hardly more than two charac- 
 ters, one playing on and unfolding the weakness of the other, 
 is A Soul's Tragedy. A mob-leader, claiming the merit of a 
 deed of patriotic vengeance which was not his, trading on 
 the fame of it, rising to supreme power, then losing in that 
 falsehood all true nobleness, becoming sensual, corrupt, ser- 
 vile, till at last the astute Machiavellian politician who has 
 seen u three and twenty leaders of revolts," entraps him in 
 his own snare, puts him to shame, and registers him as the 
 twenty-fourth ; this moves on simply and naturally enough, 
 and the reader is never embarrassed, as in the other plays, 
 by vain efforts to recollect what has gone before, and con- 
 nect it with what is coming next. 
 
 In one point, however, A Soul's Tragedy stands almost 
 
 alone in its departure from the conventional type of tragedy. 
 
 It has, of course, been common enough to mingle blank 
 
 verse and prose in the same drama, leaving the latter to the 
 
 *Jan. 1867 (vol. iv.).
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 59 
 
 less noble, assigning the former to the more heroic charac- 
 ters. Here, however, Mr. Browning wishes to symbolize the 
 truth that the noble aspirations of the patriot degenerate 
 into the ignoble baseness of the ambitious demagogue, and 
 he does so by making everybody discourse in verse in the 
 first part of the play, and, with an equal uniformity, talk 
 prose in the second. As with every bold stroke of art, there 
 is, at first, a certain effectiveness in this, but the second and 
 permanent impression which it leaves is that there is some- 
 thing of the nature of a trick in it, true neither to the ideal 
 of poetry nor the reality of actual life.
 
 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON 
 
 A TRAGEDY.
 
 PERSONS. 
 
 MILDRED TRESHAM. 
 GUENDOLEN TRESHAM. 
 THOROLD, Earl Tresharn. 
 AUSTIN TRESHAM. 
 HENRY, Earl Mertoun. 
 
 GERARD, and other Retainers of Lord Tresham. 
 TIME, 17
 
 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 SCENE I. The interior of a lodge in Lord Tresham's park. 
 Many Retainers crowded at the window, supposed to com- 
 mand a rieiv of the entrance to his mansion. GERARD, tht 
 Warrener, his back to a table on which are flagons, etc. 
 
 1 Retainer. Ay, do ! push, friends, and then you '11 push 
 
 down me ! 
 
 What for? Does any hear a runner's foot 
 Or a steed's trample or a coach-wheel's cry? 
 Is the Earl come or his least poursuivant? 
 But there 's no breeding in a man of you 
 Save Gerard yonder: here 's a half-place yet, 
 Old Gerard ! 
 
 Gerard. Save your courtesies, my friend. 
 Here is my place. 
 
 2 Retainer. Now, Gerard, out with it ! 
 What makes you sullen, this of all the days 
 
 I' the year? To-day that young, rich, bountiful, 10 
 
 Handsome Earl Mertoun, whom alone they match 
 With our Lord Tresham through the country-side, 
 Is coming here in utmost bravery 
 To ask our master's sister's hand ? 
 
 Gerard. What then ? 
 
 2 Retainer. What then ? Why, you, she speaks to, if she 
 
 meets 
 Your worship, smiles on as you hold apart
 
 64 A BLOT AV ////; 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 The boughs to let her through her forest walks, 
 
 You, always favorite for your no-deserts, 
 
 You 've heard these three days how Earl Mertoun sues 
 
 To lay his heart and house and broad lands too ac 
 
 At Lady Mildred's' feet ; and while we squeeze 
 
 Ourselves into a mousehole lest we miss 
 
 One congee of the least page in his train, 
 
 You sit o' one side ' there's the Earl,' say I 
 
 'What then,' say you ! 
 
 "3 Retainer. I Ml wager he has let 
 
 Both swans he tamed for Lady Mildred swim 
 Over the falls and gain the river ! 
 
 Gerard. Ralph, 
 
 Is not to-morrow my inspecting-day 
 For you and for your hawks ? 
 
 4 Retainer. Let Gerard be ! 
 
 He 's coarse-grained, like his carved black cross-bow stock, 
 Ha ! look now, while we squabble with him, look j 3' 
 
 Well done, now is not this beginning, now, 
 To purpose ? 
 
 i Retainer. Our retainers look as fine 
 That 's comfort. Lord, how Richard holds himself 
 With his white staff! Will not a knave behind 
 Prick him upright ? 
 
 4 Retainer. He 's only bowing, fool ! 
 
 The Earl's man bent us lower by this much. 
 
 i Retainer. That 's comfort. Here 's a very cavalcade ! 
 
 3 Retainer. I don't see wherefore Richard, and his troop 
 Of silk and silver varlets there, should find 40 
 
 Their perfumed selves so indispensable 
 On high days, holidays ! Would it so disgrace 
 Our family if I, for instance, stood 
 In my right hand a cast of Swedish hawks, 
 A leash of greyhounds in my left ? 
 
 Gerard. With Hugh
 
 ACT I. SCENE I. 65 
 
 The logman for supporter, in his right 
 
 The bill-hook, in his left the brushwood-shears ! 
 
 3 Retainer. Out on you, crab ! What next, what next ? 
 The Earl ! 
 
 i Retainer. Oh! Walter, groom, our horses, do they match 
 The Earl's ? Alas, that first pair of the six 5 
 
 They paw the ground Ah, Walter ! and that brute 
 Just on his haunches by the wheel ! 
 
 6 Retainer. Ay Ay ! 
 
 You, Philip, are a special hand, I hear, 
 At soups and sauces : what 's a horse to you ? 
 D' ye mark that beast they Ve slid into the midst 
 So cunningly ? then, Philip, mark this further ; 
 No leg has he to stand on ! 
 
 1 Retainer. No? That 's comfort. 
 
 2 Retainer. Peace, Cook ! The Earl descends. Well, 
 
 Gerard, see 
 
 The Earl at least ! Come, there 's a proper man, 
 I hope ! Why, Ralph, no falcon, Pole or Swede, 60 
 
 Has got a starrier eye. 
 
 3 Retainer. His eyes are blue 
 But leave my hawks alone ! 
 
 4 Retainer. So young, and yet 
 So tall and shapely! 
 
 5 Retainer. Here 's Lord Tresham's self! 
 There now there 's what a nobleman should be ! 
 He 's older, graver, loftier, he 's more like 
 
 A House's head ! 
 
 2 Retainer. . But you 'd not have a boy 
 And what 's the Earl beside ? possess too soon 
 That stateliness? 
 
 i Retainer. Our master takes his hand 
 
 Richard and his white staff are on the move 
 Back fall our people tsh ! there's Timothy TO 
 
 Sure to get tangled in his ribbon-ties 
 5
 
 66 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTC/I EO.V. 
 
 And Peter's cursed rosette 's a-coming off! 
 At last I see our lord's back and his friend's 
 And the whole beautiful bright company 
 Close round them in they go! [jumping doum from Hie 
 window-bench, and making for the table and its jngs\ 
 
 Good health, long life, 
 Great joy to our Lord Treshatn' and his House ! 
 
 6 Retainer. My father drove his father first to court, 
 After his marriage-day ay, did he ! 
 
 2 Retainer. God bless 
 
 Lord Tresham, Lady Mildred, and the Earl ! 
 Here, Gerard, reach your beaker ! 
 
 Gerard. Drink, my boys ! 80 
 
 Don't mind me all 's not right about me drink ! 
 
 2 Retainer \Aside\ He 's vexed, now, that he let the show 
 escape ! 
 
 \To Gerard] Remember that the Earl returns this way. 
 
 Gerard. That way ? 
 
 2 Retainer. Just so. 
 
 Gerard. Then my way 's here. [Goes. 
 
 2 Retainer. Old Gerard 
 
 Will die soon mind, I said it ! He was used 
 To care about the pitifullest thing 
 That touched the House's honor, not an eye 
 But his could see wherein :' and on a cause 
 Of scarce a quarter this importance, Gerard 
 Fairly had fretted flesh and bone away 90 
 
 In cares that this was right, nor that was wrong, 
 Such point decorous, and such square by rule 
 He knew such niceties, no herald more ; 
 And now you see his humor : die he will ! 
 
 2 Retainer. God help him ! Who 's for the great servant's- 
 
 hall 
 
 To hear what 's going on inside? They 'd follow 
 Lord Tresham into the saloon.
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 67 
 
 3 Retainer. I ! 
 
 4 Retainer. I ! 
 Leave Frank alone for catching at the door 
 Some hint of how the parley goes inside ! 
 
 Prosperity to the great House once more ! 
 
 Here 's the last drop! 
 
 i Retainer. Have at you ! Boys, hurrah ! 
 
 SCENE II. A Saloon in the Mansion. 
 
 Enter LORD TRESHAM, LORD MERTOUN, AUSTIN, and GUEN- 
 
 DOLEN. 
 
 Tresham. I welcome you, Lord Mertoun, yet once more, 
 To this ancestral roof of mine. Your name 
 Noble among the noblest in itself, 
 Yet taking in your person, fame avers, 
 New price and lustre as that gem you wear, 
 Transmitted from a hundred knightly breasts, 
 Fresh chased and set and fixed by its last lord, 
 Seems to re-kindle at the core your name 
 Would win you welcome ! 
 
 Mertoun. Thanks ! 
 
 Tresham. But add to that, 
 
 The worthiness and grace and dignity 10 
 
 Of your proposal for uniting both . 
 Our Houses even closer than respect 
 Unites them now add these, and you must grant 
 One favour more, nor that the least, to think 
 The welcome I should give ; 't is given ! My lord, 
 My only brother, Austin he 's the king's. 
 Our cousin, Lady Guendolen betrothed 
 To Austin : all are yours. 
 
 Mertoun. I thank you less 
 
 For the expressed comincnclings which your seal, 
 And only that, authenticates forbids *>
 
 68 -' IH.OT L\ THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 My putting from me to my heart I take 
 
 Your praise but praise less claims my gratitude, 
 
 Than the indulgent insight it implies 
 
 Of what must needs be uppermost with one 
 
 Who comes, like me, with the bare leave to ask, 
 
 In weighed and measured unimpassioned words, 
 
 A gift, which, if as calmly 't is denied, 
 
 He must withdraw, content upon his cheek, 
 
 Despair within his soul. That I dare ask 
 
 Firmly, near boldly, near with confidence, 3 
 
 That gift, I have to thank you. Yes, Lord Tresham, 
 
 I love your sister as you "d have one love 
 
 That lady oh! more, more I love her! Wealth, 
 
 Rank, all the world thinks me, they 're yours, you know, 
 
 To hold or part with, at your choice but grant 
 
 My true self, me without a rood of land, 
 
 A piece of gold, a name of yesterday, 
 
 Grant me that lady, and you Death or life? 
 
 Guendolen [apart to Austin]. Why, this is loving, Austin ! 
 
 Austin. He 's so young ! 
 
 Guendolen. Young? Old enough, I think, to half surmise 
 He never had obtained an entrance" here, 4 
 
 Were all this fear and trembling needed. 
 
 Austin. Hush ! 
 
 He reddens. 
 
 Guendolen. Mark him, Austin ; that 's true love ! 
 Ours must begin again. 
 
 Tresham. We '11 sit, my lord. 
 
 Ever with best desert goes diffidence. 
 I may speak plainly nor be misconceived. 
 That I am wholly satisfied with you 
 On this occasion, when a falcon's eye 
 Were dull compared with mine to search out faults, 
 Is somewhat. Mildred's hand is hers to give 50 
 
 Or to refuse.
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 69 
 
 Mertoun. But you, you grant my suit ? 
 1 have your word if hers ? 
 
 Tresham. My best of words 
 
 If hers encourage you. I trust it will. 
 Have you seen Lady Mildred, by the way? 
 
 Mertonn. I I our two demesnes, remember, touch ; 
 I have been used to wander carelessly 
 After my stricken game : the heron roused 
 Deep in my woods, has trailed its broken wing 
 Thro' thicks and glades a mile in yours, or else 
 Some eyass ill-reclaimed has taken flight 60 
 
 And lured me after her from tree to tree, 
 I marked not whither. I have come upon 
 The lady's wondrous beauty unaware, 
 And and then I have seen her. 
 
 Guendolen [aside to Austin]. Note that mode 
 
 Of faltering out that, when a lady passed, 
 He, having eyes, did see her ! You had said 
 ' On such a day I scanned her, head to foot ; 
 Observed a red, where red should not have been, 
 Outside her elbow ; but was pleased enough 
 Upon the whole.' Let such irreverent talk 7 
 
 Be lessoned for the future ! 
 
 Tresham. What 's to say 
 
 May be said briefly. She has never known 
 A mother's care ; I stand for father too. 
 Her beauty is not strange to you, it seems 
 You cannot know the good and tender heart, 
 Its girl's trust and its woman's constancy, 
 How pure yet passionate, how calm yet kind, 
 How grave yet joyous, how reserved yet free 
 As light where friends are how imbued with lore 
 The world most prizes, yet the simplest, yet 80 
 
 The one might know I talked of Miklri-d thus 
 \\V brothers talk !
 
 -jo A PLOT /A' THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 Mertoun. . I thank you. 
 
 Tresham. In a word, 
 
 Control 's not for this lady; but her wish 
 To please me outstrips in its subtlety 
 My power of being pleased: herself creates 
 The want she means to satisfy. My heart 
 Prefers your suit to her as 't were its own. 
 Can I say more ? 
 
 Mertoun. No more thanks, thanks no more! 
 
 Tresham. This matter then discussed 
 
 Mertoun. We '11 waste no breath 
 
 On aught less precious. I 'm beneath the roof oo 
 
 Which holds her : while I thought of that, my speech 
 To you would wander as it must not do, 
 Since as you favor me I stand or fall. 
 I pray you suffer that I take my leave ! 
 
 Tresham. With less regret 't is suffered, that again 
 We meet, I hope, so shortly. 
 
 Mertoun. We ? again ? 
 
 Ah! yes, forgive me when shall you will crown 
 Your goodness by forthwith apprising me 
 When if the lady will appoint a day 
 For me to wait on you and her. 
 
 Tresham. So soon 100 
 
 As I am made acquainted with her thoughts 
 On your proposal howsoe'er they lean 
 A messenger shall bring you the result. 
 
 Mertoun. You cannot bind me more to you, my lord. 
 Farewell till we renew I trust, renew 
 A converse ne'er to disunite again. 
 
 Tresham. So may it prove ! 
 
 Mertoun. You, lady, you, sir, take 
 
 My humble salutation ! 
 
 Guendolen and Austin. Thanks ! 
 
 Tresham. Within there!
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 7 1 
 
 [Servants enter. Tresham conducts Mertoun to the door. 
 Meantime Austin remarks, 
 
 Well, 
 
 Here I have an advantage of the Earl, 
 
 Confess now ! I 'd not think that all was safe no 
 
 Because my lady's brother stood my friend ! 
 Why, he makes sure of her ' do you say, yes 
 She '11 not say no,' what comes it to beside ? 
 I should have prayed the brother, 'speak this speech, 
 For Heaven's sake urge this on her put in this 
 Forget not, as you 'd save me, t 'other thing, 
 Then set down what she says, and how she looks, 
 And if she smiles, and' in an under breath 
 4 Only let her accept me, and do you 
 And all the world refuse me, if you dare !' 120 
 
 Gttendolen. That way you'd take, friend Austin ? What a 
 
 shame 
 
 I wa's your cousin, tamely from the first 
 Your bride, and all this fervor 's run to waste ! 
 Do you know you speak sensibly to-day? 
 The Earl 's a fool. 
 
 Austin. Here 's Thorold. Tell him so ! 
 
 Tresham (returning). Now, voices, voices ! 'St ! the lady 's 
 
 first! 
 
 How seems he ? seems he not come, faith give fraud 
 The mercy-stroke whenever they engage ! 
 Down with fraud, up with faith! How seems the Earl? 
 A name! a blazon ! if you knew their worth, 130 
 
 As you will never! come the Earl? 
 
 Guendolen. He 's young. 
 
 Tresham. What 's she ? an infant save in heart and brain. 
 Young! Mildred is fourteen, remark ! And you 
 Austin, how -old is she ? 
 
 Guendokn. There 's tact foe you !
 
 7 2 ,/ BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 I meant that being young was good excuse 
 If one should tax him 
 
 Tresham. Well? 
 
 Gwendolen. With lacking wit. 
 
 Tresham. He lacked wit? Where might he lack wit, so 
 please you ? 
 
 Gwendoleti. In standing straighter than the steward's rod 
 And making you the tiresomest harangue, 
 Instead of slipping over to my side M 
 
 And softly whispering in my ear, 'Sweet lady, 
 Your cousin there will do me detriment 
 He little dreams of: he 's absorbed, I see, 
 In my old name and fame be sure he Ml leave 
 My Mildred, when his best account of me 
 Is ended, in full confidence I wear 
 My grandsire's periwig down either cheek. 
 I'm lost unless your gentleness vouchsafes' 
 
 Tresham. 'To give a best of best accounts, yourself, 
 Of me and my demerits.' You are right ! ' 150 
 
 He should have said what now I say for him. 
 You golden creature, will you help us all ? 
 Here 's Austin means to vouch for much, but you 
 You are what Austin only knows ! Come up, 
 All three of us : she's in the library 
 No doubt, for the day 's wearing fast. Precede ! 
 
 Gwendolen. Austin, how we must ! 
 
 Tresham. Must what ? Must speak truth, 
 
 Malignant tongue! Detect one fault in him} 
 I challenge you ! 
 
 Gwendolen. Witchcraft 's a fault in him, 
 
 For you 're bewitched. 
 
 Tresham. What 's urgent we obtain 160 
 
 Is, that she soon receive him say, to-morrow 
 Next day at furthest. 
 
 Gwendolen. Ne'er instruct me !
 
 ACT I. SCENE III. 73 
 
 Tresham. Come ! 
 
 He 's out of youf good graces, since forsooth, 
 He stood not as he 'd carry us by storm 
 With his perfections! You 're for the composed, 
 Manly, assured, becoming confidence ! 
 Get her to say, ' to-morrow,' and I '11 give you 
 1 '11 give you black Urganda, to be spoiled 
 With petting and snail-paces. Will you ? Come ! 
 
 SCENE III. Mildred's Chamber. A painted window over- 
 looks the park. MILDRED and GUENDOLEN. 
 
 Guendolen. Now, Mildred, spare those pains. I have not left 
 Our talkers in the library, and climbed 
 The wearisome ascent to this your bower 
 In company with you, I have not dared 
 Nay, worked such prodigfes as sparing you 
 Lord Mertoun's pedigree before the flood, 
 Which Thorold seemed in very act to tell 
 Or bringing Austin to pluck up that most 
 Firm-rooted heresy your suitor's eyes, 
 
 He would maintain, were gray instead of blue 10 
 
 I think I brought him to contrition ! Well, 
 I have not done such things all to deserve 
 A minute's quiet cousin's talk with you-r- 
 To be dismissed so coolly ! 
 
 Mildred. Guendolen ! 
 
 What have I done ? what could suggest 
 
 Guendolen. There, there ! 
 
 Do I not comprehend you 'd be alone 
 To throw those testimonies in a heap, 
 Thorold's enlargings, Austin's brevities, 
 With that poor silly, heartless Gueiulolen's 
 111 timed, misplaced, attempted .smartnesses *> 
 
 And sift their sense out? now, I come to spare you
 
 74 
 
 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 Nearly a whole night's labor. Ask and have ! 
 Demand, be answered! Lack I ears and eyes? 
 Am I perplexed which side of the rock-table 
 The Conqueror dined on when he landed first 
 Lord Mertoun's ancestor was bidden take 
 The bow-hand or the arrow-hand's great meed? 
 Mildred, the Earl has soft blue eyes ! 
 
 Mildred. My brother 
 
 Did he you said that he received him well ? 
 
 Guendolen. If I said only 'well' I said not much 30 
 Oh ! stay which brother ? 
 
 Mildred. Thorold ! who who else ? 
 
 Guendolen. Thorold a secret is too proud by half 
 Nay, hear me out with us he 's even gentler 
 Than we 'are with our birds. Of this great House 
 The least retainer that e'er caught his glance 
 Would die for him, real dying no mere talk ; 
 And in the world, the court, if men would cite 
 The perfect spirit of honor, Thorold's name 
 Rises of its clear nature to their lips. 
 
 But he should take men's homage, trust in it, 40 
 
 And care no more about what drew it down. 
 He has desert, and that, acknowledgment; 
 Is he content ? 
 
 Mildred. You wrong him, Guendolen. 
 
 Guendolen. He's proud, confess ; so proud with brood- 
 ing o'er 
 
 The light of his interminable line, 
 An ancestry with men all paladins, 
 And women all 
 
 Mildred. Dear Guendolen, 't is late ! 
 
 When yonder purple pane the climbing moon 
 Pierces, I know 't is midnight. 
 
 Guendolen. Well, that Thorold 
 
 Should rise up from such musings, and receive so
 
 ACT I. SCENE ///. 
 
 75 
 
 One come audaciously to graft himself 
 Into this peerless stock, yet find no flaw, 
 No slightest spot in such an one 
 
 Mildred. Who finds 
 
 A spot in Mertoun ? 
 
 Guendolen. Not your brother ; therefore, 
 
 Not the whole world. 
 
 Mildred. I am weary, Guendolen. 
 
 Bear with me ! 
 
 Guendolen. I am foolish. 
 Mildred. Oh \ no, kind 
 
 But I would rest. 
 
 Guendolen. Good night and rest to you ! 
 
 I said how gracefully his mantle Iny 
 Beneath the rings of his light hair? 
 
 Mildred. Brown hair. 
 
 Guendolen. Brown ? why it is brown how could you know 
 that ? 60 
 
 Mildred. How ? did not you Oh ! Austin 'twas, declared 
 His hair was. light, not brown my head! and look, 
 The moonbeam purpling the dark chamber! Sweet, 
 Good night! 
 
 Guendolen. Forgive me sleep the soundlier for me ! 
 
 [ Going, she turns suddenly. 
 Mildred ! 
 
 Perdition 1 all 's discovered! Thorold finds 
 That the Earl's greatest of all grandmothers 
 Was grander daughter still to that fair dame 
 Whose garter slipped down at the famous dance ! \Goes. 
 
 Mildred. Is she can she be really gone at last? 
 My heart ! I shall not reach the window. Needs 70 
 
 Must I have sinned much, so to suffer ! 
 
 \She lifts the small lamp which is suspended before the 
 Virgin* s image in the window, and places it by the 
 purple pane.
 
 76 ^ BLOT JN THE 'SCUTCJ/EOA*. 
 
 There ! 
 
 [She return * /<> ///< <<;il in front. 
 Mildred and Mertoun ! Mildred, with COIIM-IH 
 ( )t ;ill the world and Thorold, Mei toun's bride ! 
 Too late ! 'T is sweet to think of, sweeter still 
 To hope for, that this blessed end soothes up 
 The curse of the beginning ; but I know 
 It comes too late : 't will sweetest be of all 
 To dream my soul away and die upon. [A noise without. 
 The voice ! Oh ! why, why glided sin the snake 
 Into the paradise Heaven meant us both? 80 
 
 [ The window opens softly. A low voice sings. 
 
 Tliere V a woman like a dewdrop, she 's so purer than the 
 
 purest ; 
 And her noble heart 's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith 's the 
 
 surest ; 
 And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of 
 
 lustre 
 Hid i the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild- 
 
 ' r &P e duster, 
 Gush in golden -tinted plenty down her neck's rose -misted 
 
 marble : 
 Then her voice's music call it the weirs bubbling, the bird's 
 
 warble ! 
 
 [A figure wrapped in a mantle appears at the window. 
 And this woman says, ' My days were sunless and my nights 
 
 were moonless, 
 
 Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart' 1 s out- 
 break tuneless, 
 If you loved me not /' And I who ah, for words of flame ! 
 
 adore her, < 
 
 Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her 
 
 [He enters, approaches the seat, and bends over her. 
 I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, 91
 
 ACT I. SCEA'E ///. 
 
 77 
 
 And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she 
 makes me! 
 
 \7he Earl throws off his slouched hat and long cloak. 
 My very heart sings, so I sing, beloved ! 
 
 Mildred. Sit, Henry do not take my hand! 
 
 Mertoun. 'T is mine. 
 
 The meeting that appalled us both so much 
 Is ended. 
 
 Mildred. What begins now ? 
 
 Mertoun. Happiness 
 
 Such as the world contains not. 
 
 Mildred. That is it. 
 
 Our happiness would, as you say, exceed 
 The whole world's best of blisses : we do we 
 Deserve that? Utter to your soul, what mine too 
 
 Long since, beloved, has grown used to hear, 
 Like a death-knell, so much regarded once, 
 And so familiar now ; this will not be ! 
 
 Mertoun. O Mildred, have I met your brother's face, 
 Compelled myself if not to speak untruth, 
 Yet to disguise, to shun, to put aside 
 The truth, as what had e'er prevailed on me 
 Save you, to venture? Have I gained at last 
 Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams, 
 And waking thoughts' sole apprehension too? no 
 
 Does a new life, like a young sunrise, break 
 On the strange unrest of our night, confused 
 U'ith rain and stormy flaw and will you see 
 No dripping blossoms, no fire-tinted drops 
 On each live spray, no vapor steaming up, 
 And no expressless glory in the east? 
 When I am by you, to be ever by you, 
 \\ luii 1 have won. you and may worship you, 
 Mildred, can you say 'this will not be?'
 
 78 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 Mildred. Sin has surprised us ; so will punishment. no 
 
 Merfoun. No me alone, who sinned alone ! 
 
 Mildred. The night 
 
 You likened our past life to was it storm 
 Throughout to you then, Henry ? 
 
 Mertoiin. Of your life 
 
 I spoke what am I, what my life, to waste 
 A thought about when you are by me ? you 
 It was, I said my folly called the storm 
 And pulled the night upon. 'T was day with me 
 Perpetual dawn with me. 
 
 Mildred. Come what, come will, 
 
 You have been happy : take my hand ! 
 
 Mcrtoun \after a pause]. How good 
 
 Your brother is ! I figured him a cold 130 
 
 Shall I say, haughty man ? 
 
 Mildred. They told me all. 
 
 I know all. 
 
 Mertoun. It will soon be over. 
 
 Mildred. Over ? 
 
 Oh! what is over? what must I live through 
 And say, ' 't is over ?' Is our meeting over ? 
 Have I received in presence of them all 
 The partner of my guilty love with brow 
 Trying to seem a maiden's brow with lips 
 Which make believe that when they strive to form 
 Replies to you and tremble as they strive, 
 It is the nearest ever they approached MO 
 
 A stranger's Henry, yours that stranger's lip 
 With cheek that looks a virgin's, and that is 
 Ah ! God, some prodigy of thine will stop 
 This planned piece of deliberate wickedness 
 In its birth even ! some fierce leprous spot 
 Will mar the brow's dissimulating ! I 
 Shall murmur no smooth speeches got by heart,
 
 ACT I. SCENE III. 
 
 79 
 
 But, frenzied, pour forth all our woeful story, 
 
 The love, the shame, and the despair with them 
 
 Round me aghast as men round some cursed fount 150 
 
 That should spirt water, and spouts blood. I '11 not 
 
 Henry, you do not wish that I should draw 
 
 This vengeance down ? I Ml not affect a grace 
 
 That 's gone from me gone once, and gone forever ! 
 
 Mertoun. Mildred, my honor is your own. I'll share 
 Disgrace I cannot suffer by myself. 
 A word informs your brother I retract 
 This morning's offer; time will yet bring forth 
 Some better way of saving both of us. 
 
 Mildred. I '11 meet their faces, Henry ! 
 
 Mertoun. When? to-morrow! 
 
 Get done with it! 
 
 Mildred. O Henry, not to-morrow ! id 
 
 Next day ! I never shall prepare my words 
 And looks and gestures sooner. How you must 
 Despise me ! 
 
 Mertoun. Mildred, break it if you choose, 
 A heart the love of you uplifted still 
 Uplifts, thro' this protracted agony, 
 To heaven ! but Mildred, answer me, first pace 
 The chamber with me once again now, say 
 Calmly the part, the what it is of me 
 You see contempt for you did say contempt 170 
 
 Contempt for you in ! I would pluck it off 
 And cast it from me! but no no, you '11 not 
 Repeat that ? will you, Mildred, repeat that ? 
 
 Mildred. Dear Henry ! 
 
 Mertoun. I was scarce a boy e'en now 
 
 What am I more? And you were infantine 
 When first I met you ; why, your hair fell loose 
 On either side ! My fool's-cheek reddens now 
 Only in the recalling how it burned
 
 8o A BLOT IN THE ' 
 
 That morn to see the shape of many a dream 
 
 You know we boys are prodigal of charms 180 
 
 To her we dream of I had heard of one, 
 
 Had dreamed of her, and I was close to her, 
 
 Might speak to her, might live and die her own 
 
 Who knew? I spoke. O Mildred, feel you not 
 
 That now, while I remember every glance 
 
 Of yours, each word of yours, with power to test 
 
 And weigh them in the diamond scales of pride, 
 
 Resolved the treasure of a first and last 
 
 Heart's love shall have been bartered at its worth 
 
 That now I think upon your purity 190 
 
 And utter ignorance of guilt your own 
 
 Or other's guilt the girlish undisguised 
 
 Delight at a strange novel prize I talk 
 
 A silly language, but interpret, you ! 
 
 If I, with fancy at its full, and reason 
 
 Scarce in its germ, enjoined you secrecy, 
 
 If you had pity on my passion, pity 
 
 On my protested sickness of the soul 
 
 To sit beside you, hear you breathe, and watch 
 
 Your eyelids and the eyes beneath if you aoo 
 
 Accorded gifts and knew not they were gifts 
 
 If I grew mad at last with enterprise 
 
 And must behold my beauty in her bower 
 
 Or perish I was ignorant of even 
 
 My own desires what then were you ? if sorrow 
 
 Sin if the end came must I now renounce 
 
 My reason, blind myself to light, say truth 
 
 Is false and lie to God and my own soul ? 
 
 Contempt were all of this ! 
 
 Mildred. Do you believe 
 
 Or, Henry, I '11 not wrong you you believe 210 
 
 That I was ignorant. I scarce grieve o'er 
 The past ! We 'II love on ; you will love me still !
 
 ACT I. SCENE ///. g! 
 
 Mertoun. Oh ! to love k:ss whtt one has injured ! Dove, 
 Whose pinion I have rashly hurt, my breast 
 Shall my heart's warmth not nurse thee into strength? 
 Flower I have crushed, shall I not care for thee ? 
 Bloom o'er my crest, my fight-mark and device ! 
 Mildred, I love you and you love me ! 
 
 Mildred: Go ! 
 
 Be that your last word. I shall sleep to-night. 
 
 Mertoun. This is not our last meeting? 
 
 Mildred. One night more. 220 
 
 Mertoun. And then think, then ! 
 
 Mildred. Then, no sweet courtship days, 
 
 No dawning consciousness of love for us, 
 No strange and palpitating births of sense 
 From words and looks, no innocent fears and hopes, 
 Reserves and confidences: morning 's over! 
 
 Mertoun. How else should love's perfected noontide follow ? 
 All the dawn promised shall the day perform. 
 
 Mildred. So may it be ! but 
 
 You are cautious, love? 
 Are sure that unobserved you scaled the walls? 
 
 Mertoun. Oh ! trust me ! Then our final meeting 's fixed ? 
 To-morrow night ? 
 
 Mildred. Farewell! Stay, Henry wherefore? 231 
 
 His foot is on the yew-tree bough ; the turf 
 Receives him : now the moonlight as he runs 
 Embraces him but he must go is gone. 
 Ah! once again he turns thanks, thanks, my love! 
 He 's gone. Oh ! I '11 believe him every word ! 
 I was so young, I loved him so, I had 
 No mother, God forgot me, and I fell. 
 There may be pardon yet ; all 's doubt beyond. 
 Surely the bitterness of death is past ! 240 
 
 6
 
 82 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 SCENE. The Library. 
 Enter LORD TRESHAM hastily. 
 This way ! In, Gerard, quick ! 
 
 \A s Gerard enters, Tresham secures the door. 
 
 Now speak ! or, wait 
 I Ml bid you speak directly. [Seats himself. 
 
 Now repeat 
 
 Firmly and circumstantially the tale 
 You just now told me ; it eludes me ; either 
 I did not listen, or the half is gone 
 Away from me. How long have you lived here? 
 Here in my house, your father kept our woods 
 Before you? 
 
 Gerard. As his father did, my lord. 
 I have been eating, sixty years almost, 
 Your bread. 
 
 Tresham. Yes, yes. You ever were of all w 
 
 The servants in my father's house, I know, 
 The trusted one. You '11 speak the truth. 
 
 Gerard. I '11 speak 
 
 God's truth. Night after night 
 
 Tresham. Since when ? 
 
 Gerard. At least 
 
 A month each midnight has some man access 
 To Lady Mildred's chamber. 
 
 Tresham. Tush, ' access ' 
 
 No wide words like ' access ' to me ! 
 
 Gerard. He runs
 
 ACT II. 83 
 
 Along the woodside, crosses to the south, 
 Takes the left tree that ends the avenue 
 
 Tresham. The last great yew-tree? 
 
 Gerard. You might stand upon 
 
 The main boughs like a platform. Then he ' 
 
 Tresham. Quick ! 20 
 
 Gerard. Climbs up, and, where they lessen at the top 
 I cannot see distinctly, but he throws, 
 I think for this I do not vouch a line 
 That reaches to the lady's casement 
 
 Tresham. Which 
 
 He enters not ! Gerard, some wretched fool 
 Dares pry into my sister's privacy ! 
 When such are young, it seems a precious thing 
 To have approached, to merely have approached, 
 Got sight of, the abode of her they set 
 
 Their frantic thoughts upon ! He does not enter? 3 
 
 Gerard ? 
 
 Gerard. There is a lamp that 's full i' the midst, 
 Under a red square in the painted glass 
 Of Lady Mildred's 
 
 Tresham. Leave that name out ! Well ? 
 
 That lamp? 
 
 Gerard. Is moved at midnight higher up 
 To one pane a small dark-blue pane ; he waits 
 For that among the boughs : at sight of that, 
 I see him, plain as I see you, my lord, 
 Open the lady's casement, enter there 
 
 Tresham. And stay ? 
 
 Gerard. An hour, two hours. 
 
 Tresham. And this you saw 
 
 Once ? twice ? quick ! 
 
 Gerard. Twenty times. 
 
 Tresham. And what brings you 
 
 Under the yew-trees?
 
 84 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 Gerard. The first night I left 4 . 
 
 My range so far, to track the stranger stag 
 That broke the pale, I saw the man. 
 
 Tresham. Yet sent 
 
 No cross-bow shaft through the marauder ? 
 
 Gerard. But 
 
 He came, my lord, the first time he was seen, 
 In a great moonlight, light as any day, 
 From Lady Mildred's chamber. 
 
 Tresham \after a pause\. You have no cause 
 Who could have cause to do my sister wrong ? 
 
 Gerard. O my lord, only once let me this once 
 Speak what is on my mind ! Since first I noted 
 All this, I 've groaned as if a fiery net 
 Plucked me this way and that fire, if I turned 
 To her, fire if I turned to you, and fire, 
 If down I flung myself and strove to die. 
 The lady could not have been seven years old 
 When I was trusted to conduct her safe 
 Through the deer-herd to stroke the snow-white fawn 
 I brought to eat bread from her tiny hand 
 Within a month. She ever had a smile 
 To greet me with she if it could undo 60 
 
 What 's done to lop each limb from off" this trunk 
 All that is foolish talk, not fit for you 
 I mean, I could not speak and bring her hurt 
 For Heaven's compelling. But when I was fixed 
 To hold my peace, each morsel of your food 
 Eaten beneath your roof, my birthplace too, 
 Choked me. I wish I had grown mad in doubts 
 What it behooved me do. This morn it seemed 
 Either I must confess to you, or die : 
 
 Now it is done, I seem the vilest worm 70 
 
 That crawls, to have betrayed my lady ! 
 
 Tresham. No 
 
 No, Gerard 1
 
 ACT II. 85 
 
 Gerard. Let me go 1 
 
 Tresham. A man, you say : 
 
 Whatman? Young? Not a vulgar hind ? What dress? 
 
 Gerard. A slouched hat and a large dark foreign cloak 
 Wraps his whole form ; even his face is hid ; 
 But I should judge him young: no hind, be sure! 
 
 Tresham. Why? 
 
 Gerard. He is ever armed : his sword projects 
 
 Beneath the cloak. 
 
 Tresham. Gerard, I will not say 
 
 No word, no breath of this ! 
 
 Gerard. Thanks, thanks, my lord ! [Goes. 
 
 TRESHAM paces the room. After a pause, 
 Oh ! thought 's absurd ! as with some monstrous fact &> 
 Which, when ill thoughts beset us, seems to give 
 Merciful God that made the sun and stars, 
 The waters and the green delights of earth, 
 The lie ! I apprehend the monstrous fact 
 Yet know the Maker of all worlds is good, 
 And yield my reason up, inadequate 
 To reconcile what yet I do behold 
 Blasting my sense ! There 's cheerful day outside : 
 This is my libra/y, and this the chair 
 
 My father used to sit in carelessly 90 
 
 After his soldier fashion, while I stood 
 Between his knees to question him ; and here 
 Gerard our gray retainer as he says, 
 Fed with our food, from sire to son, an age 
 Has told a story I am to believe ! 
 That Mildred oh, no, no! both tales are true, 
 Her pure cheek's story and the forester's ! 
 Would she, or could she, err much less, confound 
 All guilts of treachery, of craft, of Heaven 
 Keep me within its hand ! I will sit here 100
 
 86 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 Until thought settle and I see my course. 
 Avert, O God, only this woe from me ! 
 
 [As he sinks his head between his arms on the table, 
 
 Guendolen' s voice is heard at the door. 
 Lord Tresham ! [She knocks.] Is Lord Tresham there? 
 
 [Tresham, hastily turning, pulls down the first book 
 above his head and opens it. 
 
 Tresham. Come in ! [She enters. 
 
 Ha ! Guendolen good morning. 
 
 Guendolen. Nothing more? 
 
 Tresham. What should I say more ? 
 
 Guendolen. Pleasant question ! more? 
 
 This more. Did I besiege poor Mildred's brain 
 Last night till close on morning with 'the Earl,' 
 ' The Earl ' whose worth did I asseverate 
 Till I am very fain to hope that Thorold, 
 What is all this? You are not well ! 
 
 Tresham. Who? I? 
 
 You laugh at me. 
 
 Guendolen. Has what I 'm fain to hope 
 
 Arrived then ? Does that huge tome show some blot 
 In the Earl's 'scutcheon come no longer back 
 Than Arthur's time ? 
 
 Tresham. When left you Mildred's chamber? 
 
 Guendolen. Oh! late enough, I told you ! The main thing 
 To ask is, how I left her chamber, sure, 
 Content yourself, she '11 grant this paragon 
 Of earls no such ungracious 
 
 Tresham. Send her here ! 
 
 Guendolen. Thorold? 
 
