And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan halls, And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon All this, and cast a wide and tender light, 'T was such a night! Enter the ABBOT. I learn'd the language of another world. Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach ABBOT. Thou dost not mean to menace me? MANFRED. Not I; I simply tell thee peril is at hand, And would preserve thee. What dost thou see? ABBOT. What dost mean? MANFRED. ABBOT. Look there! ABBOT. And I reply Never-till I have battled with this fiend What doth he here? MANFRED. Why-ay-what doth he here? I did not send for him, he is unbidden. ABBOT. Alas! lost mortal! what with guests like these MANFRED. Pronounce-what is thy mission? SPIRIT. ABBOT. MANFRED. Thou false fiend, thou liest! My life is in its last hour,-that I know, Upon my strength—I do defy-deny— Have made thee Come! What art thou, unknown being? answer!-speak! SPIRIT. The genius of this mortal.-Come! 't is time. MANFRED. I am prepared for all things, but deny The power which summons me. Who sent thee here ? SPIRIT. Thou It know anon-Come! come! MANFRED. I have commanded SPIRIT. Mortal! thine hour is come-Away! I say, MANFRED. I knew, and know my hour is come, but not SPIRIT. Then I must summon up my brethren.-Rise! ABBOT. SPIRIT. But thy many crimes MANFRED. What are they to such as thee? A torture which could nothing gain from thine: And its own place and time-its innate sense, ABBOT. Alas! how pale thou art-thy lips are white [Other Spirits rise up. And thy breast heaves-and in thy gasping throat lower part of the Alpine torrents: it is exactly like a rainbow, come down to pay a visit, and so close that you may walk into it:-this effect lasts till noon. Note 2. Page 233, lines 100 and 101. He who from out their fountain dwellings raised The philosopher Iamblicus. The story of the raising of Eros and Anteros may be found in his life, by Eunapius. It is well told. Note 3. Page 234, lines 91 and 92. In words of dubious import, but fulfill'd. The story of Pausanias, king of Sparta (who commanded the Greeks at the battle of Platea, and after Marino Faliero, Hoge of Venice, AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY. PREFACE. THE Conspiracy of the Doge Marino Faliero is one of the most remarkable events in the annals of the most singular government, city, and people of modern history. It occurred in the year 1355. Every thing about Venice is, or was, extraordinary-her aspect is like a dream, and her history is like a romance. The story of this Doge is to be found in all her Chronicles, and particularly detailed in the «Lives of the Doges,» by Marin Sanuto, which is given in the Appendix. It is simply and clearly related, and is, perhaps, more dramatic in itself than any scenes which can be founded upon the subject. He was Marino Faliero appears to have been a man of talents and of courage. I find him commander in chief of the land forces at the siege of Zara, where he beat the King of Hungary and his army of eighty thousand men, killing eight thousand men, and keeping the besieged at the same time in check, an exploit to which I know none similar in history, except that of Cæsar at Elesia, and of Prince Eugene at Belgrade. afterwards commander of the fleet in the same war. He took Capo d'Istria. He was ambassador at Genoa and Rome, at which last he received the news of his election to the dukedom; his absence being a proof that he sought it by no intrigue, since he was apprized of his predecessor's death and his own succession at the same moment. But he appears to have been of an ungovernable temper. A story is told by Sanuto, of his having, many years before, when podesta and captain at Treviso, boxed the ears of the bishop, who was somewhat tardy in bringing the Host. For this honest Sanuto «saddles him with a judgment,» as Thwackum did Square; but he does not tell us whether he was punished or rebuked by the senate for this outrage at the time of its commission. He seems, indeed, to have been afterwards at peace with the church, for we find him ambassador at Rome, and invested with the fief of Val di Marino, in the march of Treviso, and with the title of Count, by Lorenzo CountBishop of Ceneda. For these facts my authorities are, Sanuto, Vettor Sandi, Andrea Navagero, and the account of the siege of Zara, first published by the indefatigable Abbate Morelli, in his « Monumenti Veneziani di varia letteratura,» printed in 1796, all of which I have looked over in the original language. The moderns, Darú, Sismondi, and Laugier, nearly agree with the ancient chroniclers. Sismondi attributes the conspiracy to his jealousy; but I find this no where asserted by the national historians. Vettor Sandi, indeed, says, that «Altri scrissero che..... dalla gelosa suspizion di esso Doge siasi fatto (Michel Steno) staccar con violenza,» etc. etc.; but this appears to have been by no means the general opinion, nor is it alluded to by Sanuto or by Navagero; and Sandi himself adds, a moment after, that « per altre Veneziane memorie traspiri, che non il solo desiderio di vendetta lo dispose alla congiura ma anche la innata abituale ambizion sua, per cui anelava a farsi principe independente.» The first motive appears to have been excited by the gross affront of the words written by Michel Steno on the ducal chair, and by the light and inadequate sentence of the Forty on the offender, who was one of their «tre Capi.» The attentions of Steno himself appear to have been directed towards one of her damsels, and not to