The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 4

by Baron George Gordon Byron Byron

THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.

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CANTO THE FIRST.

Once more in Man's frail world! which I had left
So long that 'twas forgotten; and I feel
The weight of clay again,—too soon bereft
Of the Immortal Vision which could heal
My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies
Lift me from that deep Gulf without repeal,
Where late my ears rung with the damned cries
Of Souls in hopeless bale; and from that place
Of lesser torment, whence men may arise
Pure from the fire to join the Angelic race;10
Midst whom my own bright Beatricē[286] blessed
My spirit with her light; and to the base
Of the Eternal Triad! first, last, best,[287]
Mysterious, three, sole, infinite, great God!
Soul universal! led the mortal guest,
Unblasted by the Glory, though he trod
From star to star to reach the almighty throne.[bw]
Oh Beatrice! whose sweet limbs the sod
So long hath pressed, and the cold marble stone,
Thou sole pure Seraph of my earliest love,20
Love so ineffable, and so alone,
That nought on earth could more my bosom move,
And meeting thee in Heaven was but to meet
That without which my Soul, like the arkless dove,
Had wandered still in search of, nor her feet
Relieved her wing till found; without thy light
My Paradise had still been incomplete.[288]
Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight
Thou wert my Life, the Essence of my thought,
Loved ere I knew the name of Love,[289] and bright30
Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought
With the World's war, and years, and banishment,
And tears for thee, by other woes untaught;
For mine is not a nature to be bent
By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd,
And though the long, long conflict hath been spent
In vain,—and never more, save when the cloud
Which overhangs the Apennine my mind's eye
Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud
Of me, can I return, though but to die,40
Unto my native soil,—they have not yet
Quenched the old exile's spirit, stern and high.
But the Sun, though not overcast, must set
And the night cometh; I am old in days,
And deeds, and contemplation, and have met
Destruction face to face in all his ways.
The World hath left me, what it found me, pure,
And if I have not gathered yet its praise,
I sought it not by any baser lure;
Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name50
May form a monument not all obscure,
Though such was not my Ambition's end or aim,
To add to the vain-glorious list of those
Who dabble in the pettiness of fame,
And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows
Their sail, and deem it glory to be classed
With conquerors, and Virtue's other foes,
In bloody chronicles of ages past.
I would have had my Florence great and free;[290]
Oh Florence! Florence![291] unto me thou wast60
Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He
Wept over, "but thou wouldst not;" as the bird
Gathers its young, I would have gathered thee
Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard
My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce,
Against the breast that cherished thee was stirred
Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce,
And doom this body forfeit to the fire.[292]
Alas! how bitter is his country's curse
To him who for that country would expire,70
But did not merit to expire by her,
And loves her, loves her even in her ire.
The day may come when she will cease to err,
The day may come she would be proud to have
The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer[bx]
Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave.
But this shall not be granted; let my dust
Lie where it falls; nor shall the soil which gave
Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust
Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume80
My indignant bones, because her angry gust
Forsooth is over, and repealed her doom;
No,—she denied me what was mine—my roof,
And shall not have what is not hers—my tomb.
Too long her arméd wrath hath kept aloof
The breast which would have bled for her, the heart
That beat, the mind that was temptation proof,
The man who fought, toiled, travelled, and each part
Of a true citizen fulfilled, and saw
For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art90
Pass his destruction even into a law.
These things are not made for forgetfulness,
Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw
The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress
Of such endurance too prolonged to make
My pardon greater, her injustice less,
Though late repented; yet—yet for her sake
I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine,
My own Beatricē, I would hardly take
Vengeance upon the land which once was mine,100
And still is hallowed by thy dust's return,
Which would protect the murderess like a shrine,
And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn.
Though, like old Marius from Minturnæ's marsh
And Carthage ruins, my lone breast may burn
At times with evil feelings hot and harsh,[293]
And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe
Writhe in a dream before me, and o'erarch
My brow with hopes of triumph,—let them go!
Such are the last infirmities of those110
Who long have suffered more than mortal woe,
And yet being mortal still, have no repose
But on the pillow of Revenge—Revenge,
Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows
With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change,
When we shall mount again, and they that trod
Be trampled on, while Death and Até range
O'er humbled heads and severed necks——Great God!
Take these thoughts from me—to thy hands I yield
My many wrongs, and thine Almighty rod120
Will fall on those who smote me,—be my Shield!
As thou hast been in peril, and in pain,
In turbulent cities, and the tented field—
In toil, and many troubles borne in vain
For Florence,—I appeal from her to Thee!
Thee, whom I late saw in thy loftiest reign,
Even in that glorious Vision, which to see
And live was never granted until now,
And yet thou hast permitted this to me.
Alas! with what a weight upon my brow130
The sense of earth and earthly things come back,
Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low,
The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack,
Long day, and dreary night; the retrospect
Of half a century bloody and black,
And the frail few years I may yet expect
Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear,
For I have been too long and deeply wrecked
On the lone rock of desolate Despair,
To lift my eyes more to the passing sail140
Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare;
Nor raise my voice—for who would heed my wail?
I am not of this people, nor this age,
And yet my harpings will unfold a tale
Which shall preserve these times when not a page
Of their perturbéd annals could attract
An eye to gaze upon their civil rage,[by]
Did not my verse embalm full many an act
Worthless as they who wrought it: 'tis the doom
Of spirits of my order to be racked150
In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume
Their days in endless strife, and die alone;
Then future thousands crowd around their tomb,
And pilgrims come from climes where they have known
The name of him—who now is but a name,
And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone,
Spread his—by him unheard, unheeded—fame;
And mine at least hath cost me dear: to die
Is nothing; but to wither thus—to tame
My mind down from its own infinity—160
To live in narrow ways with little men,
A common sight to every common eye,
A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den,
Ripped from all kindred, from all home, all things
That make communion sweet, and soften pain—
To feel me in the solitude of kings
Without the power that makes them bear a crown—
To envy every dove his nest and wings
Which waft him where the Apennine looks down
On Arno, till he perches, it may be,170
Within my all inexorable town,
Where yet my boys are, and that fatal She,[294]
Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought
Destruction for a dowry—this to see
And feel, and know without repair, hath taught
A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free:
I have not vilely found, nor basely sought,
They made an Exile—not a Slave of me.

CANTO THE SECOND.

The Spirit of the fervent days of Old,
When words were things that came to pass, and Thought
Flashed o'er the future, bidding men behold
Their children's children's doom already brought
Forth from the abyss of Time which is to be,
The Chaos of events, where lie half-wrought
Shapes that must undergo mortality;
What the great Seers of Israel wore within,
That Spirit was on them, and is on me,
And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din10
Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed
This voice from out the Wilderness, the sin
Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed,
The only guerdon I have ever known.
Hast thou not bled? and hast thou still to bleed,
Italia? Ah! to me such things, foreshown
With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget
In thine irreparable wrongs my own;
We can have but one Country, and even yet
Thou'rt mine—my bones shall be within thy breast,20
My Soul within thy language, which once set
With our old Roman sway in the wide West;
But I will make another tongue arise
As lofty and more sweet, in which expressed
The hero's ardour, or the lover's sighs,
Shall find alike such sounds for every theme
That every word, as brilliant as thy skies,
Shall realise a Poet's proudest dream,
And make thee Europe's Nightingale of Song;[295]
So that all present speech to thine shall seem30
The note of meaner birds, and every tongue
Confess its barbarism when compared with thine.[bz]
This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong,
Thy Tuscan bard, the banished Ghibelline.
Woe! woe! the veil of coming centuries
Is rent,—a thousand years which yet supine
Lie like the ocean waves ere winds arise,
Heaving in dark and sullen undulation,
Float from Eternity into these eyes;
The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station,40
The unborn Earthquake yet is in the womb,
The bloody Chaos yet expects Creation,
But all things are disposing for thy doom;
The Elements await but for the Word,
"Let there be darkness!" and thou grow'st a tomb!
Yes! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword,[296]
Thou, Italy! so fair that Paradise,
Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored:
Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice?
Thou, Italy! whose ever golden fields,50
Ploughed by the sunbeams solely, would suffice
For the world's granary; thou, whose sky Heaven gilds[ca]
With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue;
Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds
Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew,
And formed the Eternal City's ornaments
From spoils of Kings whom freemen overthrew;
Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of Saints,
Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made[cb]
Her home; thou, all which fondest Fancy paints,60
And finds her prior vision but portrayed
In feeble colours, when the eye—from the Alp
Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade
Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp
Nods to the storm—dilates and dotes o'er thee,
And wistfully implores, as 'twere, for help
To see thy sunny fields, my Italy,
Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still
The more approached, and dearest were they free,
Thou—Thou must wither to each tyrant's will:70
The Goth hath been,—the German, Frank, and Hun[297]
Are yet to come,—and on the imperial hill
Ruin, already proud of the deeds done
By the old barbarians, there awaits the new,
Throned on the Palatine, while lost and won
Rome at her feet lies bleeding; and the hue
Of human sacrifice and Roman slaughter
Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue,
And deepens into red the saffron water
Of Tiber, thick with dead; the helpless priest,80
And still more helpless nor less holy daughter,
Vowed to their God, have shrieking fled, and ceased
Their ministry: the nations take their prey,
Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast
And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they
Are; these but gorge the flesh, and lap the gore
Of the departed, and then go their way;
But those, the human savages, explore
All paths of torture, and insatiate yet,
With Ugolino hunger prowl for more.90
Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set;[298]
The chiefless army of the dead, which late
Beneath the traitor Prince's banner met,
Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate;
Had but the royal Rebel lived, perchance
Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate.
Oh! Rome, the Spoiler or the spoil of France,
From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never
Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance,
But Tiber shall become a mournful river.100
Oh! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po,
Crush them, ye Rocks! Floods whelm them, and for ever!
Why sleep the idle Avalanches so,
To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head?
Why doth Eridanus but overflow
The peasant's harvest from his turbid bed?
Were not each barbarous horde a nobler prey?
Over Cambyses' host[299] the desert spread
Her sandy ocean, and the Sea-waves' sway
Rolled over Pharaoh and his thousands,—why,[cc]110
Mountains and waters, do ye not as they?
And you, ye Men! Romans, who dare not die,
Sons of the conquerors who overthrew
Those who overthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie
The dead whose tomb Oblivion never knew,
Are the Alps weaker than Thermopylæ?
Their passes more alluring to the view
Of an invader? is it they, or ye,
That to each host the mountain-gate unbar,
And leave the march in peace, the passage free?120
Why, Nature's self detains the Victor's car,
And makes your land impregnable, if earth
Could be so; but alone she will not war,
Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth
In a soil where the mothers bring forth men:
Not so with those whose souls are little worth;
For them no fortress can avail,—the den
Of the poor reptile which preserves its sting
Is more secure than walls of adamant, when
The hearts of those within are quivering.130
Are ye not brave? Yes, yet the Ausonian soil
Hath hearts, and hands, and arms, and hosts to bring
Against Oppression; but how vain the toil,
While still Division sows the seeds of woe
And weakness, till the Stranger reaps the spoil.[300]
Oh! my own beauteous land! so long laid low,
So long the grave of thy own children's hopes,
When there is but required a single blow
To break the chain, yet—yet the Avenger stops,
And Doubt and Discord step 'twixt thine and thee,140
And join their strength to that which with thee copes;
What is there wanting then to set thee free,
And show thy beauty in its fullest light?
To make the Alps impassable; and we,
Her Sons, may do this with one deed—Unite.

CANTO THE THIRD.

From out the mass of never-dying ill,[cd]
The Plague, the Prince, the Stranger, and the Sword,
Vials of wrath but emptied to refill
And flow again, I cannot all record
That crowds on my prophetic eye: the Earth
And Ocean written o'er would not afford
Space for the annal, yet it shall go forth;
Yes, all, though not by human pen, is graven,
There where the farthest suns and stars have birth,
Spread like a banner at the gate of Heaven,10
The bloody scroll of our millennial wrongs
Waves, and the echo of our groans is driven
Athwart the sound of archangelic songs,
And Italy, the martyred nation's gore,
Will not in vain arise to where belongs[ce]
Omnipotence and Mercy evermore:
Like to a harpstring stricken by the wind,
The sound of her lament shall, rising o'er
The Seraph voices, touch the Almighty Mind.
Meantime I, humblest of thy sons, and of20
Earth's dust by immortality refined
To Sense and Suffering, though the vain may scoff,
And tyrants threat, and meeker victims bow
Before the storm because its breath is rough,
To thee, my Country! whom before, as now,
I loved and love, devote the mournful lyre
And melancholy gift high Powers allow
To read the future: and if now my fire
Is not as once it shone o'er thee, forgive!
I but foretell thy fortunes—then expire;30
Think not that I would look on them and live.
A Spirit forces me to see and speak,
And for my guerdon grants not to survive;
My Heart shall be poured over thee and break:
Yet for a moment, ere I must resume
Thy sable web of Sorrow, let me take
Over the gleams that flash athwart thy gloom
A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy night,
And many meteors, and above thy tomb
Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death cannot blight:40
And from thine ashes boundless Spirits rise
To give thee honour, and the earth delight;
Thy soil shall still be pregnant with the wise,
The gay, the learned, the generous, and the brave,
Native to thee as Summer to thy skies,
Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave,[301]
Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name;[302]
For thee alone they have no arm to save,
And all thy recompense is in their fame,
A noble one to them, but not to thee—50
Shall they be glorious, and thou still the same?
Oh! more than these illustrious far shall be
The Being—and even yet he may be born—
The mortal Saviour who shall set thee free,
And see thy diadem, so changed and worn
By fresh barbarians, on thy brow replaced;
And the sweet Sun replenishing thy morn,
Thy moral morn, too long with clouds defaced,
And noxious vapours from Avernus risen,
Such as all they must breathe who are debased60
By Servitude, and have the mind in prison.[303]
Yet through this centuried eclipse of woe[cf]
Some voices shall be heard, and Earth shall listen;
Poets shall follow in the path I show,
And make it broader: the same brilliant sky
Which cheers the birds to song shall bid them glow,[cg]
And raise their notes as natural and high;
Tuneful shall be their numbers; they shall sing
Many of Love, and some of Liberty,
But few shall soar upon that Eagle's wing,70
And look in the Sun's face, with Eagle's gaze,
All free and fearless as the feathered King,
But fly more near the earth; how many a phrase
Sublime shall lavished be on some small prince
In all the prodigality of Praise!
And language, eloquently false, evince[ch]
The harlotry of Genius, which, like Beauty,[ci]
Too oft forgets its own self-reverence,
And looks on prostitution as a duty.[304]
He who once enters in a Tyrant's hall[cj][305]80
As guest is slave—his thoughts become a booty,
And the first day which sees the chain enthral
A captive, sees his half of Manhood gone[306]—
The Soul's emasculation saddens all
His spirit; thus the Bard too near the throne
Quails from his inspiration, bound to please,—
How servile is the task to please alone!
To smooth the verse to suit his Sovereign's ease
And royal leisure, nor too much prolong
Aught save his eulogy, and find, and seize,90
Or force, or forge fit argument of Song!
Thus trammelled, thus condemned to Flattery's trebles,
He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong:
For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels,
Should rise up in high treason to his brain,
He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles
In's mouth, lest Truth should stammer through his strain.
But out of the long file of sonneteers
There shall be some who will not sing in vain,
And he, their Prince, shall rank among my peers,[307]
And Love shall be his torment; but his grief
Shall make an immortality of tears,
And Italy shall hail him as the Chief
Of Poet-lovers, and his higher song
Of Freedom wreathe him with as green a leaf.
But in a farther age shall rise along
The banks of Po two greater still than he;
The World which smiled on him shall do them wrong
Till they are ashes, and repose with me.
The first will make an epoch with his lyre,110
And fill the earth with feats of Chivalry:[308]
His Fancy like a rainbow, and his Fire,
Like that of Heaven, immortal, and his Thought
Borne onward with a wing that cannot tire;
Pleasure shall, like a butterfly new caught,
Flutter her lovely pinions o'er his theme,
And Art itself seem into Nature wrought
By the transparency of his bright dream.—
The second, of a tenderer, sadder mood,
Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem;120
He, too, shall sing of Arms, and Christian blood
Shed where Christ bled for man; and his high harp
Shall, by the willow over Jordan's flood,
Revive a song of Sion, and the sharp
Conflict, and final triumph of the brave
And pious, and the strife of Hell to warp
Their hearts from their great purpose, until wave
The red-cross banners where the first red Cross
Was crimsoned from His veins who died to save,[ck]
Shall be his sacred argument; the loss130
Of years, of favour, freedom, even of fame
Contested for a time, while the smooth gloss
Of Courts would slide o'er his forgotten name
And call Captivity a kindness—meant
To shield him from insanity or shame—
Such shall be his meek guerdon! who was sent
To be Christ's Laureate—they reward him well!
Florence dooms me but death or banishment,
Ferrara him a pittance and a cell,[309]
Harder to bear and less deserved, for I140
Had stung the factions which I strove to quell;
But this meek man who with a lover's eye
Will look on Earth and Heaven, and who will deign
To embalm with his celestial flattery,
As poor a thing as e'er was spawned to reign,[310]
What will he do to merit such a doom?
Perhaps he'll love,—and is not Love in vain
Torture enough without a living tomb?
Yet it will be so—he and his compeer,
The Bard of Chivalry, will both consume[311]150
In penury and pain too many a year,
And, dying in despondency, bequeath
To the kind World, which scarce will yield a tear,
A heritage enriching all who breathe
With the wealth of a genuine Poet's soul,
And to their country a redoubled wreath,
Unmatched by time; not Hellas can unroll
Through her Olympiads two such names, though one[312]
Of hers be mighty;—and is this the whole
Of such men's destiny beneath the Sun?[313]160
Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense,
The electric blood with which their arteries run,[cl]
Their body's self turned soul with the intense
Feeling of that which is, and fancy of
That which should be, to such a recompense
Conduct? shall their bright plumage on the rough
Storm be still scattered? Yes, and it must be;
For, formed of far too penetrable stuff,
These birds of Paradise[314] but long to flee
Back to their native mansion, soon they find170
Earth's mist with their pure pinions not agree,
And die or are degraded; for the mind
Succumbs to long infection, and despair,
And vulture Passions flying close behind,
Await the moment to assail and tear;[315]
And when, at length, the wingéd wanderers stoop,
Then is the Prey-birds' triumph, then they share
The spoil, o'erpowered at length by one fell swoop.
Yet some have been untouched who learned to bear,
Some whom no Power could ever force to droop,180
Who could resist themselves even, hardest care!
And task most hopeless; but some such have been,
And if my name amongst the number were,
That Destiny austere, and yet serene,
Were prouder than more dazzling fame unblessed;
The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven is seen
Than the Volcano's fierce eruptive crest,
Whose splendour from the black abyss is flung,
While the scorched mountain, from whose burning breast
A temporary torturing flame is wrung,190
Shines for a night of terror, then repels
Its fire back to the Hell from whence it sprung,
The Hell which in its entrails ever dwells.

CANTO THE FOURTH.

Many are Poets who have never penned
Their inspiration, and perchance the best:
They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compressed
The God within them, and rejoined the stars
Unlaurelled upon earth, but far more blessed
Than those who are degraded by the jars
Of Passion, and their frailties linked to fame,
Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars.
Many are Poets but without the name;10
For what is Poesy but to create
From overfeeling Good or Ill; and aim[316]
At an external life beyond our fate,
And be the new Prometheus of new men,[317]
Bestowing fire from Heaven, and then, too late,
Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain,
And vultures to the heart of the bestower,
Who, having lavished his high gift in vain,
Lies to his lone rock by the sea-shore?
So be it: we can bear.—But thus all they20
Whose Intellect is an o'ermastering Power
Which still recoils from its encumbering clay
Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er
The form which their creations may essay,
Are bards; the kindled Marble's bust may wear
More poesy upon its speaking brow
Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear;
One noble stroke with a whole life may glow,
Or deify the canvass till it shine
With beauty so surpassing all below,30
That they who kneel to Idols so divine
Break no commandment, for high Heaven is there
Transfused, transfigurated:[318] and the line
Of Poesy, which peoples but the air
With Thought and Beings of our thought reflected,
Can do no more: then let the artist share
The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected
Faints o'er the labour unapproved—Alas!
Despair and Genius are too oft connected.
Within the ages which before me pass40
Art shall resume and equal even the sway
Which with Apelles and old Phidias
She held in Hellas' unforgotten day.
Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive
The Grecian forms at least from their decay,
And Roman souls at last again shall live
In Roman works wrought by Italian hands,
And temples, loftier than the old temples, give
New wonders to the World; and while still stands
The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar50
A Dome,[319] its image, while the base expands
Into a fane surpassing all before,
Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in: ne'er
Such sight hath been unfolded by a door
As this, to which all nations shall repair,
And lay their sins at this huge gate of Heaven.
And the bold Architect[320] unto whose care
The daring charge to raise it shall be given,
Whom all Arts shall acknowledge as their Lord,
Whether into the marble chaos driven60
His chisel bid the Hebrew,[321] at whose word
Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone,[cm]
Or hues of Hell be by his pencil poured
Over the damned before the Judgement-throne,[322]
Such as I saw them, such as all shall see,
Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown—
The Stream of his great thoughts shall spring from me[323]
The Ghibelline, who traversed the three realms
Which form the Empire of Eternity.
Amidst the clash of swords, and clang of helms,70
The age which I anticipate, no less
Shall be the Age of Beauty, and while whelms
Calamity the nations with distress,
The Genius of my Country shall arise,
A Cedar towering o'er the Wilderness,
Lovely in all its branches to all eyes,
Fragrant as fair, and recognised afar,
Wafting its native incense through the skies.
Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport of war,
Weaned for an hour from blood, to turn and gaze80
On canvass or on stone; and they who mar
All beauty upon earth, compelled to praise,
Shall feel the power of that which they destroy;
And Art's mistaken gratitude shall raise
To tyrants, who but take her for a toy,
Emblems and monuments, and prostitute
Her charms to Pontiffs proud,[324] who but employ
The man of Genius as the meanest brute
To bear a burthen, and to serve a need,
To sell his labours, and his soul to boot.90
Who toils for nations may be poor indeed,
But free; who sweats for Monarchs is no more
Than the gilt Chamberlain, who, clothed and feed,
Stands sleek and slavish, bowing at his door.
Oh, Power that rulest and inspirest! how
Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power[325]
Is likest thine in heaven in outward show,
Least like to thee in attributes divine,
Tread on the universal necks that bow,
And then assure us that their rights are thine?100
And how is it that they, the Sons of Fame,
Whose inspiration seems to them to shine
From high, they whom the nations oftest name,
Must pass their days in penury or pain,
Or step to grandeur through the paths of shame,
And wear a deeper brand and gaudier chain?
Or if their Destiny be born aloof
From lowliness, or tempted thence in vain,
In their own souls sustain a harder proof,
The inner war of Passions deep and fierce?110
Florence! when thy harsh sentence razed my roof,
I loved thee; but the vengeance of my verse,
The hate of injuries which every year
Makes greater, and accumulates my curse,
Shall live, outliving all thou holdest dear—
Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, and even that,
The most infernal of all evils here,
The sway of petty tyrants in a state;
For such sway is not limited to Kings,
And Demagogues yield to them but in date,120
As swept off sooner; in all deadly things,
Which make men hate themselves, and one another,
In discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that springs
From Death the Sin-born's incest with his mother,[326]
In rank oppression in its rudest shape,
The faction Chief is but the Sultan's brother,
And the worst Despot's far less human ape.
Florence! when this lone spirit, which so long
Yearned, as the captive toiling at escape,
To fly back to thee in despite of wrong,130
An exile, saddest of all prisoners,[327]
Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong,
Seas, mountains, and the horizon's[328] verge for bars,[cn]
Which shut him from the sole small spot of earth
Where—whatsoe'er his fate—he still were hers,
His Country's, and might die where he had birth—
Florence! when this lone Spirit shall return
To kindred Spirits, thou wilt feel my worth,
And seek to honour with an empty urn[329]
The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain—Alas!140
"What have I done to thee, my People?"[330] Stern
Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass
The limits of Man's common malice, for
All that a citizen could be I was—
Raised by thy will, all thine in peace or war—
And for this thou hast warred with me.—'Tis done:
I may not overleap the eternal bar[331]
Built up between us, and will die alone,
Beholding with the dark eye of a Seer
The evil days to gifted souls foreshown,150
Foretelling them to those who will not hear;
As in the old time, till the hour be come
When Truth shall strike their eyes through many a tear,
And make them own the Prophet in his tomb.

Ravenna, 1819.

FOOTNOTES:

[ [276] {241}[Compare—

"He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhime."

Milton, Lycidas, line 11.]

[ [277] [By "Runic" Byron means "Northern," "Anglo-Saxon.">[

[ [278] [Compare "In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours—Amor mio—is comprised my existence here and hereafter."—Letter of Byron to the Countess Guiccioli, August 25, 1819, Letters, 1900, iv. 350. Compare, too, Beppo, stanza xliv.; vide ante, [p. 173].]

[ [279] {243}[Compare—

"I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid:
A little cupola more neat than solemn,
Protects his dust."

Don Juan, Canto IV. stanza civ. lines 1-3.]

[ [280] [The Cassandra or Alexandra of Lycophron, one of the seven "Pleiades" who adorned the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus (third century B.C.), is "an iambic monologue of 1474 verses, in which Cassandra is made to prophesy the fall of Troy ... with numerous other historical events, ... ending with [the reign of] Alexandra the Great." Byron had probably read a translation of the Cassandra by Philip Yorke, Viscount Royston (born 1784, wrecked in the Agatha off Memel, April 7, 1808), which was issued at Cambridge in 1806. The Alexandra forms part of the Bibliotheca Teubneriana (ed. G. Kinkel, Lipsiæ, 1880). For the prophecy of Nereus, vide Hor., Odes, lib. i. c. xv.]

[ [281] {244}[In the notes to his Essay on Epic Poetry, 1782 (Epistle iii. pp. 175-197), Hayley (see English Bards, etc., line 310, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 321, note 1) prints a translation of the three first cantos of the Inferno, which, he says (p. 172), was written "a few years ago to oblige a particular friend." "Of all Hayley's compositions," writes Southey (Quart. Rev., vol. xxxi. pp. 283, 284), "these specimens are the best ... in thus following his original Hayley was led into a sobriety and manliness of diction which ... approached ... to the manner of a better age."

In a note on the Hall of Eblis, S. Henley quotes with approbation Hayley's translation of lines 1-9 of this Third Canto of the Inferno. Vathek ... by W. Beckford, 1868, p. 188.]

[ [282] [L'Italia: Canto IV. del Pellegrinaggio di Childe Harold ... tradotto da Michele Leoni, Italia (London?), 1819, 8º. Leoni also translated the Lament of Tasso (Lamento di Tasso ... Recato in Italiano da M. Leoni, Pisa, 1818).]

[ [283] [Alfieri has a sonnet on the tomb of Dante, beginning—

"O gran padre Alighier, se dal ciel miri."

Opere Scelle, di Vittorio Alfieri, 1818, iii. 487.]

[ [284] [The Panther, the Lion, and the She-wolf, which Dante encountered on the "desert slope" (Inferno, Canto I. lines 31, sq.), were no doubt suggested by Jer. v. 6: "Idcirco percussit eos leo de silva, lupus ad vesperam vastavit eos, pardus vigilans super civitates corum." Symbolically they have been from the earliest times understood as denoting—the panther, lust; the lion, pride; the wolf, avarice; the sins affecting youth, maturity, and old age. Later commentators have suggested that there may be an underlying political symbolism as well, and that the three beasts may stand for Florence with her "Black" and "White" parties, the power of France, and the Guelf party as typically representative of these vices (The Hell of Dante, by A. J. Butler, 1892, p. 5, note).

Count Giovanni Marchetti degli Angelini (1790-1852), in his Discorso ... della prima e principale Allegoria del Poema di Dante, contributed to an edition of La Divina Commedia, published at Bologna, 1819-21, i. 17-44, and reissued in La Biografia di Dante ... 1822, v. 397, sq., etc., argues in favour of a double symbolism. (According to a life of Marchetti, prefixed to his Poesie, 1878 [Una notte di Dante, etc.], he met Byron at Bologna in 1819, and made his acquaintance.)]

[ [285] {245}[For Vincenzo Monti (1754-1828), see letter to Murray, October 15, 1816 (Letters, 1899, iii. 377, note 3); and for Ippolito Pindemonte (1753-1828), see letter to Murray, June 4, 1817, (Letters, 1900, iv. 127, note 4). In his Essay on the Present Literature of Italy, Hobhouse supplies critical notices of Pindemonte and Monti, Historical Illustrations, 1818, pp. 413-449. Cesare Arici, lawyer and poet, was born at Brescia, July 2, 1782. His works (Padua, 1858, 4 vols.) include his didactic poems, La coltivazione degli Ulivi (1805), Il Corallo, 1810, La Pastorizia (on sheep-farming), 1814, and a translation of the works of Virgil. He died in 1836. (See, for a long and sympathetic notice, Tipaldo's Biografia degli Italiani Illustri, iii. 491, sq.)]

[ [286] {247} The reader is requested to adopt the Italian pronunciation of Beatrice, sounding all the syllables.

[ [287] [Compare—

"Within the deep and luminous subsistence
Of the High Light appeared to me three circles,
Of threefold colour and of one dimension,
And by the second seemed the first reflected
As Iris is by Iris, and the third
Seemed fire that equally from both is breathed....
O Light Eterne, sole in thyself that dwellest."

Paradiso, xxxiii. 115-120, 124 (Longfellow's Translation).]

[ [bw] {248} Star over star——.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [288]

"Ché sol per le belle opre
Che sono in cielo, il sole e l'altre stelle,
Dentro da lor si crede il Paradiso:
Così se guardi fiso
Pensar ben dei, che ogni terren piacere.
[Si trova in lei, ma tu nol puoi vedere.">[

Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of Beatrice, Strophe third.

[Byron was mistaken in attributing these lines, which form part of a Canzone beginning "Io miro i crespi e gli biondi capegli," to Dante. Neither external nor internal evidence supports such an ascription. The Canzone is attributed in the MSS. either to Fazio degli Uberti, or to Bindo Borrichi da Siena, but was not assigned to Dante before 1518 (Canzoni di Dante, etc. [Colophon]. Impresso in Milano per Augustino da Vimercato ... MCCCCCXVIII ...). See, too, Il Canzoniere di Dante ... Fraticelli, Firenze, 1873, pp. 236-240 (from information kindly supplied by the Rev. Philip H. Wicksteed).]

[ [289] ["Nine times already since my birth had the heaven of light returned to the selfsame point almost, as concerns its own revolution, when first the glorious Lady of my mind was made manifest to mine eyes; even she who was called Beatrice by many who knew not wherefore."—La Vita Nuova, § 2 (Translation by D. G. Rossetti, Dante and his Circle, 1892, p. 30).

"In reference to the meaning of the name, 'she who confers blessing,' we learn from Boccaccio that this first meeting took place at a May Feast, given in the year 1274, by Folco Portinari, father of Beatrice ... to which feast Dante accompanied his father, Alighiero Alighieri."—Note by D. G. Rossetti, ibid., p. 30.]

[ [290] {249}

"L'Esilio che m' è dato onor mi tegno

---

Sonnet of Dante [Canzone xx. lines 76-80,
Opere di Dante, 1897, p. 171]

in which he represents Right, Generosity, and Temperance as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from Love, who inhabits his bosom.

[ [291] [Compare—

"On the stone
Called Dante's,—a plain flat stone scarce discerned
From others in the pavement,—whereupon
He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned
To Brunelleschi's Church, and pour alone
The lava of his spirit when it burned:
It is not cold to-day. O passionate
Poor Dante, who, a banished Florentine,
Didst sit austere at banquets of the great
And muse upon this far-off stone of thine,
And think how oft some passer used to wait
A moment, in the golden day's decline,
With 'Good night, dearest Dante!' Well, good night!"

Casa Guidi Windows, by E. B. Browning, Poetical Works, 1866, iii. 259.]

[ [292] {250} "Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in fortiam dicti communis pervenerit, talis perveniens igne comburatur, sic quod moriatur." Second sentence of Florence against Dante, and the fourteen accused with him. The Latin is worthy of the sentence. [The decree (March 11, 1302) that he and his associates in exile should be burned, if they fell into the hands of their enemies, was first discovered in 1772 by the Conte Ludovico Savioli. Dante had been previously, January 27, fined eight thousand lire, and condemned to two years' banishment.]

[ [bx] The ashes she would scatter——.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [293] {251}[At the end of the Social War (B.C. 88), when Sulla marched to Rome at the head of his army, and Marius was compelled to take flight, he "stripped himself, plunged into the bog (Paludes Minturnenses, near the mouth of the Liris), amidst thick water and mud.... They hauled him out naked and covered with dirt, and carried him to Minturnæ." Afterwards, when he sailed for Carthage, he had no sooner landed than he was ordered by the governor (Sextilius) to quit Africa. On his once more gaining the ascendancy and re-entering Rome (B.C. 87), he justified the massacre of Sulla's adherents in a blood-thirsty oration. Past ignominy and present triumph seem to have turned his head ("ut erat inter iram toleratæ fortunæ, et lætitiam emendatæ, parum compos animi").—Plut., "Marius," apud Langhorne, 1838, p. 304; Livii Epit., lxxx. 28.]

[ [by] {252} ——their civic rage.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [294] {253} This lady, whose name was Gemma, sprung from one of the most powerful Guelph families, named Donati. Corso Donati was the principal adversary of the Ghibellines. She is—described as being "Admodum morosa, ut de Xantippe Socratis philosophi conjuge scriptum esse legimus," according to Giannozzo Manetti. But Lionardo Aretino is scandalised with Boccace, in his life of Dante, for saying that literary men should not marry. "Qui il Boccaccio non ha pazienza, e dice, le mogli esser contrarie agli studj; e non si ricorda che Socrate, il più nobile filosofo che mai fusse, ebbe moglie e figliuoli e ufici nella Repubblica nella sua Città; e Aristotile che, etc., etc., ebbe due moglie in varj tempi, ed ebbe figliuoli, e ricchezze assai.—E Marco Tullio—e Catone—e Varrone—e Seneca—ebbero moglie," etc., etc. [Le Vite di Dante, etc., Firenze, 1677, pp. 22, 23]. It is odd that honest Lionardo's examples, with the exception of Seneca, and, for anything I know, of Aristotle, are not the most felicitous. Tully's Terentia, and Socrates' Xantippe, by no means contributed to their husbands' happiness, whatever they might do to their philosophy—Cato gave away his wife—of Varro's we know nothing—and of Seneca's, only that she was disposed to die with him, but recovered and lived several years afterwards. But says Leonardo, "L'uomo è animale civile, secondo piace a tutti i filosofi." And thence concludes that the greatest proof of the animal's civism is "la prima congiunzione, dalla quale multiplicata nasce la Città."

[There is nothing in the Divina Commedia, or elsewhere in his writings, to justify the common belief that Dante was unhappily married, unless silence may be taken to imply dislike and alienation. It has been supposed that he alludes to his wife, Gemma Donati, in the Vita Nuova, § 36, "as a young and very beautiful lady, who was gazing upon me from a window, with a gaze full of pity," "who remembered me many times of my own most noble lady," whom he consented to serve "more because of her gentle goodness than from any choice" of his own (Convito, ii. 2. 7), but there are difficulties in the way of accepting this theory. There is, however, not the slightest reason for believing that the words which he put into the mouth of Jacopo Rusticucci, "La fiera moglie più ch'altro, mi nuoce" ["and truly, my savage wife, more than aught else, doth harm me">[ (Inferno, xvi. 45), were winged with any personal reminiscence or animosity. But with Byron (see his letter to Lady Byron, dated April 3, 1820, in which he quotes these lines "with intention" [Letters, 1901, v. 2]), as with Boccaccio, "the wish was father to the thought," and both were glad to quote Dante as a victim to matrimony.

Seven children were born to Dante and Gemma. Of these "his son Pietro, who wrote a commentary on the Divina Commedia, settled as judge in Verona. His daughter Beatrice lived as a nun in Ravenna" (Dante, by Oscar Browning, 1891, p. 47).]

[ [295] {256}[In his defence of the "mother-tongue" as a fitting vehicle for a commentary on his poetry, Dante argues "that natural love moves the lover principally to three things: the one is to exalt the loved object, the second is to be jealous thereof, the third is to defend it ... and these three things made me adopt it, that is, our mother-tongue, which naturally and accidentally I love and have loved." Again, having laid down the premiss that "the magnanimous man always praises himself in his heart; and so the pusillanimous man always deems himself less than he is," he concludes, "Wherefore many on account of this vileness of mind, depreciate their native tongue, and applaud that of others; and all such as these are the abominable wicked men of Italy, who hold this precious mother-tongue in vile contempt, which, if it be vile in any case, is so only inasmuch as it sounds in the evil mouth of these adulterers."—Il Convito, caps. x., xi., translated by Elizabeth Price Sayer, 1887, pp. 34-40.]

[ [bz]——when matched with thine.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [296] [With the whole of this apostrophe to Italy, compare Purgatorio, vi. 76-127.]

[ [ca] From the world's harvest——.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [cb] {257}

Where earthly Glory first then Heavenly made.—[MS. Alternative reading.]
Where Glory first, and then Religion made.—[MS. erased.]

[ [297] [Compare—

"The Goth, the Christian—Time—War—Flood, and Fire,
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled City's pride."

Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza lxxx. lines 1, 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 390, note 2.]

[ [298] {258} See "Sacco di Roma," generally attributed to Guicciardini [Francesco (1482-1540)]. There is another written by a Jacopo Buonaparte.

[The original MS. of the latter work is preserved in the Royal Library at Paris. It is entitled, "Ragguaglio Storico di tutto I'occorso, giorno per giorno, nel Sacco di Roma dell' anno mdxxvii., scritto da Jacopo Buonaparte, Gentiluomo Samminiatese, che vi si trovo' presente." An edition of it was printed at Cologne, in 1756, to which is prefixed a genealogy of the Buonaparte family.

The "traitor Prince" was Charles IV., Connétable de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier, born 1490, who was killed at the capture of Rome, May 6, 1527. "His death, far from restraining the ardour of the assailants [the Imperial troops, consisting of Germans and Spanish foot], increased it; and with the loss of about 1000 men, they entered and sacked the city.... The disorders committed by the soldiers were dreadful, and the booty they made incredible. They added insults to cruelty, and scoffs to rapaciousness. Upon the news of Bourbon's death, His Holiness, imagining that his troops, no longer animated by his implacable spirit, might listen to an accommodation, demanded a parley; but ... neglected all means for defence.... Cardinals and bishops were ignominiously exposed upon asses with their legs and hands bound; and wealthy citizens ... suspected of having secreted their effects ... were tortured ... to oblige them to make discoveries, ... the booty ... is said to have amounted to about two millions and a half of ducats."—Mod. Univ. History, xxxvi. 512.]

[ [299] {259}[Cambyses, the second King of Persia, who reigned B.C. 529-532, sent an army against the Ammonians, which perished in the sands.]

[ [cc]——and his phalanx—why.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [300] [The Prophecy of Dante was begun and finished before Byron took up the cause of Italian independence, or definitely threw in his lot with the Carbonari, but his intimacy with the Gambas, which dates from his migration to Ravenna in 1819, must from the first have brought him within the area of political upheaval and disturbance. A year after (April 16, 1820) he writes to Murray, "I have, besides, another reason for desiring you to be speedy, which is, that there is that brewing in Italy which will speedily cut off all security of communication.... I shall, if permitted by the natives, remain to see what will come of it, ... for I shall think it by far the most interesting spectacle and moment in existence, to see the Italians send the Barbarians of all nations back to their own dens. I have lived long enough among them to feel more for them as a nation than for any other people in existence: but they want Union [see [line 145]], and they want principle; and I doubt their success."—Letters, 1901, v. 8, note 1.]

[ [cd] {261} ——of long-enduring ill.—[MS. erased.]

[ [ce]

——the martyred country's gore
Will not in vain arise to whom belongs.—[MS. erased.]

[ [301] {262} Alexander of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, Montecuccoli.

[Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma (1546-1592), recovered the Southern Netherlands for Spain, 1578-79, made Henry IV. raise the siege of Paris, 1590, etc.

Ambrogio, Marchese di Spinola (1569-1630), a Maltese by birth, entered the Spanish service 1602, took Ostend 1604, invested Bergen-op-Zoom, etc.

Ferdinando Francesco dagli Avalos, Marquis of Pescara (1496-1525), took Milan November 19, 1521, fought at Lodi, etc., was wounded at the battle of Padua, February 24, 1525. He was the husband of Vittoria Colonna, and when he was in captivity at Ravenna wrote some verses in her honour.

François Eugene (1663-1736), Prince of Savoy-Carignan, defeated the French at Turin, 1706, and (with Marlborough) at Malplaquet, 1709; the Turks at Peterwardein, 1716, etc.

Raimondo Montecuccoli, a Modenese (1608-1680), defeated the Turks at St. Gothard in 1664, and in 1675-6 commanded on the Rhine, and out-generalled Turenne and the Prince de Condé]

[ [302] Columbus, Americus Vespusius, Sebastian Cabot.

[Christopher Columbus (circ. 1430-1506), a Genoese, discovered mainland of America, 1498; Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512), a Florentine, explored coasts of America, 1497-1504; Sebastian Cabot (1477-1557), son of Giovanni Cabotto or Gavotto, a Venetian, discovered coasts of Labrador, etc., June, 1497.]

[ [303] {263}[Compare—

"Ah! servile Italy, griefs hostelry!
A ship without a pilot in great tempest!"

Purgatorio, vi. 76, 77.]

[ [cf]

Yet through this many-yeared eclipse of Woe.—[MS. Alternative reading.]
Yet through this murky interreign of Woe.—[MS. erased.]

[ [cg] Which choirs the birds to song—-.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [ch] And Pearls flung down to regal Swine evince.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [ci] The whoredom of high Genius——.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [304] {264}[Alfieri, in his Autobiography ... (1845, Period III. chap. viii. p. 92) notes and deprecates the servile manner in which Metastasio went on his knees before Maria Theresa in the Imperial gardens of Schoenbrunnen.]

[ [cj] And prides itself in prostituted duty.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [305] A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which Pompey took leave of Cornelia [daughter of Metellus Scipio, and widow of P. Crassus] on entering the boat in which he was slain. [The verse, or verses, are said to be by Sophocles, and are quoted by Plutarch, in his Life of Pompey, c. 78, Vitæ, 1814, vii. 159. They run thus—

Ὅστις γὰρ ὡς τύραννον ἐμπορεύεται,
Κείνου ἐστὶ δοῦλος, κἂν ἐλεύθερος μῃ.

("Seek'st thou a tyrant's door? then farewell, freedom!
Though free as air before.")

Vide Incert. Fab. Fragm., No. 789, Trag. Grec. Fragm., A. Nauck, 1889, p. 316.]

[ [306] The verse and sentiment are taken from Homer.

[Ἥμισυ γάρ τ' ἀρετῆς ἀποαίνυται εὐρύοπα Ζεύς
᾿Ανέρος, εὗτ᾿ ἅν μιν κατὰ δούλιον ἦμαρἕλῃσιν.

Odyssey, xvii. 322, 323.]

[ [307] {265} Petrarch. [Dante died September 14, 1321, when Petrarch, born July 20, 1304, had entered his eighteenth year.]

[ [308] [Historical events may be thrown into the form of prophecy with some security, but not so the critical opinions of the soi-disani prophet. If Byron had lived half a century later, he might have placed Ariosto and Tasso after and not before Petrarch.]

[ [ck]

Was crimsoned with his veins who died to save,
Shall be his glorious argument,——.—[MS, Alternative reading.]

[ [309] {266} [See the Introduction to the Lament of Tasso, ante, [p. 139], and Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza xxxvi. line 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 355, note 1.]

[ [310] [Alfonso d'Este (II.), Duke of Ferrara, died 1597.]

[ [311] [Compare the opening lines of the Orlando Furioso—

"Le Donne, i Cavalier'! l'arme, gli amori,
Le Cortesie, l'audaci imprese io canto."

See Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanzas xl., xli.,
Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 359, 360, note 1.]

[ [312] [The sense is, "Ariosto may be matched with, perhaps excelled by, Homer; but where is the Greek poet to set on the same pedestal with Tasso?">[

[ [313] [Compare Churchill's Grave, lines 15-19—

"And is this all? I thought,—and do we rip
The veil of Immortality, and crave
I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?
So soon, and so successless?"

Vide ante, [p. 47].]

[ [cl] {267}

The { winged lightning } blood——.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [314] [Compare—

"For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise."

Kubla Khan, lines 52, 53,
Poetical Works. of S. T. Coleridge, 1893, p. 94.]

[ [315] [Compare—

"By our own spirits are we deified:
We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness."

Resolution and Independence, vii. lines 5-7,
Wordsworth's Poetical Works, 1889, p. 175.

Compare, too, Moore's fine apology for Byron's failure to submit to the yoke of matrimony, "and to live happily ever afterwards"—

"But it is the cultivation and exercise of the imaginative faculty that, more than anything, tend to wean the man of genius from actual life, and, by substituting the sensibilities of the imagination for those of the heart, to render, at last, the medium through which he feels no less unreal than that through which he thinks. Those images of ideal good and beauty that surround him in his musings soon accustom him to consider all that is beneath this high standard unworthy of his care; till, at length, the heart becoming chilled as the fancy warms, it too often happens that, in proportion as he has refined and elevated his theory of all the social affections, he has unfitted himself for the practice of them."—Life, p. 268.]

[ [316] {269}[So too Wordsworth, in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1800); "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.">[

[ [317] [Compare—

"Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness ...
But baffled as thou wert from high ...
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals."

Prometheus, iii. lines 35, seq.; vide ante, [p. 50].

Compare, too, the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, stanza xvi. var ii.—

"He suffered for kind acts to men."

Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 312.]

[ [318] {270}["Transfigurate," whence "transfiguration," is derived from the Latin transfiguro, found in Suetonius and Quintilian. Byron may have thought to anglicize the Italian trasfigurarsi.]

[ [319] The Cupola of St. Peter's. [Michel Angelo, then in his seventy-second year, received the appointment of architect of St. Peter's from Pope Paul III. He began the dome on a different plan from that of the first architect, Bramante, "declaring that he would raise the Pantheon in the air." The drum of the dome was constructed in his life-time, but for more than twenty-four years after his death (1563), the cupola remained untouched, and it was not till 1590, in the pontificate of Sixtus V., that the dome itself was completed. The ball and cross were placed on the summit in November, 1593.—Handbook of Rome, p. 239.

Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza cliii. line i, Poetical Works, 1892, ii. 440, 441, note 2.]

[ [320] {271}["Yet, however unequal I feel myself to that attempt, were I now to begin the world again, I would tread in the steps of that great master [Michel Angelo]. To kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man."—Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1884, p. 289.]

[ [321] The statue of Moses on the monument of Julius II. [Michel Angelo's Moses is near the end of the right aisle of the Church of S. Pietro-in-Vincoli.]

SONETTO
"Di Giovanni Battista Zappi.
"Chi é costui, che in si gran pietra scolto,
Siede gigante, e le più illustri, e conte
Opre dell' arte avanza, e ha vive, e pronte
Le labbra si, che le parole ascolto?
Quest' è Mosè; ben me 'l diceva il folto
Onor del mento, e 'l doppio raggio in fronte;
Quest' è Mosè, quando scendea dal monte,
E gran parte del Nume avea nel volto.
Tal' era allor, che le sonanti, e vaste
Acque ei sospese, a se d' intorno; e tale
Quando il Mar chiuse, e ne fè tomba altrui.
E voi, sue turbe, un rio vitello alzaste?
Alzata aveste immago a questa eguale!
Ch' era men fallo i' adorar costui.

[Scelta di Sonetti ... del Gobbi, 1709, iii. 216.]

[And who is he that, shaped in sculptured stone
Sits giant-like? stern monument of art
Unparalleled, while language seems to start
From his prompt lips, and we his precepts own?
—'Tis Moses; by his beard's thick honours known,
And the twin beams that from his temples dart;
'Tis Moses; seated on the mount apart,
Whilst yet the Godhead o'er his features shone.
Such once he looked, when Ocean's sounding wave
Suspended hung, and such amidst the storm,
When o'er his foes the refluent waters roared.
An idol calf his followers did engrave:
But had they raised this awe-commanding form,
Then had they with less guilt their work adored.

Rogers.]