 Tresham. I mean acquaint her, Guendolen, 
 
 But mildly! 
 
 Guendolen. Mildly? 
 
 Tresham. Ah ! you guessed aright. 120 
 
 I am not well : there is no hiding it.
 
 ACT //. 87 
 
 But tell her I would see her at her leisure 
 
 That is, at once ! here in the library ! 
 
 The passage in that old Italian book 
 
 We hunted for so long is found, say, found 
 
 And if I let it slip again you see, 
 
 That she must come and instantly ! 
 
 Guendolen. I '11 die 
 
 Piecemeal, record that, if there have not gloomed 
 Some blot i' the 'scutcheon ! 
 
 . Tresham. Go ! or, Guendolen, 
 
 Be you at call, with Austin, if you choose, 130 
 
 In the adjoining gallery ! There, go ! \Guendolen goes. 
 
 Another lesson to me ! You might bid 
 A child disguise his heart's sore, and conduct 
 Some sly investigation point by point 
 With a smooth brow, as well as bid me catch 
 The inquisitorial cleverness some praise ! 
 If you had told me yesterday, 'There 's one 
 You needs must circumvent and practise with, 
 Entrap by policies, if you would worm 
 
 The truth out ; and that one is Mildred !' There, 140 
 
 There reasoning is thrown away on it ! 
 Prove she 's unchaste why, you may afier prove 
 That she 's a poisoner, traitress, what you will ! 
 Where I can comprehend nought, nought 's to say. 
 Or do, or think ? Force on me but the first 
 Abomination then outpour all plagues, 
 And I shall ne'er make count of them ! 
 
 Enter MILDRED. 
 
 Mildred. What book 
 
 Is it I wanted, Thorold ? Guendolen 
 Thought you were pale ; you are not pale. That book.? 
 That \ L.itin surely. 
 
 v,/w. Mildred, here 's a line 15
 
 88 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 Don't lean on me : I '11 English it for you 
 
 'Love conquers all things.' What love conquers them? 
 
 What love should you esteem best love ? 
 
 Mildred. True love. 
 
 2n-s/iam. I mean, and should have said, whose love is 
 
 best 
 Of all that love or that profess to love? 
 
 Mildred. The list 's so long : there 's father's, mother's, 
 husband's 
 
 Tresham. Mildred, I do believe a brother's love 
 For a sole sister must exceed them all. 
 For see now, only see ! there 's no alloy 
 Of earth that creeps into the perfect'st gold 160 
 
 Of other loves no gratitude to claim ; 
 You never gave her life, not even aught 
 That keeps life never tended her, instructed, 
 Enriched her so your love can claim no right 
 O'er her save pure love's claim : that 's what I call 
 Freedom from earthliness. You '11 never hope 
 To be such friends, for instance, she and you, 
 As when you hunted cowslips in the woods 
 Or played together in the meadow hay. 
 Oh ! yes with age, respect comes, and your worth 170 
 
 Is felt, there 's growing sympathy of tastes, 
 There 's ripened friendship, there 's confirmed esteem : 
 Much head these make against the new-comer! 
 The startling apparition, the strange youth 
 Whom one half-hour's conversing with, or, say, 
 Mere gazing at, shall change beyond all change 
 This Ovid ever sang about your soul 
 Her soul, that is, the sister's soul ! With her 
 "!' was winter yesterday ; now, all is warmth, 
 The green leaf's springing and the turtle's voice, >8o 
 
 ' Arise and come away!' Come whither? far 
 Enough from the esteem, respect, and all
 
 ACT II. , 89 
 
 The brother's somewhat insignificant 
 
 Array of rights ! All which he knows before, 
 
 Has calculated on so long ago ! 
 
 I think such love apart from yours and mine 
 
 Contented with its little term of life, 
 
 Intending to retire betimes, aware 
 
 How soon the background must be place for it, 
 
 I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds 190 
 
 All the world's love in its unworldliness. 
 
 Mildred. What is this for ? 
 
 Tresham. This, Mildred, is it for ! 
 
 Or, no, I cannot go to it so soon! 
 That 's one of many points my haste left out 
 Each day, each hour throws forth its silk-like film 
 Between the being tied to you by birth, 
 And you, until those slender threads compose 
 A web that shrouds her daily life of hopes 
 And fears and fancies, all her life, from yours: 
 So close you live and yet so far apart ! 200 
 
 And must I rend this web, tear up, break down 
 The sweet and palpitating mystery 
 That makes her sacred? You, for you I mean, 
 Shall I speak, shall I not speak ? 
 
 Mildred. Speak ! 
 
 Tresham. I will. 
 
 Is there a story men could any man 
 Could tell of you, you would conceal from me? 
 I '11 never think there 's falsehood on that lip. 
 Say 'There is no such story men could tell,' 
 And I '11 believe you, though I disbelieve 
 The world the world of belter men than I, aio 
 
 And women such as I suppose you. Speak ! 
 \After a pause. \ Not speak? Kxplain then! Clear it up 
 
 then ! Move 
 Some of the misci.iblc wriglit ;n\,iy
 
 oo A BLOT IX rilE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 I 
 
 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? 
 
 [After a pause] Is there a gallant that has night by night 
 
 Admittance to your chamber? 
 
 [After a pause\ Then, his name ! 
 
 Till now, I only had a thought for you : 320 
 
 But now, his name ! 
 
 Mildred. Thorold, do you devise 
 
 Fit expiation for my guilt, if fit 
 There be ! T is nought to say that I Ml endure 
 And bless you, that my spirit yearns to purge 
 Her stains off in the fierce renewing fire : 
 But do not plunge me into other guilt ! 
 Oh, guilt enough ! I cannot tell his name. 
 
 Tresham. Then judge yourself ! How should I act ? Pro- 
 nounce ! 
 
 Mildred. O Thorold, you must never tempt me thus! 
 To die here in this chamber by that sword 230 
 
 Would seem like punishment: so should I glide, 
 Like an arch-cheat, into extremes! bliss ! 
 'T were easily arranged for me : but you 
 What would become of you ? 
 
 Tresham. And what will now 
 
 Become of me? I '11 hide your shame and mine 
 From every eye ; the dead must heave their hearts 
 Under the marble of our chapel-floor ; 
 They cannot rise and blast you. You may wed 
 Your paramour above our mother's tomb ; 
 Our mother cannot inove from 'neath your foot. 24 
 
 We too will somehow wear this one day out : 
 But with to-morrow hastens here the Earl ! 
 The youth without suspicion that faces come 
 From heaven, and hearts from whence proceed such hearts ?
 
 ACT II. 91 
 
 I have dispatched last night at your command 
 
 A missive bidding him present himself 
 
 To-morrow here-* thus much is said ; the rest 
 
 Is understood as if 't were written down 
 
 ' His suit finds favour in your eyes :' now dictate 
 
 This morning's letter that shall countermand 25 
 
 Last night's do dictate that ! 
 
 Mildred. But Thorold if 
 
 I will receive him as I said? 
 
 Tresham. The Earl ? 
 
 Mildred. I will receive him. 
 
 Tresham [starting up\. Ho there ! Guendolen ! 
 
 GUENDOLEN and AUSTIN enter. 
 And, Austin, you are welcome, too ! Look there ! 
 The woman there ! 
 
 Austin and Guendolen. How? Mildred? 
 
 Tresham. 'Mildred once ! 
 
 Now the receiver night by night, when sleep 
 Blesses the inmates of her father's house 
 I say, the soft sly wanton that receives 
 Her guilt's accomplice 'neath this roof which holds 
 You, Guendolen, you, Austin, and has held 260 
 
 A thousand Treshams never one like her ! 
 No lighter of the signal-lamp her quick 
 Foul breath near quenches in hot eagerness 
 To mix with breath as foul ! no loosener 
 O' the lattice, practised in the stealthy tread, 
 The low voice, and the noiseless come-and-go ! * 
 Not one composer of the bacchant's mien 
 Into what you thought Mildred's, in a word! 
 Know her ! 
 
 Guendolen. O Mildred, look to me, at least ! 
 Thorold she 's dead, I 'd say, but that she stands 7 
 
 Rigid as stone and whiter !
 
 9 2 
 
 A 1U.OT IX TIIR 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 7'tt's/niw. You have heard 
 
 Gncmiolcn. Too much ! You must proceed no further. 
 
 Mildred. Yes- 
 
 Proceed ! All 's truth. Go from me ! 
 
 Tresham. 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 280 
 
 Of Mildred, my one sister, my heart's pride 
 Above all prides, my all in all so long, 
 Would scatter 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 ? 
 It were not so impossible to bear. 
 
 But this that, fresh from last night's pledge renewed 290 
 Of love with the successful gallant there, 
 She calmly bids me help her to entice, 
 Inveigle an unconscious, trusting youth 
 Who thinks her all that 's chaste and good and pure 
 Invites me to betray him who so fit 
 As honor's self to cover shame's arch-deed ? 
 That she '11 receive Lord Mertoun her own phrase 
 This, who could bear ? Why, you have heard of thieves, 
 Slabbers, the earth's disgrace, who yet have laughed, 
 ' Talk not to me of torture I '11 betray 3 oo 
 
 No comrade I Ve pledged faith to !' you have heard 
 Of wretched women all but Mildreds tied 
 Bv wild illicit ties to losels vile
 
 ACT II. 93 
 
 You 'cl tempt them to forsake ; and they '11 reply 
 
 'Gold, friends, repute, I left for him, I find 
 
 In him, why should I leave him then for gold, 
 
 Repute or friends?' and you have felt your heart 
 
 Respond to such 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, 3' 
 
 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 surelier; and, for this, 
 
 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 ! 
 
 [As Mildred faints and falls, Tresham rushes out. 
 
 Austin. Stay, Tresham, we '11 accompany you ! 
 
 Guendolen. We ? 
 
 What, and leave Mildred? We? Why, where 's my place 
 But by her side, and where yours but by mine ? 320 
 
 Mildred one word ! Only look at me, then ! 
 
 Austin. No, Guendolen ! I echo Thorold's voice. 
 She is unworthy to behold 
 
 Guendolen. Us two ? 
 
 If you spoke on reflection, and if I 
 Approved your speech if you to put the thing 
 At lowest you the soldier, bound to make 
 The king's cause yours and fight for it, and throw 
 Regard to others of its right or wrong 
 If with a death-white woman you can help, 
 Let alone sister, let alone a Mildred, 33 o 
 
 You left her or if I, her cousin, friend 
 This morning, playfellow but yesterday, 
 Who said, or thought at least a thousand times, 
 ' I \1 serve you if I could,' should now face round 
 And say, ' Ah ! that 's to only signify
 
 94 
 
 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 I 'd serve you while you 're fit to serve yourself 
 
 So long as fifty eyes await the turn 
 
 Of yours to forestall its yet half-formed wish, 
 
 1 '11 proffer my assistance you '11 not need 
 
 When every tongue is praising you, I '11 join 340 
 
 The praisers' chorus when you 're hemmed about 
 
 With lives between you and detraction lives 
 
 To be laid down if a rude voice, rash eye, 
 
 Rough hand should violate the sacred ring 
 
 Their worship throws about you, then indeed, 
 
 Who '11 stand up for you stout as I ?' If so 
 
 We said, and so we did, not Mildred there 
 
 Would be unworthy to behold us both, 
 
 But we should be unworthy, both of us, 
 
 To be beheld by by your meanest dog, 35 
 
 Which, if that sword were broken in your face 
 
 Before a crowd, that badge torn off your breast, 
 
 And you cast out with hooting and contempt, 
 
 Would push his way through all the hooters, gain 
 
 Your side, go off with you and all your shame 
 
 To the next ditch you choose to die in ! Austin, 
 
 Do you love me ? Here 's Austin, Mildred, here 's 
 
 Your brother says he does not believe half 
 
 No, nor half that of all he heard ! He says, 
 
 Look up and take his hand ! 
 
 Austin. Look up and take 3< 
 
 My hand, dear Mildred ! 
 
 Mildred. I I was so young ! 
 
 Beside, I loved him, Thorold and I had 
 No mother ; God forgot me : so I fell. 
 
 Guendolen. Mildred ! 
 
 Mildred. Require no further! Did I dream 
 
 That I could palliate what is done ? All 's true. 
 Now punish me ! A woman takes my hand ? 
 Let go my hand ! You do not know, I see. 
 I thought that Thorold told you.
 
 ACT II. 
 
 95 
 
 Guendolen. What is this ? 
 
 Where start you to ? 
 
 Mildred. O Austin, loosen me ! 
 
 You heard the whole of it your eyes were worse, 37 
 
 In their surprise, than Thorold's ! Oh ! unless 
 You stay to execute his sentence, loose 
 My hand ! Has Thorold gone, and are you here? 
 
 Guendolen. Here, Mildred, we two friends of yours will wail 
 Your bidding ; be you silent, sleep or muse ! 
 Only, when you shall want your bidding done, 
 How can we do it if we are not by ? 
 Here 's Austin waiting patiently your will. 
 One spirit to command, and one to love 
 And to believe in it and do its best, 380 
 
 Poor as that is, to help it why, the world 
 Has been won many a time, its length and breadth, 
 By just such a beginning! 
 
 Mildred. I believe 
 
 If once I threw my arms about your neck 
 And sunk my head upon your breast, that I 
 Should weep again. 
 
 Guendolen. Let go her hand now, Austin. 
 
 Wait for me. -Pace the gallery and think 
 On the world's seemings and realities, 
 Until I call you. [Austin goes. 
 
 Mildred. No I cannot weep. 
 
 No more tears from this brain no sleep no tears ! 390 
 
 O Guendolen, I love you ! 
 
 Guendolen. Yes: and 'love' 
 
 Is a short word that says so very much ! 
 It says that you confide in me. 
 
 Mildred. Confide! 
 
 Guendolen. Your lover's name, then ! I 've so much to 
 
 learn, 
 Ere I can work in your behalf!
 
 9 6 A BLOT IN THE *SCVTC 
 
 Mildred. My friend, 
 
 You know I cannot tell his name. 
 
 Guendolen. At least 
 
 He is your lover? and you love him too? 
 
 Mildred. Ah ! do you ask me that ? but I am fallen 
 So low ! 
 
 Guendolen. You love him still, then ? 
 
 Mildred. My sole prop 
 
 Against the guilt that crushes me ! I say, 40 
 
 Each night ere I lie down, ' I was so young 
 I had no mother, and I loved him so !' 
 And then God seems indulgent, and I dare 
 Trust him my soul in sleep. 
 
 Guendolen. How could you let us 
 
 E'en talk to you about Lord Mertoun then ? 
 
 Mildred. There is a cloud around me. 
 
 Guendolen. But you said 
 
 You would receive his suit in spite of this? 
 
 Mildred. I say there is a cloud 
 
 Guendolen. No cloud to me ! 
 
 Lord Mertoun and your lover are the same! 
 
 Mildred. What maddest fancy 
 
 Guendolen [calling aloud}. Austin! spare your pains 
 When I have got a truth, that truth I keep 411 
 
 Mildred. By all you love, sweet Guendolen, forbear ! 
 Have I confided in you 
 
 Guendolen. Just for this! 
 
 Austin ! Oh ! not to guess it at the first ! 
 But T did guess it that is, I divined, 
 Felt by an instinct how it was : why else 
 Should I pronounce you free from all that heap 
 Of sins which had been irredeemable ? 
 1 felt they were not yours what other way 
 Than this, not yours? The secret 's wholly mine J 430 
 
 Mildred. If you would see me die before his face
 
 ACT II. 
 
 97 
 
 Gucndolen. I 'd hold my peace ! And if the Earl returns 
 To-night ?. 
 
 Mildred. Ah ! Heaven, he 's lost ! 
 
 Guendolen. I thought so. Austin ! 
 
 \Enter Austin. 
 Oh ! where have you been hiding? 
 
 Austin. Thorold 's gone, 
 
 I know not how, across the meadow-land. 
 I watched him till I lost him in the skirts 
 O' the beech-wood. 
 
 Guendolen. Gone ? All thwarts us. 
 
 Mildred. Thorold too? 
 
 Guendolen. I have thought.. First lead this Mildred to 
 
 her room. 
 
 Go on the other side ; and then we '11 seek 
 Your brother : and I '11 tell you, by the way, 430 
 
 The greatest comfort in the world. You said 
 There was a clue to all. Remember, sweet, 
 He said there was a clue ! I hold it. Come!
 
 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 SCENE I. 77ie end of the Yew-tree Avenue under Mildred" 1 s 
 window. A light seen through a central red pane. 
 
 Enter TRESHAM through the trees. 
 
 Again here ! But I cannot lose myself. 
 The heath the orchard I have traversed glades 
 And dells and bosky paths which used to lead 
 Into green wildwood depths, bewildering 
 My boy's adventurous step. And now they tend 
 Hither or soon or late ; the blackest shade 
 Breaks up, the thronged trunks of the trees ope wide, 
 And the dim turret I have fled from fronts 
 Again my step ; the very river put 
 
 Its arm about me and conducted me 10 
 
 To this detested spot. Why then, I '11 shun 
 Their will no longer: do your will with me ! 
 Oh, bitter ! To have reared a towering scheme 
 Of happiness, and to behold it razed, 
 Were nothing : all men hope, and see their hopes 
 Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew. 
 But I to hope that from a line like ours 
 No horrid prodigy like this would spring, 
 ,Were just as though I hoped that from these old 
 Confederates against the sovereign day, *> 
 
 Children of older and yet older sires, 
 Whose living coral berries dropped, as now 
 On me, on many a baron's surcoat once, 
 On many a beauty's wimple would proceed
 
 ACT ///. SCENE I. 99 
 
 No poison-tree, to thrust, from hell its root, 
 Hither and thither its strange snaky arms. 
 Why came I here? What must I do? [A bell strikes. 
 
 A bell ? 
 
 Midnight! and 't is at midnight Ah ! I catch 
 Woods, river, plains, I catch your meaning now, 
 And I obey you ! Hist ! This tree will serve. 30 
 
 [He retires behind one of the trees. After a pause, enter 
 
 MERTOUN cloaked as before. 
 
 Mertoun. Not time ! Beat out thy last voluptuous beat 
 Of hope and fear, my heart ! I thought the clock 
 I' the chapel struck as I was pushing through 
 The ferns. And so I shall no more see rise 
 My love-star ! Oh ! no matter for the past ! 
 So much the more delicious task to watch 
 Mildred revive ; to pluck out, thorn by thorn, 
 All traces of the rough forbidden path 
 My rash love lured her to ! Each day must see 
 Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed ; 4 
 
 Then there will be surprises, unforeseen 
 Delights in store. I Ml not regret the past. 
 
 \The light is placed above in the purple pane. 
 And see, my signal rises, Mildred's star ! 
 1 never saw it lovelier than now 
 It rises for the last time. If it sets, 
 'T is that the re-assuring sun may dawn. 
 
 [As he prepares to ascend the last tree of the avenue, 
 
 Tresham arrests his arm. 
 
 Unhand me peasant, by your grasp ! Here 's gold. 
 'T was 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. 50 
 
 7 res/tarn. Into the moonlight yonder, come with me ! 
 Out of the shadow ! 
 
 Mertoun. I am armed, fool !
 
 I00 A 1U.OT 1\ TJIE 
 
 Trcsham. Yes, 
 
 Or no? You '11 come into the light, or no ? 
 My hand is on your throat refuse ! 
 
 Mertoun. That voice 
 
 Where have I heard no that was mild and slow. 
 I '11 come with you. \They advance 
 
 Trcsham. You 're armed : that 's well. Declare 
 
 Your name who are you ? 
 
 Mertoun. Tresham ? she is lost ! 
 
 Tresham. 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 60 
 
 When they 're detected, still your kind has looked! 
 The bravo holds an assured countenance, 
 The thief is voluble and plausible, 
 But silently the slave of lust has crouched 
 When I have fancied it before a man. 
 Your name ? 
 
 Mertoun. 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 ! 7 o 
 
 I read your white inexorable face. 
 Know me, Lord Tresham ! [He throws off his disguises. 
 
 Tresham. Mertoun ! 
 
 \After a pause] Draw now ! 
 
 Mertoun. Hear me 
 
 But speak first ! 
 
 Tresham. Not one least word on your life ! 
 
 Be sure that I will strangle in your throat 
 The least word that informs me how you live 
 And yet seem what you seem ! No doubt 't was you 
 Taught Mildred still to keep that face and sin. 
 We should join hands in frantic sympathy
 
 ACT III. SCENE I. 101 
 
 If you once taught me the unteachable, 
 
 Explained how you can live so, and so lie. 80 
 
 With God's help I retain, despite my sense, 
 
 The old belief a life like yours is still 
 
 Impossible. Now draw! 
 
 Mertoun. Not for my sake, 
 
 Do I entreat a hearing fon your sake, 
 And most, for her sake ! 
 
 Tresham. Ha ha, what should I 
 
 Know of your ways ? A miscreant like yourself, 
 How must one rouse his ire? A blow? that 's pride 
 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 ? 90 
 
 Mertoun. 'Twixt him and me and Mildred, Heaven be 
 
 judge! 
 Ca.n I avoid this? Have your will, my lord ! 
 
 \He draws and, after a few passes, falls. 
 
 Tresham. You are not hurt ? 
 
 Mertoun. You '11 hear me now ! 
 
 Tresham. But rise ! 
 
 Mertoun. Ah ! Tresham, say I not 'you '11 hear me now?' 
 And what procures a man the right to speak 
 In his defence before his fellow-man, 
 But I suppose the thought that presently 
 He may have leave to speak before his God 
 His whole defence? 
 
 Tresham. Not hurt? It cannot be! 
 
 You made no effort to resist me. Where oo 
 
 Did my sword reach you ? Why not have returned 
 My thrusts? Hurt where? 
 
 Mertoun. My lord 
 
 Tresham. How young he is ! 
 
 Mertoun. Lord Tresham, I am very young, and yet 
 I have entangled other lives with mine.
 
 102 A BLOT /A' 77 fE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 Do let me speak, and do believe my speech ! 
 That when I die before you presently 
 
 Tresham. Can you stay here till I return with help? 
 
 Mertoun. Oh ! stay by me ! When I was less than boy 
 I did you grievous wrong and knew it not 
 Upon my honor, knew it not ! Once known, no 
 
 I could not find what seemed a better way 
 To right you than I took : my life you feel 
 How less than nothing were the giving you 
 The life you 've taken ! But I thought my way 
 The better only for your sake and hers : 
 And as you have decided otherwise, 
 Would I had an infinity of lives 
 To offer you ! Now say instruct me think 
 Can you from the brief minutes I have left 
 Eke out my reparation ? Oh! think think! io 
 
 For I must wring a partial dare I say, 
 Forgiveness from you, ere I die ? 
 
 Tresham. I do 
 
 Forgive you. 
 
 Mertoun. Wait and ponder that great word ! 
 Because, if you forgive me, I shall hope 
 To speak to you of Mildred ! 
 
 Tresham. Mertoun, haste 
 
 And anger have undone us. 'T is not you 
 Should tell me for a novelty you 're young, 
 Thoughtless, unable to recall the past.' 
 Be but your pardon ample as my own ! 
 
 Mertoun. Ah ! Tresham, that a sword-stroke and a drop 13 
 Of blood or two should bring all this about! 
 Why, 't was my very fear of you, my love 
 Of you what passion like a boy's for one 
 Like you? that ruined me ! I dreamed of you 
 You, all accomplished, courted everywhere, 
 The scholar and the gentleman. I burned
 
 ACT III. SCENE I. 
 
 103 
 
 To knit myself to you ; but I was young, 
 
 And your surpassing reputation kept me 
 
 So far aloof! Oh! wherefore, all that love? 
 
 With less of love, my glorious yesterday M 
 
 Of praise and gentlest words and kindest looks 
 
 Had taken place perchance six months ago. 
 
 Even now, how happy we had been ! And yet 
 
 I know the thought of this escaped you, Tresham ! 
 
 Let me look up into your face ; I feel ' 
 
 'T is changed above me : yet my eyes are glazed. 
 
 Where? where? 
 
 [As he endeavors to raise himself, his eye catches the lamp. 
 
 Ah, Mildred ! What will Mildred do? 
 Tresham, her life is bound up in the life 
 That 's bleeding fast away ! I '11 live must live 
 There, if you '11 only turn me I shall live 15 
 
 And save her ! Tresham oh ! had you but heard ! 
 Had you but heard ! What right was yours to set 
 The thoughtless foot upon her life and mine, 
 And then say, as we perish, ' Had I thought, 
 All had gone otherwise?' We 've sinned and die : 
 Never you sin, Lord Tresham ! for you '11 die, 
 And God will judge you. 
 
 Tresham. Yes, be satisfied ! 
 
 That process is begun. 
 
 Mertoun. And she sits there 
 
 Waiting for me ! Now, say you this to her 
 You, not another say, I saw him die 160 
 
 As he breathed this, ' I love her ' you don't know 
 What those three small words mean ! Say, loving her 
 Lowers me down the bloody slope to death 
 With memories I speak to her, not you, 
 Who had no pity, will have no remorse, 
 I'm liancc intend her Die along with me, 
 DL.U Mildred! 't is so easy, and you '11 'scape
 
 IO4 
 
 A BLOT I, V THE 'SCUTCHEON. / 
 
 So much unkindness ! Can I lie a\ rest, 
 
 With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds 
 
 Done to you? heartless men shall have my heart, 170 
 
 And I tied down with grave-clothes and the worm, 
 
 Aware, perhaps, of every blow O God! 
 
 Upon those lips yet of no power to tear 
 
 The felon stripe by stripe ! Die, Mildred ! Leave 
 
 Their honorable world to them ! For God 
 
 We 're good enough,* though the world casts us out. 
 
 [A whistle is heard, 
 Tresham. Ho, Gerard! 
 
 Enter GERARD, AUSTIN, and GUENDOLEN with lights. 
 
 No one speak ! You see what 's done. 
 I cannot bear another voice. 
 
 Mertoun. There 's light 
 
 Light all about me, and I move to it. 
 
 Tresham, did I not tell you did you not r8o 
 
 [ust promise to deliver words of mine 
 To Mildred? 
 
 Tresham. I will bear jthose words to her. 
 
 Mertoun. Now? 
 
 Tresham. Now. Lift you the body, and leave me 
 
 The head. 
 
 [As they have half raised Mertoun, he turns suddenly. 
 
 Mertoun. I knew they turned me : turn me not from her ! 
 There ! stay you ! there ! [Dies. 
 
 Guendolen [after a pause]. Austin, remain you here 
 With Thorold until Gerard comes with help ; 
 Then lead him to his chamber. I must go 
 To Mildred. 
 
 Tresham. Guendolen, 1 hear each word 
 You utter. Did you hear him bid me give 
 His message? Did you hear my promise ? I, 190 
 
 And only I, see Mildred.
 
 ACT III. SCENE I. 105 
 
 Guendolen. She will die. 
 
 Tresham. Oh ! no, she will not die ! I dare not hope 
 She '11 die. What ground have you to think she '11 die ? 
 Why, Austin 's with you ! 
 
 Austin. Had we but arrived 
 
 Before you fought ! 
 
 Tresham. There was no fight at all. 
 
 He let me slaughter him the boy ! I '11 trust 
 The body there to you and Gerard thus ! 
 Now bear him on before me. 
 
 Austin. Whither bear him ? 
 
 Tresham. Oh ! to my chamber ! When we meet there next, 
 
 We shall be friends. \They bear out the body of Mertoun. 
 
 Will she die, Guendolen ? 200 
 
 Guendolen. Where are you taking me? 
 
 Tresham. He fell just here. 
 
 Now answer me. Shall you in your whole life 
 You who have nought to do with Mertoun's fate, 
 Now you have seen his breast upon the turf, 
 Shall you e'er walk this way if you can help ? 
 When you and Austin wander arm-in-arm 
 Through our ancestral grounds, will not a shade 
 Be ever on the meadow and the waste 
 Another kind of shade than when the night 
 Shuts the woodside with all its whispers up? ar 
 
 But will you ever so forget his breast 
 As carelessly to cross this bloody turf 
 Under the black yew avenue? That 's well! 
 You turn your head : and I then ? 
 
 Guendolen. What is done 
 
 Is done. My care is for the living. Thorold, 
 Bear up against this burden : more remains 
 To set the neck to ! 
 
 Treshtun. Dear and ancient trees 
 
 My l.itlu-is pi. mted, and 1 loved so well!
 
 I0 6 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 What have I done that, like some fabled crime 
 
 Of yore, lets loose a Fury leading thus 
 
 Her miserable dance amidst you all ? 
 
 Oh ! never more for me shall winds intone 
 
 With all your tops a vast antiphony, 
 
 Demanding and responding in God's praise ! 
 
 Hers ye are now, not mine ! Farewell farewell ! 
 
 SCENE II. Mildred's Chamber. MILDRED alone. 
 He comes not ! I have heard of those who seemed 
 Resourceless in prosperity, you thought 
 Sorrow might slay them when she listed ; yet 
 Did they so gather up their diffused strength 
 At her first menace, that they bade her strike, 
 And stood and laughed her subtlest skill to scorn. 
 Oh ! 't is not so with me ! The first woe fell, 
 And the rest fall upon it, not on me : 
 Else should I bear that Henry comes not? fails 
 Just this first night out of so many nights? 
 Loving is done with. Were he sitting now, 
 As so few hours since, on that seat, we 'd love 
 No more contrive no thousand happy ways 
 To hide love from the loveless any more. 
 I think I might have urged some little point 
 In my defence to Thorold ; he was breathless 
 For the least hint of a defence : but no, 
 The first shame over, all that would might fall. 
 No Henry ! Yet I merely sit and think 
 The morn's deed o'er and o'er. I must have crept 
 Out of myself. A Mildred that has lost 
 Her lover oh ! I dare not look upon 
 Such woe! I crouch away from it ! 'T is she, 
 Mildred, will break her heart, not I ! The world 
 Forsakes me : only Henry 's left me left ?
 
 ACT III. SCENE II. 107 
 
 When I have lost him, for he does not come, 
 And I sit stupidly O Heaven, break up 
 This worse than anguish, this mad apathy, 
 By any means or any messenger ! 
 
 Tresham \without\. Mildred! 
 
 Mildred. Come in ! Heaven hears me ! 
 
 [Enter TRESHAM.] You ? alone ? 
 
 Oh ! no more cursing ! 
 
 Tresham. Mildred, I must sit. 31 
 
 There you sit ! 
 
 Mildred. Say it, Thorold do not look 
 
 The curse ! deliver all you come to say ! 
 What must become of me? Oh! speak that thought 
 Which makes your brow and cheek so pale ! 
 
 Tresham. My thought ? 
 
 Mildred. All of it ! 
 
 Tresham. How we waded years ago 
 
 After those water-lilies, till the plash, 
 I know not how, surprised us ; and you dared 
 Neither advance nor turn back : so, we stood 
 Laughing and crying until Gerard came 4 
 
 Once safe upon the turf, the loudest too, 
 For once more reaching the relinquished prize ! 
 How idle thoughts are, some men's, dying men's ! 
 Mildred, 
 
 Mildred. You call me kindlier by my name 
 Than even yesterday : what is in that ? 
 
 Tresham. It weighs so much upon my mind that I 
 This morning took an office not my own ! 
 I might of course, I must be glad or grieved, 
 Content or not, at every little thing 
 
 That touches you. I may with a wrung heart y 
 
 Even reprove you, Mildred ; I did more : 
 Will you forgive me?
 
 I0 g A BLOT AV THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 Mildred. Thorold ? do you mock ? 
 
 Or no and yet you bid me say that word ! 
 
 Tresham. Forgive me, Mildred! are you silent, sweet? 
 
 Mildred [starting up\. Why does not Henry Mertoun 
 
 come to-night? 
 Are you, too, silent? 
 
 \Dashing his mantle aside, and pointing to his scabbard, 
 which is empty. 
 
 Ah ! this speaks for you 1 
 
 You 've murdered Henry Mertoun ! Now proceed I 
 What is it I must pardon ? This and all ? 
 Well, I do pardon you I think I do. * 
 
 Thorold, how very wretched you must be 1 60 
 
 Tresham. He bade me tell you 
 
 Mildred. What I do forbid 
 
 Your utterance of i So much that you may tell 
 And will not how you murdered him but, no ! 
 You '11 tell me that he loved me, never more 
 Than bleeding out his life there : must I say 
 'Indeed,' to that? Enough! I pardon you. 
 
 Tresham. You cannot, Mildred 1 for the harsh words. 
 
 yes: 
 
 Of this last deed Another 's judge ; whose doom 
 I wait in doubt, despondency, and fear. 
 
 Mildred. Oh, true ! There 's nought for me to pardon ! 
 True ! 70 
 
 You loose my soul of all its cares at once. 
 Death makes me sure of him forever ! You 
 Tell me his last words? He shall tell me them, 
 And take my answer not in words, but reading 
 Himself the heart I had to read him late, 
 Which death 
 
 Tresham. Death? You are dying too? Well said 
 Of Guendolen ! I dared not hope you 'd die : 
 But she was sure of it.
 
 ACT III. SCENE II, 109 
 
 Mildred. Tell Guendolen 
 
 I loved her, and tell Austin 
 
 Tresham. Him you loved : 
 
 And me? 
 
 Mildred. Ah, Thorold ! Was 't not rashly done 80 
 
 To quench that blood, on fire with youth and hope 
 And love of me whom you loved too, and yet 
 Suffered to sit here waiting his approach 
 While you were slaying him ? Oh! doubtlessly 
 You let him speak his poor confused boy's-speech 
 Do his poor utmost to disarm your wrath 
 And respite me ! you let him try to give 
 The story of our love and ignorance, 
 And the brief madness and the long despair 
 You let him plead all this, because your code 9 
 
 Of honor bids you hear before you strike ; 
 But at the end, as he looked up for life 
 Into your eyes you struck him down J 
 
 Tresham. No ! no ! 
 
 Had I but heard him had I let him speak 
 Half the truth less had I looked long on him 
 I had desisted ! Why., as he lay there, 
 The moon on his flushed cheek, I gathered all 
 The story ere he told it ; I saw through 
 The troubled surface of his crime and yours 
 A depth of purity immovable. 100 
 
 Had I but glanced, where all seemed turbidest 
 Had gleamed some inlet to the calm beneath. 
 I would not glance : my punishment 's at hand. 
 There, Mildred, is the truth ! and you say on 
 You curse me ? 
 
 Mildred. 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
 
 IIO A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 Desist and be forgiven, I forgive not, 
 But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of souls ! no 
 
 \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 ! [Dies. 
 
 Tresham. I wish thee joy, beloved ! I am glad 
 In thy full gladness ! 
 
 Guendolen \withouf\. Mildred ! Tresham ! 
 
 [Entering with Austin] Thorold, 
 
 I could desist no longer. Ah ! she swoons ! o 
 
 That 's well. 
 
 Tresham. Oh ! better far than that ! 
 
 Guendolen. She 's dead ! 
 
 Let me unlock her arms ! 
 
 Tresham. She threw them thus 
 
 About my neck, and blessed me, and then died : 
 You '11 let them stay now, Guendolen ! 
 
 Austin. . Leave her 
 
 And look to him ! What ails you, Thorold ? 
 
 Guendolen. White 
 
 As she, and whiter! Austin ! quick this side ! 
 
 Austin. A froth is oozing through his clenched teeth ; 
 Both lips, where they 're not bitten through, are black : 
 Speak, dearest Thorold ! 
 
 Tresham. Something does weigh down 
 
 My neck beside her weight : thanks ; I should fall "3 
 
 But for you, Austin, I believe ! there, there, 
 'T will pass away soon ! ah ! I had forgotten : 
 I am dying. 
 
 Guendolen. Thorold Thorold why was this ?
 
 ACT III. SCENE //. Ill 
 
 Tresham. I said, just as I drank the poison off, 
 The earth would be no longer earth to me, 
 The life out of all life was gone from me. 
 There are blind ways provided, the foredone 
 Heart-weary player in this pageant-world 
 Drops out by, letting the main masque defile 
 By the conspicuous portal : I am through M 
 
 Just through ! 
 
 Guendolen. Don't leave him, Austin ! Death is close. 
 
 Tresham. Already Mildred's face is peacefuller. " 
 I see you, Austin feel you : here 's my hand, 
 Put yours in it you, Guendolen, yours too ! 
 You 're lord and lady now you 're Treshams ; name 
 And fame are yours : you hold our 'scutcheon up. 
 Austin, no blot on it ! You see how blood 
 Must wash one blot away : the first blot came, 
 And the first blood came. To the vain world's eye 
 All 's gules again : no care to the vain world, 150 
 
 From whence the red was drawn ! 
 
 Austin. No blot shall come ! 
 
 Tresham. I said that ; yet it did come. Should it come, 
 Vengeance is God's, not man's. Remember me ! [Dies. 
 
 Guendolen \lettingfall the pulseless arm]. Ah ! Thorold ! we 
 can but remember you !
 
 COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 A PLAY. 
 
 "Ivy and violet, what do ye here 
 
 With blossom and shoot in the warm spring-weather. 
 Hiding the arms of Afonc htnci and fere?" HANMER. 
 
 NO ONE LOVES AND HONORS BARRY CORNWALL MORE THAN DOES 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING ; 
 
 WHO, HAVING NOTHING BETTER THAN THIS PLAY TO 
 
 GIVE HIM IN PROOF OF IT, 
 
 MUST SAY SO. 
 
 London, 1844.
 
 - PERSONS. 
 
 COLOMBE OF RAVESTEIN, Duchess of Juliers and Cleves. 
 
 SABYNE, ADOLF, her Attendants. 
 
 GUIBERT, GAUCELME, MAUFROY, CLUGNET, Courtiers. 
 
 VALENCE, Advocate of Cleves. 
 
 PRINCE BERTHOLD, Claimant of the Duchy. 
 
 MELCHIOR, his Confidant. 
 
 PLACE, The Palace at Juliers. 
 TIME, 16
 
 COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 ACT I. 
 Morning. SCENE. A Corridor leading to the Audience-chamber. 
 
 GAUCELME, CLUGNET, MAUFROY, and other Courtiers, round 
 GUI BERT, who is silently reading a paper : as he drops it at 
 the end 
 
 Guibert. That this should be her birthday ; and the day 
 We all invested her, twelve months ago, 
 As the late Duke's true heiress and our liege ; 
 And that this also must become the day 
 Oh ! miserable lady ! 
 
 1 Courtier. Ay, indeed ? 
 
 2 Courtier. Well, Guibert? 
 
 3 Courtier. But your news, my friend, your news ! 
 The sooner, friend, one learns Prince Berthold's pleasure, 
 The better for us all : how writes the Prince ? 
 
 Give me ! I '11 read it for the common good. 
 
 Guibert. In time, sir, but till time comes, pardon me ! 10 
 Our old Duke just disclosed his child's retreat, 
 Declared her true succession to his rule, 
 And died : this birthday was the day, last year, 
 We convoyed her from Castle Ravestein 
 That sleeps out trustfully its extreme age 
 On the Meuse' quiet bank, where she lived queen 
 Over the water-buds to Juliers' court 
 With joy and bustle. Here again we stand ;
 
 Il6 COLOMB&S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Sir Gaucelme's buckle *s constant to his cap: 
 
 To-day 's much such another sunny day ! 20 
 
 Gaucelme. Come, Guibert, this outgrows a jest, I think ! 
 You 're hardly such a novice as to need 
 The lesson you pretend. 
 
