for in the forenoon Carlyle gave the first of his lectures in London.  The play was a success, despite the shamefully inadequate acting of some of those entrusted with important parts.  There was once, perhaps there were more occasions than one, where success poised like the soul of a Mohammedan on the invisible thread leading to Paradise, but on either side of which lies perdition.  There was none to cry Timbul save Macready, except Miss Helen Faucit, who gained a brilliant triumph as Lady Carlisle.  The part of Charles I. was enacted so execrably that damnation for all was again and again within measurable distance.  “The Younger Vane” ranted so that a hiss, like an embodied scorn, vibrated on vagrant wings throughout the house.  There was not even any extraneous aid to a fortunate impression.  The house was in ill repair:  the seats dusty, the “scenery” commonplace and sometimes noticeably inappropriate, the costumes and accessories almost sordid.  But in the face of all this, a triumph was secured.  For a brief while Macready believed that the star of regeneration had arisen.  Unfortunately ’twas, in the words of a contemporary dramatic poet, “a rising sorrow splendidly forlorn.”  The financial condition of Covent Garden Theatre was so ruinous that not even the most successful play could have restored its doomed fortunes.

After the fifth night one of the leading actors, having received a better offer elsewhere, suddenly withdrew.

This was the last straw.  A collapse forthwith occurred.  In the scramble for shares in the few remaining funds every one gained something, except the author, who was to have received L12 for each performance for the first twenty-five nights, and, L10 each for ten nights further.  This disaster was a deep disappointment to Browning, and a by no means transitory one, for three or four years later he wrote (Advt. of “Bells and Pomegranates"):  “Two or three years ago I wrote a play, about which the chief matter I much care to recollect at present is, that a pitful of good-natured people applauded it.  Ever since, I have been desirous of doing something in the same way that should better reward their attention.”  But, except in so far as its abrupt declension from the stage hurt its author in the eyes of the critics, and possibly in those of theatrical managers, “Strafford” was certainly no failure.  It has the elements of a great acting play.  Everything, even the language (and here was a stumbling-block with most of the critics and criticasters), was subordinated to dramatic exigencies:  though the subordination was in conformity with a novel shaping method.  “Strafford” was not, however, allowed to remain unknown to those who had been unable to visit Covent Garden Theatre.[13] Browning’s name had quite sufficient literary repute to justify a publisher in risking the issue of a drama by him; one, at any rate, that had the advantage of association with Macready’s name.  The Longmans issued it, and the author had the pleasure of knowing that his third poetic work was not produced at the expense of a relative, but at that of the publishers.  It had but an indifferent reception, however.