[ [cm] {272}

——from whose word
{ Israel took God, pronounce the law in stone.
Israel left Egypt, cleave the sea in stone.—

[MS. Alternative readings.]

[ [322] The Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel.

["It is obvious, throughout his [Michel Angelo's] works, that the poetical mind of the latter [Dante] influenced his feelings. The Demons in the Last Judgment ... may find a prototype in La Divina Comedia. The figures rising from the grave mark his study of L'Inferno, e Il Purgatorio; and the subject of the Brazen Serpent, in the Sistine Chapel, must remind every reader of Canto XXV. dell' Inferno."—Life of Michael Angelo by R. Duppa, 1856, p. 120.]

[ [323] I have read somewhere (if I do not err, for I cannot recollect where,) that Dante was so great a favourite of Michael Angelo's, that he had designed the whole of the Divina Commedia: but that the volume containing these studies was lost by sea.

[Michel Angelo's copy of Dante, says Duppa (ibid., and note 1), "was a large folio, with Landino's commentary; and upon the broad margin of the leaves he designed with a pen and ink, all the interesting subjects. This book was possessed by Antonio Montanti, a sculptor and architect in Florence, who, being appointed architect to St. Peter's, removed to Rome, and shipped his ... effects at Leghorn for Cività Vecchia, among which was this edition of Dante. In the voyage the vessel foundered at sea, and it was unfortunately lost in the wreck.">[

[ [324] {273} See the treatment of Michel Angelo by Julius II., and his neglect by Leo X. [Julius II. encouraged his attendance at the Vatican, but one morning he was stopped by the chamberlain in waiting, who said, "I have an order not to let you enter." Michel Angelo, indignant at the insult, left Rome that very evening. Though Julius despatched five couriers to bring him back, it was some months before he returned. Even a letter (July 8, 1506), in which the Pope promised his "dearly beloved Michel Angelo" that he should not be touched nor offended, but be "reinstated in the apostolic grace," met with no response. It was this quarrel with Julius II. which prevented the completion of the sepulchral monument. The "Moses" and the figures supposed to represent the Active and the Contemplative Life, and three Caryatides (since removed) represent the whole of the original design, "a parallelogram surmounted with forty statues, and covered with reliefs and other ornaments."—See Duppa's Life, etc., 1856, pp. 33, 34, and Handbook of Rome, p. 133.]

[ [325] [Compare Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. 1, lines 191, 192.]

[ [326] {274}[Compare—

"I fled, and cried out Death ...
I fled, but he pursued, (though more, it seems,
Inflamed with lust than rage), and swifter far,
Me overtook, his mother, all dismayed,
And in embraces forcible and foul,
Ingendering with me, of that rape begot
These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry
Surround me."

Paradise Lost, book ii. lines 787-796.]

[ [327] [In his Convito, Dante speaks of his banishment, and the poverty and distress which attended it, in very affecting terms. "Ah! would it had pleased the Dispenser of all things that this excuse had never been needed; that neither others had done me wrong, nor myself undergone penalty undeservedly,—the penalty, I say, of exile and of poverty. For it pleased the citizens of the fairest and most renowned daughter of Rome—Florence—to cast me out of her most sweet bosom, where I was born and bred, and passed half of the life of man, and in which, with her good leave, I still desire with all my heart to repose my weary spirit, and finish the days allotted me; and so I have wandered in almost every place to which our language extends, a stranger, almost a beggar, exposing against my will the wounds given me by fortune, too often unjustly imputed to the sufferer's fault. Truly I have been a vessel without sail and without rudder, driven about upon different ports and shores by the dry wind that springs out of dolorous poverty; and hence have I appeared vile in the eyes of many, who, perhaps, by some better report, had conceived of me a different impression, and in whose sight not only has my person become thus debased, but an unworthy opinion created of everything which I did, or which I had to do."—Il Convito, book i. chap. iii., translated by Leigh Hunt, Stories from the Italian Poets, 1846, i. 22, 23.]

[ [328] {275} What is Horizon's quantity? Horīzon, or Horĭzon? adopt accordingly.—[B.]

[ [cn]—and the Horizon for bars.—[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ [329] [Compare—

"Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar."

Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza lvii., Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 371, note 1.

"Between the second and third chapels [in the nave of Santa Croce at Florence] is the colossal monument to Dante, by Ricci ... raised by subscription in 1829. The inscription, 'A majoribus ter frustra decretum,' refers to the successive efforts of the Florentines to recover his remains, and raise a monument to their great countryman."—Handbook, Central Italy, p. 32.]

[ [330] "E scrisse più volte non solamente a' particolari Cittadini del Reggimento, ma ancora al Popolo; e intra l' altre un' Epistola assai lunga che incomincia: 'Popule mee (sic), quid feci tibi?"—Le vite di Dante, etc., scritte da Lionardo Aretino, 1672, p. 47.

[ [331] {276}[About the year 1316 his friends obtained his restoration to his country and his possessions, on condition that he should pay a certain sum of money, and, entering a church, avow himself guilty, and ask pardon of the republic.

The following was his answer to a religious, who appears to have been one of his kinsmen: "From your letter, which I received with due respect and affection, I observe how much you have at heart my restoration to my country. I am bound to you the more gratefully inasmuch as an exile rarely finds a friend. But, after mature consideration, I must, by my answer, disappoint the writers of some little minds ... Your nephew and mine has written to me ... that ... I am allowed to return to Florence, provided I pay a certain sum of money, and submit to the humiliation of asking and receiving absolution.... Is such an invitation then to return to his country glorious to d. all. after suffering in exile almost fifteen years? Is it thus, then, they would recompense innocence which all the world knows, and the labour and fatigue of unremitting study? Far from the man who is familiar with philosophy, be the senseless baseness of a heart of earth, that could imitate the infamy of some others, by offering himself up as it were in chains. Far from the man who cries aloud for justice, this compromise, by his money, with his persecutors! No, my Father, this is not the way that shall lead me back to my country. I will return with hasty steps, if you or any other can open to me a way that shall not derogate from the fame and honour of d.; but if by no such way Florence can be entered, then Florence I shall never enter. What! shall I not every where enjoy the light of the sun and the stars? and may I not seek and contemplate, in every corner of the earth, under the canopy of heaven, consoling and delightful truth, without first rendering myself inglorious, nay infamous, to the people and republic of Florence? Bread, I hope, will not fail me."—Epistola, IX. Amico Florentino: Opere di Dante, 1897, p. 413.]

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THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE
OF PULCI.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE.

It is possible that Byron began his translation of the First Canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore (so called to distinguish the entire poem of twenty-eight cantos from the lesser Morgante [or, to coin a title, "Morganid">[ which was published separately) in the late autumn of 1819, before he had left Venice (see his letter to Bankes, February 19, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 403). It is certain that it was finished at Ravenna during the first week of his "domestication" in the Palazzo Guiccioli (Letters to Murray, February 7, February 21, 1820). He took a deal of pains with his self-imposed task, "servilely translating stanza from stanza, and line from line, two octaves every night;" and when the first canto was finished he was naturally and reasonably proud of his achievement. More than two years had elapsed since Frere's Whistlecraft had begotten Beppo, and in the interval he had written four cantos of Don Juan, outstripping his "immediate model," and equalling if not surpassing his model's parents and precursors, the masters of "narrative romantic poetry among the Italians."

In attempting this translation—something, as he once said of his Armenian studies, "craggy for his mind to break upon" (Letter to Moore, December 5, 1816, Letters, 1900, iv. 10)—Byron believed that he was working upon virgin soil. He had read, as he admits in his "Advertisement," John Herman Merivale's poem, Orlando in Roncesvalles, which is founded upon the Morgante Maggiore; but he does not seem to have been aware that many years before (1806, 1807) the same writer (one of the "associate bards") had published in the Monthly Magazine (May, July, 1806, etc., vide ante Introduction to Beppo, [p. 156]) a series of translations of selected passages of the poem. There is no resemblance whatever between Byron's laboured and faithful rendering of the text, and Merivale's far more readable paraphrase, and it is evident that if these selections ever passed before his eyes, they had left no impression on his memory. He was drawn to the task partly on account of its difficulty, but chiefly because in Pulci he recognized a kindred spirit who suggested and compelled a fresh and final dedication of his genius to the humorous epopee. The translation was an act of devotion, the offering of a disciple to a master.

"The apparent contradictions of the Morgante Maggiore ... the brusque transition from piety to ribaldry, from pathos to satire," the paradoxical union of persiflage with gravity, a confession of faith alternating with a profession of mockery and profanity, have puzzled and confounded more than one student and interpreter. An intimate knowledge of the history, the literature, the art, the manners and passions of the times has enabled one of his latest critics and translators, John Addington Symonds, to come as near as may be to explaining the contradictions; but the essential quality of Pulci's humour eludes analysis.

We know that the poem itself, as Pio Rajna has shown, "the rifacimento of two earlier popular poems," was written to amuse Lucrezia Tornabuoni, the mother of Lorenzo de' Medici, and that it was recited, canto by canto, in the presence of such guests as Poliziano, Ficino, and Michelangelo Buonarotti; but how "it struck these contemporaries," and whether a subtler instinct permitted them to untwist the strands and to appraise the component parts at their precise ethical and spiritual value, are questions for the exercise of the critical imagination. That which attracted Byron to Pulci's writings was, no doubt, the co-presence of faith, a certain simplicity of faith, with an audacious and even outrageous handling of the objects of faith, combined with a facile and wanton alternation of romantic passion with a cynical mockery of whatsoever things are sober and venerable. Don Juan and the Vision of Judgment owe their existence to the Morgante Maggiore.

The MS. of the translation of Canto I. was despatched to England, February 28, 1820. It is evident (see Letters, March 29, April 23, May 18, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 425, 1901, v. 17, 21) that Murray looked coldly on Byron's "masterpiece" from the first. It was certain that any new work by the author of Don Juan would be subjected to the severest and most hostile scrutiny, and it was doubtful if a translation of part of an obscure and difficult poem, vaguely supposed to be coarse and irreligious, would meet with even a tolerable measure of success. At any rate, in spite of many inquiries and much vaunting of its excellence (see Letters, June 29, September 12, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 314, 362), the MS. remained for more than two years in Murray's hands, and it was not until other arrangements came into force that the translation of the First Canto of the Morgante Maggiore appeared in the fourth and last number of The Liberal, which was issued (by John Hunt) July 30, 1823.

For critical estimates of Luigi Pulci and the Morgante Maggiore, see an article (Quarterly Review, April, 1819, vol. xxi. pp. 486-556), by Ugo Foscolo, entitled "Narrative and Romantic Poems of the Italians;" Preface to the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo, by A. Panizzi, 1830, i. 190-302; Poems Original and Translated, by J. H. Merivale, 1838, ii. 1-43; Stories of the Italian Poets, by J. H. Leigh Hunt, 1846, i. 283-314; Renaissance in Italy, by J. A. Symonds, 1881, iv. 431, 456, and for translations of the Morgante Maggiore, vide ibid., Appendix V. pp. 543-560; and Italian Literature, by R. Garnett, C.B., LL.D., 1898, pp. 128-131.

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ADVERTISEMENT.

The Morgante Maggiore, of the first canto of which this translation is offered, divides with the Orlando Innamorato the honour of having formed and suggested the style and story of Ariosto.[332] The great defects of Boiardo were his treating too seriously the narratives of chivalry, and his harsh style. Ariosto, in his continuation, by a judicious mixture of the gaiety of Pulci, has avoided the one; and Berni, in his reformation of Boiardo's poem, has corrected the other. Pulci may be considered as the precursor and model of Berni altogether, as he has partly been to Ariosto, however inferior to both his copyists. He is no less the founder of a new style of poetry very lately sprung up in England. I allude to that of the ingenious Whistlecraft. The serious poems on Roncesvalles in the same language, and more particularly the excellent one of Mr. Merivale, are to be traced to the same source.[333] It has never yet been decided entirely whether Pulci's intention was or was not to deride the religion which is one of his favourite topics. It appears to me, that such an intention would have been no less hazardous to the poet than to the priest, particularly in that age and country; and the permission to publish the poem, and its reception among the classics of Italy, prove that it neither was nor is so interpreted. That he intended to ridicule the monastic life, and suffered his imagination to play with the simple dulness of his converted giant, seems evident enough; but surely it were as unjust to accuse him of irreligion on this account, as to denounce Fielding for his Parson Adams, Barnabas,[334] Thwackum, Supple, and the Ordinary in Jonathan Wild,—or Scott, for the exquisite use of his Covenanters in the "Tales of my Landlord."

In the following translation I have used the liberty of the original with the proper names, as Pulci uses Gan, Ganellon, or Ganellone; Carlo, Carlomagno, or Carlornano; Rondel, or Rondello, etc., as it suits his convenience; so has the translator. In other respects the version is faithful to the best of the translator's ability in combining his interpretation of the one language with the not very easy task of reducing it to the same versification in the other. The reader, on comparing it with the original, is requested to remember that the antiquated language of Pulci, however pure, is not easy to the generality of Italians themselves, from its great mixture of Tuscan proverbs; and he may therefore be more indulgent to the present attempt. How far the translator has succeeded, and whether or no he shall continue the work, are questions which the public will decide. He was induced to make the experiment partly by his love for, and partial intercourse with, the Italian language, of which it is so easy to acquire a slight knowledge, and with which it is so nearly impossible for a foreigner to become accurately conversant. The Italian language is like a capricious beauty, who accords her smiles to all, her favours to few, and sometimes least to those who have courted her longest. The translator wished also to present in an English dress a part at least of a poem never yet rendered into a northern language; at the same time that it has been the original of some of the most celebrated productions on this side of the Alps, as well of those recent experiments in poetry in England which have been already mentioned.

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THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE.[335]

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CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

In the beginning was the Word next God;
God was the Word, the Word no less was He:
This was in the beginning, to my mode
Of thinking, and without Him nought could be:
Therefore, just Lord! from out thy high abode,
Benign and pious, bid an angel flee,
One only, to be my companion, who
Shall help my famous, worthy, old song through.

II.

And thou, oh Virgin! daughter, mother, bride,
Of the same Lord, who gave to you each key
Of Heaven, and Hell, and every thing beside,
The day thy Gabriel said "All hail!" to thee,
Since to thy servants Pity's ne'er denied,
With flowing rhymes, a pleasant style and free,
Be to my verses then benignly kind,
And to the end illuminate my mind.

III.

'Twas in the season when sad Philomel[336]
Weeps with her sister, who remembers and
Deplores the ancient woes which both befel,
And makes the nymphs enamoured, to the hand
Of Phaëton, by Phoebus loved so well,
His car (but tempered by his sire's command)
Was given, and on the horizon's verge just now
Appeared, so that Tithonus scratched his brow:

IV.

When I prepared my bark first to obey,
As it should still obey, the helm, my mind,
And carry prose or rhyme, and this my lay
Of Charles the Emperor, whom you will find
By several pens already praised; but they
Who to diffuse his glory were inclined,
For all that I can see in prose or verse,
Have understood Charles badly, and wrote worse.

V.

Leonardo Aretino said already,[337]
That if, like Pepin, Charles had had a writer
Of genius quick, and diligently steady,
No hero would in history look brighter;
He in the cabinet being always ready,
And in the field a most victorious fighter,
Who for the church and Christian faith had wrought,
Certes, far more than yet is said or thought.

VI.

You still may see at Saint Liberatore,[338]
The abbey, no great way from Manopell,
Erected in the Abruzzi to his glory,
Because of the great battle in which fell
A pagan king, according to the story,
And felon people whom Charles sent to Hell:
And there are bones so many, and so many,
Near them Giusaffa's[339] would seem few, if any.

VII.

But the world, blind and ignorant, don't prize
His virtues as I wish to see them: thou,
Florence, by his great bounty don't arise,[340]
And hast, and may have, if thou wilt allow,
All proper customs and true courtesies:
Whate'er thou hast acquired from then till now,
With knightly courage, treasure, or the lance,
Is sprung from out the noble blood of France.

VIII.

Twelve Paladins had Charles in court, of whom
The wisest and most famous was Orlando;
Him traitor Gan[341] conducted to the tomb
In Roncesvalles, as the villain planned too,
While the horn rang so loud, and knelled the doom
Of their sad rout, though he did all knight can do:
And Dante in his comedy has given
To him a happy seat with Charles in Heaven.[342]

IX.

'Twas Christmas-day; in Paris all his court
Charles held; the Chief, I say, Orlando was,
The Dane; Astolfo there too did resort,
Also Ansuigi, the gay time to pass
In festival and in triumphal sport,
The much-renowned St. Dennis being the cause;
Angiolin of Bayonne, and Oliver,
And gentle Belinghieri too came there:

X.

Avolio, and Arino, and Othone
Of Normandy, and Richard Paladin,
Wise Hamo, and the ancient Salamone,
Walter of Lion's Mount, and Baldovin,
Who was the son of the sad Ganellone,
Were there, exciting too much gladness in
The son of Pepin:—when his knights came hither,
He groaned with joy to see them altogether.

XI.

But watchful Fortune, lurking, takes good heed
Ever some bar 'gainst our intents to bring.
While Charles reposed him thus, in word and deed,
Orlando ruled court, Charles, and every thing;
Curst Gan, with envy bursting, had such need
To vent his spite, that thus with Charles the king
One day he openly began to say,
"Orlando must we always then obey?

XII.

"A thousand times I've been about to say,
Orlando too presumptuously goes on;
Here are we, counts, kings, dukes, to own thy sway,
Hamo, and Otho, Ogier, Solomon,
Each have to honour thee and to obey;
But he has too much credit near the throne,
Which we won't suffer, but are quite decided
By such a boy to be no longer guided.

XIII.

"And even at Aspramont thou didst begin
To let him know he was a gallant knight,
And by the fount did much the day to win;
But I know who that day had won the fight
If it had not for good Gherardo been;
The victory was Almonte's else; his sight
He kept upon the standard—and the laurels,
In fact and fairness, are his earning, Charles!

XIV.

"If thou rememberest being in Gascony,
When there advanced the nations out of Spain
The Christian cause had suffered shamefully,
Had not his valour driven them back again.
Best speak the truth when there's a reason why:
Know then, oh Emperor! that all complain:
As for myself, I shall repass the mounts
O'er which I crossed with two and sixty counts.

XV.

"'Tis fit thy grandeur should dispense relief,
So that each here may have his proper part,
For the whole court is more or less in grief:
Perhaps thou deem'st this lad a Mars in heart?"
Orlando one day heard this speech in brief,
As by himself it chanced he sate apart:
Displeased he was with Gan because he said it,
But much more still that Charles should give him credit.

XVI.

And with the sword he would have murdered Gan,
But Oliver thrust in between the pair,
And from his hand extracted Durlindan,
And thus at length they separated were.
Orlando angry too with Carloman,
Wanted but little to have slain him there;
Then forth alone from Paris went the Chief,
And burst and maddened with disdain and grief.

XVII.

From Ermellina, consort of the Dane,
He took Cortana, and then took Rondell,
And on towards Brara pricked him o'er the plain;
And when she saw him coming, Aldabelle
Stretched forth her arms to clasp her lord again:
Orlando, in whose brain all was not well,
As "Welcome, my Orlando, home," she said,
Raised up his sword to smite her on the head.

XVIII.

Like him a Fury counsels, his revenge
On Gan in that rash act he seemed to take,
Which Aldabella thought extremely strange;
But soon Orlando found himself awake;
And his spouse took his bridle on this change,
And he dismounted from his horse, and spake
Of every thing which passed without demur,
And then reposed himself some days with her.

XIX.

Then full of wrath departed from the place,
As far as pagan countries roamed astray,
And while he rode, yet still at every pace
The traitor Gan remembered by the way;
And wandering on in error a long space,
An abbey which in a lone desert lay,
'Midst glens obscure, and distant lands, he found,
Which formed the Christian's and the Pagan's bound.

XX.

The Abbot was called Clermont, and by blood
Descended from Angrante: under cover
Of a great mountain's brow the abbey stood,
But certain savage giants looked him over;
One Passamont was foremost of the brood,
And Alabaster and Morgante hover
Second and third, with certain slings, and throw
In daily jeopardy the place below.

XXI.

The monks could pass the convent gate no more,
Nor leave their cells for water or for wood;
Orlando knocked, but none would ope, before
Unto the Prior it at length seemed good;
Entered, he said that he was taught to adore
Him who was born of Mary's holiest blood,
And was baptized a Christian; and then showed
How to the abbey he had found his road.

XXII.

Said the Abbot, "You are welcome; what is mine
We give you freely, since that you believe
With us in Mary Mother's Son divine;
And that you may not, Cavalier, conceive
The cause of our delay to let you in
To be rusticity, you shall receive
The reason why our gate was barred to you:
Thus those who in suspicion live must do.

XXIII.

"When hither to inhabit first we came
These mountains, albeit that they are obscure,
As you perceive, yet without fear or blame
They seemed to promise an asylum sure:
From savage brutes alone, too fierce to tame,
'Twas fit our quiet dwelling to secure;
But now, if here we'd stay, we needs must guard
Against domestic beasts with watch and ward.

XXIV.

"These make us stand, in fact, upon the watch;
For late there have appeared three giants rough,
What nation or what kingdom bore the batch
I know not, but they are all of savage stuff;
When Force and Malice with some genius match,
You know, they can do all—we are not enough:
And these so much our orisons derange,
I know not what to do, till matters change.

XXV.

"Our ancient fathers, living the desert in,
For just and holy works were duly fed;
Think not they lived on locusts sole, 'tis certain
That manna was rained down from heaven instead;
But here 'tis fit we keep on the alert in
Our bounds, or taste the stones showered down for bread,
From off yon mountain daily raining faster,
And flung by Passamont and Alabaster.

XXVI.

"The third, Morgante, 's savagest by far; he
Plucks up pines, beeches, poplar-trees, and oaks,
And flings them, our community to bury;
And all that I can do but more provokes."
While thus they parley in the cemetery,
A stone from one of their gigantic strokes,
Which nearly crushed Rondell, came tumbling over,
So that he took a long leap under cover.

XXVII.

"For God-sake, Cavalier, come in with speed;
The manna's falling now," the Abbot cried.
"This fellow does not wish my horse should feed,
Dear Abbot," Roland unto him replied,
"Of restiveness he'd cure him had he need;
That stone seems with good will and aim applied."
The holy father said, "I don't deceive;
They'll one day fling the mountain, I believe."

XXVIII.

Orlando bade them take care of Rondello,
And also made a breakfast of his own;
"Abbot," he said, "I want to find that fellow
Who flung at my good horse yon corner-stone."
Said the abbot, "Let not my advice seem shallow;
As to a brother dear I speak alone;
I would dissuade you, Baron, from this strife,
As knowing sure that you will lose your life.

XXIX.

"That Passamont has in his hand three darts—
Such slings, clubs, ballast-stones, that yield you must:
You know that giants have much stouter hearts
Than us, with reason, in proportion just:
If go you will, guard well against their arts,
For these are very barbarous and robust."
Orlando answered," This I'll see, be sure,
And walk the wild on foot to be secure."

XXX.

The Abbot signed the great cross on his front,
"Then go you with God's benison and mine."
Orlando, after he had scaled the mount,
As the Abbot had directed, kept the line
Right to the usual haunt of Passamont;
Who, seeing him alone in this design,
Surveyed him fore and aft with eyes observant,
Then asked him, "If he wished to stay as servant?"

XXXI.

And promised him an office of great ease.
But, said Orlando, "Saracen insane!
I come to kill you, if it shall so please
God, not to serve as footboy in your train;
You with his monks so oft have broke the peace—
Vile dog! 'tis past his patience to sustain."
The Giant ran to fetch his arms, quite furious,
When he received an answer so injurious.

XXXII.

And being returned to where Orlando stood,
Who had not moved him from the spot, and swinging
The cord, he hurled a stone with strength so rude,
As showed a sample of his skill in slinging;
It rolled on Count Orlando's helmet good
And head, and set both head and helmet ringing,
So that he swooned with pain as if he died,
But more than dead, he seemed so stupified.

XXXIII.

Then Passamont, who thought him slain outright,
Said, "I will go, and while he lies along,
Disarm me: why such craven did I fight?"
But Christ his servants ne'er abandons long,
Especially Orlando, such a knight,
As to desert would almost be a wrong.
While the giant goes to put off his defences,
Orlando has recalled his force and senses:

XXXIV.

And loud he shouted, "Giant, where dost go?
Thou thought'st me doubtless for the bier outlaid;
To the right about—without wings thou'rt too slow
To fly my vengeance—currish renegade!
'Twas but by treachery thou laid'st me low."
The giant his astonishment betrayed,
And turned about, and stopped his journey on,
And then he stooped to pick up a great stone.

XXXV.

Orlando had Cortana bare in hand;
To split the head in twain was what he schemed:
Cortana clave the skull like a true brand,
And pagan Passamont died unredeemed;
Yet harsh and haughty, as he lay he banned,
And most devoutly Macon still blasphemed[343];
But while his crude, rude blasphemies he heard,
Orlando thanked the Father and the Word,—

XXXVI.

Saying, "What grace to me thou'st this day given!
And I to thee, O Lord! am ever bound;
I know my life was saved by thee from Heaven,
Since by the Giant I was fairly downed.
All things by thee are measured just and even;
Our power without thine aid would nought be found:
I pray thee take heed of me, till I can
At least return once more to Carloman."

XXXVII.

And having said thus much, he went his way;
And Alabaster he found out below,
Doing the very best that in him lay
To root from out a bank a rock or two.
Orlando, when he reached him, loud 'gan say,
"How think'st thou, glutton, such a stone to throw?"
When Alabaster heard his deep voice ring,
He suddenly betook him to his sling,

XXXVIII.

And hurled a fragment of a size so large
That if it had in fact fulfilled its mission,
And Roland not availed him of his targe,
There would have been no need of a physician[344].
Orlando set himself in turn to charge,
And in his bulky bosom made incision
With all his sword. The lout fell; but o'erthrown, he
However by no means forgot Macone.

XXXIX.

Morgante had a palace in his mode,
Composed of branches, logs of wood, and earth,
And stretched himself at ease in this abode,
And shut himself at night within his berth.
Orlando knocked, and knocked again, to goad
The giant from his sleep; and he came forth,
The door to open, like a crazy thing,
For a rough dream had shook him slumbering.

XL.

He thought that a fierce serpent had attacked him,
And Mahomet he called; but Mahomet
Is nothing worth, and, not an instant backed him;
But praying blessed Jesu, he was set
At liberty from all the fears which racked him;
And to the gate he came with great regret—
"Who knocks here?" grumbling all the while, said he.
"That," said Orlando, "you will quickly see:

XLI.

"I come to preach to you, as to your brothers,—
Sent by the miserable monks—repentance;
For Providence divine, in you and others,
Condemns the evil done, my new acquaintance!
'Tis writ on high—your wrong must pay another's:
From Heaven itself is issued out this sentence.
Know then, that colder now than a pilaster
I left your Passamont and Alabaster."

XLII.

Morgante said, "Oh gentle Cavalier!
Now by thy God say me no villany;
The favour of your name I fain would hear,
And if a Christian, speak for courtesy."
Replied Orlando, "So much to your ear
I by my faith disclose contentedly;
Christ I adore, who is the genuine Lord,
And, if you please, by you may be adored."

XLIII.

The Saracen rejoined in humble tone,
"I have had an extraordinary vision;
A savage serpent fell on me alone,
And Macon would not pity my condition;
Hence to thy God, who for ye did atone
Upon the cross, preferred I my petition;
His timely succour set me safe and free,
And I a Christian am disposed to be."

XLIV.

Orlando answered, "Baron just and pious,
If this good wish your heart can really move
To the true God, who will not then deny us
Eternal honour, you will go above,
And, if you please, as friends we will ally us,
And I will love you with a perfect love.
Your idols are vain liars, full of fraud:
The only true God is the Christian's God.

XLV.

"The Lord descended to the virgin breast
Of Mary Mother, sinless and divine;
If you acknowledge the Redeemer blest,
Without whom neither sun nor star can shine,
Abjure bad Macon's false and felon test,
Your renegado god, and worship mine,
Baptize yourself with zeal, since you repent."
To which Morgante answered, "I'm content."

XLVI.

And then Orlando to embrace him flew,
And made much of his convert, as he cried,
"To the abbey I will gladly marshal you."
To whom Morgante, "Let us go," replied:
"I to the friars have for peace to sue."
Which thing Orlando heard with inward pride,
Saying, "My brother, so devout and good,
Ask the Abbot pardon, as I wish you would:

XLVII.

"Since God has granted your illumination,
Accepting you in mercy for his own,
Humility should be your first oblation."
Morgante said, "For goodness' sake, make known,—
Since that your God is to be mine—your station,
And let your name in verity be shown;
Then will I everything at your command do."
On which the other said, he was Orlando.

XLVIII.

"Then," quoth the Giant, "blessed be Jesu
A thousand times with gratitude and praise!
Oft, perfect Baron! have I heard of you
Through all the different periods of my days:
And, as I said, to be your vassal too
I wish, for your great gallantry always."
Thus reasoning, they continued much to say,
And onwards to the abbey went their way.

XLIX.

And by the way about the giants dead
Orlando with Morgante reasoned: "Be,
For their decease, I pray you, comforted,
And, since it is God's pleasure, pardon me;
A thousand wrongs unto the monks they bred;
And our true Scripture soundeth openly,
Good is rewarded, and chastised the ill,
Which the Lord never faileth to fulfil:

L.

"Because His love of justice unto all
Is such, He wills His judgment should devour
All who have sin, however great or small;
But good He well remembers to restore.
Nor without justice holy could we call
Him, whom I now require you to adore.
All men must make His will their wishes sway,
And quickly and spontaneously obey.

LI.

"And here our doctors are of one accord,
Coming on this point to the same conclusion,—
That in their thoughts, who praise in Heaven the Lord,
If Pity e'er was guilty of intrusion
For their unfortunate relations stored
In Hell below, and damned in great confusion,
Their happiness would be reduced to nought,—
And thus unjust the Almighty's self be thought.

LII.

"But they in Christ have firmest hope, and all
Which seems to Him, to them too must appear
Well done; nor could it otherwise befall;
He never can in any purpose err.
If sire or mother suffer endless thrall,
They don't disturb themselves for him or her:
What pleases God to them must joy inspire;—
Such is the observance of the eternal choir."

LIII.

"A word unto the wise," Morgante said,
"Is wont to be enough, and you shall see
How much I grieve about my brethren dead;
And if the will of God seem good to me,
Just, as you tell me, 'tis in Heaven obeyed—
Ashes to ashes,—merry let us be!
I will cut off the hands from both their trunks,
And carry them unto the holy monks.

LIV.

"So that all persons may be sure and certain
That they are dead, and have no further fear
To wander solitary this desert in,
And that they may perceive my spirit clear
By the Lord's grace, who hath withdrawn the curtain
Of darkness, making His bright realm appear."
He cut his brethren's hands off at these words,
And left them to the savage beasts and birds.

LV.

Then to the abbey they went on together,
Where waited them the Abbot in great doubt.
The monks, who knew not yet the fact, ran thither
To their superior, all in breathless rout,
Saying with tremor, "Please to tell us whether
You wish to have this person in or out?"
The Abbot, looking through upon the Giant,
Too greatly feared, at first, to be compliant.

LVI.

Orlando seeing him thus agitated,
Said quickly, "Abbot, be thou of good cheer;
He Christ believes, as Christian must be rated,
And hath renounced his Macon false;" which here
Morgante with the hands corroborated,
A proof of both the giants' fate quite clear:
Thence, with due thanks, the Abbot God adored,
Saying, "Thou hast contented me, O Lord!"

LVII.

He gazed; Morgante's height he calculated,
And more than once contemplated his size;
And then he said, "O Giant celebrated!
Know, that no more my wonder will arise,
How you could tear and fling the trees you late did,
When I behold your form with my own eyes.
You now a true and perfect friend will show
Yourself to Christ, as once you were a foe.

LVIII.

"And one of our apostles, Saul once named,
Long persecuted sore the faith of Christ,
Till, one day, by the Spirit being inflamed,
'Why dost thou persecute me thus?' said Christ;
And then from his offence he was reclaimed,
And went for ever after preaching Christ,
And of the faith became a trump, whose sounding
O'er the whole earth is echoing and rebounding.

LIX.

"So, my Morgante, you may do likewise:
He who repents—thus writes the Evangelist—
Occasions more rejoicing in the skies
Than ninety-nine of the celestial list.
You may be sure, should each desire arise
With just zeal for the Lord, that you'll exist
Among the happy saints for evermore;
But you were lost and damned to Hell before!"

LX.

And thus great honour to Morgante paid
The Abbot: many days they did repose.
One day, as with Orlando they both strayed,
And sauntered here and there, where'er they chose,
The Abbot showed a chamber, where arrayed
Much armour was, and hung up certain bows;
And one of these Morgante for a whim
Girt on, though useless, he believed, to him.

LXI.

There being a want of water in the place,
Orlando, like a worthy brother, said,
"Morgante, I could wish you in this case
To go for water." "You shall be obeyed
In all commands," was the reply, "straight ways."
Upon his shoulder a great tub he laid,
And went out on his way unto a fountain,
Where he was wont to drink, below the mountain.

LXII.

Arrived there, a prodigious noise he hears,
Which suddenly along the forest spread;
Whereat from out his quiver he prepares
An arrow for his bow, and lifts his head;
And lo! a monstrous herd of swine appears,
And onward rushes with tempestuous tread,
And to the fountain's brink precisely pours;
So that the Giant's joined by all the boars.

LXIII.

Morgante at a venture shot an arrow,
Which pierced a pig precisely in the ear,
And passed unto the other side quite through;
So that the boar, defunct, lay tripped up near.
Another, to revenge his fellow farrow,
Against the Giant rushed in fierce career,
And reached the passage with so swift a foot,
Morgante was not now in time to shoot.

LXIV.

Perceiving that the pig was on him close,
He gave him such a punch upon the head[345],
As floored him so that he no more arose,
Smashing the very bone; and he fell dead
Next to the other. Having seen such blows,
The other pigs along the valley fled;
Morgante on his neck the bucket took,
Full from the spring, which neither swerved nor shook.

LXV.

The tub was on one shoulder, and there were
The hogs on t'other, and he brushed apace
On to the abbey, though by no means near,
Nor spilt one drop of water in his race.
Orlando, seeing him so soon appear
With the dead boars, and with that brimful vase,
Marvelled to see his strength so very great;
So did the Abbot, and set wide the gate.

LXVI.

The monks, who saw the water fresh and good[346],
Rejoiced, but much more to perceive the pork;
All animals are glad at sight of food:
They lay their breviaries to sleep, and work
With greedy pleasure, and in such a mood,
That the flesh needs no salt beneath their fork.
Of rankness and of rot there is no fear,
For all the fasts are now left in arrear.

LXVII.

As though they wished to burst at once, they ate;
And gorged so that, as if the bones had been
In water, sorely grieved the dog and cat,
Perceiving that they all were picked too clean.
The Abbot, who to all did honour great,
A few days after this convivial scene,
Gave to Morgante a fine horse, well trained,
Which he long time had for himself maintained.

LXVIII.

The horse Morgante to a meadow led,
To gallop, and to put him to the proof,
Thinking that he a back of iron had,
Or to skim eggs unbroke was light enough;
But the horse, sinking with the pain, fell dead,
And burst, while cold on earth lay head and hoof.
Morgante said, "Get up, thou sulky cur!"
And still continued pricking with the spur.

LXIX.

But finally he thought fit to dismount,
And said, "I am as light as any feather,
And he has burst;—to this what say you, Count?"
Orlando answered, "Like a ship's mast rather
You seem to me, and with the truck for front:
Let him go! Fortune wills that we together
Should march, but you on foot Morgante still."
To which the Giant answered," So I will.

LXX.

"When there shall be occasion, you will see
How I approve my courage in the fight."
Orlando said, "I really think you'll be,
If it should prove God's will, a goodly knight;
Nor will you napping there discover me.
But never mind your horse, though out of sight
'Twere best to carry him into some wood,
If but the means or way I understood."

LXXI.

The Giant said, "Then carry him I will,
Since that to carry me he was so slack—
To render, as the gods do, good for ill;
But lend a hand to place him on my back."
Orlando answered, "If my counsel still
May weigh, Morgante, do not undertake
To lift or carry this dead courser, who,
As you have done to him, will do to you.

LXXII.

"Take care he don't revenge himself, though dead,
As Nessus did of old beyond all cure.
I don't know if the fact you've heard or read;
But he will make you burst, you may be sure."
"But help him on my back," Morgante said,
"And you shall see what weight I can endure.
In place, my gentle Roland, of this palfrey,
With all the bells, I'd carry yonder belfry."

LXXIII.

The Abbot said, "The steeple may do well,
But for the bells, you've broken them, I wot."
Morgante answered, "Let them pay in Hell
The penalty who lie dead in yon grot;"
And hoisting up the horse from where he fell,
He said, "Now look if I the gout have got,
Orlando, in the legs,—or if I have force;"—
And then he made two gambols with the horse.

LXXIV.

Morgante was like any mountain framed;
So if he did this 'tis no prodigy;
But secretly himself Orlando blamed,
Because he was one of his family;
And fearing that he might be hurt or maimed,
Once more he bade him lay his burden by:
"Put down, nor bear him further the desert in."
Morgante said, "I'll carry him for certain."

LXXV.

He did; and stowed him in some nook away,
And to the abbey then returned with speed.
Orlando said, "Why longer do we stay?
Morgante, here is nought to do indeed."
The Abbot by the hand he took one day,
And said, with great respect, he had agreed
To leave his reverence; but for this decision
He wished to have his pardon and permission.

LXXVI.

The honours they continued to receive
Perhaps exceeded what his merits claimed:
He said, "I mean, and quickly, to retrieve
The lost days of time past, which may be blamed;
Some days ago I should have asked your leave,
Kind father, but I really was ashamed,
And know not how to show my sentiment,
So much I see you with our stay content.

LXXVII.

"But in my heart I bear through every clime
The Abbot, abbey, and this solitude—
So much I love you in so short a time;
For me, from Heaven reward you with all good
The God so true, the eternal Lord sublime!
Whose kingdom at the last hath open stood.
Meantime we stand expectant of your blessing.
And recommend us to your prayers with pressing."

LXXVIII.

Now when the Abbot Count Orlando heard,
His heart grew soft with inner tenderness,
Such fervour in his bosom bred each word;
And, "Cavalier," he said, "if I have less
Courteous and kind to your great worth appeared,
Than fits me for such gentle blood to express,
I know I have done too little in this case;
But blame our ignorance, and this poor place.

LXXIX.

"We can indeed but honour you with masses,
And sermons, thanksgivings, and pater-nosters,
Hot suppers, dinners (fitting other places
In verity much rather than the cloisters);
But such a love for you my heart embraces,
For thousand virtues which your bosom fosters,
That wheresoe'er you go I too shall be,
And, on the other part, you rest with me.

LXXX.

"This may involve a seeming contradiction;
But you I know are sage, and feel, and taste,
And understand my speech with full conviction.
For your just pious deeds may you be graced
With the Lord's great reward and benediction,
By whom you were directed to this waste:
To His high mercy is our freedom due,
For which we render thanks to Him and you.

LXXXI.

"You saved at once our life and soul: such fear
The Giants caused us, that the way was lost
By which we could pursue a fit career
In search of Jesus and the saintly Host;
And your departure breeds such sorrow here,
That comfortless we all are to our cost;
But months and years you would not stay in sloth,
Nor are you formed to wear our sober cloth,

LXXXII.

"But to bear arms, and wield the lance; indeed,
With these as much is done as with this cowl;
In proof of which the Scripture you may read,
This Giant up to Heaven may bear his soul
By your compassion: now in peace proceed.
Your state and name I seek not to unroll;
But, if I'm asked, this answer shall be given,
That here an angel was sent down from Heaven.

LXXXIII.

"If you want armour or aught else, go in,
Look o'er the wardrobe, and take what you choose,
And cover with it o'er this Giant's skin."
Orlando answered, "If there should lie loose
Some armour, ere our journey we begin,
Which might be turned to my companion's use,
The gift would be acceptable to me."
The Abbot said to him, "Come in and see."

LXXXIV.

And in a certain closet, where the wall
Was covered with old armour like a crust,
The Abbot said to them, "I give you all."
Morgante rummaged piecemeal from the dust
The whole, which, save one cuirass[347], was too small,
And that too had the mail inlaid with rust.
They wondered how it fitted him exactly,
Which ne'er had suited others so compactly.

LXXXV.

'Twas an immeasurable Giant's, who
By the great Milo of Agrante fell
Before the abbey many years ago.
The story on the wall was figured well;
In the last moment of the abbey's foe,
Who long had waged a war implacable:
Precisely as the war occurred they drew him,
And there was Milo as he overthrew him.

LXXXVI.

Seeing this history, Count Orlando said
In his own heart, "O God who in the sky
Know'st all things! how was Milo hither led?
Who caused the Giant in this place to die?"
And certain letters, weeping, then he read,
So that he could not keep his visage dry,—
As I will tell in the ensuing story:
From evil keep you the high King of Glory!

[Note to Stanza v. Lines 1, 2.—In an Edition of the Morgante Maggiore issued at Florence by G. Pulci, in 1900, line 2 of stanza v. runs thus—

"Com' egli ebbe un Ormanno e 'l suo Turpino."

The allusion to "Ormanno," who has been identified with a mythical chronicler, "Urmano from Paris" (see Rajna's Ricerche sui Reali di Francia, 1872, p. 51), and the appeal to the authority of Leonardo Aretino, must not be taken au pied de la lettre. At the same time, the opinion attributed to Leonardo is in accordance with contemporary sentiment and phraseology. Compare "Horum res gestas si qui auctores digni celebrassent, quam magnæ, quam admirabiles, quam veteribus illis similes viderentur."—B. Accolti Aretini (ob. 1466) Dialogus de Præstantiâ Virorum sui Ævi. P. Villani, Liber de Florentiæ Famosis Civibus, 1847, p. 112. From information kindly supplied by Professor V. Rossi, of the University of Pavia.]

FOOTNOTES:

[ [332] {283}[Matteo Maria Bojardo (1434-1494) published his Orlando Innamorato in 1486; Lodovico Ariosto (1474-1533) published the Orlando Furioso in 1516. A first edition of Cantos I.-XXV. of Luigi Pulci's (1431-1487) Il Morgante Maggiore was printed surreptitiously by Luca Veneziano in 1481. Francesco Berni, who recast the Orlando Innamorato, was born circ. 1490, and died in 1536.]

[ [333] [John Hermann Merivale (1779-1844), the father of Charles Merivale, the historian (Dean of Ely, 1869), and of Herman, Under-Secretary for India, published his Orlando in Roncesvalles in 1814.]

[ [334] {284}[Parson Adams and Barnabas are characters in Joseph Andrews; Thwackum and Supple, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling.]

[ [335] {285}[Byron insisted, in the first place with Murray (February 7, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 402), and afterwards, no doubt, with the Hunts, that his translation of the Morgante Maggiore should be "put by the original, stanza for stanza, and verse for verse." In the present issue a few stanzas are inserted for purposes of comparison, but it has not been thought necessary to reprint the whole of the Canto.

"IL MORGANTE MAGGIORE.

ARGOMENTO.

"Vivendo Carlo Magno Imperadore
Co' Paladini in festa e in allegria,
Orlando contra Gano traditore
S'adira, e parte verso Pagania:
Giunge a un deserto, e del bestial furore
Di tre giganti salva una badia,
Che due n'uccide, e con Morgante elegge,
Di buon sozio e d'amico usar la legge."

CANTO PRIMO.

I.

"In principio era il Verbo appresso a Dio;
Ed era Iddio il Verbo, e 'l Verbo lui:
Quest' era nel principio, al parer mio;
E nulla si può far sanza costui:
Però, giusto Signor benigno e pio,
Mandami solo un de gli angeli tui,
Che m'accompagni, e rechimi a memoria
Una famosa antica e degna storia.

II.

"E tu, Vergine, figlia, e madre, e sposa,
Di quel Signor, che ti dette le chiave
Del cielo e dell' abisso, e d' ogni cosa,
Quel di che Gabriel tuo ti disse Ave!
Perchè tu se' de' tuo' servi pietosa,
Con dolce rime, e stil grato e soave,
Ajuta i versi miei benignamente,
E'nsino al fine allumina la mente.

III.

"Era nel tempo, quando Filomena
Colla sorella si lamenta e plora,
Che si ricorda di sua antica pena,
E pe' boschetti le ninfe innamora,
E Febo il carro temperato mena,
Che 'l suo Fetonte l'ammaestra ancora;
Ed appariva appunto all' orizzonte,
Tal che Titon si graffiava la fronte:

IV.

"Quand'io varai la mia barchetta, prima
Per ubbidir chi sempre ubbidir debbe
La mente, e faticarsi in prosa e in rima,
E del mio Carlo Imperador m'increbbe;
Che so quanti la penna ha posto in cima,
Che tutti la sua gloria prevarrebbe:
E stata quella istoria, a quel ch'i' veggio,
Di Carlo male intesa, e scritta peggio.">[

[ [336] {287}[Philomela and Procne were daughters of Pandion, King of Attica. Tereus, son of Ares, wedded Procne, and, after the birth of her son Itys, concealed his wife in the country, with a view to dishonouring Philomela, on the plea of her sister's death. Procne discovered the plot, killed her babe, and served up his flesh in a dish for her husband's dinner. The sisters fled, and when Tereus pursued them with an axe they besought the gods to change them into birds. Thereupon Procne became a swallow, and Philomela a nightingale. So Hyginus, Fabulæ, xlv.; but there are other versions of Philomela's woes.]

[ [337] [In the first edition of the Morgante Maggiore (Firenze, 1482 [B.M.G. 10834]), which is said (vide the colophon) to have been issued "under the correction of the author, line 2 of this stanza runs thus: "comegliebbe u armano el suo turpino;" and, apparently, it was not till 1518 (Milano, by Zarotti) that Pipino was substituted for Turpino. Leonardo Bruni, surnamed Aretino (1369-1444), in his Istoria Fiorentina (1861, pp. 43, 47), commemorates the imperial magnificence of Carlo Magno, and speaks of his benefactions to the Church, but does not—in that work, at any rate—mention his biographers. It is possible that if Pulci or Bruni had read Eginhard, they thought that his chronicle was derogatory to Charlemagne. (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, 1825, iii. 376, note 1, and Hallam's Europe during the Middle Ages, 1868, p. 16, note 3; et vide post, [p. 309].)]

[ [338] {288}[For an account of the Benedictine Monastery of San Liberatore alla Majella, which lies to the south of Manoppello (eight miles southwest of Chieto, in the Abruzzi), see Monumenti Storici ed. Artistici degli Abruzzi, by V. Bindi, Naples, 1889, Part I. (Testo), pp. 655, sq. The abbey is in a ruinous condition, but on the walls of "un ampio porticato," there is still to be seen a fresco of Charlemagne, holding in his hands the deed of gift of the Abbey lands.]

[ [339] [That is, the valley of Jehoshaphat, the "valley where Jehovah judges" (see Joel iii. 2-12); and, hence, a favourite burial-ground of Jews and Moslems.]

[ [340] [The text as it stands is meaningless. Probably Byron wrote "dost arise." The reference is no doubt to the supposed restoration of Florence by Charlemagne.]

[ [341] {289}["The Morgante is in truth the epic of treason, and the character of Gano, as an accomplished but not utterly abandoned Judas, is admirably sustained throughout."—Renaissance in Italy, 1881, iv. 444.]

[ [342]

["Così per Carlo Magno e per Orlando,
Due ne segui lo mio attento sguardo,
Com' occhio segue suo falcon volando."

Del Paradiso, Canto XVIII. lines 43-45.]

[ [343] {296}["Macon" is another form of "Mahomet." Compare—

"O Macon! break in twain the steeléd lance."

Fairfax's Tasso, Gerusalemme Liberata, book ix. stanza xxx. line i.]

[ [344] [Pulci seems to have been the originator of the humorous understatement. Compare—

"And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more."

Bret Harte's Poems, The Society upon the Stanislaus, line 26.]

[ [345] {303} "Gli dette in su la testa un gran punzone." It is strange that Pulci should have literally anticipated the technical terms of my old friend and master, Jackson, and the art which he has carried to its highest pitch. "A punch on the head" or "a punch in the head"—"un punzone in su la testa,"—is the exact and frequent phrase of our best pugilists, who little dream that they are talking the purest Tuscan.

