An Introduction to the Study of Browning

ess of Carlisle, Miss Helen Faucit), May 1, 1837; by the Browning Society at the Strand Theatre, Dec. 21, 18

good playwright; but at least no one ever gave him the chance of showing whether he was or not. The play is not without incident, especially in the third act. But its chief merit lies in the language and style of the dialogue. There is no aim at historical dignity or poetical elab

the play in its historical aspects, in his Introduction to Miss Hickey's annotated edition (G. Bell & Sons, 1884). As a representation of history, he tells us, it is inaccurate; "the very roots of the situation are untrue to fact." But (as he al

good of his nation, without sympathy for the generation in which he lived. Charles, too, with his faults perhaps exaggerated, is, nevertheless, a real Charles.... There is a wonderful parallelism between the Lady C

and faithlessness of Charles set over against the blind fidelity of his minister. The antagonism of law and despotism, of Pym and Strafford, is, perhaps, less clearly and forcibly brought out: though essential to the plot, it wears to our sight a somewhat secondary aspect. Strafford himself appears not so much a superb and unbending figure, a political power, as a man whose service of Charles is d

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ghten our feeling of affectionate pity and regret. The imaginary former friendship between Pym and Strafford adds still more to the pathos of the delineation, and gives rise to some of the finest speeches, notably the last great colloquy between these two, which so effectively rounds and ends the play. The fatal figure of Pym

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alia, by Edmund Gosse (Houg