There are only four characters.

D'Ormea, the minister, is a mere stick in a prime-minister's robes and serves Victor and Charles with equal ease, in order to keep his place.

He is not even subtle in his _role_.

When we think what Browning would have made of him in a single poem, and contrast it with what he has made of him here, we are again impressed with Browning's strange loss of power when he is writing drama.

Victor and Charles are better drawn than any characters in _Strafford_; and Polyxena is a great advance on Lady Carlisle.