[ [346] {304}["Half a dozen invectives against tyranny confiscate Cd. Hd. in a month; and eight and twenty cantos of quizzing Monks, Knights, and Church Government, are let loose for centuries."—Letter to Murray, May 8, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 21.]

[ [347] {308}[Byron could not make up his mind with regard to the translation of the Italian sbergo, which he had, correctly, rendered "cuirass." He was under the impression that the word "meant helmet also" (see his letters to Murray, March 1, 5, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 413-417). Sbergo or usbergo, as Moore points out (Life, p. 438, note 2), "is obviously the same as hauberk, habergeon, etc., all from the German halsberg, or covering for the neck." An old dictionary which Byron might have consulted, Vocabolario Italiano-Latino, Venice, 1794, gives thorax, lorica, as the Latin equivalent of "Usbergo = armadura del busto, corazza." (See, too, for an authority quoted in the Dizzionario Universale (1797-1805) of Alberti di Villanuova, Letters, 1900, iv. 417, note 2.)]

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FRANCESCA OF RIMINI.

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INTRODUCTION TO FRANCESCA OF RIMINI.

The MS. of "a literal translation, word for word (versed like the original), of the episode of Francesca of Rimini" (Letter March 23, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 421), was sent to Murray from Ravenna, March 20, 1820 (ibid., p. 419), a week after Byron had forwarded the MS. of the Prophecy of Dante. Presumably the translation had been made in the interval by way of illustrating and justifying the unfamiliar metre of the "Dante Imitation." In the letter which accompanied the translation he writes, "Enclosed you will find, line for line, in third rhyme (terza rima,) of which your British Blackguard reader as yet understands nothing, Fanny of Rimini. You know that she was born here, and married, and slain, from Cary, Boyd, and such people already. I have done it into cramp English, line for line, and rhyme for rhyme, to try the possibility. You had best append it to the poems already sent by last three posts."

In the matter of the "British Blackguard," that is, the general reader, Byron spoke by the card. Hayley's excellent translation of the three first cantos of the Inferno (vide ante, "Introduction to the Prophecy of Dante," [p. 237]), which must have been known to a previous generation, was forgotten, and with earlier experiments in terza rima, by Chaucer and the sixteenth and seventeenth century poets, neither Byron nor the British public had any familiar or definite acquaintance. But of late some interest had been awakened or revived in Dante and the Divina Commedia.

Cary's translation—begun in 1796, but not published as a whole till 1814—had met with a sudden and remarkable success. "The work, which had been published four years, but had remained in utter obscurity, was at once eagerly sought after. About a thousand copies of the first edition, that remained on hand, were immediately disposed of; in less than three months a new edition was called for." Moreover, the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews were loud in its praises (Memoir of H. F. Cary, 1847, ii. 28). Byron seems to have thought that a fragment of the Inferno, "versed like the original," would challenge comparison with Cary's rendering in blank verse, and would lend an additional interest to the "Pulci Translations, and the Dante Imitation." Dîs aliter visum, and Byron's translation of the episode of Francesca of Rimini, remained unpublished till it appeared in the pages of The Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, 1830, ii. 309-311. (For separate translations of the episode, see Stories of the Italian Poets, by Leigh Hunt, 1846, i. 393-395, and for a rendering in blank verse by Lord [John] Russell, see Literary Souvenir, 1830, pp. 285-287.)

Transcriber's Note: In the original work the Italian verse of Dante was printed on pages facing Byron's translation so that the two could be compared. Here, the Italian verse has been placed following Byron's. To compare the two side by side, open a second copy of this etext in a new window.

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FRANCESCA OF RIMINI[348]
FROM THE INFERNO OF DANTE.

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CANTO THE FIFTH.

"The Land where I was born[349] sits by the Seas
Upon that shore to which the Po descends,
With all his followers, in search of peace.
Love, which the gentle heart soon apprehends,
Seized him for the fair person which was ta'en
From me[350], and me even yet the mode offends.
Love, who to none beloved to love again
Remits, seized me with wish to please, so strong[351],
That, as thou see'st, yet, yet it doth remain.
Love to one death conducted us along,10
But Caina[352] waits for him our life who ended:"
These were the accents uttered by her tongue.—
Since I first listened to these Souls offended,
I bowed my visage, and so kept it till—
'What think'st thou?' said the bard[353]; when I unbended,
And recommenced: 'Alas! unto such ill
How many sweet thoughts, what strong ecstacies,
Led these their evil fortune to fulfill!'
And then I turned unto their side my eyes,
And said, 'Francesca, thy sad destinies20
Have made me sorrow till the tears arise.
But tell me, in the Season of sweet sighs,
By what and how thy Love to Passion rose,
So as his dim desires to recognize?'
Then she to me: 'The greatest of all woes
Is to remind us of our happy days[co][354]
In misery, and that thy teacher knows.
But if to learn our Passion's first root preys
Upon thy spirit with such Sympathy,
I will do even as he who weeps and says.[cp][355]30
We read one day for pastime, seated nigh,
Of Lancilot, how Love enchained him too.
We were alone, quite unsuspiciously.
But oft our eyes met, and our Cheeks in hue
All o'er discoloured by that reading were;
But one point only wholly us o'erthrew;[cq]
When we read the long-sighed-for smile of her,[cr]
To be thus kissed by such devoted lover,[cs]
He, who from me can be divided ne'er,
Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act all over:40
Accurséd was the book and he who wrote![356]
That day no further leaf we did uncover.'
While thus one Spirit told us of their lot,
The other wept, so that with Pity's thralls
I swooned, as if by Death I had been smote,[357]
And fell down even as a dead body falls."[358]

March 20, 1820.

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FRANCESCA DA RIMINI.
DANTE, L'INFERNO.

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CANTO QUINTO.

'Siede la terra dove nata fui
Sulla marina, dove il Po discende
Per aver pace co' seguaci sui.
Amor, che al cor gentil ratto s'apprende,
Prese costui della bella persona
Che mi fu tolta, e il modo ancor m' offende.
Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona,
Mi prese del costui piacer si forte,
Che, come vedi, ancor non mi abbandona.
Amor condusse noi ad una morte:10
Caino attende chi vita ci spense.'
Queste parole da lor ci fur porte.
Da che io intesi quelle anime offense
Chinai 'l viso, e tanto il tenni basso,
Finchè il Poeta mi disse: 'Che pense?'
Quando risposi, cominciai: 'O lasso!
Quanti dolci pensier, quanto disio
Menò costoro al doloroso passo!'
Poi mi rivolsi a loro, e parla' io,
E cominciai: 'Francesca, i tuoi martiri20
A lagrimar mi fanno tristo e pio.
Ma dimmi: al tempo de' dolci sospiri
A che e come concedette Amore,
Che conoscesti i dubbiosi desiri?'
Ed ella a me: 'Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria; e ciò sa il tuo dottore.
Ma se a conoscer la prima radice
Del nostro amor tu hai cotanto affetto
Farò come colui che piange e dice.30
Noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto
Di Lancelotto, come Amor lo strinse:
Soli eravamo, e senza alcun sospetto.
Per più fiate gli occhi ci sospinse
Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso:
Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse.
Quando leggemmo il disiato riso
Esser baciato da cotanto amante,
Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,
La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante:40
Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse—
Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante
Mentre che l'uno spirto questo disse,
L'altro piangeva sì che di pietade
Io venni meno cos com' io morisse;
E caddi, come corpo morto cade.

FOOTNOTES:

[ [348] {317} [Dante, in his Inferno (Canto V. lines 97-142), places Francesca and her lover Paolo among the lustful in the second circle of Hell. Francesca, daughter of Guido Vecchio da Polenta, Lord of Ravenna, married (circ. 1275) Gianciotto, second son of Malatesta da Verrucchio, Lord of Rimini. According to Boccaccio (Il Comento sopra la Commedia, 1863, i. 476, sq.), Gianciotto was "hideously deformed in countenance and figure," and determined to woo and marry Francesca by proxy. He accordingly "sent, as his representative, his younger brother Paolo, the handsomest and most accomplished man in all Italy. Francesca saw Paolo arrive, and imagined she beheld her future husband. That mistake was the commencement of her passion." A day came when the lovers were surprised together, and Gianciotto slew both his brother and his wife.]

[ [349] ["On arrive à Ravenne en longeant une forèt de pins qui a sept lieues de long, et qui me semblait un immense bois funèbre servant d'avenue au sépulcre commun de ces deux grandes puissances. A peine y a-t-il place pour d'autres souvenirs à côté de leur mémoire. Cependant d'autres noms poétiques sont attachés à la Pineta de Ravenne. Naguère lord Byron y évoquait les fantastiques récits empruntés par Dryden à Boccace, et lui-même est maintenant une figure du passé, errante dans ce lieu mélancolique. Je songeais, en le traversant, que le chantre du désespoir avait chevauché sur cette plage lugubre, foulée avant lui par le pas grave et lent du poëte de l'Enfer....

"Il suffit de jeter les yeux sur une carte pour reconnaitre l'exactitude topographique de cette dernière expression. En effet, dans toute la partie supérieure de son cours, le Po reçoit une foule d'affluents qui convergent vers son lit; ce sont le Tésin, l'Adda, l'Olio, le Mincio, la Trebbia, la Bormida, le Taro...."—La Grèce, Rome, et Dante ("Voyage Dantesque"), par M. J. J. Ampère, 1850, pp. 311-313.]

[ [350] [The meaning is that she was despoiled of her beauty by death, and that the manner of her death excites her indignation still. "Among Lord Byron's unpublished letters we find the following varied readings of the translation from Dante:—

Seized him for the fair person, which in its
Bloom was ta'en from me, yet the mode offends.
or,
Seized him for the fair form, of which in its
Bloom I was reft, and yet the mode offends.
Love, which to none beloved to love remits,
Seized me { with mutual wish to please wish of pleasing him with the desire to please } so strong,
That, as thou see'st, not yet that passion quits, etc.

You will find these readings vary from the MS. I sent you. They are closer, but rougher: take which is liked best; or, if you like, print them as variations. They are all close to the text."—Works of Lord Byron, 1832, xii. 5, note 2.]

[ [351] {318} ["The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man."—S. T. Coleridge, Table Talk, July 23, 1827.]

[ [352] [Caïna is the first belt of Cocytus, that is, circle ix. of the Inferno, in which fratricides and betrayers of their kindred are immersed up to the neck.]

[ [353] [Virgil.]

[ [co] {319}

Is to recall to mind our happy days.
In misery, and this thy teacher knows.—[MS.]

[ [354] [The sentiment is derived from Boethius: "In omni adversitate fortunæ infelicissimum genus est infortunii, fuisse felicem."—De Consolat. Philos. Lib. II. Prosa 4. The earlier commentators (e.g. Venturi and Biagioli), relying on a passage in the Convito (ii. 16), assume that the "teacher" (line 27) is the author of the sentence, but later authorities point out that "mio dottore" can only apply to Virgil (v. 70), who then and there in the world of shades was suffering the bitter experience of having "known better days." Compare—

"For of fortunes sharp adversitee
The worst kinde of infortune is this,
A man to have ben in prosperitee,
And it remembren whan it passéd is."

Troilus and Criseyde, Bk. III. stanza ccxxxiii. lines 1-4.

"E perché rimembrare il ben perduto
Fa più meschino lo stato presente."

Fortiguerra's Ricciardetto, Canto XI. stanza lxxxiii.

Compare, too—

"A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."

Tennyson's Locksley Hall.]

[ [cp] I will relate as he who weeps and says.—[MS.] (The sense is, I will do even as one who relates while weeping.)

[ [355] [Byron affixed the following note to line 126 of the Italian: "In some of the editions it is 'dirò,' in others 'faro;'—an essential difference between 'saying' and 'doing' which I know not how to decide—Ask Foscolo—the damned editions drive me mad." In La Divina Commedia, Firenze, 1892, and the Opere de Dante, Oxford, 1897, the reading is faro.]

[ [cq] {321}——wholly overthrew.—[MS.]

[ [cr] When we read the desired-for smile of her. [MS, Alternative reading.]

[ [cs]—by such a fervent lover.—[MS.]

[ [356] ["A Gallehault was the book and he who wrote it" (A. J. Butler). "Writer and book were Gallehault to our will" (E. J. Plumptre). The book which the lovers were reading is entitled L'Illustre et Famosa Historia di Lancilotto del Lago. The "one point" of the original runs thus: "Et la reina ... lo piglia per il mento, et lo bacia davanti a Gallehault, assai lungamente."—Venice, 1558, Lib. Prim. cap. lxvi. vol. i. p. 229. The Gallehault of the Lancilotto, the shameless "purveyor," must not be confounded with the stainless Galahad of the Morte d'Arthur.']

[ [357] [Dante was in his twentieth, or twenty-first year when the tragedy of Francesca and Paolo was enacted, not at Rimini, but at Pesaro. Some acquaintance he may have had with her, through his friend Guido (not her father, but probably her nephew), enough to account for the peculiar emotion caused by her sanguinary doom.]

[ [358]

Alternative Versions Transcribed by Mrs. Shelley.

March 20, 1820.

line 4: Love, which too soon the soft heart apprehends,
Seized him for the fair form, the which was there
Torn from me, and even yet the mode offends.

line 8: Remits, seized him for me with joy so strong—

line 12: These were the words then uttered—
Since I had first perceived these souls offended,
I bowed my visage and so kept it till—
"What think'st thou?" said the bard, whom I (sic)
And then commenced—"Alas unto such ill—

line 18: Led these? "and then I turned me to them still
And spoke, "Francesca, thy sad destinies
Have made me sad and tender even to tears,
But tell me, in the season of sweet sighs,
By what and how Love overcame your fears,
So ye might recognize his dim desires?"
Then she to me, "No greater grief appears
Than, when the time of happiness expires,
To recollect, and this your teacher knows.
But if to find the first root of our—
Thou seek'st with such a sympathy in woes,
I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.
We read one day for pleasure, sitting close,
Of Launcelot, where forth his passion breaks.
We were alone and we suspected nought,
But oft our eyes exchanged, and changed our cheeks.
When we read the desiring smile of her
Who to be kissed by such true lover sought,
He who from me can be divided ne'er
All tremulously kissed my trembling mouth.
Accursed the book and he who wrote it were—
That day no further did we read in sooth."
While the one spirit in this manner spoke
The other wept, so that, for very ruth,
I felt as if my trembling heart had broke,
To see the misery which both enthralls:
So that I swooned as dying with the stroke,—
And fell down even as a dead body falls.

Another version of the same.
line 21: Have made me sad even until the tears arise—

line 27: In wretchedness, and that your teacher knows.

line 31: We read one day for pleasure—
Of Launcelot, how passion shook his frame.
We were alone all unsuspiciously.
But oft our eyes met and our cheeks the same,
Pale and discoloured by that reading were;
But one part only wholly overcame;
When we read the desiring smile of her
Who sought the kiss of such devoted lover;
He who from me can be divided ne'er
Kissed my mouth, trembling to that kiss all over!
Accurséd was that book and he who wrote—
That day we did no further page uncover."
While thus—etc.

line 45: I swooned to death with sympathetic thought—

[Another version.]
line 33: We were alone, and we suspected nought.
But oft our meeting eyes made pale our cheeks,
Urged by that reading for our ruin wrought;
But one point only wholly overcame:
When we read the desiring smile which sought
By such true lover to be kissed—the same
Who from my side can be divided ne'er
Kissed my mouth, trembling o'er all his frame!
Accurst the book, etc., etc.

[Another version.]
line 33: We were alone and—etc.
But one point only 'twas our ruin wrought.
When we read the desiring smile of her
Who to be kissed of such true lover sought;
He who for me, etc., etc.

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MARINO FALIERO,
DOGE OF VENICE;
AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY,
IN FIVE ACTS.

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"Dux inquieti turbidus Adria."

Horace, [Od. III. c. iii. line 5]

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[Marino Faliero was produced for the first time at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, April 25, 1821. Mr. Cooper played "The Doge;" Mrs. W. West, "Angiolina, wife of the Doge." The piece was repeated on April 30, May 1, 2, 3, 4, and 14, 1821.

A revival was attempted at Drury Lane, May 20, 21, 1842, when Macready appeared as "The Doge," and Helen Faucit as "Angiolina" (see Life and Remains of E. L. Blanchard, 1891, i. 346-348).

An adaptation of Byron's play, by W. Bayle Bernard, was produced at Drury Lane, November 2, 1867. It was played till December 17, 1867. Phelps took the part of "The Doge," and Mrs. Hermann of "Angiolina." In Germany an adaptation by Arthur Fitger was performed nineteen times by the "Meiningers," circ. 1887 (see Englische Studien, 1899, xxvii. 146).]

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INTRODUCTION TO MARINO FALIERO.

Byron had no sooner finished the first draft of Manfred than he began (February 25, 1817) to lay the foundation of another tragedy. Venice was new to him, and, on visiting the Doge's Palace, the veiled space intended for the portrait of Marin Falier, and the "Giants' Staircase," where, as he believed, "he was once crowned and afterwards decapitated," had laid hold of his imagination, while the legend of the Congiura, "an old man jealous and conspiring against the state of which he was ... Chief," promised a subject which the "devil himself" might have dramatized con amore.

But other interests and ideas claimed his attention, and for more than three years the project slept. At length he slips into the postscript of a letter to Murray, dated, "Ravenna, April 9, 1820" (Letters, 1901, v. 7), an intimation that he had begun "a tragedy on the subject of Marino Faliero, the Doge of Venice." The "Imitation of Dante, the Translation of Pulci, the Danticles," etc., were worked off, and, in prospecting for a new vein, a fresh lode of literary ore, he passed, by a natural transition, from Italian literature to Italian history, from the romantic and humorous epopee of Pulci and Berni, to the pseudo-classic drama of Alfieri and Monti.

Jealousy, as "Monk" Lewis had advised him (August, 1817), was an "exhausted passion" in the drama, and to lay the scene in Venice was to provoke comparison with Shakespeare and Otway; but the man himself, the fiery Doge, passionate but not jealous, a noble turned democrat pro hac vice, an old man "greatly" finding "quarrel in a straw," afforded a theme historically time-honoured, and yet unappropriated by tragic art.

There was, too, a living interest in the story. For history was repeating itself, and "politics were savage and uncertain." "Mischief was afoot," and the tradition of a conspiracy which failed might find an historic parallel in a conspiracy which would succeed. There was "that brewing in Italy" which might, perhaps, inspire "a people to redress itself," "and with a cry of, 'Up with the Republic!' 'Down with the Nobility!' send the Barbarians of all nations back to their own dens!" {Letters, 1901, v. 10, 12, 19.)

In taking the field as a dramatist, Byron sought to win distinction for himself—in the first place by historical accuracy, and, secondly, by artistic regularity—by a stricter attention to the dramatic "unities." "History is closely followed," he tells Murray, in a letter dated July 17, 1820; and, again, in the Preface (vide post, pp. [332]-[337]), which is an expansion of the letter, he gives a list of the authorities which he had consulted, and claims to have "transferred into our language an historical fact worthy of commemoration." More than once in his letters to Murray he reverts to this profession of accuracy, and encloses some additional note, in which he points out and rectifies an occasional deviation from the historical record. In this respect, at any rate, he could contend on more than equal terms "with established writers," that is, with Shakespeare and Otway, and could present to his countrymen an exacter and, so, more lifelike picture of the Venetian Republic. It is plain, too, that he was bitten with the love of study for its own sake, with a premature passion for erudition, and that he sought and found relief from physical and intellectual excitement in the intricacies of research. If his history is at fault, it was not from any lack of diligence on his part, but because the materials at his disposal or within his cognizance were inaccurate and misleading. He makes no mention of the huge collection of Venetian archives which had recently been deposited in the Convent of the Frari, or of Doria's transcript of Sanudo's Diaries, bequeathed in 1816 to the Library of St. Mark; but he quotes as his authorities the Vitæ Ducum Venetorum, of Marin Sanudo (1466-1535), the Storia, etc., of Andrea Navagero (1483-1529), and the Principj di Storia, etc., of Vettor Sandi, which belongs to the latter half of the eighteenth century. Byron's chroniclers were ancient, but not ancient enough; and, though they "handed down the story" (see Medwin, Conversations, p. 173), they depart in numerous particulars from the facts recorded in contemporary documents. Unquestionably the legend, as it appears in Sanudo's perplexing and uncritical narrative (see, for the translation of an original version of the Italian, Appendix, pp. [462]-[467]), is more dramatic than the "low beginnings" of the myth, which may be traced to the annalists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; but, like other legends, it is insusceptible of proof. Byron's Doge is almost, if not quite, as unhistorical as his Bonivard or his Mazeppa. (See Nuovo Archivio Veneto, 1893, vol. v. pt. i. pp. 95-197; 1897, vol. xiii. pt. i. pp. 5-107; pt. ii. pp. 277-374; Les Archives de Venise, par Armand Baschet, 1870; Storia della Repubblica di Venizia, Giuseppe Cappelletti, 1849, iv. pp. 262-317.)

At the close of the Preface, by way of an afterthought, Byron announces his determination to escape "the reproach of the English theatrical compositions" "by preserving a nearer approach to unity," by substituting the regularity of French and Italian models for the barbarities of the Elizabethan dramatists and their successors. Goethe (Conversations, 1874, p. 114) is said to have "laughed to think that Byron, who, in practical life, could never adapt himself, and never even asked about a law, finally subjected himself to the stupidest of laws—that of the three unities." It was, perhaps, in part with this object in view, to make his readers smile, to provoke their astonishment, that he affected a severity foreign to his genius and at variance with his record. It was an agreeable thought that he could so easily pass from one extreme to another, from Manfred to Marino Faliero, and, at the same time, indulge "in a little sally of gratuitous sauciness" (Quarterly Review, July, 1822, vol. xxvii, p. 480) at the expense of his own countrymen. But there were other influences at work. He had been powerfully impressed by the energy and directness of Alfieri's work, and he was eager to emulate the gravity and simplicity, if not the terseness and conciseness, of his style and language. The drama was a new world to conquer, and so far as "his own literature" was concerned it appeared that success might be attainable by "a severer approach to the rules" (Letter to Murray, February 16, 1821)—that by taking Alfieri as his model he might step into the first rank of English dramatists.

Goethe thought that Byron failed "to understand the purpose" of the "three unities," that he regarded the law as an end in itself, and did not perceive that if a play was comprehensible the unities might be neglected and disregarded. It is possible that his "blind obedience to the law" may have been dictated by the fervour of a convert; but it is equally possible that he looked beyond the law or its fulfilment to an ulterior object, the discomfiture of the romantic school, with its contempt for regularity, its passionate appeal from art to nature. If he was minded to raise a "Grecian temple of the purest architecture" (Letters, 1901, v. Appendix III. p. 559), it was not without some thought and hope of shaming, by force of contrast, the "mosque," the "grotesque edifice" of barbarian contemporaries and rivals. Byron was "ever a fighter," and his claim to regularity, to a closer preservation of the "unities," was of the nature of a challenge.

Marino Faliero was dedicated to "Baron Goethe," but the letter which should have contained the dedication was delayed in transit. Goethe never saw the dedication till it was placed in his hands by John Murray the Third, in 1831, but he read the play, and after Byron's death bore testimony to its peculiar characteristics and essential worth. "Lord Byron, notwithstanding his predominant personality, has sometimes had the power of renouncing himself altogether, as may be seen in some of his dramatic pieces, particularly in his Marino Faliero. In this piece one quite forgets that Lord Byron, or even an Englishman, wrote it. We live entirely in Venice, and entirely in the time in which the action takes place. The personages speak quite from themselves and their own condition, without having any of the subjective feelings, thoughts, and opinions of the poet" (Conversations, 1874, p. 453).

Byron spent three months over the composition of Marino Faliero. The tragedy was completed July 17 (Letters, 1901, v. 52), and the copying (vide post, [p. 461, note 2]) a month later (August 16, 17, 1820). The final draft of "all the acts corrected" was despatched to England some days before October 6, 1820.

Early in January, 1821 (see Letters to Murray, January 11, 20, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 221-228), an announcement reached Byron that his play was to be brought out at Drury Lane Theatre, by Elliston. Against this he protested by every means in his power, and finally, on Wednesday, April 25, four days after the publication of the first edition (April 21, 1821), an injunction was obtained from Lord Chancellor Eldon, prohibiting a performance announced for that evening. Elliston pursued the Chancellor to the steps of his own house, and at the last moment persuaded him to allow the play to be acted on that night only. Legal proceeedings were taken, but, in the end, the injunction was withdrawn, with the consent of Byron's solicitors, and the play was represented again on April 30, and on five nights in the following May. As Byron had foreseen, Marino Faliero was coldly received by the playgoing public, and proved a loss to the "speculating buffoons," who had not realized that it was "unfit for their Fair or their booth" (Letter to Murray, January 20, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 228, and p. 226, note 2. See, too, Memoirs of Robert W. Elliston, 1845, pp. 268-271).

Byron was the first to perceive that the story of Marino Faliero was a drama "ready to hand;" but he has had many followers, if not imitators or rivals.

"Marino Faliero, tragédie en cinq actes," by Casimir Jean François Delavigne, was played for the first time at the Theatre of Porte Saint Martin, May 31, 1829.

In Germany tragedies based on the same theme have been published by Otto Ludwig, Leipzig, 1874; Martin Grief, Vienna, 1879; Murad Effendi (Franz von Werner), 1881, and others (Englische Studien, vol. xxvii. pp. 146, 147).

Marino Faliero, a Tragedy, by A. C. Swinburne, was published in 1885.

Marino Faliero was reviewed by Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, July 21, 1821, vol. 35, pp. 271-285; by Heber, in the Quarterly Review, July, 1822, vol. xxvii. pp. 476-492; and by John Wilson, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, April, 1821, vol. 9, pp. 93-103. For other notices, vide ante ("Introduction to The Prophecy of Dante"), [p. 240].

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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.

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,[359] 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 Alesia,[360] and of Prince Eugene at Belgrade. He was 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 apprised 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.[361] For this, honest Sanuto "saddles him with a judgment," as Thwackum did Square;[362] 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, Count-bishop of Ceneda. For these facts my authorities are Sanuto, Vettor Sandi,[363] Andrea Navagero,[364] and the account of the siege of Zara, first published by the indefatigable Abate Morelli, in his Monumenti Veneziani di varia Letteratura, printed in 1796,[365] all of which I have looked over in the original language. The moderns, Darù, Sismondi, and Laugier, nearly agree with the ancient chroniclers. Sismondi attributes the conspiracy to his jealousy; but I find this nowhere 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 aneleva 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."[366] The attentions of Steno himself appear to have been directed towards one of her damsels, and not to the "Dogaressa"[367] 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[368]. 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 deprived 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—that Helen lost Troy—that Lucretia expelled the Tarquins from Rome—and that Cava brought the Moors to Spain—that an insulted husband led the Gauls to Clusium, and thence to Rome—that a single verse of Frederick II.[369] of Prussia on the Abbé de Bernis, and a jest on Madame de Pompadour, led to the battle of Rosbach—that the elopement of Dearbhorgil[370] with Mac Murchad conducted the English to the slavery of Ireland that a personal pique between Maria Antoinette and the Duke of Orleans precipitated the first expulsion of the Bourbons—and, not to multiply instances of the teterrima causa, that Commodus, Domitian, and Caligula fell victims not to their public tyranny, but to private vengeance—and that an order to make Cromwell disembark from the ship in which he would have sailed to America destroyed both King and Commonwealth. After these instances, on the least reflection it is indeed extraordinary in Dr. Moore to seem surprised that a man used to command, who had served and swayed in the most important offices, should fiercely resent, in a fierce age, an unpunished affront, the grossest that can be offered to a man, be he prince or peasant. The age of Faliero is little to the purpose, unless to favour it—

"The young man's wrath is like [light] straw on fire,
But like red hot steel is the old man's ire."

[Davie Gellatley's song in Waverley, chap. xiv.]

"Young men soon give and soon forget affronts,
Old age is slow at both."

Laugier's reflections are more philosophical:—"Tale fù il fine ignominioso di un' uomo, che la sua nascità, la sua età, il suo carattere dovevano tener lontano dalle passioni produttrici di grandi delitti. I suoi talenti per lungo tempo esercitati ne' maggiori impieghi, la sua capacità sperimentata ne' governi e nelle ambasciate, gli avevano acquistato la stima e la fiducia de' cittadini, ed avevano uniti i suffragj per collocarlo alla testa della repubblica. Innalzato ad un grado che terminava gloriosamente la sua vita, il risentimento di un' ingiuria leggiera insinuò nel suo cuore tal veleno che bastò a corrompere le antiche sue qualità, e a condurlo al termine dei scellerati; serio esempio, che prova non esservi età, in cui la prudenza umana sia sicura, e che nell' uomo restano sempre passioni capaci a disonorarlo, quando non invigili sopra se stesso."[371]

Where did Dr. Moore find that Marino Faliero begged his 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 his 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 veil which is painted over the place of Marino Faliero amongst the Doges, and the Giants' Staircase[372], where he was crowned, and discrowned, and decapitated, struck forcibly upon my imagination; as did his fiery character and strange story. I went, in 1819, in search of his tomb more than once to the church San Giovanni e San Paolo; and, as I was standing before the monument of another family, a priest came up to me and said, "I can show you finer monuments than that." I told him that I was in search of that of the Faliero family, and particularly of the Doge Marino's. "Oh," said he, "I will show it you;" and, conducting me to the outside, pointed out a sarcophagus in the wall with an illegible inscription[373]. He said that it had been in a convent adjoining, but was removed after the French came, and placed in its present situation; that he had seen the tomb opened at its removal; there were still some bones remaining, but no positive vestige of the decapitation. The equestrian statue[374] of which I have made mention in the third act as before that church is not, however, of a Faliero, but of some other now obsolete warrior, although of a later date. There were two other Doges of this family prior to 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 commemoration.

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[375] 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 Shakespeare, 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 can." Sir William Drummond[376] 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.[ct] And I cannot conceive any man of irritable feeling[cu] 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[377]. But I wish that others would, for surely there is dramatic power somewhere, where Joanna Baillie, and Milman, and John Wilson exist. The City of the Plague[1816] and the Fall of Jerusalem [1820] are full of the best "matériel" for tragedy that has been seen since Horace Walpole, except passages of Ethwald[1802] and De Montfort[1798]. 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[1765], he is the "Ultimus Romanorum," the author of the Mysterious Mother[1768], 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.[378]

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 Appendix.[379]

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DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

MEN.

Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice.

Bertuccio Faliero, Nephew of the Doge.

Lioni, a Patrician and Senator.

Benintende, Chief of the Council of Ten.

Michel Steno, One of the three Capi of the Forty.

} Conspirators.

Israel Bertuccio, Chief of the Arsenal,

Philip Calendaro,

Dagolino,

Bertram,

Signor of the Night, "Signore di Notte," one of the Officers belonging to the Republic.

First Citizen.

Second Citizen.

Third Citizen.

}Officers belonging to the Ducal Palace.

Vincenzo,

Pietro,

Battista,

Secretary of the Council of Ten.

Guards, Conspirators, Citizens, The Council of Ten, the Giunta, etc., etc.

WOMEN.

Angiolina, Wife to the Doge.

Marianna, her Friend.

Female Attendants, etc.

Scene Venice—in the year 1355.

---

MARINO FALIERO,
DOGE OF VENICE.
(AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS.)

---

ACT I.

Scene I.—An Antechamber in the Ducal Palace.

Pietro speaks, in entering, to Battista.

Pie. Is not the messenger returned?[cv]

Bat. Not yet;
I have sent frequently, as you commanded,
But still the Signory[380] is deep in council,
And long debate on Steno's accusation.

Pie. Too long—at least so thinks the Doge.

Bat. How bears he
These moments of suspense?

Pie. With struggling patience.[cw]
Placed at the Ducal table, covered o'er
With all the apparel of the state—petitions,
Despatches, judgments, acts, reprieves, reports,—
He sits as rapt in duty; but whene'er[cx]10
He hears the jarring of a distant door,
Or aught that intimates a coming step,[cy]
Or murmur of a voice, his quick eye wanders,
And he will start up from his chair, then pause,
And seat himself again, and fix his gaze
Upon some edict; but I have observed
For the last hour he has not turned a leaf.

Bat. 'Tis said he is much moved,—and doubtless 'twas
Foul scorn in Steno to offend so grossly.

Pie. Aye, if a poor man: Steno's a patrician,20
Young, galliard, gay, and haughty.[cz]

Bat. Then you think
He will not be judged hardly?

Pie. 'Twere enough
He be judged justly; but 'tis not for us
To anticipate the sentence of the Forty.

Bat. And here it comes.—What news, Vincenzo?

Enter Vincenzo.

Vin. 'Tis
Decided; but as yet his doom's unknown:
I saw the President in act to seal
The parchment which will bear the Forty's judgment
Unto the Doge, and hasten to inform him.
[Exeunt.

Scene II.—The Ducal Chamber.

Marino Faliero, Doge; and his Nephew, Bertuccio Faliero.[381]

Ber. F. It cannot be but they will do you justice.

Doge. Aye, such as the Avogadori[382] did,
Who sent up my appeal unto the Forty
To try him by his peers, his own tribunal.

Ber. F. His peers will scarce protect him; such an act
Would bring contempt on all authority.

Doge. Know you not Venice? Know you not the Forty?
But we shall see anon.

Ber. F. (addressing Vincenzo, then entering.)
How now—what tidings?

Vin. I am charged to tell his Highness that the court
Has passed its resolution, and that, soon10
As the due forms of judgment are gone through,
The sentence will be sent up to the Doge;
In the mean time the Forty doth salute
The Prince of the Republic, and entreat
His acceptation of their duty.

Doge. Yes—
They are wond'rous dutiful, and ever humble.
Sentence is passed, you say?

Vin. It is, your Highness:
The President was sealing it, when I
Was called in, that no moment might be lost
In forwarding the intimation due20
Not only to the Chief of the Republic,
But the complainant, both in one united.

Ber. F. Are you aware, from aught you have perceived,
Of their decision?

Vin. No, my Lord; you know
The secret custom of the courts in Venice.

Ber. F. True; but there still is something given to guess,
Which a shrewd gleaner and quick eye would catch at;
A whisper, or a murmur, or an air
More or less solemn spread o'er the tribunal.
The Forty are but men—most worthy men,30
And wise, and just, and cautious—this I grant—
And secret as the grave to which they doom
The guilty: but with all this, in their aspects—
At least in some, the juniors of the number—
A searching eye, an eye like yours, Vincenzo,
Would read the sentence ere it was pronounced.

Vin. My Lord, I came away upon the moment,
And had no leisure to take note of that
Which passed among the judges, even in seeming;
My station near the accused too, Michel Steno,40
Made me—

Doge (abruptly). And how looked he? deliver that.

Vin. Calm, but not overcast, he stood resigned
To the decree, whate'er it were;—but lo!
It comes, for the perusal of his Highness.

Enter the Secretary of the Forty.

Sec. The high tribunal of the Forty sends
Health and respect to the Doge Faliero,[da]
Chief magistrate of Venice, and requests
His Highness to peruse and to approve
The sentence passed on Michel Steno, born
Patrician, and arraigned upon the charge50
Contained, together with its penalty,
Within the rescript which I now present.

Doge. Retire, and wait without.
[Exeunt Secretary and Vincenzo.
Take thou this paper:
The misty letters vanish from my eyes;
I cannot fix them.

Ber. F. Patience, my dear Uncle:
Why do you tremble thus?—nay, doubt not, all
Will be as could be wished.

Doge. Say on.

Ber. F. (reading). "Decreed
In council, without one dissenting voice,
That Michel Steno, by his own confession,
Guilty on the last night of Carnival60
Of having graven on the ducal throne
The following words—"[383]

Doge. Would'st thou repeat them?
Would'st thou repeat them—thou, a Faliero,
Harp on the deep dishonour of our house,
Dishonoured in its Chief—that Chief the Prince
Of Venice, first of cities?—To the sentence.

Ber. F. Forgive me, my good Lord; I will obey—
(Reads) "That Michel Steno be detained a month
In close arrest."[384]

Doge. Proceed.

Ber. F. My Lord, 'tis finished.

Doge. How say you?—finished! Do I dream?—'tis false—70
Give me the paper—(snatches the paper and reads)—
"'Tis decreed in council
That Michel Steno"—Nephew, thine arm!

Ber. F. Nay,
Cheer up, be calm; this transport is uncalled for—
Let me seek some assistance.

Doge. Stop, sir—Stir not—
'Tis past.

Ber. F. I cannot but agree with you
The sentence is too slight for the offence;
It is not honourable in the Forty
To affix so slight a penalty to that
Which was a foul affront to you, and even
To them, as being your subjects; but 'tis not80
Yet without remedy: you can appeal
To them once more, or to the Avogadori,
Who, seeing that true justice is withheld,
Will now take up the cause they once declined,
And do you right upon the bold delinquent.
Think you not thus, good Uncle? why do you stand
So fixed? You heed me not:—I pray you, hear me!

Doge (dashing down the ducal bonnet, and offering to
trample upon it, exclaims, as he is withheld by his nephew).
Oh! that the Saracen were in St. Mark's!
Thus would I do him homage.

Ber. F. For the sake
Of Heaven and all its saints, my Lord—

Doge. Away!90
Oh, that the Genoese were in the port!
Oh, that the Huns whom I o'erthrew at Zara[385]
Were ranged around the palace!

Ber. F. 'Tis not well
In Venice' Duke to say so.

Doge. Venice' Duke!
Who now is Duke in Venice? let me see him,
That he may do me right.

Ber. F. If you forget
Your office, and its dignity and duty.
Remember that of man, and curb this passion.
The Duke of Venice——

Doge (interrupting him). There is no such thing—
It is a word—nay, worse—a worthless by-word:100
The most despised, wronged, outraged, helpless wretch,
Who begs his bread, if 'tis refused by one,
May win it from another kinder heart;
But he, who is denied his right by those
Whose place it is to do no wrong, is poorer
Than the rejected beggar—he's a slave—
And that am I—and thou—and all our house,
Even from this hour; the meanest artisan
Will point the finger, and the haughty noble
May spit upon us:—where is our redress?110

Ber. F. The law, my Prince—

Doge (interrupting him). You see what it has done;
I asked no remedy but from the law—[386]
I sought no vengeance but redress by law—
I called no judges but those named by law—
As Sovereign, I appealed unto my subjects,
The very subjects who had made me Sovereign,
And gave me thus a double right to be so.
The rights of place and choice, of birth and service,
Honours and years, these scars, these hoary hairs,
The travel—toil—the perils—the fatigues—120
The blood and sweat of almost eighty years,
Were weighed i' the balance, 'gainst the foulest stain,
The grossest insult, most contemptuous crime
Of a rank, rash patrician—and found wanting!
And this is to be borne!

Ber. F. I say not that:—
In case your fresh appeal should be rejected,
We will find other means to make all even.

Doge. Appeal again! art thou my brother's son?
A scion of the house of Faliero?
The nephew of a Doge? and of that blood130
Which hath already given three dukes to Venice?
But thou say'st well—we must be humble now.

Ber. F. My princely Uncle! you are too much moved;—
I grant it was a gross offence, and grossly
Left without fitting punishment: but still
This fury doth exceed the provocation,
Or any provocation: if we are wronged,
We will ask justice; if it be denied,
We'll take it; but may do all this in calmness—
Deep Vengeance is the daughter of deep Silence.140
I have yet scarce a third part of your years,
I love our house, I honour you, its Chief,
The guardian of my youth, and its instructor—
But though I understand your grief, and enter
In part of your disdain, it doth appal me
To see your anger, like our Adrian waves,
O'ersweep all bounds, and foam itself to air.

Doge. I tell thee—must I tell thee—what thy father
Would have required no words to comprehend?
Hast thou no feeling save the external sense150
Of torture from the touch? hast thou no soul—
No pride—no passion—no deep sense of honour?

Ber. F. 'Tis the first time that honour has been doubted,
And were the last, from any other sceptic.

Doge. You know the full offence of this born villain,
This creeping, coward, rank, acquitted felon,
Who threw his sting into a poisonous libel,[db]
And on the honour of—Oh God! my wife,
The nearest, dearest part of all men's honour,
Left a base slur to pass from mouth to mouth160
Of loose mechanics, with all coarse foul comments,
And villainous jests, and blasphemies obscene;
While sneering nobles, in more polished guise,
Whispered the tale, and smiled upon the lie
Which made me look like them—a courteous wittol,
Patient—aye—proud, it may be, of dishonour.

Ber. F. But still it was a lie—you knew it false,
And so did all men.

Doge. Nephew, the high Roman
Said, "Cæsar's wife must not even be suspected,"[387]
And put her from him.

Ber. F. True—but in those days——170

Doge. What is it that a Roman would not suffer,
That a Venetian Prince must bear? old Dandolo[dc]
Refused the diadem of all the Cæsars,[388]
And wore the ducal cap I trample on—
Because 'tis now degraded.

Ber. F. 'Tis even so.

Doge. It is—it is;—I did not visit on
The innocent creature thus most vilely slandered
Because she took an old man for her lord,
For that he had been long her father's friend
And patron of her house, as if there were180
No love in woman's heart but lust of youth
And beardless faces;—I did not for this
Visit the villain's infamy on her,
But craved my country's justice on his head,
The justice due unto the humblest being
Who hath a wife whose faith is sweet to him,
Who hath a home whose hearth is dear to him—
Who hath a name whose honour's all to him,
When these are tainted by the accursing breath
Of Calumny and Scorn.

Ber. F. And what redress190
Did you expect as his fit punishment?

Doge. Death! Was I not the Sovereign of the state—
Insulted on his very throne, and made
A mockery to the men who should obey me?
Was I not injured as a husband? scorned
As man? reviled, degraded, as a Prince?
Was not offence like his a complication
Of insult and of treason?—and he lives!
Had he instead of on the Doge's throne
Stamped the same brand upon a peasant's stool,200
His blood had gilt the threshold; for the carle
Had stabbed him on the instant.

Ber. F. Do not doubt it,
He shall not live till sunset—leave to me
The means, and calm yourself.

Doge. Hold, nephew: this
Would have sufficed but yesterday; at present
I have no further wrath against this man.

Ber. F. What mean you? is not the offence redoubled
By this most rank—I will not say—acquittal;
For it is worse, being full acknowledgment
Of the offence, and leaving it unpunished?210

Doge. It is redoubled, but not now by him:
The Forty hath decreed a month's arrest—
We must obey the Forty.

Ber. F. Obey them!
Who have forgot their duty to the Sovereign?

Doge. Why, yes;—boy, you perceive it then at last;
Whether as fellow citizen who sues
For justice, or as Sovereign who commands it,
They have defrauded me of both my rights
(For here the Sovereign is a citizen);
But, notwithstanding, harm not thou a hair220
Of Steno's head—he shall not wear it long.

Ber. F. Not twelve hours longer, had you left to me
The mode and means; if you had calmly heard me,
I never meant this miscreant should escape,
But wished you to suppress such gusts of passion,
That we more surely might devise together
His taking off.

Doge. No, nephew, he must live;
At least, just now—a life so vile as his
Were nothing at this hour; in th' olden time[dd]
Some sacrifices asked a single victim,230
Great expiations had a hecatomb.

Ber. F. Your wishes are my law: and yet I fain
Would prove to you how near unto my heart
The honour of our house must ever be.

Doge. Fear not; you shall have time and place of proof:
But be not thou too rash, as I have been.
I am ashamed of my own anger now;
I pray you, pardon me.

Ber. F. Why, that's my uncle!
The leader, and the statesman, and the chief
Of commonwealths, and sovereign of himself!240
I wondered to perceive you so forget
All prudence in your fury at these years,
Although the cause—

Doge. Aye—think upon the cause—
Forget it not:—When you lie down to rest,
Let it be black among your dreams; and when
The morn returns, so let it stand between
The Sun and you, as an ill-omened cloud
Upon a summer-day of festival:
So will it stand to me;—but speak not, stir not,—
Leave all to me; we shall have much to do,250
And you shall have a part.—But now retire,
'Tis fit I were alone.

Ber. F. (taking up and placing the ducal bonnet on the table).
Ere I depart,
I pray you to resume what you have spurned,
Till you can change it—haply, for a crown!
And now I take my leave, imploring you
In all things to rely upon my duty,
As doth become your near and faithful kinsman,
And not less loyal citizen and subject.
[Exit Bertuccio FalieroBertuccio Faliero.

Doge (solus). Adieu, my worthy nephew.—Hollow bauble!
[Taking up the ducal cap.
Beset with all the thorns that line a crown,260
Without investing the insulted brow
With the all-swaying majesty of Kings;
Thou idle, gilded, and degraded toy,
Let me resume thee as I would a vizor. [Puts it on.
How my brain aches beneath thee! and my temples
Throb feverish under thy dishonest weight.
Could I not turn thee to a diadem?
Could I not shatter the Briarean sceptre
Which in this hundred-handed Senate rules,
Making the people nothing, and the Prince270
A pageant? In my life I have achieved
Tasks not less difficult—achieved for them,
Who thus repay me! Can I not requite them?
Oh for one year! Oh! but for even a day
Of my full youth, while yet my body served
My soul as serves the generous steed his lord,
I would have dashed amongst them, asking few
In aid to overthrow these swoln patricians;
But now I must look round for other hands
To serve this hoary head; but it shall plan280
In such a sort as will not leave the task
Herculean, though as yet 'tis but a chaos
Of darkly brooding thoughts: my fancy is
In her first work, more nearly to the light
Holding the sleeping images of things
For the selection of the pausing judgment.—
The troops are few in——

Enter Vincenzo.

Vin. There is one without
Craves audience of your Highness.

Doge. I'm unwell—
I can see no one, not even a patrician—
Let him refer his business to the Council.290

Vin. My Lord, I will deliver your reply;
It cannot much import—he's a plebeian,
The master of a galley, I believe.

Doge. How! did you say the patron of a galley?[389]
That is—I mean—a servant of the state:
Admit him, he may be on public service.
[Exit Vincenzo.

Doge (solus). This patron may be sounded; I will try him.
I know the people to be discontented:
They have cause, since Sapienza's[390] adverse day,
When Genoa conquered: they have further cause,300
Since they are nothing in the state, and in
The city worse than nothing—mere machines,
To serve the nobles' most patrician pleasure.
The troops have long arrears of pay, oft promised,
And murmur deeply—any hope of change
Will draw them forward: they shall pay themselves
With plunder:—but the priests—I doubt the priesthood
Will not be with us; they have hated me
Since that rash hour, when, maddened with the drone,
I smote the tardy Bishop at Treviso,[391]310
Quickening his holy march; yet, ne'ertheless,
They may be won, at least their Chief at Rome,
By some well-timed concessions; but, above
All things, I must be speedy: at my hour
Of twilight little light of life remains.
Could I free Venice, and avenge my wrongs,
I had lived too long, and willingly would sleep
Next moment with my sires; and, wanting this,
Better that sixty of my fourscore years
Had been already where—how soon, I care not—320
The whole must be extinguished;—better that
They ne'er had been, than drag me on to be
The thing these arch-oppressors fain would make me.
Let me consider—of efficient troops
There are three thousand posted at——

Enter Vincenzo and Israel Bertuccio.

Vin. May it please
Your Highness, the same patron whom I spake of
Is here to crave your patience.

Doge. Leave the chamber,
Vincenzo.—
[Exit Vincenzo.
Sir, you may advance—what would you?

I. Ber. Redress.

Doge. Of whom?

I. Ber. Of God and of the Doge.

Doge. Alas! my friend, you seek it of the twain330
Of least respect and interest in Venice.
You must address the Council.

I. Ber. 'Twere in vain;
For he who injured me is one of them.

Doge. There's blood upon thy face—how came it there?

I. Ber. 'Tis mine, and not the first I've shed for Venice,
But the first shed by a Venetian hand:
A noble smote me.

Doge. Doth he live?

I. Ber. Not long—
But for the hope I had and have, that you,
My Prince, yourself a soldier, will redress
Him, whom the laws of discipline and Venice340
Permit not to protect himself:—if not—
I say no more.

Doge. But something you would do—
Is it not so?

I. Ber. I am a man, my Lord.

Doge. Why so is he who smote you.

I. Ber. He is called so;
Nay, more, a noble one—at least, in Venice:
But since he hath forgotten that I am one,
And treats me like a brute, the brute may turn—
'Tis said the worm will.

Doge. Say—his name and lineage?

I. Ber. Barbaro.

Doge. What was the cause? or the pretext?