 Guibert. What lesson, sir? 
 
 That everybody, if he 'd thrive at court, 
 Should, first and last of all, look to himself? 
 Why, no : and therefore with your good example 
 Ho, Master Adolf ! to myself I Ml look. 
 
 Enter ADOLF. 
 
 Guibert. The Prince's letter ; why, of all men else 
 Comes it to me? 
 
 Adolf. By virtue of your place, 
 
 Sir Guibert ! 'T was the Prince's express charge, 3 
 
 His envoy told us, that the missive there 
 Should only reach our lady by the hand 
 Of whosoever held your place. 
 
 Guibert. Enough ! [Adolf retires. 
 
 Then, gentles, who '11 accept a certain poor 
 Indifferently honorable place, 
 
 My friends, I make no doubt, have gnashed their teeth 
 At leisure minutes these half-dozen years 
 To find me never in the mood to quit? 
 Who asks may have it, with my blessing, and 
 This to present our lady. Who '11 accept? 4 
 
 You you you ? There it lies, and may, for me ! 
 
 Maufroy [a youth, picking up the paper, reads aloud\ 
 'Prince Berthold, proved by titles following 
 Undoubted Lord of Juliers, comes this day 
 To claim his own, with license from the Pope, 
 The Emperor, the Kings of Spain and Fiance '- 
 
 Gaucelme. Sufficient ' titles following,' I judge ! 
 Don't read another! Well 'to claim his own?'
 
 ACT I. 117 
 
 Maitfroy. 'And take possession of the Duchy held 
 Since twelve months, to the true heir's prejudice, 
 By' Colombe, Juliers' mistress, so she thinks, s 
 
 And Ravestein's mere lady, as we find ! 
 Who wants the place and paper? Guibert 's right. 
 I hope to climb a little in the world 
 I 'd push my fortunes but, no more than he, 
 Could tell her on this happy day of days 
 That, save the nosegay in her hand, perhaps, 
 There 's nothing left to call her own. Sir Clugnet, 
 You famish for promotion ; what say you ? 
 
 Clugnet [an old man\. To give this letter were a sort, I 
 
 take it, 
 
 Of service : services ask recompense : 60 
 
 What kind of corner may be Ravestein ? 
 
 Guibert. The castle? Oh! you 'd share her fortunes? 
 
 Good! 
 
 Three walls stand upright, full as good as four, 
 With no such bad remainder of a roof. 
 
 Clugnet. Oh ! but the town ? 
 
 Guibert. Five houses, fifteen huts, 
 
 A church whereto was once a spire, 't is judged ; 
 And half a dyke, except in time of thaw. 
 
 Clugnet. Still, there 's some revenue ? 
 
 Guibert. Else Heaven forefend ! 
 
 You hang a beacon out, should fogs increase ; 
 So, when the autumn floats of pine-wood steer 7 
 
 Safe 'mid the white confusion, thanks to you, 
 Their grateful raftsman flings a guilder in ; 
 That 's if he mean to pass your way next time. 
 
 Clugnet. If not? 
 
 Guibert. Hang guilders, then he blesses you ! 
 
 Clugnet. What man do you suppose me ? Keep your paper ! 
 And, let me say, it shows no handsome spirit 
 To dally with misfortune : keep your place !
 
 n8 COLOMBE-S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Gaucelme. Some one must tell her. 
 
 Guibert. Some one may : you may ! 
 
 Gaucelme. Sir Guibert, 't is no trifle turns me sick 
 Of court-hypocrisy at years like mine, &> 
 
 But this goes near it. Where 's there news at all ? 
 Who '11 have the face, for instance, to affirm 
 He never heard, e'en while we crowned the girl, 
 That Juliers' tenure was by Salic law ; 
 That one, confessed her father's cousin's child, 
 And, she away, indisputable heir, 
 Against our choice protesting and the Duke's, 
 Claimed Juliers? nor, as he preferred his claim, 
 That first this, then another potentate, 
 
 Inclined to its allowance? I or you, 90 
 
 Or any one except the lady's self? 
 Oh ! it had been the direst cruelty 
 To break the business to her! Things might change: 
 At all events, we 'd see next masque at end, 
 Next mummery over first ; and so the edge 
 Was taken off sharp tidings as they came, 
 Till here 's the Prince upon us, and there 's she 
 Wreathing her hair, a song between her lips, 
 With just the faintest notion possible 
 
 That some such claimant earns a livelihood 100 
 
 About the world, by feigning grievances 
 Few pay the story of but grudge its price, 
 And fewer listen to a second time. 
 Your method proves a failure ; now try mine ! 
 And, since this must be carried 
 
 Guibert [snatching the paper from hini\. By your leave ! 
 Your zeal transports you ! 'T will not serve the Prince 
 So much as you expect, this course you 'd take. 
 If she leaves quietly her palace well ; 
 But if she died upon its threshold no: 
 He 'd have the trouble of removing her. no
 
 ACT I. 
 
 119 
 
 Come, gentles, we 're all what the devil knows ! 
 
 You, Gaucelme, won't lose character, beside 
 
 You broke your father's heart superiorly 
 
 To gather his succession never blush ! 
 
 You 're from my province, and, be comforted, 
 
 They tell of it with wonder to this day. 
 
 You can afford to let your talent sleep. 
 
 We '11 take the very worst supposed, as true : 
 
 There, the old Duke knew, when he hid his child 
 
 Among the river-flowers at Ravestein, 120 
 
 With whom the right lay ! Call the Prince our Duke ! 
 
 There, she 's no Duchess, she 's no anything 
 
 More than a young maid with the bluest eyes : 
 
 And now, sirs, we '11 not break this young maid's heart 
 
 Coolly as Gaucelme could and would ! No haste ! 
 
 His talent 's full-blown, ours but in the bud : 
 
 We '11 not advance to his perfection yet . 
 
 Will we, Sir Maufroy? See, I 've ruined Maufroy 
 
 Forever as a courtier ! 
 
 Gaucelme. Here 's a coil ! 
 
 And, count us, will you? Count its residue, 130 
 
 This boasted convoy, this day last year's crowd! 
 A birthday, too, a gratulation-day ! 
 I 'm dumb : bid that keep silence ! 
 
 Maufroy and others. Eh, Sir Guibert? 
 
 He 's right : that does say something ; that 's bare truth. 
 Ten twelve, I make ; a perilous dropping off! 
 
 Guibert. Pooh is it audience hour ? The vestibule 
 Swarms too, I wager, with the common sort 
 That want our privilege of entry here. 
 
 Gaucelme. Adolf! \Rc-entcr Adolf.] Who 's outside ? 
 
 Guibert. Oh ! your looks suffice ! 
 
 Nobody waiting? 
 
 Maufroy [looking through the doorfoliis\. Scarce our num- 
 ber !
 
 120 CO LOME PS B1KTHDAY. 
 
 Guibert. 'Sdeath ! . 4 
 
 Nothing to beg for, to complain about ? 
 It can't be ! Ill news spreads, but not so fast 
 As thus to frighten all the world ! 
 
 Gaucelme. The world 
 
 Lives out of doors, sir not with you and me 
 By presence-chamber porches, state-room stairs, 
 Wherever warmth 's perpetual ; outside 's free 
 To every wind from every compass-point, 
 And who may get nipped needs be weather-wise. 
 The Prince comes and the lady's people go ; 
 The snow-goose settles down, the swallows flee 150 
 
 Why should they wait for winter-time? 'T is instinct: 
 Don't you feel somewhat chilly? 
 
 Guibert. That 's their craft ? 
 
 And last year's crowders-round and criers-forth 
 That strewed the garlands, over-arched the roads, 
 Lighted the bonfires, sang the loyal songs ! 
 Well ? t is my comfort, you could never call me 
 The People's Friend ! The people keep their word 
 I keep my place : don't doubt I '11 entertain 
 The people when the Prince comes, and the people 
 Are talked of! Then, their speeches no one tongue 160 
 Found respite, not a pen had holiday 
 For they wrote, too, as well as spoke, these knaves ! 
 Now see : we tax and tithe them, pill and poll, 
 They wince and fret enough, but pay they must 
 We manage that so, pay with a good grace 
 They might as well, it costs so little more. 
 But when we 've done with taxes, meet folk next 
 Outside.the toll-booth and the rating-place, 
 In public there they have us if they will, 
 We 're at their mercy after that, you see ! 17 
 
 For one tax not ten devils could extort 
 Over and above necessity, a grace ;
 
 ACT I. I2I 
 
 This prompt disbosoming of love, to wit 
 
 Their vine-leaf wrappage of our tribute-penny, 
 
 And crowning attestation, all works well 
 
 Yet this precisely do they thrust on us \ 
 
 These cappings quick, these crook-and-cringings low, 
 
 Hand to the heart, and forehead to the knee, 
 
 With grin that shuts the eyes and opes the mouth 
 
 So tender they their love ; and, tender made, i&> 
 
 Go home to curse us, the first doit we ask. 
 
 As if their souls were any longer theirs ! 
 
 As if they had not given ample warrant 
 
 To who should clap a collar on their neck, 
 
 Rings in their nose, a goad to either flank, 
 
 And take them for the brute they boast themselves ! 
 
 Stay there 's a bustle at the outer door 
 
 And somebody entreating that 's my name ! 
 
 Adolf I heard my name ( 
 
 Adolf. 'T was probably 
 
 The suitor. 
 
 Guibert. Oh ! there is one ? 
 
 Adolf. With a suit 190 
 
 He 'd fain enforce in person. 
 
 Guibert. The good heart 
 
 And the great fool ! Just ope the mid-door's fold! 
 Is that a lappet of his cloak I see ? 
 
 Adolf. If it bear plenteous sign of travel ay, 
 The very cloak my comrades tore ! 
 
 Guibert. Why tore ? 
 
 Adolf. He seeks the Duchess' presence in that trim : 
 Since daybreak, was he posted hereabouts 
 Lest he should miss the moment. 4 
 
 Guibert. Where 's he now ? 
 
 Adolf. Gone for a minute possibly, not more ; 
 They have ado enough to thrust him back. * 
 
 Guibert. Ay but my name I caught ?
 
 122 COLO AIDE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Adolf. O sir he said - 
 
 What was it ? You had known him formerly, 
 And, he believed, would help him did you guess 
 He waited now ; you promised him as much : 
 The old plea ! Faith, he 's back renews the charge ! 
 \Speaking at the door] So long as the man parleys, peace 
 
 outside 
 Nor be too ready with your halberts there ! 
 
 Gaucdme. My horse bespattered, as he blocked the path, 
 A thin sour man, not unlike somebody. 
 
 Adolf. He holds a paper in his breast, whereon 210 
 
 He glances when his cheeks flush and his brow 
 At each repulse 
 
 Gaucdme. I noticed he 'd a brow. 
 
 Adolf, So glancing, he grows calmer, leans awhile 
 Over the balustrade, adjusts his dress, 
 And presently turns round, quiet again, 
 With some new pretext for admittance. Back ! 
 \To Guibert] Sir, he has seen you ? Now cross halberts ! 
 
 Hal- 
 Pascal is prostrate there lies Fabian too ! 
 No passage! Whither would the madman press? 
 Close the doors quick on me ! 
 
 Guibert. Too late ! He 's here. 220 
 
 Enter, hastily and with discomposed dress, VALENCE. 
 Valence. Sir Guibert, will you help me ? Me, that come 
 Charged by your townsmen, all who starve at Cleves, 
 To represent their heights and depths of woe 
 Before our Duchess and obtain relief! 
 Such errands barricade such doors, it seems ; 
 But not a common hindrance drives me back 
 On all the sad yet hopeful faces, lit 
 With hope for the first time, which sent me forth. 
 Cleves, speak for me ! Cleves' men and women, speak !
 
 ACT I. 123 
 
 Who followed me your strongest many a mile 23 
 
 That I might go the fresher from their ranks 
 
 Who sit your weakest by the city gates, 
 
 To take me fuller of what news I bring 
 
 As I return for I must needs return ! 
 
 Can I ? 'T were hard, no listener for their wrongs, 
 
 To turn them back upon the old despair 
 
 Harder, Sir Guibert, than imploring thus 
 
 So, I do any way you please implore ! 
 
 If you but how should you remember Cleves ? 
 
 Vet they of Cleves remember you so well ! 24 
 
 Ay, comment on each trait of you they keep, 
 
 Your words and deeds caught up at second hand 
 
 Proud, I believe, at bottom of their hearts, 
 
 O 1 the very levity and recklessness 
 
 Which only prove that you forget their wrongs. 
 
 Cleves, the grand town, whose men and women starve, 
 
 Is Cleves forgotten ? Then, remember me ! 
 
 You promised me that you would help me once 
 
 For other purpose : will you keep your word ? 
 
 Guibert. And who may you be, friend? 
 
 Valence. Valence of Cleves. 
 
 Guibert. Valence of not the advocate of Cleves, 251 
 
 I owed my whole estate to, three years back ? 
 Ay, well may you keep silence ! Why, my lords, 
 You 've heard, I 'm sure, how, Pentecost three years, 
 I was so nearly ousted of my land 
 By some knaves'-pretext eh ? wlien you refused me 
 Your ugly daughter, Clugnet ! and you 've heard 
 How I recovered it by miracle 
 When I refused her ! Here 's the very friend 
 Valence of Cleves, all parties have to thank ! 360 
 
 Nay, Valence, this procedure 's vile in you ! 
 I 'm no more grateful than a courtier should, 
 But politic am I I bear a brain,
 
 124 
 
 COLOMBES BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Can cast about a little, might require 
 
 Your services a second time. J tried 
 
 To tempt you with advancement here to court 
 
 ' No !' well, for curiosity at least 
 
 To view our life here 'No !' our Duchess, then 
 
 A pretty woman 's worth some pains to see, 
 
 Nor is she spoiled, I take it, if a crown 7<> 
 
 Complete the forehead pale and tresses pure 
 
 Valence. Our city trusted me its miseries, 
 And I am come. 
 
 Guibert. So much for taste ! But ' come,' 
 
 So may you be, for anything I know, 
 To beg the Pope's cross, or Sir Clugnet's daughter, 
 And wifh an equal chance you get all three ! 
 If it was ever worth your while to come, 
 Was not the proper way worth finding too? 
 
 Valence. Straight to the palace-portal, sir, I came 
 
 Guibert. And said? 
 
 Valence. That I had brought the miseries 
 
 Of a whole city to relieve. 
 
 Guibert. Which saying a8i 
 
 Won your admittance? You saw me, indeed, 
 And here, no doubt, you stand : as certainly, 
 My intervention, I shall not dispute, 
 Procures you audience ; which, if I procure 
 That paper 's closely written by Saint Paul, 
 Here flock the Wrongs, follow the Remedies, 
 Chapter and verse, One, Two, A, B, and C ! 
 Perhaps you 'd enter, make a reverence, 
 And launch these ' miseries ' from first to last ? 290 
 
 Valence. How should they let me pause or turn aside ? 
 
 Gaucelme \to Valence]. My worthy sir, one question ! You 've 
 
 come straight 
 
 From Cleves, you tell us : heard you any talk 
 At Cleves about our lady ?
 
 ACT I. 
 
 125 
 
 Valence. Much. 
 
 Gaucelme. And what? 
 
 Valence. Her wish was to redress all wrongs she knew. 
 
 Gaucelme. That you believed ? 
 
 Valence. You see me, sir ! 
 
 Gaucelme. Nor stopped 
 
 Upon the road from Cleves to Juliers here, 
 For any rumors you might find afloat? 
 
 Valence. I had my townsmen's wrongs to busy me. 
 
 Gaucelme. This is the lady's birthday, do you know? 
 Her day of pleasure ? 
 
 Valence. That the great, I know, 3 
 
 For pleasure born, should still be on the watch 
 To exclude pleasure when a duty offers ; 
 Even as, for duty born, the lowly, too 
 May ever snatch a pleasure if in reach : 
 Both will have plenty of their birthright, sir ! 
 
 Gaucelme [aside to Guiberf\. Sir Guibert, here 's your man ! 
 
 No scruples now 
 
 You '11 never find his like ! Time presses hard. 
 I 've seen your drift and Adolf's too, this while, 
 But you can't keep the hour of audience back 310 
 
 Much longer, and at noon the Prince arrives. 
 [Pointing to Valence\ Intrust him with it fool no chance 
 away ! 
 
 Guibert. Him? 
 
 Gaucelme. With the missive ! What 's the man to 
 
 her? 
 
 Guibert. No bad thought ! Yet, 't is yours, who ever played 
 The tempting serpent ; else 't were no bad thought ! 
 I should and do mistrust it for your sake, 
 Or else 
 
 an Official who communicates with ADOLF. 
 Adolf. The Duchess will receive the court !
 
 126 COLOMBES BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Gitibert. Give us a moment, Adolf! Valence, friend, 
 I '11 help you ! We of the service, you 're to mark, 
 Have special entry, while the herd the folks 3* 
 
 Outside get access through our help alone ; 
 Well, it is so, was so, and I suppose 
 So ever will be : your natural lot is, therefore, 
 To wait your turn and opportunity, 
 And probably miss both. Now, I engage 
 To set you, here and in a minute's space, 
 Before the lady, with full leave to plead 
 Chapter and verse, and A, and B, and C, 
 To heart's content. 
 
 Valence. I grieve that I must ask 
 
 This being, yourself admit, the custom here 330 
 
 To what the price of such a favor mounts ? 
 
 Guibert. Just so ! You 're not without a courtier's tact. 
 Little at court, as your quick instinct prompts, 
 Do such as we without a recompense. 
 
 Valence. Yours is ? 
 
 Guibert. A trifle : here 's a document 
 
 'T is some one's duty to present her Grace 
 I say, not mine these say, not theirs such points 
 Have weight at court. Will you relieve us all 
 And take it? Just say, ' I am bidden lay 
 This paper at the Duchess' feet !' 
 
 Valence. No more ? 340 
 
 I thank you, sir ! 
 
 Adolf. Her Grace receives the court ! 
 
 Guibert \aside\ Now, sursum corda, quoth the mass-priest ! 
 
 Do 
 
 Whoever 's my kind saint, do let alone 
 These pushings to and fro, and pullings back ; 
 Peaceably let me hang o' the devil's arm 
 The downward path, if you can't pluck me off 
 Completely ! Let me live quite his, or yours !
 
 ACT I. 127 
 
 \The Courtiers begin to range themselves, and move tow- 
 ard the door. 
 
 After me, Valence ! So, our famous Cleves 
 Lacks bread ? Yet don't we gallants buy their lace ? 
 And dear enough it beggars me, I know, 35 
 
 To keep my very gloves fringed properly. 
 This, Valence, is our Great State Hall you cross ; 
 Yon gray urn's veritable marcasite, 
 The Pope's gift : and those salvers testify 
 The Emperor. Presently you '11 set your foot 
 But you don't speak, friend Valence ! 
 
 Valence. I shall speak. 
 
 Gaucelme \aside to Guibert\ Guibert it were no such un- 
 graceful thing 
 
 If you and I, at first, seemed horror-struck 
 With the bad news. Look here, what you shall do! 
 Suppose you, first, clap hand to sword and cry 360 
 
 ' Yield strangers our allegiance? First I '11 perish 
 Beside your Grace ' and so give me the cue 
 To 
 
 Guibert. Clap your hand to note-book and jot down 
 That to regale the Prince with ? I conceive. 
 \To Valence\ Do, Valence, speak, or I shall half suspect 
 You 're plotting to supplant us, me the first, 
 I' the lady's favor ! Is 't the grand harangue 
 You mean to make, that thus engrosses you? 
 Which of her virtues you '11 apostrophize ? 
 Or is 't the fashion you aspire to start, 370 
 
 Of that close-curled, not unbecoming hair? 
 Or what else ponder you? 
 
 Valence. My townsmen's wrongs.
 
 128 COLO. Mill: "S BJKTUDAY. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Noon. SCENE. The Presence-chamber. 
 The DUCHESS and SABYNE. 
 
 The Duchess. Announce that I am ready for the court ! 
 
 Sabyne. 'T is scarcely audience-hour, I think ; your Grace 
 May best consult your own relief, no doubt, 
 And shun the crowd : but few can have arrived. 
 
 The Duchess. Let those not yet arrived, then, keep away! 
 'T was me, this day last year at Ravestein, 
 You hurried. It has been full time, beside, 
 This half-hour. Do you. hesitate? 
 
 Sabyne. Forgive me ! 
 
 The Duchess. Stay, Sabyne ; let me hasten to make sure 
 Of one true thanker : here with you begins >o 
 
 My audience, claim you first its privilege ! 
 It is my birth's event they celebrate : 
 You need not wish me more such happy days, 
 But ask some favor! Have you none to ask? 
 Has Adolf none, then ? this was far from least 
 Of much I waited for impatiently, 
 .Assure yourself! It seemed so natural 
 Your gift, beside this bunch of river-bells, 
 Should be the power and leave of doing good 
 To you, and greater pleasure to myself. *> 
 
 You ask my leave to-day to marry Adolf? 
 The rest is my concern. 
 
 Sabyne. Your grace is ever 
 
 Our lady of dear Raveslein but, for Adolf
 
 ACT II. 129 
 
 The Duchess. 'But?' You have not, sure, changed in 
 
 your regard 
 And purpose towards him ? 
 
 Sabyne. We change ? 
 
 The Duchess. Well then ? Well ; 
 
 Sabyne. How could we two be happy, and, most like, 
 Leave Juliers, when when but 't is audience-time! 
 
 The Duchess. ' When, if you left me, I were left indeed !' 
 Would you subjoin that ? Bid the court approach ! 
 Why should we play thus with each other, Sabyne? 3 
 
 Do I not know, if courtiers prove remiss, 
 If friends detain me, and get blame for it, 
 There is a cause ? Of last year's fervid throng 
 Scarce one half comes now. 
 
 Sabyne [aside]. One half? No, alas! 
 
 The Duchess. So can the mere suspicion ,of a cloud 
 Over my fortunes strike each loyal heart. 
 They 've heard of this Prince Bertholcl ; and, forsooth, 
 Some foolish arrogant pretence he makes 
 May grow more foolish and more arrogant, 
 They please to apprehend ! I thank their love. 4 
 
 Admit them ! 
 
 Sabyne [aside]. How much has she really learned ? 
 
 The Duchess. Surely, whoever 's absent, Tristan waits ? 
 Or at least Romuald, whom my father raised 
 From nothing come, he 's faithful to me, come ! 
 Sabyne, I should but be the prouder yes, 
 The fitter to comport myself aright 
 Jfot Romuald ? Xavier what said he to that ? 
 For Xavier hates a parasite, I know ! [Sabyne goes out. 
 Well, sunshine 's everywhere, and summer too. 
 Next year 't is the old place again, perhaps 5 
 
 The water-breeze again, the birds again. 
 It cannot be ! It is too late to be ! 
 What part had I. or choice in all of it ? 
 9
 
 I 3 
 
 COLOMHES BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Hither they brought me ; I had not to think 
 
 Nor care, concern myself with doing good 
 
 Or ill, my task was just to live to live, 
 
 And, answering ends there was no need explain, 
 
 To render Juliers happy so they said. 
 
 All could not have been falsehood ; some was love, 
 
 And wonder and obedience. I did all 60 
 
 They looked for: why then cease to do it now? 
 
 Yet this is to be calmly set aside, 
 
 And ere next birthday's dawn, for aught I know, 
 
 Things change, a claimant may arrive, and I 
 
 It cannot nor it shall not be ! His right ? 
 
 Well then, he has the right, and I have not 
 
 But who bade all of you surround my life 
 
 And close its growth up with your ducal crown 
 
 Which, plucked off rudely, leaves me perishing? 
 
 I could have been like one of you loved, hoped, 70 
 
 Feared, lived, and died like one of you but you 
 
 Would take that life away and give me this, 
 
 And I will keep this ! I will face you ! Come ! 
 
 Enter the Courtiers and VALENCE. 
 
 The Courtiers. Many such happy mornings to your Grace ! 
 The Duchess [aside, as they pay their devoir]. The same 
 
 words, the same faces the same love ! 
 I have been over-fearful. These are few ; 
 But these, at least, stand firmly ; these are mine. 
 As many come as may ; and if no more, 
 'T is that these few suffice they do suffice ! . 
 
 What succor may not next year bring me ? Plainly, 80 
 
 I feared too soon. [To the Court] I thank you, sirs; all 
 
 thanks ! 
 
 Valence [aside, as the Duchess passes from one group to an- 
 other, conversing. 'T is she the vision this day last 
 year brought,
 
 ACT II. 13I 
 
 When, for a golden moment at our Cleves, 
 She tarried in her progress hither. Cleves 
 Chose me to speak its welcome, and I spoke 
 Not that she could have noted the recluse 
 Ungainly, old before his time who gazed. 
 Well, Heaven's gifts are not wasted, and that gaze 
 Kept, and shall keep me to the end, her own ! 
 She was above it but so would not sink 90 
 
 My gaze to earth ! The people caught it, hers 
 Thenceforward, mine ; but thus entirely mine, 
 Who shall affirm, had she not raised my soul 
 Ere she retired and left me them ? She turns 
 There's all her wondrous face at once ! The ground 
 Reels and [Suddenly occupying himself with his paper.] 
 These wrongs of theirs I have to plead ! 
 
 The Duchess [to the Court]. Nay, compliment enough ! and 
 
 kindness' self 
 
 Should pause before it wish me more such years. 
 'T was fortunate that thus, ere youth escaped, 
 I tasted life's pure pleasure one such, pure, 100 
 
 Is worth a thousand, mixed and youth 's for pleasure: 
 Mine is received ; let my age pay for it. 
 
 Gaucelme. So pay, and pleasure paid for, thinks your 
 
 Grace, 
 Should never go together ? 
 
 Guibert. How, Sir Gaucelme ? 
 
 Hurry one's feast down unenjoyingly 
 'At the snatched breathing-intervals of work ? 
 As good you saved it till the dull day's-end 
 When, stiff and sleepy, appetite is gone. 
 Eat first, then work upon the strength of food ! 
 
 The Duchess. True : you enable me to risk my future, no 
 By giving me a past beyond recall. 
 I lived, a girl, one happy leisure year : 
 Let me endeavor to be the Duchess now !
 
 132 
 
 COLOMBO 'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 And so what news, Sir Guibert, spoke you of? 
 
 [As they advance a little, and Guibert speaks 
 That gentleman ? 
 
 Valence \aside\ I feel her eyes on me. 
 
 Guibert. [to Valence}. The Duchess, sir, inclines to hear 
 
 your suit. 
 Advance ! He is from Cleves. 
 
 Valence [coming forward] [aside]. Their wrongs their 
 wrongs ! 
 
 The Duchess. And you, sir, are from Cleves? How fresh 
 
 in mind, 
 
 The hour or two I passed at queenly Cleves ! 
 She entertained me bravely, but the best 120 
 
 Of her good pageant seemed its standers-by 
 With insuppressive joy on every face ! 
 What says my ancient, famous, happy Cleves ? 
 
 Valence. Take the truth, lady you are made for truth ! 
 So think my friends ; nor do they less deserve 
 The having you to take it, you shall think, 
 When you know all nay, when you only know 
 How, on that day you recollect at Cleves, 
 When the poor acquiescing multitude 
 
 Who thrust themselves with all their woes apart 130 
 
 Into unnoticed corners, that the few 
 Their means sufficed to muster trappings for 
 Might fill the foreground, occupy your sight 
 With joyous faces fit to bear away 
 And boast of as a sample of all Cleves 
 How, when to daylight these crept out once more, 
 Clutching, unconscious, each his empty rags 
 Whence the scant coin, which had not half bought bread, 
 That morn he shook .forth, counted piece by piece, 
 And, well-advisedly, on perfumes spent them MO 
 
 To ourn, or flowers to strew, before your path 
 How, when the golden flood of music and bliss
 
 ACT II. 
 
 133 
 
 Ebbed, as their moon retreated, and again 
 
 Left the sharp black-point rocks of misery bare 
 
 Then I, their friend had only to suggest 
 
 ' Saw she the horror as she saw the pomp !' 
 
 And as one man they cried ' He speaks the truth : 
 
 ' Show her the horror! Take from our own mouths 
 
 Our wrongs and show them, she will see them too !' 
 
 This they cried, lady ! I have brought the wrongs. 150 
 
 The Duchess. Wrongs? Cleves has wrongs apparent 
 
 now and thus? 
 I thank you! In that paper? Give it me! 
 
 Valence. There, Cleves ! In this! What did I promise, 
 
 Cleves ? 
 
 Our weavers, clothiers, spinners are reduced 
 Since Oh ! I crave your pardon ! I forget 
 I buy the privilege of this approach, 
 And promptly would discharge my debt. I lay 
 This paper humbly at the Duchess' feet. 
 
 [Presenting Guiberfs paper. 
 
 Guibert. Stay ! for the present 
 
 The Duchess. Stay, sir ? I take aught 
 
 That teaches me their wrongs with greater pride 160 
 
 Than this your ducal circlet. Thank you, sir ! 
 
 [ The Duchess reads hastily ; then, turning to the Court- 
 iers 
 
 What have I done to you ? Your deed or mine 
 Was it, this crowning me ? I gave myself 
 No more a title to your homage, no, 
 Than church-flowers, born this season, wrote the words 
 In the saint's-book that sanctified them first. 
 For such a flower, you plucked me ; well, you erred 
 Well, 't was a weed ; remove the eyesore quick ! 
 But should you not remember it has lain 
 Stepped in the candles' glory, palely shrined, 170 
 
 Nearer God's Mother than most earthly things?
 
 '34 
 
 COLOMKKS />'//' Til DA Y. 
 
 That if 't be faded 't is with prayer's sole breath 
 
 That the one day it boasted was God's day ? 
 
 Still, I do thank you ! Had you used respect, 
 
 Here might I dwindle to my last white leaf, 
 
 Here lose life's latest freshness, which even yet 
 
 May yield some wandering insect rest and food : 
 
 So, fling me forth, and all is best for all ! 
 
 [After a pause] Prince Berthold, who art Juliers' Duke, it 
 
 seems 
 
 The King's choice, and the Emperor's, and the Pope's i* 
 Be mine, too ! Take this people ! Tell not me 
 Of rescripts, precedents, authorities 
 But take them, from a heart that yearns to give ! 
 Find out their love I could not ; find their fear^ 
 1 would not; find their like I never shall, 
 Among the flowers ! [Taking off her coronet. 
 
 Colombe of Ravestein 
 Thanks God she is no longer Duchess here ! 
 
 Valence [advancing to Guiberf\. Sir Guibert, knight, they 
 
 call you this of mine . 
 Is the first step I ever set at court. 
 
 You dared make me your instrument, I find ; 190 
 
 For that, so sure as you and I are men, 
 We reckon to the utmost presently : 
 But as you are a courtier and I none, 
 Your knowledge may instruct me. I, already, 
 Have too far outraged, by my ignorance 
 Of courtier-ways, this lady, to proceed 
 A second step and risk addressing her: 
 I am degraded you let me address ! 
 Out of her presence, all is plain enough 
 What I shall do but in her presence, too, j< 
 
 Surely there's something proper to be done. 
 \To the others'] You, gentles, tell me if I guess aright 
 May I not strike this man to earth ?
 
 ACT II. 
 
 '35 
 
 The Courtiers [as Guibert springs forward, withholding 
 
 him}. Let go ! 
 
 The clothiers' spokesman, Guibert ? Grace a churl ? 
 
 The Duchess [to Valence]. Oh ! be acquainted with your 
 
 party, sir! 
 
 He 's of the oldest lineage Juliers boasts ; 
 A lion crests him for a cognizance ; 
 ' Scorning to waver 'that 's his 'scutcheon's word ; 
 His office with the new Duke probably 
 The same in honor as with me ; or more, 210 
 
 By so much as this gallant turn deserves. 
 He 's now, I dare say, of a thousand times 
 The rank and influence that remain with her 
 Whose part you take ! So, lest for taking it 
 You suffer 
 
 Valence. I may strike him then to earth ? 
 
 Guibert [falling on his knee\ Great and dear lady, pardon 
 
 me ! Hear once ! 
 
 Believe me and be merciful be just ! 
 I could not bring myself to give that paper 
 Without a keener pang than I dared meet 
 And so felt Clugnet here, and Maufroy here **> 
 
 No one dared meet it. Protestation 's cheap 
 But, if to die for you did any good, 
 
 \To Gaucelme] Would not I die, sir ? Say your worst of me ! 
 But it does no good, that 's the mournful truth. 
 And since the hint of a resistance, even, 
 Would just precipitate, on you the first, 
 A speedier ruin I shall not deny, 
 Saving myself indubitable pain, 
 I thought to give you pleasure who might say? 
 By showing that your only subject found *jo 
 
 To carry the sad notice was the man 
 Precisely ignorant of its contents ; 
 A nameless, mere provincial advocate ;
 
 136 COLO MB PS BIRTHDAY. 
 
 One whom 't was like you never saw before, 
 Never would see again. All has gone wrong; 
 But I meant right, God knows, and you, I trust ! 
 
 The Duchess. A nameless advocate, this gentleman ? 
 I pardon you, Sir Guibert ! 
 
 Guibert [rising, to Valence\. Sir, and you ? 
 
 Valence. Rejoice that you are lightened of a load. 
 Now, you have only me to reckon with. 240 
 
 The Duchess. One I have never seen, much less obliged ? 
 
 Valence. Dare I speak, lady ? 
 
 The Duchess. Dare you 4 Heard you not 
 
 I rule no longer? 
 
 Valence. Lady, if your rule 
 
 Were based alone on such a ground as these 
 
 {Pointing to the courtiers. 
 
 Could furnish you abjure it ! They have hidden 
 A source of true dominion from your sight. 
 
 The Duchess. You hear them no such source is left 
 
 Valence. Hear Cleves ! 
 
 Whose haggard craftsmen rose to starve this day, 
 Starve now, and will lie clown at night to starve, 
 Sure of a like to-morrow but as sure 25 
 
 Of a most unlike morrow-after-that, 
 Since end things must, end howsoe'er things may. 
 What curbs the brute-force instinct in its hour? 
 What makes instead of rising, all as one, 
 And teaching ringers, so expert to wield 
 Their tool, the broadsword's play or carbine's trick 
 What makes that there 's an easier help, they think, 
 For you, whose name so few of them can spell, 
 Whose face scarce one in every hundred saw 
 You simply have to understand their wrongs, 260 
 
 And wrongs will vanish so, still trades are plied, , 
 
 And swords lie rusting, and myself stand here? 
 There is a vision in the heart of each
 
 ACT II. 
 
 '37 
 
 Of justice, mercy, wisdom, tenderness 
 
 To wrong and pain, and knowledge of its cure ; 
 
 And these embodied in a woman's form 
 
 That best transmits them, pure as first received, 
 
 From God above her, to mankind below. 
 
 Will you derive your rule from such a ground, 
 
 Or rather hold it by the suffrage, say, 27 
 
 Of this man this and this ? 
 
 The Duchess [after a pause]. You come from Cleves. 
 How many are at Cleves of such a mind ! 
 
 Valence \Jrom his paper\. ' We, all the manufacturers of 
 Cleves' 
 
 The Duchess. Or stay, sir lest I seem too covetous 
 Are you my subject ? such as you describe 
 Am I to you, though to no other man ? 
 
 Valence [from his paper]. ' Valence ordained your Advo- 
 cate at Cleves' 
 
 The Duchess [replacing the coronet]. Then I remain Cleves' 
 
 Duchess ! Take you note, 
 
 While Cleves but yields one subject of this stamp, 
 I stand her lady till she waves me off! ' 280 
 
 For her sake, all the Prince claims I withhold ; 
 Laugh at each menace; and, his power defying, 
 Return his missive with its due contempt ! 
 
 [Casting it away. 
 
 Guibert [picking it up]. Which to the Prince I will deliver, 
 
 lady 
 Note it down, Gaucelme with your message too ! 
 
 The Duchess. I think the office is a subject's, sir ! 
 Either how style you him? my special guarder 
 The Marshal's for who knows but violence 
 May follow the delivery? or, perhaps, 
 My Chancellor's for law may be to urge <x> 
 
 On its receipt ! or, even my Chamberlain's 
 For I may violate established form !-^
 
 138 COLOMBE 'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 [7o Valence] Sir for the half-hour till this service ends, 
 Will you become all these to me? 
 
 Valence {falling on his knee\ My liege ! 
 
 The Duchess. Give me ! 
 
 , [The Courtiers present their badges of office. 
 
 [Putting them by] Whatever was their virtue once, 
 
 They need new consecration. [Raising Valence~\ Are you 
 
 mine ? 
 I will be Duchess yet ! [She retires. 
 
 The Courtiers. Our Duchess yet ! 
 
 A glorious lady ! Worthy love and dread ! 
 I '11 stand by her and I, whate'er betide ! 
 
 Guibert [to Valence\ Well done, well done, sir ! I care 
 not who knows, 300 
 
 You have done nobly and I envy you 
 Tho' I am but unfairly used, I think ; 
 For when one gets a place like this I hold, 
 One gets too the remark that its mere wages, 
 The pay and the preferment, make our prize. 
 Talk about zeal and faith apart from these, 
 We 're laughed at much would zeal and faith subsist 
 Without these also ! Yet, let these be stopped, 
 Our wages discontinue then, indeed, 
 
 Our zeal and faith we hear on every side 310 
 
 Are not released having been pledged away 
 I wonder for what zeal and faith in turn? 
 Hard money purchased me my place ! No, no 
 I 'm right, sir but your wrong is better still, 
 If I had time and skill to argue it. 
 Therefore, I say, I '11 serve you, how you please 
 If you like fight you, as you seem to wish 
 The kinder of me that, in sober truth, 
 I never dreamed I *did you any harm 
 
 Gaucelme. Or, kinder still, you '11 introduce, no doubt, 320 
 His merits to the Prince who 's just at hand,
 
 ACT II. 
 
 139 
 
 And let no hint drop he 's made Chancellor 
 
 And Chamberlain and Heaven knows what beside ! 
 
 Clugnet [to Valence]. You stare, young sir, and threaten ! 
 
 Let me say, 
 
 That at your age, when first I came to court, 
 I was not much above a gentleman ; 
 While now 
 
 Valence. You are Head-Lackey ? With your office 
 I have not yet been graced, sir ! 
 
 Other Courtiers [to Clugnet}. Let him talk ! 
 Fidelity, disinterestedness, 
 
 Excuse so much ! Men claim my worship ever ^3 
 
 Who stanchly and steadfastly 
 
 Enter ADOLF. 
 
 Adolf. The Prince arrives. 
 
 Courtiers. Ha? How? 
 
 Adolf. He leaves his guard a stage behind 
 
 At Aix, and enters almost by himself. 
 
 1 Courtier. The Prince ! This foolish business puts all 
 
 out. 
 
