And strew faint sweetness from some old
        Egyptian’s fine worm-eaten shroud
      Which breaks to dust when once unrolled;
        Or shredded perfume, like a cloud
        From closet long to quiet vowed,
      With mothed and dropping arras hung,
      Mouldering her lute and books among,
      As when a queen, long dead was young.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 12:  See the whole Preface, Appendix II.]

3.  STRAFFORD:  an Historical Tragedy.

[Written toward the close of 1836; acted at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (Strafford, Mr. Macready; Countess of Carlisle, Miss Helen Faucit), May 1, 1837; by the Browning Society at the Strand Theatre, Dec. 21, 1886, and at Oxford by the O.U.D.S. in 1890; published in 1837 (Poetical Works, 1889, Vol.  II., pp. 187-307).]

Strafford was written, at Macready’s earnest request, in an interval of the composition of Sordello.  Like all Browning’s plays which were acted, it owed its partial failure to causes quite apart from its own merits or defects as a play.[13] Browning may not have had the making of a 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 elaboration; the aim is nature, quick with personal passion.  Every word throbs with emotion; through these exclamatory, yet how delicate and subtle lines, we seem actually to see and hear the speakers, and with surprising vividness.  The words supply their own accents, looks and gestures.

In his preface to the first edition (reprinted in Appendix II.) Browning states that he believes the historical portraits to be faithful.  This is to a considerable extent confirmed by Professor Gardiner, who has given a careful consideration of 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 allows) this departure from fact, in the conduct of the action, is intentional, and, of course, allowable:  Browning was writing a drama, not a history.  Of the portraits, the really vital part of the play as an interpretation of history, he writes:—­

“For myself, I can only say that, every time I read the play, I feel more convinced that Mr. Browning has seized the real Strafford, the man of critical brain, of rapid decision, and tender heart, who strove for the 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