the a Dogaressa» herself, against whose fame not the slightest insinuation appears, while she is praised for her beauty, and remarked for her youth. Neither do I find it asserted (unless the hint of Sandi be an assertion) that the Doge was actuated by jealousy of his wife; but rather by respect for her, and for his own honour, warranted by his past services and present dignity. I know not that the historical facts are alluded to in English, unless by Dr Moore in his View of Italy. His account is false and flippant, full of stale jests about old men and young wives, and wondering at so great an effect from so slight a cause. How so acute and severe an observer of mankind as the author of Zeluco could wonder at this is inconceivable. He knew that a basin of water spilt on Mrs Masham's gown de prived the Duke of Marlborough of his command, and led to the inglorious peace of Utrecht-that Louis XIV. was plunged into the most desolating wars because his minister was nettled at his finding fault with a window, and wished to give him another occupation veil which is painted over the place of Marino Fa-that Helen lost Troy-that Lucretia expelled the Tar-liero amongst the doges, and the Giant's Staircase, where quins from Rome-and that Cava brought the Moors he was crowned, and discrowned, and decapitated, to Spain-that an insulted husband led the Gauls to struck forcibly upon my imagination, as did his fiery Clusium, and thence to Rome-that a single verse of character and strange story. I went in 1819, in search Frederic II. of Prussia on the Abbé de Bernis, and a of his tomb, more than once, to the church San Giojest on Madame de Pompadour, led to the battle of vanni e San Paolo; and as I was standing before the Rosbach-that the elopement of Dearbhorgil with Mac monument of another family, a priest came up to me Murchad conducted the English to the slavery of Ire- and said, «< I can show you finer monuments than that.»> land-that a personal pique between Maria Antoinette I told him that I was in search of that of the Faliero and the Duke of Orleans precipitated the first expulsion family, and particularly of the Doge Marino's. «Oh,»> of the Bourbons-and, not to multiply instances, that said he, «I will show it you;» and, conducting me to Commodus, Domitian, and Caligula fell victims, not the outside, pointed out a sarcophagus in the wall, to their public tyranny, but to private vengeance-and with an illegible inscription. He said that it had been that an order to make Cromwell disembark from the in a convent adjoining, but was removed after the ship in which he would have sailed to America, de- French came, and placed in its present situation; that stroyed both king and commonwealth. After these he had seen the tomb opened at its removal; there instances, on the least reflection, it is indeed extraor- were still some bones remaining, but no positive vestige dinary in Dr Moore to seem surprised that a man, used of the, decapitation. The equestrian statue of which to command, who had served and swayed in the most I have made mention in the third act as before that important offices, should fiereely resent, in a fierce age, church, is not, however, of a Faliero, but of some an unpunished affront, the grossest that can be offered other now obsolete warrior, although of a later date. to a man, be he prince or peasant. The age of Fa- There were two other Doges of this family prior to lier is little to the purpose, unless to favour. it. Marino: Ordelafo, who fell in battle at Zara, in 1117 (where his descendant afterwards conquered the Huns), and Vital Faliero, who reigned in 1082. The family, originally from Fano, was of the most illustrious in blood and wealth in the city of once the most wealthy and still the most ancient families in Europe. The length I have gone into on this subject will show the interest I have taken in it. Whether I have succeeded or not in the tragedy, I have at least transferred into our language an historical fact worthy of comme • The young man's wrath is like straw on fire, Young men soon give and soon forget affronts, Laugier's reflections are more philosophical :- Where did Dr Moore find that Marino Faliero begged lus life? I have searched the chroniclers, and find nothing of the kind; it is true that he avowed all. He was conducted to the place of torture, but there is no mention made of any application for mercy on Ja part; and the very circumstance of their having taken him to the rack seems to argue any thing but his having shown a want of firmness, which would doubtless have been also mentioned by those minute historians who by no means favour him: such, indeed, would be contrary to his character as a soldier, to the age in which he lived, and at which he died, as it is to the truth of history. I know no justification at any distance of time for calumniating an historical character; surely truth belongs to the dead and to the unfortunate, and they who have died upon a scaffold have generally had faults enough of their own, without attributing to them that which the very incurring of the perils which conducted them to their violent death renders, of all others, the most improbable. The black moration. can.»