 2 Courtier. Let Gaucelme speak first ! 
 
 3 Courtier. Better I began 
 About the state of Juliers : should one say 
 
 All 's prosperous and inviting him? 
 
 4 Courtier. Or rather, 
 All 's prostrate and imploring him ? 
 
 5 Courtier. That 's best. 
 Where 's the Cleves' paper, by the way ? 
 
 4 Courtier [to Valence]. Sir sir 
 
 If you '11 but lend that paper trust it me, 34 
 
 I '11 warrant 
 
 5 Courtier. Softly, sir the Marshal's duty ! 
 Clugnet. Has not the Chamberlain a hearing first 
 
 By virtue of his patent ?
 
 140 
 
 COLO.MUKS R1RTIIDA V. 
 
 Gaiicclmc. Patents ? Duties ? 
 All that, my masters, must begin again ! 
 One word composes the whole controversy : . 
 We're simply now the Prince's! 
 
 The Others. Ay the Prince's ! 
 
 Enter SABYNE. 
 
 Sabyne. Adolf! Bid Oh! no time for ceremony ! 
 Where 's whom our lady calls her only subject? 
 She needs him. Who is here the Duchess's? 
 
 Valence \starting from his reverie}. Most gratefully I fol- 
 low to her feet. 35
 
 ACT III. 141 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 Afternoon. SCENE. The Vestibule. 
 Enter PRINCE BERTHOLD and MELCHIOR. 
 
 Berthold. A thriving little burgh this Juliers looks. 
 \_Half -apart\ Keep Juliers, and as good you kept Cologne : 
 Better try Aix, though ! 
 
 Mekhior. Please 't your Highness speak ? 
 
 Berthold [as before"]. Aix, Cologne, Frankfort Milan 
 Rome ! 
 
 Melchior. The Grave. 
 More weary seems your Highness, I remark, 
 Than sundry conquerors whose path I Ve watched 
 Through fire and blood to any prize they gain. 
 I could well wish you, for your proper sake, 
 Had met some shade of opposition here 
 Found a blunt seneschal refuse unlock, 
 
 Or a scared usher lead your steps astray. 
 You must not look for next achievement's palm 
 So easily : this will hurt your conquering. 
 
 Berthold. My next ? Ay as you say, my next and next ! 
 Well, I am tired, that 's truth, and moody too, 
 This quiet entrance-morning ; listen why ! 
 Our little burgh, now, Juliers 't is indeed 
 One link, however insignificant, 
 Of the great chain by which I reach my hope 
 A link I must secure ; but otherwise, *> 
 
 You 'd wonder I esteem it worth my grasp. 
 Just see what life is, with its-shifts and turns! 
 It happens now this very nook to be
 
 ,42 COLOMBPS BIRTHDAY. 
 
 A place that once not a long while since, neither 
 
 When I lived an ambiguous hanger-on 
 
 Of foreign courts, and bore my claims about, 
 
 Discarded by one kinsman, and the other 
 
 A poor priest merely then, I say, this place 
 
 Shone my ambition's object ; to be Duke 
 
 Seemed then what to be Emperor seems now. 30 
 
 My rights were far from being judged as plain 
 
 In those days as of late, I promise you: 
 
 And 't was my day-dream, Lady Colombe'here 
 
 Might e'en compound the matter, pity me, 
 
 Be struck, say, with my chivalry and grace 
 
 I was a boy ! bestow her hand at length, 
 
 And make me Duke, in her right if not mine. 
 
 Here am I, Duke confessed, at Juliers now. 
 
 Hearken: if ever I be Emperor, 
 
 Remind me what I felt and said to-day ! 40 
 
 Melchior. All this consoles a bookish man like me. 
 And so will weariness cling to you. Wrong, 
 Wrong! Had you sought the lady's court yourself 
 Faced the redoubtables composing it, 
 Flattered this, threatened that man, bribed the other 
 Pleaded by writ and word and deed your cause 
 Conquered a footing inch by painful inch 
 And, after long years' struggle, pounced at last 
 On her for prize the right life had been lived, 
 And justice done to divers faculties so 
 
 Shut in that brow. Yourself were visible 
 As you stood victor, then ; whom now your pardon ! 
 I am forced narrowly to search and see 
 So are you hid by helps this Pope, your uncle 
 Your cousin, the other King ! You are a mind 
 They, body : too much of mere legs-and-arms 
 Obstructs the mind so ! Match these with their like: 
 Match mind with mind !
 
 ACT II f. 
 
 '43 
 
 Berthold. And where 's your mind to match ? 
 
 They show me legs-and-arms to cope withal ! 
 I 'd subjugate this city where 's its mind ? 60 
 
 [ 77ie Courtiers enter slowly. 
 
 Melchior. Got out of sight when you came troops and all ! 
 And in its stead, here greets you flesh-and-blood 
 A smug ceconomy of both, this first ! 
 
 [As Clugnet bows obsequiously. 
 Well done, gout, all considered ! I may go ? 
 
 Berthold. Help me receive them ! 
 
 Melchior. Oh ! they just will say 
 
 What yesterday at Aix their fellows said 
 At Treves, the day before ! Sir Prince, my friend, 
 Why do you let your life slip thus ? Meantime, 
 I have my little Juliers to achieve 
 
 The understanding this tough Platonist, TO 
 
 Your holy uncle disinterred, Amelius 
 Lend me a company of horse and foot, 
 To help me through his tractate gain my Duchy ! 
 
 Berthold. And Empire, after that is gained, will be ? 
 
 Melchior. To help me through your uncle's comment, 
 Prince ! \Goes. 
 
 Berthold. Ah ! Well : he o'er-refines the scholar's fault ! 
 How do I let my life slip? Say, this life, 
 I lead now, differs from the common life 
 Of other men in mere degree, not kind, 
 Of joys and griefs, still there is such degree 80 
 
 Mere largeness in a life is something, sure 
 Enough to care about and struggle for, 
 In this world : for this world, the size of things ; 
 The sort of things, for that to come, no doubt. 
 A great is better than a little aim ; 
 And when I wooed Priscilla's rosy mouth 
 And failed so, under that gray convent wall, 
 Was I more happy than I should be now
 
 144 
 
 COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 [By this time, the Courtiers are ranged before him 
 If failing of my Empire ? Not a whit. 
 Here comes the mind, it once had tasked me sore 
 To baffle, but for my advantages ! 
 All 's best as 't is: these scholars talk and talk. 
 
 [Seats himself. 
 
 The Courtiers, Welcome our Prince to Juliers ! to his 
 
 heritage ! 
 Our dutifullest service proffer we ! 
 
 Clugnet. I, please your Highness, having exercised 
 The function of Grand Chamberlain at court, 
 With much acceptance, as men testify 
 
 Berthold. I cannot greatly thank you, gentlemen ! 
 The Pope declares my claim to the Duchy founded 
 On strictest justice ; if you concede it, therefore, i> 
 
 I do not wonder : and the kings my friends 
 Protesting they will see such claim enforced, 
 You easily may offer to assist us. 
 But there 's a slight discretionary power 
 To serve me in the matter, you 've had long, 
 Though late you use it. This is well to say 
 But could you not have said it months ago? 
 I 'm not denied my own Duke's truncheon, true 
 'T is flung me I stoop down, and from the ground 
 Pick it, with all you placid standers-by no 
 
 And now I have it, gems and mire at once, 
 Grace go with it to my soiled hands, you say ! 
 
 Guibert. By Paul, the advocate our doughty friend 
 Cuts the best figure ! 
 
 Gaucelme. If our ignorance 
 
 May have offended, sure our loyalty 
 
 Berthold. Loyalty? Yours? Oh! of yourselves you 
 
 speak ! 
 
 I mean the Duchess all this time, I hope ! 
 And since I have been forced repeat my claims
 
 ACT 111. 145 
 
 As if they never had been made before, 
 
 As I began, so must I end, it seems. no 
 
 The formal answer to the grave demand ! 
 
 What says the lady ? 
 
 Courtiers [one to another}, r Courtier. Marshal ! 
 
 2 Courtier. Orator ! 
 
 Gnibert. A variation of our mistress' way! 
 Wipe off his boots' dust, Clugnet ! that he waits! 
 
 1 Courtier. Your place ! 
 
 2 Courtier. Just now it was your own ! 
 
 Guibert. The devil's ! 
 
 Berthold [to Guibert\ Come forward, friend you with 
 
 the paper, there ! 
 
 Is Juliers the first city I 've obtained? 
 By this time, I may boast proficiency 
 
 In each decorum of the circumstance. 130 
 
 Give it me as she gave it the petition ! 
 Demand, you style it What 's required, in brief? 
 What title's reservation, appanage's 
 Allowance? I heard all at Treves, last week. 
 
 Gaucelme [to Guibert]. ' Give it him as she gave it !' 
 
 Guibert. And why not ? 
 
 [To Berthold~\ The lady crushed your summons thus together, 
 And bade me, with the very greatest scorn 
 So fair a frame could hold, inform you 
 
 Courtiers. Stop 
 
 Idiot! 
 
 Guibert. Inform you she denied your claim, 
 Defied yourself! I tread upon his jieel, 140 
 
 The blustering advocate ! 
 
 Berthold. By heaven and earth ! 
 
 Dare you jest, sir ? , 
 
 Guibert. Did they at Treves, last week? 
 
 Berthold [starting up\. Why then, I look much bolder than 
 
 I knew, 
 10
 
 ,46 CO LOME PS BIRTHDAY. 
 
 And you prove better actors than I thought 
 
 Since, as I live, I took you as you entered 
 
 For just so many dearest friends of mine, 
 
 Fled from the sinking to the rising power 
 
 The sneaking'st crew, in short, I e'er despised ! 
 
 Whereas, I am alone here for the moment, 
 
 With every soldier left behind at Aix ! 15 
 
 Silence? That means the worst? I thought as much! 
 
 What follows next then ? 
 
 Courtiers. Gracious Prince he raves ! 
 
 Guibert. He asked the truth, and why not get the truth ? 
 
 Berthold. Am I a prisoner? Speak, will somebody? 
 But why stand paltering with imbeciles ? 
 Let me see her, or 
 
 Guibert. Her, without her leave, 
 
 Shall no one see : she 's Duchess yet ! 
 
 Courtiers [footsteps without, as they are disputing}. Good 
 
 chance ! 
 She 's here the Lady Colombe's self! 
 
 Berthold. 'T is well ! 
 
 [Aside] Array a handful thus against my world ? 
 Not ill done truly! Were not this a mind 160 
 
 To match one's mind with ? Colombe ! Let us wait ! 
 I failed so, under that gray convent wall ! 
 She comes. 
 
 Guibert. The Duchess ! Strangers, range yourselves. 
 [As the Duchess enters in conversation with Valence, 
 Berthold and the Courtiers fall back a little. 
 
 The Duchess. Presagefully it beats, presagefully, 
 My heart : the right is Berthold's and not mine. 
 
 Valence. Grant that he has the right, dare I mistrust 
 Your power to acquiesce so patiently 
 As you believe, in such a dream-like change 
 Of fortune change abrupt, profound, complete? 
 
 'Ihe Duchess. Ah ! the first bitterness is over now ! 170
 
 ACT III. 147 
 
 Bitter I may have felt it to confront 
 The truth, and ascertain those natures' value 
 I had so counted on ; that was a pang : 
 But I did bear it, and the worst is over. 
 Let the Prince take them ! 
 
 Valence. And take Juliers too? 
 
 Your people without crosses, wands, and chains 
 Only with hearts? 
 
 The Duchess. There I feel guilty, sir ! 
 I cannot give up what I never had ; 
 For I ruled these, not them these stood between. 
 Shall I confess, sir ? I have heard by stealth 180 
 
 Of Berthold from the first ; more news and more : 
 Closer and closer swam the thunder-cloud, 
 But I was safely housed with these, I knew. 
 At times when to the casement I would turn, 
 At a bird's passage or a flower-trail's play, 
 I^caught the storm's red glimpses on its edge 
 Yet I was sure some one of all these friends 
 Would interpose : I followed the bird's flight 
 Or plucked the flower some one would interpose ! 
 
 Valence. Not one thought on the people and Cleves there ! 
 
 The Duchess. Now, sadly conscious my real sway was 
 missed, 191 
 
 Its shadow goes without so much regret ; 
 Else could I not again thus calmly bid you 
 Answer Prince Berthold ! 
 
 Valence. Then you acquiesce ? 
 
 The Duchess. Remember over whom it was I ruled ! 
 
 Guibert [stepping forward]. Prince Berthold, yonder, craves 
 an audience, lady ! 
 
 The Duchess [to Valence]. I only have to turn, and I shall 
 
 face- 
 Prince Berthold ! Oh ! my very heart is sick ! 
 It is the daughter of a line of Dukes
 
 148 COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 This scornful, insolent adventurer 
 
 Will bid depart from my dead father's halls! 
 
 I shall not answer him dispute with him 
 
 But, as he bids, depart ! Prevent it, sir ! 
 
 Sir but a mere day's respite ! Urge for me 
 
 What I shall call to mind I should have urged 
 
 When time 's gone by 't will all be mine you urge! 
 
 A day an hour that I myself may lay 
 
 My rule down ! 'T is too sudden must not be ! 
 
 The world 's to hear of it ! Once done forever ! 
 
 How will it read, sir? How be sung about? : 
 
 Prevent it! 
 
 Berthold [approaching]. Your frank indignation, lady, 
 Cannot escape me. Overbold I seem ; 
 But somewhat should be pardoned my surprise 
 At this reception this defiance, rather. 
 And if, for their and your sake, I rejoice 
 Your virtues could inspire a trusty few 
 To make such gallant stand in your behalf, 
 I cannot but be sorry, for my own, 
 Your friends should force me to retrace my steps : 
 Since I no longer am permitted speak \ 
 
 After the pleasant peaceful course prescribed 
 No less by courtesy than relationship 
 Which I remember, if you once forgot. 
 But never must attack pass unrepelled. 
 Suffer that through you I demand of these, 
 Who controverts my claim to Juliers? 
 
 The Duchess. Me, 
 
 You say, you do not speak to 
 
 Berthold Of your subjects 
 
 I ask, then : whom do you accredit? Where 
 Stand those should answer! 
 
 Valence [advancing]. The lady is alone ! 
 
 Berthold. Alone, and thus ? So weak and yet so bold ?
 
 ACT Iff. 
 
 149 
 
 Valence. I said she was alone 
 
 Berthold. And weak, I said. 23' 
 
 Valence. When is man strong until he feels alone? 
 It was some lonely strength at first, be sure, 
 Created organs, such as those you seek,. 
 By which to give its varied purpose shape 
 And, naming the selected ministrants, 
 Took sword, and shield, and sceptre each, a man ! 
 That strength performed its work and passed its way : 
 You see our lady : there the old shapes stand ! 
 A Marshal, Chamberlain, and Chancellor 240 
 
 ' Be helped their'way, into their death put life 
 And find advantage !' so you counsel us. 
 But let strength feel alone, seek help itself 
 And, as the inland-hatched sea-creature hunts 
 The sea's breast out as, littered 'mid the waves, 
 The desert-brute makes for the desert's joy, 
 So turns our lady to her true resource, 
 Passing o'er hollow fictions, worn-out types 
 And I am first her instinct fastens on. 
 
 And prompt I say, as clear as heart can speak, 25 
 
 The people will not have you ; nor shall have ! 
 It is not merely I shall go bring Cleves 
 And fight you to the last though that does much, 
 And men and children ay, and women too, 
 Fighting for home, are rather to be feared 
 Than mercenaries fighting for their pay 
 But, say you beat us, since such things have been, 
 And, where this Juliers laughed, you set your foot 
 Upon a steaming bloody plash what then? 
 Stand you the more our lord that there you stand ? 260 
 
 Lord it o'er troops whose force you concentrate, 
 A pillared flame whereto all ardors tend 
 Lord it 'mid priests whose schemes you amplify, 
 A cloud of smoke 'neath which all shadows brood
 
 '5 
 
 COLOMHE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 But never, in this gentle spot of earth, 
 
 Can you become our Colombe, our play-queen, 
 
 For whom, to furnish lilies for her hair, 
 
 We'd pour our veins forth to enrich the soil! 
 
 Our conqueror? Yes! Our despot? Yes! Our Duke ! 
 
 Know yourself, know us ! 
 
 Berthold \u<ho has been in thought]. Know your lady, also ! 
 
 [ Very deferentially} To whom I needs must exculpate my- 
 self 27' 
 
 For having made a rash demand, at least. 
 
 Wherefore to you, sir, who appear to be 
 
 Her chief adviser, I submit my claims, {Giving papers. 
 
 But, this step taken, take no further step, 
 
 Until the Duchess shall pronounce their worth. 
 
 Here be our meeting-place, at night its time ; 
 
 Till when I humbly take the lady's leave ! 
 
 \He withdraws. As the Duchess turns to Valence, the 
 Courtiers interchange glances and come forward a little. 
 
 1 Courtier. So, this was their device ! 
 
 2 Courtier. No bad device ! 280 
 
 3 Courtier. You 'd say they love each other, Guibert's 
 
 friend 
 From Cleves, and she the Duchess ! 
 
 4 Courtier, And moreover, 
 That all Prince Berthold comes for, is to help 
 Their loves ! 
 
 5 Courtier. Pray, Guibert, what is next to do? 
 
 Guibert [advancing], I laid my office at the Duchess' foot 
 
 Others. And I and I and 1 ! 
 
 The Duchess. I took them, sirs. 
 
 Guibert \jipartto Valence]. And now, sir, I am simple knight 
 
 again 
 
 Guibert, of the great ancient house, as yet 
 That never bore affront ; whate'er your birth, 
 As things stand now, I recognize yourself 390
 
 ACT Iff. 15! 
 
 If you '11 accept experience of some date 
 As like to be the leading man o' the time, 
 Therefore as much above me now, as I 
 Seemed above you this morning. Then I offered 
 To fight you : will you be as generous 
 And now fight me ? 
 
 Valence. Ask when my life is mine ! 
 
 Guibert. 'T is hers now ! 
 
 Clugnet [apart to Valence, as Guibert turns from him]. You, 
 
 sir, have insulted me 
 
 Grossly will grant me, too, the selfsame favor 
 You Ve granted him just now, I make no question? 
 
 Valence. I promise you, as him, sir. 
 
 Clugnet. Do you so ? 3 
 
 Handsomely said ! I hold you to it, sir. 
 You '11 get me reinstated in my office 
 As you will Guibert ! 
 
 The Duchess. I would be alone ! 
 
 \They begin to retire slowly ; as Valence is about to fol- 
 low 
 Alone, sir only with my heart : you stay ! 
 
 Gaucelme. You hear that? Ah! light breaks upon me! 
 
 Cleves 
 
 It was at Cleves some man harangued us all 
 With great effect so those who listened said, 
 My thoughts being busy elsewhere : was this he, 
 Guibert ? your strange, disinterested man ! 
 Your uncorrupted, if uncourtly friend ! 3' 
 
 The modest worth you mean to patronize ! 
 He cares about no Duchesses, not he 
 His sole concern is with the wrongs of Cleves! 
 What, Guibert ? What, it breaks on you at last ? 
 
 Guibert. Would this hall's floor were a mine's roof! I 'd 
 
 back 
 And in her very face~-
 
 152 
 
 COLOMBE'S BJKTHDAY. 
 
 Gaucelme. Apply the match 
 
 That fired the train and where would you be, pray ? 
 
 Guibert. With him ! 
 
 Gaucelme. Stand, rather, safe outside with me ! 
 
 The mine 's charged shall I furnish you the match 
 And place you properly ? To the antechamber ! 32 
 
 Guibert. Can you ? 
 
 Gaucelme. Try me ! Your friend 's in fortune ! 
 
 Guibert. Quick 
 
 To the antechamber! He is pale with bliss! 
 
 Gaucelme. No wonder ! Mark her eyes ! 
 
 Guibert. To the antechamber! 
 
 \The Courtiers retire. 
 
 The Duchess. Sir, could you know all you have done for me 
 You were content ! You spoke, and I am saved ! 
 
 Valence. Be not too sanguine, lady ! Ere you dream, 
 That transient flush of generosity 
 Fades off, perchance ! The man, beside, is gone 
 Him we might bend; but see, the papers here 
 Inalterably his requirement stays, 33 
 
 And cold, hard words have we to deal with now. 
 In that large eye there seemed a latent pride, 
 To self-denial not incompetent, 
 But very like to hold itself dispensed 
 From such a grace : however, let us hope ! 
 He is a noble spirit in noble form. 
 I wish he less had bent that brow to smile 
 As with the fancy how he could subject 
 Himself upon occasion to himself! 
 
 From rudeness, violence, you rest secure ; 340 
 
 But do not think your Duchy rescued yet ! 
 
 The Duchess. You who have opened a new world to me, 
 Will never take the faded language up 
 Of that I leave? My Duchy keeping it, 
 Or losing it is that my sole world now?
 
 ACT II L 
 
 153 
 
 Valence. Ill have I spoken if you thence despise 
 Juliers ; although the lowest, on true grounds, 
 Be worth more than the highest rule on false : 
 Aspire to rule on the true grounds ! 
 
 The Duchess. Nay, hear 
 
 False I will never rash I would not be ! 35 
 
 This is indeed my birthday soul and body, 
 Its hours have done on me the work of years. 
 You hold the requisition : ponder it ! 
 If I have right, my duty 's plain : if he 
 Say so, nor ever change a tone of voice ! 
 At night you meet the Prince ; meet me at eve! 
 Till when, farewell ! This discomposes you? 
 Believe in your own nature, and its force 
 Of renovating mine! I take my stand 
 Only as under me the earth is firm : 360 
 
 So, prove the first step stable, all will prove. 
 That first I choose [laying her hand on his] the next to 
 take, choose you ! [S/ie withdraws. 
 
 Valence [after a pause\. What drew down this on me ? on 
 
 me, dead once, 
 
 She thus bids live since all I hitherto 
 Thought dead in me, youth's ardors and emprise, 
 Burst into life before her, as she bids 
 Who needs them. Whither will (his reach, where end? 
 Her hand's print burns on mine Yet she 's above 
 So very far above me ! All 's too plain : 
 I saved her when the others sank away, 370 
 
 And she rewards me as such souls reward 
 The changed voice, the suffusion of the cheek, 
 The eye's acceptance, the expressive hand 
 Reward, that 's little, in her generous thought, 
 Though all to me 
 
 I cannot so disclaim 
 Heaven's gift, nor call it other than it is !
 
 1 54 COLOMBE3 BIRTHDAY. 
 
 She loves me ! 
 
 [Looking at the Princis papers] Which love 
 
 these 
 
 chance forbid. 
 
 Can I decide against myself pronounce 
 She is the Duchess and no mate for me ? 
 Cleves, help me ! Teach me every haggard face 
 To sorrow and endure ! I will do right 
 Whatever be the issue. Help me, Cleves 1 
 
 per- 
 
 3 8o
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 '55 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 Evening. SCENE. An Antechamber. 
 Enter the Courtiers. 
 
 Maufroy. Now, then, that we may speak how spring this 
 mine ? 
 
 Gaucelme. Is Guibert ready for its match ? He cools ! 
 Not so friend Valence with the Duchess there ! 
 ' Stay, Valence ! Are not you my better self?' 
 And her cheek mantled 
 
 Guibert. Well, she loves him, sir : 
 
 And more since you will have it I grow cool 
 She 's right : he 's worth it. 
 
 Gaucelme. For his deeds to-day ? 
 
 Say so ! 
 
 Guibert. What should I say beside ? 
 
 Gaucelme. ' Not this 
 
 For friendship's sake leave this for me to say 
 That we 're the dupes of an egregious cheat ! to 
 
 This plain unpractised suitor, who found way 
 To the Duchess through the merest die's turn-up, 
 A year ago had seen her and been seen, 
 Loved and been loved. 
 
 Gui&ert. Impossible ! 
 
 Gaucelme. Nor say 
 
 How sly and exquisite a trick, moreover, 
 Was this which taking not their stand on facts 
 Boldly, for that had been endurable, 
 But worming on their way by craft, they choose 
 Resort to, rather and which you and we,
 
 156 COLO M HE'S BJKTUDAY. 
 
 Sheep-like, assist them in the playing off! ,*, 
 
 The Duchess thus parades him as preferred, 
 Not on the honest ground of preference, 
 Seeing first, liking more, and there an end 
 But as we all had started equally, 
 And at the close of a fair race he proved 
 The only valiant, sage, and loyal man. 
 Herself, too, with the pretty fits and starts 
 The careless, winning, candid ignorance 
 Of what the Prince might challenge or forego 
 ,She had a hero in reserve ! What risk *> 
 
 Ran she ? This deferential, easy Prince 
 Who brings his claims for her to ratify 
 He 's just her puppet for the nonce ! You '11 see 
 Valence pronounces, as is equitable, 
 Against him : off goes the confederate: 
 As equitably, Valence takes her hand ! 
 
 The Chancellor. You run too fast : her hand no subject 
 
 takes. 
 
 Do not our archives hold her father's will ? 
 That will provides against such accident, 
 And gives next heir, Prince Berthold, the reversion 4 
 
 Of Juliers, which she forfeits, wedding so. 
 
 Gaucelme. I know that, well as you but does the Prince ? 
 Knows Berthold, think you, that this plan, he helps, 
 For Valence's ennoblement would end, 
 If crowned with the success which seems its due, 
 In making him the very thing he plays, 
 The actual Duke of Juliers? All agree 
 That Colombe's title waived or set aside, 
 He is next heir. 
 
 The Chance f lor. Incontrovertibly. 
 
 Gaucelme. Guibert, your match, now, to the train ! 
 
 Guibert. Enough ! 
 
 O 
 
 I 'm with you : selfishness is best again. 51
 
 ACT 71'. 
 
 '57 
 
 I thought of turning honest what a dream ! 
 Let 's wake now ! 
 
 Gaucelme. Selfish, friend, you never were : 
 
 'T was but a series of revenges taken 
 On your unselfishness for prospering ill. 
 But now that you 're grown wiser, what 's our -course? 
 
 Guibert. Wait, I suppose, till Valence weds our lady, 
 And then, if we must needs revenge ourselves, 
 Apprize the Prince. 
 
 Gaucelme. The Prince, ere then dismissed 
 
 With thanks for playing his mock part so well ? 60 
 
 Tell the Prince now, sir ! Ay, this very night 
 Ere he accepts his dole and goes his way, 
 Explain how such a marriage makes him Duke, 
 Then trust his gratitude for the surprise ! 
 
 Guibert. Our lady wedding Valence all the same 
 As if the penalty were undisclosed ? 
 Good ! If she loves, she '11 not disown her love, 
 Throw Valence up. I wonder you see that. 
 
 Gaucelme. The shame of it the suddenness and shame! 
 Within her, the inclining heart without, 70 
 
 A terrible array of witnesses 
 And Valence by, to keep her to her word, 
 With Berthold's indignation or disgust! 
 We Ml try it! Not that we can venture much. 
 Her confidence we 've lost forever ; Berthold's 
 Is all to gain. 
 
 Guibert. To-night, then, venture we ! 
 Yet if lost confidence might be renewed ? 
 
 Gaucelme. Never in noble natures! With the base 
 
 ones 
 
 Twist off the crab's claw, wait a smarting-while, 
 And something grows and grows and gets to be 80 
 
 A mimic of the lost joint, just so like 
 As keeps in mind it never, never will
 
 IS 8 COLOMBPS BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Replace its predecessor! Crabs do that; 
 But lop the lion's foot and 
 
 Guibert, To the Prince ! 
 
 Gaucclme [aside]. And come what will to the lion's foot, I 
 
 pay you, 
 
 My cat's-paw, as I long have yearned to pay ! 
 \Alond} Footsteps! Himself! 'T is Valence breaks on us, 
 Exulting that their scheme succeeds. We '11 hence 
 And perfect ours ! Consult the archives first 
 Then, fortified with knowledge, seek the Hall ! 90 
 
 Clugnet \to Gaucelme as they retire]. You have not smiled 
 so since your father died ! 
 
 As they retire, enter VALENCE with papers. 
 
 Valence. So must it be ! I have examined these 
 With scarce a palpitating heart so calm, 
 Keeping her image almost wholly off, 
 Setting upon myself determined watch, 
 Repelling to the uttermost his claims, 
 And the result is all men would pronounce 
 And not I, only, the result to be 
 Berthold is heir ; she has no shade of right 
 To the distinction which divided us, 100 
 
 But, suffered to rule first, I know not why, 
 Her rule connived at by those Kings and Popes, 
 To serve some devil's-purpose now 't is gained, 
 Whate'er it was, the rule expires as well. 
 Valence, this rapture selfish can it be? 
 Eject it from your heart, her home ! It stays ! 
 Ah! the brave world that opens on us both! 
 Do my poor townsmen so esteem it ? Cleves, 
 I need not your pale faces ! This, reward 
 For service done to you ? Too horrible ! no 
 
 I never served you ; 't was myself I served 
 Nay, served not rather saved from punishment
 
 ACT IV. 159 
 
 Which, had I failed you then, would plague me now ! 
 My life continues yours, and your life mine. 
 But if, to take God's gift, I swerve no step 
 Cleves ! If I breathe no prayer for it if she, 
 
 [Footsteps without. 
 
 Colombe, that comes now, freely gives herself 
 Will Cleves require that, turning thus to her, 
 I 
 
 Enter PRINCE BERTHOLD. 
 
 Pardon, sir! I did not look for you 
 
 Till night, i 1 the Hall ; nor have as yet declared iao 
 
 My judgment to the lady. 
 
 Berthold. So I hoped. 
 
 Valence. And yet I scarcely know why that should 
 
 check 
 
 The frank disclosure of it first to you 
 What her right seems, and what, in consequence, 
 She will decide on 
 
 Berthold. That I need not ask. 
 
 Valence. You need not: I have proved the lady's mind 
 And, justice being to do, dare act for her. 
 
 Berthold. Doubtless she has a very noble mind. 
 
 Valence. Oh ! never fear but she Ml in each conjuncture 
 Bear herself bravely ! She no whit depends 13 
 
 On circumstance ; as she adorns a throne, 
 She had adorned 
 
 Berthold. A cottage in what book 
 
 Have I read that of every queen that lived ? 
 A throne ! You have not been instructed, sure, 
 To forestall my request ? 
 
 Valence. 'T is granted, sir ! 
 
 My heart instructs me. I have scrutinized 
 Your claims 
 
 Berthold. Ah ! claims, you mean, at first preferred? 
 I come, before the hour appointed me,
 
 !6o COLOMiih'S lURl'UDAY. 
 
 To pray you let those claims at present rest, 
 
 In favor of a new and stronger one. 140 
 
 Valence. You shall not need a stronger: on the part 
 O 1 the lady, all you offer I accept, 
 Since one clear right suffices : yours is clear. 
 Propose ! 
 
 Berthold. I offer her my hand. 
 
 Valence. Your hand ? 
 
 Berthold. A Duke's, yourself say ; and, at no far time, 
 Something here whispers me the Emperor's. 
 The lady's mind is noble ; which induced 
 This seizure of occasion ere my claims 
 Were settled, let us amicably say ! 
 
 Valence. Your hand ! 
 
 Berthold. He will fall clown and kiss it next! 
 
 Sir, this astonishment 's too flattering, 15' 
 
 Nor must you hold your mistress' worth so cheap. 
 Enhance it, rather urge that blood is blood 
 The daughter of the Burgraves, Landgraves, Markgraves, 
 Remains their daughter ! I shall scarce gainsay. 
 Elsewhere or here, the lady needs must rule ; 
 Like the imperial crown's great chrysoprase, 
 They talk of somewhat out of keeping there, 
 And yet no jewel for a meaner cap. 
 
 Valence. You wed the Duchess? 
 
 Berthold. Cry you mercy, friend ! 
 
 Will the match also influence fortunes here ? 16 
 
 A natural solicitude enough. 
 Be certain, no bad chance it proves for you! 
 However high you take your present stand, 
 There 's prospect of a higher still remove 
 For Juliers will not be my resting-place, 
 And, when I have to choose a substitute 
 To rule the little burgh, I '11 think of you. 
 You need not give your mates a character.
 
 ACT IV. 161 
 
 And yet I doubt your fitness to supplant 17 
 
 The gray, smooth chamberlain : he 'd hesitate 
 
 A doubt his lady could demean herself 
 
 So low as to accept me. Courage, sir ! 
 
 I like your method better : feeling's play 
 
 Is franker much, and flatters me beside. 
 
 Valence. I am to say, you love her? 
 
 Berthold. Say that too ! 
 
 Love has no great concernment, thinks the world, 
 With a Duke's marriage. How go precedents 
 In Julier's story how use Juliers' Dukes? 
 I see you have them here in goodly row ; i&> 
 
 Yon must be Luitpold ay, a stalwart sire ! 
 Say, I have been arrested suddenly 
 In my ambition's course, its rocky course, 
 By this sweet flower: I fain would gather it 
 And then proceed so say and speedily 
 Nor stand there like Duke Luitpold's brazen self! 
 Enough, sir: you possess my mind, I think. 
 This is my claim, the others being withdrawn, 
 And to this be it that, i' the Hall to-night, 
 Your lady's answer comes ; till when, farewell ! [He retires. 
 
 Valence [after a pause\ The heavens and earth stay as 
 they were; my heart 191 
 
 Beats as it beat : the truth remains the truth. 
 What falls away, then, if not faith in her? 
 Was it my faith that she could estimate 
 Love's value, and, such faith still guiding me, 
 Dare I now test her? Or grew faith so strong 
 Solely because no power of test was mine? 
 
 Enter the DUCHESS. 
 
 The Duchess. My fate, sir ! Ah ! you turn away. All 's 
 
 over. 
 
 But you are sorry for me? Be not so ! 
 ii
 
 1 62 COLOMKPS BIRTHDAY. 
 
 What I might have become, and never was, aoo 
 
 Regret with me ! What I have merely been, 
 
 Rejoice I am no longer ! What I seem 
 
 Beginning now, in my new state, to be, 
 
 Hope that I am ! for, once my rights proved void, 
 
 This heavy roof seems easy to exchange 
 
 For the blue sky outside my lot henceforth. 
 
 Valence. And what a l6t is Berthold's ! 
 
 The Duchess. How of him ? 
 
 Valence. He gathers earth's whole good into his arms ; 
 Standing, as man now, stately, strong, and wise, 
 Marching to fortune, not surprised by her. aio 
 
 One great aim, like a guiding-star, above 
 Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift 
 His manhood to the height that takes the prize; 
 A prize not near lest overlooking earth 
 He rashly spring to seize it nor remote, 
 So that he rest upon his path content: 
 But day by day, while shimmering grows shine, 
 And the faint circlet prophesies the orb, 
 He sees so much as, just evolving these, 
 The stateliness, the wisdom, and the strength, aao 
 
 To due completion, will suffice this life, 
 And lead him at his grandest to the grave. 
 After this star, out of a night he springs ; 
 A beggar's cradle for the throne of thrones 
 He quits ; so, mounting, feels each step he mounts, 
 Nor, as from each to each exultingly 
 He passes, overleaps one grade of joy. 
 This, for his own good : with the world, each gift 
 Of God and man reality, tradition, 
 
 Fancy and fact so well environ him, 230 
 
 That as a mystic panoply they serve 
 Of force, untenanted, to awe mankind, 
 And work his purpose out with half the world,
 
 ACT IV. 163 
 
 While he, their master, dexterously slipt 
 
 From such encumbrance, is meantime employed 
 
 With his own prowess on the other half. 
 
 Thus shall he prosper, every day's success 
 
 Adding, to what is he, a solid strength 
 
 An aery might to what encircles him, 
 
 Till at the last, so life's routine lends help, 4o 
 
 That as the Emperor only breathes and moves, 
 
 His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk 
 
 Become a comfort or a portent, how 
 
 He trails his ermine take significance 
 
 Till even his power shall cease to be most power, 
 
 And men shall dread his weakness more, nor dare 
 
 Peril their earth its bravest, first and best, 
 
 Its typified invincibility. 
 
 Thus shall he go on, greatening, till he ends 
 
 The man of men, the spirit of all flesh, 250 
 
 The fiery centre of an earthly world ! 
 
 The Duchess. Some such a fortune I had dreamed should 
 
 rise 
 
 Out of my own that is, above my power 
 Seemed other, greater potencies to stretch 
 
 Valence. For you ? 
 
 The Duchess. It was not I moved there, I think ; 
 
 But one I could though constantly beside, 
 And aye approaching still keep distant from, 
 And so adore. 'T was a man moved there. 
 
 Valence. Who ? 
 
 The Duchess. \ felt the spirit, never saw the face. 
 
 \\ilence. See it ! 'T is Berthold's ! He enables you a&> 
 To realize your vision. 
 
 The Duchess. Berthold ? 
 
 Valence. Duke 
 
 Emperor to be : he proffers you his hand. 
 
 The Duchess. Generous and princely I
 
 x64 COLOMBES BIRTHDAY, 
 
 Valence. He is all of this. 
 
 The Duchess. Thanks, Bertholcl, for my father's sake. No 
 
 hand 
 Degrades me ! 
 
 Valence. You accept the proffered hand ? 
 
 The Duchess. That he should love me ! 
 
 Valence. ' Loved ' I did not say ! 
 
 Had that been love might so incline the Prince 
 To the world's good, the world that 's at his foot 
 I do not know, this moment, I should dare 
 Desire that you refused the world and Cleves 27 
 
 The sacrifice he asks. 
 
 The Duchess. Not love me, sir ? 
 
 Valence. He scarce affirmed it. 
 
 The Duchess. May not deeds affirm ? 
 
 Valence. What does he ? Yes, yes, very much he does ! 
 All the shame saved, he thinks, and sorrow saved 
 Immitigable sorrow, so he thinks 
 Sorrow that 's deeper than we dream, perchance! 
 
 The Duchess. Is not this love ? 
 
 Valence. So very much he does ! 
 
 For look, you can descend now gracefully : 
 All doubts are banished that the world might have, 
 Or worst, the doubts yourself, in after-time, 2 8o 
 
 May call up of your heart's sincereness now. 
 To such, reply, ' I could have kept my rule 
 Increased it to the utmost of my dreams 
 Yet I abjured it.' This he does for you : 
 It is munificently much. 
 
 The Duchess. Still ' much !' 
 
 But why is it not love, sir? Answer me ! 
 
 Valence. Because not one of Berthold's words and looks 
 Had gone with love's presentment of a flower 
 To the beloved : because bold confidence, 
 Open superiority, free pride 290
 
 ACT 71'. 165 
 
 Love owns not, yet were all that Berthold owned : 
 Because where reason- even finds no flaw, 
 Unerringly a lover's instinct may. 
 
 The Duchess. You reason, then, and doubt ? 
 
 Valence. I love, and know. 
 
 The Duchess. You love ? How strange ! I never cast a 
 
 thought 
 
 On that*! Just see our selfishness! You seemed 
 So much my own I had no ground and yet, 
 I never dreamed another might divide 
 My power with you, much less exceed it. 
 
 Valence. Lady, 
 
 I am yours wholly. 
 
