e is not once a line of poignant insight, is altogether uncritical.
Readers of this mind must have forgotten or be indifferent to those
lines, for example, where the wretched Charles stammeringly excuses
himself to his loyal minister for his death-warrant, crying out that it
was wrung from him, and begging Strafford not to curse him: or, again,
that wonderfully significant line, so full of a too tardy knowledge and
of concentrated scorn, where Strafford first begs the king to "be good
to his children," and then, with a contempt that is almost sublime,
implores, "Stay, sir, do not promise, do not swear!" The whole of the
second scene in the fifth act is pure genius. The reader, or spectator,
knows by this time that all hope is over: that Strafford, though all
unaware, is betrayed and undone. It is a subtle dramatic ruse, that of
Browning's representing him sitting in his apartment in the Tower with
his young children, William and Anne, blithely singing.

Can one read and ever forget the lines giving the gay Italian rhyme,
with the boy's picturesquely childish prose-accompaniment? Strafford is
seated, weary and distraught:--

"_O bell'andare
Per barca in mare,
Verso la sera
Di Primavera!_

_William_. The boat's in the broad moonlight all this while--

_Verso la sera
Di Primavera!_

And the boat shoots from underneath the moon
Into the shadowy distance; only still
You hear the dipping oar--

_Verso la sera,_

And faint, and fainter, and then all's quite gone,
Music and light and all, like a lost star.

_Anne_. But you should sleep, father: you were to sleep.

_Strafford_. I do sleep, Anne; or if not--you must know
There's such a thing as ...

_William_. You're too tired to sleep.

_Strafford_. It will come by-and-by and all day long,
In that old quiet house I told you of:
We sleep safe there.

_Anne_. Why not in Ireland?

_Strafford_. No!
Too many dreams!--"

To me this children's-song and the fleeting and now plaintive echo of
it, as "Voices from Within"--