>> It is now four years that I have meditated this work, and before I had sufficiently examined the records, I was rather disposed to have made it turn on a jealousy in Faliero. But perceiving no foundation for this in historical truth, and aware that jealousy is an exhausted passion in the drama, I have given it a more historical form. I was, besides, well advised by the late Matthew Lewis on that point, in talking with him of my intention, at Venice, in 1817. « If you make him jealous,» said he, « recollect that you have to contend with established writers, to say nothing of Shakspeare, and an exhausted subject;-stick to the old fiery Doge's natural character, which will bear you out, if properly drawn; and make your plot as regular as you Sir William Drummond gave me nearly the same counsel. How far I have followed these instructions, or whether they have availed me, is not for me to decide. I have had no view to the stage; in its present state it is, perhaps, not a very exalted object of ambition; besides, I have been too much behind the scenes to have thought it so at any time. And I cannot conceive any man of irritable feeling putting himself at the mercies of an audience:-the sneering reader, and the loud critic, and the tart review, are scattered and distant calamities; but the trampling of an intelligent or of an ignorant audience on a production which, be it good or bad, has been a mental labour to the writer, is a palpable and immediate grievance, heightened by a man's doubt of their competency to judge, and his certainty of his own imprudence in electing them his judges. Were I capable of writing a play which could be deemed stage-worthy, success would give me no pleasure, and failure great pain. It is for this reason that, even during the time of being one of the committee of one of the theatres, I never made the attempt, and never will. But surely there is dramatic power somewhere,-where Joanna Baillie, and Milman, and John Wilson exist. The «City of the plague» and the Fall of Jerusalem» are full of the best «matériel» for tragedy that has been seen since Horace Walpole, except passages of « Ethwald» and « De Montfort.» It is the fashion to underrate Horace Walpole; firstly, because he was a nobleman, and secondly, because he was a gentleman; but, to say nothing of the composition of his incomparable « Letters,» and of the <<< Castle of Otranto,» he is the « Ultimus Romanorum,» the author of the «Mysterious Mother,» a tragedy of the highest order, and not a puling love-play. He is the father of the first romance, and of the last tragedy in our language, and surely worthy of a higher place than any living writer, be he who he may. In speaking of the drama of Marino Faliero, I forgot to mention that the desire of preserving, though still too remote, a nearer approach to unity than the irregularity, which is the reproach of the English theatrical compositions, permits, has induced me to represent the conspiracy as already formed, and the Doge acceding to it, whereas, in fact, it was of his own preparation and that of Israel Bertuccio. The other characters (except that of the duchess), incidents, and almost the time, which was wonderfully short for such a design in real life, are strictly historical, except that all the consultations took place in the palace. Had I followed this, the unity would have been better preserved; but I wished to produce the Doge in the full assembly of the conspirators, instead of monotonously placing him always in dialogue with the same individuals. For the real facts, I refer to the extracts given in the Appendix in Italian, with a translation. While I was in the sub-committee of Drury Lane Theatre, I can vouch for my colleagues, and I hope for myself, that we did our best to bring back the legitimate drama. I tried what I could to get De Montfort revived, but in vain, and equally in vain in favour of Sotheby's Ivan, which was thought an acting play; and I endeavoured also to wake Mr Coleridge to write a tragedy. Those who are not in the secret will hardly believe that the School for Scandala is the play which has brought least money, averaging the number of times it has been acted since its production; so Manager Dibdin assured me. Of what has occurred since Maturin's Bertram, I am not aware; so that I may be traducing, through ignorance, some excellent new writers: if so, I beg their pardon. I have been absent from England nearly five years, and, till last year, I never read an English newspaper since my departure, and am now only aware of theatrical matters through the medium of the Parisian English Gazette of Galignani, and only for the last twelve months. Let me then deprecate all offence to tragic or comic writers, to whom I wish well, and of whom I know nothing. The long complaints of the actual state of the drama arise, however, from no fault of the performers. I can conceive nothing better than Kemble, Cooke, and Kean, in their very different manners, or than Elliston in gentleman's comedy, and in some parts of tragedy. Miss O'Neill I never saw, having made and kept a determination to see nothing which should divide or disturb my recollection of Siddons. Siddons and Kemble were the ideal of tragic action; I never saw any thing at all resembling them, even in person: for this reason we shall never see again Coriolanus or Macbeth. When Kean is blamed for want of dignity, we should remember that it is a grace and not an art, and not to be attained by study. In all not SUPERnatural parts he is perfect; even his very defects belong, or seem to belong, to the parts themselves, and appear truer to nature. But of Kemble we may say with reference to his acting, what the Cardinal de Retz said of the Marquis of Montrose, that he was the only man be ever saw who reminded him of the heroes of Plutarch.. With struggling patience. Placed at the ducal table, cover'd o'er |