 The Duchess. Oh ! no, no, not mine ! 3 
 
 'T is not the same now, never more can be. 
 Your first love, doubtless. Well, what 's gone from me ? 
 What have I lost in you ? 
 
 Valence. My heart replies 
 
 No loss there ! So to Berthold back again : 
 This offer of his hand he bids me make 
 Its obvious magnitude is well to weigh. 
 
 The Duchess. She 's yes, she must be very fair for you ! 
 
 Valence. I am a simple advocate of Cleves. 
 
 The Duchess. You ! With the heart and brain that so 
 
 helped me, 
 
 I fancied them exclusively my own, 310 
 
 Yet find are subject to a stronger sway ! 
 She must be tell me, is she very fair? 
 
 Valence. Most fair, beyond conception or belief. 
 
 The Duchess. Black eyes? no matter! Colombe, the 
 
 world leads 
 
 Its life without you, whom your friends professed 
 The only woman see how true they spoke ! 
 One lived this while, who never saw your face, 
 Nor heard your voice unless Is she from Cleves?
 
 1 66 . COLOMBE 'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Valence. Cleves knows her well. 
 
 The Duchess. Ah ! just a fancy, now ! 
 
 When you poured forth the wrongs of Cleves I said 3* 
 Thought, that is, afterward 
 
 Valence. You thought of me? 
 
 The Duchess. Of whom ,else ? Only such great cause, 1 
 
 thought, 
 
 For such effect : see what true love can do ! 
 Cleves is his love. I almost fear to ask 
 And will not. This is idling : to our work ! 
 Admit before the Prince, without reserve, 
 My claims misgrounded ; then may follow better 
 When you poured out Cleves' wrongs impetuously, 
 Was she in your mind ? 
 
 Valence. All done was done for her 
 
 To humble me ! 
 
 The Duchess. She will be proud at least. 330 
 
 Valence. She ? 
 
 The Duchess. When you tell her. 
 
 Valence. That will never be. 
 
 The Duchess. How are there sweeter things you hope to 
 
 tell ? 
 
 No, sir! You counselled me I counsel you 
 In the one point I any woman can. 
 Your worth, the first thing; let her own come next ^ 
 Say what you did through her, and she through you 
 The praises of her beauty afterward ! 
 Will you? , 
 
 Valence. I dare not. 
 
 The Duchess. Dare not ? 
 
 Valence. She I love 
 
 Suspects not such a love in me. 
 
 The Duchess. You jest. 
 
 Valence. The lady is above me and away. 340 
 
 Not only the brave form, and the bright mind,
 
 ACT IV. 167 
 
 And the great heart, combine to press me low 
 But all the world calls rank divides us. 
 
 The Duchess. Rank ! 
 
 Now grant me patience ! Here 's a man declares 
 Oracularly in another's case 
 Sees the true value and the false, for them 
 Nay, bids them see it, and they straight do see. 
 You called my court's love worthless so it turned : 
 I threw away as dross my heap of wealth, 
 And here you stickle for a piece or two ! 35 
 
 First has she seen you ? 
 
 Valence. Yes. 
 
 The Duchess. She loves you, then. 
 
 Valence. One flash of hope burst, then succeeded night ; 
 And all 's at darkest now. Impossible ! 
 
 The Duchess. We '11 try: you are so to speak my sub- 
 ject yet? 
 
 Valence. As ever to the death. 
 
 The Duchess. Obey me, then ! 
 
 Valence. I must. 
 
 The Duchess. Approach her, and no ! first of all 
 Get more assurance. ' My instructress,' say, 
 ' Was great, descended from a line of kings, 
 And even fair' wait why I say this folly 
 ' She said, of all men, none for eloquence, 36 
 
 Courage, and what cast even these to shade 
 The heart they sprung from none deserved like him 
 Who saved her at her need : if she said this, 
 What should not one I love, say ?' 
 
 Valence. Heaven this hope 
 
 O lady, you are filling me with fire! 
 
 ///< J)H(/I<-\S. Say this! nor think I bid you cast aside 
 ( )nc touch of all the awe and reverence ; 
 Nay make her proud for once to heart's content 
 That all this wealth of heart and soul 's her own !
 
 T 68 COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Think you are all of this and, thinking it 370 
 
 Obey ! 
 
 Valence. I cannot choose. 
 
 The Duchess. Then, kneel to her 
 
 [ Valence sinks on his knee. 
 I dream ! 
 
 Valence. Have mercy 1 Yours, unto the death 
 I have obeyed. Despise, and let me die ! 
 
 The Duchess. Alas! sir, is it to be ever thus? 
 Even with you as with the world? I know 
 This morning's service was no vulgar deed 
 Whose motive, once it dares avow itself, 
 Explains all done and infinitely more, 
 So takes the shelter of a nobler cause. 
 Your service named its true source loyalty ! 380 
 
 The rest 's unsaid again. The Duchess bids you, 
 Rise, sir. The Prince's words were in debate. 
 
 Valence \rising\. Rise? Truth, as ever, lady, comes from 
 
 you ! 
 
 I should rise I who spoke for Cleves, can speak 
 For man yet tremble now, who stood firm then. 
 I laughed for 't was past tears that Cleves should starve 
 With all hearts beating loud the infamy, 
 And no tongue daring trust as much to air : 
 Yet here, where all hearts speak, shall I be mute? 
 
 lady, for your own sake look on me ! 390 
 On all I am, and have, and do heart, brain, 
 
 Body and soul this Valence and his gifts ! 
 
 1 was proud once : I saw you, and they sank, 
 So that each, magnified a thousand times, 
 Were nothing to you but such nothingness, 
 Would a crown gild it, or a sceptre prop, 
 
 A treasure speed, a laurel-wreath enhance ? 
 What is my own desert? But should your love 
 Have there 's no language helps here singled me
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 169 
 
 Then oh ! that wild word ' then !' be just to love, 400 
 
 In generosity its attribute ! 
 
 Love, since you pleased to love ! All 's cleared a stage 
 
 For trial of the question kept so long : 
 
 Judge you Is love or vanity the best ? 
 
 You, solve it for the world's sake you, speak first 
 
 What all will shout one day you, vindicate 
 
 Our earth and be its angel ! All is said. 
 
 Lady, I offer nothing I am yours : 
 
 But, for the cause 1 sake, look on me and him, 
 
 And speak ! 
 
 The Duchess. I have received the Prince's message : 410 
 Say, I prepare my answer ! 
 
 Valence. Take me, Cleves ! 
 
 [He withdraws. 
 
 The Duchess. Mournful that nothing 's what it calls it- 
 self! 
 
 Devotion, zeal, faith, loyalty mere love ! 
 And, love in question, what may Berthold's be? 
 I did ill to mistrust the world so soon : 
 Already was this Berthold at my side. 
 The valley-level has its hawks no doubt: 
 May not the rock-top have its eagles, too ? 
 Yet Valence let me see his rival then !
 
 170 
 
 COL OAfBE'S B'lK TIWA Y. 
 
 ACT V. 
 
 Night. SCENE. The Hall. 
 Enter BERTHOLD and MELCHIOR. 
 
 Melchior. And here you wait the matter's issue ? 
 
 Berthold. Here. 
 
 Melchior. I don't regret I shut Amelius, then. 
 But tell me, on this grand disclosure how 
 Behaved our spokesman with the forehead ? 
 
 Berthold. Oh I 
 
 Turned out no better than the foreheadless 
 Was dazzled not so very soon, that 's all ! 
 For my part, this is scarce the hasty, showy, 
 Chivalrous measure you give me credit of. 
 Perhaps I had a fancy but 't is gone. 
 Let her commence the unfriended innocent i 
 
 And carry wrongs about from court to court ? 
 No, truly ! The least shake of Fortune's sand 
 My uncle-Pope chokes in a coughing fit, 
 King-cousin takes a fancy to blue eyes 
 And wondrously her claims would brighten up; 
 Forth comes a new gloss on the ancient law, 
 O'erlooked provisos, o'erpast premises, 
 Follow in plenty. No: 't is the safe step. 
 The hour beneath the convent-wall is lost: 
 Juliers and she, once mine, are ever mine. i 
 
 Melchior. Which is to say, you, losing heart already, 
 Flucle the adventure. 
 
 Berthold. Not so or, if so
 
 ACT V. 
 
 171 
 
 Why not confess at once that I advise 
 
 None of our kingly craft and guild just now 
 
 To lay, one moment, down their privilege 
 
 With the notion they can any time at pleasure 
 
 Retake it: that may turn out hazardous. 
 
 We seem, in Europe, pretty well at end 
 
 O 1 the night, with our great masque : those favored few 
 
 Who keep the chamber's top, and honor's chance 3 
 
 Of the early evening, may retain their place 
 
 And figure as they list till out of breath. 
 
 But it is growing late : and I observe 
 
 A dim grim kind of tipstaves at the doorway 
 
 Not only bar new-comers entering now, 
 
 But caution those who left, for any cause, 
 
 And would return, that morning draws too near; 
 
 The ball must die off, shut itself up. We 
 
 I think, may dance lights out and sunshine in, 
 
 And sleep off headache on our frippery : 4 
 
 But friend the other, who cunningly stole out, 
 
 And, after breathing the fresh air outside, 
 
 Means to re-enter with a new costume, 
 
 Will be advised go back to bed, I fear. 
 
 I stick to privilege, on second thoughts. 
 
 Melchior. Yes you evade the adventure : and, beside, 
 Give yourself out for colder than you are. 
 King Philip, only, notes the lady's eyes? 
 Don't they come in for somewhat of the motive 
 With you too? 
 
 Berthold. Yes no: I am past that now. 50 
 
 Gone 't is : I cannot shut my soul to fact. 
 Of course, I might by forethought and contrivance 
 Reason myself into a rapture. Gone : 
 And something better come instead, no doubt. 
 
 Melchior, So be it ! Yet, all the same, proceed my way, 
 Though to your ends ; so shall you prosper best !
 
 172 COLOUHI-i-s IVRTHDAY. 
 
 The lady to be won for selfish ends 
 Will be won easier my unselfish call it, 
 Romantic way. 
 
 Berthold. Won easier? 
 
 Melihior. Will not she? 
 
 Berthold. There I profess humility without bound : 60 
 111 cannot speed not I the Emperor. 
 
 Melchior. And I should think the Emperor best waived, 
 From your description of her mood and way. 
 You could look, if it pleased you, into hearts, 
 But are too indolent and fond of watching 
 Your own you know that, for you study it. 
 
 Berthold. Had you but seen the orator her friend, 
 So bold and voluble an hour before, 
 Abashed to earth at aspect of the change ! 
 Make her an Empress? Ah! that changed the case! 70 
 Oh ! I read hearts ! 'T is for my own behoof, 
 I court her with my true worth : wait the event ! 
 I learned my final lesson on that head 
 When years ago my first and last essay 
 Before the priest my uncle could by help 
 Of his superior raise me from the dirt 
 Priscilla left me for a Brabant lord 
 Whose cheek was like the topaz on his thumb. 
 I am past illusion on that score. 
 
 Melchior. Here comes 
 
 The lady 
 
 Berthold. And there you go. But do not ! Give me &o 
 Another chance to please you ! Hear me plead ! 
 
 Melchior. You '11 keep, then, to the lover, to the man ? 
 
 Enter the DucHESs,/o//0/<<Y/ by ADOLF and SABYNE, and af- 
 ter an interval by the Courtiers. 
 
 Berthold. Good auspice to our meeting! 
 
 The Duchess. May it prove ! 
 
 And you, sir, will be Emperor one day?
 
 ACT V. 
 
 '73 
 
 Berthold. Ay, that 's the point! I may be Emperor. 
 
 The Duchess. 'T is not for my sake only, I am proud 
 Of this you offer ; I am prouder far 
 That from the highest state should duly spring 
 The highest, since most generous, of deeds. 
 
 Berthold. Generous still that ! You underrate yourself. 
 You are, what I, to be complete, must have 9' 
 
 Find now, and may not find, another time. 
 While I career on all the world for stage, 
 There needs at home my representative. 
 
 The Duchess. Such, rather, would some warrior-woman be 
 One dowered with lands and gold, or rich in friends 
 One like yourself. 
 
 Berthold. Lady, I am myself, 
 
 And have all these: I want what 's not myself, 
 Nor has all these. Why give one hand two swords? 
 Here 's one already ; be a friend's next gift xoo 
 
 A silk glove, if you will I have a sword. 
 
 The Duchess. You love me, then ? 
 
 Berthold. Your lineage I revere, 
 
 Honor your virtue, in your truth believe, 
 Do homage to your intellect, and bow 
 Before your peerless beauty. 
 
 The Duchess. But, for love 
 
 Berthold. A further love I do not understand. 
 Our best course is to say these hideous truths, 
 And see them, once said, grow endurable : 
 Like waters shuddering from their central bed, 
 Black with the midnight bowels of the earth, no 
 
 That, once up-spouted by an earthquake's throe, 
 A portent and a terror soon subside, 
 Freshen apace, take gold and rainbow hues 
 In sunshine, sleep in shadow, and at last 
 (/row common to the earth as hills or trees 
 Accepted by all things they came to scare.
 
 '74 
 
 COLOMBES BIRTHDAY. 
 
 The Duchess. You cannot love, then ? 
 
 Berthold. Charlemagne, perhaps ! 
 
 Are you not over-curious in love-lore ? 
 
 The Duchess. I have become so very recently. 
 It seems, then, I shall best deserve esteem, 120 
 
 Respect, and all your candor promises, 
 By putting on a calculating mood 
 Asking the terms of my becoming yours ? 
 
 Berthold. Let me not do myself injustice, neither. 
 Because I will not condescend to fictions 
 That promise what my soul can ne'er acquit, 
 It does not follow that my guarded phrase 
 May not include far more of what you seek 
 Than wide profession of less scrupulous men. 
 You will be Empress, once for all with me 13 
 
 The Pope disputes supremacy you stand, 
 And none gainsays, the earth's first woman. 
 
 The Duchess. That 
 
 Or simple Lady of Ravestein again? 
 
 Berthold. The matter's not in my arbitrament : 
 Now I have my claims which I regret 
 Cede one, cede all. 
 
 The Duchess. This claim, then, you enforce ? 
 
 Berthold. The world looks on. 
 
 The Duchess. And when must I decide? 
 
 Berthold. When, lady ? Have I said thus much so promptly 
 For nothing? poured out, with such pains, at once 
 What I might else have suffered to ooze forth MO 
 
 Droplet by droplet in a lifetime long 
 For aught less than as prompt an answer, too ? 
 All 's fairly told now: who can teach you more? 
 
 The Duchess. I do not see him. 
 
 Berthold. I shall ne'er deceive. 
 
 This offer should be made befittingly, 
 Did time allow the better setting forth
 
 ACT V. 
 
 '75 
 
 The good of it, with what is not so good, 
 
 Advantage, and disparagement as well ; 
 
 But, as it is, the sum of both must serve. 
 
 I am already weary of this place ; . 150 
 
 My thoughts are next stage on to Rome. Decide ! 
 
 The Empire or not even Juliers now! 
 
 Hail to the Empress farewell to the Duchess ! 
 
 \The Courtiers, who have been drawing nearer and near- 
 er, interpose. 
 
 Gaucelme. 'Farewell,' Prince? when we break in at our 
 risk 
 
 Clugnet. Almost upon court-license trespassing 
 
 Gaucelme. To point out how your claims are valid yet ! 
 You know not, by the Duke her father's will, 
 The lady, if she weds beneath her rank, 
 Forfeits her Duchy in the next heir's favor 
 So 't is expressly stipulate. And if 160 
 
 It can be shown 't is her intent to wed 
 A subject, then yourself, next heir, by right 
 Succeed to Juliers. 
 
 Berthold. What insanity! 
 
 Guibert. Sir, there 's one Valence, the pale fiery man 
 You saw and heard this morning thought, no doubt, 
 Was of considerable standing here : 
 I put it to your penetration, Prince, 
 If aught save love, the truest love for her 
 Could make him serve the lady as he did ! 
 He 's simply a poor advocate of Cleves 170 
 
 Creeps here with difficulty, finds a place 
 With danger, gets in by a miracle, 
 And for the first time meets the lady's face 
 So runs the story : is that credible ? 
 For, first no sooner in, than he 's apprised 
 Fortunes have changed ; you are all-powerful here, 
 The lady as powerless : he stands fast by her !
 
 I 7 6 COLO. M UK'S HI Kril DAY. 
 
 The Duchess [aside]. And do such deeds spring up from 
 love alone ? 
 
 Gnibert, But here occurs the question, does the lady 
 Love him again ? 1 say, how else can she? 180 
 
 Can she forget how he stood singly forth 
 In her defence, dared outrage all of us, 
 Insult yourself for what, save love's reward ? 
 
 The Duchess [aside]. And is love then the sole reward of 
 love ? 
 
 Guibert. But, love him as she may and must you ask, 
 Means she to wed him ? ' Yes/ both natures answer ! 
 Both, in their pride, point out the sole result ; 
 Nought less would he accept nor she propose. 
 For each conjuncture was she great enough 
 Will be for this. 
 
 Clugnet. Though, now that this is known, 190 
 
 Policy, doubtless, urges she deny 
 
 The Duchess. What, sir, and wherefore? since I am not 
 
 sure 
 
 That all is any other than you say ! 
 You take this Valence, hold him close to me, 
 Him with his actions : can I choose but look ? 
 I am not sure love trulier shows itself 
 Than in this man you hate and would degrade, 
 Yet, with your worst abatement, show me thus. 
 Nor am I thus made look within myself 
 Ere I had dared now that the look is dared 200 
 
 Sure that I do not love him ! 
 
 Guibert. Hear you, Prince ? 
 
 Berthold. And what, sirs, please you, may this prattle mean, 
 Unless to prove with what alacrity 
 You give your lady's secrets to the world ? 
 How much indebted, for discovering 
 That quality, you make me, will "be found 
 When there 's a keeper for my own to seek.
 
 ACT V. 177 
 
 Courtiers. ' Our lady ?' 
 
 Berthold. She assuredly remains. 
 
 The Duchess. Ah, Prince! and you too can be generous? 
 You could renounce your power, if this were so, 210 
 
 And let me, as these phrase it, wed my love 
 Yet keep my Duchy ? You perhaps exceed 
 Him even in disinterestedness! 
 
 Berthold. How, lady, should all this affect my purpose ? 
 Your will and choice are still, as ever, free. 
 Say, you have known a worthier than myself 
 In mind and heart, of happier form and face 
 Others must have their birthright : I have gifts, 
 To balance theirs, not blot them out of sight. 
 Against a hundred alien qualities, aao 
 
 I lay the prize I offer. I am nothing : 
 Wed you the Empire? 
 
 The Duchess. And my heart away? 
 
 Berthold. When have I made pretension to your heart ? 
 I give none. I shall keep your honor safe ; 
 With mine I trust you, as the sculptor trusts 
 Yon marble woman with the marble rose, 
 Loose on her hand, she never will let fall, 
 In graceful, slight, silent security. 
 You will be proud of my world-wide career, 
 And I content in you the fair and good. 330 
 
 What were the use of planting a few seeds 
 The thankless climate never would mature 
 Affections all repelled by circumstance ? 
 Enough : to these no credit I attach 
 To what you own find nothing to object. 
 Write simply on my requisition's face 
 What shall content my friends that you admit, 
 As Colombe of Ravestein, the claims therein, 
 Or never need admit them, as my wife 
 And either way, all 's ended ! . 
 12
 
 i 7 8 COLO MR &s BIRTHDAY: 
 
 The Duchess, Let all end ! a 4 o 
 
 Berthold. The requisition ! 
 
 Guibert. Valence holds, of course ! 
 
 Berthold. Desire his presence ! \Adolf goes out. 
 
 Courtiers [to each other\. Out it all comes yet ; 
 
 He'll have his word against the bargain yet: 
 He 's not the man to tamely acquiesce. 
 One passionate appeal upbraiding even, 
 May turn the tide again. Despair not yet ! 
 
 [They retire a little. 
 
 Berthold\to Melchior}. The Empire has its old success, my 
 friend ! 
 
 Melchior. You Ve had your way : before the spokesman 
 
 speaks, 
 
 Let me but this once work a problem out, 
 And ever more be dumb ! The Empire wins ? 250 
 
 To better purpose have I read my books ! 
 
 Enter VALENCE. 
 Melchior [to the Courtiers\ Apart, my masters ! 
 
 [To Valence'} Sir, one word with you! 
 I am a poor dependant of the Prince's 
 Pitched on to speak, as of slight consequence. 
 You are no higher, I find ; in other words, 
 We two, as probably the wisest here, 
 Need not hold diplomatic talk like fools. 
 Suppose I speak, divesting the plain fact 
 Of all their tortuous phrases, fit for them ? 
 Do you reply so, and what trouble saved ! 369 
 
 The Prince, then an embroiled strange heap of news 
 This moment reaches him if true or false, 
 All dignity forbids he should inquire 
 In person or by worthier deputy, 
 Yet somehow must inquire, lest slander come ; 
 And so 't is I am pitched on. You have heard 
 His offer to your lady?
 
 ACT V. 
 
 179 
 
 Valence. Yes. 
 
 Melchior. Conceive 
 
 Her joy thereat? 
 
 Valence. I cannot. 
 
 Melchior. No one can : 
 
 All draws to a conclusion, therefore. 
 
 Valence [aside]. So ! 
 
 No after-judgment no first thought revised 270 
 
 Her first and last decision ! me she leaves, 
 Takes him ; a simple heart is flung aside, 
 The ermine o'er a heartless breast embraced. 
 O Heaven, this mockery has been played too oft ! 
 Once, to surprise the angels twice, that fiends, 
 Recording, might be proud they chose not so 
 Thrice, many thousand times, to teach the world 
 All men should pause, misdoubt their strength, since men 
 Can have such chance yet fail so signally 
 But ever, ever this farewell to Heaven, &> 
 
 Welcome to earth this taking death for life 
 This spurning love and kneeling to the world 
 
 Heaven, it is too often and too old ! 
 
 Melchior. Well, on this point, what but an absurd rumor 
 Arises these, its source its subject, you ! 
 Your faith and loyalty misconstruing, 
 They say your service claims the lady's hand! 
 Of course, nor Prince nor lady can respond: 
 Yet something must be said ; for, were it true 
 You made such claim, the Prince would 
 
 Valence. Well, sir would? 
 
 Melchior. Not only probably withdraw his suit, 9i 
 
 But, very like, the lady might be forced 
 Accept your own. Oh ! there are reasons why ! 
 But you Ml excuse at present all save one 
 
 1 think so. What we want is your own witness 
 For or against her good or yours : decide !
 
 i8o COLOMB&S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Valence [aside]. Be it her good if she accounts it so! 
 [After a contest] For what am I but hers, to choose as 
 
 she ? 
 
 Who knows how far, beside, the light from her 
 May reach, and dwell with, what she looks upon ? 3 
 
 Melchior [to the Prince']. Now to him, you ! 
 
 Berthold [to Valence], My friend acquaints you, sir, 
 
 The noise runs 
 
 Valence. Prince, how fortunate you are, 
 
 Wedding her as you will, in spite of noise, 
 To show belief in love ! Let her but love you, 
 All else you disregard! What else can be? 
 You know how love is incompatible 
 With falsehood purifies, assimilates 
 All other passions to itself. 
 
 Melchior. Ay, sir : 
 
 But softly ! Where, in the object we select, 
 Such love is, perchance, wanting ? 
 
 Valence. Then indeed, 310 
 
 What is it you can take ? 
 
 Melchior. Nay, ask the world ! 
 
 Youth, beauty, virtue, an illustrious name, 
 An influence o'er mankind. 
 
 Valence. When man perceives 
 
 Ah ! I can only speak as for myself! 
 
 The Duchess. Speak for yourself! 
 
 Valence, May I? no, I have spoken, 
 
 And time 's gone by. Had I seen such an one, 
 As I loved her weighing thoroughly that word 
 So should my task be to evolve her love ; 
 If for myself! if for another well. 
 
 Berthold. Heroic, truly ! And your sole reward 3 
 The secret pride in yielding up love's right? 
 
 Valence. Who thought upon reward ? And yet how much 
 Comes after oh ! what amplest recompense !
 
 ACT V. 181 
 
 Is the knowledge of her nought? the memory nought? 
 Lady, should such an one have looked on you, 
 Ne'er wrong yourself so far as quote the world 
 And say love can go unrequited here ! 
 You will have blessed him to his whole life's end 
 Low passions hindered, baser cares kept back, 
 All goodness cherished where you dwelt and dwell. 330 
 What would he have ? He holds you you, both form 
 And mind, in his where self-love makes such room 
 For love of you, he would not serve you now 
 The vulgar way repulse your enemies, 
 Win you new realms, or best, in saving old 
 Die blissfully that 's past so long ago ! 
 He wishes you no need, thought, care of him 
 Your good, by any means, himself unseen, 
 Away, forgotten ! He gives that life's task up, 
 As it were but this charge which I return 3*- 
 
 {Offers the requisition, which she takes. 
 Wishing your good. 
 
 The Duchess \having subscribed if\. And opportunely, sir 
 Since at a birthday's close, like this of mine, 
 Good wishes gentle deeds reciprocate. 
 Most on a wedding-day, as mine is too, 
 Should gifts be thought of: yours comes first by right. 
 Ask of me ! 
 
 Berthold. He shall have whate'er he asks, 
 For your sake and his own. 
 
 Valence \aside\ If I should ask 
 
 The withered bunch of flowers she wears perhaps, 
 One last touch of her hand, I never more 
 Shall see ! {After a pause, presenting his paper to the Prince. 
 Cleves' Prince, redress the wrongs of Cleves ! 35 o 
 
 Berthold. I will, sir. 
 
 The Duchess [as Valence prepares to retire]. Nay, do out 
 your duty first !
 
 l& 2 COLOMB&S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 You bore this paper; I have registered 
 
 My answer to it : read it and have done ! [ Valence reads it. 
 
 I take him give up Juliers and the world. 
 
 This is my Birthday. 
 
 Melchior. Berthold, my one hero 
 
 Of the world she gives up, one friend worth my books, 
 Sole man I think it pays the pains to watch 
 Speak, for I know you through your Popes and Kings ! 
 
 Berthold [after a pause\ Lady, well rewarded ! Sir, as 
 
 well deserved ! 
 
 I could not imitate I hardly envy 3*> 
 
 I do admire you. All is for the best. 
 Too costly a flower were this, I see it now, 
 To pluck and set upon my barren helm 
 To wither any garish plume will do. 
 I '11 not insult you and refuse your Duchy 
 You can so well afford to yield it me, 
 And I were left, without it, sadly off. 
 As it is for me if that will flatter you, 
 A somewhat wearier life seems to remain 
 Than I thought possible where Faith, their life 370 
 
 Begins already ! They 're too occupied 
 To listen ; and few words content me best. 
 [Abruptly to the Courtiers] I am your Duke, though ! Who 
 obey me here ? 
 
 The Duchess. Adolf and Sabyne, follow us 
 
 Guibert [starting from the Courtiers]. And I ? 
 
 Do I not follow them, if I may n't you ? 
 Shall not I get some little duties up 
 At Ravestein and emulate the rest ? 
 God save you, Gaucelme ! 'T is my Birthday, too ! 
 
 Berthold. You happy handful that remain with me 
 That is, with Dietrich the black Barnabite 380 
 
 I shall leave over you will earn your wages, 
 Or Dietrich has forgot to ply his trade !
 
 ACT V. 
 
 183 
 
 Meantime go copy me the precedents 
 Of every installation, proper styles 
 And pedigrees of all your Juliers' Dukes 
 While I prepare to plod on my old way, 
 And somewhat wearily, I must confess! 
 
 The Duchess [with a light joyous laugh as she turns from 
 them}. Come, Valence, to our friends, God's earth 
 
 Valence [as she falls into his arms]. And thee !
 
 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 ACT FIRST, 
 
 BEING WHAT WAS CALLED THE POETRY OF CHIAPPINO'S LIFE ; 
 AND ACT SECOND, ITS PROSE. 
 
 London, 1846.
 
 PERSONS. 
 
 LUITOLFO and EULALIA, betrothed lovers. 
 CHIAPPINO, their friend. 
 OGNIBEN, the Pope's Legate. 
 Citizens of Faenza. 
 
 PLACE, Fatiiza. 
 TIME, 15.
 
 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 ACT I. 
 Inside LuitoZfo's house. CHIAPPINO, EULALIA. 
 
 Eulalia. What is it keeps Luitolfo? Night 's fast falling, 
 And 't was scarce sunset had the ave-bell 
 Sounded before he sought the Provost's house ? 
 I think not : all he had to say would take 
 Few minutes, such a very few, to say ! 
 How do you think, Chiappino? If our lord 
 The Provost were less friendly to your friend 
 Than everybody here professes him, 
 I should begin to tremble should not you ? 
 Why are you silent when so many times 10 
 
 I turn and speak to you ? 
 
 Chiappino. That 's good ! 
 
 Eulalia. You laugh ? 
 
 Chiappino. Yes. I had fancied nothing that bears price 
 In the whole world was left to call my own ; 
 And, may be, felt a little pride thereat. 
 Up to a single man's or woman's love, 
 Down to the right in my own flesh and blood, 
 There's nothing mine, I fancied till you spoke ; 
 Counting, you see, as ' nothing ' the permission 
 To study this peculiar lot of mine 
 
 In silence: well, go silence with the rest *> 
 
 Of the world's good ! What can I say, shall serve ?
 
 1 88 A SOWS TRAGEDY. 
 
 Eulalia. This lest you, even more than needs, embitter 
 Our parting : say your wrongs have cast, for once, 
 A cloud across your spirit ! 
 
 Chiappino. How a cloud ? 
 
 Eulalia. No man nor woman loves you, did you say? 
 
 Chiappino. My God, were 't not for thee ! 
 
 Eulalia. Ay, God remains, 
 
 Even did men forsake you. 
 
 Chiappino. Oh, not so ! 
 
 Were 't not for God, I mean, what hope of truth 
 Speaking truth, hearing truth, would stay with man ? 
 I now the homeless, friendless, penniless, 3 
 
 Proscribed, and exiled wretch who speak to you 
 Ought to speak truth, yet could not, for my death 
 The thing that tempts me most help speaking lies 
 About your friendship and Luitolfo's courage 
 And all our townsfolk's equanimity 
 Through sheer incompetence to rid myself 
 Of the old, miserable, lying trick 
 Caught from the liars I have lived with God, 
 Did I not turn to thee ! It is thy prompting 
 I dare to be ashamed of, and thy counsel 4 
 
 Would die along my coward lip, I know. 
 But I do turn to thee. This craven tongue, 
 These features which refuse the soul its way, 
 Reclaim thou ! Give me truth truth, power to speak 
 And after be sole present to approve 
 The spoken truth ! Or, stay, that spoken truth, 
 Who knows but you too may approve ? 
 
 Eulalia. Ah, well 
 
 Keep silence then, Chiappino ! 
 
 Chiappino. You would hear, 
 
 You shall now why the thing we please to style 
 My gratitude to you and all your friends 50 
 
 For service done me, is just gratitude
 
 ACT /. 189 
 
 So mucli as yours was service and no more. 
 I was born here, so was Luitolfo ; both 
 At one time, much with the same circumstance 
 Of rank and wealth ; and both, up to this night 
 Of parting company, have side by side 
 Still fared, he in the sunshine I the shadow. 
 ' Why ?' asks the world. ' Because,' replies the world 
 To its complacent self, ' these playfellows, 
 \Vho took at church the holy-water drop <*> 
 
 Each from the other's finger, and so forth, 
 Were of two moods : Luitolfo was the proper 
 Friend-making, everywhere friend-finding soul, 
 Fit for the sunshine, so it followed him. 
 A happy-tempered bringer of the best 
 Out of the worst ; who bears with what 's past cure, 
 And puts so good a face on 't wisely passive 
 Where action 's fruitless, while he remedies 
 In silence what the foolish rail against ; 
 A man to smooth such natures as parade 70 
 
 Of opposition must exasperate ; 
 No general gauntlet-gatherer for the weak 
 Against the strong, yet over-scrupulous 
 At lucky junctures ; one who won't forego 
 The after-battle work of binding wounds, 
 Because, forsooth, he 'd have to bring himself 
 To side with wound-inflictors for their leave !' 
 Why do you gaze, nor help me to repeat 
 What comes so glibly from the common mouth, 
 About Luitolfo and his so-styled friend ? 80 
 
 Eitlalia. Because that friend's sense is obscured 
 Chiappino. I thought 
 
 You would be readier with the other half 
 Of the world's story, my half! Yet, 't is true, 
 For all the world does .say it. Say your worst ! 
 True, I thank God, I ever said ' you sin,'
 
 190 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 When a man did sin : if I could not say it, 
 
 I glared it at him ; if I could not glare it, 
 
 I prayed against him ; then my part seemed over. 
 
 God's may begin yet : so it will, I trust. 
 
 Eulalia. If the world outraged you, did we? 
 
 Chiappino. What 's ' me 
 
 That you use well or ill ? It 's man, in me, 
 All your successes are an outrage to, 
 You all, whom sunshine follows, as you say! 
 Here 's our Faenza birthplace ; they send here 
 A provost from Ravenna : how he rules, 
 You can at times be eloquent about. 
 ' Then, end his rule !' ' Ah, yes, one stroke does that ! 
 But patience under wrong works slow and sure. 
 Must violence still bring peace forth? He, beside, 
 Returns so blandly one's obeisance ! ah ! i 
 
 Some latent virtue may be lingering yet, 
 Some human sympathy which, once excite, 
 And all the lump were leavened quietly : 
 So, no more talk of striking, for this time !' 
 But I, as one of those he rules, won't bear 
 These pretty takings-up and layings-down 
 Our cause, just as you think occasion suits. 
 Enough of earnest, is there ? You '11 play, will you ? 
 Diversify your tactics, give submission, 
 Obsequiousness, and flattery a turn, " 
 
 While we die in our misery patient deaths? 
 We all are outraged then, and I the first : 
 I, for mankind, resent each shrug and smirk, 
 Each beck and bend, each all you do and are, 
 I hate ! 
 
 Eulalia. We share a common censure, then. 
 'T is well you have not poor Luitolfo's part 
 Nor mine to point out in the wide offence. 
 
 Chiappino. Oh ! shall I let you so escape me, lady ?
 
 ACT I. 191 
 
 Come, on your own ground, lady from yourself 
 
 Leaving the people's wrong, which most is mine 120 
 
 What have I got to be so grateful for ? 
 
 These three last fines, no doubt, one on the other 
 
 Paid by Luitolfo ? 
 
 Eulalia. Shame, Chiappino ! 
 
 Chiappino. Shame 
 
 Fall presently on who deserves it most ! 
 Which is to see. He paid my fines my friend, 
 Your prosperous smooth lover presently, 
 Then, scarce your wooer soon, your husband : well 
 I loved you. 
 
 Enlalia. Hold ! 
 
 Chiappino. You knew it, years ago. 
 
 When my voice faltered and my eye grew dim 
 Because you gave me your silk mask to hold 130 
 
 My voice that greatens when there 's need to curse 
 The people's Provost to their heart's content 
 My eye, the Provost, who bears all men's eyes, 
 Banishes now because he cannot bear 
 You knew but you do your parts my part, I : 
 So be it ! You flourish, I decay : all 's well. 
 
 Eulalia. I hear this for the first time. 
 
 Chiappino. The fault 's there ? 
 
 Then my days spoke not, and my nights of fire 
 Were voiceless? Then the very heart may burst, 
 Yet all prove nought, because no mincing speech 140 
 
 Tells leisurely that thus it is and thus? 
 Eulalia, truce with toying for this once ! 
 A banished fool, who troubles you to-night 
 For the last time why, what 's to fear from me ? 
 You knew I loved you ! 
 
 Eulalia. Not so, on my faith ! 
 
 You were my now-affianced lover's friend 
 Came in, went out with him, could speak as he.
 
 192 
 
 A SOUL'S 7 '/'./(; A /M-. 
 
 All praise your ready parts and pregnant wit ; 
 
 See how your words come from you in a crowd I 
 
 Luitolfo's first to place you o'er himself so 
 
 In all that challenges respect and love, 
 
 Yet you were silent then, who blame me now. 
 
 I say all this by fascination, sure : 
 
 I am all but wed to one I love, yet listen ! 
 
 It must be, you are wronged, and that the wrongs 
 
 Luitolfo pities 
 
 Chiappino. You too pity ? Do ! 
 But hear first what my wrongs are ; so began 
 This talk and so shall end this talk. I say, 
 Was 't not enough that I must strive I saw 
 To grow so far familiar with your charms 160 
 
 As next contrive some way to win them which 
 To do, an age seemed far too little for, see ! 
 We all aspire to heaven ; and there is heaven 
 Above us : go there ! Dare we go? no, surely! 
 How dare we go without a reverent pause, 
 A growing less unfit for heaven ? Even so, 
 I dared not speak : the greater fool, it seems ! 
 Was 't not enough to struggle with such folly, 
 But I must have, beside, the very man 
 
 Whose slight, free, loose, and incapacious soul 17^ 
 
 Gave his tongue scope to say whate'er he would 
 Must have him load me with his benefits 
 For fortune's fiercest stroke ? 
 
 Eulalia. Justice to him 
 
 That 's now entreating, at his risk perhaps, 
 Justice for you ! Did he once call those acts 
 Of simple friendship bounties, benefits? 
 
 Chiappino. No : the straight course had been to call them so. 
 Then, I had flung them back, and kept myself 
 Unhampered, free as he to win the prize 
 We both sought. But ' the gold was dross,' he said : 180
 
 ACT I. 
 
 '93 
 
 ' He loved me, and I loved him not : why spurn 
 
 A trifle out of superfluity? 
 
 He had forgotten he had done as much.' 
 
 So had not I ! Henceforth, try as I could 
 
 To take him at his word, there stood by you 
 
 My benefactor ; who might speak and laugh 
 
 And urge his nothings, even banter me 
 
 Before you but my tongue was tied. A dream 1 
 
 Let 's wake : your husband how you shake at that ! 
 
 Good my revenge ! 
 
 Eulalia. Why should I shake ? What forced 190 
 
 Or forces me to be Luitolfo's bride ? 
 
 Chiappino. There 's my revenge, that nothing forces you. 
 No gratitude, no liking of the eye 
 Nor longing of the heart, but the poor bond 
 Of habit here so many times he came, 
 So much he spoke all these compose the tie 
 That pulls you from me. Well, he paid my fines, 
 Nor missed a cloak from wardrobe, dish from table ; 
 He spoke a good word to the Provost here, 
 Held me up when my fortunes fell away aoo 
 
 It had not looked so well to let me drop 
 Men take pains to preserve a tree-stump, even, 
 Whose boughs they played beneath much more a friend. 
 But one'grows tired of seeing, after the first, 
 Pains spent upon impracticable stuff 
 Like me. I could not change : you know the rest. 
 I 've spoke my mind too fully out, by chance, 
 This morning to our Provost ; so ere night 
 I leave the city on pain ef death. And now 
 On my account there 's gallant intercession o 
 
 Goes forward that 's so graceful ; and anon 
 He Ml noisily come back : ' the intercession 
 Was made and fails ; all 's over for us both ; 
 'T is vain contending ; I would better go.' 
 '3
 
 194 
 
 A SOUL'S TA'.n;/-/n. 
 