I. Ber. I am the chief of the arsenal,[392] employed350
At present in repairing certain galleys
But roughly used by the Genoese last year.
This morning comes the noble Barbaro[393]
Full of reproof, because our artisans
Had left some frivolous order of his house,
To execute the state's decree: I dared
To justify the men—he raised his hand;—
Behold my blood! the first time it e'er flowed
Dishonourably.

Doge. Have you long time served?

I. Ber. So long as to remember Zara's siege,360
And fight beneath the Chief who beat the Huns there,
Sometime my general, now the Doge Faliero.—

Doge. How! are we comrades?—the State's ducal robes
Sit newly on me, and you were appointed
Chief of the arsenal ere I came from Rome;
So that I recognised you not. Who placed you?

I. Ber. The late Doge; keeping still my old command
As patron of a galley: my new office
Was given as the reward of certain scars
(So was your predecessor pleased to say):370
I little thought his bounty would conduct me
To his successor as a helpless plaintiff;
At least, in such a cause.

Doge. Are you much hurt?

I. Ber. Irreparably in my self-esteem.

Doge. Speak out; fear nothing: being stung at heart,
What would you do to be revenged on this man?

I. Ber. That which I dare not name, and yet will do.

Doge. Then wherefore came you here?

I. Ber. I come for justice,
Because my general is Doge, and will not
See his old soldier trampled on. Had any,380
Save Faliero, filled the ducal throne,
This blood had been washed out in other blood.

Doge. You come to me for justice—unto me!
The Doge of Venice, and I cannot give it;
I cannot even obtain it—'twas denied
To me most solemnly an hour ago!

I. Ber. How says your Highness?

Doge. Steno is condemned
To a month's confinement.

I. Ber. What! the same who dared
To stain the ducal throne with those foul words,
That have cried shame to every ear in Venice?390

Doge. Aye, doubtless they have echoed o'er the arsenal,
Keeping due time with every hammer's clink,
As a good jest to jolly artisans;
Or making chorus to the creaking oar,
In the vile tune of every galley-slave,
Who, as he sung the merry stave, exulted
He was not a shamed dotard like the Doge.

I. Ber. Is't possible? a month's imprisonment!
No more for Steno?

Doge. You have heard the offence,
And now you know his punishment; and then400
You ask redress of me! Go to the Forty,
Who passed the sentence upon Michel Steno;
They'll do as much by Barbaro, no doubt.

I. Ber. Ah! dared I speak my feelings!

Doge. Give them breath.
Mine have no further outrage to endure.

I. Ber. Then, in a word, it rests but on your word
To punish and avenge—I will not say
My petty wrong, for what is a mere blow,
However vile, to such a thing as I am?—
But the base insult done your state and person.410

Doge. You overrate my power, which is a pageant.
This Cap is not the Monarch's crown; these robes
Might move compassion, like a beggar's rags;
Nay, more, a beggar's are his own, and these
But lent to the poor puppet, who must play
Its part with all its empire in this ermine.

I. Ber. Wouldst thou be King?

Doge. Yes—of a happy people.

I. Ber. Wouldst thou be sovereign lord of Venice?

Doge. Aye,
If that the people shared that sovereignty,
So that nor they nor I were further slaves420
To this o'ergrown aristocratic Hydra,[394]
The poisonous heads of whose envenomed body
Have breathed a pestilence upon us all.

I. Ber. Yet, thou wast born, and still hast lived, patrician.

Doge. In evil hour was I so born; my birth
Hath made me Doge to be insulted: but
I lived and toiled a soldier and a servant
Of Venice and her people, not the Senate;
Their good and my own honour were my guerdon.
I have fought and bled; commanded, aye, and conquered;430
Have made and marred peace oft in embassies,
As it might chance to be our country's 'vantage;
Have traversed land and sea in constant duty,
Through almost sixty years, and still for Venice,
My fathers' and my birthplace, whose dear spires,
Rising at distance o'er the blue Lagoon,
It was reward enough for me to view
Once more; but not for any knot of men,
Nor sect, nor faction, did I bleed or sweat!
But would you know why I have done all this?440
Ask of the bleeding pelican why she
Hath ripped her bosom? Had the bird a voice,
She'd tell thee 'twas for all her little ones.

I. Ber. And yet they made thee Duke.

Doge. They made me so;
I sought it not, the flattering fetters met me
Returning from my Roman embassy,
And never having hitherto refused
Toil, charge, or duty for the state, I did not,
At these late years, decline what was the highest
Of all in seeming, but of all most base450
In what we have to do and to endure:
Bear witness for me thou, my injured subject,
When I can neither right myself nor thee.

I. Ber. You shall do both, if you possess the will;
And many thousands more not less oppressed,
Who wait but for a signal—will you give it?

Doge. You speak in riddles.

I. Ber. Which shall soon be read
At peril of my life—if you disdain not
To lend a patient ear.

Doge. Say on.

I. Ber. Not thou,
Nor I alone, are injured and abused,460
Contemned and trampled on; but the whole people
Groan with the strong conception of their wrongs:
The foreign soldiers in the Senate's pay
Are discontented for their long arrears;
The native mariners, and civic troops,
Feel with their friends; for who is he amongst them
Whose brethren, parents, children, wives, or sisters,
Have not partook[395] oppression, or pollution,
From the patricians? And the hopeless war
Against the Genoese, which is still maintained470
With the plebeian blood, and treasure wrung
From their hard earnings, has inflamed them further:
Even now—but, I forget that speaking thus,
Perhaps I pass the sentence of my death!

Doge. And suffering what thou hast done—fear'st thou death?
Be silent then, and live on, to be beaten
By those for whom thou hast bled.

I. Ber. No, I will speak
At every hazard; and if Venice' Doge
Should turn delator, be the shame on him,
And sorrow too; for he will lose far more480
Than I.

Doge. From me fear nothing; out with it!

I. Ber. Know then, that there are met and sworn in secret
A band of brethren, valiant hearts and true;
Men who have proved all fortunes, and have long
Grieved over that of Venice, and have right
To do so; having served her in all climes,
And having rescued her from foreign foes,
Would do the same from those within her walls.
They are not numerous, nor yet too few
For their great purpose; they have arms, and means,490
And hearts, and hopes, and faith, and patient courage.

Doge. For what then do they pause?

I. Ber. An hour to strike.

Doge (aside). Saint Mark's shall strike that hour![396]

I. Ber. I now have placed
My life, my honour, all my earthly hopes
Within thy power, but in the firm belief
That injuries like ours, sprung from one cause,
Will generate one vengeance: should it be so,
Be our Chief now—our Sovereign hereafter.

Doge. How many are ye?

I. Ber. I'll not answer that
Till I am answered.

Doge. How, sir! do you menace?500

I. Ber. No; I affirm. I have betrayed myself;
But there's no torture in the mystic wells
Which undermine your palace, nor in those
Not less appalling cells, the "leaden roofs,"
To force a single name from me of others.
The Pozzi[397] and the Piombi were in vain;
They might wring blood from me, but treachery never.
And I would pass the fearful "Bridge of Sighs,"
Joyous that mine must be the last that e'er
Would echo o'er the Stygian wave which flows510
Between the murderers and the murdered, washing
The prison and the palace walls: there are
Those who would live to think on't, and avenge me.

Doge. If such your power and purpose, why come here
To sue for justice, being in the course
To do yourself due right?

I. Ber. Because the man,
Who claims protection from authority,
Showing his confidence and his submission
To that authority, can hardly be
Suspected of combining to destroy it.520
Had I sate down too humbly with this blow,
A moody brow and muttered threats had made me
A marked man to the Forty's inquisition;
But loud complaint, however angrily
It shapes its phrase, is little to be feared,
And less distrusted. But, besides all this,
I had another reason.

Doge. What was that?

I. Ber. Some rumours that the Doge was greatly moved
By the reference of the Avogadori
Of Michel Steno's sentence to the Forty530
Had reached me. I had served you, honoured you,
And felt that you were dangerously insulted,
Being of an order of such spirits, as
Requite tenfold both good and evil: 'twas
My wish to prove and urge you to redress.
Now you know all; and that I speak the truth,
My peril be the proof.

Doge. You have deeply ventured;
But all must do so who would greatly win:
Thus far I'll answer you—your secret's safe.

I. Ber. And is this all?

Doge. Unless with all intrusted,540
What would you have me answer?

I. Ber. I would have you
Trust him who leaves his life in trust with you.

Doge. But I must know your plan, your names, and numbers;
The last may then be doubled, and the former
Matured and strengthened.

I. Ber. We're enough already;
You are the sole ally we covet now.

Doge. But bring me to the knowledge of your chiefs.

I. Ber. That shall be done upon your formal pledge
To keep the faith that we will pledge to you.

Doge. When? where?

I. Ber. This night I'll bring to your apartment550
Two of the principals: a greater number
Were hazardous.

Doge. Stay, I must think of this.—
What if I were to trust myself amongst you,
And leave the palace?

I. Ber. You must come alone.

Doge. With but my nephew.

I. Ber. Not were he your son!

Doge. Wretch! darest thou name my son? He died in arms
At Sapienza[398] for this faithless state.
Oh! that he were alive, and I in ashes!
Or that he were alive ere I be ashes!
I should not need the dubious aid of strangers.560

I. Ber. Not one of all those strangers whom thou doubtest,
But will regard thee with a filial feeling,
So that thou keep'st a father's faith with them.

Doge. The die is cast. Where is the place of meeting?

I. Ber. At midnight I will be alone and masked
Where'er your Highness pleases to direct me,
To wait your coming, and conduct you where
You shall receive our homage, and pronounce
Upon our project.

Doge. At what hour arises
The moon?

I. Ber. Late, but the atmosphere is thick and dusky,570
'Tis a sirocco.

Doge. At the midnight hour, then,
Near to the church where sleep my sires;[399] the same,
Twin-named from the apostles John and Paul;
A gondola,[400] with one oar only, will
Lurk in the narrow channel which glides by.
Be there.

I. Ber. I will not fail.

Doge. And now retire——

I. Ber. In the full hope your Highness will not falter
In your great purpose. Prince, I take my leave.
[Exit Isreal Bertuccio.

Doge (solus). At midnight, by the church Saints John and Paul,
Where sleep my noble fathers, I repair—580
To what? to hold a council in the dark
With common ruffians leagued to ruin states!
And will not my great sires leap from the vault,
Where lie two Doges who preceded me,
And pluck me down amongst them? Would they could!
For I should rest in honour with the honoured.
Alas! I must not think of them, but those
Who have made me thus unworthy of a name
Noble and brave as aught of consular
On Roman marbles; but I will redeem it590
Back to its antique lustre in our annals,
By sweet revenge on all that's base in Venice,
And freedom to the rest, or leave it black
To all the growing calumnies of Time,
Which never spare the fame of him who fails,
But try the Cæsar, or the Catiline,
By the true touchstone of desert—Success.[401]

---

ACT II.

Scene I.—An Apartment in the Ducal Palace.

Angiolina[402] (wife of the Doge) and Marianna.

Ang. What was the Doge's answer?

Mar. That he was
That moment summoned to a conference;
But 'tis by this time ended. I perceived
Not long ago the Senators embarking;
And the last gondola may now be seen
Gliding into the throng of barks which stud
The glittering waters.

Ang. Would he were returned!
He has been much disquieted of late;
And Time, which has not tamed his fiery spirit,
Nor yet enfeebled even his mortal frame,10
Which seems to be more nourished by a soul
So quick and restless that it would consume
Less hardy clay—Time has but little power
On his resentments or his griefs. Unlike
To other spirits of his order, who,
In the first burst of passion, pour away
Their wrath or sorrow, all things wear in him
An aspect of Eternity: his thoughts,
His feelings, passions, good or evil, all
Have nothing of old age;[403] and his bold brow20
Bears but the scars of mind, the thoughts of years,
Not their decrepitude: and he of late
Has been more agitated than his wont.
Would he were come! for I alone have power
Upon his troubled spirit.

Mar. It is true,
His Highness has of late been greatly moved
By the affront of Steno, and with cause:
But the offender doubtless even now
Is doomed to expiate his rash insult with
Such chastisement as will enforce respect30
To female virtue, and to noble blood.

Ang. 'Twas a gross insult; but I heed it not
For the rash scorner's falsehood in itself,
But for the effect, the deadly deep impression
Which it has made upon Faliero's soul,
The proud, the fiery, the austere—austere
To all save me: I tremble when I think
To what it may conduct.

Mar. Assuredly
The Doge can not suspect you?

Ang. Suspect me!
Why Steno dared not: when he scrawled his lie,40
Grovelling by stealth in the moon's glimmering light,
His own still conscience smote him for the act,
And every shadow on the walls frowned shame
Upon his coward calumny.

Mar. 'Twere fit
He should be punished grievously.

Ang. He is so.

Mar. What! is the sentence passed? is he condemned?[de]

Ang. I know not that, but he has been detected.

Mar. And deem you this enough for such foul scorn?

Ang. I would not be a judge in my own cause,
Nor do I know what sense of punishment50
May reach the soul of ribalds such as Steno;
But if his insults sink no deeper in
The minds of the inquisitors than they
Have ruffled mine, he will, for all acquittance,
Be left to his own shamelessness or shame.

Mar. Some sacrifice is due to slandered virtue.

Ang. Why, what is virtue if it needs a victim?
Or if it must depend upon men's words?
The dying Roman said, "'twas but a name:"[404]
It were indeed no more, if human breath60
Could make or mar it.

Mar. Yet full many a dame,
Stainless and faithful, would feel all the wrong
Of such a slander; and less rigid ladies,
Such as abound in Venice, would be loud
And all-inexorable in their cry
For justice.

Ang. This but proves it is the name
And not the quality they prize: the first
Have found it a hard task to hold their honour,
If they require it to be blazoned forth;
And those who have not kept it, seek its seeming70
As they would look out for an ornament
Of which they feel the want, but not because
They think it so; they live in others' thoughts,
And would seem honest as they must seem fair.

Mar. You have strange thoughts for a patrician dame.

Ang. And yet they were my father's; with his name,
The sole inheritance he left.

Mar. You want none;
Wife to a Prince, the Chief of the Republic.

Ang. I should have sought none though a peasant's bride,
But feel not less the love and gratitude80
Due to my father, who bestowed my hand
Upon his early, tried, and trusted friend,
The Count Val di Marino, now our Doge.

Mar. And with that hand did he bestow your heart?

Ang. He did so, or it had not been bestowed.

Mar. Yet this strange disproportion in your years,
And, let me add, disparity of tempers,
Might make the world doubt whether such an union
Could make you wisely, permanently happy.

Ang. The world will think with worldlings; but my heart90
Has still been in my duties, which are many,
But never difficult.

Mar. And do you love him?

Ang. I love all noble qualities which merit
Love, and I loved my father, who first taught me
To single out what we should love in others,
And to subdue all tendency to lend
The best and purest feelings of our nature
To baser passions. He bestowed my hand
Upon Faliero: he had known him noble,
Brave, generous; rich in all the qualities100
Of soldier, citizen, and friend; in all
Such have I found him as my father said.
His faults are those that dwell in the high bosoms
Of men who have commanded; too much pride,
And the deep passions fiercely fostered by
The uses of patricians, and a life
Spent in the storms of state and war; and also
From the quick sense of honour, which becomes
A duty to a certain sign, a vice
When overstrained, and this I fear in him.110
And then he has been rash from his youth upwards,
Yet tempered by redeeming nobleness
In such sort, that the wariest of republics
Has lavished all its chief employs upon him,
From his first fight to his last embassy,
From which on his return the Dukedom met him.

Mar. But previous to this marriage, had your heart
Ne'er beat for any of the noble youth,
Such as in years had been more meet to match
Beauty like yours? or, since, have you ne'er seen120
One, who, if your fair hand were still to give,
Might now pretend to Loredano's daughter?

Ang. I answered your first question when I said
I married.

Mar. And the second?

Ang. Needs no answer.

Mar. I pray you pardon, if I have offended.

Ang. I feel no wrath, but some surprise: I knew not
That wedded bosoms could permit themselves
To ponder upon what they now might choose,
Or aught save their past choice.

Mar. 'Tis their past choice
That far too often makes them deem they would130
Now choose more wisely, could they cancel it.

Ang. It may be so. I knew not of such thoughts.

Mar. Here comes the Doge—shall I retire?

Ang. It may
Be better you should quit me; he seems rapt
In thought.—How pensively he takes his way!
[Exit Marianna.

Enter the Doge and Pietro.

Doge (musing). There is a certain Philip Calendaro
Now in the Arsenal, who holds command
Of eighty men, and has great influence
Besides on all the spirits of his comrades:
This man, I hear, is bold and popular,140
Sudden and daring, and yet secret; 'twould
Be well that he were won: I needs must hope
That Israel Bertuccio has secured him,
But fain would be——

Pie. My Lord, pray pardon me
For breaking in upon your meditation;
The Senator Bertuccio, your kinsman,
Charged me to follow and enquire your pleasure
To fix an hour when he may speak with you.

Doge. At sunset.—Stay a moment—let me see—
Say in the second hour of night. [Exit Pietro.

Ang. My Lord!150

Doge. My dearest child, forgive me—why delay
So long approaching me?—I saw you not.

Ang. You were absorbed in thought, and he who now
Has parted from you might have words of weight
To bear you from the Senate.

Doge. From the Senate?

Ang. I would not interrupt him in his duty
And theirs.

Doge. The Senate's duty! you mistake;
'Tis we who owe all service to the Senate.

Ang. I thought the Duke had held command in Venice.

Doge. He shall.—But let that pass.—We will be jocund.160
How fares it with you? have you been abroad?
The day is overcast, but the calm wave
Favours the gondolier's light skimming oar;
Or have you held a levee of your friends?
Or has your music made you solitary?
Say—is there aught that you would will within
The little sway now left the Duke? or aught
Of fitting splendour, or of honest pleasure,
Social or lonely, that would glad your heart,
To compensate for many a dull hour, wasted170
On an old man oft moved with many cares?
Speak, and 'tis done.

Ang. You're ever kind to me.
I have nothing to desire, or to request,
Except to see you oftener and calmer.

Doge. Calmer?

Ang. Aye, calmer, my good Lord.—Ah, why
Do you still keep apart, and walk alone,
And let such strong emotions stamp your brow,
As not betraying their full import, yet
Disclose too much?

Doge. Disclose too much!—of what?
What is there to disclose?

Ang. A heart so ill180
At ease.

Doge. 'Tis nothing, child.—But in the state
You know what daily cares oppress all those
Who govern this precarious commonwealth;
Now suffering from the Genoese without,
And malcontents within—'tis this which makes me
More pensive and less tranquil than my wont.

Ang. Yet this existed long before, and never
Till in these late days did I see you thus.
Forgive me; there is something at your heart
More than the mere discharge of public duties,190
Which long use and a talent like to yours
Have rendered light, nay, a necessity,
To keep your mind from stagnating. 'Tis not
In hostile states, nor perils, thus to shake you,—
You, who have stood all storms and never sunk,
And climbed up to the pinnacle of power
And never fainted by the way, and stand
Upon it, and can look down steadily
Along the depth beneath, and ne'er feel dizzy.
Were Genoa's galleys riding in the port,200
Were civil fury raging in Saint Mark's,
You are not to be wrought on, but would fall,
As you have risen, with an unaltered brow:
Your feelings now are of a different kind;
Something has stung your pride, not patriotism.

Doge. Pride! Angiolina? Alas! none is left me.

Ang. Yes—the same sin that overthrew the angels,
And of all sins most easily besets
Mortals the nearest to the angelic nature:
The vile are only vain; the great are proud.210

Doge. I had the pride of honour, of your honour,
Deep at my heart—But let us change the theme.

Ang. Ah no!—As I have ever shared your kindness
In all things else, let me not be shut out
From your distress: were it of public import,
You know I never sought, would never seek
To win a word from you; but feeling now
Your grief is private, it belongs to me
To lighten or divide it. Since the day
When foolish Steno's ribaldry detected220
Unfixed your quiet, you are greatly changed,
And I would soothe you back to what you were.

Doge. To what I was!—have you heard Steno's sentence?

Ang. No.

Doge. A month's arrest.

Ang. Is it not enough?

Doge. Enough!—yes, for a drunken galley slave,
Who, stung by stripes, may murmur at his master;
But not for a deliberate, false, cool villain,
Who stains a Lady's and a Prince's honour
Even on the throne of his authority.

Ang. There seems to be enough in the conviction230
Of a patrician guilty of a falsehood:
All other punishment were light unto
His loss of honour.

Doge. Such men have no honour;
They have but their vile lives—and these are spared.

Ang. You would not have him die for this offence?

Doge. Not now:—being still alive, I'd have him live
Long as he can; he has ceased to merit death;
The guilty saved hath damned his hundred judges,
And he is pure, for now his crime is theirs.

Ang. Oh! had this false and flippant libeller240
Shed his young blood for his absurd lampoon,
Ne'er from that moment could this breast have known
A joyous hour, or dreamless slumber more.

Doge. Does not the law of Heaven say blood for blood?
And he who taints kills more than he who sheds it.
Is it the pain of blows, or shame of blows,
That makes such deadly to the sense of man?
Do not the laws of man say blood for honour,—
And, less than honour, for a little gold?
Say not the laws of nations blood for treason?250
Is't nothing to have filled these veins with poison
For their once healthful current? is it nothing
To have stained your name and mine—the noblest names?
Is't nothing to have brought into contempt
A Prince before his people? to have failed
In the respect accorded by Mankind
To youth in woman, and old age in man?
To virtue in your sex, and dignity
In ours?—But let them look to it who have saved him.

Ang. Heaven bids us to forgive our enemies.260

Doge. Doth Heaven forgive her own? Is there not Hell
For wrath eternal?[df][405]

Ang. Do not speak thus wildly—[dg]
Heaven will alike forgive you and your foes.

Doge. Amen! May Heaven forgive them!

Ang. And will you?

Doge. Yes, when they are in Heaven!

Ang. And not till then?

Doge. What matters my forgiveness? an old man's,
Worn out, scorned, spurned, abused; what matters then
My pardon more than my resentment, both
Being weak and worthless? I have lived too long;
But let us change the argument.—My child!270
My injured wife, the child of Loredano,
The brave, the chivalrous, how little deemed
Thy father, wedding thee unto his friend,
That he was linking thee to shame!—Alas!
Shame without sin, for thou art faultless. Hadst thou
But had a different husband, any husband
In Venice save the Doge, this blight, this brand,
This blasphemy had never fallen upon thee.
So young, so beautiful, so good, so pure,
To suffer this, and yet be unavenged!280

Ang. I am too well avenged, for you still love me,
And trust, and honour me; and all men know
That you are just, and I am true: what more
Could I require, or you command?

Doge. 'Tis well,
And may be better; but whate'er betide,
Be thou at least kind to my memory.

Ang. Why speak you thus?

Doge. It is no matter why;
But I would still, whatever others think,
Have your respect both now and in my grave.

Ang. Why should you doubt it? has it ever failed?290

Doge. Come hither, child! I would a word with you.
Your father was my friend; unequal Fortune
Made him my debtor for some courtesies
Which bind the good more firmly: when, oppressed
With his last malady, he willed our union,
It was not to repay me, long repaid
Before by his great loyalty in friendship;
His object was to place your orphan beauty
In honourable safety from the perils,
Which, in this scorpion nest of vice, assail300
A lonely and undowered maid. I did not
Think with him, but would not oppose the thought
Which soothed his death-bed.

Ang. I have not forgotten
The nobleness with which you bade me speak
If my young heart held any preference
Which would have made me happier; nor your offer
To make my dowry equal to the rank
Of aught in Venice, and forego all claim
My father's last injunction gave you.

Doge. Thus,
'Twas not a foolish dotard's vile caprice,310
Nor the false edge of agéd appetite,
Which made me covetous of girlish beauty,
And a young bride: for in my fieriest youth
I swayed such passions; nor was this my age
Infected with that leprosy of lust[406]
Which taints the hoariest years of vicious men,
Making them ransack to the very last
The dregs of pleasure for their vanished joys;
Or buy in selfish marriage some young victim,
Too helpless to refuse a state that's honest,320
Too feeling not to know herself a wretch.
Our wedlock was not of this sort; you had
Freedom from me to choose, and urged in answer
Your father's choice.

Ang. I did so; I would do so
In face of earth and Heaven; for I have never
Repented for my sake; sometimes for yours,
In pondering o'er your late disquietudes.

Doge. I knew my heart would never treat you harshly:
I knew my days could not disturb you long;
And then the daughter of my earliest friend,330
His worthy daughter, free to choose again.
Wealthier and wiser, in the ripest bloom
Of womanhood, more skilful to select
By passing these probationary years,
Inheriting a Prince's name and riches,
Secured, by the short penance of enduring
An old man for some summers, against all
That law's chicane or envious kinsmen might
Have urged against her right; my best friend's child
Would choose more fitly in respect of years,340
And not less truly in a faithful heart.

Ang. My Lord, I looked but to my father's wishes,
Hallowed by his last words, and to my heart
For doing all its duties, and replying
With faith to him with whom I was affianced.
Ambitious hopes ne'er crossed my dreams; and should
The hour you speak of come, it will be seen so.

Doge. I do believe you; and I know you true:
For Love—romantic Love—which in my youth
I knew to be illusion, and ne'er saw350
Lasting, but often fatal, it had been
No lure for me, in my most passionate days,
And could not be so now, did such exist.
But such respect, and mildly paid regard
As a true feeling for your welfare, and
A free compliance with all honest wishes,—
A kindness to your virtues, watchfulness
Not shown, but shadowing o'er such little failings
As Youth is apt in, so as not to check
Rashly, but win you from them ere you knew360
You had been won, but thought the change your choice;
A pride not in your beauty, but your conduct;
A trust in you; a patriarchal love,
And not a doting homage; friendship, faith,—
Such estimation in your eyes as these
Might claim, I hoped for.

Ang. And have ever had.

Doge. I think so. For the difference in our years
You knew it choosing me, and chose; I trusted
Not to my qualities, nor would have faith
In such, nor outward ornaments of nature,370
Were I still in my five and twentieth spring;
I trusted to the blood of Loredano[407]
Pure in your veins; I trusted to the soul
God gave you—to the truths your father taught you—
To your belief in Heaven—to your mild virtues—
To your own faith and honour, for my own.

Ang. You have done well.—I thank you for that trust,
Which I have never for one moment ceased
To honour you the more for.

Doge. Where is Honour,
Innate and precept-strengthened, 'tis the rock380
Of faith connubial: where it is not—where
Light thoughts are lurking, or the vanities
Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart,
Or sensual throbs convulse it, well I know
'Twere hopeless for humanity to dream
Of honesty in such infected blood,
Although 'twere wed to him it covets most:
An incarnation of the poet's God
In all his marble-chiselled beauty, or
The demi-deity, Alcides, in390
His majesty of superhuman Manhood,
Would not suffice to bind where virtue is not;
It is consistency which forms and proves it:
Vice cannot fix, and Virtue cannot change.
The once fall'n woman must for ever fall;
For Vice must have variety, while Virtue
Stands like the Sun, and all which rolls around
Drinks life, and light, and glory from her aspect.

Ang. And seeing, feeling thus this truth in others,
(I pray you pardon me;) but wherefore yield you400
To the most fierce of fatal passions, and
Disquiet your great thoughts with restless hate
Of such a thing as Steno?

Doge. You mistake me.
It is not Steno who could move me thus;
Had it been so, he should—but let that pass.

Ang. What is't you feel so deeply, then, even now?

Doge. The violated majesty of Venice,
At once insulted in her Lord and laws.

Ang. Alas! why will you thus consider it?

Doge. I have thought on't till—but let me lead you back410
To what I urged; all these things being noted,
I wedded you; the world then did me justice
Upon the motive, and my conduct proved
They did me right, while yours was all to praise:
You had all freedom—all respect—all trust
From me and mine; and, born of those who made
Princes at home, and swept Kings from their thrones
On foreign shores, in all things you appeared
Worthy to be our first of native dames.

Ang. To what does this conduct?

Doge. To thus much—that420
A miscreant's angry breath may blast it all—
A villain, whom for his unbridled bearing,
Even in the midst of our great festival,
I caused to be conducted forth, and taught
How to demean himself in ducal chambers;
A wretch like this may leave upon the wall
The blighting venom of his sweltering heart,
And this shall spread itself in general poison;
And woman's innocence, man's honour, pass
Into a by-word; and the doubly felon430
(Who first insulted virgin modesty
By a gross affront to your attendant damsels
Amidst the noblest of our dames in public)
Requite himself for his most just expulsion
By blackening publicly his Sovereign's consort,
And be absolved by his upright compeers.

Ang. But he has been condemned into captivity.

Doge. For such as him a dungeon were acquittal;
And his brief term of mock-arrest will pass
Within a palace. But I've done with him;440
The rest must be with you.

Ang. With me, my Lord?

Doge. Yes, Angiolina. Do not marvel; I
Have let this prey upon me till I feel
My life cannot be long; and fain would have you
Regard the injunctions you will find within
This scroll (giving her a paper)
——Fear not; they are for your advantage:
Read them hereafter at the fitting hour.

Ang. My Lord, in life, and after life, you shall
Be honoured still by me: but may your days
Be many yet—and happier than the present!450
This passion will give way, and you will be
Serene, and what you should be—what you were.

Doge. I will be what I should be, or be nothing;
But never more—oh! never, never more,
O'er the few days or hours which yet await
The blighted old age of Faliero, shall
Sweet Quiet shed her sunset! Never more
Those summer shadows rising from the past
Of a not ill-spent nor inglorious life,
Mellowing the last hours as the night approaches,460
Shall soothe me to my moment of long rest.
I had but little more to ask, or hope,
Save the regards due to the blood and sweat,
And the soul's labour through which I had toiled
To make my country honoured. As her servant—
Her servant, though her chief—I would have gone
Down to my fathers with a name serene
And pure as theirs; but this has been denied me.
Would I had died at Zara!

Ang. There you saved
The state; then live to save her still. A day,470
Another day like that would be the best
Reproof to them, and sole revenge for you.

Doge. But one such day occurs within an age;
My life is little less than one, and 'tis
Enough for Fortune to have granted once,
That which scarce one more favoured citizen
May win in many states and years. But why
Thus speak I? Venice has forgot that day—
Then why should I remember it?—Farewell,
Sweet Angiolina! I must to my cabinet;480
There's much for me to do—and the hour hastens.[408]

Ang. Remember what you were.

Doge. It were in vain!
Joy's recollection is no longer joy,
While Sorrow's memory is a sorrow still.

Ang. At least, whate'er may urge, let me implore
That you will take some little pause of rest:
Your sleep for many nights has been so turbid,
That it had been relief to have awaked you,
Had I not hoped that Nature would o'erpower
At length the thoughts which shook your slumbers thus.490
An hour of rest will give you to your toils
With fitter thoughts and freshened strength.

Doge. I cannot—
I must not, if I could; for never was
Such reason to be watchful: yet a few—
Yet a few days and dream-perturbéd nights,
And I shall slumber well—but where?—no matter.
Adieu, my Angiolina.

Ang. Let me be
An instant—yet an instant your companion!
I cannot bear to leave you thus.

Doge. Come then,
My gentle child—forgive me: thou wert made500
For better fortunes than to share in mine,
Now darkling in their close toward the deep vale
Where Death sits robed in his all-sweeping shadow.[dh]
When I am gone—it may be sooner than
Even these years warrant, for there is that stirring
Within—above—around, that in this city
Will make the cemeteries populous
As e'er they were by pestilence or war,—
When I am nothing, let that which I was
Be still sometimes a name on thy sweet lips,510
A shadow in thy fancy, of a thing
Which would not have thee mourn it, but remember.
Let us begone, my child—the time is pressing.

Scene II.—A retired spot near the Arsenal.

Israel Bertuccio and Philip Calendaro.[409]

Cal. How sped you, Israel, in your late complaint?

I. Ber. Why, well.

Cal. Is't possible! will he be punished?

I. Ber. Yes.

Cal. With what? a mulct or an arrest?

I. Ber. With death!

Cal. Now you rave, or must intend revenge,
Such as I counselled you, with your own hand.

I. Ber. Yes; and for one sole draught of hate, forego
The great redress we meditate for Venice,
And change a life of hope for one of exile;
Leaving one scorpion crushed, and thousands stinging
My friends, my family, my countrymen!10
No, Calendaro; these same drops of blood,
Shed shamefully, shall have the whole of his
For their requital——But not only his;
We will not strike for private wrongs alone:
Such are for selfish passions and rash men,
But are unworthy a Tyrannicide.

Cal. You have more patience than I care to boast.
Had I been present when you bore this insult,
I must have slain him, or expired myself
In the vain effort to repress my wrath.20

I. Ber. Thank Heaven you were not—all had else been marred:
As 'tis, our cause looks prosperous still.

Cal. You saw
The Doge—what answer gave he?

I. Ber. That there was
No punishment for such as Barbaro.

Cal. I told you so before, and that 'twas idle
To think of justice from such hands.

I. Ber. At least,
It lulled suspicion, showing confidence.
Had I been silent, not a Sbirro[410] but
Had kept me in his eye, as meditating
A silent, solitary, deep revenge.30

Cal. But wherefore not address you to the Council?
The Doge is a mere puppet, who can scarce
Obtain right for himself. Why speak to him?

I. Ber. You shall know that hereafter.

Cal. Why not now?

I. Ber. Be patient but till midnight. Get your musters,
And bid our friends prepare their companies:
Set all in readiness to strike the blow,
Perhaps in a few hours: we have long waited
For a fit time—that hour is on the dial,
It may be, of to-morrow's sun: delay40
Beyond may breed us double danger. See
That all be punctual at our place of meeting,
And armed, excepting those of the Sixteen,[411]
Who will remain among the troops to wait
The signal.

Cal. These brave words have breathed new life
Into my veins; I am sick of these protracted
And hesitating councils: day on day
Crawled on, and added but another link
To our long fetters, and some fresher wrong
Inflicted on our brethren or ourselves,50
Helping to swell our tyrants' bloated strength.
Let us but deal upon them, and I care not
For the result, which must be Death or Freedom!
I'm weary to the heart of finding neither.

I. Ber. We will be free in Life or Death! the grave
Is chainless. Have you all the musters ready?
And are the sixteen companies completed
To sixty?

Cal. All save two, in which there are
Twenty-five wanting to make up the number.

I. Ber. No matter; we can do without. Whose are they?60

Cal. Bertram's[412] and old Soranzo's, both of whom
Appear less forward in the cause than we are.

I. Ber. Your fiery nature makes you deem all those
Who are not restless cold; but there exists
Oft in concentred spirits not less daring
Than in more loud avengers. Do not doubt them.

Cat. I do not doubt the elder; but in Bertram
There is a hesitating softness, fatal
To enterprise like ours: I've seen that man
Weep like an infant o'er the misery70
Of others, heedless of his own, though greater;
And in a recent quarrel I beheld him
Turn sick at sight of blood, although a villain's.

I. Ber. The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes,
And feel for what their duty bids them do.
I have known Bertram long; there doth not breathe
A soul more full of honour.

Cal. It may be so:
I apprehend less treachery than weakness;
Yet as he has no mistress, and no wife
To work upon his milkiness of spirit,80
He may go through the ordeal; it is well
He is an orphan, friendless save in us:
A woman or a child had made him less
Than either in resolve.

I. Ber. Such ties are not
For those who are called to the high destinies
Which purify corrupted commonwealths;
We must forget all feelings save the one,
We must resign all passions save our purpose,
We must behold no object save our country,
And only look on Death as beautiful,90
So that the sacrifice ascend to Heaven,
And draw down Freedom on her evermore.

Cal. But if we fail——[413]

I. Ber. They never fail who die
In a great cause: the block may soak their gore:[di]
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls—
But still their Spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct100
The world at last to Freedom. What were we,
If Brutus had not lived? He died in giving[dj]
Rome liberty, but left a deathless lesson—
A name which is a virtue, and a Soul
Which multiplies itself throughout all time,
When wicked men wax mighty, and a state
Turns servile. He and his high friend were styled
"The last of Romans!"[414] Let us be the first
Of true Venetians, sprung from Roman sires.

Cal. Our fathers did not fly from Attila[415]110
Into these isles, where palaces have sprung
On banks redeemed from the rude ocean's ooze,
To own a thousand despots in his place.
Better bow down before the Hun, and call
A Tartar lord, than these swoln silkworms[416] masters!
The first at least was man, and used his sword
As sceptre: these unmanly creeping things
Command our swords, and rule us with a word
As with a spell.

I. Ber. It shall be broken soon.
You say that all things are in readiness;120
To-day I have not been the usual round,
And why thou knowest; but thy vigilance
Will better have supplied my care: these orders
In recent council to redouble now
Our efforts to repair the galleys, have
Lent a fair colour to the introduction
Of many of our cause into the arsenal,
As new artificers for their equipment,
Or fresh recruits obtained in haste to man
The hoped-for fleet.—Are all supplied with arms?130

Cal. All who were deemed trust-worthy: there are some
Whom it were well to keep in ignorance
Till it be time to strike, and then supply them;
When in the heat and hurry of the hour
They have no opportunity to pause,
But needs must on with those who will surround them.

I. Ber. You have said well. Have you remarked all such?

Cal. I've noted most; and caused the other chiefs
To use like caution in their companies.
As far as I have seen, we are enough140
To make the enterprise secure, if 'tis
Commenced to-morrow; but, till 'tis begun,
Each hour is pregnant with a thousand perils.

I. Ber. Let the Sixteen meet at the wonted hour,
Except Soranzo, Nicoletto Blondo,
And Marco Giuda, who will keep their watch
Within the arsenal, and hold all ready,
Expectant of the signal we will fix on.

Cal. We will not fail.

I. Ber. Let all the rest be there;
I have a stranger to present to them.150

Cal. A stranger! doth he know the secret?

I. Ber. Yes.

Cal. And have you dared to peril your friends' lives
On a rash confidence in one we know not?

I. Ber. I have risked no man's life except my own—
Of that be certain: he is one who may
Make our assurance doubly sure, according[417]
His aid; and if reluctant, he no less
Is in our power: he comes alone with me,
And cannot 'scape us; but he will not swerve.

Cal. I cannot judge of this until I know him:160
Is he one of our order?

I. Ber. Aye, in spirit,
Although a child of Greatness; he is one
Who would become a throne, or overthrow one—
One who has done great deeds, and seen great changes;
No tyrant, though bred up to tyranny;
Valiant in war, and sage in council; noble
In nature, although haughty; quick, yet wary:
Yet for all this, so full of certain passions,
That if once stirred and baffled, as he has been
Upon the tenderest points, there is no Fury170
In Grecian story like to that which wrings
His vitals with her burning hands, till he
Grows capable of all things for revenge;
And add too, that his mind is liberal,
He sees and feels the people are oppressed,
And shares their sufferings. Take him all in all,
We have need of such, and such have need of us.

Cal. And what part would you have him take with us?

I. Ber. It may be, that of Chief.

Cal. What! and resign
Your own command as leader?

I. Ber. Even so.180
My object is to make your cause end well,
And not to push myself to power. Experience,
Some skill, and your own choice, had marked me out
To act in trust as your commander, till
Some worthier should appear: if I have found such
As you yourselves shall own more worthy, think you
That I would hesitate from selfishness,
And, covetous of brief authority,
Stake our deep interest on my single thoughts,
Rather than yield to one above me in190
All leading qualities? No, Calendaro,
Know your friend better; but you all shall judge.
Away! and let us meet at the fixed hour.
Be vigilant, and all will yet go well.

Cal. Worthy Bertuccio, I have known you ever
Trusty and brave, with head and heart to plan
What I have still been prompt to execute.
For my own part, I seek no other Chief;
What the rest will decide, I know not, but
I am with you, as I have ever been,200
In all our undertakings. Now farewell,
Until the hour of midnight sees us meet. [Exeunt.

---

ACT III.

Scene I.—Scene, the Space between the Canal and the Church of San Giovanni e San Paolo. An equestrian Statue before it.—A Gondola lies in the Canal at some distance.

Enter the Doge alone, disguised.

Doge (solus). I am before the hour, the hour whose voice,
Pealing into the arch of night, might strike
These palaces with ominous tottering,
And rock their marbles to the corner-stone,
Waking the sleepers from some hideous dream
Of indistinct but awful augury
Of that which will befall them. Yes, proud city!
Thou must be cleansed of the black blood which makes thee
A lazar-house of tyranny: the task
Is forced upon me, I have sought it not;10
And therefore was I punished, seeing this
Patrician pestilence spread on and on,
Until at length it smote me in my slumbers,
And I am tainted, and must wash away
The plague spots in the healing wave. Tall fane!
Where sleep my fathers, whose dim statues shadow
The floor which doth divide us from the dead,
Where all the pregnant hearts of our bold blood,
Mouldered into a mite of ashes, hold
In one shrunk heap what once made many heroes,20
When what is now a handful shook the earth—
Fane of the tutelar saints who guard our house!
Vault where two Doges rest[418]—my sires! who died
The one of toil, the other in the field,
With a long race of other lineal chiefs
And sages, whose great labours, wounds, and state
I have inherited,—let the graves gape,
Till all thine aisles be peopled with the dead,
And pour them from thy portals to gaze on me!
I call them up, and them and thee to witness30
What it hath been which put me to this task—
Their pure high blood, their blazon-roll of glories,
Their mighty name dishonoured all in me,
Not by me, but by the ungrateful nobles
We fought to make our equals, not our lords:[dk]
And chiefly thou, Ordelafo the brave,
Who perished in the field, where I since conquered,
Battling at Zara, did the hecatombs
Of thine and Venice' foes, there offered up
By thy descendant, merit such acquittance?[dl]40
Spirits! smile down upon me! for my cause
Is yours, in all life now can be of yours,—
Your fame, your name, all mingled up in mine,
And in the future fortunes of our race!
Let me but prosper, and I make this city
Free and immortal, and our House's name
Worthier of what you were—now and hereafter!

Enter Israel Bertuccio.

I. Ber. Who goes there?

Doge. A friend to Venice.

I. Ber. 'Tis he.
Welcome, my Lord,—you are before the time.

Doge. I am ready to proceed to your assembly.50

I. Ber. Have with you.—I am proud and pleased to see
Such confident alacrity. Your doubts
Since our last meeting, then, are all dispelled?

Doge. Not so—but I have set my little left[419]
Of life upon this cast: the die was thrown
When I first listened to your treason.—Start not!
That is the word; I cannot shape my tongue
To syllable black deeds into smooth names,
Though I be wrought on to commit them. When
I heard you tempt your Sovereign, and forbore60
To have you dragged to prison, I became
Your guiltiest accomplice: now you may,
If it so please you, do as much by me.

I. Ber. Strange words, my Lord, and most unmerited;
I am no spy, and neither are we traitors.

Doge. We—We!—no matter—you have earned the right
To talk of us.—But to the point.—If this
Attempt succeeds, and Venice, rendered free
And flourishing, when we are in our graves,
Conducts her generations to our tombs,70
And makes her children with their little hands
Strew flowers o'er her deliverers' ashes, then
The consequence will sanctify the deed,
And we shall be like the two Bruti in
The annals of hereafter; but if not,
If we should fail, employing bloody means
And secret plot, although to a good end,
Still we are traitors, honest Israel;—thou
No less than he who was thy Sovereign
Six hours ago, and now thy brother rebel.80

I. Ber. 'Tis not the moment to consider thus,
Else I could answer.—Let us to the meeting,
Or we may be observed in lingering here.

Doge. We are observed, and have been.

I. Ber. We observed!
Let me discover—and this steel——-

Doge. Put up;
Here are no human witnesses: look there—
What see you?

I. Ber. Only a tall warrior's statue[420]
Bestriding a proud steed, in the dim light
Of the dull moon.

Doge. That Warrior was the sire
Of my sire's fathers, and that statue was90
Decreed to him by the twice rescued city:—
Think you that he looks down on us or no?

I. Ber. My Lord, these are mere fantasies; there are
No eyes in marble.

Doge. But there are in Death.
I tell thee, man, there is a spirit in
Such things that acts and sees, unseen, though felt;
And, if there be a spell to stir the dead,
'Tis in such deeds as we are now upon.
Deem'st thou the souls of such a race as mine
Can rest, when he, their last descendant Chief,100
Stands plotting on the brink of their pure graves
With stung plebeians?

I. Ber. It had been as well
To have pondered this before,—ere you embarked
In our great enterprise.—Do you repent?

Doge. No—but I feel, and shall do to the last.
I cannot quench a glorious life at once,
Nor dwindle to the thing I now must be,[dm]
And take men's lives by stealth, without some pause:
Yet doubt me not; it is this very feeling,
And knowing what has wrung me to be thus,110
Which is your best security. There's not
A roused mechanic in your busy plot[dn]
So wronged as I, so fall'n, so loudly called
To his redress: the very means I am forced
By these fell tyrants to adopt is such,
That I abhor them doubly for the deeds
Which I must do to pay them back for theirs.

I. Ber. Let us away—hark—the Hour strikes.

Doge. On—on—
It is our knell, or that of Venice.—On.

I. Ber. Say rather, 'tis her Freedom's rising peal120
Of Triumph. This way—we are near the place.
[Exeunt.

Scene II.—The House where the Conspirators meet.

Dagolino, Doro, Bertram, Fedele Trevisano, Calendaro, Antonio Delle Bende, etc., etc.

Cal. (entering). Are all here?

Dag. All with you; except the three
On duty, and our leader Israel,
Who is expected momently.

Cal. Where's Bertram?

Ber. Here!

Cal. Have you not been able to complete
The number wanting in your company?

Ber. I had marked out some: but I have not dared
To trust them with the secret, till assured
That they were worthy faith.

Cal. There is no need
Of trusting to their faith; who, save ourselves
And our more chosen comrades, is aware10
Fully of our intent? they think themselves
Engaged in secret to the Signory,[421]
To punish some more dissolute young nobles
Who have defied the law in their excesses;
But once drawn up, and their new swords well fleshed
In the rank hearts of the more odious Senators,
They will not hesitate to follow up
Their blow upon the others, when they see
The example of their chiefs, and I for one
Will set them such, that they for very shame20
And safety will not pause till all have perished.

Ber. How say you? all!

Cal. Whom wouldst thou spare?

Ber. I spare?
I have no power to spare. I only questioned,
Thinking that even amongst these wicked men
There might be some, whose age and qualities
Might mark them out for pity.

Cal. Yes, such pity
As when the viper hath been cut to pieces,
The separate fragments quivering in the sun,
In the last energy of venomous life,
Deserve and have. Why, I should think as soon30
Of pitying some particular fang which made
One in the jaw of the swoln serpent, as
Of saving one of these: they form but links
Of one long chain; one mass, one breath, one body;
They eat, and drink, and live, and breed together,
Revel, and lie, oppress, and kill in concert,—
So let them die as one![do]

Dag. Should one survive,
He would be dangerous as the whole; it is not
Their number, be it tens or thousands, but
The spirit of this Aristocracy40
Which must be rooted out; and if there were
A single shoot of the old tree in life,
'Twould fasten in the soil, and spring again
To gloomy verdure and to bitter fruit.
Bertram, we must be firm!

Cal. Look to it well
Bertram! I have an eye upon thee.

Ber. Who
Distrusts me?

Cal. Not I; for if I did so,
Thou wouldst not now be there to talk of trust:
It is thy softness, not thy want of faith,
Which makes thee to be doubted.

Ber. You should know50
Who hear me, who and what I am; a man
Roused like yourselves to overthrow oppression;
A kind man, I am apt to think, as some
Of you have found me; and if brave or no,
You, Calendaro, can pronounce, who have seen me
Put to the proof; or, if you should have doubts,
I'll clear them on your person!

Cal. You are welcome,
When once our enterprise is o'er, which must not
Be interrupted by a private brawl.

Ber. I am no brawler; but can bear myself60
As far among the foe as any he
Who hears me; else why have I been selected
To be of your chief comrades? but no less
I own my natural weakness; I have not
Yet learned to think of indiscriminate murder
Without some sense of shuddering; and the sight
Of blood which spouts through hoary scalps is not
To me a thing of triumph, nor the death
Of man surprised a glory. Well—too well
I know that we must do such things on those70
Whose acts have raised up such avengers; but
If there were some of these who could be saved
From out this sweeping fate, for our own sakes
And for our honour, to take off some stain
Of massacre, which else pollutes it wholly,
I had been glad; and see no cause in this
For sneer, nor for suspicion!

