Browning tries—­as if he had forgotten that which should have been first in his mind—­to lift the main struggle into importance in the last Act, but he fails.  That which ought to be tragic is merely sentimental.  Indeed, sentimentality is the curse of the play.  Strafford’s love of the king is almost maudlin.  The scenes between Strafford and Pym in which their ancient friendship is introduced are over-sentimentalised, not only for their characters, but for the great destinies at stake.  Even at the last, when Pym and Strafford forgive each other and speak of meeting hereafter, good sense is violated, and the natural dignity of the scene, and the characters of the men.  Strafford is weaker here, if that were possible, than he is in the rest of the drama.  Nothing can be more unlike the man.

Pym is intended to be especially strong.  He is made a blusterer.  He was a gentleman, but in this last scene he is hateful.  As to Charles, he was always a selfish liar, but he was not a coward, and a coward he becomes in this play.  He, too, is sentimentalised by his uxoriousness.  Lady Carlisle is invented.  I wish she had not been.  Stratford’s misfortunes were deep enough without having her in love with him.  I do not believe, moreover, that any woman in the whole world from the very beginning was ever so obscure in her speech to the man she loves as Lady Carlisle was to Strafford.  And the motive of her obscurity—­that if she discloses the King’s perfidy she robs Strafford of that which is dearest to him—­his belief in the King’s affection for him—­is no doubt very fine, but the woman was either not in love who argued in that way, or a fool; for Strafford knew, and lets her understand that he knew, the treachery of the King.  But Browning meant her to be in love, and to be clever.

* * * * *

The next play Browning wrote, undeterred by the fate of Strafford, was King Victor and King Charles.  The subject is historical, but it is modified by Browning, quite legitimately, to suit his own purposes.  In itself the plot is uninteresting.  King Victor, having brought the kingdom to the verge of ruin, abdicates and hands the crown to his son, believing him to be a weak-minded person whose mistakes will bring him—­Victor—­back to the throne, when he can throw upon the young king the responsibility of the mess he has himself made of the kingdom.  Charles turns out to be a strong character, sets right the foreign affairs of the kingdom, and repairs his father’s misgovernment.  Then Victor, envious and longing for power, conspires to resume the throne, and taken prisoner, begs back the crown.  Charles, touched as a son, and against his better judgment, restores his father, who immediately and conveniently dies.  It is a play of court intrigue and of politics, and these are not made interesting by any action, such as we call dramatic, in the play.  From end to end there is no inter-movement of public