 And I do go and straight to you he turns 
 
 Light of a load ; and ease of that permits 
 
 His visage to repair the natural bland 
 
 (Economy, sore broken late to suit 
 
 My discontent. Thus, all are pleased you with him, 
 
 Ho with himself, and all of you with me 220 
 
 ' Who,' say the citizens, 'had done far better 
 
 In letting people sleep upon their woes, 
 
 If not possessed with talent to relieve them 
 
 When once awake ; but then I had,' they '11 say, 
 
 ' Doubtless some unknown compensating pride 
 
 In what I did ; and as I seem content 
 
 With ruining myself, why, so should they be.' 
 
 And so they are, and so be with his prize 
 
 The devil, when he gets them speedily ! 
 
 Why does not your Luitolfo come ? I long 33 
 
 To don this cloak and take the Lugo path. 
 
 It seems you never loved me, then ? 
 
 Eulalia. Chiappino ! 
 
 Chiappino. Never? 
 
 Eulalia. Never. 
 
 Chiappino. That 's sad. Say what I might, 
 
 There was no help from being sure this while 
 You loved me. Love like mine must have return, 
 I thought : no river starts but to some sea. 
 And had you loved me, I could soon devise 
 Some specious reason why you stifled love, 
 Some fancied self-denial on your part, 
 
 Which made you choose Luitolfo ; so excepting 240 
 
 From the wide condemnation of all here 
 One woman. Well, the other dream may break ! 
 If I knew any heart, as mine loved you, 
 Loved me, though in the vilest breast 't were lodged, 
 I should, I think, be forced to love again : 
 Else there 's no right nor reason in the world.
 
 ACT I. 
 
 '95 
 
 Enlalia. 'If you knew,' say you but I did not know. 
 That 's where you 're blind, Chiappino ! a disease 
 Which if I may remove, I '11 not repent 
 The listening to. You cannot, will not, see 250 
 
 How, place you but in every circumstance 
 Of us you are just now indignant at, 
 You 'd be as we. 
 
 Chiappino, I should be? that again ! 
 
 I, to my friend, my country, and my love, 
 Be as Luitolfo and these Faentines ? 
 
 Eulalia. As we. 
 
 Chiappino. Now, I '11 say something to remember ! 
 
 I trust in nature for the stable laws 
 Of beauty and utility Spring shall plant, 
 And Autumn garner to the end of time : 
 I trust in God the right shall be the right =60 
 
 And other than the wrong, while he endures : 
 I trust in my own soul, that can perceive 
 The outward and the inward, nature's good 
 And God's: so, seeing these men and myself, 
 Having a right to speak, thus do I speak. 
 I '11 not curse God bears with them, well may I 
 But I protest against their claiming me. 
 I simply say, if that's allowable, 
 I would not broadly do as they have done. 
 God curse this townful of born slaves, bred slaves, 27 
 
 Branded into the blood and bone, slaves ! Curse 
 Whoever loves, above his liberty, 
 House, land, or life! and [a knocking without] bless .ny 
 
 hero-friend, 
 Luitolfo ! 
 
 Enlalia. How he knocks ! 
 
 Chinppino. The peril, lady ! 
 
 'Chiappino, I have run a risk a risk ! 
 For when I prayed the Provost he 's my friend
 
 I9 6 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 To grant you a week's respite of the sentence 
 That confiscates your goods, exiles yourself, 
 He shrugged his shoulder I say, shrugged it ! Yes, 
 And fright of that drove all else from my head. 280 
 
 Here 's a good purse of scudi : off with you, 
 Lest of that shrug come what God only knows ! 
 The scudi friend, they 're trash no thanks, I beg! 
 Take the north gate for San Vitale's suburb, 
 Whose double taxes you appealed against, 
 In discomposure at your ill-success 
 Is apt to stone you : there, there only go ! 
 Beside, Eulalia here looks sleepily. 
 Shake oh ! you hurt me, so you squeeze my wrist !' 
 Is it not thus you '11 speak, adventurous friend ? 290 
 
 [As he opens the door, Luitolfo rushes in, his garments 
 disordered. 
 
 Eulalia. Luitolfo ! Blood ? 
 
 Luitolfo. There 's more and more of it ! 
 
 Eulalia take the garment ! No you, friend ! 
 You take it and the blood from me you dare ! 
 
 Eulalia. Oh ! who har, hurt you ? where 's the wound ? 
 
 Chiappino. ' Who,' say you ? 
 
 The man with many a touch of virtue yet ! 
 The Provost's friend has proved too frank of speech, 
 And this comes of it. Miserable hound ! 
 This comes of temporizing, as I said ! 
 Here 's fruit of your smooth speeches and soft looks ! 
 Now see my way ! As God lives, I go straight 300 
 
 To the palace and do justice, once for all ! 
 
 Luitolfo. What says he ? 
 
 Chiappino. I '11 do justice on him. 
 
 Luitolfo. Him ? 
 
 Chiappino. The Provost. 
 
 Luitolfo. I Ve just killed him. 
 
 Eulalia. Oh ! my God !
 
 ACT I. 197 
 
 Luitolfo. My friend, they 're on my trace ; they '11 have 
 
 me now ! 
 
 They 're round him, busy with him : soon they '11 find 
 He 's past their help, and then they '11 be on me ! 
 Chiappino, save Eulalia ! I forget 
 Were you not bound for 
 
 Chiappino. Lugo ? 
 
 Luitolfo. Ah ! yes yes ! 
 
 That was the point I prayed of him to change. 
 Well, go be happy ! Is Eulalia safe ? 31 
 
 They 're on me ! 
 
 Chiappino. 'T is through me they reach you, then ! 
 Friend, seem the man you are ! Lock arms that 's 
 
 right ! 
 
 Now tell me what you 've done ; explain how you 
 That still professed forbearance, still preached peace, 
 Could bring yoursejf 
 
 Luitolfo. What was peace for, Chiappino? 
 
 I tried peace: did that promise, when peace failed, 
 Strife should not follow? All my peaceful days 
 Were just the prelude to a day like this. 
 I cried 'You call me "friend :'' save my true friend ! 
 Save him, or lose me !' 
 
 Chiappino. But you never said 3*> 
 
 You meant to tell the Provost thus and thus. 
 
 Luitolfo. Why should I say it? What else did I mean ? 
 
 Chiappino. Well ? He persisted ? 
 
 Luitolfo. ' Would so order it 
 
 You should not trouble him too soon again.' 
 I saw a meaning in his eye and lip ; 
 I poured my heart's store of indignant words 
 Out on him ; then I know not ! He retorted, 
 And I some staff lay there to hand I think 
 He bade his servants thrust me out I struck 
 Ah, they come ! Fly you, save yourselves, you two ! 330
 
 198 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 The dead back-weight of (he beheading axe ! 
 The glowing trip-hook, thumbscrews, and the gadge ! 
 Eulalia. They do come ! Torches in the place ! Farewell, 
 Chiappino! You can work no good to us 
 Much to yourself; believe not, all the world 
 Must needs be cursed henceforth ! 
 
 Chiappino. And you ? 
 
 Enlalia. I stay. 
 
 Chiappino. Ha, ha ! Now, listen ! I am master here ! 
 This was my coarse disguise ; this paper shows 
 My path of flight and place of refuge see 
 Lugo, Argenta, past San Nicolo, 340 
 
 Ferrara, then to Venice and all 's safe! 
 Put on the cloak ! His people have to fetch 
 A compass round about. There 's time enough 
 Ere they can reach us, so you straightway make 
 For Lugo nay, he hears not ! On with it 
 The cloak, Luitolfo, do you hear me ? See 
 He obeys he knows not how. Then, if I must 
 Answer me ! Do you know the Lugo gate? 
 
 Eulalia. The northwest gate, over the bridge ? 
 
 Luitolfo. I know. 
 
 Chiappino. Well, there you are not frightened? all my 
 route 350 
 
 Is traced in that ; at Venice you escape 
 Their power. Eulalia, I am master here ! 
 
 \Shouts from -without. He pushes out Luitolfo, who 
 
 complies mechanically. 
 In time ! Nay, help me with him so ! He 's gone. 
 
 Eulalia. What have you done ? On you, perchance, all 
 
 know 
 
 The Provost's hater, will men's vengeance fall 
 As our accomplice. 
 
 Chiappino. Mere accomplice ? See! 
 
 {Putting on Lui/olfo's vest.
 
 ACT I. 
 
 199 
 
 Now, lady, am I true to my profession, 
 Or one of these ? 
 
 Eulalia. You take Luitolfo's place ? 
 
 Chiappino. Die for him. 
 
 Eulalia. Well done ! [Shouts increase. 
 
 Chiappino. How the people tarry ! 
 
 I can't be silent : I must speak ; or sing 360 
 
 How natural to sing now ! 
 
 Eulalia. Hush and pray ! 
 
 We are to die ; but even I perceive 
 'T is not a very hard thing so to die. 
 My cousin of the pale-blue tearful eyes, 
 Poor Cesca, suffers more from one day's life 
 With the stern husband ; Tisbe's heart goes forth 
 Each evening after that wild son of hers, 
 To track his thoughtless footstep through the streets : 
 How easy for them both to die like this ! 
 I am not sure that I could live as they. 370 
 
 Chiappino. Here they come, crowds. They pass the gate? 
 
 Yes ! No ! 
 One torch is in the courtyard. Here flock all. 
 
 Eulalia. At least Luitolfo has escaped. What cries ! 
 
 Chiappino. If they would drag one to the market-place, 
 One might speak there ! 
 
 Eulalia. List, list ! 
 
 Chiappino. They mount the steps. 
 
 Enter the Populace. 
 
 Chiappino. I killed the Provost ! 
 
 The Populace \speaking together}. T was Chiappino, friends ! 
 Our saviour ! The best man at last as first ! 
 He who first made us feel what chains we wore, 
 He also strikes the blow ihat shatters them, 
 He ;it last saves us our best citizen ! 3 8o 
 
 Oh! have you only courage to speak now?
 
 2OO 
 
 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 My eldest son was christened a year since 
 
 'Cino' to keep Chiappino's name in mind 
 
 Cino, for shortness merely, you observe ! 
 
 The city 's in our hands. The guards are fled. 
 
 Do you, the cause of all, come down come up 
 
 Come out to counsel us, our chief, our king, 
 
 Whate'er rewards you ! Choose your own reward! 
 
 The peril over, its reward begins ! 
 
 Come and harangue us in the market-place ! 
 
 Eulalia. Chiappino? 
 
 Chiappino. Yes I understand your eyes ! 
 
 You think I should have promptlier disowned 
 This deed with its strange unforeseen success, 
 In favor of Luitolfo. But the peril, 
 So far from ended, hardly seems begun. 
 To-morrow, rather, when a calm succeeds, 
 We easily shall make him full amends ; 
 And meantime if we save them as they pray, 
 And justify the deed by its effects ? 
 
 Eulalia. You would, for worlds, you had denied at once. 
 
 Chiappino. I know my own intention, be assured ! 
 All 's well. Precede us, fellow-citizens ! 
 
 390
 
 ACT //. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 The Market-place. LUITOLFO in disguise mingling with the 
 Populace assembled opposite the Provost's Palace. 
 
 1 Bystander (to Luitolfo}. You, a friend of Luitolfo's? 
 Then, your friend is vanished in all probability killed on 
 the night that his patron the tyrannical Provost was loyally 
 suppressed here, exactly a month ago, by our illustrious fel- 
 low-citizen, thrice-noble saviour, and new Provost that is like 
 to be, this very morning Chiappino ! 
 
 Luitolfo. He the new Provost? 
 
 2 Bystander. Up those steps will he go, and beneath yon- 
 der pillar stand, while Ogniben, the Pope's Legate from Ra-' 
 venna, reads the new dignitary's title to the people, accord- 
 ing to established custom ; for which reason, there is the 
 assemblage you inquire about. 12 
 
 Luitolfo. Chiappino^the late Provost's successor? Im- 
 possible ! But tell me of that presently. What I would 
 know first of all is, wherefore Luitolfo must so necessarily 
 have been killed on that memorable night ? 
 
 3 Bystander. You were Luitolfo's friend ? So was I. Nev- 
 er, if you will credit me, did there exist so poor-spirited a 
 milksop. He, with all the opportunities in the world fur- 
 nished by daily converse with our oppressor, would not stir a 
 finger to help us; and when Chiappino rose in solitary maj- 
 esty and how does one go on saying? dealt the godlike 
 blow this Luitolfo, not unreasonably fearing the indignation 
 of an aroused and liberated people, lied precipitately. He 
 may have got trodden to death in the press at the soulhe.iM
 
 202 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 gate, when the Provost's guards fled through it to Ravenna 
 with their wounded master if he did not rather hang him- 
 self under some hedge. 28 
 
 Luitolfo. Or why not simply have lain perdue in some 
 quiet corner such as San Cassiano, where his estate was 
 receiving daily intelligence from some sure friend, meanwhile, 
 as to the turn matters were taking here how, for instance, 
 the Provost was not dead, after all, only wounded or, as to- 
 day's news would seem to prove, how Chiappino was not 
 Brutus the Elder, after all, only the new Provost and thus 
 Luitolfo be enabled to watch a favorable opportunity for re- 
 turning? Might it not have been so? 37 
 
 3 Bystander. Why, he may have taken that care of him- 
 self, certainly, for he came of a cautious stock. I '11 tell you 
 how his uncle, just such another gingerly treader on tip- 
 toes with finger on lip how he met his death in the great 
 plague-year : dicovobis ! Hearing that the seventeenth house 
 in a certain street was infected, he calculates to pass it in 
 safety by taking plentiful breath, say, when he shall arrive at 
 the eleventh house ; then scouring by, holding that breath, 
 till he be got so far on the other side as number twenty- 
 three, and thus elude the danger. And so did he begin ; 
 but, as he arrived at thirteen, we will say thinking to im- 
 prove on his precaution by putting up a little prayer to St. 
 Nepomucene of Prague, this exhausted so much of his lungs' 
 reserve, that at sixteen it was clean spent consequently at 
 the fatal seventeen he inhaled with a vigor and persistence 
 enough to suck you any latent venom out of the heart of a 
 stone Ha, ha! 54 
 
 Luitolfo [aside]. If I had not lent that man the money he 
 wanted last spring, I should fear this bitterness was attribu- 
 table to me. Luitolfo is dead then, one may conclude? 
 
 3 Bystander. Why, he had a house here, and a woman if) 
 whom he was affianced ; and as they both pass naturally to 
 the new Provost, his friend and heir
 
 ACT II. 
 
 203 
 
 Luiiolfo. Ah ! I suspected you of imposing on me with your 
 pleasantry! I know Chiappino better. 6 2 
 
 i Bystander \aside\. Our friend has the bile ! After all, I do 
 not dislike finding somebody vary a little this general gape 
 of admiration at Chiappino's glorious qualities. Pray, how 
 much may you know of what has taken place in Faenza 
 since that memorable night ? 
 
 Luitolfo. It is most to the purpose that I know Chiappino 
 to have been by profession a hater of that very office of Pro- 
 vost you now charge him with proposing to accept. 7 
 
 i Bystander. Sir, I '11 tell you. That night was indeed 
 memorable. Up we rose, a mass of us, men, women, chil- 
 dren ; out fled the guards with the body of the tyrant ; we 
 were to defy the world: but, next gray morning, 'What will 
 Rome say?' began everybody. You know we are governed 
 by Ravenna, which is governed by Rome. And quietly into 
 the town, by the Ravenna road, comes on mule-back a portly 
 personage, Ogniben by name, with the quality of Pontifical 
 Legate ; trots briskly through the streets humming a ' Cur 
 jremuere gentesj and makes directly for the Provost's Pal- 
 ace there it faces you. ' One Messer Chiappino is your 
 leader? I have known three-and-twenty leaders of revolts!' 
 laughing gently to himself ' Give me the help of your arm 
 from my mule to yonder steps under the pillar So! And 
 now, my revolters and good friends, what do you want ? The 
 guards burst into Ravenna last night bearing your wounded 
 Provost ; and, having had a little talk with him, I take on 
 myself to come and try appease the disorderliness, before 
 Rome, hearing of it, resort to another method : 't is I corne, 
 and not another, from a certain love I confess to, of compos- 
 ing differences. So, do you understand, you are about to 
 experience this unheard-of tyranny from me, that there shall 
 be no heading nor hanging, no confiscation nor exile : I insist 
 on your simply pleasing yourselves. And now, pray, what 
 does please you? To live without any government at all?
 
 204 
 
 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 Or having decided for one, to see its minister murdered by 
 the first of your body that chooses to find himself wronged, 
 or disposed for reverting to first principles and a justice an 
 terior to all institutions and so will you carry matters that 
 the rest of the world must at length unite and put down such 
 a den of wild beasts? As for vengeance on what has just 
 taken place once for all, the wounded man assures me he 
 cannot conjecture who struck him ; and this so earnestly 
 that one may be sure he knows perfectly well what intimate 
 acquaintance could find admission to speak with him late 
 last evening. I come not for vengeance therefore, but from 
 pure curiosity to hear what yoi^ will do next.' And thus he 
 ran on, on, easily and volubly, till he seemed to arrive quite 
 naturally at the praise of law, order, and paternal government 
 by somebody from rather a distance. All our citizens were 
 in the snare, and about to be friends with so congenial an 
 adviser ; but that Chiappino suddenly stood forth, spoke out 
 indignantly, and set things right again. 113 
 
 Luitolfo. Do you see ? I recognize him there ! 
 
 3 Bystander. Ay, but, mark you, at the end of Chiappino's 
 longest period in praise of a pure republic ' And by whom 
 do I desire such a government should be administered, per- 
 haps, but by one like yourself?' returns the Legate ; there- 
 upon speaking for a quarter of an hour together, on the nat- 
 ural and only legitimate government by the best and wisest. 
 And it should seem there was soon discovered to be no such 
 vast discrepancy at bottom between this and Chiappino's 
 theory, place but each in its proper light. ' Oh ! are you 
 there?' quoth Chiappino: 'Ay, in that, I agree,' returns Chi- 
 appino : and so on. 125 
 
 Luitolfo. But did Chiappino cede at once to this? 
 
 i Hystander. Why, not altogether at once. For instance, 
 he said that the difference between him and all his fellows 
 was, that they seemed all wishing to be kings in one or an- 
 other way ' whereas what right,' asked he, ' has any man to
 
 ACT II. 205 
 
 wish to be superior to another ?' whereat, ' Ah, sir,' answers 
 the Legate, ' this is the death of me, so often as I expect 
 something is really going to be revealed to us by you clearer- 
 seers, deeper-thinkers this that your right-hand to speak 
 by a figure should be found taking up the weapon it dis- 
 played so ostentatiously, not to destroy any dragon in our 
 path, as was prophesied, but simply to cut off its own fellow 
 left-hand ; yourself set about attacking yourself. For see 
 now! Here are you who, I make sure, glory exceedingly in 
 knowing the noble nature of the soul, its divine impulses, 
 and so forth ; and with such a knowledge you stand, as it 
 were, armed to encounter the natural doubts and fears as to 
 that same inherent nobility which are apt to waylay us, the 
 weaker ones, in the road of life. And when \ve look eagerly 
 to see them fall before you, lo, round you wheel, only the left- 
 hand gets the blow; one proof of the soul's nobility destroys 
 simply another proof, quite a's good, of the same, for you are 
 found delivering an opinion like this ! Why, what is this 
 perpetual yearning to exceed, to subdue, to be better than, 
 and a king over, one's fellows all that you so disclaim but 
 the very tendency yourself are most proud of, and under an- 
 other form, would oppose to it only in a lower stage of man- 
 ifestation ? You don't want to be vulgarly superior to your 
 fellows after their poor fashion to have me hold solemnly 
 up your gown's tail, or hand you an express of the last im- 
 portance from the Pope, with all these bystanders noticing 
 how unconcerned you look the while ; but neither does our 
 gaping friend, the burgess yonder, want the other kind of 
 kingship, that consists in understanding better than his fel- 
 lows this and similar points of human nature, nor to roll un- 
 der his tongue this sweeter morsel still the feeling that, 
 through immense philosophy, he does not feel, he rather 
 thinks, above you and me!' And so chatting, they glided 
 off arm in-arm. .64 
 
 LuitoIJo. And the result is
 
 2 o6 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 i Bystander. Why that, a month having gone by, the indom- 
 itable Chiappino, marrying as he will Luitolfo's love at all 
 events succeeding to Luitolfo's wealth becomes the first in- 
 habitant of Faenza, and a proper aspirant to the Provostship ; 
 which we assemble here to see conferred on him this morning. 
 The Legate's Guard to clear the way ! He will follow presently. 
 
 Luitolfo \withdrawing a tittle]. I understand the drift of 
 Eulalia's communications less than ever. Yet she surely 
 said, in so many words, that Chiappino was in urgent danger : 
 wherefore, disregarding her injunction to continue in my re- 
 treat and await the result of, what she called, some experi- 
 ment yet in process I hastened here without her leave or 
 knowledge : what could I else? But if this they say be true 
 if it were for such a purpose, she and Chiappino kept me 
 away Oh, no, no ! I must confront him and her before 
 I believe this of them. And at the word, see ! 181 
 
 Enter CHIAPPINO and EULALIA. 
 
 Eulalia. We part here, then ? The change in your prin- 
 ciples would seem to be complete. 
 
 Chiappino. Now, why refuse to see that in my present 
 course I change no principles, only re-adapt them and more 
 adroitly? I had despaired of what you may call the mate- 
 rial instrumentality of life, of ever being able to rightly op- 
 erate on mankind through such a deranged machinery as the 
 existing modes of government ; but now, if I suddenly dis- 
 cover how to inform these perverted institutions with fresh 
 purpose, bring the functionary limbs once more into imme- 
 diate communication with, and subjection to, the soul I am 
 about to bestow on them do you see ? Why should one 
 desire to invent, as long as it remains possible to renew and 
 transform ? When all further hope of the old organization 
 shall be extinct, then, I grant you, it may be time to try and 
 create another. 197 
 
 Eulalia. And there being discoverable some hope yet in
 
 ACT If. 
 
 207 
 
 the hitherto much-abused old system of absolute government 
 by a Provost here, you mean to take your time about en- 
 deavoring to realize those visions of a perfect State we once 
 heard of? 2 2 
 
 Chiappino. Say, I would fain realize my conception of a 
 palace, for instance, and that there is, abstractedly, but a sin- 
 gle way of erecting one perfectly. Here, in the market-place 
 is my allotted building-ground ; here I stand without a stone 
 to lay, or a laborer to help me stand, too, during a short 
 day of life, close on which the night comes. On the other 
 hand, circumstances suddenly offer me turn and see it the 
 old Provost's house to experiment upon ruinous, if you 
 please, wrongly constructed at the beginning, and ready to 
 tumble now. But materials abound, a crowd of workmen 
 offer their services ; here exists yet a hall of audience of 
 originally noble proportions, there a guest-chamber of sym- 
 metrical design enough: and I may restore, enlarge, abolish, 
 or unite these to heart's content. Ought I not make the 
 best of such an opportunity, rather than continue to gaze dis- 
 consolately with folded arms on the flat pavement here, 
 while the sun goes slowly down, never to rise again ? Since 
 you cannot understand this nor me, it is better we should 
 part as you desire. 221 
 
 Eulalia. So, the love breaks away too ! 
 
 Chiappino. No, rather my soul's capacity for love widens 
 needs more than one object to content'it and, being better 
 instructed, will not persist in seeing all the component parts 
 of love in what is only a single part nor in finding that so 
 many and so various loves are all united in the love of a 
 woman manifold uses in one instrument, as the savage has 
 his sword, sceptre, and idol, all in one club-stick. Love is a 
 very compound thing. The intellectual part of my love I 
 shall give to men, the mighty dead or the illustrious living, 
 and determine to call a mere sensual instinct by as few fine 
 names as possible. What do I lose ? 233
 
 2 o8 A SOUL'S TRAGKDY. 
 
 Nay, I only think, what do I lose? and, one more 
 word which shall complete my instruction does friendship 
 go too ? What of Luitolfo, the author of your present pros- 
 perity ? 
 
 Chiappino. How the author? 
 
 Eulalia. That blow now called yours 39 
 
 Chiappino. Struck without principle or purpose, as by a 
 blind natural operation ; yet to which all my thought and 
 life directly and advisedly tended. I would have struck it, 
 and could not ; he would have done his utmost to avoid 
 striking it, yet did so. I dispute his right to that deed of 
 mine a final action with him, from the first effect of which 
 he fled away a mere first step with me, on which I base a 
 whole mighty superstructure of good to follow. Could he 
 get good from it ? 
 
 Eulalia. So we profess, so we perform ! 
 
 Enter OGNIBEN. EULALIA stands apart. 
 
 Ogniben. I have seen three-and-twenty leaders of revolts ! 
 By your leave, sir ! Perform ? What does the lady say of 
 performing? 252 
 
 Chiappino. Only the trite saying, that we must not trust 
 profession, only performance. 
 
 Ogniben. She '11 not say that, sir, when she knows you 
 longer ; you '11 instruct her better. Ever judge of men by 
 their professions! For though the bright moment of prom- 
 ising is but a moment and cannot be prolonged, yet, if sin- 
 cere in its moment's extravagant goodness, why, trust it and 
 know the man by it, I say not by his performance ; which 
 is half the world's work, interfere as the world needs must, 
 with its accidents and circumstances: the profession was 
 purely the man's own. I judge people by what they might 
 be not are, nor will be. 264 
 
 Chiappino. But have there not been found, too, performing 
 natures, not merely promising ?
 
 ACT II. 209 
 
 Ogniben. Plenty. Little Binclo of our town, for instance, 
 promised his friend, great ugly Masaccio, once, ' I will repay 
 you !' for a favor done him. So, when his father came to 
 die, and Bindo succeeded to the inheritance, he sends straight- 
 way for Masaccio and shares alj with him gives him half 
 the land, half the money, half the kegs of wine in the cellar. 
 'Good ' say you ; and it is good. But had little Bindo found 
 himself possessor of all this wealth some five years before 
 on the happy night when Masaccio procured him that inter- 
 view in the garden with his pretty cousin Lisa instead of 
 being the beggar he then was I am bound to believe that 
 in the warm moment of promise he would have given away 
 all the wine-kegs and all the money and all the land, and 
 only reserved to himself some hut on a hill -top hard by, 
 whence he might spend his life in looking and seeing his 
 friend enjoy himself: he meant fully that much, but the 
 world interfered. To our business ! Did I understand you 
 just now within-doors ? You are not going to marry your 
 old friend's love, after all ? 285 
 
 Chiappino. I must have a woman that can sympathize 
 with and appreciate me, I told you. 
 
 Ogniben. Oh, I remember ! you, the greater nature, needs 
 must have a lesser one avowedly lesser contest with you 
 on that score would never do such a nature must compre- 
 hend you, as the phrase is, accompany and testify of your 
 greatness from point to point onward. Why, that were be- 
 ing not merely as great as yourself, but greater considera- 
 bly! Meantime, might not the more bounded nature as rea- 
 sonably count on your appreciation of it, rather? on your 
 keeping close by it, so far as you both go together, and then 
 going on by yourself as far as you please ? Thus God serves 
 
 US. 298 
 
 Chiappino. And yet a woman that could understand the 
 whole of me, to whom I could reveal alike the strength and 
 the weakness
 
 210 A SOUL J S TRAGEDY. 
 
 Ogniben. Ah! my friend, wisli for nothing so foolish ! Wor- 
 ship your love, give her the best of you to see ; be to her 
 like the western lands they bring us such strange news of 
 to the Spanish Court ; send her only your lumps of gold, 
 fans of feathers, your spirit-like birds and fruits and gems ! 
 So shall you, what is unseen of you, be supposed altogether 
 a paradise by her as these western lands by Spain : though 
 I warrant there is filth, red baboons, ugly reptiles, and squalor 
 enough, which they bring Spain as few samples of as possi- 
 ble. Do you want your mispress to respect your body gen- 
 erally? Offer her your mouth to kiss; don't strip off your 
 boot and put your foot to her lips ! You understand my hu- 
 mor by this time ! I help men to cany out their own prin- 
 ciples : if they please to say two and two make five, I assent, 
 so they will but go on and say four and four make ten. 316 
 
 Chiappino. But these are my private affairs ; what I desire 
 you to occupy yourself about, is my public appearance pres- 
 ently : for when the people hear that I am appointed Prov- 
 ost, though you and I may thoroughly discern and easily, 
 too the right principle at bottom of such a movement, and 
 how my republicanism remains thoroughly unaltered, only 
 takes a form of expression hitherto commonly judged and 
 heretofore by myself incompatible with its existence when 
 thus I reconcile myself to an old form of government instead 
 of proposing a new one 326 
 
 Ogniben. Why, you must deal with people broadly. Begin 
 at a distance from this matter and say New truths, old 
 truths ! sirs, there is nothing new possible to be revealed to 
 us in the moral world; we know all we shall ever know: 
 and it is for simply reminding us. by their various respective 
 expedients, how we do know this and the other matter, that 
 men get called prophets, poets, and the like. A philoso- 
 pher's life is spent in discovering that, of the half-dozen 
 truths he knew when a child, such an one is a lie, as the 
 world states it in set terms; and then, after a weary lapse
 
 ACT //. 211 
 
 of years, and plenty of hard-thinking, it becomes a truth 
 again after all, as he happens to newly consider it and view 
 it in a different relation with the others : and so he restates 
 it, to the confusion of somebody else in good time. As for 
 adding to the original stock of truths impossible ! Thus, 
 you see the expression of them is the grand business : you 
 have got a truth in your head about the right way of govern- 
 ing people, and you took a mode of expressing it which now 
 you confess to be imperfect. But what then ? There is 
 truth in falsehood, falsehood in truth. No man ever told 
 one great truth, that I know, without the help of a good 
 dozen of lies at least, generally unconscious ones. And as 
 when a child comes in breathlessly and relates a strange 
 story, you try to conjecture from the very, falsities in it what 
 the reality was do not conclude that he saw nothing in the 
 sky, because he assuredly did not see a flying horse there as 
 he says so, through the contradictory expression, do you 
 see, men should look painfully for, and trust to arrive eventu- 
 ally at, what you call the true principle at bottom. Ah, what 
 an answer is there! to what will it not prove applicable? 
 ' Contradictions ? Of course there were,' say you ! 
 
 Chiappino. Still, the world at large may call it inconsist- 
 ency, and what shall I urge in reply ? 359 
 
 Ogniben. Why, look you, when they tax you with tergiver- 
 sation or duplicity, you may answer you begin to perceive 
 that, when all 's done and said, both great parties in the 
 State, the advocators of change in the present system of 
 things, and the opponents of it, patriot and anti-patriot, are 
 found working together for the common good ; and that in 
 the midst of their efforts for and against its progress, the 
 world somehow or other still advances : to which result they 
 contribute in equal proportions, those who spend their life 
 in pushing it onward, as those who give theirs to the busi- 
 ness of pulling it back. Now, if you found the world stand 
 still between the opposite forces, and were gl;id, I should
 
 2i2 ^ SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 conceive you ; but it steadily advances, you rejgice to see ! 
 By the side of such a rejoicer, the man who only winks as he 
 keeps cunning and quiet, and says, 'Let yonder hot-headed 
 fellow fight out my battle ! I, for one, shall win in the end 
 by the blows he gives, and which I ought to be giving '- 
 even he seems graceful in his avowal, when one considers 
 that he might say, ' I shall win quite as much by the blows 
 our antagonist gives him, blows from which he saves me I 
 thank the antagonist equally !' Moreover, you may enlarge 
 on the loss of the edge of party-animosity with age and ex- 
 perience 382 
 
 Chiappino. And naturally time must wear off such asperi- 
 ties: the bitterest adversaries 'get to discover certain points 
 of similarity between each other, common sympathies do 
 they not ? 
 
 Ogniben. Ay, had the young David but sat first to dine 
 on his cheeses with the Philistine, he had soon discovered 
 an abundance of such common sympathies. He of Gath, it 
 is recorded, was born of a father and mother, had brothers 
 and sisters like another man they, no more than the sons 
 of Jesse, were used to eat each other. But, for the sake of 
 one broad antipathy that had existed from the beginning, 
 David slung the stone, cut off the giant's head, made a spoil 
 of it, and after ate his cheeses alone, with the better appetite, 
 for all I can learn. My friend, as you, with a quickened eye- 
 sight, go on discovering much good on the worse side, re- 
 member that the same process should proportionably mag- 
 nify and demonstrate to you the much more good on the 
 better side ! And when I profess no sympathy for the Goli- 
 aths of our time, and you object that a large nature should 
 sympathize with every form of intelligence, and see the good 
 in it, however limited I answer, ' So I do , but preserve the 
 proportions of my sympathy, however finelier or wiclelier I 
 may extend its action.' I desire to be able, with a quick- 
 ened eyesight, to descry beauty in corruption where others
 
 ACT //. 
 
 213 
 
 see foulness only ; but I hope I shall also continue to see a 
 redoubled beauty in the higher forms of matter, where al- 
 ready everybody sees no foulness at all. I must retain, too, 
 my old power of selection, and choice of appropriation, to 
 apply to such new gifts ; else they only dazzle instead of en- 
 lightening me. God has his archangels and, consorts with 
 them ; though he made too, and intimately sees what is good 
 in, the worm. Observe, I speak only as you profess to think 
 and so ought to speak ; I do justice to your own principles, 
 that is all. 416 
 
 Chiappino. But you very well know that the two parties 
 do, on occasion, assume each other's characteristics. What 
 more disgusting, for instance, than to see how promptly the 
 newly emancipated slave will adopt, in his own favor, the 
 very measures of precaution which pressed soreliest on him- 
 self as institutions of the tyranny he has just escaped from? 
 Do the classes, hitherto without opinion, get leave to express 
 it? there follows a confederacy immediately, from which 
 exercise your individual right and dissent, and woe be to you ! 
 
 Ognibeii. And a journey over the sea to you ! That is the 
 generous way. Cry ' Emancipated slaves, the first excess, 
 and off I go!' The first time a poor devil, who has been 
 bastinadoed steadily his whole life long, finds himself let 
 alone and able to legislate, so, begins pettishly, while he rubs 
 his soles, 'Woe be to whoever brings anything in the shape 
 of a stick this way !' you, rather than give up the very inno- 
 cent pleasure of carrying one to switch flies with you go 
 away, to everybody's sorrow. Yet you were quite reconciled 
 to staying at home while the governors used to pass, every 
 now and then, some such edict as ' Let no man indulge in 
 owning a stick which is not thick enough to chastise our 
 slaves, if need require !' Well, there are preordained hie- 
 rarchies among us, and a profane vulgar subjected to a dif- 
 ferent law altogether ; yet I am rather sorry you should see 
 it so clearly: for, do you know what is to all but save you
 
 214 
 
 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 at the Day of Judgment, all you men of genius? It is this? 
 that, while you generally began by pulling down God, and 
 went on to the end of your life in one effort at setting up 
 your own genius in his place still, the last, bitterest conces- 
 sion, wrung with the utmost unwillingness from the experi- 
 ence of the very loftiest of you, was invariably would one 
 think it? that the rest of mankind, clown to the lowest of 
 the mass, stood not, nor ever could stand, just on a level and 
 equality with yourselves. That will be a point in the favor 
 of all such, I hope and believe. 451 
 
 Chiappino. Why, men of genius are generally charged, I 
 think, with doing just the reverse ; and at once acknowledg- 
 ing the natural inequality of mankind, by themselves partici- 
 pating in the universal craving after, and deference to, the 
 civil distinctions which represent it. You wonder they pay 
 such undue respect to titles and badges of superior rank. 
 
 Ogniben. Not I always on your own ground and show- 
 ing, be it noted ! Who doubts that, with a weapon to bran- 
 dish, a man is the more formidable ? Titles and badges are 
 exercised as such a weapon, to which you and I look up 
 wistfully. We could pin lions with it moreover, while in its 
 present owner's hands it hardly prods rats. Nay, better 
 than a mere weapon of easy mastery and obvious use, it is a 
 mysterious divining-rod that may serve us in undreamed-of 
 ways. Beauty, strength, intellect men often have none of 
 these, and yet conceive pretty accurately what kind of advan- 
 tages they would bestow on the possessor. We know at 
 least what it is we make up our mind to forego, and so can 
 apply the fittest substitute in our power. Wanting beauty, 
 we cultivate good -humor; missing wit, we get riches: but 
 the mystic unimaginable operation of that gold collar and 
 string of Latin names which suddenly turned poor, stupid, 
 little, peevish Cecco of our town into natural lord of the best 
 of us a Duke he is now there indeed is a virtue to be 
 reverenced !
 
 ACT If. 
 
 215 
 
 Chiappino. Ay, by the vulgar ; not by Messere Stiatta the 
 poet, who pays more assiduous court to him than anybody. 
 
 Ogniben. What else should Stiatta pay court to? He has 
 talent, not honor and riches : men naturally covet what they 
 have not. 
 
 Chiappino. No, or Cecco would covet talent, which he has 
 not, whereas he covets more riches, of which he has plenty 
 already. 484 
 
 Ogniben. Because a purse added to a purse makes the 
 holder twice as rich ; but just such another talent as Stiat- 
 ta's, added to what he now possesses, what would that profit 
 him ? Give the talent a purse indeed, to do something with ! 
 But lo, how we keep the good people waiting! I only de- 
 sired to do justice to the noble sentiments which animate 
 you. and which you are too modest to duly enforce. Come, 
 to our main business: shall we ascend the steps? I am go- 
 ing to propose you for Provost to the people; they know 
 your antecedents, and will accept you with a joyful unanim- 
 ity : whereon I confirm their choice. Rouse up ! Are you 
 nerving yourself to an effort? Beware the disaster of Mes- 
 sere Stiatta we were talking of who, determining to keep 
 an equal mind and constant face on whatever might be the 
 fortune of his last new poem with our townsmen, heard too 
 plainly 'hiss, hiss, hiss,' increase every moment; till at last 
 the man fell senseless not perceiving that the portentous 
 sounds had all the while been issuing from between his own 
 nobly clenched teeth and nostrils narrowed by resolve. s3 
 
 Chiappino. Do you begin to throw off the mask? to jest 
 with me, having got me effectually into your trap? 
 
 Ogniben. Where is the trap, my friend ? You hear what I 
 engage to do, for my part ; you, for yours, have only to fulfil 
 your promise made just now within doors, of professing un- 
 limited obedience to Rome's authority in my person. And 
 I shall atithori/e no more than the simple re-establishment 
 of the Provostship and the conferment of its privileges upon
 
 216 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 yourself; the only novel stipulation being a birth of the pe- 
 culiar circumstances of the time. 
 
 Chiappino. And that stipulation ? 
 
 Ogniben. Just the obvious one that in the event of the 
 discovery of the actual assailant of the late Provost 
 
 Chiappino. Ha ! 
 
 Ogniben. Why, he shall suffer the proper penalty, of course ; 
 what did you expect? 
 