Dag. Calm thee, Bertram,
For we suspect thee not, and take good heart.
It is the cause, and not our will, which asks
Such actions from our hands: we'll wash away80
All stains in Freedom's fountain!

Enter Israel Bertuccio, and the Doge, disguised.

Dag. Welcome, Israel.

Consp. Most welcome.—Brave Bertuccio, thou art late—
Who is this stranger?

Cal. It is time to name him.
Our comrades are even now prepared to greet him
In brotherhood, as I have made it known
That thou wouldst add a brother to our cause,
Approved by thee, and thus approved by all,
Such is our trust in all thine actions. Now
Let him unfold himself.

I. Ber. Stranger, step forth!
[The Doge discovers himself.

Consp. To arms!—we are betrayed—it is the Doge!90
Down with them both! our traitorous captain, and
The tyrant he hath sold us to.

Cal. (drawing his sword). Hold! hold!
Who moves a step against them dies. Hold! hear
Bertuccio—What! are you appalled to see
A lone, unguarded, weaponless old man
Amongst you?—Israel, speak! what means this mystery?

I. Ber. Let them advance and strike at their own bosoms,
Ungrateful suicides! for on our lives
Depend their own, their fortunes, and their hopes.

Doge. Strike!—If I dreaded death, a death more fearful100
Than any your rash weapons can inflict,
I should not now be here: Oh, noble Courage!
The eldest born of Fear, which makes you brave
Against this solitary hoary head!
See the bold chiefs, who would reform a state
And shake down senates, mad with wrath and dread
At sight of one patrician! Butcher me!
You can, I care not.—Israel, are these men
The mighty hearts you spoke of? look upon them!

Cal. Faith! he hath shamed us, and deservedly,110
Was this your trust in your true Chief Bertuccio,
To turn your swords against him and his guest?
Sheathe them, and hear him.

I. Ber. I disdain to speak.
They might and must have known a heart like mine
Incapable of treachery; and the power
They gave me to adopt all fitting means
To further their design was ne'er abused.
They might be certain that who e'er was brought
By me into this Council had been led
To take his choice—as brother, or as victim.120

Doge. And which am I to be? your actions leave
Some cause to doubt the freedom of the choice.

I. Ber. My Lord, we would have perished here together,
Had these rash men proceeded; but, behold,
They are ashamed of that mad moment's impulse,
And droop their heads; believe me, they are such
As I described them.—Speak to them.

Cal. Aye, speak;
We are all listening in wonder.[dp]

I. Ber. (addressing the conspirators). You are safe,
Nay, more, almost triumphant—listen then,
And know my words for truth.

Doge. You see me here,130
As one of you hath said, an old, unarmed,
Defenceless man; and yesterday you saw me
Presiding in the hall of ducal state,
Apparent Sovereign of our hundred isles,[dq][422]
Robed in official purple, dealing out
The edicts of a power which is not mine,
Nor yours, but of our masters—the patricians.
Why I was there you know, or think you know;
Why I am here, he who hath been most wronged,
He who among you hath been most insulted,140
Outraged and trodden on, until he doubt
If he be worm or no, may answer for me,
Asking of his own heart what brought him here?
You know my recent story, all men know it,
And judge of it far differently from those
Who sate in judgement to heap scorn on scorn.
But spare me the recital—it is here,
Here at my heart the outrage—but my words,
Already spent in unavailing plaints,
Would only show my feebleness the more,150
And I come here to strengthen even the strong,
And urge them on to deeds, and not to war
With woman's weapons; but I need not urge you.
Our private wrongs have sprung from public vices,
In this—I cannot call it commonwealth,
Nor kingdom, which hath neither prince nor people,
But all the sins of the old Spartan state[dr]
Without its virtues—temperance and valour.
The Lords of Lacedæmon were true soldiers,[ds]
But ours are Sybarites, while we are Helots,160
Of whom I am the lowest, most enslaved;
Although dressed out to head a pageant, as
The Greeks of yore made drunk their slaves to form
A pastime for their children. You are met
To overthrow this Monster of a state,
This mockery of a Government, this spectre,
Which must be exorcised with blood,—and then
We will renew the times of Truth and Justice,
Condensing in a fair free commonwealth
Not rash equality but equal rights,170
Proportioned like the columns to the temple,
Giving and taking strength reciprocal,
And making firm the whole with grace and beauty,
So that no part could be removed without
Infringement of the general symmetry.
In operating this great change, I claim
To be one of you—if you trust in me;
If not, strike home,—my life is compromised,
And I would rather fall by freemen's hands
Than live another day to act the tyrant180
As delegate of tyrants: such I am not,
And never have been—read it in our annals;
I can appeal to my past government
In many lands and cities; they can tell you
If I were an oppressor, or a man
Feeling and thinking for my fellow men.
Haply had I been what the Senate sought,
A thing of robes and trinkets,[423] dizened out
To sit in state as for a Sovereign's picture;
A popular scourge, a ready sentence-signer,190
A stickler for the Senate and "the Forty,"
A sceptic of all measures which had not
The sanction of "the Ten,"[424] a council-fawner,
A tool—a fool—a puppet,—they had ne'er
Fostered the wretch who stung me. What I suffer
Has reached me through my pity for the people;
That many know, and they who know not yet
Will one day learn: meantime I do devote,
Whate'er the issue, my last days of life—
My present power such as it is, not that200
Of Doge, but of a man who has been great
Before he was degraded to a Doge,
And still has individual means and mind;
I stake my fame (and I had fame)—my breath—
(The least of all, for its last hours are nigh)
My heart—my hope—my soul—upon this cast!
Such as I am, I offer me to you
And to your chiefs; accept me or reject me,—
A Prince who fain would be a Citizen
Or nothing, and who has left his throne to be so.210

Cal. Long live Faliero!—Venice shall be free!

Consp. Long live Faliero!

I. Ber. Comrades! did I well?
Is not this man a host in such a cause?

Doge. This is no time for eulogies, nor place
For exultation. Am I one of you?

Cal. Aye, and the first among us, as thou hast been
Of Venice—be our General and Chief.

Doge. Chief!—General!—I was General at Zara,
And Chief in Rhodes and Cyprus,[425] Prince in Venice:
I cannot stoop—that is, I am not fit220
To lead a band of—patriots: when I lay
Aside the dignities which I have borne,
'Tis not to put on others, but to be
Mate to my fellows—but now to the point:
Israel has stated to me your whole plan—
'Tis bold, but feasible if I assist it,
And must be set in motion instantly.

Cal. E'en when thou wilt. Is it not so, my friends?
I have disposed all for a sudden blow;
When shall it be then?

Doge. At sunrise.

Ber. So soon?230

Doge. So soon?—so late—each hour accumulates
Peril on peril, and the more so now
Since I have mingled with you;—know you not
The Council, and "the Ten?" the spies, the eyes
Of the patricians dubious of their slaves,
And now more dubious of the Prince they have made one?
I tell you, you must strike, and suddenly,
Full to the Hydra's heart—its heads will follow.

Cal. With all my soul and sword, I yield assent;
Our companies are ready, sixty each,240
And all now under arms by Israel's order;
Each at their different place of rendezvous,
And vigilant, expectant of some blow;
Let each repair for action to his post!
And now, my Lord, the signal?

Doge. When you hear
The great bell of Saint Mark's, which may not be
Struck without special order of the Doge
(The last poor privilege they leave their Prince),
March on Saint Mark's!

I. Ber. And there?—

Doge. By different routes
Let your march be directed, every sixty250
Entering a separate avenue, and still
Upon the way let your cry be of War
And of the Genoese Fleet, by the first dawn
Discerned before the port; form round the palace,
Within whose court will be drawn out in arms
My nephew and the clients of our house,
Many and martial; while the bell tolls on,
Shout ye, "Saint Mark!—the foe is on our waters!"

Cal. I see it now—but on, my noble Lord.

Doge. All the patricians flocking to the Council,260
(Which they dare not refuse, at the dread signal
Pealing from out their Patron Saint's proud tower,)
Will then be gathered in unto the harvest,
And we will reap them with the sword for sickle.
If some few should be tardy or absent, them,
'Twill be but to be taken faint and single,
When the majority are put to rest.

Cal. Would that the hour were come! we will not scotch,[426]
But kill.

Ber. Once more, sir, with your pardon, I
Would now repeat the question which I asked270
Before Bertuccio added to our cause
This great ally who renders it more sure,
And therefore safer, and as such admits
Some dawn of mercy to a portion of
Our victims—must all perish in this slaughter?

Cal. All who encounter me and mine—be sure,
The mercy they have shown, I show.

Consp. All! all!
Is this a time to talk of pity? when
Have they e'er shown, or felt, or feigned it?

I. Ber. Bertram,
This false compassion is a folly, and280
Injustice to thy comrades and thy cause!
Dost thou not see, that if we single out
Some for escape, they live but to avenge
The fallen? and how distinguish now the innocent
From out the guilty? all their acts are one—
A single emanation from one body,
Together knit for our oppression! 'Tis
Much that we let their children live; I doubt
If all of these even should be set apart:
The hunter may reserve some single cub290
From out the tiger's litter, but who e'er
Would seek to save the spotted sire or dam,
Unless to perish by their fangs? however,
I will abide by Doge Faliero's counsel:
Let him decide if any should be saved.

Doge. Ask me not—tempt me not with such a question—
Decide yourselves.

I. Ber. You know their private virtues
Far better than we can, to whom alone
Their public vices, and most foul oppression,
Have made them deadly; if there be amongst them300
One who deserves to be repealed, pronounce.

Doge. Dolfino's father was my friend, and Lando
Fought by my side, and Marc Cornaro shared[dt][427]
My Genoese embassy: I saved the life[du]
Of Veniero—shall I save it twice?
Would that I could save them and Venice also!
All these men, or their fathers, were my friends
Till they became my subjects; then fell from me
As faithless leaves drop from the o'erblown flower,
And left me a lone blighted thorny stalk,310
Which, in its solitude, can shelter nothing;
So, as they let me wither, let them perish!

Cal. They cannot co-exist with Venice' freedom!

Doge. Ye, though you know and feel our mutual mass
Of many wrongs, even ye are ignorant[dv]
What fatal poison to the springs of Life,
To human ties, and all that's good and dear,
Lurks in the present institutes of Venice:
All these men were my friends; I loved them, they
Requited honourably my regards;320
We served and fought; we smiled and wept in concert;
We revelled or we sorrowed side by side;
We made alliances of blood and marriage;
We grew in years and honours fairly,—till
Their own desire, not my ambition, made
Them choose me for their Prince, and then farewell!
Farewell all social memory! all thoughts
In common! and sweet bonds which link old friendships,
When the survivors of long years and actions,
Which now belong to history, soothe the days330
Which yet remain by treasuring each other,
And never meet, but each beholds the mirror
Of half a century on his brother's brow,
And sees a hundred beings, now in earth,
Flit round them whispering of the days gone by,
And seeming not all dead, as long as two
Of the brave, joyous, reckless, glorious band,
Which once were one and many, still retain
A breath to sigh for them, a tongue to speak
Of deeds that else were silent, save on marble——340
Oimé Oimé![428]—and must I do this deed?

I. Ber. My Lord, you are much moved: it is not now
That such things must be dwelt upon.

Doge. Your patience
A moment—I recede not: mark with me
The gloomy vices of this government.
From the hour they made me Doge, the Doge they made me—
Farewell the past! I died to all that had been,
Or rather they to me: no friends, no kindness,
No privacy of life—all were cut off:
They came not near me—such approach gave umbrage;350
They could not love me—such was not the law;
They thwarted me—'twas the state's policy;
They baffled me—'twas a patrician's duty;
They wronged me, for such was to right the state;
They could not right me—that would give suspicion;
So that I was a slave to my own subjects;
So that I was a foe to my own friends;
Begirt with spies for guards, with robes for power,
With pomp for freedom, gaolers for a council,
Inquisitors for friends, and Hell for life!360
I had only one fount of quiet left,
And that they poisoned! My pure household gods[429]
Were shivered on my hearth, and o'er their shrine
Sate grinning Ribaldry, and sneering Scorn.[dw]

I. Ber. You have been deeply wronged, and now shall be
Nobly avenged before another night.

Doge. I had borne all—it hurt me, but I bore it—
Till this last running over of the cup
Of bitterness—until this last loud insult,
Not only unredressed, but sanctioned; then,370
And thus, I cast all further feelings from me—
The feelings which they crushed for me, long, long[dx]
Before, even in their oath of false allegiance!
Even in that very hour and vow, they abjured
Their friend and made a Sovereign, as boys make
Playthings, to do their pleasure—and be broken![dy]
I from that hour have seen but Senators
In dark suspicious conflict with the Doge,
Brooding with him in mutual hate and fear;
They dreading he should snatch the tyranny380
From out their grasp, and he abhorring tyrants.
To me, then, these men have no private life,
Nor claim to ties they have cut off from others;
As Senators for arbitrary acts
Amenable, I look on them—as such
Let them be dealt upon.

Cal. And now to action!
Hence, brethren, to our posts, and may this be
The last night of mere words: I'd fain be doing!
Saint Mark's great bell at dawn shall find me wakeful!

I. Ber. Disperse then to your posts: be firm and vigilant;390
Think on the wrongs we bear, the rights we claim.
This day and night shall be the last of peril!
Watch for the signal, and then march. I go
To join my band; let each be prompt to marshal
His separate charge: the Doge will now return
To the palace to prepare all for the blow.
We part to meet in Freedom and in Glory!

Cal. Doge, when I greet you next, my homage to you
Shall be the head of Steno on this sword!

Doge. No; let him be reserved unto the last,400
Nor turn aside to strike at such a prey,[dz]
Till nobler game is quarried: his offence
Was a mere ebullition of the vice,
The general corruption generated
By the foul Aristocracy: he could not—
He dared not in more honourable days
Have risked it. I have merged all private wrath
Against him in the thought of our great purpose.
A slave insults me—I require his punishment
From his proud master's hands; if he refuse it,410
The offence grows his, and let him answer it.

Cal. Yet, as the immediate cause of the alliance
Which consecrates our undertaking more,
I owe him such deep gratitude, that fain
I would repay him as he merits; may I?

Doge. You would but lop the hand, and I the head;
You would but smite the scholar, I the master;
You would but punish Steno, I the Senate.
I cannot pause on individual hate,
In the absorbing, sweeping, whole revenge,420
Which, like the sheeted fire from Heaven, must blast
Without distinction, as it fell of yore,
Where the Dead Sea hath quenched two Cities' ashes.

I. Ber. Away, then, to your posts! I but remain
A moment to accompany the Doge
To our late place of tryst, to see no spies
Have been upon the scout, and thence I hasten
To where my allotted band is under arms.

Cal. Farewell, then,—until dawn!

I. Ber. Success go with you!

Consp. We will not fail—Away! My Lord, farewell!430

[The Conspirators salute the Doge and Israel Bertuccio, and retire, headed by Philip Calendaro.
The Doge and Israel Bertuccio remain.

I. Ber. We have them in the toil—it cannot fail!
Now thou'rt indeed a Sovereign, and wilt make
A name immortal greater than the greatest:
Free citizens have struck at Kings ere now;
Cæsars have fallen, and even patrician hands
Have crushed dictators, as the popular steel
Has reached patricians: but, until this hour,
What Prince has plotted for his people's freedom?
Or risked a life to liberate his subjects?
For ever, and for ever, they conspire440
Against the people, to abuse their hands
To chains, but laid aside to carry weapons
Against the fellow nations, so that yoke
On yoke, and slavery and death may whet,
Not glut, the never-gorged Leviathan!
Now, my Lord, to our enterprise;—'tis great,
And greater the reward; why stand you rapt?
A moment back, and you were all impatience!

Doge. And is it then decided! must they die?

I. Ber. Who?

Doge. My own friends by blood and courtesy,450
And many deeds and days—the Senators?

I. Ber. You passed their sentence, and it is a just one.

Doge. Aye, so it seems, and so it is to you;
You are a patriot, a plebeian Gracchus—[ea]
The rebel's oracle, the people's tribune—
I blame you not—you act in your vocation;[430]
They smote you, and oppressed you, and despised you;
So they have me: but you ne'er spake with them;
You never broke their bread, nor shared their salt;
You never had their wine-cup at your lips:460
You grew not up with them, nor laughed, nor wept,
Nor held a revel in their company;
Ne'er smiled to see them smile, nor claimed their smile
In social interchange for yours, nor trusted
Nor wore them in your heart of hearts, as I have:
These hairs of mine are grey, and so are theirs,
The elders of the Council: I remember
When all our locks were like the raven's wing,
As we went forth to take our prey around
The isles wrung from the false Mahometan;470
And can I see them dabbled o'er with blood?
Each stab to them will seem my suicide.

I. Ber. Doge! Doge! this vacillation is unworthy
A child; if you are not in second childhood,
Call back your nerves to your own purpose, nor
Thus shame yourself and me. By Heavens! I'd rather
Forego even now, or fail in our intent,
Than see the man I venerate subside
From high resolves into such shallow weakness!
You have seen blood in battle, shed it, both480
Your own and that of others; can you shrink then
From a few drops from veins of hoary vampires,
Who but give back what they have drained from millions?

Doge. Bear with me! Step by step, and blow on blow,
I will divide with you; think not I waver:
Ah! no; it is the certainty of all
Which I must do doth make me tremble thus.
But let these last and lingering thoughts have way,
To which you only and the night are conscious,
And both regardless; when the Hour arrives,490
'Tis mine to sound the knell, and strike the blow,
Which shall unpeople many palaces,
And hew the highest genealogic trees
Down to the earth, strewed with their bleeding fruit,
And crush their blossoms into barrenness:
This will I—must I—have I sworn to do,
Nor aught can turn me from my destiny;
But still I quiver to behold what I
Must be, and think what I have been! Bear with me.

I. Ber. Re-man your breast; I feel no such remorse,500
I understand it not: why should you change?
You acted, and you act, on your free will.

Doge. Aye, there it is—you feel not, nor do I,
Else I should stab thee on the spot, to save
A thousand lives—and killing, do no murder;
You feel not—you go to this butcher-work
As if these high-born men were steers for shambles:
When all is over, you'll be free and merry,
And calmly wash those hands incarnadine;
But I, outgoing thee and all thy fellows510
In this surpassing massacre, shall be,
Shall see and feel—oh God! oh God! 'tis true,
And thou dost well to answer that it was
"My own free will and act," and yet you err,
For I will do this! Doubt not—fear not; I
Will be your most unmerciful accomplice!
And yet I act no more on my free will,
Nor my own feelings—both compel me back;
But there is Hell within me and around,
And like the Demon who believes and trembles520
Must I abhor and do. Away! away!
Get thee unto thy fellows, I will hie me
To gather the retainers of our house.
Doubt not, St. Mark's great bell shall wake all Venice,
Except her slaughtered Senate: ere the Sun
Be broad upon the Adriatic there
Shall be a voice of weeping, which shall drown
The roar of waters in the cry of blood!
I am resolved—come on.

I. Ber. With all my soul!
Keep a firm rein upon these bursts of passion;530
Remember what these men have dealt to thee,
And that this sacrifice will be succeeded
By ages of prosperity and freedom
To this unshackled city: a true tyrant[eb]
Would have depopulated empires, nor
Have felt the strange compunction which hath wrung you
To punish a few traitors to the people.
Trust me, such were a pity more misplaced
Than the late mercy of the state to Steno.

Doge. Man, thou hast struck upon the chord which jars540
All nature from my heart. Hence to our task!
[Exeunt.

---

ACT IV.

Scene I.—Palazzo of the Patrician Lioni.[431] Lioni laying aside the mask and cloak which the Venetian Nobles wore in public, attended by a Domestic.

Lioni. I will to rest, right weary of this revel,
The gayest we have held for many moons,
And yet—I know not why—it cheered me not;
There came a heaviness across my heart,
Which, in the lightest movement of the dance,
Though eye to eye, and hand in hand united
Even with the Lady of my Love, oppressed me,
And through my spirit chilled my blood, until
A damp like Death rose o'er my brow; I strove
To laugh the thought away, but 'twould not be;10
Through all the music ringing in my ears[ec]
A knell was sounding as distinct and clear,
Though low and far, as e'er the Adrian wave
Rose o'er the City's murmur in the night,
Dashing against the outward Lido's bulwark:
So that I left the festival before
It reached its zenith, and will woo my pillow
For thoughts more tranquil, or forgetfulness.
Antonio, take my mask and cloak, and light
The lamp within my chamber.

Ant. Yes, my Lord:20
Command you no refreshment?

Lioni. Nought, save sleep,
Which will not be commanded. Let me hope it,
[Exit Antonio.
Though my breast feels too anxious; I will try
Whether the air will calm my spirits: 'tis
A goodly night; the cloudy wind which blew
From the Levant hath crept into its cave,
And the broad Moon hath brightened. What a stillness!
[Goes to an open lattice.
And what a contrast with the scene I left,
Where the tall torches' glare, and silver lamps'
More pallid gleam along the tapestried walls,30
Spread over the reluctant gloom which haunts
Those vast and dimly-latticed galleries
A dazzling mass of artificial light,
Which showed all things, but nothing as they were.
There Age essaying to recall the past,
After long striving for the hues of Youth
At the sad labour of the toilet, and
Full many a glance at the too faithful mirror,
Pranked forth in all the pride of ornament,
Forgot itself, and trusting to the falsehood40
Of the indulgent beams, which show, yet hide,
Believed itself forgotten, and was fooled.
There Youth, which needed not, nor thought of such
Vain adjuncts, lavished its true bloom, and health,
And bridal beauty, in the unwholesome press
Of flushed and crowded wassailers, and wasted
Its hours of rest in dreaming this was pleasure,
And so shall waste them till the sunrise streams
On sallow cheeks and sunken eyes, which should not
Have worn this aspect yet for many a year.[432]50
The music, and the banquet, and the wine,
The garlands, the rose odours, and the flowers,
The sparkling eyes, and flashing ornaments,
The white arms and the raven hair, the braids
And bracelets; swanlike bosoms, and the necklace,
An India in itself, yet dazzling not
The eye like what it circled; the thin robes,
Floating like light clouds 'twixt our gaze and heaven;
The many-twinkling feet so small and sylphlike,
Suggesting the more secret symmetry[ed]60
Of the fair forms which terminate so well—
All the delusion of the dizzy scene,
Its false and true enchantments—Art and Nature,
Which swam before my giddy eyes, that drank
The sight of beauty as the parched pilgrim's
On Arab sands the false mirage, which offers
A lucid lake to his eluded thirst,
Are gone. Around me are the stars and waters—
Worlds mirrored in the Ocean, goodlier sight[ee]
Than torches glared back by a gaudy glass;70
And the great Element, which is to space
What Ocean is to Earth, spreads its blue depths,
Softened with the first breathings of the spring;
The high Moon sails upon her beauteous way,
Serenely smoothing o'er the lofty walls
Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces,[ef]
Whose porphyry pillars, and whose costly fronts,
Fraught with the Orient spoil of many marbles,
Like altars ranged along the broad canal,
Seem each a trophy of some mighty deed80
Reared up from out the waters, scarce less strangely
Than those more massy and mysterious giants
Of architecture, those Titanian fabrics,
Which point in Egypt's plains to times that have
No other record. All is gentle: nought
Stirs rudely; but, congenial with the night,
Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit.
The tinklings of some vigilant guitars
Of sleepless lovers to a wakeful mistress,
And cautious opening of the casement, showing90
That he is not unheard; while her young hand,
Fair as the moonlight of which it seems part,
So delicately white, it trembles in
The act of opening the forbidden lattice,[433]
To let in love through music, makes his heart
Thrill like his lyre-strings at the sight; the dash
Phosphoric of the oar, or rapid twinkle
Of the far lights of skimming gondolas,[434]
And the responsive voices of the choir
Of boatmen answering back with verse for verse;100
Some dusky shadow checkering the Rialto;
Some glimmering palace roof, or tapering spire,[eg]
Are all the sights and sounds which here pervade
The ocean-born and earth-commanding City—
How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm!
I thank thee, Night! for thou hast chased away
Those horrid bodements which, amidst the throng,
I could not dissipate: and with the blessing
Of thy benign and quiet influence,
Now will I to my couch, although to rest110
Is almost wronging such a night as this,——
[A knocking is heard from without.
Hark! what is that? or who at such a moment?[eh]

Enter Antonio.

Ant. My Lord, a man without, on urgent business,
Implores to be admitted.

Lioni. Is he a stranger?[ei]

Ant. His face is muffled in his cloak, but both
His voice and gestures seem familiar to me;[ej]
I craved his name, but this he seemed reluctant
To trust, save to yourself; most earnestly
He sues to be permitted to approach you.

Lioni. 'Tis a strange hour, and a suspicious bearing!120
And yet there is slight peril: 'tis not in
Their houses noble men are struck at; still,
Although I know not that I have a foe
In Venice, 'twill be wise to use some caution.
Admit him, and retire; but call up quickly
Some of thy fellows, who may wait without.—
Who can this man be?—
[Exit Antonio, and returns with Bertram muffled.

Ber. My good Lord Lioni,
I have no time to lose, nor thou,—dismiss
This menial hence; I would be private with you.

Lioni. It seems the voice of Bertram—Go, Antonio.130
[Exit Antonio.
Now, stranger, what would you at such an hour?

Ber. (discovering himself).
A boon, my noble patron; you have granted
Many to your poor client, Bertram; add
This one, and make him happy.

Lioni. Thou hast known me
From boyhood, ever ready to assist thee
In all fair objects of advancement, which
Beseem one of thy station; I would promise
Ere thy request was heard, but that the hour,
Thy bearing, and this strange and hurried mode
Of suing, gives me to suspect this visit140
Hath some mysterious import—but say on—
What has occurred, some rash and sudden broil?—
A cup too much, a scuffle, and a stab?
Mere things of every day; so that thou hast not
Spilt noble blood, I guarantee thy safety;
But then thou must withdraw, for angry friends
And relatives, in the first burst of vengeance,
Are things in Venice deadlier than the laws.

Ber. My Lord, I thank you; but——

Lioni. But what? You have not
Raised a rash hand against one of our order?150
If so—withdraw and fly—and own it not;[ek]
I would not slay—but then I must not save thee!
He who has shed patrician blood——

Ber. I come
To save patrician blood, and not to shed it!
And thereunto I must be speedy, for
Each minute lost may lose a life; since Time
Has changed his slow scythe for the two-edged sword,
And is about to take, instead of sand,
The dust from sepulchres to fill his hour-glass!—
Go not thou forth to-morrow!

Lioni. Wherefore not?—160
What means this menace?

Ber. Do not seek its meaning,
But do as I implore thee;—stir not forth,
Whate'er be stirring; though the roar of crowds—
The cry of women, and the shrieks of babes—
The groans of men—the clash of arms—the sound
Of rolling drum, shrill trump, and hollow bell,
Peal in one wide alarum l—Go not forth,
Until the Tocsin's silent, nor even then
Till I return!

Lioni. Again, what does this mean?

Ber. Again, I tell thee, ask not; but by all170
Thou holdest dear on earth or Heaven—by all
The Souls of thy great fathers, and thy hope
To emulate them, and to leave behind
Descendants worthy both of them and thee—
By all thou hast of blessed in hope or memory—
By all thou hast to fear here or hereafter—
By all the good deeds thou hast done to me,
Good I would now repay with greater good,[el]
Remain within—trust to thy household gods,[em]
And to my word for safety, if thou dost,180
As I now counsel—but if not, thou art lost!

Lioni. I am indeed already lost in wonder;
Surely thou ravest! what have I to dread?
Who are my foes? or if there be such, why
Art thou leagued with them?—thou! or, if so leagued,
Why comest thou to tell me at this hour,
And not before?

Ber. I cannot answer this.
Wilt thou go forth despite of this true warning?

Lioni. I was not born to shrink from idle threats,
The cause of which I know not: at the hour190
Of council, be it soon or late, I shall not
Be found among the absent.

Ber. Say not so!
Once more, art thou determined to go forth?

Lioni. I am. Nor is there aught which shall impede me!

Ber. Then, Heaven have mercy on thy soul!—Farewell!
[Going.

Lioni. Stay—there is more in this than my own safety
Which makes me call thee back; we must not part thus:
Bertram, I have known thee long.

Ber. From childhood, Signor,
You have been my protector: in the days
Of reckless infancy, when rank forgets,200
Or, rather, is not yet taught to remember
Its cold prerogative, we played together;
Our sports, our smiles, our tears, were mingled oft;
My father was your father's client, I
His son's scarce less than foster-brother; years
Saw us together—happy, heart-full hours!
Oh God! the difference 'twixt those hours and this!

Lioni. Bertram, 'tis thou who hast forgotten them.

Ber. Nor now, nor ever; whatsoe'er betide,
I would have saved you: when to Manhood's growth210
We sprung, and you, devoted to the state,
As suits your station, the more humble Bertram
Was left unto the labours of the humble,
Still you forsook me not; and if my fortunes
Have not been towering, 'twas no fault of him
Who ofttimes rescued and supported me,
When struggling with the tides of Circumstance,
Which bear away the weaker: noble blood
Ne'er mantled in a nobler heart than thine
Has proved to me, the poor plebeian Bertram.220
Would that thy fellow Senators were like thee!

Lioni. Why, what hast thou to say against the Senate?[en]

Ber. Nothing.

Lioni. I know that there are angry spirits
And turbulent mutterers of stifled treason,
Who lurk in narrow places, and walk out
Muffled to whisper curses to the night;
Disbanded soldiers, discontented ruffians,
And desperate libertines who brawl in taverns;
Thou herdest not with such: 'tis true, of late
I have lost sight of thee, but thou wert wont230
To lead a temperate life, and break thy bread
With honest mates, and bear a cheerful aspect.
What hath come to thee? in thy hollow eye
And hueless cheek, and thine unquiet motions,
Sorrow and Shame and Conscience seem at war
To waste thee.

Ber. Rather Shame and Sorrow light
On the accurséd tyranny which rides[eo]
The very air in Venice, and makes men
Madden as in the last hours of the plague
Which sweeps the soul deliriously from life!240

Lioni. Some villains have been tampering with thee, Bertram;
This is not thy old language, nor own thoughts;
Some wretch has made thee drunk with disaffection:
But thou must not be lost so; thou wert good
And kind, and art not fit for such base acts
As Vice and Villany would put thee to:
Confess—confide in me—thou know'st my nature.
What is it thou and thine are bound to do,
Which should prevent thy friend, the only son
Of him who was a friend unto thy father,250
So that our good-will is a heritage
We should bequeath to our posterity
Such as ourselves received it, or augmented;
I say, what is it thou must do, that I
Should deem thee dangerous, and keep the house
Like a sick girl?

Ber. Nay, question me no further:
I must be gone.——

Lioni. And I be murdered!—say,
Was it not thus thou said'st, my gentle Bertram?

Ber. Who talks of murder? what said I of murder?
Tis false! I did not utter such a word.260

Lioni. Thou didst not; but from out thy wolfish eye,
So changed from what I knew it, there glares forth
The gladiator. If my life's thine object,
Take it—I am unarmed,—and then away!
I would not hold my breath on such a tenure[ep]
As the capricious mercy of such things
As thou and those who have set thee to thy task-work.

Ber. Sooner than spill thy blood, I peril mine;
Sooner than harm a hair of thine, I place
In jeopardy a thousand heads, and some270
As noble, nay, even nobler than thine own.

Lioni. Aye, is it even so? Excuse me, Bertram;
I am not worthy to be singled out
From such exalted hecatombs—who are they
That are in danger, and that make the danger?

Ber. Venice, and all that she inherits, are
Divided like a house against itself,
And so will perish ere to-morrow's twilight!

Lioni. More mysteries, and awful ones! But now,
Or thou, or I, or both, it may be, are280
Upon the verge of ruin; speak once out,
And thou art safe and glorious: for 'tis more
Glorious to save than slay, and slay i' the dark too—
Fie, Bertram! that was not a craft for thee!
How would it look to see upon a spear
The head of him whose heart was open to thee!
Borne by thy hand before the shuddering people?
And such may be my doom; for here I swear,
Whate'er the peril or the penalty
Of thy denunciation, I go forth,290
Unless thou dost detail the cause, and show
The consequence of all which led thee here!

Ber. Is there no way to save thee? minutes fly,
And thou art lost!—thou! my sole benefactor,
The only being who was constant to me
Through every change. Yet, make me not a traitor!
Let me save thee—but spare my honour!

Lioni. Where
Can lie the honour in a league of murder?
And who are traitors save unto the State?

Ber. A league is still a compact, and more binding300
In honest hearts when words must stand for law;
And in my mind, there is no traitor like
He whose domestic treason plants the poniard[435]
Within the breast which trusted to his truth.
Lioni. And who will strike the steel to mine?

Ber. Not I;
I could have wound my soul up to all things
Save this. Thou must not die! and think how dear
Thy life is, when I risk so many lives,
Nay, more, the Life of lives, the liberty
Of future generations, not to be310
The assassin thou miscall'st me:—once, once more
I do adjure thee, pass not o'er thy threshold!

Lioni. It is in vain—this moment I go forth.

Ber. Then perish Venice rather than my friend!
I will disclose—ensnare—betray—destroy—
Oh, what a villain I become for thee!

Lioni. Say, rather thy friend's saviour and the State's!—
Speak—pause not—all rewards, all pledges for
Thy safety and thy welfare; wealth such as
The State accords her worthiest servants; nay,330
Nobility itself I guarantee thee,
So that thou art sincere and penitent.

Ber. I have thought again: it must not be—I love thee—
Thou knowest it—that I stand here is the proof,
Not least though last; but having done my duty
By thee, I now must do it by my country!
Farewell—we meet no more in life!—farewell!

Lioni. What, ho!—Antonio—Pedro—to the door!
See that none pass—arrest this man!——

Enter Antonio and other armed Domestics, who seize Bertram.

Lioni (continues). Take care
He hath no harm; bring me my sword and cloak,330
And man the gondola with four oars—quick—
[Exit Antonio.
We will unto Giovanni Gradenigo's,
And send for Marc Cornaro:—fear not, Bertram;
This needful violence is for thy safety,
No less than for the general weal.

Ber. Where wouldst thou
Bear me a prisoner?

Lioni. Firstly to "the Ten;"
Next to the Doge.

Ber. To the Doge?

Lioni. Assuredly:
Is he not Chief of the State?

Ber. Perhaps at sunrise—

Lioni. What mean you?—but we'll know anon.

Ber. Art sure?

Lioni. Sure as all gentle means can make; and if340
They fail, you know "the Ten" and their tribunal,
And that St. Mark's has dungeons, and the dungeons
A rack.

Ber. Apply it then before the dawn
Now hastening into heaven.—One more such word,
And you shall perish piecemeal, by the death
You think to doom to me.

Re-enter Antonio.

Ant. The bark is ready,
My Lord, and all prepared.

Lioni. Look to the prisoner.
Bertram, I'll reason with thee as we go
To the Magnifico's, sage Gradenigo. [Exeunt.

Scene II.—The Ducal Palace—The Doge's Apartment.

The Doge and his Nephew Bertuccio Faliero.

Doge. Are all the people of our house in muster?

Ber. F. They are arrayed, and eager for the signal,
Within our palace precincts at San Polo:[436]
I come for your last orders.

Doge. It had been
As well had there been time to have got together,
From my own fief, Val di Marino, more
Of our retainers—but it is too late.

Ber. F. Methinks, my Lord,'tis better as it is:
A sudden swelling of our retinue
Had waked suspicion; and, though fierce and trusty,10
The vassals of that district are too rude
And quick in quarrel to have long maintained
The secret discipline we need for such
A service, till our foes are dealt upon.

Doge. True; but when once the signal has been given,
These are the men for such an enterprise;
These city slaves have all their private bias,
Their prejudice against or for this noble,
Which may induce them to o'erdo or spare
Where mercy may be madness; the fierce peasants,20
Serfs of my county of Val di Marino,
Would do the bidding of their lord without
Distinguishing for love or hate his foes;
Alike to them Marcello or Cornaro,
A Gradenigo or a Foscari;[eq]
They are not used to start at those vain names,
Nor bow the knee before a civic Senate;
A chief in armour is their Suzerain,
And not a thing in robes.

Ber. F. We are enough;
And for the dispositions of our clients30
Against the Senate I will answer.

Doge. Well,
The die is thrown; but for a warlike service,
Done in the field, commend me to my peasants:
They made the sun shine through the host of Huns
When sallow burghers slunk back to their tents,
And cowered to hear their own victorious trumpet.
If there be small resistance, you will find
These Citizens all Lions, like their Standard;[437]
But if there's much to do, you'll wish, with me,
A band of iron rustics at our backs.40

Ber. Thus thinking, I must marvel you resolve
To strike the blow so suddenly.

Doge. Such blows
Must be struck suddenly or never. When
I had o'ermastered the weak false remorse
Which yearned about my heart, too fondly yielding
A moment to the feelings of old days,
I was most fain to strike; and, firstly, that
I might not yield again to such emotions;
And, secondly, because of all these men,
Save Israel and Philip Calendaro,50
I know not well the courage or the faith:
To-day might find 'mongst them a traitor to us,
As yesterday a thousand to the Senate;
But once in, with their hilts hot in their hands,
They must on for their own sakes; one stroke struck,
And the mere instinct of the first-born Cain,
Which ever lurks somewhere in human hearts,
Though Circumstance may keep it in abeyance,
Will urge the rest on like to wolves; the sight
Of blood to crowds begets the thirst of more,60
As the first wine-cup leads to the long revel;
And you will find a harder task to quell
Than urge them when they have commenced, but till
That moment, a mere voice, a straw, a shadow,
Are capable of turning them aside.—
How goes the night?

Ber. F. Almost upon the dawn.

Doge. Then it is time to strike upon the bell.
Are the men posted?

Ber. F. By this time they are;
But they have orders not to strike, until
They have command from you through me in person.70

Doge. 'Tis well.—Will the morn never put to rest
These stars which twinkle yet o'er all the heavens?
I am settled and bound up, and being so,
The very effort which it cost me to
Resolve to cleanse this Commonwealth with fire,
Now leaves my mind more steady. I have wept,
And trembled at the thought of this dread duty;
But now I have put down all idle passion,
And look the growing tempest in the face,
As doth the pilot of an Admiral Galley:[438]80
Yet (wouldst thou think it, kinsman?) it hath been
A greater struggle to me, than when nations
Beheld their fate merged in the approaching fight,
Where I was leader of a phalanx, where
Thousands were sure to perish—Yes, to spill
The rank polluted current from the veins
Of a few bloated despots needed more
To steel me to a purpose such as made
Timoleon immortal,[439] than to face
The toils and dangers of a life of war.90

Ber. F. It gladdens me to see your former wisdom
Subdue the furies which so wrung you ere
You were decided.

Doge. It was ever thus
With me; the hour of agitation came
In the first glimmerings of a purpose, when
Passion had too much room to sway; but in
The hour of action I have stood as calm
As were the dead who lay around me: this
They knew who made me what I am, and trusted
To the subduing power which I preserved100
Over my mood, when its first burst was spent.
But they were not aware that there are things
Which make revenge a virtue by reflection,
And not an impulse of mere anger; though
The laws sleep, Justice wakes, and injured souls
Oft do a public right with private wrong,
And justify their deeds unto themselves.—
Methinks the day breaks—is it not so? look,
Thine eyes are clear with youth;—the air puts on
A morning freshness, and, at least to me,110
The sea looks greyer through the lattice.

Ber. F. True,
The morn is dappling in the sky.[er][440]

Doge. Away then!
See that they strike without delay, and with
The first toll from St. Mark's, march on the palace
With all our House's strength; here I will meet you;
The Sixteen and their companies will move
In separate columns at the self-same moment:
Be sure you post yourself at the great Gate:
I would not trust "the Ten" except to us—
The rest, the rabble of patricians, may120
Glut the more careless swords of those leagued with us.
Remember that the cry is still "Saint Mark!
The Genoese are come—ho! to the rescue!
Saint Mark and Liberty!"—Now—now to action![es]

Ber. F. Farewell then, noble Uncle! we will meet
In freedom and true sovereignty, or never!

Doge. Come hither, my Bertuccio—one embrace;
Speed, for the day grows broader; send me soon
A messenger to tell me how all goes
When you rejoin our troops, and then sound—sound130
The storm-bell from St. Mark's![et]
[Exit Bertuccio Faliero.

Doge (solus). He is gone,
And on each footstep moves a life. 'Tis done.[441]
Now the destroying Angel hovers o'er
Venice, and pauses ere he pours the vial,
Even as the eagle overlooks his prey,
And for a moment, poised in middle air,
Suspends the motion of his mighty wings,
Then swoops with his unerring beak.[442] Thou Day!
That slowly walk'st the waters! march—march on—
I would not smite i' the dark, but rather see140
That no stroke errs. And you, ye blue sea waves!
I have seen you dyed ere now, and deeply too,
With Genoese, Saracen, and Hunnish gore,
While that of Venice flowed too, but victorious:
Now thou must wear an unmixed crimson; no
Barbaric blood can reconcile us now
Unto that horrible incarnadine,
But friend or foe will roll in civic slaughter.
And have I lived to fourscore years[443] for this?
I, who was named Preserver of the City?150
I, at whose name the million's caps were flung[eu]
Into the air, and cries from tens of thousands
Rose up, imploring Heaven to send me blessings,
And fame, and length of days—to see this day?
But this day, black within the calendar,
Shall be succeeded by a bright millennium.
Doge Dandolo survived to ninety summers
To vanquish empires, and refuse their crown;[444]
I will resign a crown, and make the State
Renew its freedom—but oh! by what means?160
The noble end must justify them. What
Are a few drops of human blood? 'tis false,
The blood of tyrants is not human; they,
Like to incarnate Molochs, feed on ours,
Until 'tis time to give them to the tombs
Which they have made so populous.—Oh World!
Oh Men! what are ye, and our best designs,
That we must work by crime to punish crime?
And slay as if Death had but this one gate,
When a few years would make the sword superfluous?170
And I, upon the verge of th' unknown realm,
Yet send so many heralds on before me?—
I must not ponder this. [A pause.
Hark! was there not
A murmur as of distant voices, and
The tramp of feet in martial unison?
What phantoms even of sound our wishes raise!
It cannot be—the signal hath not rung—
Why pauses it? My nephew's messenger
Should be upon his way to me, and he
Himself perhaps even now draws grating back180
Upon its ponderous hinge the steep tower portal,
Where swings the sullen huge oracular bell,[ev]
Which never knells but for a princely death,
Or for a state in peril, pealing forth
Tremendous bodements; let it do its office,
And be this peal its awfullest and last
Sound till the strong tower rock!—What! silent still?
I would go forth, but that my post is here,
To be the centre of re-union to
The oft discordant elements which form190
Leagues of this nature, and to keep compact
The wavering of the weak, in case of conflict;
For if they should do battle,'twill be here,
Within the palace, that the strife will thicken:
Then here must be my station, as becomes
The master-mover.—Hark! he comes—he comes,
My nephew, brave Bertuccio's messenger.—
What tidings? Is he marching? hath he sped?
They here!-all's lost-yet will I make an effort.

Enter a Signor of the Night,[445] with Guards, etc., etc.

Sig. Doge, I arrest thee of high treason!

Doge. Me!200
Thy Prince, of treason?—Who are they that dare
Cloak their own treason under such an order?

Sig. (showing his order).
Behold my order from the assembled Ten.

Doge. And where are they, and why assembled? no
Such Council can be lawful, till the Prince
Preside there, and that duty's mine:[446] on thine
I charge thee, give me way, or marshal me
To the Council chamber.

Sig. Duke! it may not be:
Nor are they in the wonted Hall of Council,
But sitting in the convent of Saint Saviour's.210

Doge. You dare to disobey me, then?

Sig. I serve
The State, and needs must serve it faithfully;
My warrant is the will of those who rule it.

Doge. And till that warrant has my signature
It is illegal, and, as now applied,
Rebellious. Hast thou weighed well thy life's worth,
That thus you dare assume a lawless function?[ew]

Sig. 'Tis not my office to reply, but act—
I am placed here as guard upon thy person,
And not as judge to hear or to decide.220

Doge (aside).
I must gain time. So that the storm-bell sound,[ex][447]
All may be well yet. Kinsman, speed—speed—speed!—
Our fate is trembling in the balance, and
Woe to the vanquished! be they Prince and people,
Or slaves and Senate—
[The great bell of St. Mark's tolls.
Lo! it sounds—it tolls!

Doge (aloud).
Hark, Signor of the Night! and you, ye hirelings,
Who wield your mercenary staves in fear,
It is your knell.—Swell on, thou lusty peal!
Now, knaves, what ransom for your lives?

Sig. Confusion!
Stand to your arms, and guard the door—all's lost230
Unless that fearful bell be silenced soon.
The officer hath missed his path or purpose,
Or met some unforeseen and hideous obstacle,[ey]
Anselmo, with thy company proceed
Straight to the tower; the rest remain with me.
[Exit part of the Guard.

Doge. Wretch! if thou wouldst have thy vile life, implore it;
It is not now a lease of sixty seconds.
Aye, send thy miserable ruffians forth;
They never shall return.

Sig. So let it be!
They die then in their duty, as will I.240

Doge. Fool! the high eagle flies at nobler game
Than thou and thy base myrmidons,—live on,
So thou provok'st not peril by resistance,
And learn (if souls so much obscured can bear
To gaze upon the sunbeams) to be free.

Sig. And learn thou to be captive. It hath ceased,
[The bell ceases to toll.
The traitorous signal, which was to have set
The bloodhound mob on their patrician prey—
The knell hath rung, but it is not the Senate's!

Doge (after a pause).
All's silent, and all's lost!

Sig. Now, Doge, denounce me250
As rebel slave of a revolted Council!
Have I not done my duty?

Doge. Peace, thou thing!
Thou hast done a worthy deed, and earned the price
Of blood, and they who use thee will reward thee.
But thou wert sent to watch, and not to prate,
As thou said'st even now—then do thine office,
But let it be in silence, as behoves thee,
Since, though thy prisoner, I am thy Prince.

Sig. I did not mean to fail in the respect
Due to your rank: in this I shall obey you.260

Doge (aside). There now is nothing left me save to die;
And yet how near success! I would have fallen,
And proudly, in the hour of triumph, but
To miss it thus!——

Enter other Signors of the Night, with Bertuccio Faliero prisoner.

2nd Sig. We took him in the act
Of issuing from the tower, where, at his order,
As delegated from the Doge, the signal
Had thus begun to sound.

1st Sig. Are all the passes
Which lead up to the palace well secured?

2nd Sig. They are—besides, it matters not; the Chiefs
Are all in chains, and some even now on trial—270
Their followers are dispersed, and many taken.

Ber. F. Uncle!

Doge. It is in vain to war with Fortune;
The glory hath departed from our house.

Ber. F. Who would have deemed it?—Ah! one moment sooner!

Doge. That moment would have changed the face of ages;
This gives us to Eternity—We'll meet it
As men whose triumph is not in success,
But who can make their own minds all in all,
Equal to every fortune. Droop not,'tis
But a brief passage—I would go alone,280
Yet if they send us, as 'tis like, together,
Let us go worthy of our sires and selves.

Ber. F. I shall not shame you, Uncle.

1st Sig. Lords, our orders
Are to keep guard on both in separate chambers,
Until the Council call ye to your trial.

Doge. Our trial! will they keep their mockery up
Even to the last? but let them deal upon us,
As we had dealt on them, but with less pomp.
'Tis but a game of mutual homicides,
Who have cast lots for the first death, and they290
Have won with false dice.—Who hath been our Judas?

1st Sig. I am not warranted to answer that.

Ber. F. I'll answer for thee—'tis a certain Bertram,
Even now deposing to the secret Giunta.

Doge. Bertram, the Bergamask! With what vile tools[448]
We operate to slay or save! This creature,
Black with a double treason, now will earn
Rewards and honours, and be stamped in story
With the geese in the Capitol, which gabbled
Till Rome awoke, and had an annual triumph,300
While Manlius, who hurled down the Gauls, was cast[ez]
From the Tarpeian.

1st Sig. He aspired to treason,
And sought to rule the State.

Doge. He saved the State,
And sought but to reform what he revived—
But this is idle—Come, sirs, do your work.

1st Sig. Noble Bertuccio, we must now remove you
Into an inner chamber.

Ber. F. Farewell, Uncle!
If we shall meet again in life I know not,
But they perhaps will let our ashes mingle.

Doge. Yes, and our spirits, which shall yet go forth,310
And do what our frail clay, thus clogged, hath failed in!
They cannot quench the memory of those
Who would have hurled them from their guilty thrones,
And such examples will find heirs, though distant.

