could be found, a certain speech of his should be left out. That speech
is very important to the poetic, and not less to the moral, purpose
of the play: the triumph of unworldly affections. It is that in which
Valence defies the platitudes so often launched against rank and power,
and shows that these may be very beautiful things--in which he pleads
for his rival, and against his own heart. He is the better man of
the two, and Colombe has fallen genuinely in love with him. But the
instincts of sovereignty are not outgrown in one day however eventful,
and the young duchess has shown herself amply endowed with them. The
Prince's offer promised much, and it held still more. The time may come
when she will need that crowning memory of her husband's unselfishness
and truth, not to regret what she has done.

'King Victor and King Charles' and 'The Return of the Druses' are both
admitted by competent judges to have good qualifications for the stage;
and Mr. Browning would have preferred seeing one of these acted to
witnessing the revival of 'Strafford' or 'A Blot in the 'Scutcheon',
from neither of which the best amateur performance could remove the
stigma of past, real or reputed, failure; and when once a friend
belonging to the Browning Society told him she had been seriously
occupied with the possibility of producing the Eastern play, he assented
to the idea with a simplicity that was almost touching, 'It _was_ written
for the stage,' he said, 'and has only one scene.' He knew, however,
that the single scene was far from obviating all the difficulties of
the case, and that the Society, with its limited means, did the best it
could.

I seldom hear any allusion to a passage in 'King Victor and King
Charles' which I think more than rivals the famous utterance of Valence,
revealing as it does the same grasp of non-conventional truth, while its