 Chiappino. Who heard of this? 520 
 
 Ogniben. Rather, who needed to hear of this ? 
 
 Chiappino. Can it be, the popular rumor never reached 
 you 
 
 Ogniben. Many more such rumors reach me, friend, than 
 I choose to receive ; those which wait longest have best 
 chance. Has the present one sufficiently waited ? Now is 
 its time for entry with effect. See the good people crowding 
 about yonder palace-steps which we may not have to as- 
 cend, after all ! My good friends ! nay, two or three of you 
 will answer every purpose who was it fell upon and proved 
 nearly the death of your late Provost ? His successor desires 
 to hear, that his day of inauguration may be graced by the 
 act of prompt, bare justice we all anticipate. Who dealt 
 the blow that night, does anybody know ? 
 
 Luitolfo \coming forward}. I ! 535 
 
 All. Luitolfo! 
 
 Luitolfo. 1 avow the deed, justify and approve it, and 
 stand forth now, to relieve my friend of an unearned re- 
 sponsibility. Having taken thought, I am grown stronger; 
 I shall shrink from nothing that awaits me. Nay, Chiappi- 
 no we are friends still : I dare say there is some proof of 
 your superior nature in this starting aside, strange as it 
 seemed at first. So, they tell me, my horse is of the right 
 stock, because a shadow in the path frightens him into 
 a frenzy, makes him dash my brains out. I understand 
 only the dull mule's way of standing stockishly, plodding
 
 ACT //. 
 
 217 
 
 soberly, suffering on occasion a blow or two with due pa- 
 tience. 
 
 Eulalia. I was determined to justify my choice, Chiappi- 
 no ; to let Luitolfo's nature vindicate itself. Henceforth we 
 are undivided, whatever be our fortune. s$' 
 
 Ogniben. Now, in these last ten minutes of silence, what 
 have I been doing, deem you? Putting the finishing stroke 
 to a homily of mine, I have long taken thought to perfect, on 
 the text, ' Let whoso thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he 
 fall.' To your house, Luitolfo! Still silent, my patriotic 
 friend? Well, that is a good sign, however. And you will 
 go aside for a time? That is better still. I understand : it 
 would be easy for you to die of remorse here on the spot 
 and shock us all, but you mean to live and grow worthy of 
 coming back to us one day. There, I will tell everybody; 
 and you only do right to believe you must get better as you 
 get older. All men do so : they are worst in childhood, im- 
 prove in manhood, and get ready in old age for another 
 world. Youth, with its beauty and grace, would seem be- 
 stowed on us for some such reason as to make us partly en- 
 durable till we have time for really becoming so of ourselves, 
 without their aid, when they leave us. The sweetest child 
 we all smile on for his pleasant want of the whole world to 
 break up, or suck in his mouth, seeing no other good in it 
 would be rudely handled by that world's inhabitants, if he 
 retained those angelic infantine desires when he had grown 
 six feet high, black and bearded. Hut, little by little, he sees 
 fit to forego claim after claim on the world, puts up with a 
 less and less share of its good as his proper portion ; and 
 when the octogenarian asks barely a sup of gruel and a fire 
 of dry sticks, and thanks you as for his full allowance and 
 right in the common good of life hoping nobody may mur- 
 der him he \\li> l>ri;.m by asking and expecting the whole 
 of us to bow down in worship to him why, I say he is ad- 
 vanced, far onward, very far, nearly out of sight like our
 
 213 
 
 SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 friend Chiappino yonder. And now ay, good-bye to you ! 
 He turns round the northwest gate : going to Lugo again? 
 Good-bye ! And now give thanks to God, the keys of the 
 Provost's palace to me, and yourselves to profitable medita- 
 tion at home.' I have known four- and -twenty leaders of 
 revolts. 587
 
 NOTES.
 
 ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES. 
 
 Cf (confer), compare. 
 F^-> following. 
 Id. (idem), the same. 
 
 AVw Eng. Diet., the Philological Society's New English Dictionary, edited by 
 Murray (Oxford, 1885). 
 Prol., prologue. 
 
 Skeat, Rev. W. W. Skeat's Etymological Dictionti v (London, 1881). 
 Wb., Webster's Dictionary (revised quarto ed.). 
 
 The abbreviations of the names of Shakespeare's plays will be readily understood. 
 The line-numbers are those of the " Globe " ed.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 A Blot in the 'Scutcheon was first published in 1843 as No. V. of Bells 
 and Pomegranates. It was written in five days, and has been but slight- 
 ly modified in the more recent editions. The alterations are given in the 
 notes below. 
 
 The play has had three great presentations on the stage. The first 
 was in February, 1843, at the Drury Lane Theatre in London, when it 
 ran about a week. Mr. Phelps played the part of Tresham, Miss Helen 
 Faucit that of Mildred, and Mr. Anderson that of Mertoun. The Exam- 
 iner declares all the characters to have been underacted. This is easily 
 conceivable, considering the key in which the piece is set. On Novem- 
 ber 27, 1848, Mr. Phelps revived the play at Sadler's Wells. The cast 
 this time included Mr. Phelps, Miss Cooper, and Mr. Dickinson as the 
 principal trio, and Miss Huldart and Mr. Graham as Guendolen and 
 Gerard. The piece had a run of two weeks, and is said to have been 
 excellently mounted and well acted. 
 
 But the production which will have most interest for American readers 
 is that by Mr. Lawrence Barrett at Washington in the winter of 1885. His 
 version of the play opens with the second scene. The first scene among 
 the retainers seems quite in Shakespeare's manner, but the modern audi- 
 ence brooks no delay in getting at the plot. So Mr. Barrett takes us at 
 once to the formal reception of Mertoun. For the assumption of the 
 leading r61es, see p. 14 above. Mr. Barrett himself took the part of 
 Tresham. The "cuts" and other alterations will be indicated in the 
 notes. 
 
 No one who has seen the play under Mr. Barrett's management but 
 must confess that it has some fine acting qualities. The great stage 
 point is, however, the device of Mr. Barrett rather than of Mr. Browning. 
 See on iii. 2. 56 below. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 SCENK I. In the stage-direction, the 1st ed. has "GKRARD, (he War- 
 rener, sitting alone, his back" etc. 
 4. J'oursuivant. Herald or messenger ; also spelt pursuivant. Cf.
 
 222 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 Shakespeare, I Hen. VI. ii. 5. 5 : " these grey locks, the pursuivants of 
 death," etc. 
 
 13. Bravery. Finery ; the familiar old sense. Cf. Shakespeare, T. 
 of S. iv. 3. 57: " With scarfs and fans and double change of bravery," 
 etc. See also p. 237 below, note on 341. 
 
 29. Your hawks. This allusion to falconry would tend to fix the time 
 of the play in the first quarter of the i8th century. Trie ancient art, after 
 declining 'in the I7th, was revived in the early part of the l8th, but was 
 given up about 1725. 
 
 42. Holidays. The ist ed. has " holy days." 
 
 44. Cast of hawks. Couple of hawks. Cast is used in this sense only 
 in the language of falconry. 
 
 45. Leash of greyhounds. That is, three of them. The leash was prop- 
 erly the thong or line by which the hounds were led. Cf. Coriolanus, i. 
 6. 38: 
 
 " Holding Corioli in the name of Rome, 
 Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash, 
 To let him slip at will." 
 
 On the use of the word in the text, cf. I Hen. IV. ii. 4. 7 : "I am sworn 
 brother to a leash of drawers, and can call them all by their Christen 
 names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis '' (there being three of them). 
 
 46. Supporter. In the heraldic sense. 
 
 48. Crab. Alluding to the crab-apple, of course, whence crabbed; as 
 illustrated by Winter's Tale, i. 2, 102 : " Three crabbed months had 
 sour'd themselves to death." 
 
 59. Proper. In the old sense of comely. Cf. Tempest, ii. 2. 63 (Ste- 
 phano's speech) : " as proper a man as ever went on four legs," etc. 
 See also Heb. xi. 23. 
 
 61. A starrier eye. Cf. i. 2. 48 below. 
 
 93. No herald more. Alluding to the officer whose business it is to 
 marshal and order. royal cavalcades, ceremonies at coronations and other 
 state occasions, etc. He must, of course, be familiar with all the niceties 
 of court usage and etiquette. 
 
 SCENE II. 16. He 'j the kings. That is, he is in the army. Cf. ii. 326 
 below. 
 
 27. As calmly V is denied. The 1st ed. has "as quietly denied ;" and 
 in 31, "thank you, for, Lord Tresham," etc. 
 
 34. The -world thinks me. The 1st ed. italicizes me here and also two 
 lines below ; so with is in 39. 
 
 59. Thicks. Thickets ; as in Spenser and other writers of that day. 
 Cf. Drayton, Polyolbion, xiii. : 
 
 " And through the cumb'rous thicks as fearfully he makes, 
 He with his branched head the tender saplings shakes." 
 
 60. Eyass. Young hawk. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. i. n. 34: 
 
 " Like Eyas hauke up mounts unto the skies, 
 His newly-budded pineons to assay." 
 
 72. She has never known, etc. Cf. i. 3. 237 below.
 
 ACT I. SCENE III. 
 
 223 
 
 HO. / W not think. The / is italicized in 1st ed., as in 114 below. 
 
 128. The mercy - stroke. The death - stroke, as put) ing an end to tort- 
 ure. 
 
 '33- Mildred i- f fourteen. In this extraordinary statement seems to be 
 the chief dramatic blemish of the play. It taxes our credulity to believe 
 that Juliet was only fourteen ; but with her we could at least fall back 
 upon the theory that girls develop more rapidly in southern countries 
 than in northern, and that they are married proportionally early. Here 
 we are asked to credit the amazing statement that a conservative E)nglish 
 lord deliberately and indeed eagerly arranges the betrothal of his sister 
 at the time-honored Juliet age. It is interesting to note how completely 
 Browning ignores his own limitation as to years. For instance, in 79 
 above Tresham speaks of Mildred as "imbued with lore," etc. If the 
 English girl of the last century reached that point of culture at fourteen, 
 what must she have been at forty? It is impossible to believe that 
 Browning ever actually pictured Mildred as fourteen, though we see in the 
 next scene why he wants to represent her as young as possible. 
 
 139. Harangue. The 1st ed. has " harangues." 
 
 152. Yon golden creature. The English ed. (1865) misprints " Yon 
 golden creature." 
 
 SCENE III. There is no change of scene in Barrett's version. The 
 "chamber" adjoins the "saloon," and looks out upon the park. 
 
 In the ist ed. the stage-direction has " A fainted window in the back- 
 ground." 
 
 27. The bow-hand. The hand which holds the bow, or the left hand ; 
 the arrow-hand being the right. Cf. Shakespeare, L. L. L. iv. i. 135 : 
 "Wide o' the bow-hand ! i' faith, your hand is out;" that is, far to the 
 left of the mark. 
 
 36. Would die for him. Cf. ii. 69 below. 
 
 67. That fait dame, etc. The Countess of Salisbury. The story of 
 the Order of the Garter is too familiar to be retold here. 
 
 81. There 's a wont an, etc. Mr. Barrett was forced to omit this song 
 from the acted play, although he speaks of it as one of the most delight- 
 ful poems in the world. The dramatic situation was too long delayed by 
 the pause which the song makes. Archdeacon Farrar, in his American 
 lecture on Browning, cited this as the most beautiful song to a woman in 
 the English tongue. 
 
 90. Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her. For 
 this same expression used from the other side, cf. In a Gondola : 
 
 " This woman's heart and soul and brain 
 Are mine as much as this gold chain 
 She bids me wear : which say again 
 I choose to make by cherishing 
 A precious thing, or choose to fling 
 Over the boat-side, ring by ring." 
 
 . 1 16. Expressless. The word is not in the dictionaries, and is probably 
 Browning's own. 
 
 128. Come what come will, etc. Cf. Confessions:
 
 224 
 
 A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. 
 
 " We loved, sir used to meet : 
 How sad and bad and mad it was, 
 But then, how it was sweet !" 
 
 and In a Gondola : 
 
 " but I 
 Have lived indeed, and so yet one more kiss! can die." 
 
 151. That should spirt water, etc. Cf. Calpurnia's dream in Julius 
 Casar, ii. 2. 76 : 
 
 " She dream'd to-night she saw my statua 
 Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts, 
 Did run pure blood," etc. 
 
 166. To-morrow! That is, do it to-morrow. The 1st ed. has "To- 
 morrow ?" 
 
 187. Diamond scales. That is, sensitive scales, like those used in 
 weighing precious stones. 
 
 203. Bower. In the old sense of chamber. 
 
 217. My fight-mark. The compound is apparently Browning's own. 
 The reference is to a knight's wearing his lady's favor in his helmet in 
 tourney or combat. Cf. Rich. II. v. 3. 15 : 
 
 " His answer was, he would unto the stews, 
 And from the common'st creature pluck a glove, 
 And wear it as a I. vour; and with that 
 He would unhorse the lustiest challenger." 
 
 237. I was so young, etc. See p. 43 above. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Mr. Barrett was asked what he thought of Dickens's suggestion that 
 Gerard should be made to tell his story for the first time on the stage, 
 and should meet and conquer Tresham's wrath, extending perhaps even 
 to the point of the master's attacking the servant. Mr. Barrett at once 
 declared that such a scene would be impossible in its difficulty. The fact 
 that Tresham has already half grasped the horrible idea makes his anger 
 and grief representable. It is worth remembering in this connection, 
 perhaps, that Charlotte Cushman and Mrs. Kemble believed Lady Mac- 
 beth to have read the fatal letter from her husband before she reads it to 
 the audience. 
 
 28. To merely have. Browning often puts an adverb inside the infini- 
 tive in this way. Cf. 216 and 335 below. 
 
 31. /' the midst. The 1st ed. has "in the midst." Tennyson, on the 
 other hand, has given up sundry contractions of the sort that appear in 
 his early eds. ; as "i' the pane" and "up an' away " in Mariana, etc. 
 
 35. A small dark-bine pane. Cf. i. 3.48,63 above, ami iii. I. 43 below. 
 
 101. Settle. The ist ed. has "settles ;" and in the stage-direction be- 
 low "above him " for ahove his head. 
 
 178. Her soul. The Her is italicized in 1st ed. 
 
 193. Or, no. The ist ed. has "Oh, no;" and in 195 "silk-slight" for 
 nlk-like.
 
 ACT If. 225 
 
 235. / '// hide your shame . . . every eye. Mr. Barrett omits the rest 
 of this scene except the following lines (241, 284-287) : 
 
 " We too will somehow wear this one day out. 
 What were it silently to waste away 
 And see thee waste away from this day forth, 
 Two scathed things with leisure to repent 
 And grow acquainted with the grave and die?'' 
 
 245. I have dispatched last night. The grammars forbid this use of the 
 present perfect, or whatever the tense may be called, with reference to 
 time wholly past. 
 
 252. The Earl ! Italicized in ist ed. 
 
 265. O' the lattice. The ist ed. has " Of the lattice." See on 31 above. 
 
 267. Bacchant. Evidently an Anglicizing of Bacchante, a priestess or 
 votaress of Bacchus, though most of the dictionaries do not recognize 
 this feminine use of the form in the text. 
 
 283. Would scatter. The ist ed. has " Had scattered." 
 
 289. // were not. The 1st ed. has "This were not ;" and in 295 " In- 
 vite " for Invites. 
 
 303. Losels. Worthless fellows. Cf. Verstegan, Restitution, etc., 1605 : 
 ''a Losel is one that hath lost, neglected, or cast off his owne good and 
 welfare, and so is become lewde and carelesse of credit and honesty ;" 
 and Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3. 4 : 
 
 " The whyles a losell wandring by the way. 
 One that to bountie never cast his mynd, 
 Ne thought of honour ever did assay 
 His baser brest," etc. 
 
 308. Such poor outcasts. The ist ed. has " these poor outcasts ;" in 
 314 "safelier " for surelier ; and in 320 "where 's" for -where. 
 
 333. Who said. The 1st ed. has " Who 've said." 
 
 335. To only signify. See on 28 above. 
 
 351. Your face. The ist ed. has "your sight ;" in 353 "hootings" for 
 hooting ; and in 358 "don't believe one half" for does not believe half. 
 
 356. Next. Nearest. Cf. Winters Tale, iii. 3. 129: "home, home, 
 the next way . . . come, good boy, the next way home." 
 
 373. Has ThoroU gone, etc. The ist ed. has "left " far gone. 
 
 397. He is your lover? The ist ed. italicizes is. 
 
 424. Thorold 's gone, etc. Mr. Barrett begins the third act here. Guen- 
 diilen, Austin, and Mildred pass across the scene with these few words, 
 and disappear within the house. Then Tresham comes back, speaks his 
 soliloquy, and conceals himself among the trees. Mildred's chamber 
 opens by a bow-window and small balcony upon the park. 
 
 ACT III. 
 SCENK I. 24. Wimple. A kind of veil. Cf. /'. (?. i. 12. 22: 
 
 " For she had layd her mournefull stole aside, 
 And widow-like sad wimple thrown away." 
 
 '5
 
 22 6 A BLOT li\ THE 'SC 
 
 Hence the verb ( plaited or folded like a veil) ; as in /'. (). i. 1.4: "In 
 der a vele, that wimpled was full low ;" and Shakespeare, A. A. A. iii. i. 
 181 : "This \\inipled, whining, pin blind, wayw.ird buy ;" that is, the veiled 
 or hoodwinked Cupid. In the present pa;ii;e, the Kn^lish ed. (1885) 
 prints " whimple," a form which, though recognized by the dictionaries 
 for the verb, is inconsistent with the derivation of the word. It is wimple 
 in the 1st ed. 
 
 33. /' the chapel. The ist ed. has " In the chapel." See on ii. 31 
 above. 
 
 36. To -watch. The ist ed. has "to see." 
 
 55. That was mild. The ist ed. italicizes that ; and the stage-direc- 
 tion at next line reads : " Thry advance to the front of the stage" 
 
 76. Seem what you seem. The ist ed. has "are what you are ;" and in 
 8l "will keep" for retain. 
 
 113. Were the giving. The ist ed. has "had been giving;" and in 133 
 "passion's" for passion. 
 
 152. IVas yours. The 1st ed. has "have you ;" and in 156 it italicizes 
 you in Never yon sin. 
 
 163. Lowers me doivn, etc. Cf. Tennyson, Dream of Fair Women, 
 
 211" 
 
 " Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love 
 Down to a silent grave." 
 
 170. Shall have. The ist ed. has " to have." 
 
 183. Lift yon the body. The ist ed. has " Lift you the body, Gerard ;" 
 which makes the line a foot too long. 
 
 196. TIi e boy. The ist ed. has "these boys;" in 21 1 "this night" for 
 his breast ; and in 212 " willingly " for carelessly. In 214 it italicizes /. 
 
 217. To set the neck to. Guendolen, in Mr. Barrett's reproduction, 
 makes her exit here, and Tresham at the close of his next speech disap- 
 pears among the trees. Mildred shortly appears at the window and be- 
 gins her soliloquy. At iii. 2. 9 she comes out into the park. 
 
 220. A Fury leading t/tits. The 1st ed. has "a Fury free to lead." 
 
 SCENE II. 4. Diffused. Accented on the first syllable; as similar 
 dissyllabic adjectives and participles often are in Shakespeare when they 
 precede the noun. Cf. despised, for instance, in Hamlet, iii. I. 72: "The 
 pangs of despised love, the law's delay." 
 
 37. Those water-lilies. The 1st ed. has " the water-lilies." In 56 it 
 italicizes yon in Are you, too, silent? and in 62 may \nyou may tell. 
 
 56. Ah ! this speaks for you. During this scene, on Mr. Barrett's 
 stage, Mildred has walked half unconsciously through the trees, and has 
 approached the spot where Mertoun's cloak and hat lie, as he threw 
 them off before the struggle with Tresham. At this instant she catches 
 sight of them. They tell their own story, and she cries " You 've mur- 
 dered Henry Mertoun !" It will be readily seen how easy it would be 
 on the stage to miss the force of the empty scabbard ; but there is a ter- 
 rible thrill over the discovery df the cloak unclasped but an instant be- 
 fore by the hands now dead. 
 
 Literature does not match the pathos and the helplessness of Mildred's
 
 ACT III. SCEXE II. 
 
 227 
 
 situation. Desdemona in her chamber singing the weird song wrings 
 the heart ; but though she has lost her father and her husband, she has 
 kept her innocence. Juliet has love and hope even at the worst. Her- 
 mione is sustained by a lofty sense of the justice of her cause. Ophelia's 
 frenzy comes to assuage her pain and ours. Marguerite, in Faust, is the 
 only woman who can claim kinship with Mildred by virtue of an equal 
 iiiiony. Even she suffers less, because hers is a less intellectual nature. 
 While it feels most keenly, it does not think so untiringly. Thought is 
 torture. Mildred has lost her own self-respect, her brother's love (as she 
 .supposes), and her lover. There is no further depth of misery for her to 
 sound. 
 
 71. You loose. The ist ed. has " You loosed." In 72 it italicizes You, 
 and in 73 He. 
 
 82. And lave of me, etc. The ist ed. has " And love of me, you loved 
 I think, and yet," etc. In 88 it has " loves " for love. 
 
 i oo. Immovable. The English ed. (1885) confuses the sense by the 
 misprint of a comma instead of a period at the end of this line. The ist 
 ed. has an exclamation-point. 
 
 IO2. Had gleamed some inlet. Of course inlet is the subject of had 
 gleamed. 
 
 137. Foredone. Exhausted. Cf. Shakespeare, M. N. D. v. i. 381 : 
 
 " Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, 
 All with weary task fordone." 
 
 Fordone is the spelling of the early eds. of Shakespeare, and accords with 
 the etymology of the word, the first syllable being the intensive for, not 
 fore. 
 
 138. This pageant-world. This world which is but " a stage where 
 every man must play a part " (M. of V. i. I. 77). Pageant in Shakespeare 
 commonly means a theatrical exhibition, literal or figurative. Cf. T. G. 
 of V. iv. 4. 164: " When all our pageants of delight were play'd ;" A. Y. 
 L. ii. 7. 138: 
 
 " This wide and universal theatre 
 Presents more woeful pageants than the scene 
 Wherein we play in ;" 
 
 LI. iii. 4. 55 : " If you will see a pageant truly play'd," etc. 
 
 139. Masque. Throng of actors. 
 
 150. Gules. The heraldic term for red. Cf. Hamlet, ii. 2. 479: 
 
 ' head to foot 
 
 Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd 
 With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons ;" 
 
 and T. of A. iv. 3. 59: " Witb man's blood paint the ground, gules, 
 gules." See also the description of the painted window in Keats's Eve of 
 St. Ayte<, in which " A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens 
 and kings," and the moon, shining through it, " threw warm gules on Mad- 
 eline's fair breast," as she knelt in prayer.
 
 22 8 CO LOME PS BIRTHDAY. 
 
 COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 This play was first published in 1844 as No. VI. of Bells and Pomegran- 
 ates. It was performed at the Haymarket Theatre in London, April 25, 
 1853, Miss Helen Faucit taking the part of Colombe ; also, with Miss 
 Alma Murray as Colombe, at St. George's Hall, London, November 19, 
 1885, under the auspices of the Browning Society. Cf. p. 47 above. The 
 performance referred to by Mr. Conway (p. 46 above) was at the Howard 
 Athenaeum in Boston. Feb. 16, 1854. 
 
 The action of the play takes place between morning and evening of a 
 single day the birthday of the heroine. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 I. That this should be her birthday. It is often necessary that Brown- 
 ing's sentences and also his situations should be read by the aid of what 
 follows as well as of what precedes. In this respect he differs radically 
 from Shakespeare, who always explains as he goes along ; indeed, hi/ore 
 he goes along. Here, for example, one must read the scene half through 
 before the real situation reveals itself. The student will find Symons's 
 argument of the play (p. 44 above) very useful. Of course this tendency 
 on the part of Browning is seen fully developed in the dramatic mono- 
 logues, where the reader must grasp the whole situation before the first 
 line becomes intelligible to him. As illustrations witness The Soliloquy 
 of the Spanish Cloister, The Confessional, etc. Often the title of the poem 
 gives the needed clue to the action, as 'in Mesmerism, Misconceptions, 
 Time's Revenges. This is worth mention because there is scarcely an- 
 other poet who depends to any considerable extent upon his titles as 
 keys to his poems. Be it virtue or fault, it is a fact that Browning writes 
 to the highest intelligence and the quickest intuition of his readers. 
 
 14. Ravestein. The small town of Ravestein, or Ravenstein, is on the 
 Meuse, in the Dutch province of North Brabant. It has about eight hun- 
 dred inhabitants and an old castle. It is thirty miles west of Cleves. 
 
 15. Extreme. Accented on the first syllable. See on Blot, iii. 2. 4. 
 above, and cf. express in 30 below. 
 
 16. Where she lived queen. The ist ed. has "where queen she lived." 
 It will be seen that many of the alterations in the text are made, like this, 
 merely to get rid of needless inversions. 
 
 17. Juliet's. A fortified town in Rhenish Prussia, twenty miles north- 
 east of Aix-la-Chapelle. It has now some three thousand inhabitants. 
 
 21. Outgrows. The ist ed. has "outgoes." 
 
 28. Of all men else. An old " confusion of construction." Cf. Macbeth, 
 v. 8. 4: "Of all men else I have avoided thee." 
 40. This to present. The ist ed. italicizes This.
 
 ACT I. 
 
 229 
 
 70. The autumn floats of fine-wood. The rafts coming down the river. 
 
 84. Salic law. According to which females were excluded from the 
 succession. Cf. Hen. V. \. 2. 35 : 
 
 " There is no bar 
 
 To make against your highness' claim to France 
 But this, which they produce from Pharamond, 
 ' In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant ': 
 No woman shall succeed in Salique land," etc. 
 
 85. That one. The 1st ed. has "And one." 
 
 95. Mummery. In the old sense of a theatrical show, like masque. 
 113. You broke your father 1 s heart, etc. Cf. iv. 91 below. 
 118. We '// take, etc. This line, and 120 below, are not in the 1st ed. 
 121. Call the Prince our Duke. The 1st ed. reads " Let the Prince be 
 Duke ;" and in 115 " So coolly as he could and would." 
 
 128. I've ruined Manfroy, etc. Maufroy is the youngest of this inter- 
 esting assembly. He has, as is becoming, the smallest part in the dis- 
 cussion, both here and in act iv. But from what he has to say it would 
 appear that Guibert's cynicism could not much harm him. 
 
 129. Coil. Ado. Cf. Shakespeare, R. and J. ii. 5. 67 : " here's such a 
 coil !" T. of A. i. 2. 236 : " What a coil 's here !" etc. 
 
 130. Count its residue, etc. A good example of the sentences requiring 
 the backward look mentioned in note on I above. 
 
 133. Bid that keep silence. The ist ed. italicizes that. 
 
 149. And the lady's people go. .The 1st ed. has " and the people go ; 't is 
 instinct." 
 
 151. Why should they wait, etc. This line is not in the ist ed. 
 
 155. Lighted. The ist ed. has "Lit up." 
 
 163. nil and poll. Plunder and strip; a common alliterative phrase 
 in Elizabethan writers. 
 
 1 74. Their vine-leaf wrappage, etc. The enforced tribute being adorned 
 like a voluntary offering. 
 
 175. Crowning. The reading of the ist ed. The ed. of 1885 has 
 "crowding," which, as Mr. Browning writes us, is a "vile misprint." 
 
 177. Cuppings. Taking off their caps. Cf. the similar use of bonneted 
 in ( \n-ioltinus, ii. 2. 30 : " those who, having been supple and courteous to 
 the people, bonneted, without any further deed to have them at all into 
 their estimation and report." Cotgrave defines the Yr.bonneter by "To 
 put off his cap vnto." For these oook-and-ciingings the ist ed. has " and 
 < rook-and-cringings." 
 
 190. Oli! there is one? Suitors were doubtless numerous enough last 
 year. It is useless to beg favors of a falling house. 
 
 195. Comrades. The 1st ed. has " comrade ;" and in 202 " What said 
 he ?" 
 
 220. Close the doors, etc. Adolf, who has already had one tussle with 
 the suitor, means to go again into the vestibule and to prevent the en- 
 trance of Valence ; but he is not quick enough. 
 
 222. Cleves. A town of Rhenish Prussia, near the Rhine, about seventy 
 miles below Cologne. It is the ancient capital of the Duchy of Cleves, 
 which was long a disputed possession of the house of Prussia. The
 
 230 
 
 COLOA/flS'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 St hw.menburg, the old castle which was formerly the ducal resident < 
 .still stands on a height in the centre of the town. It derives its Main- 
 ti nin the tradition of the strange knight who appeared to a Duchess <>t 
 Cleves in a vessel drawn by a swan, and whom sin- .ilit i \\.ii (U in. in !<<!. 
 The story is the subject of a ponn bv Sonthey and of the opera o! / ,* 
 hfiigtin. In 1882 the " Lohengrin Monument" was erected in the mar- 
 ket-place to commemorate the legend. If the good people of the town 
 are going to do honor to its poetic associations in this way, they should 
 some day set up a memorial to Colombe and Valence, whose fame will 
 outlive the whole line of their ancient dukes. Cleves is only a few miles 
 from the Dutch frontier, and is a favorite summer resort. It has a popu- 
 lation of about ten thousand. 
 
 244. O' the. The ist ed. has " Of the ;" and in the next line " yourself" 
 for that you. 
 
 263. I bear a brain. Have a brain, that is, am not a fool. Cf. Shake- 
 speare, R. and J. \. 3. 29 : " Nay, I do bear a brain,' etc. 
 
 There is a frank charm about Guibert's cynicism. Even he himself 
 does not escape its stinging lash. 
 
 285. IV/iic/t, if I procure : The 1st ed. has " but if so I do." 
 
 291. How should they let me pause, etc. They refers to miseries in the 
 preceding line. 
 
 297. From Cleves to Juliers. About sixty miles. 
 
 312. Intrust him. The 1st ed. italicizes ///;//. 
 
 330,331. This being, etc. The 1st ed. reads: 
 
 " From this yourself admit the custom here, 
 What will the price of such a favor be?" 
 
 342. Siirsnm corda. Let us lift up ogr hearts, take courage. The 
 phrase occurs in the mass just before the consecration of the Host. 
 
 349. Lace. The manufactures of Cleves nowadays are chiefly silk and 
 woollen fabrics, hosiery, hats, leather, etc. 
 
 353. Marcasite. A crystallized bisulphide of iron. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 A curious liberty is here taken of going back in point of time to show 
 us what has passed for the Duchess during the previous act. 
 
 4. But ft~iv can have arrived. The 1st ed. reads : " but if there's few 
 arrived." 
 
 17. // seemed so natural. The ist ed. has "so natural it seemed;" 
 and in 19 "leave to do you good." It does not contain 20. In 25 it 
 italicizes We. 
 
 32. If friends detain me. Sabyne has just been delaying the audience 
 in the vain hope that more subjects might arrive. 
 
 38. Some foolish. The 1st ed. has " Each foolish ;" and in the next 
 line "More foolish and more arrogant may grow." 
 
 65. // cannot not it shall not be. The double negative is archaic. Cf.
 
 ACT rr. 231 
 
 Hamlet, i. 2. 158 : " It is not nor it cannot come to good." In iv. 325 be- 
 low the double negative of the ist ed. has been altered. 
 
 66. And I have not. The 1st ed. has " I have it not." 
 
 80. Plainly, I feared too soon. The youth of the Duchess is illustrated 
 by the fact that one smiling compliment (74) suffices to dispel her fears. 
 Suspicion is almost impossible to her young, pure heart. 
 
 82. The vision this day last year brought. Trrts is our first hint that 
 Valence has seen Colombe before. It is highly characteristic that he 
 should not have mentioned her in his interview with the courtiers. 
 
 90. She was above it, etc. The passage is intended to be incoherent, 
 with its wandering pronouns expressive of the intense excitement of the 
 speaker. This is a free paraphrase of it: "Colombe made me hers at 
 the instant when I cast one look upon her. Her spirit stood higher than 
 I could see ; but, having had ever so faint a glimpse of her, I could not 
 bend my eyes lower to the earth again. ' The people caught her generous 
 gaze\ and I among them. Henceforth she was mine by the same right 
 by which the worshipper possesses his god. But perchance she had not 
 been so entirely mine had she not raised my soul before she vanished to 
 feel more keenly the people's needs, bequeathing them to me as a sacred 
 trust." One can but remember in connection with this fine poetic ex- 
 pression of the way in which love for one entails love for all the scene in 
 which Christ said to Peter, " Lovest thou me?" 
 
 109. Eat first, tic. This line is not in the ist ed. 
 
 112. I lived, etc. The 1st ed. reads: "A girl one happy leisure year 
 I lived." In 113 it omits the before Duchess-, in 120 it has "us" for me; 
 in 125 " nor less do they deserve ;" and in 140 it omits thetn. 
 
 151. Apparent now and tints ? The ist ed. has " which now and thus 
 I know ? " 
 
 165. Church-flowers. Lilies and other flowers of religious symbolism 
 used in the decoration of churches. The ist ed. has " gave " for wrote. 
 
 171. God's Mother. The image of the Virgin, whose shrine the flower 
 is supposed to adorn. 
 
 1 74. Still, I do thank you. The Ist ed. has " But " for Still, and " the " 
 for my in the next line. 
 
 176. Here lose, etc. The ist ed. reads : " Till losing the poor relic which 
 even yet," etc. In 180 it transposes Kings and Pope's ; and in 185 it has 
 " never will " for never shall. 
 
 202. Gentles. Cf. Hen. V. prol. 8 : " But pardon, gentles all," etc. It 
 i- ii-ed in this way only in the plural. 
 
 207. A lion crests him, etc. That is, forms the crest of his coat-of- 
 arms, or \cutcheon; the motto being Scorning to waver. 
 
 223. Say your worst of me ! That is, to Hcrthold when he'comes. Cf. 
 i. 363 above. 
 
 229. Gn'e von pleasure. The 1st ed. has "get " for gh>e. 
 
 249. Stari-e n<nv, etc. In the ist ccl. the line is: "Arc starving now, 
 ;ind will lie down at night." 
 
 ll'/i.it fiiri>s, etc. This line is nut in the ist ed. 
 
 259- /" <?') hundred. The Ist cd. h.is " tr every hundred;" and 
 the next liiu u.ul> : " Tiut you h.ivc simply i n-nive their wrongs."
 
 232 COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 263-268. There is a vision . . . mankind belo-M. These six lines are 
 not in the ist ed. 
 
 271. Of this man, etc. The ist ed. has "Of this and this and this?" 
 
 288. The Afars/tiit's, etc. The three offices were probably held by the 
 three principal courtiers. The Chamberlain, who regulates court eti- 
 quette, may well have been the smooth Clugnet. 
 
 296. Thy need. The ist ed. has " There needs." 
 
 309. Our wages, etc. The line is not in the ist ed. In 312 it has " wilh 
 what zeal," and in 313 " 'T was money " for J/ard money. 
 
 330. Claim. The ist ed. has " claimed ;" and in 340 "give " for lend. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 3. Aix. That is, Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 10. Seneschal. The high steward or chief official of a castle or barony. 
 
 21. Esteem. The ist ed. has "esteemed;" in 24 "but a short" for 
 not a long ; and in 31 "apparent" for as plain. 
 
 27. The other, etc. This other kinsman has now become Pope. Cf. 
 54 below. 
 
 40. Remind me, etc. In the ist ed. the line reads : " Will you remind 
 me this I feel and say ?" 
 
 44. Faced the redoubtable*, etc. The line is not in the 1st ed. The 
 next there reads : " Flattered this, threatened that, and bribed the other." 
 
 47. Conquered a footing, etc. The ist ed. has "Conquered yourself a 
 footing inch by inch." In 51 it has " Safe " for Shut ; in 52 " you whom " 
 for then; whom; in 53 "Narrowly am I forced to search ;" in 54 "So 
 by your uncle are you hid, this Pope ;" and in 58 " But" for Match. 
 
 56. Too muck of tnere It'gs-aiiii-iirHi.t, etc. Ct. Rabbi Ben Ezra, viii. : 
 
 " What is he but a brute 
 
 Whose flesh hath soul to suit, 
 
 Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? 
 
 To man propose this test 
 
 The body at its best, 
 
 How far can that project thy soul in its lone way?" 
 
 63. (Economv. The old etymological spelling of economy. 
 
 67. The day before. Not to be taken literally, as Treves is some 
 eighty miles from Aix in a direct line. Cf. 134 below. 
 
 68. Why do yon let your life slip thus ? An interesting bit of psychol- 
 ogy is found in the fact that Browning makes Melchior, a student, the 
 champion of action in preference to diplomacy. 
 
 71. Anurins. An Italian philosopher of the Neo-Platonic school, who- 
 flotirished in the latter half of the 3d century. 
 
 76. Ah! Well, etc. Our dramatic credulity is somewhat taxed in al- 
 lowing Berthold an argument and a soliloquy after the entrance of tin- 
 courtiers before he makes the slightest sign of observing their presence. 
 
 80. Of joys, etc. The 1st td. reads: "Of joys and .sorrows sin h de- 
 gree there is." It does not have the next line. In 91 it reads: "To lut 
 fie, let advantages alone ;" and in 95 " please 't " for //<</.<-.
 
 ACT II I. 
 
 2 33 
 
 108. Truncheon. Staff of office, sceptre. 
 
 113. By Paul, the advocate, etc. Valence is at least consistent. 
 
 I2O. So must I end, it seems. The 1st ed. has "so probably I end." 
 
 130. fit each Jfi0rum,etc. In the etiquette of such negotiations. 
 
 142. Did they, etc. The ist ed. has " Did he," etc. ; and in 153 " have " 
 for get. 
 
 162. Under that gi-ay convent wall. Cf. 86 above. 
 
 In this passage may there not be a hint of the Hamlet-nature in Ber- 
 thold, unable to act except under the supreme stress of a half-accidental 
 emergency. 
 
 176. Your people, etc. Not only these hollow courtiers, but the people 
 also, who may worship you as do those of Cleves. 
 
 179. I ruled these. The ist ed. has " these I ruled ;" in 187 "some one 
 of those about me ;" in 191 " So" for Now ; and in 204 " but a day's sole 
 respite." 
 
 214. At this reception, etc. The line is not in the 1st ed. ; and the 
 same is true of 219 and 221. In 215 we find there "sakes" for sake, and 
 in 222 "of" for by. 
 
 223-225. Which I remember, etc. The ist ed. reads: 
 
 " If you forgot otice, I remember now ! 
 But, unrepelled, attack must never pass. 
 Suffer, through you, your subjects I demand," etc. 
 
 zy.. When is man strong, etc. There is no finer line in the play, and 
 no profoander truth in poetry. 
 
 247, 248. So turns our lady, etc. These two lines are not in the ist ed. 
 In 249 it has "So I am first;" in 250 "so clear;" in 260 "as there;" 
 and in 263 " 'mongst priests." 
 