---

ACT V.

Scene 1.—The Hall of the Council of Ten assembled with the additional Senators, who, on the Trials of the Conspirators for the Treason of Marino Faliero, composed what was called the Giunta,—Guards, Officers, etc., etc. Israel Bertuccio and Philip Calendaro as Prisoners. Bertram, Lioni, and Witnesses, etc.

The Chief of the Ten, Benintende.[fa][449]

Ben. There now rests, after such conviction of
Their manifold and manifest offences,
But to pronounce on these obdurate men
The sentence of the Law:—a grievous task
To those who hear, and those who speak. Alas!
That it should fall to me! and that my days
Of office should be stigmatised through all
The years of coming time, as bearing record
To this most foul and complicated treason
Against a just and free state, known to all10
The earth as being the Christian bulwark 'gainst
The Saracen and the schismatic Greek,
The savage Hun, and not less barbarous Frank;
A City which has opened India's wealth
To Europe; the last Roman refuge from
O'erwhelming Attila; the Ocean's Queen;
Proud Genoa's prouder rival! 'Tis to sap
The throne of such a City, these lost men
Have risked and forfeited their worthless lives—
So let them die the death.

I. Ber. We are prepared;20
Your racks have done that for us. Let us die.

Ben. If ye have that to say which would obtain
Abatement of your punishment, the Giunta
Will hear you; if you have aught to confess,
Now is your time,—perhaps it may avail ye.

I. Ber. We stand to hear, and not to speak.

Ben. Your crimes
Are fully proved by your accomplices,
And all which Circumstance can add to aid them;
Yet we would hear from your own lips complete
Avowal of your treason: on the verge30
Of that dread gulf which none repass, the truth
Alone can profit you on earth or Heaven—
Say, then, what was your motive?

I. Ber. Justice![fb]

Ben. What
Your object?

I. Ber. Freedom!

Ben. You are brief, sir.

I. Ber. So my life grows: I
Was bred a soldier, not a senator.

Ben. Perhaps you think by this blunt brevity
To brave your judges to postpone the sentence?

I. Ber. Do you be brief as I am, and believe me,
I shall prefer that mercy to your pardon.40

Ben. Is this your sole reply to the Tribunal?

I. Ber. Go, ask your racks what they have wrung from us,
Or place us there again; we have still some blood left,
And some slight sense of pain in these wrenched limbs:
But this ye dare not do; for if we die there—
And you have left us little life to spend
Upon your engines, gorged with pangs already—
Ye lose the public spectacle, with which
You would appal your slaves to further slavery!
Groans are not words, nor agony assent,50
Nor affirmation Truth, if Nature's sense
Should overcome the soul into a lie,
For a short respite—must we bear or die?

Ben. Say, who were your accomplices?

I. Ber. The Senate.

Ben. What do you mean?

I. Ber. Ask of the suffering people,
Whom your patrician crimes have driven to crime.

Ben. You know the Doge?

I. Ber. I served with him at Zara
In the field, when you were pleading here your way
To present office; we exposed our lives,
While you but hazarded the lives of others,60
Alike by accusation or defence;
And for the rest, all Venice knows her Doge,
Through his great actions, and the Senate's insults.

Ben. You have held conference with him?

I. Ber. I am weary—
Even wearier of your questions than your tortures:
I pray you pass to judgment.

Ben. It is coming.
And you, too, Philip Calendaro, what
Have you to say why you should not be doomed?

Cal. I never was a man of many words,
And now have few left worth the utterance.70

Ben. A further application of yon engine
May change your tone.

Cal. Most true, it will do so;
A former application did so; but
It will not change my words, or, if it did—

Ben. What then?

Cal. Will my avowal on yon rack
Stand good in law?

Ben. Assuredly.

Cal. Whoe'er
The culprit be whom I accuse of treason?

Ben. Without doubt, he will be brought up to trial.

Cal. And on this testimony would he perish?

Ben. So your confession be detailed and full,80
He will stand here in peril of his life.

Cal. Then look well to thy proud self, President!
For by the Eternity which yawns before me,
I swear that thou, and only thou, shall be
The traitor I denounce upon that rack,
If I be stretched there for the second time.

One of the Giunta.
Lord President,'twere best proceed to judgment;
There is no more to be drawn from these men.[fc]

Ben. Unhappy men! prepare for instant death.
The nature of your crime—our law—and peril90
The State now stands in, leave not an hour's respite.
Guards! lead them forth, and upon the balcony
Of the red columns, where, on festal Thursday,[450]
The Doge stands to behold the chase of bulls,
Let them be justified: and leave exposed
Their wavering relics, in the place of judgment,
To the full view of the assembled people!
And Heaven have mercy on their souls!

The Giunta. Amen!

I. Ber. Signors, farewell! we shall not all again
Meet in one place.

Ben. And lest they should essay100
To stir up the distracted multitude—
Guards! let their mouths be gagged[451] even in the act
Of execution. Lead them hence!

Cal. What! must we
Not even say farewell to some fond friend,
Nor leave a last word with our confessor?

Ben. A priest is waiting in the antechamber;
But, for your friends, such interviews would be
Painful to them, and useless all to you.

Cal. I knew that we were gagged in life; at least
All those who had not heart to risk their lives110
Upon their open thoughts; but still I deemed
That in the last few moments, the same idle
Freedom of speech accorded to the dying,
Would not now be denied to us; but since——

I. Ber. Even let them have their way, brave Calendaro!
What matter a few syllables? let's die
Without the slightest show of favour from them;
So shall our blood more readily arise
To Heaven against them, and more testify
To their atrocities, than could a volume120
Spoken or written of our dying words!
They tremble at our voices—nay, they dread
Our very silence—let them live in fear!
Leave them unto their thoughts, and let us now
Address our own above!—Lead on; we are ready.

Cal. Israel, hadst thou but hearkened unto me
It had not now been thus; and yon pale villain,
The coward Bertram, would——

I. Ber. Peace, Calendaro!
What brooks it now to ponder upon this?

Bert. Alas! I fain you died in peace with me:130
I did not seek this task; 'twas forced upon me:
Say, you forgive me, though I never can
Retrieve my own forgiveness—frown not thus!

I. Ber. I die and pardon thee!

Cal. (spitting at him).[452] I die and scorn thee!
[Exeunt Israel Bertuccio and Philip Calendaro, Guards, etc.

Ben. Now that these criminals have been disposed of,
'Tis time that we proceed to pass our sentence
Upon the greatest traitor upon record
In any annals, the Doge Faliero!
The proofs and process are complete; the time
And crime require a quick procedure: shall140
He now be called in to receive the award?

The Giunta. Aye, aye.

Ben. Avogadori, order that the Doge
Be brought before the Council.

One of the Giunta. And the rest,
When shall they be brought up?

Ben. When all the Chiefs
Have been disposed of. Some have fled to Chiozza;
But there are thousands in pursuit of them,
And such precaution ta'en on terra firma,
As well as in the islands, that we hope
None will escape to utter in strange lands
His libellous tale of treasons 'gainst the Senate.150

Enter the Doge as Prisoner, with Guards, etc., etc.

Ben. Doge—for such still you are, and by the law
Must be considered, till the hour shall come
When you must doff the Ducal Bonnet from
That head, which could not wear a crown more noble
Than Empires can confer, in quiet honour,
But it must plot to overthrow your peers,
Who made you what you are, and quench in blood
A City's glory—we have laid already
Before you in your chamber at full length,
By the Avogadori, all the proofs160
Which have appeared against you; and more ample
Ne'er reared their sanguinary shadows to
Confront a traitor. What have you to say
In your defence?

Doge. What shall I say to ye,
Since my defence must be your condemnation?
You are at once offenders and accusers,
Judges and Executioners!—Proceed
Upon your power.

Ben. Your chief accomplices
Having confessed, there is no hope for you.

Doge. And who be they?

Ben. In number many; but170
The first now stands before you in the court,
Bertram of Bergamo,—would you question him?

Doge (looking at him contemptuously). No.

Ben. And two others, Israel Bertuccio,
And Philip Calendaro, have admitted
Their fellowship in treason with the Doge!

Doge. And where are they?

Ben. Gone to their place, and now
Answering to Heaven for what they did on earth.

Doge. Ah! the plebeian Brutus, is he gone?
And the quick Cassius of the arsenal?—
How did they meet their doom?

Ben. Think of your own:180
It is approaching. You decline to plead, then?[fd]

Doge. I cannot plead to my inferiors, nor
Can recognise your legal power to try me.
Show me the law!

Ben. On great emergencies,
The law must be remodelled or amended:
Our fathers had not fixed the punishment
Of such a crime, as on the old Roman tables
The sentence against parricide was left
In pure forgetfulness; they could not render
That penal, which had neither name nor thought190
In their great bosoms; who would have foreseen
That Nature could be filed to such a crime[453]
As sons 'gainst sires, and princes 'gainst their realms?
Your sin hath made us make a law which will
Become a precedent 'gainst such haught traitors,
As would with treason mount to tyranny;
Not even contented with a sceptre, till
They can convert it to a two-edged sword!
Was not the place of Doge sufficient for ye?
What's nobler than the signory[454] of Venice?200

Doge. The signory of Venice! You betrayed me—
You—you, who sit there, traitors as ye are!
From my equality with you in birth,
And my superiority in action,
You drew me from my honourable toils
In distant lands—on flood, in field, in cities—
You singled me out like a victim to
Stand crowned, but bound and helpless, at the altar
Where you alone could minister. I knew not,
I sought not, wished not, dreamed not the election,210
Which reached me first at Rome, and I obeyed;
But found on my arrival, that, besides
The jealous vigilance which always led you
To mock and mar your Sovereign's best intents,
You had, even in the interregnum[455] of
My journey to the capital, curtailed
And mutilated the few privileges
Yet left the Duke: all this I bore, and would
Have borne, until my very hearth was stained
By the pollution of your ribaldry,220
And he, the ribald, whom I see amongst you—
Fit judge in such tribunal!——

Ben. (interrupting him). Michel Steno
Is here in virtue of his office, as
One of the Forty; "the Ten" having craved
A Giunta of patricians from the Senate
To aid our judgment in a trial arduous
And novel as the present: he was set
Free from the penalty pronounced upon him,
Because the Doge, who should protect the law,
Seeking to abrogate all law, can claim230
No punishment of others by the statutes
Which he himself denies and violates!

Doge. His punishment! I rather see him there,
Where he now sits, to glut him with my death,
Than in the mockery of castigation,
Which your foul, outward, juggling show of justice
Decreed as sentence! Base as was his crime,
'Twas purity compared with your protection.

Ben. And can it be, that the great Doge of Venice,
With three parts of a century of years240
And honours on his head, could thus allow
His fury, like an angry boy's, to master
All Feeling, Wisdom, Faith and Fear, on such
A provocation as a young man's petulance?

Doge. A spark creates the flame—'tis the last drop
Which makes the cup run o'er, and mine was full
Already: you oppressed the Prince and people;
I would have freed both, and have failed in both:
The price of such success would have been glory,
Vengeance, and victory, and such a name250
As would have made Venetian history
Rival to that of Greece and Syracuse
When they were freed, and flourished ages after,
And mine to Gelon and to Thrasybulus:[456]
Failing, I know the penalty of failure
Is present infamy and death—the future
Will judge, when Venice is no more, or free;
Till then, the truth is in abeyance. Pause not;
I would have shown no mercy, and I seek none;
My life was staked upon a mighty hazard,260
And being lost, take what I would have taken!
I would have stood alone amidst your tombs:
Now you may flock round mine, and trample on it,
As you have done upon my heart while living.[457]

Ben. You do confess then, and admit the justice
Of our Tribunal?

Doge. I confess to have failed;
Fortune is female: from my youth her favours
Were not withheld, the fault was mine to hope
Her former smiles again at this late hour.

Ben. You do not then in aught arraign our equity?270

Doge. Noble Venetians! stir me not with questions.
I am resigned to the worst; but in me still
Have something of the blood of brighter days,
And am not over-patient. Pray you, spare me
Further interrogation, which boots nothing,
Except to turn a trial to debate.
I shall but answer that which will offend you,
And please your enemies—a host already;
'Tis true, these sullen walls should yield no echo:
But walls have ears—nay, more, they have tongues; and if280
There were no other way for Truth to o'erleap them,[fe]
You who condemn me, you who fear and slay me,
Yet could not bear in silence to your graves
What you would hear from me of Good or Evil;
The secret were too mighty for your souls:
Then let it sleep in mine, unless you court
A danger which would double that you escape.
Such my defence would be, had I full scope
To make it famous; for true words are things,
And dying men's are things which long outlive,290
And oftentimes avenge them; bury mine,
If ye would fain survive me: take this counsel,
And though too oft ye make me live in wrath,
Let me die calmly; you may grant me this;
I deny nothing—defend nothing—nothing
I ask of you, but silence for myself,
And sentence from the Court!

Ben. This full admission
Spares us the harsh necessity of ordering
The torture to elicit the whole truth.[ff]

Doge. The torture! you have put me there already,300
Daily since I was Doge; but if you will
Add the corporeal rack, you may: these limbs
Will yield with age to crushing iron; but
There's that within my heart shall strain your engines.

Enter an Officer.

Officer. Noble Venetians! Duchess Faliero[fg]
Requests admission to the Giunta's presence.

Ben. Say, Conscript Fathers,[458] shall she be admitted?

One of the Giunta. She may have revelations of importance
Unto the state, to justify compliance
With her request.

Ben. Is this the general will?310

All. It is.

Doge. Oh, admirable laws of Venice!
Which would admit the wife, in the full hope
That she might testify against the husband.
What glory to the chaste Venetian dames!
But such blasphemers 'gainst all Honour, as
Sit here, do well to act in their vocation.
Now, villain Steno! if this woman fail,
I'll pardon thee thy lie, and thy escape,
And my own violent death, and thy vile life.

The Duchess enters.

Ben. Lady! this just Tribunal has resolved,320
Though the request be strange, to grant it, and
Whatever be its purport, to accord
A patient hearing with the due respect
Which fits your ancestry, your rank, and virtues:
But you turn pale—ho! there, look to the Lady!
Place a chair instantly.

Ang. A moment's faintness—
'Tis past; I pray you pardon me,—I sit not
In presence of my Prince and of my husband,
While he is on his feet.

Ben. Your pleasure, Lady?

Ang. Strange rumours, but most true, if all I hear330
And see be sooth, have reached me, and I come
To know the worst, even at the worst; forgive
The abruptness of my entrance and my bearing.
Is it—I cannot speak—I cannot shape
The question—but you answer it ere spoken,
With eyes averted, and with gloomy brows—
Oh God! this is the silence of the grave!

Ben. (after a pause). Spare us, and spare thyself the repetition
Of our most awful, but inexorable
Duty to Heaven and man!

Ang. Yet speak; I cannot—340
I cannot—no—even now believe these things.
Is he condemned?

Ben. Alas!

Ang. And was he guilty?

Ben. Lady! the natural distraction of
Thy thoughts at such a moment makes the question
Merit forgiveness; else a doubt like this
Against a just and paramount tribunal
Were deep offence. But question even the Doge,
And if he can deny the proofs, believe him
Guiltless as thy own bosom.

Ang. Is it so?
My Lord, my Sovereign, my poor father's friend,350
The mighty in the field, the sage in Council,
Unsay the words of this man!—thou art silent!

Ben. He hath already owned to his own guilt,[fh]
Nor, as thou see'st, doth he deny it now.

Ang. Aye, but he must not die! Spare his few years,
Which Grief and Shame will soon cut down to days!
One day of baffled crime must not efface
Near sixteen lustres crowned with brave acts.

Ben. His doom must be fulfilled without remission
Of time or penalty—'tis a decree.360

Ang. He hath been guilty, but there may be mercy.

Ben. Not in this case with justice.

Ang. Alas! Signor,
He who is only just is cruel; who
Upon the earth would live were all judged justly?

Ben. His punishment is safety to the State.

Ang. He was a subject, and hath served the State;
He was your General, and hath saved the State;
He is your Sovereign, and hath ruled the State.[fi]

One of the Council. He is a traitor, and betrayed the State.

Ang. And, but for him, there now had been no State370
To save or to destroy; and you, who sit
There to pronounce the death of your deliverer,
Had now been groaning at a Moslem oar,
Or digging in the Hunnish mines in fetters!

One of the Council. No, Lady, there are others who would die
Rather than breathe in slavery!

Ang. If there are so
Within these walls, thou art not of the number:
The truly brave are generous to the fallen!—
Is there no hope?

Ben. Lady, it cannot be.

Ang. (turning to the Doge).
Then die, Faliero! since it must be so;380
But with the spirit of my father's friend.
Thou hast been guilty of a great offence,
Half cancelled by the harshness of these men.
I would have sued to them, have prayed to them.
Have begged as famished mendicants for bread,
Have wept as they will cry unto their God
For mercy, and be answered as they answer,—
Had it been fitting for thy name or mine,
And if the cruelty in their cold eyes
Had not announced the heartless wrath within.390
Then, as a Prince, address thee to thy doom!

Doge. I have lived too long not to know how to die!
Thy suing to these men were but the bleating
Of the lamb to the butcher, or the cry
Of seamen to the surge: I would not take
A life eternal, granted at the hands
Of wretches, from whose monstrous villanies
I sought to free the groaning nations!

Michel Steno. Doge,
A word with thee, and with this noble lady,
Whom I have grievously offended. Would400
Sorrow, or shame, or penance on my part,
Could cancel the inexorable past!
But since that cannot be, as Christians let us
Say farewell, and in peace: with full contrition
I crave, not pardon, but compassion from you,
And give, however weak, my prayers for both.

Ang. Sage Benintende, now chief Judge of Venice,
I speak to thee in answer to yon Signor.
Inform the ribald Steno, that his words
Ne'er weighed in mind with Loredano's daughter,410
Further than to create a moment's pity
For such as he is: would that others had
Despised him as I pity! I prefer
My honour to a thousand lives, could such
Be multiplied in mine, but would not have
A single life of others lost for that
Which nothing human can impugn—the sense
Of Virtue, looking not to what is called
A good name for reward, but to itself.
To me the scorner's words were as the wind420
Unto the rock: but as there are—alas!
Spirits more sensitive, on which such things
Light as the Whirlwind on the waters; souls
To whom Dishonour's shadow is a substance
More terrible than Death, here and hereafter;
Men whose vice is to start at Vice's scoffing,
And who, though proof against all blandishments
Of pleasure, and all pangs of Pain, are feeble
When the proud name on which they pinnacled
Their hopes is breathed on, jealous as the eagle430
Of her high aiery;[459] let what we now[fj]
Behold, and feel, and suffer, be a lesson
To wretches how they tamper in their spleen
With beings of a higher order. Insects
Have made the lion mad ere now; a shaft
I' the heel o'erthrew the bravest of the brave;
A wife's Dishonour was the bane of Troy;
A wife's Dishonour unkinged Rome for ever;
An injured husband brought the Gauls to Clusium,
And thence to Rome, which perished for a time;440
An obscene gesture cost Caligula[460]
His life, while Earth yet bore his cruelties;
A virgin's wrong made Spain a Moorish province;
And Steno's lie, couched in two worthless lines,
Hath decimated Venice, put in peril
A Senate which hath stood eight hundred years,
Discrowned a Prince, cut off his crownless head,
And forged new fetters for a groaning people!
Let the poor wretch, like to the courtesan[461]
Who fired Persepolis, be proud of this,450
If it so please him—'twere a pride fit for him!
But let him not insult the last hours of
Him, who, whate'er he now is, was a Hero,
By the intrusion of his very prayers;
Nothing of good can come from such a source,
Nor would we aught with him, nor now, nor ever:
We leave him to himself, that lowest depth
Of human baseness. Pardon is for men,
And not for reptiles—we have none for Steno,
And no resentment: things like him must sting,460
And higher beings suffer; 'tis the charter
Of Life. The man who dies by the adder's fang
May have the crawler crushed, but feels no anger:
'Twas the worm's nature; and some men are worms
In soul, more than the living things of tombs.[462]

Doge (to Ben.).
Signor! complete that which you deem your duty.[fk]

Ben. Before we can proceed upon that duty,
We would request the Princess to withdraw;
'Twill move her too much to be witness to it.

Ang. I know it will, and yet I must endure it,470
For 'tis a part of mine—I will not quit,
Except by force, my husband's side—Proceed!
Nay, fear not either shriek, or sigh, or tear;
Though my heart burst, it shall be silent.—Speak!
I have that within which shall o'ermaster all.

Ben. Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice,
Count of Val di Marino, Senator,
And some time General of the Fleet and Army,
Noble Venetian, many times and oft
Intrusted by the state with high employments,480
Even to the highest, listen to the sentence.
Convict by many witnesses and proofs,
And by thine own confession, of the guilt
Of Treachery and Treason, yet unheard of[fl]
Until this trial—the decree is Death—
Thy goods are confiscate unto the State,
Thy name is razed from out her records, save
Upon a public day of thanksgiving
For this our most miraculous deliverance,[fm]
When thou art noted in our calendars490
With earthquakes, pestilence, and foreign foes,
And the great Enemy of man, as subject
Of grateful masses for Heaven's grace in snatching
Our lives and country from thy wickedness.
The place wherein as Doge thou shouldst be painted
With thine illustrious predecessors, is
To be left vacant, with a death-black veil
Flung over these dim words engraved beneath,—
"This place is of Marino Faliero,
Decapitated for his crimes."[463]

Doge. "His crimes!"[464]500
But let it be so:—it will be in vain.
The veil which blackens o'er this blighted name,
And hides, or seems to hide, these lineaments,
Shall draw more gazers than the thousand portraits
Which glitter round it in their pictured trappings—
Your delegated slaves—the people's tyrants!
"Decapitated for his crimes!"—What crimes?
Were it not better to record the facts,
So that the contemplator might approve,
Or at the least learn whence the crimes arose?510
When the beholder knows a Doge conspired,
Let him be told the cause—it is your history.

Ben. Time must reply to that; our sons will judge
Their fathers' judgment, which I now pronounce.
As Doge, clad in the ducal robes and Cap,
Thou shalt be led hence to the Giants' Staircase,
Where thou and all our Princes are invested;
And there, the Ducal Crown being first resumed
Upon the spot where it was first assumed,
Thy head shall be struck off; and Heaven have mercy520
Upon thy soul!

Doge. Is this the Giunta's sentence?

Ben. It is.

Doge. I can endure it.—And the time?

Ben. Must be immediate.—Make thy peace with God:
Within an hour thou must be in His presence.

Doge. I am already; and my blood will rise
To Heaven before the souls of those who shed it.
Are all my lands confiscated?[465]

Ben. They are;
And goods, and jewels, and all kind of treasure,
Except two thousand ducats—these dispose of.

Doge. That's harsh.—I would have fain reserved the lands530
Near to Treviso, which I hold by investment
From Laurence the Count-bishop of Ceneda,[fn]
In fief perpetual to myself and heirs,
To portion them (leaving my city spoil,
My palace and my treasures, to your forfeit)
Between my consort and my kinsmen.

Ben. These
Lie under the state's ban—their Chief, thy nephew,
In peril of his own life; but the Council
Postpones his trial for the present. If
Thou will'st a state unto thy widowed Princess,540
Fear not, for we will do her justice.

Ang. Signors,
I share not in your spoil! From henceforth, know
I am devoted unto God alone,
And take my refuge in the cloister.

Doge. Come!
The hour may be a hard one, but 'twill end.
Have I aught else to undergo save Death?[fo]

Ben. You have nought to do, except confess and die.
The priest is robed, the scimitar is bare,
And both await without.—But, above all,
Think not to speak unto the people; they550
Are now by thousands swarming at the gates,
But these are closed: the Ten, the Avogadori,
The Giunta, and the chief men of the Forty,
Alone will be beholders of thy doom,
And they are ready to attend the Doge.

Doge. The Doge!

Ben. Yes, Doge, thou hast lived and thou shalt die
A Sovereign; till the moment which precedes
The separation of that head and trunk,
That ducal crown and head shall be united.
Thou hast forgot thy dignity in deigning560
To plot with petty traitors; not so we,
Who in the very punishment acknowledge
The Prince. Thy vile accomplices have died
The dog's death, and the wolf's; but them shall fall
As falls the lion by the hunters, girt
By those who feel a proud compassion for thee,
And mourn even the inevitable death
Provoked by thy wild wrath, and regal fierceness.
Now we remit thee to thy preparation:
Let it be brief, and we ourselves will be570
Thy guides unto the place where first we were
United to thee as thy subjects, and
Thy Senate; and must now be parted from thee
As such for ever, on the self-same spot.
Guards! form the Doge's escort to his chamber.
[Exeunt.

Scene II.—The Doge's Apartment.

The Doge as Prisoner, and the Duchess attending him.

Doge. Now, that the priest is gone, 'twere useless all
To linger out the miserable minutes;
But one pang more, the pang of parting from thee,
And I will leave the few last grains of sand,
Which yet remain of the accorded hour,
Still falling—I have done with Time.

Ang. Alas!
And I have been the cause, the unconscious cause;
And for this funeral marriage, this black union,
Which thou, compliant with my father's wish,
Didst promise at his death, thou hast sealed thine own.10

Doge. Not so: there was that in my spirit ever
Which shaped out for itself some great reverse;
The marvel is, it came not until now—
And yet it was foretold me.

Ang. How foretold you?

Doge. Long years ago—so long, they are a doubt[466]
In memory, and yet they live in annals:
When I was in my youth, and served the Senate
And Signory as Podesta and Captain
Of the town of Treviso, on a day
Of festival, the sluggish Bishop who20
Conveyed the Host aroused my rash young anger,
By strange delay, and arrogant reply
To my reproof: I raised my hand and smote him,
Until he reeled beneath his holy burthen;[fp]
And as he rose from earth again, he raised
His tremulous hands in pious wrath towards Heaven.
Thence pointing to the Host, which had fallen from him,
He turned to me, and said, "The Hour will come
When he thou hast o'erthrown shall overthrow thee:
The Glory shall depart from out thy house,30
The Wisdom shall be shaken from thy soul,
And in thy best maturity of Mind
A madness of the heart shall seize upon thee;[fq]
Passion shall tear thee when all passions cease
In other men, or mellow into virtues;
And Majesty which decks all other heads,
Shall crown to leave thee headless; honours shall
But prove to thee the heralds of Destruction,
And hoary hairs of Shame, and both of Death,
But not such death as fits an agéd man."40
Thus saying, he passed on.—That Hour is come.

Ang. And with this warning couldst thou not have striven
To avert the fatal moment, and atone,
By penitence, for that which thou hadst done?

Doge. I own the words went to my heart, so much
That I remembered them amid the maze
Of Life, as if they formed a spectral voice,
Which shook me in a supernatural dream;
And I repented; but 'twas not for me
To pull in resolution:[467] what must be50
I could not change, and would not fear.—Nay more,
Thou can'st not have forgot, what all remember,
That on my day of landing here as Doge,[468]
On my return from Rome, a mist of such
Unwonted density went on before
The Bucentaur, like the columnar cloud
Which ushered Israel out of Egypt, till
The pilot was misled, and disembarked us
Between the Pillars of Saint Mark's, where 'tis
The custom of the state to put to death60
Its criminals, instead of touching at
The Riva della Paglia, as the wont is,—
So that all Venice shuddered at the omen.

Ang. Ah! little boots it now to recollect
Such things.

Doge. And yet I find a comfort in
The thought, that these things are the work of Fate;
For I would rather yield to Gods than men,
Or cling to any creed of destiny,
Rather than deem these mortals, most of whom[fr]
I know to be as worthless as the dust,70
And weak as worthless, more than instruments
Of an o'er-ruling Power; they in themselves
Were all incapable—they could not be
Vistors of him who oft had conquered for them.

Ang. Employ the minutes left in aspirations
Of a more healing nature, and in peace
Even with these wretches take thy flight to Heaven.

Doge. I am at peace: the peace of certainty
That a sure Hour will come, when their sons' sons,
And this proud city, and these azure waters,80
And all which makes them eminent and bright,
Shall be a desolation and a curse,
A hissing and a scoff unto the nations,
A Carthage, and a Tyre, an Ocean Babel.

Ang. Speak not thus now: the surge of Passion still
Sweeps o'er thee to the last; thou dost deceive
Thyself, and canst not injure them—be calmer.

Doge. I stand within Eternity, and see
Into Eternity, and I behold—
Aye, palpable as I see thy sweet face90
For the last time—the days which I denounce
Unto all time against these wave-girt walls,
And they who are indwellers.

Guard (coming forward). Doge of Venice,
The Ten are in attendance on your Highness.

Doge. Then farewell, Angiolina!—one embrace—
Forgive the old man who hath been to thee
A fond but fatal husband—love my memory—
I would not ask so much for me still living,
But thou canst judge of me more kindly now,
Seeing my evil feelings are at rest.100
Besides, of all the fruit of these long years,
Glory, and Wealth, and Power, and Fame, and Name,
Which generally leave some flowers to bloom
Even o'er the grave, I have nothing left, not even
A little love, or friendship, or esteem,
No, not enough to extract an epitaph
From ostentatious kinsmen; in one hour
I have uprooted all my former life,
And outlived everything, except thy heart,
The pure, the good, the gentle, which will oft110
With unimpaired but not a clamorous grief[fs]
Still keep——Thou turn'st so pale!—Alas! she faints,
She has no breath, no pulse!—Guards! lend your aid—
I cannot leave her thus, and yet 'tis better,
Since every lifeless moment spares a pang.
When she shakes off this temporary death,
I shall be with the Eternal.—Call her women—
One look!—how cold her hand!—as cold as mine
Shall be ere she recovers.—Gently tend her,
And take my last thanks—I am ready now.120

[The Attendants of Angiolina enter, and surround their Mistress, who has fainted.—Exeunt the Doge, Guards, etc., etc.

Scene III.—The Court of the Ducal Palace; the outer gates are shut against the people.—The Doge enters in his ducal robes, in procession with the Council of Ten and other Patricians, attended by the Guards, till they arrive at the top of the "Giants' Staircase"[469] (where the Doges took the oaths); the Executioner is stationed there with his sword.—On arriving, a Chief of the Ten takes off the ducal cap from the Doge's head.

Doge. So now the Doge is nothing, and at last
I am again Marino Faliero:
'Tis well to be so, though but for a moment,[ft]
Here was I crowned, and here, bear witness, Heaven!
With how much more contentment I resign
That shining mockery, the ducal bauble,
Than I received the fatal ornament.

One of the Ten. Thou tremblest, Faliero!

Doge. 'Tis with age, then.[470]

Ben. Faliero! hast thou aught further to commend,
Compatible with justice, to the Senate?10

Doge. I would commend my nephew to their mercy,
My consort to their justice; for methinks
My death, and such a death, might settle all
Between the State and me.

Ben. They shall be cared for;
Even notwithstanding thine unheard-of crime.

Doge. Unheard of! aye, there's not a history
But shows a thousand crowned conspirators
Against the people; but to set them free,
One Sovereign only died, and one is dying.

Ben. And who were they who fell in such a cause?20

Doge. The King of Sparta, and the Doge of Venice—
Agis and Faliero!

Ben. Hast thou more
To utter or to do?

Doge. May I speak?

Ben. Thou may'st;
But recollect the people are without,
Beyond the compass of the human voice.

Doge. I speak to Time and to Eternity,
Of which I grow a portion, not to man.
Ye Elements! in which to be resolved
I hasten, let my voice be as a Spirit
Upon you! Ye blue waves! which bore my banner.30
Ye winds! which fluttered o'er as if you loved it,
And filled my swelling sails as they were wafted
To many a triumph! Thou, my native earth,
Which I have bled for! and thou, foreign earth,
Which drank this willing blood from many a wound!
Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but
Reek up to Heaven! Ye skies, which will receive it!
Thou Sun! which shinest on these things, and Thou!
Who kindlest and who quenchest suns!—Attest![fu]
I am not innocent—but are these guiltless?40
I perish, but not unavenged; far ages
Float up from the abyss of Time to be,
And show these eyes, before they close, the doom
Of this proud City, and I leave my curse
On her and hers for ever!—-- Yes, the hours
Are silently engendering of the day,
When she, who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark,
Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield,
Unto a bastard Attila,[471] without
Shedding so much blood in her last defence,50
As these old veins, oft drained in shielding her,
Shall pour in sacrifice.—She shall be bought
And sold, and be an appanage to those
Who shall despise her![472]—She shall stoop to be
A province for an Empire, petty town
In lieu of Capital, with slaves for senates,
Beggars for nobles, panders for a people![fv]
Then when the Hebrew's in thy palaces,[473]
The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his;60
When thy patricians beg their bitter bread
In narrow streets, and in their shameful need
Make their nobility a plea for pity;
Then, when the few who still retain a wreck
Of their great fathers' heritage shall fawn
Round a barbarian Vice of Kings' Vice-gerent,[474]
Even in the Palace where they swayed as Sovereigns,
Even in the Palace where they slew their Sovereign,
Proud of some name they have disgraced, or sprung
From an adulteress boastful of her guilt70
With some large gondolier or foreign soldier,
Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph
To the third spurious generation;—when
Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being,
Slaves turned o'er to the vanquished by the victors,
Despised by cowards for greater cowardice,
And scorned even by the vicious for such vices
As in the monstrous grasp of their conception
Defy all codes to image or to name them;
Then, when of Cyprus, now thy subject kingdom,80
All thine inheritance shall be her shame
Entailed on thy less virtuous daughters, grown
A wider proverb for worse prostitution;—
When all the ills of conquered states shall cling thee,
Vice without splendour, Sin without relief[fw][475]
Even from the gloss of Love to smooth it o'er,
But in its stead, coarse lusts of habitude,[476]
Prurient yet passionless, cold studied lewdness,
Depraving Nature's frailty to an art;—
When these and more are heavy on thee, when90
Smiles without mirth, and pastimes without Pleasure,
Youth without Honour, Age without respect,
Meanness and Weakness, and a sense of woe
'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not murmur,[477]
Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts,
Then, in the last gasp of thine agony,
Amidst thy many murders, think of mine!
Thou den of drunkards with the blood of Princes![478]
Gehenna of the waters! thou Sea-Sodom![fx][479]
Thus I devote thee to the Infernal Gods!100
Thee and thy serpent seed!
[Here the Doge turns and addresses the Executioner.
Slave, do thine office!
Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would
Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my curse!
Strike—and but once!

[The Doge throws himself upon his knees, and as the Executioner raises his sword the scene closes.

Scene IV.—The Piazza and Piazzetta of St. Mark's.—The people in crowds gathered round the grated gates of the Ducal Palace, which are shut.

First Citizen. I have gained the Gate, and can discern the Ten,
Robed in their gowns of state, ranged round the Doge.

Second Cit. I cannot reach thee with mine utmost effort.
How is it? let us hear at least, since sight
Is thus prohibited unto the people,
Except the occupiers of those bars.

First Cit. One has approached the Doge, and now they strip
The ducal bonnet from his head—and now
He raises his keen eyes to Heaven; I see
Them glitter, and his lips move—Hush! hush!—no,10
'Twas but a murmur—Curse upon the distance!
His words are inarticulate, but the voice
Swells up like muttered thunder; would we could
But gather a sole sentence!

Second Cit. Hush! we perhaps may catch the sound.

First Cit. 'Tis vain.
I cannot hear him.—How his hoary hair
Streams on the wind like foam upon the wave!
Now—now—he kneels—and now they form a circle
Round him, and all is hidden—but I see
The lifted sword in air——Ah! hark! it falls!20

[The people murmur.

Third Cit. Then they have murdered him who would have freed us.

Fourth Cit. He was a kind man to the commons ever.

Fifth Cit. Wisely they did to keep their portals barred.
Would we had known the work they were preparing
Ere we were summoned here—we would have brought
Weapons, and forced them!

Sixth Cit. Are you sure he's dead?

First Cit. I saw the sword fall—Lo! what have we here?

Enter on the Balcony of the Palace which fronts St. Mark's Place a Chief of the Ten,[480] with a bloody sword. He waves it thrice before the People, and exclaims,

"Justice hath dealt upon the mighty Traitor!"

[The gates are opened; the populace rush in towards the "Giants' Staircase," where the execution has taken place. The foremost of them exclaims to those behind,

"The gory head rolls down the Giants' Steps!"[fy][481]

[The curtain falls.[482]

FOOTNOTES:

[ [359] {331}[Marin Faliero was not in command of the land forces at the siege of Zara in 1346. According to contemporary documents, he held a naval command under Civran, who was in charge of the fleet. Byron was misled by an error in Morelli's Italian version of the Chronica iadratina seu historia obsidionis Jaderæ, p. xi. (See Marino faliero avanti il Dogado, by Vittorio Lazzarino, published in Nuovo Archivio Veneto, 1893, vol. v. pt. i. p. 132, note 4.)]

[ [360] [For the siege of Alesia (Alise in Côte d'Or), which resulted in the defeat of the Gauls and the surrender of Vercingetorix, see De Bella Gallico, vii. 68-90. Belgrade fell to Prince Eugene, August 18, 1717.]

[ [361] {332}[If this event ever took place, it must have been in 1346, when the future Doge was between sixty and seventy years of age. The story appears for the first time in the chronicle of Bartolomeo Zuccato, notajo e cancelliere of the Comune di Treviso, which belongs to the first half of the sixteenth century. The Venetian chroniclers who were Faliero's contemporaries, and Anonimo Torriano, a Trevisan, who wrote before Zuccato, are silent. See Marino Faliero, La Congiura, by Vittorio Lazzarino.—Nuovo Archivio Veneto, 1897, vol. xiii. pt. i. p. 29.]

[ [362] ["Square talked in a very different strain.... In pronouncing these [sentences from the Tusculan Questions, etc.] he was one day so eager that he unfortunately bit his tongue ... this accident gave Thwackum, who was present, and who held all such doctrines to be heathenish and atheistical, an opportunity to clap a judgment on his back."—The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Bk. V. chap. ii. 1768, i. 234. See, too, Letter to Murray, November 23, 1822, Letters, 1901, vi. 142; Life, p. 570.]

[ [363] [Principj di storia civile della Repubblica di Venezia. Scritti da Vettor Sandi, 1755, Part II. tom. i. pp. 127, 128.]

[ [364] [Storia della Republica Veneziana. Scritta da Andrea Navagiero, apud Muratori, Italic. Rerum, Scriptores, 1733, xxiii. p. 924, sq.]

[ [365] [Istoria dell' assedio e della Ricupera di Zara, Fatta da' Veneziani nell' anno 1346. Scritta da auctore contemporaneo, pp. i.-xxxviii.]

[ [366] {333}[Michele Steno was not, as Sanudo and others state, one of the Capi of the Quarantia in 1355, but twenty years later, in 1375. When Faliero was elected to the Dogeship, Steno was a youth of twenty, and a man under thirty years of age was not eligible for the Quarantia.—La Congiura, etc., p. 64.]

[ [367] [History does not bear out the tradition of her youth. Aluica Gradenigo was born in the first decade of the fourteenth century, and became Dogaressa when she was more than forty-five years of age.—La Congiura, p. 69.]

[ [368] [See A View of the Society and Manners in Italy, by John Moore, M.D., 1781, i. 144-152. The "stale jest" is thus worded: "This lady imagined she had been affronted by a young Venetian nobleman at a public ball, and she complained bitterly ... to her husband. The old Doge, who had all the desire imaginable to please his wife, determined, in this matter, at least, to give her ample satisfaction.">[

[ [369] {334}[For Frederick's verse, "Evitez de Bernis la stérile abondance," see La Bibliographie Universelle, art. "Bernis"; and for his jest, "Je ne la connais pas," see History of Frederick the Great, by Thomas Carlyle, 1898, vi. 14.]

[ [370] [For the story of the abduction of Dervorgilla, wife of Tiernan O'Ruarc, by Dermot Mac-Murchad, King of Leinster, in 1153, see Moore's History of Ireland, 1837, ii. 200.]

[ [371] {335}[Istoria della Repubblica di Venezia, del Sig. Abate Laugier, Tradotta del Francese. Venice, 1778, iv. 30.]

[ [372] {336}[The marble staircase on which Faliero took the ducal oath, and on which he was afterwards beheaded, led into the courtyard of the palace. It was erected by a decree of the Senate in 1340, and was pulled down to make room for Rizzo's façade, which was erected in 1484. The "Scala dei Giganti" (built by Antonio Rizzo, circ. 1483) does not occupy the site of the older staircase.]

[ [373] [On the north side of the Campo, in front of the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo (better known as San Zanipolo), stands the Scuola di San Marco. Attached to the lower hall of the Scuola is the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pace, in which the sarcophagus containing the bones of Marino Faliero was discovered in 1815.]

[ [374] [In the Campo in front of the church is the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, designed by Andrea Veroccio, and cast in 1496 by Alessandro Leopardi.—Handbook: Northern Italy, p. 374.]

[ [375] {337}[See Poetical Works, 1898, i. 317, note 1.]

[ [376] [See Letters, 1898, ii. 79, note 3.]

[ [ct] It is like being at the whole process of a woman's toilet—it disenchants.—[MS. M.]

[ [cu] Any man of common independence.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [377] {338} 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 Montford 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 us a tragedy[[A]]. Those who are not in the secret will hardly believe that the School for Scandal is the play which has brought the 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[[B]]; 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 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[[C]] 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 anything 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, not an art, and not to be attained by study. In all, not super-natural 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 he ever saw who reminded him of the heroes of Plutarch."[[D]]

[[A]] [See letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, March 31, 1815, Letters, 1899, iii. 190; letter to Moore, October 28, 1815, and note 1 (with quotation from unpublished letter of Coleridge), and passages from Byron's Detached Thoughts (1821) ... ibid., pp. 230, 233-238.]

[[B]] [Maturin's Bertram was played for the first time at Drury Lane, May 9, 1816. (See Detached Thoughts (1821), Letters, 1899, iii. 233, and letter to Murray, October 12, 1817, Letters, 1900, iv. 171.)]

[[C]] [Elizabeth O'Neill (1791-1872), afterwards Lady Becher, made her début in 1814, and retired from the stage in 1819. Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) made her final appearance on the stage June 9, 1818, and her brother John Philip Kemble (1757-1823) appeared for the last time in Coriolanus, June 23, 1817. Of the other actors mentioned in this note, George Frederick Cooke (1756-1812) had long been dead; Edmund Kean (1787-1833) had just returned from a successful tour in the United States; and Robert William Elliston (1774-1831) (vide ante, [p. 328]) had, not long before (1819), become lessee of Drury Lane Theatre.]

[[D]]["Le comte de Montross, Écossais et chef de la maison de Graham, le seul homme du monde qui m'ait jamais rappelé l'idée de certains héros que l'on ne voit plus que dans les vies de Plutarque, avail soutenu le parti du roi d'Angleterre dans son pays, avec une grandeur d'àme qui rien avait point de pareille en ce siècle."—Mémoires du Cardinal de Retz, 1820, ii. 88.]

[ [378] {339}[This appreciation of the Mysterious Mother, which he seems to have read in Lord Dover's preface to Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann, provoked Coleridge to an angry remonstrance. "I venture to remark, first, that I do not believe that Lord Byron spoke sincerely; for I suspect that he made a tacit exception of himself at least.... Thirdly, that the Mysterious Mother is the most disgusting, vile, detestable composition that ever came from the hand of man. No one with a spark of true manliness, of which Horace Walpole had none, could have written it."—Table Talk, March 20, 1834. Croker took a very different view, and maintained "that the good old English blank verse, the force of character expressed in the wretched mother ... argue a strength of conception, and vigour of expression capable of great things," etc. Over and above the reasonable hope and expectation that this provocative eulogy of Walpole's play would annoy the "Cockneys" and the "Lakers," Byron was no doubt influenced in its favour by the audacity of the plot, which not only put septentrional prejudices at defiance, but was an instance in point that love ought not "to make a tragic subject unless it is love furious, criminal, and hopeless" (Letter to Murray, January 4, 1821). He would, too, be deeply and genuinely moved by such verse as this—

"Consult a holy man! inquire of him!
—Good father, wherefore? what should I inquire?
Must I be taught of him that guilt is woe?
That innocence alone is happiness—
That martyrdom itself shall leave the villain
The villain that it found him? Must I learn
That minutes stamped with crime are past recall?
That joys are momentary; and remorse
Eternal?...
Nor could one risen from the dead proclaim
This truth in deeper sounds to my conviction;
We want no preacher to distinguish vice
From virtue. At our birth the God revealed
All conscience needs to know. No codicil
To duty's rubric here and there was placed
In some Saint's casual custody."

Act i. sc. 3, s.f. Works of the Earl of Orford, 1798, i. 55.]

[ [379] {340}[Byron received a copy of Goethe's review of Manfred, which appeared in Kunst und Alterthum (ii. 2. 191) in May, 1820. In a letter to Murray, dated October 17, 1820 (Letters, 1901, v. 100), he enclosed a letter to Goethe, headed "For Marino Faliero. Dedication to Baron Goethe, etc., etc., etc." It is possible that Murray did not take the "Dedication" seriously, but regarded it as a jeu d'esprit, designed for the amusement of himself and his "synod." At any rate, the "Dedication" did not reach Goethe's hand till 1831, when it was presented to him at Weimar by John Murray the Third. "It is written," says Moore, who printed a mutilated version in his Letters and Journals, etc., 1830, ii. 356-358, "in the poet's most whimsical and mocking mood; and the unmeasured severity poured out in it upon the two favourite objects of his wrath and ridicule, compels me to deprive the reader of its most amusing passages." The present text, which follows the MS., is reprinted from Letters, 1901, v. 100-104—

"Dedication to Baron Goethe, etc., etc., etc.

"Sir—In the Appendix to an English work lately translated into German and published at Leipsic, a judgment of yours upon English poetry is quoted as follows: 'That in English poetry, great genius, universal power, a feeling of profundity, with sufficient tenderness and force, are to be found; but that altogether these do not constitute poets,' etc., etc.

"I regret to see a great man falling into a great mistake. This opinion of yours only proves that the 'Dictionary of Ten Thousand living English Authors'[[A]] has not been translated into German. You will have read, in your friend Schlegel's version, the dialogue in Macbeth—

"'There are ten thousand!
Macbeth. Geese, villain?
Answer. Authors, sir.'[[B]]

Now, of these 'ten thousand authors,' there are actually nineteen hundred and eighty-seven poets, all alive at this moment, whatever their works may be, as their booksellers well know: and amongst these there are several who possess a far greater reputation than mine, though considerably less than yours. It is owing to this neglect on the part of your German translators that you are not aware of the works of William Wordsworth, who has a baronet in London[[C]] who draws him frontispieces and leads him about to dinners and to the play; and a Lord in the country,[[D]] who gave him a place in the Excise—and a cover at his table. You do not know perhaps that this Gentleman is the greatest of all poets past—present and to come—besides which he has written an 'Opus Magnum' in prose—during the late election for Westmoreland.[[E]] His principal publication is entitled 'Peter Bell' which he had withheld from the public for 'one and twenty years'—to the irreparable loss of all those who died in the interim, and will have no opportunity of reading it before the resurrection. There is also another named Southey, who is more than a poet, being actually poet Laureate,—a post which corresponds with what we call in Italy Poeta Cesareo, and which you call in German—I know not what; but as you have a 'Caesar'—probably you have a name for it. In England there is no Caesar—only the Poet.

"I mention these poets by way of sample to enlighten you. They form but two bricks of our Babel, (Windsor bricks, by the way) but may serve for a specimen of the building.

"It is, moreover, asserted that 'the predominant character of the whole body of the present English poetry is a disgust and contempt for life.' But I rather suspect that by one single work of prose, you yourself have excited a greater contempt for life than all the English volumes of poesy that ever were written. Madame de Stäel says, that 'Werther has occasioned more suicides than the most beautiful woman;' and I really believe that he has put more individuals out of this world than Napoleon himself,—except in the way of his profession. Perhaps, Illustrious Sir, the acrimonious judgment passed by a celebrated northern journal[[F]] upon you in particular, and the Germans in general, has rather indisposed you towards English poetry as well as criticism. But you must not regard our critics, who are at bottom good-natured fellows, considering their two professions,—taking up the law in court, and laying it down out of it. No one can more lament their hasty and unfair judgment, in your particular, than I do; and I so expressed myself to your friend Schlegel, in 1816, at Coppet.

"In behalf of my 'ten thousand' living brethren, and of myself, I have thus far taken notice of an opinion expressed with regard to 'English poetry' in general, and which merited notice, because it was yours.

