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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Robert Browning's theatrical career began with a casual remark at a dinner party in 1836 and ended with a bitter quarrel in 1843. The somewhat unwilling sponsor and mentor of the young playwright, responsible for both the beginning and the end of his career, was William Charles Macready, the leading actor-manager of the early nineteenth century. Between these two men there existed a relationship —more than mere tutelage, but never quite friendship—which played an important part in the making of the poet.
1 The dinner, 26 May 1836, celebrated the opening of Talfourd's Ion (W. Hall Griffin and H. C. Minchin, The Life of Robert Browning, 3rd ed. [London: Methuen & Co., 1938], p. 107).
2 Macready over-estimated Browning's ability, if anything. Three months before the dinner-party, Browning told Macready of his project for a tragedy on Narses, Justinian's victorious general. Macready recorded in his diary that the “miseries, the humiliations, the heart-sickening disgusts” which he had suffered in his profession might be recompensed if he had awakened in Browning “a spirit of poetry whose influence would elevate, ennoble, and adorn our degraded drama” (The Diaries of William Charles Macready, 1833–1851, ed. William Toynbee; 2 vols. [London: Chapman & Hall, 1912], i, 277).
3 Ibid., I, 355; Browning to Macready 28 May 1836, published in New Letters, ed. W. C. De Vane and K. L. Knickerbocker (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1950), p. 12. Subsequent references to the Macready Diaries are included (in parentheses) in the body of the text.
4 Macready had only a personal, or rather, a social contract with Browning; there was no business agreement. At this point in the diary Macready comments on “a scene” between John Forster and Browning. Macready's primary aim seems to have been to get through “this delicate affair of Browning” (i, 388) without any “scenes” involving himself. He seems to have hated off-stage melodrama nearly as much as he relished it before the footlights.
5 Manuscript at Yale, 23 Aug. 1840; published in New Letters, pp. 20–22.
6 Macready received the appointment to the management of Drury Lane 6 April 1841; the final day of his engagement at the Haymarket was 7 Dec. 1841 (Diaries, ii, 131–132,149). Plighted Troth opened 20 April 1842; The Patrician's Daughter, with a prologue by Dickens, was delayed until December (ibid., ii, 164–165, 188–189).
7 Browning to Frank Hill, 15 Dec. 1884; MS. at Yale.
8 Macready to Bulwer-Lytton, 17 July 1842; quoted in Charles H. Shattuck, Bulwer and Macready (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1958), p. 212.
9 Browning to Frank Hill, 15 Dec. 1884, loc. cit.
10 A manuscript copy in the hand of Sarianna Browning (the poet's sister, 1814–1903), with manuscript revisions by Browning and Macready's proposed cuts and changes. 42 double sheets 32.1X39.6 cm., stitched in a manila wrapper. The paper is watermarked 1839 and (the first two blank sheets, one of which contains Browning's 1884 description of the MS.) 1842. The manuscript was given to the Yale Library in 1946 by Chauncey Brewster Tinker; for a more detailed description, see Robert F. Metzdorf, The Tinker Library (New Haven: Yale Univ. Library, 1959), p. 86.
11 Certain revisions in Macready's hand do show up in the first edition: revisions of single words which Browning evidently accepted and copied into his original MS. (later the printer's copy) while Macready was revising, the alteration of the five-act original to a three-act play as printed; and one insertion of five lines of verse in Mildred's speech at the end of I. iii. (294). 36–40, in the Macmillan Edition). This is written in an ink clearly different in color and quality from that which I assume indicates Browning's approval, and is clearly written in Macready's hand. It is just as clearly Browning's verse. It must have been dictated to Macready by Browning from the original MS. or given to him on a separate slip copied from the original, which Macready in turn copied into the Yale MS. (or Browning entered it in his printer's copy after he had given it to Macready for the Yale MS.). In any case, it is printed in the first edition—the only substantial revision in Macready's hand in the Yale MS. which appears there.
12 A complete listing of Macready's suggested revisions will be found at the end of this article. No attempt has been made to note changes which were made in the original MS. between the time the Yale MS. was copied from it and the first edition was printed from it, unless, of course, the revisions show up in the Yale MS.
13 See Allardyce Nicoll, “The Theatre,” Early Victorian England, ed. G. M. Young, 2 vols. (London: Oxford, 1934), ii, 267 ff.
14 Ibid., passim. Nicoll lays much of the blame for the decline of the drama in the nineteenth century to the expansion in size of the licensed theatres.
15 Robert Browning, Works (New York: Macmillan, 1914), p. 299. 18ff. Quotations of text are from the Yale MS., but are located by the lineation of the Macmillan Edition. Subsequent quotations from the text of the play are identified in parentheses in the body of the article. Italicized portions indicate Macready's proposed cuts. His substitutions follow the line in square brackets, or are detailed in the notes.
16 The Yale MS. has:
He is gone—Oh I believe him, every word! I was so young—I loved him so—I had No mother—God forgot me—and I fell.
[M.: “Heaven” vice “God”]. There may be pardon yet—all's doubt beyond. Well, I have made him happy—Let me sleep——No mother—God forgot me—and I fell—-
[M.: “Heaven” wee “God”]. Surely the bitterness of death is past! The first edition omits the repetition of the “No mother…” line.
17 As revised by Macready, this line reads “The partner of my love—with brow, with lips.”
18 Macready's substitution for this line: “But—Oh—Henry—will you not despise me?”
19 The changes in 294. 8–10, 14–16; 298. 18–22, and 301. 33–34 seem to have been determined by a similar motive.
20 Browning attended a rehearsal on 7 Feb. and Macready reported him “in better humour than I have lately seen him,” so the ending must have been changed after this date (Diaries, ii, 195). Evidently the Yale MS. was back in Macready's hands at some time between 7 and 10 Feb.
21 Browning to Hill, 15 Dec. 1884, loc. cit.
22 Browning to Hill, 21 Dec. 1884; MS. at Yale.
23 23 Sept. 1852; MS. at Yale, published in New Letters, p. 55.
24 William Archer, William Charles Macready (London: Kegan Paul, 1890), p. 214.