 262. A pillared flame, etc. Cf. Exod. xiii. 21, Numb. xiv. 14, etc. 
 
 267. For whom. The ist ed. has " Whom we ;" in next line " Would" 
 for frt'ti; and in 274 "The chief" for Her chief. 
 
 281. You 'd sny, etc. The 1st ed. reads : "They love each other, Gui- 
 bert's friend and she !" The 4th Courtier replies " Plainly !" and the 5th 
 Courtier goes on with " Pray, Guibert, what is next to do?" The rest of 
 the text between 281 and 284 does not appear in the ist ed. 
 
 285. / laid. The 1st ed. has " I lay ;" and in 287 " And now, sir, sim- 
 ple knight again am I." 
 
 305-314. You hear that? . . . at last. This speech of Gaucelme's is 
 not in the 1st cd. 
 
 317. That fired, etc. The 1st ed. has "That fires," and "will" for 
 would. 
 
 326. Ere you dream. The ist ed. has " Ere now, even;" and in 328 
 " The man and mood are gone." It does not contain 229. In 332 it has 
 " was " for setmfd. 
 
 349. Aspire to rule. The ist ed. 1ms "Aspire to that;" and in 356 
 "At night the 1'riitcc you meet." 
 
 351. Soul and I'odv, etc. It is a common experience, both in fiction 
 and in fact, that a great emotion quickens all the (acuities to a mature 
 life. Juliet, for instance, ceases to be a child in the very moment of her 
 joy.
 
 234 
 
 COLOMBPS BIKTHDAY. 
 
 365. Emprise. Enterprise, adventurousness. The dictionaries do not 
 recognize this abstract sense of the word, and we do not remember meet- 
 ing with it elsewhere. 
 
 372, 373. The changed voice, etc. These two lines are not in the ist 
 ed. There the next line reads: " Reward, that 's little, that is nought to 
 her." 
 
 377. Perchance, forbid. The ist ed. has "forbid, perchance." 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 I. How spring this mine ? Cf. iii. 315-319 above and 50 below. 
 
 14. Laved and been Iweii. That Valence had loved Colombe is plainly 
 enough said in act iii. ; but there is but one line so far (ii. 237) to inti- 
 mate the truth of the other half of the assertion. 
 
 16. Theif stand. The ist ed. has "his stand;" in 18 "in his way by 
 craft, he chose ;" and in 20 " assist him." 
 
 21. The Duchess, etc. The ist ed. reads: "The fruit is, she prefers 
 him to ourselves ;" in 22 " the simple ground ;" in 23 " First seeing, lik- 
 ing more, and so an end ;" in 27 " And she " for Herself ; in 32 " That " 
 for Who ; and in 39 " Against such accident that will provides." 
 
 24. But as we all, etc. Prof. Corson, in his admirable essay on 
 " Browning's Obscurity," mentions the poet's frequent habit of omission. 
 Here the prose construction would be " As if we all had started," etc. 
 The ellipsis is a common one in Shakespeare. Cf. Macbeth, i. 4. n : 
 
 " To throw away the dearest thing he owed, 
 As 't were a careless trifle," etc. 
 
 It may be doubted whether Browning is much more elliptical than 
 Shakespeare, though he is more so than Tennyson. 
 
 42-48. I know that . . . set aside. These seven lines are not in the ist 
 ed. Line 49 is made a question : "He is next heir?" 
 
 55. On your, etc. The 1st ed. reads: " Upon unselfishness that pros- 
 pered ill." 
 
 57-77. Wait, I suppose , . . renewed? The additions and alterations 
 in this portion of the text are so many that we give it in full as it stands 
 in the ist ed. : 
 
 " Gviberi. Wait, I suppose, till Valence weds our lady, 
 And then apprize the Prince 
 
 Gaucelme. Ere then, retired? 
 
 Tell the Prince now, sir ! Ay, this very night 
 Ere he accepts his dole and goes his way, 
 Tell what has been, declare what 's like to be, 
 And really makes him all Ike feigned himself; 
 Then trust his gratitude for the surprise ! 
 
 Guibert. Good) 1 am sure she'll not disown her love, 
 Throw Valence up I wonder you see that! 
 
 Gaucelme. The shame of it the suddenness and shame I 
 With Valence there to keep her to her word, 
 And Berlhold's own reproaches or disgust - 
 We '11 try it !-Not that we cau venture much I
 
 ACT IV. 235 
 
 Her confidence we 've lost forever -his 
 Must be to gain ! 
 
 Guibt'1. To-night, then, venture we I 
 
 Yet may a lost love never be renewed?" 
 
 64. Than trust his gratitude, etc. The said gratitude naturally to be 
 shown by rewarding the bearers of the pleasant surprise. 
 
 68. I wonder you see that. Gaucelme and Guibert never are willing to 
 allow a virtue or a delicacy to each other. This line has a scornful em- 
 phasis on you. 
 
 78. Smarting- while. Cf. breathing -while (Rich. III. \. 3. 60, etc.) and 
 similar compounds. 
 
 81. A mimic, etc. The ist ed. has "A mimic of the joint, and just so 
 like." 
 
 88-90. Exulting that, etc. For these three lines the ist ed. has: 
 
 " Waits here to boast their scheme succeeds ! -We 'II hence 
 And perfect ours! To the Archives and the Hall!" 
 
 91. You have not smiled, etc. Cf. i. 1 13 above. 
 
 101-104. But, suffered . . . as well. For these four lines the ist ed. has ; 
 
 " But, suffered rule first by these Kings and Popes 
 To serve some devil's-purpose, now 'tis gained. 
 To serve some devil's-purpose must withdraw!" 
 
 107. On us. The ist ed. has " to us ;" in 1 10 and in" them " {or you 
 in 1 16 " If no prayer breathe ;" and in 119"! had not looked for you." 
 122-125. And yet . . . decide on . The ist ed. reads : 
 
 " Valence. And yet I scarce know wherefore that prevents 
 Disclosing it to you disclosing even 
 What she determines" 
 
 132. A cottage. The ist ed. has "a hovel." 
 
 137. At first. The ist ed. has " I first ;" and in the next line " Before 
 our late appointment, sir, I come." In 142 it has "Of the lady." 
 
 150. Your hand! A bewildered repetition of his former speech (144). 
 
 154. Bnrgiaves, Landgraves, Markgravcs. German titles of nobility 
 (Bnrggraf, Landgraf, Afarkgraf), the last being commonly Anglicized as 
 ire. 
 
 157. Chrysoprase. A precious variety of chalcedony, of an apple-green 
 color in the finest specimens. 
 
 158. Talk of. The 1st ed. has "tell me ;" in 161 "The match will in- 
 fluence many fortunes here?" and in 162 "A natural enough solicitude." 
 
 168. To rule, etc. This line is not in the ist ed. 
 
 171. </Vi7v. The ist ed. has "grew," which was undoubtedly a mis- 
 print for "grey." It cannot be = grewsome. 
 
 172. Demean herself. Degrade herself. Skeat is doubtless right in 
 regarding this demean as the demean =. conduct (cf. demeanoui ) "altered 
 in sense owing to an obvious (but absurd) popular etymology which allied 
 the word to the English mean, base ;" but it is used by not a few good 
 writers of our day. Wb. cites an example of it from Shakespeare (C. of 
 R. iv j. 83):
 
 2 3 6 COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY, 
 
 " Now, out of doubt Antipholus is mad, 
 Else would he never so demean himself ;" 
 
 but there, as elsewhere in the plays, it clearly has the other meaning. 
 
 180. I see you hare them, etc. The line is not in the 1st ed. ; neither is 
 188 below. In 183 that ed. has "In my ambition's course say, rocky 
 course." 
 
 186. Duke Luitpofifs brazen self. His bronze statue. 
 
 189. And to f/iis, etc. The 1st ed. reads : " To this claim be it, in the 
 Hall to-night ;" in 193 " What falls away, if not my faith in her ?" and in 
 196 " Dare 1 to test her now, or had I faith." 
 
 202-204. What I seem, etc. The ist ed. reads : 
 
 " What I now 
 
 Begin, a simple woman now, to be, 
 Hope that I am, for, now my rights are void," etc. 
 
 208. He gathers, etc. The line is not in the ist ed., where the speech 
 begins thus : 
 
 " Valence. He stands, a man. now ; stately, strong, and wise 
 One great aim, like a guiding-star, before 
 Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness to follow, 
 As, not its substance, but its shine he tracks, 
 Nor dreams of more than, just evolving these 
 To fulness, will suffice him to life's end. 
 After this star," etc. 
 
 In this lofty speech are "some things hard to be understood; " but on 
 the whole it seems best not to attempt a paraphrase of it. If one keeps 
 in mind how high is Berthold's ambition, it may be followed, with a little 
 patience. 
 
 227. Grade. The word is etymologically equivalent to step. 
 
 236. On the other half. The ist ed. has "with" for on; in the next 
 line "So shall he go on, every day's success ;" in 239 "airy" for aery ; 
 and in 240 "shall grow" for lends help. 
 
 242. His step or stalk. His friendly or his hostile approach. 
 
 245-249. Till even . . . he end*. For these five lines the ist ed. has: 
 
 " Till even his power shall cease his power to be, 
 And most his weakness men shall tear, nor vanquish 
 Their typified invincibility. 
 So shall he go on, so at last shall end." etc. 
 
 The first four lines of the passage as it now stands are most subtle. A 
 moment's reflection shows, however,how true they are. For example, Ger- 
 many does not tremble half so much to-day at the strong rule of Bis- 
 marck as she trembles at the thought of his possible illness and death. 
 " Men shall dread his weakness more." The subject of dare is their 
 earth ; that is, " man's earth dares not put in peril its bravest, first and 
 best." If this typified invincibility should fail, there would be no safety 
 else. 
 
 251. The fiety centre, etc. Alluding to the theory that the central parts 
 of our earth are in a state of fiery fusion. 
 
 258. '7'itiiis a man. The 1st ed. has "A man 't was;" in 267 "so 
 might love" for love might so ; in 270 "Give counsel" for Desire that; 
 and in 272 " say more " for a/trw.
 
 ACT V. 
 
 237 
 
 264. Thanks, Berthold, etc. Colombe alludes to the provision of her 
 father's will (see 39 above), which gives the kingdom to the next of right, 
 should she wed beneath her rank. Berthold's hand will not degrade her 
 ^at least technically, according to the terms of the late Duke's will. 
 
 282. / could have kept my rule. The 1st eel. has " my rule I could have 
 kept ;" in 284 " Yet abjured all. This Berthold does for you ;" and in 
 291 "and" for yet. 
 
 288. Had gone with love's presentment, etc. The words and looks with 
 which Berthold offered this most serious of gifts had not so much grace 
 iu them as would have gone with the most trifling service from a real 
 lover. 
 
 304. So to Berthold back again. The ist ed. has " So of Berthold's 
 proposition;" in 310 "both" for them; in 316 "single" for only, and 
 "were" for spoke; in 322 ' a cause" for great cause ; and in 325 "Nor 
 will not" (cf. ii. 65 above) for And will not. 
 
 340. Away.' Used figuratively of course, like above. 
 
 341. Brave. In the old sense of beautiful, admirable. Cf. what Mi- 
 randa says at the first view of Ferdinand ( Tempest, i. 2. 400) : " It carries 
 a brave form. But 't is a spirit." 
 
 354. So to speak. The ist ed. has " somehow ;" and in 367 " that awe " 
 for the awe. 
 
 357. Assurance. Not from the unknown lady, but from himself; a 
 hint to be bolder. 
 
 379. A nobler cause. The ist ed. has "a meaner cause," and adds the 
 line " Whence rising, its effects may amply show." In 384 and 385 it 
 has " that " for who. 
 
 381. The rest's unsaid again. Not so easily, as Valence makes appear 
 in his next speech. 
 
 387, 388. With all hearts, etc. All feeling it most thrillingly, but none 
 daring to speak of it. 
 
 396. iVonld a crown gild it, etc. The ist ed. has " What would a 
 crown gild," etc. 
 
 402. Love since, etc. The 1st ed. has " Love as you pleased love ! All 
 is cleared a stage." There is no pause at the end of the next line, and 
 404 begins " For you." In 405 speak is " say." 
 
 ACT V. 
 
 2. Amelias. See on iii. 71 above. 
 
 3. This grand disclosure. The offer of his hand to Colombe. Cf. iv. 
 144 fol. above. 
 
 4. Oh! The ist ed. has "Oh! he," etc. On spokesman with the 
 forehead, cf. i. 212 above. 
 
 9. Perhaps I //,/,/, etc. This line is not in the ist cd. ; neither is 19 
 below. 
 
 l!i owning does not mean us to forget that, with all his manly cjuali- 
 i> it hold has committed the poet's unpardonable sin. He has de-
 
 238 COLOMBPS BIRTHDAY. 
 
 niecl the right of that internal voice which counsels love. For a brief 
 perfect illustration of Browning's contempt for this especial weakn<j>>. 
 see Youth and Art (our Select Poems, p. 85), and Dis Aliter Visum : 
 
 " Let the mere starfish in his vault 
 
 Crawl in a wash of weed, indeed, 
 Rose-jacynth to the finger-tips: 
 
 He, whole in body and soul, outstrips 
 Man, found with either in default. 
 
 But what 's whole can increase no more, 
 
 Is dwarfed and dies, since here s its sphere. 
 
 s wae an es, snce ere s s 
 The devil laughed at you in his sleeve I 
 You knew not? That I will believe; 
 you had saved two souls nay, four." 
 
 Or y 
 
 10. The unfriended. The ist ed. omits the. Line 13 reads : " My uncle 
 chokes in his next coughing-fit ;" in 14 we find " King Philip " for King- 
 cousin ; in 17 "past o'er" for o'erpast ; in 18 "safer" for safe. 
 
 22. Etude the adventure. Melchior likes as little this easy way out of 
 the difficulty by the device of marriage as he liked the submission of Ju- 
 liers without a struggle. He has set his heart upon some situation which 
 shall tax and develop and demonstrate the powers of Berthold. 
 
 28. IVe seem, in Europe, etc. A free-and-easy but very shrewd refer- 
 ence to revolutionary tendencies in Europe and the possible results for 
 hereditary rulers. The figure of the masquerade is capitally carried out, 
 and is withal in admirable keeping with Berthold's character. The crit- 
 ics who find him lacking in intellectual power, or a mere foil to Valence, 
 are commended to the study of this speech. 
 
 42. And, after b>-eathing,z\z. This line is not in the 1st ed. ; and the 
 next has " And thinks " for Means to. 
 
 49. For somewhat. The ist ed. omits for apparently an accident. Tn 
 51 it has "eyes" for soul ; in 54 "better 's" for belter ; in 55 " So be it ! 
 Yet, proceed my way the same ;" and in 56 "end" for ends. 
 
 68. So bold, etc. This line is not in the 1st ed. ; and the same is true 
 of 70. In 71 that ed. has "And" for Tis ; in 72 "see" for wait ; in 75 
 " Before my uncle could obtain the ear ;" in 76 "superior, help me," etc. ; 
 and in 82 "gallant" for lover. 
 
 72. My true worth. From a worldly point of view. 
 
 77. Priscilla. Cf. iii. 86 above. 
 
 104. To your intellect. The ist ed. has " to intelligence ;" in the next 
 line "a" for your ; and in 114 " Under the sun and in the air, at last," 
 etc. 
 
 109-116. Like waters, etc. There could not be a better description of 
 certain lakes in Italy which owe their origin to earthquakes or volcanic 
 action. Even Lake Avernus, the ancient gateway of hell, is now a very 
 gem of placid loveliness. 
 
 129. Profession. The ist eel. has " professions ;" in 138 "at first" for 
 so promptly ; in 145 " more leisurely " for brfitlingly : and in 146" Would " 
 for Did, and "off" hrfoi/h. 
 
 147. The good, etc. This line is not in the ist ed. 
 
 151-153. 'Decide! . . . the Duchess! The ist ed. reads thus:
 
 ACT V. 
 
 " Now either 
 Hail to the Empress farewell to the Lady !" 
 
 239 
 
 155 Almost u/>on court-license trespassing. See on ii. 288 above. 
 
 162. Then yourself, etc. The ist eel. ends the speech with " then your- 
 self " Berthold breaking in with " What insolence !" In 169 below it 
 has " Had made " for Could make. 
 
 189. For each conjuncture. The reading of the ist ed., for which the 
 ed. of 1885 misprints " For each conjecture." 
 
 195. Actions. The 1st ed. has "action ;" in 205 " But how" for /font 
 much ; in 207 " When next a keeper for my own 's to seek ;" in 21 1 "ar- 
 gue " for phrase it ; and in 220 " other " for alien. 
 
 205. How much indebted, etc. One of the most frequent causes of 
 Browning's obscurity is the peculiar inversion which he practises. Order 
 of arrangement in a sentence seems less important to him than to other 
 English writers. Perhaps his wide linguistic knowledge may be partly 
 accountable for this. Shakespeare had a certain advantage in knowing 
 " small Latin and less Greek." In the present passage the sense is sim- 
 ply this : "How much I am indebted to you for revealing your true abil- 
 ity in the way of keeping secrets will be discovered to you when I have 
 myself secrets to keep." 
 
 233. Affections all repelled, etc. A man of affairs so large will have no 
 time for the nurture of the affections, even were he foolishly to plant them 
 now. 
 
 241. Valence holds, of <oursel In the 1st ed. this speech is given to 
 "Courtiers." In 243 that ed. has "still" for yet; and in 248 "comes" 
 for speaks. 
 
 244. To tamely acquiesce. See on Blot, ii. 28. 
 
 253. Prince's. The 1st ed. has " Prince ;" in 258 " So I shall speak ;" 
 and in 260 " trouble's " for trouble. 
 
 275. Once, to surprise the angels. Cf. Shakespeare, M.for M. ii. 2. 12i: 
 
 " but man, proud man, 
 ****** 
 
 Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 
 As make the angels weep, who, with our spleens, 
 Would all themselves laugh mortal." 
 
 276. Recording, etc. The ist ed. has "Might record, hug themselves 
 they chose not so ;" and in 279 " Could have the " for C<in have nic/i. 
 
 287. They say, etc. The ist ed. has "The lady's hand your service 
 claims, they say;" in 294 "this" for one ; in 303 "it" for noise ; and in 
 321 " your own " for love's right. 
 
 33 1 332- He holds you, etc The ist ed. reads: 
 
 " He has you you, the form. 
 And you, the mind, where self-love made such room," elc. 
 
 In 335 it has " you " for old ; and in 347 " For his sake and for yours." 
 349, 350. One last touch, etc. The ist ed. has : 
 
 " One last touch of 
 
 [A/ter a fautt, frtttnling his fxifitr to tkt /'rime. 
 Redress the wrongs of Cleves 1"
 
 240 
 
 A SOULS 
 
 362. 7l>o costly a Jiow.-r, etc. Cf. iv. 184 above. The 1st t-d. \\.\- " \\i-u 
 you " for were this ; and in 365 " rule " for Diu-lty. 
 
 380. Barn.i/nl,: A monk of the order of St. llamahas an unwelcome 
 substitute for the Duke. 
 
 386. Plod. The ist ed. has "go." 
 
 A SOUL'S TRACK I >Y. 
 
 This drama was first published in 1846 (with /.;/<;) as No. VIII. of 
 Bells and Pomegranates. The number had the following dedication :* 
 
 I DEDICATE 
 
 THESE LAST ATTEMPTS FOR THE I'RESENT AT DRAMATIC POETRY 
 
 <To a CO IT at Dramatic $)oet ; 
 
 "WISHING WHAT I WRITE MAY HE READ BY HIS LIGHT" 
 
 IF A PHRASE ORIGINALLY ADDRESSED, BY NOT THE LEAST WORTHY OF 
 
 HIS CO N T E M PO R A K I ES, 
 
 TO SHAKESPEARE, 
 
 HAY BE APPLIED HERE, BY ONE WHOSE SOLE PRIVILEGE IS A GRATE- 
 FUL AMBITION, 
 
 TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 
 March 29, 1846. 
 In a letter, acknowledging the dedication, Landor said : 
 
 " Accept my thanks for the richest of Easter offerings made to any one 
 for many years. I stayed at home last evening on purpose to read Lnrin, 
 and if I lost my good music (as I certainly did) I was well compensated 
 in kind. To-day I intend to devote two rainy hours entirely to // Soul's 
 Tragedy. I wonder whether I shall find it as excellent as Luria ! You 
 have conferred too high a distinction on me in your graceful inscription. 
 I am more of a dramatist in prose than in poetry. . . . Go on and pass us 
 poor devils ! If you do not go far ahead of me, I will crack my whip a* 
 you and make you spring forward. So, to use a phrase of Queen Eliza- 
 beth, Yours as you demean yourself, \V. LANDOR." 
 
 No. VIII. of Bells and Pomegranates contained also the following 
 preface : 
 
 " Here ends my first series of Bells and Pomegranates : and I take the 
 opportunity of explaining, in reply to inquiries, that I only meant by that 
 title to indicate an endeavor towards something like an alternation, or 
 mixture, of music with discoursing, sound with sense, poetry with thought ; 
 which looks too ambitions, thus expressed, so the symbol was preferred. 
 
 * This was afterwards made the dedication to Luria, "these last attempts" being 
 changed \f " this last attempt," as stated on p. 9 above.
 
 ACT T. 
 
 241 
 
 It is little to the purpose, that such is actually one of the most familiar of 
 the many Rabbinical (and I'atristic) acceptations of the phrase ; because 
 I confess that, letting authority alone, I supposed the bare words, in such 
 juxtaposition, would sufficiently convey the desired meaning. ' Faith and 
 good works ' is another fancy, for instance, and perhaps no easier to arrive 
 at : yet Giotto placed a pomegranate-fruit in the hand of Dante, and Raf- 
 faelle crowned his Theology (in the Camera della Segn.ituni) with blossoms 
 of the same ; as if the Bellari and Vasari would be sure to comeafter, and 
 explain that it was merely ' simbolo delle buone operc /'/ qual Pomogra- 
 nato fu perb usato tielle vesti del PonUfice appresso gli Ebrei.' 1 R. B." 
 
 On the title of A Soul's Tragedy, see p. 55 above, and compare what 
 Browning says in the dedication of SorJello to M. Milsand, written in 
 1863, or twenty-three years after it was published : " The historical dec- 
 oration was purposely of no more importance than a background requires ; 
 and my stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul : little else 
 is worth study ; I at least always thought so. 11 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 The heading in the ist ed. is "Part I." The alterations in more re- 
 cent eds. are few compared with those in the Blot and Colombe. 
 
 2. The ave-bell. Rung about half an hour after sunset as a signal to 
 the people to repeat the Ave-M,tria. 
 
 49. We please. The ist ed. has " we 're pleased." 
 
 60. At church. That is, when christened. 
 
 61. Each. The ist ed. has "One." 
 
 72. Gauntlet-gatherer, Champion ; taking up in their behalf the gaunt- 
 lets thrown down by their enemies. 
 
 77. Wotind-inflictors. The ist ed. has " their inflictors." 
 
 94. FaettM. A town in Italy (the ancient F>iventia\ twenty miles to 
 the southwest of Ravenna. It was annexed to the States of me Church 
 in 1509 by Pope Julius II. In the I5th century it was the seat of impor- 
 tant ceramic manufactures (recently revived), whence the French name 
 faience for certain wares in that line. The population is now about 
 twenty thousand. 
 
 1 1 7. Nor mine. The 1st ed. has " Or mine." 
 
 126,127. Your prosperous smooth lover, etc. The ist ed. reads thus: 
 
 " Your prosperous smooth husband presently, 
 Then, scarce your wooer now, your lover : well" 
 
 129. Afy eye grew dim. The ist ed. has "eyes," and also in 133 below. 
 
 137. The fault 's there? The 1st ed. has "Oh. the fault was there?" 
 which makes the line a foot too long (cf. note on Blot, iii. i. 183). In 144 
 it IMS "oh " for why. 
 
 153 By fascination. In spite of myself, as if under the influence of 
 wsmt fascination, or enchantment. 
 
 161. As next. The 1st ed. has '"As to;" and in 181 "to spurn" for 
 W/iy spurn. 
 
 t6
 
 242 
 
 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 198. Nor missed a cloak, etc. That is, had to make no saciifices in 
 doing it. 
 
 207. By chance. The 1st ed. has "for once." 
 
 214. / would better. The 1st ed. has " I had better," which good u|<l 
 English idiom it had been better to retain. Cf. our Select Poems of Brown- 
 ing, p. 194, note on 78. 
 
 217. Tlu natural. The ist ed. has "its natural;" in 219 "So" for 
 Thus ; and in 224 " they woke" for awake. 
 
 231. The Lugo path. The road to Lugo, a town about ten miles north 
 of Kaenza and twenty west of Ravenna. It takes its name from the an- 
 cient Lucus Diana, the site of which it is supposed to occupy. 
 
 234. Helf> from. The ist ed. has "helping." 
 
 258. Spring shall plant, etc. Cf. Gen. viii. 22. 
 
 272. Loves. The ist ed. has "loved ;" in 275 " I have run a risk my 
 God !" in 276 " How " for For ; in 277 " his sentence ;" and in 278 " and 
 exiles you " for exiles yourself. 
 
 286. Ill-success. Cf. l\ich. ///. iv. 4. 236 : " dangerous success ;" Sid- 
 ney, 'Arcadia: "my heart misgave me some evil successe," etc. The 
 original meaning of the word was issue or result th:it which succeeds in 
 point of time. Bacon (Adv. of L. ii. 4. 2) speaks of "the successes and 
 issues of actions." 
 
 316. Promise. The ist ed. has " say that." 
 
 332. The glowing trip-hook, thnmbscrews, and the gadge. The trip-hook 
 and the gadge are obviously instruments of tortuie, like the thumbscrews, 
 but neither word is to be found in the dictionaries. 
 
 338. My coarse disguise. Referring to the cloak he has on. 
 
 340. Argenta. A small town eighteen miles southeast of Ferrara, or 
 about half-way between Lugo and that city. The only San Nicolo that 
 we can find in that part of Italy is a village on the road from Faenza to 
 Bologna, twenty miles or more directly west of Lugo, while Argenta is al- 
 most directly north. Cf. the inconsistencies in the famous ride from 
 Ghent to Aix as noted in our Select Poems of Browning, p. 164. 
 
 351. Yon escape. The ist ed. has "you '11 escape." 
 
 386. Come up. The ist ed. repeats " come down ;" and in the next line 
 it has " come forth " for come out. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 7. He the new Provost ? The ist ed. italicizes He ; in 1 1 it has " usage " 
 for custom ; in 13 " old " for late ; and in 21 "so when " for and when. 
 
 30. San Cassiano. There is a village of this name south of Lake Gar- 
 da, not far from Solferino. 
 
 35. Brutus the Elder. Who drove the Tarquins from Rome, but did 
 not make himself king in their stead. 
 
 42. Dico vobis. I tell you. 
 
 49. St. Nfpomucene. St. John Nepomuc, as he was called from his 
 birthplace (a small town in Bohemia), the patron saint of his native
 
 ACT II. 
 
 243 
 
 country, and especially honored in Prague the capital. Cf. Longfellow, 
 Golden Legend, i. : 
 
 " Like Saint John Nepomuck in stone 
 Looking down into a stream." 
 
 63. I do not dislike finding somebody, etc. Like the man who was tired 
 of hearing Aristides called the Just. 
 
 79. Cur fremuere gentes ? The beginning of the second Psalm in the 
 Vulgate. 
 
 89. Resort. The ist ed. has " resorts." 
 
 93. Heading nor hanging. Cf. Shakespeare, M.for M. ii. 1.250: "it 
 is but heading and hanging," etc. 
 
 103. And this so earnestly, etc. The Provost does not wish to expose 
 Luitolfo. 
 
 105. Late last evening. The 1st ed. has "so late that evening;" and 
 just below "And thus ran he on, easily and volubly," etc. 
 
 124. Ay, in that I agree. The ist ed. omits Ay. 
 
 143. Which are aft. The 1st ed. has " that are apt ;" and in 147 it 
 omits for, putting a dash in its place. 
 
 168. Luitolfo 's wealth. The 1st ed. has "goods" for wealth; in 175 
 " injunctions " for injunction ; and in 178 " Yet if what " for But if this. 
 
 174. In urgent danger. She did not mean bodily danger, as Luitolfo 
 supposed. 
 
 216. Ought I not make, etc. The ist ed. has "Ought I not rather 
 make," omitting the rather in next line ; in 219 it has " But" for Since, 
 with a colon instead of the comma in the next line ; in 226 fol. "nor in 
 finding the so many and so various loves united in the love of a woman 
 finding all uses in one instrument," etc. ; and in 230 " I shall give the in- 
 tellectual part of my love to men, the mighty dead or illustrious living," 
 etc. 
 
 234. Nay I only think, what do I lose? The 1st ed. has "love" for 
 lose, apparently a misprint ; and in 241 "and to which" for yet to which. 
 
 297. Thus God serves us. The ist ed. has " So God," etc. 
 
 304. The western lands. The recently discovered America. It will be 
 borne in mind that the time is the i6th century. 
 
 314. Principles. The ist ed. has " principle ;" and in 329 "why " for 
 sirs. 
 
 338. To newly consider. See on Blot, ii. 28 above. Cf. 491 below. 
 
 341. Thus, you see. The 1st ed. has " So, you see." 
 
 363. Advocators. A word to be found in none of the dictionaries except 
 the New Eng. Diet, where this is the only passage quoted for this mean- 
 ing. It was used in the I5th century in the sense of intercessor, patron 
 (saint). 
 
 368. Spend their life. The ist ed. has " spent " for spend, and " gave " 
 (or five in next line. 
 
 380. May enlarge. The 1st ed. has " must enlarge." 
 
 388. His cheeses. Sec i Sam. xvii. 18. 
 
 395. Aft/i-. Cf. I'fmfat, ii. 2. IO: "Anil after bite me," etc. 
 
 408. Higher forms of matter. The ist ed. omits of matter ; and in 424 
 it has " there is" for there follows.
 
 244 A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. 
 
 439. Profane vulgar. The " profanum vulgus " of Horace (Oif. iii. 
 I. I). 
 
 452. Generally. The ist ed. has " usually ;" and in 465-471 it has the 
 second person for the first " you " for us anil wv , and " your " for our. 
 
 491. To July enforce. See on 338 above. 
 
 495. Are you, etc. The ist ed. has " You are," etc. 
 
 555. Let whoso thinketh, etc. See I Cor. x. 12. 
 
 562. Yon must get better. The 1st cd. has " will " for must; in 565 
 "would really seem" for would seem; and in 577 "will thank" for 
 thanks. 
 
 581. Nearly out of sight, like our friend Chiappino yonder. The vital 
 importance of critical moments is Browning's favorite theme. The char- 
 acter must be prepared by long, patient training for "the stress and strain " 
 of an unforeseen and half-unrecognized occasion. The power to judge of 
 the real ethical value of any given act is strengthened if not positively 
 created by years of careful study of the relations of conduct and of people. 
 This observation must be unselfish as well as keen. No better example 
 can be found of all these general considerations than the character of Chi- 
 appino in A Sonfs Tragedy. He is equal to one lofty choice. He takes 
 upon himself the act of Luitolfo when he supposes that to do so is to meet 
 death in one of its most hideous forms. He bears the test of torturing 
 adversity. But at the next step he falters. The importance of truth 
 where an instant before a lie has been the truest heroism he does not 
 see. This time the moment does not seem to him important 
 
 "To-morrow . . . 
 We easily shall make him full amends." 
 
 One is reminded of the line in Lowell's great Present Crisis: "Never 
 shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by." 
 
 So by the one treacherous casting, fixed only half-consciously in its 
 place, the whole structure of character is made unsafe, and presently 
 topples to destruction. Browning, like Shakespeare, seldom shows us a 
 veritable tragedy a soul lost beyond the possibility of recall. Even 
 Giiido (in The Ring ami the Book) has one chance given him by the stern 
 merciful justice of the Pope. But Chiappino slinks out of sight, the vic- 
 tim of his own treachery, and we realize that for him there is no hope. 
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 "Coi.oMBE's BIRTHDAY " AT BOSTON IN 1854. Since the above pages 
 were in type we have had the pleasure of an interview with Mrs. Lander 
 (nee Davenport), who took the part of the heroine in the performance of 
 Colombe' l s Birthdav at the. Howard Athenseum in Boston, on the i6th of 
 February, 1854. As it was the last night of her engagement, the play was 
 given only once. It was also given once during Miss Davenport's en- 
 gagement in Philadelphia, on the 3ist of March, 1854. 
 
 Mrs. Lander has kindly marked for us the " cuts" in the play as per- 
 formed in 1854. They were as follows : 
 
 ACT I. Omit lines 15, 16 ("That . . . bank"); 36-38; 46, 47 ; 68-74; 
 86 ; 88-90 (" nor, as ... allowance "); 93-96 (" Things . . . came "); 112-
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 245 
 
 117; 144-186 ("The world ... themselves"); 194; 197-200; 208-216; 
 225-228; 230-238; 241, 242; 309-311; 342-347; 352-355; 357-3 6 4; 
 365-367 ("or I shall . . . favor"). After 220 add: "Valence (outside). 
 Give place ! I must, I will have audience !" 
 
 ACT II. Omit lines 90-94 ("She was ... them?"); 99-111; 138-141; 
 148-150 ("Take ... lady !"); 169-173; 199-201; 220-227; 238-240 
 ("Sir, and you . . . with "); 250-252; 257-262; 302-313; 328-331 ("Let 
 him . . . steadfastly"); 337. 
 
 ACT III. Omit lines 68-75 ("Meantime . . . Prince!"); 77-84 ("Say 
 ... no doubt!"), 108-112; 124; 129, 130; 220-224; 227 ("Me . . . speak 
 to "); 233-246; 258, 259 ("And, where . . . plash"); 262; 264; 284- 
 303 ("Pray . . . Guibert!"); 305-310 ("Ah, light . . . friend"); 315-321; 
 326-328 ("Ere you . . . perchance"); 330: 332-339; 369-376. 
 
 ACT IV. Omit lines 1-91; 106; 109-113; 141-144 ("You shall . . . 
 Propose!"); 157-159; 162; 164-169; 171-173 ("He'd hesitate ... ac- 
 cept me"); 178-181 ("How go ... sire!"); 186; 209; 212-222; 224, 
 22; ("A beggar's . . . quits"); 226-237 ("nor . . . prosper"); 242-248 
 (" his step . . . invincibility ") ; 365 ; 386-389 ; 402-404 (" All 's cleared . . . 
 Judge you "). Lines 406-410 are modified thus : 
 
 "What all will shout one day. All is said. 
 Look on me and him. Decide 
 Between the emperor and the man and speak I" 
 
 ACT V. Omit lines 2; 5:9; 16-20; 33-44; 64-66; 69; 71-76 ("And 
 for., .dirt"); 107-116; 126-129; 139-141; I44~I49("I s na " serve") ; 
 187-190 ("Both ... for this!"); 205-207; 209-213; 217, 218 (" In mind 
 . . . birthright"); 219-221 ("not blot . . . offer"); 224-233; 235; 242-246 
 (" Out ... not yet !") ; 248-250 (" You've . . . dumb ") ; 258-266 (" Sup- 
 
 I let the emperor go, and take the man." 
 
 The above includes all the omissions and alterations worth noting. A 
 few changes in a word or two are passed by. 
 
 The representation of the play occupied two hours, including the usual 
 intervals between acts.
 
 INDEX OF WORDS AND PHRASES EXPLAINED. 
 
 advocators, 243. 
 
 extreme (accent), 228. 
 
 oeconomy, 232. 
 
 after ( -afterwards), 243. 
 
 eyass, 222. 
 
 of all men else, 228. 
 
 Aix, 232. 
 
 
 
 Amelius, 232, 237. 
 
 Faenza, 241. 
 
 pageant-world, 227. 
 
 Argenta, 242. 
 
 fascination, by, 241. 
 
 pill and poll, 229. 
 
 arrow-hand, 223. 
 
 fiery centre, 236. 
 
 pillared flame, 233. 
 
 as 1 as if, 234. 
 
 fight-mark, 224. 
 
 poursuivant, 221. 
 
 autumn floats of pine wood, 
 
 foredone, 227. 
 
 Priscilla, 238. 
 
 229. 
 
 
 profane vulgar, 244. 
 
 ave-bell. 241. 
 
 gadge, 242. 
 
 proper (= comely), 222. 
 
 
 gauntlet-gatherer, 241. 
 
 
 Bacchant. 225. 
 
 gentles, 23 1. 
 
 Ravestein, 228. 
 
 Barnabite, 240. 
 
 God's Mother, 231. 
 
 
 bear a brain, 230. 
 
 grade ( step), 236. 
 
 St. Nepomucene, 242. 
 
 Berthold, 237. 
 
 grew (adjective ?), 235. 
 
 Salic law, 229. 
 
 bower ( chamber), 224. 
 
 gules, 227. 
 
 Sal) Cassiano, 242. 
 
 bow-hand. 223. 
 
 
 San Nicolo, 242. 
 
 brave ( beautiful), 237. 
 
 had better. 242. 
 
 smarting-while, 235. 
 
 bravery, 222. 
 
 hawks, your, 222. 
 
 step or stalk. 236. 
 
 brazen self, 236. 
 
 heading nor hanging, 243. 
 
 seneschal, 232. 
 
 Brutus the Elder, 242. 
 
 herald, 222. 
 
 starrier eye. 222. 
 
 burgtaves, 235. 
 
 ill-success, 242. 
 
 supporter (heraldic), 222. 
 Mirpiise the angels, to, 239. 
 
 cappings, 229. 
 
 
 sitrsum Ionia, 230. 
 
 louple), 222. 
 
 Juliers, 228. 
 
 
 chamberlain, 232. 
 
 
 thicks ( thickets), 222. 
 
 iliTvsoprase. 235. 
 
 landgraves, 235. 
 
 thumbscrews, 242. 
 
 church-flowers, 231. 
 
 leash ( three hounds), 222 
 
 to duly enforce, 244. 
 
 Cleves. 22<>. 
 
 losels, 225 
 
 to merely have, 224. 
 
 Clugnet, 232. 
 
 Lugo, 242. 
 
 to newly consider, 243. 
 
 crab, 222. 
 
 
 to only signify, 225. 
 
 crest (verb 1 , 231. 
 
 marcasite, 230. 
 
 to tamely acquiesce, 
 
 cur frftniiere gtmes 1 243. 
 
 markKraves, 235. 
 
 trip hook, 242. 
 
 
 marshal, 232. 
 
 tiuncheon, 233. 
 
 demean herself, 235. 
 
 masque. 227. 
 
 
 diamond scales, 224. 
 
 Maufroy, jjv 
 
 vine-leaf wrappage of trib- 
 
 dii'o t'obn. 241. 
 
 mercy stroke, 223. 
 
 ute-penny, 229. 
 
 diffused (accent), 226. 
 
 mere legs-and-aims, 232. 
 
 
 
 Mildred is fourteen, 223. 
 
 western lands 243. 
 
 emprise, 234. 
 
 mummery, 229. 
 
 wimple, 225. 
 
 express (accent), 228. 
 
 
 would better, 243. 
 
 expressless, 223. 
 
 Nepomuc St. John, 242. 

 
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