"My principal object in addressing you was to testify my sincere respect and admiration of a man, who, for half a century, has led the literature of a great nation, and will go down to posterity as the first literary Character of his Age.

"You have been fortunate, Sir, not only in the writings which have illustrated your name, but in the name itself, as being sufficiently musical for the articulation of posterity. In this you have the advantage of some of your countrymen, whose names would perhaps be immortal also—if anybody could pronounce them.

"It may, perhaps, be supposed, by this apparent tone of levity, that I am wanting in intentional respect towards you; but this will be a mistake: I am always flippant in prose. Considering you, as I really and warmly do, in common with all your own, and with most other nations, to be by far the first literary Character which has existed in Europe since the death of Voltaire, I felt, and feel, desirous to inscribe to you the following work,—not as being either a tragedy or a poem, (for I cannot pronounce upon its pretensions to be either one or the other, or both, or neither,) but as a mark of esteem and admiration from a foreigner to the man who has been hailed in Germany 'the great Goethe.'

"I have the honour to be,
With the truest respect,
Your most obedient and
Very humble servant,
Byron,

"Ravenna, 8bre 14º, 1820.

"P.S.—I perceive that in Germany, as well as in Italy, there is a great struggle about what they call 'Classical' and 'Romantic,'—terms which were not subjects of classification in England, at least when I left it four or five years ago. Some of the English Scribblers, it is true, abused Pope and Swift, but the reason was that they themselves did not know how to write either prose or verse; but nobody thought them worth making a sect of. Perhaps there may be something of the kind sprung up lately, but I have not heard much about it, and it would be such bad taste that I shall be very sorry to believe it."

Another Dedication, to be prefixed to a Second Edition of the play was found amongst Byron's papers. It remained in MS. till 1832, when it was included in a prefatory note to Marino Faliero, Works of Lord Byron, 1832, xii. 50.

"Dedication of Marino Faliero.

"To the Honourable Douglas Kinnaird.

"My dear Douglas,—I dedicate to you the following tragedy, rather on account of your good opinion of it, than from any notion of my own that it may be worthy of your acceptance. But if its merits were ten times greater than they possibly can be, this offering would still be a very inadequate acknowledgment of the active and steady friendship with which, for a series of years, you have honoured your obliged and affectionate friend,

"BYRON.

"Ravenna, Sept. 1st, 1821."

[[A]][A Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland, etc., London, 1816, 8vo.]

[[B]]

[Macbeth. Where got'st thou that goose look?
Servant. There is ten thousand—
Macbeth. Geese, villain?
Servant. Soldiers, sir."

Macbeth, act v. sc. 3, lines 12, 13.]

[[C]][Sir George Beaumont. See Professor W. Knight, Life of Wordsworth, ii. (Works, vol. x.) 56.]

[[D]][Lord Lonsdale (ibid., p. 209).]

[[E]][Two Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmoreland, 1818.]

[[F]][See an article on Goethe's Aus Meinem Leben, etc., in the Edinburgh Review for June, 1816, vol. xxvi. pp. 304-337.]

[ [cv] {345} Are none yet of the Messengers returned?—[MS. M.]

[ [380] [The Consiglio Minore, which originally consisted of the Doge and his six councillors, was afterwards increased, by the addition of the three Capi of the Quarantia Criminale, and was known as the Serenissima Signoria (G. Cappelletti, Storia della Repubblica di Venezia, 1850, i. 483). The Forty who were "debating on Steno's accusation" could not be described as the "Signory.">[

[ [cw] With seeming patience.—[MS. M.]

[ [cx] He sits as deep—[MS. M.]

[ [cy] {346}Or aught that imitates—.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [cz] Young, gallant—.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [381] [Bertuccio Faliero was a distant connection of the Doge, not his nephew. Matters of business and family affairs seem to have brought them together, and it is evident that they were on intimate terms.—La Congiura, p. 84.]

[ [382] [The Avogadori, three in number, were the conductors of criminal prosecutions on the part of the State; and no act of the councils was valid, unless sanctioned by the presence of one of them; but they were not, as Byron seems to imply, a court of first instance. The implied reproach that they preferred to send the case to appeal because Steno was a member of the "Quarantia," is based on an error of Sanudo's (vide ante, [p. 333]).]

[ [da] {348}——Marin! Falieræ [sic].—[MS. M.]

[ [383] ["Marin Faliero, dalla bella moglie—altri la gode, ed egli la mantien."—Marino Samuto, Vitæ Ducum Venetorum, apud Muratori, Rerum Italicurum Scriptores, 1733, xxii. 628-638]. Navagero, in his Storia della Repubblica Veneriana, ibid., xxiii. 1040, gives a coarser rendering of Steno's Lampoon.—"Becco Marino Fallier dalla belta mogier;" and there are older versions agreeing in the main with that Faliero's by Sanudo. It is, however, extremely doubtful whether Faliro's conspiracy was, in any sense, the outcome of a personal insult. The story of the Lampoon first appears in the Chronicle of Lorenzo de Monaci, who wrote in the latter half of the fifteenth century. "Fama fuit ... quia aliqui adolescentuli nobiles scripserunt in angulis interioris palatii aliqua verba ignominiosa, et quod ipse (il Doge) magis incanduit quoniam adolescentuli illi parva fuerant animadversione puniti." In course of time the "noble youths" became a single noble youth, whose name occurred in the annals, and the derivation or evolution of the "verba ignominiosa," followed by a natural process.—La Congiura, Nuona Archivio Veneto, 1897, tom. xiii. pt. ii. p. 347.]

[ [384] {349}[Sanudo gives two versions of Steno's punishment: (1) that he should be imprisoned for two months, and banished from Venice for a year; (2) that he should be imprisoned for one month, flogged with a fox's tail, and pay one hundred lire to the Republic.]

[ [385] {350}[Vide ante, [p. 331].]

[ [386] {351}[Faliero's appeal to the "law" is a violation of "historical accuracy." The penalty for an injury to the Doge was not fixed by law, but was decided from time to time by the Judge, in accordance with unwritten custom.—La Congiura, p. 60.]

[ [db] {352} Who threw his sting into a poisonous rhyme.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [387] [For the story of Cæsar, Pompeia, and Clodius, see Plutarch's Lives, "Cæsar," Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 498.]

[ [dc]——Enrico.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [388] [According to Sanudo (Vitæ Ducum Venetorum, apud Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., 1733, xxii. 529), it was Ser Pantaleone Barbo who intervened, when (A.D. 1204) the election to the Empire of Constantinople lay between the Doge "Arrigo Dandolo" and "Conte Baldovino di Fiandra.">[

[ [dd] {354}——in olden days.—[MS. M.]

[ [389] {356}[According to the much earlier, and, presumably, more historical narrative of Lorenzo de Monaci, Bertuccio Isarello was not chief of the Arsenalotti, but simply the patron, that is the owner, of a vessel (paron di nave), and consequently a person of importance amongst sailors and naval artisans; and the noble who strikes the fatal blow is not Barbaro, but a certain Giovanni Dandolo, who is known, at that time, to have been "sopracomito and consigliere del capitano da mar." If the Admiral of the Arsenal had been engaged in the conspiracy, the fact could hardly have escaped the notice of contemporary chroniclers. Signor Lazzarino suggests that the name Gisello, or Girello, which has been substituted for that of Israel Bertuccio, is a corruption of Isarello.—La Congiura, p. 74.]

[ [390] [The island of Sapienza lies about nine miles to the north-west of Capo Gallo, in the Morea. The battle in which the Venetians under Nicolò Pisani were defeated by the Genoese under Paganino Doria was fought November 4, 1354. (See Venice, an Historical Sketch, by Horatio F. Brown, 1893, p. 201.)]

[ [391]{357} An historical fact. See Marin Sanuto's Lives of the Doges. ["Sanuto says that Heaven took away his senses for this buffet, and induced him to conspire:—'Però fu permesso che il Faliero perdesse l'intelletto.'"—B. Letters (Works, etc., 1832, xii. 82. note 1).

[ [392] {358}["The number of their constant Workmen is 1200; and all these Artificers have a Superior Officer called Amiraglio, who commands the Bucentaure on Ascension Day, when the Duke goes in state to marry the sea. And here we cannot but notice, that by a ridiculous custom this Admiral makes himself Responsible to the Senat for the inconstancy of the Sea, and engages his Life there shall be no Tempest that day. 'Tis this Admiral who has the Guard of the Palais, St. Mark, with his Arsenalotti, during the interregnum. He carries the Red Standard before the Prince when he makes his Entry, by virtue of which office he has his Cloak, and the two Basons (out of which the Duke throws the money to the People) for his fee."—The History of the Government of Venice, written in the year 1675, by the Sieur Amelott de la Houssaie, London, 1677, p. 63.]

[ [393] [Vide ante, [p. 356, note 1].]

[ [394] {360}[The famous measure known as the closing of the Great Council was carried into force during the Dogeship (1289-1311) of Pietro Gradenigo. On the last day of February, 1297, a law was proposed and passed, "That the Council of Forty are to ballot, one by one, the names of all those who during the last four years have had a seat in the Great Council.... Three electors shall be chosen to submit names of fresh candidates for the Great Council, on the ... approval of the Doge." But strict as these provisions were, they did not suffice to restrict the government to the aristocracy. It was soon decreed "that only those who could prove that a paternal ancestor had sat on the Great Council, after its creation in 1176, should now be eligible as members.... It is in this provision that we find the essence of the Serrata del Maggior Consiglio.... The work was not completed at one stroke.... In 1315 a list of all those who were eligible ... was compiled. The scrutiny ... was entrusted to the Avogadori di Comun, and became ... more and more severe. To ensure the purity of blood, they opened a register of marriages and births.... Thus the aristocracy proceeded to construct itself more and more upon a purely oligarchical basis."—Venice, an Historical Sketch, by Horatio F. Brown, 1893, pp. 162-164.]

[ [395] {362}[To "partake" this or that is an obsolete construction, but rests on the authority of Dryden and other writers of the period. Byron's "have partook" cannot come under the head of "good, sterling, genuine English"! (See letter to Murray, October 8, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 89.)]

[ [396] {363}[The bells of San Marco were never rung but by order of the Doge. One of the pretexts for ringing this alarm was to have been an announcement of the appearance of a Genoese fleet off the Lagune. According to Sanudo, "on the appointed day they [the followers of the sixteen leaders of the conspiracy] were to make affrays amongst themselves, here and there, in order that the Duke might have a pretence for tolling the bells of San Marco." (See, too, Sketches from Venetian History, 1831, i. 266, note.)]

[ [397] ["Le Conseil des Dix avail ses prisons speciales dites camerotti; celles non officiellement appelées les pozzi et les piombi, les puits et les plombs, étaient de son redoubtable domaine. Les Camerotti di sotto (les puits) étaient obscurs mais non accessibles à l'eau du canal, comme on l'a fait croire en des récits dignes d'Anne Radcliffe; les camerotti di soprà (les plombs) étaient des cellules fortement doublées de bois mais non privées de lumière."—Les Archives de Venise, par Armand Baschet, 1870, p. 535. For the pozzi and the "Bridge of Sighs" see note by Hobhouse, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 465; and compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza i. line 1 (and The Two Foscari, act iv. sc. 1), Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 327, note 2.]

[ [398] {365}[For "Sapienza," vide ante, [p. 356]. According to the genealogies, Marin Falier, by his first wife, had a daughter Lucia, who was married to Franceschino Giustiniani; but there is no record of a son. (See La Congiura, p. 21.)]

[ [399] {366}["The Doges were all buried in St. Mark's before Faliero: it is singular that when his predecessor, Andrea Dandolo, died, the Ten made a law that all the future Doges should be buried with their families in their own churches,—one would think by a kind of presentiment. So that all that is said of his Ancestral Doges, as buried at St. John's and Paul's, is altered from the fact, they being in St. Mark's. Make a note of this, and put Editor as the subscription to it. As I make such pretensions to accuracy, I should not like to be twitted even with such trifles on that score. Of the play they may say what they please, but not so of my costume and dram. pers.—they having been real existences."—Letter to Murray, October 12, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 95. Byron's injunction was not carried out till 1832.]

[ [400] A gondola is not like a common boat, but is as easily rowed with one oar as with two (though, of course, not so swiftly), and often is so from motives of privacy; and, since the decay of Venice, of economy.

[ [401] {367}["What Gifford says (of the first act) is very consolatory. 'English, sterling genuine English,' is a desideratum amongst you, and I am glad that I have got so much left; though Heaven knows how I retain it: I hear none but from my Valet, and his is Nottinghamshire; and I see none but in your new publications, and theirs is no language at all, but jargon.... Gifford says that it is 'good, sterling, genuine English,' and Foscolo says that the characters are right Venetian."—Letters to Murray, Sept. 11, Oct. 8, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 75-89.]

[ [402] [Byron admits (vide ante, [p. 340]) that the character of the "Dogaressa" is more or less his own creation. It may be remarked that in Casimir Delavigne's version of the story, the Duchess (Elena) cherishes a secret and criminal attachment for Bertuccio Faliero, and that in Mr. Swinburne's tragedy, while innocent in act, she is smitten with remorse for a passion which overmasters her loyalty to her husband. Byron's Angiolina is "faultily faultless, ... splendidly null."

In a letter to Murray, dated January 4, 1821 (Letters, 1901, v. 218), he says, "As I think that love is not the principal passion for tragedy, you will not find me a popular writer. Unless it is Love, furious, criminal, and hapless [as in The Mysterious Mother, or in Alfieri's Mirra, or Shelley's Cenci], it ought not to make a tragic subject. When it is melting and maudlin, it does, but it ought not to do; it is then for the gallery and second-price boxes." It is probable that he owed these sentiments to the theory and practice of Vittorio Alfieri. "It is extraordinary," writes M. de Fallette Barrol (Monthly Magazine, April, 1805, reprinted in Preface to Tragedie di Alfieri, A. Montucci, Edinburgh, 1805, i. xvi. sq.), "that a man whose soul possessed an uncommon share of ardour and sensibility, and had experienced all the violence of the passions, should scarcely have condescended to introduce love into his tragedies; or, when he does, that he should only employ it with a kind of reserve and severity.... He probably regarded it as a hackneyed agent; for in ... Myrrha it appears in such a strange character, that all the art of the writer is not capable of divesting it of an air at once ludicrous and disgusting."

But apart from the example of Alfieri, there was another motive at work—a determination to prove to the world that he was the master of his own temperament, and that, if he chose, he could cast away frivolity and cynicism, and clothe himself with austerity "as with a garment." He had been taken to task for "treating well-nigh with equal derision the most pure of virtues, and the most odious of vices" (Blackwood's Edin. Mag., August, 1819), and here was an "answer to his accusers!">[

[ [403] {368}[The exact date of Marin Falier's birth is a matter of conjecture, but there is reason to believe that he Was under seventy-five years of age at the time of the conspiracy. The date assigned is 1280-1285 A.D.]

[ [de] {369}——has he been doomed?—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [404] {370}[According to Dio Cassius, the last words of Brutus were, Ὦ τλῆμον ἀρετή, λόγος ἄρ᾽ ἦσθ᾽ [ἄλλως], ἐγὼ δὲ ὡς ἕργων ἥσκουν' σὺ δ᾽ ἀρ᾽ ἐδούλευες τύχῃ—Hist. Rom., lib. xlvii. c. 49, ed. v., P. Boissevain, 1898, ii. 246.]

[ [df] {375}

Doth Heaven forgive her own? is Satan saved?
But be it so?—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [405] [There is no MS. authority for "From wrath eternal.">[

[ [dg] Oh do not speak thus rashly.-[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [406] {377}

["Beg Heaven to cleanse the leprosy of lust."

'Tis Pity she's a Whore, by John Ford. Lamb's Dramatic Poets, 1835, i. 265.]

[ [407] {378}[The Dogaressa Aluica was the daughter of Nicolò Gradenigo. It was the Doge who inherited the "blood of Loredano" through his mother Beriola.]

[ [408] {381}[The lines "and the hour hastens" to "whate'er may urge" are not in the MS.]

[ [dh] {382} Where Death sits throned——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [409] [Filippo Calendario, who is known to have been one of the principal conspirators, was a master stone-cutter, who worked as a sculptor, and ranked as such. The tradition, to which Byron does not allude, that he was an architect, and designed the new palace begun in 1354, may probably be traced to a document of the fifteenth century, in which Calendario is described as commissario, i.e. executor, of Piero Basejo, who worked as a master stone-cutter for the Republic. The Maggior Consiglio was its own architect, and would not have empowered a tagliapietra, however eminent, to act on his own responsibility.—La Congiura, pp. 76, 77.]

[ [410] {383}[The sbirri were constables, officers of the police magistrates, the signori di notte. The Italians have a saying, Dir le sue ragioni agli sbirri, that is, to argue with a policeman.]

[ [411] {384}["It was concerted that sixteen or seventeen leaders should be stationed in various parts of the city, each being at the head of forty men, armed and prepared; but the followers were not to know their destination."—See translation of Sanudo's Narrative, post, [p. 464].]

[ [412] [In the earlier chronicles Beltramo is named Vendrame. He was, according to some authorities, compare with Lioni, i.e. a co-sponsor of the same godchild. Signor Lazzarino (La Congiura, p. 90 (2)) maintains that in all probability Beltramo betrayed his companions from selfish motives, in order to save himself, and not from any "compunctious visitings," or because he was "too full o' the milk of human kindness." According to Sanudo (vide post, [p. 465]), "Beltramo Bergamasco" was not one of the principal conspirators, but "had heard a word or two of what was to take place." Ser Marco Soranzano (p. 466) was one of the "Zonta" of twenty who were elected as assessors to the Ten, to try the Doge of high treason against the Republic.]

[ [413] {386}[Compare—

"If we should fail,——We fail.
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail."

Macbeth, act i. sc. 7, lines 59-61.]

[ [di] In a great cause the block may soak their gore.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [dj] If Brutus had not lived? He failed in giving.—[MS. M.]

[ [414] [At the battle of Philippi, B.C. 42, Brutus lamented over the body of Cassius, and called him the "last of the Romans."—Plutarch's Lives, "Marcus Brutus," Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 686.]

[ [415] [The citizens of Aquileia and Padua fled before the invasion of Attila, and retired to the Isle of Gradus, and Rivus Altus, or Rialto. Theodoric's minister, Cassiodorus, who describes the condition of the fugitives some seventy years after they had settled on the "hundred isles," compares them to "waterfowl who had fixed their nests on the bosom of the waves." (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, etc., 1825, ii. 375, note 6, and 376, notes 1, 2.)]

[ [416] [Mal bigatto, "vile silkworm," is a term of contempt and reproach = "uomo de maligna intenzione," a knave.]

[ [417] {388}[Compare—

"I'll make assurance double sure,
And take a bond of fate."

Macbeth, act iv. sc. I, lines 83, 84.]

[ [418] {390}[For Byron's correction of this statement, vide ante, [p. 366]. The monument of the Doge Vitale Falier (d. 1096) "was at the right side of the principal entrance into the Vestibule." According to G. Meschinello (La Chiesa Ducale, 1753), Ordelafo Falier was buried in the Atrio of St. Mark's. See, too, Venetia città nobilissima ... descritta da F. Sansovino, 1663, pp. 96, 556.]

[ [dk] We thought to make our peers and not our masters.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [dl]——merit such requital.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [419] {391}[Compare—

"I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die."

Richard III., act v. sc. 4, lines 9, 10.]

[ [420] {392}["The equestrian statue of which I have made mention in the third act as before the church, is not ... of a Faliero, but of some other now obsolete warrior, although of a later date."—Vide ante, Preface, [p. 336]. "In the Campo in front of the church [facing the Rio dei Mendicanti] stands the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, the second equestrian statue raised in Italy after the revival of the arts....The handsome marble pedestal is lofty, supported and flanked by composite columns."—Handbook: Northern Italy, p. 374.]

[ [dm] {393} Nor dwindle to a cut-throat without shuddering.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [dn] A scourged mechanic——.—[MS. M.] A roused mechanic——.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [421] {394} An historical fact. [See Appendix A, [p. 464].]

[ [do]

So let them die { in as } one.—[MS. M.]

[ [dp] {397} We are all lost in wonder—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [dq]——of our splendid City.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [422] [Compare—

"Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles."

Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza i. line 9, and var. i.]

[ [dr] {398} But all the worst sins of the Spartan state.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [ds] The Lords of old Laconia——.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [423] {399}[Compare—

"A king of shreds and patches."

Hamlet, act iii. sc. 4, line 102.]

[ [424] ["The members of the Ten (Il Cousiglio de' Dieci) were elected in the Great Council for one year only, and were not re-eligible for the year after they had held office. Every month the Ten elected three of their own number as chiefs, or Capi of the Council.... The court consisted, besides the Ten, of the Doge and his six councillors, seventeen members in all, of whom twelve were necessary to make a quorum. One of the Avogadori di Comun, or State advocates, was always present, without the power to vote, but to act as clerk to the court, informing it of the law, and correcting it where its procedure seemed informal. Subsequently it became customary to add twenty members to the Council, elected in the Maggior Consiglio, for each important case as it arose."—Venice, an Historical Sketch, by Horatio F. Brown, 1893, pp. 177, 178. (See, too, Les Archives de Venise, par Armand Baschet, 1870, p. 525.)]

[ [425] {400}[The chronicles are silent as to any embassy or commission from the Republic to Rhodes or Cyprus in which Marin Falier held office or took any part whatever. Cyprus did not pass into the hands of Venice till 1489, and Rhodes was held by the Knights of St. John till 1522.]

[ [426] {401}[Compare—

"We have scotched the snake, not killed it."

Macbeth, act iii. sc. II, line 13.]

[ [dt] {402} Fought by my side, and John Grimani shared.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [427] [Marc Cornaro did not "share" his Genoese, but his Hungarian embassy.—M. Faliero Avanti il Dogado: Archivio Veneto, 1893, vol. v. pt. i. p. 144.]

[ [du] {403} My mission to the Pope; I saved the life.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [dv]

Bear witness with me! ye who hear and know,
And feel our mutual mass of many wrongs.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [428] {404}[The Italian Oimé recalls the Latin Hei mihi and the Greek Οῖμοι]

[ [429] [Compare—

"Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,
Hope sapped, name blighted, Life's life lied away?"

Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza cxxxv. lines 5, 6.

And—

"The beings which surrounded him were gone.
Or were at war with him."

The Dream, sect. viii. lines 3, 4, vide ante, [p. 40]]

[ [dw] Sate grinning Mockery——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [dx] {405} The feelings they abused——.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [dy]——and then perish.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [dz] {406}

Nor turn aside to strike at such a { carrion wretch } —[MS. M.]

[ [ea] {407} You are a patriot, plebeian Gracchus.—[Ed. 1832.] (MS., and First Edition, 1821, insert "a.")

[ [430] [Compare "Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation."—I Henry IV., act i. sc. 2, lines 101, 102.]

[ [eb] {409}To this now shackled——.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [431] {410}[Byron told Medwin that he wrote "Lioni's soliloquy one moonlight night, after coming from the Benzoni's."—Conversations, 1824, p. 177.]

[ [ec] High o'er the music——.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [432] {411}["At present, I am on the invalid regimen myself. The Carnival—that is, the latter part of it, and sitting up late o' nights, had knocked me up a little.... The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where I went, as also to most of the ridottos, etc., etc.; and, though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find 'the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine.

"So we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

"For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.

"Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon."

Letter to Moore, February 28, 1817, Letters, 1900, iv. 59.]

[ [ed] {412} Suggesting dreams or unseen Symmetry.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [ee] Which give their glitter lack, and the vast Æther.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [ef]——seaborn palaces.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [433] {413}[Compare "What, ma'amselle, don't you remember Ludovico, who rowed the Cavaliero's gondola at the last regatta, and won the prize? and who used to sing such sweet verses about Orlando's ... all under my lattice ... on the moonlight nights at Venice?"—Mysteries of Udolpho, by Anne Radcliffe, 1882, p. 195. Compare, too, Beppo, stanza xv. lines 1-6, vide ante, [p. 164].]

[ [434] [Compare "The gondolas gliding down the canals are like coffins or cradles ... At night the darkness reveals the tiny lanterns which guide these boats, and they look like shadows passing by, lit by stars. Everything in this region is mystery—government, custom, love."—Corinne or Italy, by Madame de Staël, 1888, pp. 279, 280. Compare, too—

"In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless Gondolier."

Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza iii. lines 1, 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. note 3.]

[ [eg]——or towering spire.—[MS. M.]

[ [eh]——at this moment.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [ei] {414}——Has he no name?—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [ej] His voice and carriage——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [ek] {415} If so withdraw and fly and tell me not.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [el] {416}Good I would now requite——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [em] Remain at home——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [en] {417} Why what hast thou to gainsay of the Senate?—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [eo] On the accursed tyranny which taints.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [ep] {418} I would not draw my breath——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [435] {419}[If Gifford had been at the pains to read Byron's manuscripts, or revise the proofs, he would surely have pointed out, if he had not ventured to amend, his bad grammar.]

[ [436] {421} The Doge's family palace.

[ [eq] {422} A Loredano——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [437] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza xiv. line 3, Poetical Works, 1898, ii. 339, note i.]

[ [438] {423}[Compare "Themistocles was sacrificing on the deck of the admiral-galley."—Plutarch's Lives, Langhorne, 1838, p. 89.]

[ [439] [For Timoleon, who first saved, and afterwards slew his brother Timophanes, for aiming at sovereignty, see The Siege of Corinth, line 59, note 1, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 452.]

[ [er] {424} The night is clearing from the sky.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [440] [For the use of "dapple" as an intransitive verb, compare Mazeppa, xvi. line 646, vide ante, [p. 227].]

[ [es]——Now—now to business.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [et] {425} The signal——.—[MS. M. erased.]

The storm-clock——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [441] ["'Tis done ... unerring beak" (six lines), not in MS.]

[ [442] [Byron had forgotten the dictum of the artist Reinagle, that "eagles and all birds of prey attack with their talons and not with their beaks" (see Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza xviii. line 6, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 226, note 1); or, possibly, had discovered that eagles attack with their beaks as well as their talons.]

[ [443] [Vide ante, [p. 368, note 1].]

[ [eu]

——ten thousand caps were flung
Into the air and thrice ten——.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [444] {426}[Compare—

"Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo!"

Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza xii. line 8, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 337.]

[ [ev]

Where swings the sullen { iron oracle. huge oracular bell. } [Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [445] {427} "I Signori di Notte" held an important charge in the old republic. [The surveillance of the "sestieri" was assigned to the "Collegio dei Signori di notte al criminal." Six in all, they were at once police magistrates and superintendents of police. (See Cappelletti, Storia, etc., 1856, ii. 293.)]

[ [446] [The Doge overstates his authority. He could not preside without his Council "in the Maggior Consiglio, or in the Senate, or in the College; but four ducal councillors had the power to preside without the Doge. The Doge might not open despatches except in the presence of his Council, but his Council might open despatches in the absence of the Doge."—Venetian Studies, by H. F. Brown, 1887, p. 189.]

[ [ew] {428} That thus you dare assume a brigand's power.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [ex]——storm-clock.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [447] [Byron may have had in his mind the "bell or clocke" (see var. ii.) in Southey's ballad of The Inchcape Rock.

"On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.">[

[ [ey] Or met some unforeseen and fatal obstacle.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [448] {430}[A translation of Beltramo Bergamasco, i.e. a native of the town and province of Bergamo, in the north of Italy. Compare "Comasco." Harlequin ... was a Bergamasc, and the personification of the manners, accent, and jargon of the inhabitants of the Val Brembana.—Handbook: Northern Italy, p. 240.]

[ [ez] {431} While Manlius, who hurled back the Gauls——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [fa] The Grand Chancellor of the Ten.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [449] ["In the notes to Marino Faliero, it may be as well to say that 'Benintende' was not really of the ten, but merely Grand Chancellor—a separate office, though an important one: it was an arbitrary alteration of mine."—Letter to Murray, October 12, 1820.

Byron's correction was based on a chronicle cited by Sanudo, which is responsible for the statement that Beneintendi de Ravignani presided as Grand Chancellor at the Doge's trial, and took down his examination. As a matter of fact, Beneintendi was at Milan, not at Venice, when the trial took place. The "college" which conducted the examination of the Doge consisted of Giovanni Mocenigo, Councillor; Giovanni Marcello, Chief of the Ten; Luga da Lezze, "Inquisitore;" and Orio Pasqualigo, "Avogadore."—La Congiura, p. 104(2).]

[ [fb] {432} Venice.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [fc] {434} There is no more to be wrung from these men.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [450] "Giovedi grasso,"—"fat or greasy Thursday,"—which I cannot literally translate in the text, was the day.

[ [451] {435} Historical fact. See Sanuto, Appendix, Note A [vide post, [p. 466]].

[ [452] {436}["I know what Foscolo means about Calendaro's spitting at Bertram: that's national—the objection, I mean. The Italians and French, with those 'flags of Abomination,' their pocket handkerchiefs, spit there, and here, and every where else—in your face almost, and therefore object to it on the Stage as too familiar. But we who spit nowhere—but in a man's face when we grow savage—are not likely to feel this. Remember Massinger, and Kean's Sir Giles Overreach—

'Lord! thus I spit at thee and thy Counsel!'"

Letter to Murray, October 8, 1820, Letters, v. 1901, 89.

"Sir Giles Overreach" says to "Lord Lovel," in A New Way to Pay Old Debts, act v. sc. 1, "Lord! thus I spit at thee, and at thy counsel." Compare, too—

"You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine."

Merchant of Venice, act i. sc. 3, lines 106, 107.]

[ [fd] {437} It is impending——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [453] {438}["Is [Solon] cum interrogaretur, cur nullum supplicium constituisset in eum qui parentem necasset, respondit se id neminem facturum putasse."—Cicero, Pro Sext. Roscio Amerino, cap, 25.]

[ [454] ["Signory" is used loosely to denote the State or Government of Venice, not the "collegio" or "Signoria Serenissima.">[

[ [455] [This statement is strictly historical. On the death of Andrea Dandolo (September 7, 1334) the Maggior Consiglio appointed a commission of five "savi" to correct and modify the "promissione," or ducal oath. The alterations which the commissioners suggested were designed to prevent the Doge from acting on his own initiative in matters of foreign policy.—La Congiura, pp. 30, 31.]

[ [456] {440}[Gelo is quoted as the type of a successful and beneficent tyrant held in honour by all posterity; Thrasybulus as a consistent advocate and successful champion of democracy.]

[ [457] [The lines from "I would have stood ... while living" are not in the MS.]

[ [fe] There were no other ways for truth to pierce them.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [ff] {441} The torture for the exposure of the truth.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [fg]

Noble Venetians! { Doge Faliero's consort. with respect the Duchess. } —[MS. M. erased.]

[ [458] The Venetian senate took the same title as the Roman, of "conscript fathers." [It was not, however, the Senate, the Pregadi, but the Consiglio dei Dieci, supplemented by the Zonta of Twenty, which tried and condemned the Doge.]

[ [fh] {443} He hath already granted his own guilt.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [fi] He is a Sovereign and hath swayed the state.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [459] {445}[The accepted spelling is "aerie." The word is said to be derived from the Latin atrium. The form eyry, or eyrie, was introduced by Spelman (Gl. 1664) to countenance an erroneous derivation from the Saxon eghe, an egg. N. Eng. Dict., art. "aerie.">[

[ [fj] Of his high aiery——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [460] [Vide Suetonius, De XII. Cæsaribus, lib. iv. cap. 56, ed. 1691, p. 427. Angiolina might surely have omitted this particular instance of the avenging vigilance of "Great Nemesis.">[

[ [461] {446}[The story is told in Plutarch's Alexander, cap. 38. Compare—

"And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,
To light him to his prey,
And like another Helen, fired another Troy."

Dryden's Alexanders Feast, vi. lines 25-28.]

[ [462] [Byron's imagination was prone to dwell on the "earthworm's slimy brood." Compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanzas v., vi. Dallas (Recollections of Lord Byron, 1824, p. 124) once ventured to remind his noble connection "that although our senses make us acquainted with the chemical decomposition of our bodies," there were other and more hopeful considerations to be entertained. But Byron was obdurate, "and the worms crept in and the worms crept out" as unpleasantly as heretofore.]

[ [fk]——you call your duty.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [fl] {447}——never heard of.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [fm] For this almost——.—[MS. M.]

[ [463] ["Hic est locus Marini Falethri, decapitati pro criminibus." Even more impressive is the significant omission of the minutes of the trial from the pages of the State Register. "The fourth volume of the Misti Consiglio X. contains its decrees in the year 1355. On Friday, the 17th April in that year, Marin Falier was beheaded. In the usual course, the minutes of the trial should have been entered on the thirty-third page of that volume; but in their stead we find a blank space, and the words '[=N] S[=C]BATUR:' 'Be it not written.'"—Calendar of State Papers ... in Venice, Preface by Rawdon Brown, 1864, i. xvii.]

[ [464] [Lines 500-507 were forwarded in a letter to Murray, dated Marzo, 1821 (Letters, 1901, v. 261). According to Moore's footnote, "These lines—perhaps from some difficulty in introducing them—were never inserted in the Tragedy." It is true that in some copies of the first edition of Marino Faliero (1821, p. 151) these lines do not appear; but in other copies of the first edition, in the second and other editions, they occur in their place. It is strange that Moore, writing in 1830, did not note the almost immediate insertion of these remarkable lines.]

[ [465] {448}[The Council of Ten decided that the possessions of Faliero should be confiscated; but the "Signoria," as an act of grace, and ob ducatûs reverentiam, allowed him to dispose of 2000 "lire dei grossi" of his own. The same day, April 17, the Doge dictated his will to the notary Piero de Compostelli, leaving the 2000 lire to his wife Aluica.—La Congiura, p. 105.]

[ [fn] {449} Of the house of Rizzando Caminese.—[MS. M.]

[ [fo] Have I aught else to undergo ere Death?—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [466] {450}[The story as related by Sanudo is of doubtful authenticity, vide ante, [p. 332, note 1].]

[ [fp] {451} Until he rolled beneath——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [fq] A madness of the heart shall rise within.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [467] [Compare—

"I pull in resolution."

Macbeth, act v. sc. 5, line 42.]

[ [468] {452}[See the translation of Sanudo's narrative in Appendix, [p. 463].]

[ [fr]

——whom I know
To be as worthless as the dust they trample.—[MS. M. erased.]

[ [fs] {453} With unimpaired but not outrageous grief.—[Alternative reading, MS. M.]

[ [469] {454}[An anachronism, vide ante, [p. 336].]

[ [ft] I am glad to be so——.—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [470] This was the actual reply of Bailli, maire of Paris, to a Frenchman who made him the same reproach on his way to execution, in the earliest part of their revolution. I find in reading over (since the completion of this tragedy), for the first time these six years, "Venice Preserved," a similar reply on a different occasion by Renault, and other coincidences arising from the subject. I need hardly remind the gentlest reader, that such coincidences must be accidental, from the very facility of their detection by reference to so popular a play on the stage and in the closet as Otway's chef-d'oeuvre.

["Still crueller was the fate of poor Bailly [Jean Sylvani, born September 17, 1736], First National President, First Mayor of Paris.... It is the 10th of November, 1793, a cold bitter drizzling rain, as poor Bailly is led through the streets.... Silent, unpitied, sits the innocent old man.... The Guillotine is taken down ... is carried to the riverside; is there set up again, with slow numbness; pulse after pulse still counting itself out in the old man's weary heart. For hours long; amid curses and bitter frost-rain! 'Bailly, thou tremblest,' said one. 'Mon ami, it is for cold,' said Bailly, 'C'est de froid.' Crueller end had no mortal."—Carlyle's French Revolution, 1839, iii. 264.]

[ [fu] {455} Who makest and destroyest suns!—[MS. M. Vide letter of February 2, 1821.]

[ [471] {456} [In his reply to the envoys of the Venetian Senate (April, 1797), Buonaparte threatened to "prove an Attila to Venice. If you cannot," he added, "disarm your population, I will do it in your stead—your government is antiquated—it must crumble to pieces."—Scott's Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, 1828, p. 230. Compare, too, Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza xc. lines 1, 2—

"The fool of false dominion—and a kind
Of bastard Cæsar," etc.]

[ [472] Should the dramatic picture seem harsh, let the reader look to the historical of the period prophesied, or rather of the few years preceding that period. Voltaire calculated their "nostre bene merite Meretrici" at 12,000 of regulars, without including volunteers and local militia, on what authority I know not; but it is, perhaps, the only part of the population not decreased. Venice once contained two hundred thousand inhabitants: there are now about ninety thousand; and THESE!! few individuals can conceive, and none could describe, the actual state into which the more than infernal tyranny of Austria has plunged this unhappy city. From the present decay and degeneracy of Venice under the Barbarians, there are some honourable individual exceptions. There is Pasqualigo, the last, and, alas! posthumous son of the marriage of the Doges with the Adriatic, who fought his frigate with far greater gallantry than any of his French coadjutors in the memorable action off Lissa. I came home in the squadron with the prizes in 1811, and recollect to have heard Sir William Hoste, and the other officers engaged in that glorious conflict, speak in the highest terms of Pasqualigo's behaviour. There is the Abbate Morelli. There is Alvise Querini, who, after a long and honourable diplomatic career, finds some consolation for the wrongs of his country, in the pursuits of literature with his nephew, Vittor Benzon, the son of the celebrated beauty, the heroine of "La Biondina in Gondoleta." There are the patrician poet Morosini, and the poet Lamberti, the author of the "Biondina," etc., and many other estimable productions; and, not least in an Englishman's estimation, Madame Michelli, the translator of Shakspeare. There are the young Dandolo and the improvvisatore Carrer, and Giuseppe Albrizzi, the accomplished son of an accomplished mother. There is Aglietti, and were there nothing else, there is the immortality of Canova. Cicognara, Mustoxithi, Bucati, etc., etc., I do not reckon, because the one is a Greek, and the others were born at least a hundred miles off, which, throughout Italy, constitutes, if not a foreigner, at least a stranger (forestiére).

[This note is not in the MS. The first eight lines were included among the notes, and the remainder formed part of the Appendix in all editions 1821-1831.

Nicolò Pasqualigo (1770-1821) received the command of a ship in the Austrian Navy in 1800, and in 1805 was appointed Director of the Arsenal of Venice. He took part in both the Lissa expeditions, and was made prisoner after a prolonged resistance, March 13, 1811. (See Personaggi illustri delta Veneta patrizia gente, by E. A. Cicogna, 1822, p. 33. See, too, for Lissa, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 25, note 3.)

The Abate Jacopo Morelli (1745-1819), known as Principe dei Bibliotecarj, became custodian of the Marciana Library in 1778, and devoted the whole of his long and laborious life to the service of literature. (For a list of his works, etc., see Tipaldo's Biografia, etc., 1835, ii. 481. See, too, Elogio di Jacopo Morelli, by A. Zendrini, Milano, 1822.)

Alvisi Querini, brother to Marina Querini Benzon, published in 1759 a poem entitled L'Ammiraglio dell' Indie. He wrote under a pseudonym, Ormildo Emeressio.

Vittore Benzon (d. 1822), whose mother, Marina, was celebrated by Anton Maria Lamberti (1757-1832) as La biondina in gondoleta (Poesie, 1817, i. 20), was the author of Nella, a love-poem, abounding in political allusions. (See Tipaldo, v. 122, and Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi, I Suoi amici, by V. Malamani, 1882, pp. 119, 136.)

II Conte Domenico Morosini (see Letters, Venezia, 1829) was the author of two tragedies, Medea in Corinto and Giulio Sabino, published in 1806.

Giustina Renier Michiel (1755-1832) was niece to the last Doge, Lodovico Manin. Her salon was the centre of a brilliant circle of friends, including such names as Pindemonte, Foscolo, and Cesarotti. Her translation of Othello, Macbeth, and Coriolanus formed part of the Opere Drammatiche di Shakspeare, published in Venice in 1797. Her work, Origine delle Feste Veneziane, was published at Milan in 1829. (See G. R. Michiel, Archivio Veneto, tom. xxxviii. 1889.)

Luigi Carrer (1801-1856) began life as a lawyer, but afterwards devoted himself to poetry and literature. He was secretary of the Venetian Institute in 1842, and, later, Director of the Carrer Museum. (See Gio. Crespan, Della vita e delle lettere di Luigi Carrer, 1869.)

For Giuseppino Albrizzi (1800-1860), and for Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi, Countess Albrizzi (? 1761-1836), see Letters, 1900, iv. 14, note 1; and for Francesco Aglietti (1757-1836), Leopoldo Cicognara (1767-1835), and Andreas Moustoxudes (1787-1860), see Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 324, note 1.

The "younger Dandolo" may be Conte Girolamo Antonio Dandolo, author of Sui Quattro Cavalli, etc., published in 1817, and of La Caduta della Repubblica di Venezia, 1855. By "Bucati" may possibly be meant the satirist Pietro Buratti (1772-1832). (See Poesie Veneziane, by R. Barbiera, 1886, p. 209.)]

[ [fv] {457}

Beggars for nobles, { lazars lepers wretches } for a people!—[MS. M.]

[ [473] The chief palaces on the Brenta now belong to the Jews; who in the earlier times of the republic were only allowed to inhabit Mestri, and not to enter the city of Venice. The whole commerce is in the hands of the Jews and Greeks, and the Huns form the garrison.

[ [474] {458}[Napoleon was crowned King of Italy, May 3, 1805. Venice was ceded by Austria, December 26, 1805, and shortly after, Eugène Beauharnais was appointed Viceroy of Italy, with the title of Prince of Venice. It is certain that the "Vice-gerent" stands for Beauharnais, but it is less evident why Byron, doubtless quoting from Hamlet, calls Napoleon the "Vice of Kings." Did he mean a "player-king," one who not being a king acted the part, as the "vice" in the old moralities; or did he misunderstand Shakespeare, and seek to depreciate Beauharnais as the Viceroy of a Viceroy, that is Joseph Bonaparte?]

[ [fw] Vice without luxury——.—[Alternative reading, MS. M.]

[ [475] [Compare—

"When Vice walks forth with her unsoftened terrors."

Ode on Venice, line 34, vide ante, p. 194.]

[ [476] See [Appendix, Note C].

[ [477] {459} If the Doge's prophecy seem remarkable, look to the following, made by Alamanni two hundred and seventy years ago;—"There is one very singular prophecy concerning Venice: 'If thou dost not change,' it says to that proud republic, 'thy liberty, which is already on the wing, will not reckon a century more than the thousandth year.' If we carry back the epocha of Venetian freedom to the establishment of the government under which the republic flourished, we shall find that the date of the election of the first Doge is 697: and if we add one century to a thousand, that is, eleven hundred years, we shall find the sense of the prediction to be literally this: 'Thy liberty will not last till 1797.' Recollect that Venice ceased to be free in the year 1796, the fifth year of the French republic; and you will perceive that there never was prediction more pointed, or more exactly followed by the event. You will, therefore, note as very remarkable the three lines of Alamanni addressed to Venice; which, however, no one has pointed out:—

"'Se non cangi pensier, l'un secol solo
Non conterà sopra 'l millesimo anno
Tua libertà, che va fuggendo a volo.'

Sat., xii. ed. 1531, p. 413.

Many prophecies have passed for such, and many men have been called prophets for much less."—P. L. Ginguené, Hist. Lit. d'Italie, ix. 144 [Paris Edition, 1819].

[ [478] Of the first fifty Doges, five abdicated—five were banished with their eyes put out—five were massacred—and nine deposed; so that nineteen out of fifty lost the throne by violence, besides two who fell in battle: this occurred long previous to the reign of Marino Faliero. One of his more immediate predecessors, Andrea Dandolo, died of vexation. Marino Faliero himself perished as related. Amongst his successors, Foscari, after seeing his son repeatedly tortured and banished, was deposed, and died of breaking a blood-vessel, on hearing the bell of Saint Mark's toll for the election of his successor. Morosini was impeached for the loss of Candia; but this was previous to his dukedom, during which he conquered the Morea, and was styled the Peloponnesian. Faliero might truly say,—

"Thou den of drunkards with the blood of princes!"

[ [fx] Thou brothel of the waters! thou sea Sodom!—[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ [479] [See letters to Webster, September 8, 1818, and to Hoppner, December 31, 1819, Letters, 1900, iv. 255, 393.]

[ [480] {461} "Un Capo de' Dieci" are the words of Sanuto's Chronicle.

[ [fy]

The gory head is rolling down the steps!
The head is rolling dawn the gory steps!—

[Alternative readings. MS. M.]

[ [481] [A picture in oils of the execution of Marino Faliero, by Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), which was exhibited in the Salon in 1827, is now in the Wallace Collection (Provisional Catalogue, 1900, p. 28).]

[ [482] [End of the Historical Tragedy of Marino Faliero, or the Doge of Venice.

Begun April 4th, 1820.
Completed July 16th, 1820.
Finished copying in August 16th, 17th, 1820.

The which copying takes ten times the toil of composing, considering the weather—thermometer 90 in the shade—and my domestic duties.

The motto is—

"Dux inquietæ turbidus Adriræ."

Horace.]

APPENDIX.

Note A.

I am obliged for the following excellent translation of the old Chronicle to Mr. F. Cohen,[483] to whom the reader will find himself indebted for a version that I could not myself—though after many years' intercourse with Italian—have given by any means so purely and so faithfully.

Story of Marino Faliero, Doge XLIV. mcccliv.[483a]

On the eleventh day of September, in the year of our Lord, 1354, Marino Faliero was elected and chosen to be the Duke of the Commonwealth of Venice. He was Count of Valdemarino, in the Marches of Treviso, and a Knight, and a wealthy man to boot. As soon as the election was completed, it was resolved in the Great Council, that a deputation of twelve should be despatched to Marino Faliero the Duke, who was then on his way from Rome; for when he was chosen, he was ambassador at the court of the Holy Father, at Rome,—the Holy Father himself held his court at Avignon. When Messer Marino Faliero the Duke was about to land in this city, on the 5th day of October, 1354, a thick haze came on and darkened the air: and he was enforced to land on the place of Saint Mark, between the two columns, on the spot where evil doers are put to death; and all thought that this was the worst of tokens.—Nor must I forget to write that which I have read in a chronicle.—When Messer Marino Faliero was Podesta and Captain of Treviso, the Bishop delayed coming in with the holy sacrament, on a day when a procession was to take place. Now, the said Marino Faliero was so very proud and wrathful, that he buffeted the Bishop, and almost struck him to the ground: and, therefore, Heaven allowed Marino Faliero to go out of his right senses, in order that he might bring himself to an evil death.

When this Duke had held the dukedom during nine months and six days, he, being wicked and ambitious, sought to make himself Lord of Venice, in the manner which I have read in an ancient chronicle. When the Thursday arrived upon which they were wont to hunt the bull, the bull hunt took place as usual; and, according to the usage of those times, after the bull hunt had ended, they all proceeded unto the palace of the Duke, and assembled together in one of his halls; and they disported themselves with the women. And until the first bell tolled they danced, and then a banquet was served up. My Lord the Duke paid the expenses thereof, provided he had a Duchess, and after the banquet they all returned to their homes.

Now to this feast there came a certain Ser Michele Steno, a gentleman of poor estate and very young, but crafty and daring, and who loved one of the damsels of the Duchess. Ser Michele stood amongst the women upon the solajo; and he behaved indiscreetly, so that my Lord the Duke ordered that he should be kicked off the solajo [i.e. platform]; and the esquires of the Duke flung him down from the solajo accordingly. Ser Michele thought that such an affront was beyond all bearing; and when the feast was over, and all other persons had left the palace, he, continuing heated with anger, went to the hall of audience, and wrote certain unseemly words relating to the Duke and the Duchess upon the chair in which the Duke was used to sit; for in those days the Duke did not cover his chair with cloth of sendal, but he sat in a chair of wood. Ser Michele wrote thereon—"Marin Falier, the husband of the fair wife; others kiss her, but he keeps her."[484] In the morning the words were seen, and the matter was considered to be very scandalous; and the Senate commanded the Avogadori of the Commonwealth to proceed therein with the greatest diligence. A largess of great amount was immediately proffered by the Avogadori, in order to discover who had written these words. And at length it was known that Michele Steno had written them. It was resolved in the Council of Forty that he should be arrested; and he then confessed that in the fit of vexation and spite, occasioned by his being thrust off the solajo in the presence of his mistress, he had written the words. Therefore the Council debated thereon. And the Council took his youth into consideration, and that he was a lover; and therefore they adjudged that he should be kept in close confinement during two months, and that afterwards he should be banished from Venice and the state during one year. In consequence of this merciful sentence the Duke became exceedingly wroth, it appearing to him, that the Council had not acted in such a manner as was required by the respect due to his ducal dignity; and he said that they ought to have condemned Ser Michele to be hanged by the neck, or at least to be banished for life.

