Iain Finlayson - Browning

After Strafford , Robert’s brain teemed with ideas for further dramatic productions, including an adaptation of a ballad, ‘The Atheist’s Tragedy’, just lately published by John Payne Collier (who in 1840 founded the Shakespeare Society and busied himself thereafter with falsifications and forgeries in folios of Shakespeare’s plays that are the subject of academic debate to this day). His interest in the ballad was eclipsed by another rendering of it in dramatic form by Richard Hengist Horne in 1837, but no matter; there were other subjects. He wrote two plays, King Victor and King Charles and Mansoor the Hierophant (later retitled The Return of the Druses ), both of which were submitted to Macready for his attention and refused by the great actor. 94

On 5 September 1839, Macready ‘Read Browning’s play on Victor, King of Sardinia—it turned out to be a great mistake . I called Browning into my room and most explicitly told him so, and gave him my reasons for coming to such a conclusion.’ 95 Robert was not best pleased: Macready records in his Diary for 20 September a meeting with Forster who ‘told me of Browning’s intemperance about his play which he read to Fox, Forster, etc.’. On 6 August 1840, Macready was in another dilemma: Robert had delivered the text of The Return of the Druses . Macready sighed and despaired: ‘with the deepest concern I yield to the belief that he will never write again —to any purpose. I fear his intellect is not quite clear. I do not know how to write to Browning.’ 96 That he evidently found something to say is evidenced by a letter from Robert to Macready dated 23 August. It begins: ‘So once again, dear Macready, I have failed to please you! The Druzes [ sic ] return in another sense than I had hoped.’ On 12 August, Robert called on Macready and they talked, Macready giving his frank opinion both on Sordello and The Return of the Druses and ‘expressing myself most anxious, as I am, that he should justify the expectations formed of him, but that he could not do so by placing himself in opposition to the world.’ Nevertheless, Macready promised to read the play again.

On 27 August, Robert called at Elm Cottage, Elstree, to retrieve his manuscript. He came upon Macready before the great actor-manager had finished his bath, ‘and really wearied me with his obstinate faith in his poem of Sordello , and of his eventual celebrity, and also with his self-opinionated persuasions upon his Return of the Druses . I fear he is for ever gone. He speaks of Mr Fox (who would have been delighted and proud in the ability to praise him) in a very unkind manner, and imputed motives to him which on the mere surface seem absurd … Browning accompanied me to the theatre, at last consenting to leave the MS. with me for a second perusal.’

In his letter of 20 August to Macready, Robert had vigorously defended his play, in terms that it is not difficult to imagine he defended it to others, to anyone who would listen indeed, and had finished by hoping that The Return of the Druses might ‘but do me half the good “Sordello” has done—be praised by the units, cursed by the tens, and unmeddled with by the hundreds!’ The failure of Sordello and Macready’s plain misunderstanding of the finer points of his plays, which Robert was more than willing to explicate and exculpate, had caused the poet-dramatist to lose some of his customary aplomb, and the old actor to doubt the man’s sanity. Convinced of the inevitability of his future celebrity, Robert was anxious to promote it in poetry and in performance.

There is a note of panic in his attitude at this time, in his attempts to salvage a career that looked likely to be cut short by the incomprehensible incomprehension not only of the public but of his literary and dramatic peers. Little wonder that his behaviour and remarks (even about those he knew to be his supporters) might be somewhat intemperate and contributed to a reputation in the world that was doing him no good.

After yet another reading of Robert’s ‘mystical, strange and heavy play’, Macready could not revise his original opinion: ‘It is not good.’ 97 He wrote to say as much to Robert, who, two days later, on 16 August, turned up to collect his rejected manuscript.

There was no lasting difficulty for the time being between the two men, no serious disruption of their sociability: Robert continued to attend Macready’s plays, met him with mutual friends, dined with him. Mrs Orr supposes that Macready’s Diaries , edited for publication, omit some of the detail surrounding the production of Robert’s third attempt at a performable play— A Blot in the ’Scutcheon —which was produced at Drury Lane on 11 February 1843. This was some three years after Robert had written it, to judge by references in an undated letter to Macready that is likely to have been written before the end of December 1840. In this letter Robert says, in effect, third time lucky: ‘“The luck of the third adventure” is proverbial. I have written a spick and span new Tragedy (a sort of compromise between my own notion [i.e. in the Druses ] and yours—as I understand it at least) and will send it to you if you care to be bothered so far. There is action in it, drabbing, stabbing, et autres gentillesses,—who knows but the Gods may make me good even yet? Only, make no scruple of saying flatly that you cannot spare the time, if engagements of which I know nothing, but fancy a great deal, should claim every couple of hours in the course of this week.’

This is a conciliatory, even faintly humble letter. It certainly counts on Macready’s patience and good grace, and concedes that some dramatic action might be required to hold the attention of the playgoing public. He is prepared to give Macready what he wants if Macready will take what Robert wants to give. Such diplomacy had become necessary: Macready was losing faith in his young dramatist. Robert’s correspondence includes a couple of letters to Macready, dated 26 April 1842, in which he tries to drum Macready into stating his intentions towards not only The Return of the Druses but also A Blot in the ’Scutcheon .

In Macready’s edited Diaries there is a curious silence about the play he calls Blot until 25 and 26 January 1843, when he refers to reading it. On the Saturday, 28 January 1843, there had been a reading of Blot during which the actors had laughed at the play. Macready told Robert of the actors’ reaction and ‘Advised him as to the alteration of the second act.’

On 31 January, Macready went to the Drury Lane theatre. ‘Found Browning waiting for me in a state of great excitement. He abused the doorkeeper and was in a very great passion. I calmly apologized for having detained him, observing that I had made a great effort to meet him at all. He had not given his name to the doorkeeper, who had told him he might walk into the green-room, but his dignity was mortally wounded. I fear he is a very conceited man. Went over his play with him, then looked over part of it.’ By 7 February, Blot was in rehearsal and Robert had recovered his temper. But there were difficulties looming. Macready, right up to the last minute, was considering significant alterations to the play that were resisted by Robert: on 10 February ‘Browning … in the worst taste, manner and spirit, declined any further alterations … I had no more to say. I could only think Mr Browning a very disagreeable and offensively mannered person. Voilâ tout !’ But Macready thought that about a lot of persons who contradicted or even mildly discomposed him, so this judgement on this playwright at this time can be taken with a pinch of salt. Tempers, in any case, were short all round. The next day, Robert reappeared at the theatre. He ‘seemed desirous to explain or qualify the strange carriage and temper of yesterday, and laid much blame on Forster for irritating him’. Macready ‘directed the rehearsal of Blot in the ’Scutcheon , and made many valuable improvements’, though the acting left something to be desired.