Now it was fated that my Lord Duke Marino was to have his head cut off. And as it is necessary when any effect is to be brought about, that the cause of such effect must happen, it therefore came to pass, that on the very day after sentence had been pronounced on Ser Michele Steno, being the first day of Lent, a gentleman of the house of Barbara, a choleric gentleman, went to the arsenal, and required certain things of the masters of the galleys. This he did in the presence of the Admiral of the arsenal, and he, bearing the request, answered, No, it cannot be done. High words arose between the gentleman and the Admiral, and the gentleman struck him with his fist just above the eye; and as he happened to have a ring on his finger, the ring cut the Admiral and drew blood. The Admiral, all bruised and bloody, ran straight to the Duke to complain, and with the intent of praying him to inflict some heavy punishment upon the gentleman of Cà Barbaro.—"What wouldst thou have me do for thee?" answered the Duke: "think upon the shameful gibe which hath been written concerning me; and think on the manner in which they have punished that ribald Michele Steno, who wrote it; and see how the Council of Forty respect our person."—Upon this the Admiral answered, "My Lord Duke, if you would wish to make yourself a prince, and to cut all those cuckoldy gentlemen to pieces, I have the heart, if you do but help me, to make you prince of all this state; and then you may punish them all." Hearing this, the Duke said, "How can such a matter be brought about?"—and so they discoursed thereon.

The Duke called for his nephew, Ser Bertuccio Faliero, who lived with him in the palace, and they communed about this plot. And without leaving the place, they sent for Philip Calendaro, a seaman of great repute, and for Bertuccio Israello, who was exceedingly wily and cunning. Then taking counsel among themselves, they agreed to call in some others; and so, for several nights successively, they met with the Duke at home in his palace. And the following men were called in singly; to wit:—Niccolo Fagiuolo, Giovanni da Corfu, Stefano Fagiono, Niccolo dalle Bende, Niccolo Biondo, and Stefano Trivisano.—It was concerted that sixteen or seventeen leaders should be stationed in various parts of the city, each being at the head of forty men, armed and prepared; but the followers were not to know their destination. On the appointed day they were to make affrays amongst themselves here and there, in order that the Duke might have a pretence for tolling the bells of San Marco; these bells are never rung but by the order of the Duke. And at the sound of the bells, these sixteen or seventeen, with their followers, were to come to San Marco, through the streets which open upon the Piazza. And when the noble and leading citizens should come into the Piazza, to know the cause of the riot, then the conspirators were to cut them in pieces; and this work being finished, my Lord Marino Faliero the Duke was to be proclaimed the Lord of Venice. Things having been thus settled, they agreed to fulfil their intent on Wednesday, the 15th day of April, in the year 1355. So covertly did they plot, that no one ever dreamt of their machinations.

But the Lord, who hath always helped this most glorious city, and who, loving its righteousness and holiness, hath never forsaken it, inspired one Beltramo Bergamasco to be the cause of bringing the plot to light, in the following manner. This Beltramo, who belonged to Ser Niccolo Lioni of Santo Stefano, had heard a word or two of what was to take place; and so, in the above-mentioned month of April, he went to the house of the aforesaid Ser Niccolo Lioni, and told him all the particulars of the plot. Ser Niccolo, when he heard all these things, was struck dead, as it were, with affright. He heard all the particulars; and Beltramo prayed him to keep it all secret; and if he told Ser Niccolo, it was in order that Ser Niccolo might stop at home on the 15th of April, and thus save his life. Beltramo was going, but Ser Niccolo ordered his servants to lay hands upon him, and lock him up. Ser Niccolo then went to the house of Messer Giovanni Gradenigo Nasoni, who afterwards became Duke, and who also lived at Santo Stefano, and told him all. The matter seemed to him to be of the very greatest importance, as indeed it was; and they two went to the house of Ser Marco Cornaro, who lived at San Felice; and, having spoken with him, they all three then determined to go back to the house of Ser Niccolo Lioni, to examine the said Beltramo; and having questioned him, and heard all that he had to say, they left him in confinement. And then they all three went into the sacristy of San Salvatore, and sent their men to summon the Councillors, the Avogadori, the Capi de' Dieci, and those of the Great Council.

When all were assembled, the whole story was told to them. They were struck dead, as it were, with affright. They determined to send for Beltramo. He was brought in before them. They examined him, and ascertained that the matter was true; and, although they were exceedingly troubled, yet they determined upon their measures. And they sent for the Capi de' Quarante, the Signori di Notte, the Capi de' Sestieri, and the Cinque della Pace; and they were ordered to associate to their men other good men and true, who were to proceed to the houses of the ringleaders of the conspiracy, and secure them. And they secured the foreman of the arsenal, in order that the conspirators might not do mischief. Towards nightfall they assembled in the palace. When they were assembled in the palace, they caused the gates of the quadrangle of the palace to be shut. And they sent to the keeper of the Bell-tower, and forbade the tolling of the bells. All this was carried into effect. The before-mentioned conspirators were secured, and they were brought to the palace; and, as the Council of Ten saw that the Duke was in the plot, they resolved that twenty of the leading men of the state should be associated to them, for the purpose of consultation and deliberation, but that they should not be allowed to ballot.

The counsellors were the following:—Ser Giovanni Mocenigo, of the Sestiero of San Marco; Ser Almoro Veniero da Santa Marina, of the Sestiero of Castello; Ser Tomaso Viadro, of the Sestiero of Canaregio; Ser Giovanni Sanudo, of the Sestiero of Santa Croce; Ser Pietro Trivisano, of the Sestiero of San Paolo; Ser Pantalione Barbo il Grando, of the Sestiero of Ossoduro. The Avogadori of the Commonwealth were Zufredo Morosini, and Ser Orio Pasqualigo; and these did not ballot. Those of the Council of Ten were Ser Giovanni Marcello, Ser Tomaso Sanudo, and Ser Micheletto Dolfino, the heads of the aforesaid Council of Ten. Ser Luca da Legge, and Ser Pietro da Mosto, inquisitors of the aforesaid Council. And Ser Marco Polani, Ser Marino Veniero, Ser Lando Lombardo, and Ser Nicoletto Trivisano, of Sant' Angelo.

Late in the night, just before the dawning, they chose a junta of twenty noblemen of Venice from amongst the wisest, and the worthiest, and the oldest. They were to give counsel, but not to ballot. And they would not admit any one of Cà Faliero. And Niccolo Faliero, and another Niccolo Faliero, of San Tomaso, were expelled from the Council, because they belonged to the family of the Doge. And this resolution of creating the junta of twenty was much praised throughout the state. The following were the members of the junta of twenty:—Ser Marco Giustiniani, Procuratore, Ser Andrea Erizzo, Procuratore, Ser Lionardo Giustiniani, Procuratore, Ser Andrea Contarini, Ser Simone Dandolo, Ser Niccolo Volpe, Ser Giovanni Loredano, Ser Marco Diedo, Ser Giovanni Gradenigo, Ser Andrea Cornaro Cavaliere, Ser Marco Soranzo, Ser Rinieri du Mosto, Ser Gazano Marcello, Ser Marino Morosini, Ser Stefano Belegno, Ser Niccolo Lioni, Ser Filippo Orio, Ser Marco Trivisano, Ser Jacopo Bragadino, Ser Giovanni Foscarini.

These twenty were accordingly called in to the Council of Ten; and they sent for my Lord Marino Faliero, the Duke: and my Lord Marino was then consorting in the palace with people of great estate, gentlemen, and other good men, none of whom knew yet how the fact stood.

At the same time Bertuccio Israello, who, as one of the ringleaders, was to head the conspirators in Santa Croce, was arrested and bound, and brought before the Council. Zanello del Brin, Nicoletto di Rosa, Nicoletto Alberto, and the Guardiaga, were also taken, together with several seamen, and people of various ranks. These were examined, and the truth of the plot was ascertained.

On the 16th of April judgment was given in the Council of Ten, that Filippo Calendaro and Bertuccio Israello should be hanged upon the red pillars of the balcony of the palace, from which the Duke is wont to look at the bull hunt: and they were hanged with gags in their mouths.

The next day the following were condemned:—Niccolo Zuccuolo, Nicoletto Blondo, Nicoletto Doro, Marco Giuda, Jacomello Dagolino, Nicoletto Fidele, the son of Filippo Calendaro, Marco Torello, called Israello, Stefano Trivisano, the money-changer of Santa Margherita, and Antonio dalle Bende. These were all taken at Chiozza, for they were endeavouring to escape. Afterwards, by virtue of the sentence which was passed upon them in the Council of Ten, they were hanged on successive days; some singly and some in couples, upon the columns of the palace, beginning from the red columns, and so going onwards towards the canal. And other prisoners were discharged, because, although they had been involved in the conspiracy, yet they had not assisted in it; for they were given to understand by some of the heads of the plot, that they were to come armed and prepared for the service of the state, and in order to secure certain criminals; and they knew nothing else. Nicoletto Alberto, the Guardiaga, and Bartolommeo Ciricolo and his son, and several others, who were not guilty, were discharged.

On Friday, the 16th day of April, judgment was also given in the aforesaid Council of Ten, that my Lord Marino Faliero, the Duke, should have his head cut off; and that the execution should be done on the landing-place of the stone staircase, where the Dukes take their oath when they first enter the palace. On the following day, the 17th of April, the doors of the palace being shut, the Duke had his head cut off, about the hour of noon. And the cap of estate was taken from the Duke's head before he came down stairs. When the execution was over, it is said that one of the Council of Ten went to the columns of the palace over against the place of St. Mark, and that he showed the bloody sword unto the people, crying out with a loud voice—"The terrible doom hath fallen upon the traitor!"—and the doors were opened, and the people all rushed in, to see the corpse of the Duke, who had been beheaded.

It must be known that Ser Giovanni Sanudo, the councillor, was not present when the aforesaid sentence was pronounced; because he was unwell and remained at home. So that only fourteen balloted; that is to say, five councillors, and nine of the Council of Ten. And it was adjudged, that all the lands and chattels of the Duke, as well as of the other traitors, should be forfeited to the state. And as a grace to the Duke, it was resolved in the Council of Ten, that he should be allowed to dispose of two thousand ducats out of his own property. And it was resolved, that all the councillors and all the Avogadori of the Commonwealth, those of the Council of Ten, and the members of the junta, who had assisted in passing sentence on the Duke and the other traitors, should have the privilege of carrying arms both by day and by night in Venice, and from Grado to Cavazere. And they were also to be allowed two footmen carrying arms, the aforesaid footmen living and boarding with them in their own houses. And he who did not keep two footmen might transfer the privilege to his sons or his brothers; but only to two. Permission of carrying arms was also granted to the four Notaries of the Chancery, that is to say, of the Supreme Court, who took the depositions; and they were, Amedio, Nicoletto di Lorino, Steffanello, and Pietro de Compostelli, the secretaries of the Signori di Notte.

After the traitors had been hanged, and the Duke had had his head cut off, the state remained in great tranquillity and peace. And, as I have read in a Chronicle, the corpse of the Duke was removed in a barge, with eight torches, to his tomb in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo, where it was buried. The tomb is now in that aisle in the middle of the little church of Santa Maria della Pace which was built by Bishop Gabriel of Bergamo. It is a coffin of stone, with these words engraven thereon: "Heic jacet Dominus Marinus Faletro Dux."—And they did not paint his portrait in the hall of the Great Council:—but in the place where it ought to have been, you see these words:—"Hic est locus Marini Faletro, decapitati pro criminibus."—And it is thought that his house was granted to the church of Sant' Apostolo; it was that great one near the bridge. Yet this could not be the case, or else the family bought it back from the church; for it still belongs to Cà Faliero. I must not refrain from noting, that some wished to write the following words in the place where his portrait ought to have been, as aforesaid:—"Marinus Faletro Dux, temeritas me cepit. Pænas lui, decapitatus pro criminibus."—Others, also, indited a couplet, worthy of being inscribed upon his tomb.

"Dux Venetum jacet heic, patriam qui prodere tentans,
Sceptra, decus, censum perdidit, atque caput."

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NOTE B.

Petrarch on the Conspiracy of Marino Faliero.[485]

"Al giovane doge Andrea Dandolo succedette un vecchio, il quale tardi si pose al timone della repubblica, ma sempre prima di quel, che facea d' uopo a lui ed alia patria: egli è Marino Faliero, personaggio a me noto per antica dimestichezza. Falsa era l' opinione intorno a lui, giacchè egli si mostrò fornito più di coraggio, che di senno. Non pago della prima dignità, entrò con sinistro piede nel pubblico Palazzo: imperciocchè questo doge dei Veneti, magistrato sacro in tutti i secoli, che dagli antichi fu sempre venerato qual nume in quella città, l' altr'jeri fu decollato nel vestibolo dell' istesso Palazzo. Discorrerei fin dal principio le cause di un tale evento, se cosi vario, ed ambiguo non ne fosse il grido: nessuno però lo scusa, tutti affermano, che egli abbia voluto cangiar qualche cosa nell' ordine della repubblica a lui tramandato dai maggiori. Che desiderava egli di più? Io son d' avviso, che egli abbia ottenuto ciò, che non si concedette a nessun altro: mentre adempiva gli uffici di legato presso il Pontefice, e sulle rive del Rodano trattava la pace, che io prima di lui avevo indarno tentato di conchiudere, gli fu conferito l' onore del ducato, che nè chiedeva, nè s' aspettava. Tornato in patria, pensò a quello, cui nessuno non pose mente giammai, e soffrì quello, che a niuno accadde mai di soffrire: giacchè in quel luogo celeberrimo, e chiarissimo, e bellissimo infra tutti quelli, che io vidi, ove i suoi antenati avevano ricevuti grandissimi onori in mezzo alle pompe trionfali, ivi egli fu trascinato in modo servile, e spogliato delle insegne ducali, perdette la testa, e macchiò col proprio sangue le soglie del tempio, l' atrio del Palazzo, e le scale marmoree endute spesse volte illustri o dalle solenni festività, o dalle ostili spoglie. Ho notato il luogo, ora noto il tempo: è l' anno del Natale di Cristo, 1355, fu il giorno diciotto aprile si alto è il grido sparso, che se alcuno esaminerà la disciplina, e le costumanze di quella città, e quanto mutamento di cose venga minacciato dalla morte di un solo uomo (quantunque molti altri, come narrano, essendo complici, o subirono l' istesso supplicio, o lo aspettano) si accorgerà, che nulla di più grande avvenne ai nostri tempi nella Italia. Tu forse qui attendi il mio giudizio: assolvo il popolo, se credere si dee alia fama, benchè abbia potuto e castigate più mitemente, e con maggior dolcezza vendicare il suo dolore: ma non cosi facilmente, si modera un' ira giusta insieme, e grande in un numeroso popolo principalmente, nel quale il precipitoso, ed instabile volgo aguzza gli stimoli dell' iracondia con rapidi, e sconsigliati clamori. Compatisco, e nell' istesso tempo mi adiro con quell' infelice uomo, il quale adorno di un' insolito onore, non so, che cosa si volesse negli estremi anni della sua vita: la calamità di lui diviene sempre più grave, perchè dalla sentenza contra di esso promulgata apparirà, che egli fu non solo misero, ma insano, e demente, e che con vane arti si usurpò per tanti anni una falsa fama di sapienza. Ammonisco i dogi, i quali gli succederanno, che questo e un' esempio posto innanzi ai loro occhi, quale specchio, nel quale veggano d' essere non signori, ma duci, anzi nemmeno duci, ma onorati servi della Repubblica. Tu sta sano; e giacchè fluttuano le pubbliche cose, sforziamoci di governar modestissimamente i privati nostri affari."—Viaggi di Francesco Petrarca, descritti dal Professore Ambrogio Levati, Milano, 1820, iv. 323-325.

The above Italian translation from the Latin epistles of Petrarch proves—1stly, That Marino Faliero was a personal friend of Petrarch's; "antica dimestichezza," old intimacy, is the phrase of the poet. 2dly, That Petrarch thought that he had more courage than conduct, "più di coraggio che di senno." 3dly, That there was some jealousy on the part of Petrarch; for he says that Marino Faliero was treating of the peace which he himself had "vainly attempted to conclude." 4thly, That the honour of the Dukedom was conferred upon him, which he neither sought nor expected, "che nè chiedeva, nè aspettava," and which had never been granted to any other in like circumstances, "ciò che non si concedette a nessun altro," a proof of the high esteem in which he must have been held. 5thly, That he had a reputation for wisdom, only forfeited by the last enterprise of his life, "si usurpò per tanti anni una falsa fama di sapienza."—"He had usurped for so many years a false fame of wisdom," rather a difficult task, I should think. People are generally found out before eighty years of age, at least in a republic.—From these, and the other historical notes which I have collected, it may be inferred, that Marino Faliero possessed many of the qualities, but not the success of a hero; and that his passions were too violent. The paltry and ignorant account of Dr. Moore falls to the ground. Petrarch says, "that there had been no greater event in his times" (our times literally), "nostri tempi," in Italy. He also differs from the historian in saying that Faliero was "on the banks of the Rhone," instead of at Rome, when elected; the other accounts say, that the deputation of the Venetian senate met him at Ravenna. How this may have been, it is not for me to decide, and is of no great importance. Had the man succeeded, he would have changed the face of Venice, and perhaps of Italy. As it is, what are they both?

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NOTE C.

Venetian Society and Manners.

"Vice without splendour, sin without relief
Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er;
But in its stead, coarse lusts of habitude," etc.

"To these attacks so frequently pointed by the government against the clergy,—to the continual struggles between the different constituted bodies,—to these enterprises carried on by the mass of the nobles against the depositaries of power,—to all those projects of innovation, which always ended by a stroke of state policy; we must add a cause not less fitted to spread contempt for ancient doctrines; this was the excess of corruption.

"That freedom of manners, which had been long boasted of as the principal charm of Venetian society, had degenerated into scandalous licentiousness: the tie of marriage was less sacred in that Catholic country, than among those nations where the laws and religion admit of its being dissolved. Because they could not break the contract, they feigned that it had not existed; and the ground of nullity, immodestly alleged by the married pair, was admitted with equal facility by priests and magistrates, alike corrupt. These divorces, veiled under another name, became so frequent, that the most important act of civil society was discovered to be amenable to a tribunal of exceptions; and to restrain the open scandal of such proceedings became the office of the police. In 1782 the Council of Ten decreed, that every woman who should sue for a dissolution of her marriage should be compelled to await the decision of the judges in some convent, to be named by the court.[486] Soon afterwards the same council summoned all causes of that nature before itself.[487] This infringement on ecclesiastical jurisdiction having occasioned some remonstrance from Rome, the council retained only the right of rejecting the petition of the married persons, and consented to refer such causes to the holy office as it should not previously have rejected.[488]

"There was a moment in which, doubtless, the destruction of private fortunes, the ruin of youth, the domestic discord occasioned by these abuses, determined the government to depart from its established maxims concerning the freedom of manners allowed the subject. All the courtesans were banished from Venice; but their absence was not enough to reclaim and bring back good morals to a whole people brought up in the most scandalous licentiousness. Depravity reached the very bosoms of private families, and even into the cloister; and they found themselves obliged to recall, and even to indemnify,[489] women who sometimes gained possession of important secrets, and who might be usefully employed in the ruin of men whose fortunes might have rendered them dangerous. Since that time licentiousness has gone on increasing; and we have seen mothers, not only selling the innocence of their daughters, but selling it by a contract, authenticated by the signature of a public officer, and the performance of which was secured by the protection of the laws.[490]

"The parlours of the convents of noble ladies, and the houses of the courtesans, though the police carefully kept up a number of spies about them, were the only assemblies for society in Venice; and in these two places, so different from each other, there was equal freedom. Music, collations, gallantry, were not more forbidden in the parlours than at the casinos. There were a number of casinos for the purpose of public assemblies, where gaming was the principal pursuit of the company. It was a strange sight to see persons of either sex masked, or grave in their magisterial robes, round a table, invoking chance, and giving way at one instant to the agonies of despair, at the next to the illusions of hope, and that without uttering a single word.

"The rich had private casinos, but they lived incognito in them; and the wives whom they abandoned found compensation in the liberty they enjoyed. The corruption of morals had deprived them of their empire. We have just reviewed the whole history of Venice, and we have not once seen them exercise the slightest influence."—Daru, Hist. de la Répub. de Vénise, Paris, 1821, v. 328-332.

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The author of "Sketches Descriptive of Italy," (1820), etc., one of the hundred tours lately published, is extremely anxious to disclaim a possible plagiarism from Childe Harold and Beppo. See p. 159, vol. iv. He adds that still less could this presumed coincidence arise from "my conversation," as he had "repeatedly declined an introduction to me while in Italy."

Who this person may be I know not;[491] but he must have been deceived by all or any of those who "repeatedly offered to introduce" him, as I invariably refused to receive any English with whom I was not previously acquainted, even when they had letters from England. If the whole assertion is not an invention, I request this person not to sit down with the notion that he could have been introduced, since there has been nothing I have so carefully avoided as any kind of intercourse with his countrymen,—excepting the very few who were for a considerable time resident in Venice, or had been of my previous acquaintance. Whoever made him any such offer was possessed of impudence equal to that of making such an assertion without having had it. The fact is, that I hold in utter abhorrence any contact with the travelling English, as my friend the Consul General Hoppner and the Countess Benzoni (in whose house the Conversazione mostly frequented by them is held), could amply testify, were it worth while. I was persecuted by these tourists even to my riding ground at Lido, and reduced to the most disagreeable circuits to avoid them. At Madame Benzoni's I repeatedly refused to be introduced to them;—of a thousand such presentations pressed upon me, I accepted two, and both were to Irish women.

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I should hardly have descended to speak of such trifles publicly, if the impudence of this "sketcher" had not forced me to a refutation of a disingenuous and gratuitously impertinent assertion; so meant to be, for what could it import to the reader to be told that the author "had repeatedly declined an introduction," even if it had been true, which, for the reasons I have above given, is scarcely possible. Except Lords Lansdowne, Jersey, and Lauderdale, Messrs. Scott, Hammond, Sir Humphry Davy, the late M. Lewis, W. Bankes, Mr. Hoppner, Thomas Moore, Lord Kinnaird, his brother, Mr. Joy, and Mr. Hobhouse, I do not recollect to have exchanged a word with another Englishman since I left their Country; and almost all these I had known before. The others,—and God knows there were some hundreds, who bored me with letters or visits, I refused to have any communication with, and shall be proud and happy when that wish becomes mutual.

FOOTNOTES:

[ [483] {462} Mr. Francis Cohen, afterwards Sir Francis Palgrave (1788-1861), the author of the Rise and Progress of the English Constitution, History of the Anglo-Saxons, etc., etc.

[ [483a] [In the earlier editions (1821-1825) Francis Cohen's translation (Appendix II.) is preceded by an Italian version (Appendix I.), taken directly from Muratori's edition of Marin Sanudo's _Vite dei Dogi_ (_Rerum Italicarum Scriptores_, 1733, xii. 628-635). The two versions are by no means identical. Cohen's "translation" is, presumably an accurate rendering of Sanudo's text, and must have been made either from the original MS. or from a transcript sent from Italy to England. Muratori's Italian is a _rifacimento_ of the original, which has been altered and condensed with a view to convenience or literary effect. Proper names of persons and places are changed, Sanudo's Venetian dialect gives place to Muratori's Italian, and notes which Sanudo added in the way of illustration and explanation are incorporated in the text. In the _Life of Marino Faliero_, pp. 199, 200 of the original text are omitted, and a passage from an old chronicle, which Sanudo gives as a note, is made to appear part of the original narrative. (See Preface to _Le Vite dei Dogi di Marin Sanudo_, by G. Monticolo, 1900; _Marino Faliero, La Congiura_, by V. Lazzarino; _Nuovo Archivio Veneto_, 1897, vol. xiii. pt. i. p. 15, note 1.)]

[ [484] {463}["Marin Faliero dalla bella moglie: altri la gode, ed egli la mantien." According to Andrea Navagero (It. Rer. Script., xxiii. 1038), the writing on the chair ran thus: "Becco Marino Falier dalla bella mogier" (vide ante, [p. 349]). Palgrave has bowdlerized Steno's lampoon.]

[ [485] {468}["Had a copy taken of an extract from Petrarch's Letters, with reference to the conspiracy of the Doge Marino Faliero, containing the poet's opinion of the matter."—Diary, February 11, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 201.]

[ [486] {470} Correspondence of M. Schlick, French chargé d'affaires. Despatch of 24th August, 1782.

[ [487] Ibid. Despatch, 31st August.

[ [488] Ibid. Despatch of 3d September, 1785.

[ [489] The decree for their recall designates them as nostre benemerite meretrici: a fund and some houses, called Case rampane, were assigned to them; hence the opprobrious appellation of Carampane. [The writer of the Preface to Leggi e memorie Venete sulla Prostituzione, which was issued from Lord Orford's private press in 1870, maintains that the designation is mythical. "Tale asserzione che non ha verum fondamento, salvo che nella imaginazione di chi primo la scrisse lo storico francese Daru non si fece scrupolo di ripetuta ciecamente. Fu altresi ripetuta da Lord Byron e da altri," etc. The volume, a sumptuous folio, prints a series of rescripts promulgated by the Venetian government against meretrici and other disagreeable persons.]

[ [490] Meyer, Description of Venice, vol. ii.; and M. de Archenholtz, Picture of Italy, vol. i. sect. 2, pp. 65, 66. [Voyage en Italie, par F. J. L. Meyer, An X. cap. iii.]

[ [491] {471} [In a letter to Murray, September 11, 1820 (Letters, 1901, v. 75, 84), Byron writes, "Last post I sent you a note fierce as Faliero himself, in answer to a trashy tourist, who pretends that he could have been introduced to me;" but at the end of the month, September 29, 1820, he withdraws his animadversions: "I open my letter to say, that on reading more of the 4 volumes on Italy [Sketches descriptive of Italy in the Years 1816, 1817, etc., by Miss Jane Waldie] ... I perceive (horresco referens) that it is written by a WOMAN!!! In that case you must suppress my note and answer.... I can only say that I am sorry that a Lady should say anything of the kind. What I would have said to one of the other sex you know already." Nevertheless, the note was appended to the first edition, which appeared April 21, 1821.]

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THE VISION OF JUDGMENT.
BY
QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS.

SUGGESTED BY THE COMPOSITION SO ENTITLED BY THE AUTHOR OF "WAT TYLER."

---

"A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel!
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word."

[Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. 1, lines 218, 336.]

---

---

INTRODUCTION TO THE VISION OF JUDGMENT.

Byron's Vision of Judgment is a parody of Southey's Vision of Judgement.

The acts or fyttes of the quarrel between Byron and Southey occur in the following order. In the summer of 1817 Southey, accompanied by his friends, Humphrey Senhouse and the artist Edward Nash, passed some weeks (July) in Switzerland. They visited Chamouni, and at Montanvert, in the travellers' album, they found, in Shelley's handwriting, a Greek hexameter verse, in which he affirmed that he was an "atheist," together with an indignant comment ("fool!" also in Greek) superadded in an unknown hand (see Life of Shelley, by E. Dowden, 1886, ii. 30, note). Southey copied this entry into his note-book, and "spoke of the circumstance on his return" (circ. August 12, 1817). In the course of the next year some one told Byron that a rumour had reached England that he and Shelley "had formed a league of incest with two sisters," and that Southey and Coleridge were the authors of the scandal. There is nothing to show through what channel the report of the rumour reached Byron's ears, but it may be inferred that it was in his mind (see Letter to Murray, November 24, 1818, Letters, 1900, iv. 272) when he assailed Southey in the "Dedication" ("in good, simple, savage verse") to the First Canto of Don Juan, which was begun September 6, 1818. Shelley, who was already embittered against Southey (see the account of a dinner at Godwin's, November 6, 1817, Diary of H. C. Robinson, 1869, ii. 67), heard Byron read this "Dedication," and, in a letter to Peacock (October 8, 1818), describes it as being "more like a mixture of wormwood and verdigrease than satire."

When Don Juan appeared (July 15, 1819), the "Dedication" was not forthcoming, but of its existence and character Southey had been informed. "Have you heard," he asks (Letter to the Rev. H. Hill, Selections from the Letters, etc., 1856, iii. 142), "that Don Juan came over with a Dedication to me, in which Lord Castlereagh and I ... were coupled together for abuse as the 'two Roberts'? A fear of persecution (sic) from the one Robert is supposed to be the reason why it has been suppressed. Lord Byron might have done well to remember that the other can write dedications also; and make his own cause good, if it were needful, in prose or rhyme, against a villain, as well as against a slanderer."

When George III. died (January 29, 1820), it became the duty of the "laurel-honouring laureate" to write a funeral ode, and in composing a Preface, in vindication of the English hexameter, he took occasion "incidentally to repay some of his obligations to Lord Byron by a few comments on Don Juan" (Letter to the Rev. H. Hill, January 8, 1821, Selections, etc., iii. 225). He was, no doubt, impelled by other and higher motives to constitute himself a censor morum, and take up his parable against the spirit of the age as displayed and fostered in Don Juan (see a letter to Wynne, March 23, 1821, Selections, etc., iii. 238), but the suppressed "Dedication" and certain gibes, which had been suffered to appear, may be reckoned as the immediate causes of his anathema.

Southey's Vision of Judgement was published April 11, 1821—an undivine comedy, in which the apotheosis of George III., the beatification of the virtuous, and the bale and damnation of such egregious spirits as Robespierre, Wilkes, and Junius, are "thrown upon the screen" of the showman or lecturer. Southey said that the "Vision" ought to be read aloud, and, if the subject could be forgotten and ignored, the hexameters might not sound amiss, but the subject and its treatment are impossible and intolerable. The "Vision" would have "made sport" for Byron in any case, but, in the Preface, Southey went out of his way to attack and denounce the anonymous author of Don Juan.

"What, then," he asks (ed. 1838, x. 204), "should be said of those for whom the thoughtlessness and inebriety of wanton youth can no longer be pleaded, but who have written in sober manhood, and with deliberate purpose?... Men of diseased hearts and depraved imaginations, who, forming a system of opinions to suit their own unhappy course of conduct, have rebelled against the holiest ordinances of human society, and hating that revealed religion which, with all their efforts and bravadoes, they are unable entirely to disbelieve, labour to make others as miserable as themselves, by infecting them with a moral virus that eats into the soul! The school which they have set up may properly be called the Satanic school; for, though their productions breathe the spirit of Belial in their lascivious parts, and the spirit of Moloch in those loathsome images of atrocities and horrors which they delight to represent, they are more especially characterized by a Satanic pride and audacious impiety, which still betrays the wretched feeling of hopelessness wherewith it is allied."

Byron was not slow to take up the challenge. In the "Appendix" to the Two Foscari (first ed., pp. 325-329), which was written at Ravenna, June-July, but not published till December 11, 1821, he retaliates on "Mr. Southey and his 'pious preface'" in many words; but when it comes to the point, ignores the charge of having "published a lascivious book," and endeavours by counter-charges to divert the odium and to cover his adversary with shame and confusion. "Mr. S.," he says, "with a cowardly ferocity, exults over the anticipated 'death-bed repentance' of the objects of his dislike; and indulges himself in a pleasant 'Vision of Judgment,' in prose as well as verse, full of impious impudence.... I am not ignorant," he adds, "of Mr. Southey's calumnies on a different occasion, knowing them to be such, which he scattered abroad on his return from Switzerland against me and others.... What his 'death-bed' may be it is not my province to predicate; let him settle it with his Maker, as I must do with mine. There is something at once ludicrous and blasphemous in this arrogant scribbler of all works sitting down to deal damnation and destruction upon his fellow-creatures, with Wat Tyler, the Apotheosis of George the Third, and the Elegy on Martin the regicide, all shuffled together in his writing-desk."

Southey must have received his copy of the Two Foscari in the last week of December, 1821, and with the "Appendix" (to say nothing of the Third Canto of Don Juan) before him, he gave tongue, in the pages of the Courier, January 6, 1822. His task was an easy one. He was able to deny, in toto, the charge of uttering calumnies on his return from Switzerland, and he was pleased to word his denial in a very disagreeable way. He had come home with a stock of travellers' tales, but not one of them was about Lord Byron. He had "sought for no staler subject than St. Ursula." His charges of "impiety," "lewdness," "profanation," and "pollution," had not been answered, and were unanswerable; and as to his being a "scribbler of all work," there were exceptions—works which he had not scribbled, the nefanda which disfigured the writings of Lord Byron. "Satanic school" would stick.

So far, the battle went in Southey's favour. "The words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel," and Byron was reduced to silence. A challenge (sent through Kinnaird, but not delivered) was but a confession of impotence. There was, however, in Southey's letter to the Courier just one sentence too many. Before he concluded he had given "one word of advice to Lord Byron"—"When he attacks me again, let it be in rhyme. For one who has so little command of himself, it will be a great advantage that his temper should be obliged to keep tune."

Byron had anticipated this advice, and had already attacked the laureate in rhyme, scornfully and satirically, but with a gay and genial mockery which dispensed with "wormwood and verdigrease" or yet bitterer and more venomous ingredients.

There was a truth in Lamb's jest, that it was Southey's Vision of Judgement which was worthy of prosecution; that "Lord Byron's poem was of a most good-natured description—no malevolence" (Diary of H. C. Robinson, 1869, ii. 240). Good-natured or otherwise, it awoke inextinguishable laughter, and left Byron in possession of the field.

The Vision of Judgment, begun May 7 (but probably laid aside till September 11), was forwarded to Murray October 4, 1821. "By this post," he wrote to Moore, October 6, 1821 (Letters, 1901, v. 387), "I have sent my nightmare to balance the incubus of Southey's impudent anticipation of the Apotheosis of George the Third." A chance perusal of Southey's letter in the Courier (see Medwin's Conversations, 1824, p. 222, and letters to Douglas Kinnaird, February 6, 25, 1822) quickened his desire for publication; but in spite of many appeals and suggestions to Murray, who had sent Byron's "copy" to his printer, the decisive step of passing the proofs for press was never taken. At length Byron lost patience, and desired Murray to hand over "the corrected copy of the proof with the Preface" of the Vision of Judgment to John Hunt (see letters to Murray, July 3, 6, 1822, Letters, 1901, vi. 92, 93). Finally, a year after the MS. had been sent to England, the Vision of Judgment, by Quevedo Redivivus, appeared in the first number (pp. 1-39) of the Liberal, which was issued October 15, 1822. The Preface, to Byron's astonishment and annoyance, was not forthcoming (see letter to Murray, October 22, 1822, Letters, 1901, vi. 126, and Examiner, Sunday, November 3, 1822, p. 697), and is not prefixed to the first issue of the Vision of Judgment in the first number of the Liberal.

The Liberal was severely handled by the press (see, for example, the Literary Gazette for October 19, 26, November 2, 1822; see, too, an anonymous pamphlet entitled A Critique on the "Liberal" (London, 1822, 8vo, 16 pages), which devotes ten pages to an attack on the Vision of Judgment). The daily press was even more violent. The Courier for October 26 begins thus: "This scoundrel-like publication has at length made its appearance."

There was even a threat of prosecution. Byron offered to employ counsel for Hunt, to come over to England to stand his trial in his stead, and blamed Murray for not having handed over the corrected proof, in which some of the more offensive passages had been omitted or mitigated (see letter to Murray, December 25, 1822, and letter to John Hunt, January 8, 1823, Letters, 1901, vi. 155, 159). It is to be noted that in the list of Errata affixed to the table of Contents at the end of the first volume of the Liberal, the words, a "weaker king ne'er," are substituted for "a worse king never" (stanza viii. line 6), and "an unhandsome woman" for "a bad, ugly woman" (stanza xii. line 8). It would seem that these emendations, which do not appear in the MS., were slipped into the Errata as precautions, not as after-thoughts.

Nevertheless, it was held that a publication "calumniating the late king, and wounding the feelings of his present Majesty," was a danger to the public peace, and on January 15, 1824, the case of the King v. John Hunt was tried in the Court of King's Bench. The jury brought in a verdict of "Guilty," but judgment was deferred, and it was not till July 19, 1824, three days after the author of the Vision of Judgment had been laid to rest at Hucknall Torkard, that the publisher was sentenced to pay to the king a fine of one hundred pounds, and to enter into securities, for five years, for a larger amount.

For the complete text of section iii. of Southey's Preface, Byron's "Appendix" to the Two Foscari, etc., see Essays Moral and Political, by Robert Southey, 1832, ii. 183, 205. See, too, for "Quarrel between Byron and Southey," Appendix I. of vol. vi. of Letters of Lord Byron, 1901.

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NOTE.

The following excerpt from H. C. Robinson's Diary is printed from the original MS., with the kind permission of the trustees of Dr. Williams' Theological Library (see "Diary," 1869, ii. 437):—

"[Weimar], August 15, [1829].

"W[ordsworth] will not put the nose of B[yron] out with Frau von Goethe, but he will be appreciated by her. I am afraid of the experiment with the great poet himself....

" ... I alone to the poet....

"I read to him the Vision of Judgment. He enjoyed it like a child; but his criticisms went little beyond the exclamatory 'Toll! Ganz grob! himmlisch! unübertrefflich!' etc., etc.

"In general, the more strongly peppered passages pleased him the best. Stanza 9 he praised for the clear distinct painting; 10 he repeated with emphasis,—the last two lines conscious that his own age was eighty; 13, 14, and 15 are favourites with me. G. concurred in the suggested praise. The stanza 24 he declared to be sublime. The characteristic speeches of Wilkes and Junius he thought most admirable.

"Byron 'hat selbst viel übertroffen;' and the introduction of Southey made him laugh heartily.

"August 16.

"Lord B. he declared to be inimitable. Ariosto was not so keck as Lord B. in the Vision of Judgment."

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PREFACE

It hath been wisely said, that "One fool makes many;" and it hath been poetically observed—

"[That] fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

[POPE'S Essay on Criticism, line 625.]

If Mr. Southey had not rushed in where he had no business, and where he never was before, and never will be again, the following poem would not have been written. It is not impossible that it may be as good as his own, seeing that it cannot, by any species of stupidity, natural or acquired, be worse. The gross flattery, the dull impudence, the renegade intolerance, and impious cant, of the poem by the author of "Wat Tyler," are something so stupendous as to form the sublime of himself—containing the quintessence of his own attributes.

So much for his poem—a word on his preface. In this preface it has pleased the magnanimous Laureate to draw the picture of a supposed "Satanic School," the which he doth recommend to the notice of the legislature; thereby adding to his other laurels the ambition of those of an informer. If there exists anywhere, except in his imagination, such a School, is he not sufficiently armed against it by his own intense vanity? The truth is that there are certain writers whom Mr. S. imagines, like Scrub, to have "talked of him; for they laughed consumedly."[492]

I think I know enough of most of the writers to whom he is supposed to allude, to assert, that they, in their individual capacities, have done more good, in the charities of life, to their fellow-creatures, in any one year, than Mr. Southey has done harm to himself by his absurdities in his whole life; and this is saying a great deal. But I have a few questions to ask.

1stly, Is Mr. Southey the author of Wat Tyler?

2ndly, Was he not refused a remedy at law by the highest judge of his beloved England, because it was a blasphemous and seditious publication?[493]

3rdly, Was he not entitled by William Smith, in full parliament, "a rancorous renegado?"[494]

4thly, Is he not poet laureate, with his own lines on Martin the regicide staring him in the face?[495]

And, 5thly, Putting the four preceding items together, with what conscience dare he call the attention of the laws to the publications of others, be they what they may?

I say nothing of the cowardice of such a proceeding; its meanness speaks for itself; but I wish to touch upon the motive, which is neither more nor less than that Mr. S. has been laughed at a little in some recent publications, as he was of yore in the Anti-jacobin, by his present patrons. Hence all this "skimble scamble stuff" about "Satanic," and so forth. However, it is worthy of him—"qualis ab incepto."

If there is anything obnoxious to the political opinions of a portion of the public in the following poem, they may thank Mr. Southey. He might have written hexameters, as he has written everything else, for aught that the writer cared—had they been upon another subject. But to attempt to canonise a monarch, who, whatever were his household virtues, was neither a successful nor a patriot king,—inasmuch as several years of his reign passed in war with America and Ireland, to say nothing of the aggression upon France—like all other exaggeration, necessarily begets opposition. In whatever manner he may be spoken of in this new Vision, his public career will not be more favourably transmitted by history. Of his private virtues (although a little expensive to the nation) there can be no doubt.

With regard to the supernatural personages treated of, I can only say that I know as much about them, and (as an honest man) have a better right to talk of them than Robert Southey. I have also treated them more tolerantly. The way in which that poor insane creature, the Laureate, deals about his judgments in the next world, is like his own judgment in this. If it was not completely ludicrous, it would be something worse. I don't think that there is much more to say at present.

QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS.

P.S.—It is possible that some readers may object, in these objectionable times, to the freedom with which saints, angels, and spiritual persons discourse in this Vision. But, for precedents upon such points, I must refer him to Fielding's Journey from this World to the next, and to the Visions of myself, the said Quevedo, in Spanish or translated.[496] The reader is also requested to observe, that no doctrinal tenets are insisted upon or discussed; that the person of the Deity is carefully withheld from sight, which is more than can be said for the Laureate, who hath thought proper to make him talk, not "like a school-divine,"[497] but like the unscholarlike Mr. Southey. The whole action passes on the outside of heaven; and Chaucer's Wife of Bath, Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, Swift's Tale of a Tub, and the other works above referred to, are cases in point of the freedom with which saints, etc., may be permitted to converse in works not intended to be serious.

Q.R.

* * * Mr. Southey being, as he says, a good Christian and vindictive, threatens, I understand, a reply to this our answer. It is to be hoped that his visionary faculties will in the meantime have acquired a little more judgment, properly so called: otherwise he will get himself into new dilemmas. These apostate jacobins furnish rich rejoinders. Let him take a specimen. Mr. Southey laudeth grievously "one Mr. Landor,"[498] who cultivates much private renown in the shape of Latin verses; and not long ago, the poet laureate dedicated to him, it appeareth, one of his fugitive lyrics, upon the strength of a poem called "Gebir." Who could suppose, that in this same Gebir the aforesaid Savage Landor (for such is his grim cognomen) putteth into the infernal regions no less a person than the hero of his friend Mr. Southey's heaven,—yea, even George the Third! See also how personal Savage becometh, when he hath a mind. The following is his portrait of our late gracious sovereign:—

(Prince Gebir having descended into the infernal regions, the shades of his royal ancestors are, at his request, called up to his view; and he exclaims to his ghostly guide)—

"'Aroar, what wretch that nearest us? what wretch
Is that with eyebrows white and slanting brow?
Listen! him yonder who, bound down supine,
Shrinks yelling from that sword there, engine-hung;
He too amongst my ancestors! [I hate
The despot, but the dastard I despise.
Was he our countryman?'
'Alas,][499] O king!
Iberia bore him, but the breed accurst
Inclement winds blew blighting from north-east.'
'He was a warrior then, nor fear'd the gods?'
'Gebir, he feared the Demons, not the gods,
Though them indeed his daily face adored;
And was no warrior, yet the thousand lives
Squandered, as stones to exercise a sling,
And the tame cruelty and cold caprice—
Oh madness of mankind! addressed, adored!'"

Gebir [Works, etc., 1876, vii. 17].

I omit noticing some edifying Ithyphallics of Savagius, wishing to keep the proper veil over them, if his grave but somewhat indiscreet worshipper will suffer it; but certainly these teachers of "great moral lessons" are apt to be found in strange company.

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THE VISION OF JUDGMENT.[500]

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I.

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate:
His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull,
So little trouble had been given of late;
Not that the place by any means was full,
But since the Gallic era "eighty-eight"
The Devils had ta'en a longer, stronger pull,
And "a pull altogether," as they say
At sea—which drew most souls another way.

II.

The Angels all were singing out of tune,
And hoarse with having little else to do,
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon,
Or curb a runaway young star or two,[fz]
Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon
Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue,
Splitting some planet with its playful tail,
As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale.

III.

The Guardian Seraphs had retired on high,
Finding their charges past all care below;[ga]
Terrestrial business filled nought in the sky
Save the Recording Angel's black bureau;
Who found, indeed, the facts to multiply
With such rapidity of vice and woe,
That he had stripped off both his wings in quills,
And yet was in arrear of human ills.

IV.

His business so augmented of late years,
That he was forced, against his will, no doubt,
(Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers,)
For some resource to turn himself about,
And claim the help of his celestial peers,[gb]
To aid him ere he should be quite worn out
By the increased demand for his remarks:[gc]
Six Angels and twelve Saints were named his clerks.

V.

This was a handsome board—at least for Heaven;
And yet they had even then enough to do,
So many Conquerors' cars were daily driven,
So many kingdoms fitted up anew;
Each day, too, slew its thousands six or seven,
Till at the crowning carnage, Waterloo,
They threw their pens down in divine disgust—
The page was so besmeared with blood and dust.[gd]

VI.

This by the way; 'tis not mine to record
What Angels shrink from: even the very Devil
On this occasion his own work abhorred,
So surfeited with the infernal revel:
Though he himself had sharpened every sword,[ge]
It almost quenched his innate thirst of evil.
(Here Satan's sole good work deserves insertion—
'Tis, that he has both Generals in reversion.)[gf][501]

VII.

Let's skip a few short years of hollow peace,
Which peopled earth no better, Hell as wont,
And Heaven none—they form the tyrant's lease,
With nothing but new names subscribed upon't;
'Twill one day finish: meantime they increase,[gg]
"With seven heads and ten horns," and all in front,
Like Saint John's foretold beast; but ours are born
Less formidable in the head than horn.[gh]

VIII.

In the first year of Freedom's second dawn[502]
Died George the Third; although no tyrant, one
Who shielded tyrants, till each sense withdrawn[gi]
Left him nor mental nor external sun:[503]
A better farmer ne'er brushed dew from lawn,[gj]
A worse king never left a realm undone!
He died—but left his subjects still behind,
One half as mad—and t'other no less blind.[gk][504]

IX.

He died! his death made no great stir on earth:
His burial made some pomp; there was profusion
Of velvet—gilding—brass—and no great dearth
Of aught but tears—save those shed by collusion:
For these things may be bought at their true worth;
Of elegy there was the due infusion—
Bought also; and the torches, cloaks and banners,
Heralds, and relics of old Gothic manners,[505]

X.

Formed a sepulchral melodrame. Of all
The fools who flocked to swell or see the show,
Who cared about the corpse? The funeral
Made the attraction, and the black the woe,
There throbbed not there a thought which pierced the pall;
And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low,
It seemed the mockery of hell to fold
The rottenness of eighty years in gold.[506]

XI.

So mix his body with the dust! It might
Return to what it must far sooner, were
The natural compound left alone to fight
Its way back into earth, and fire, and air;
But the unnatural balsams merely blight
What Nature made him at his birth, as bare
As the mere million's base unmummied clay—
Yet all his spices but prolong decay.[507]

XII.

He's dead—and upper earth with him has done;
He's buried; save the undertaker's bill,
Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone
For him, unless he left a German will:[508]
But where's the proctor who will ask his son?
In whom his qualities are reigning still,[gl]
Except that household virtue, most uncommon,
Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman.

XIII.

"God save the king!" It is a large economy
In God to save the like; but if he will
Be saving, all the better; for not one am I
Of those who think damnation better still:[509]
I hardly know too if not quite alone am I
In this small hope of bettering future ill
By circumscribing, with some slight restriction,
The eternity of Hell's hot jurisdiction.

XIV.

I know this is unpopular; I know
'Tis blasphemous; I know one may be damned
For hoping no one else may e'er be so;
I know my catechism; I know we're crammed
With the best doctrines till we quite o'erflow;
I know that all save England's Church have shammed,
And that the other twice two hundred churches
And synagogues have made a damned bad purchase.

XV.

God help us all! God help me too! I am,
God knows, as helpless as the Devil can wish,
And not a whit more difficult to damn,
Than is to bring to land a late-hooked fish,
Or to the butcher to purvey the lamb;
Not that I'm fit for such a noble dish,
As one day will be that immortal fry
Of almost every body born to die.

XVI.

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate,
And nodded o'er his keys: when, lo! there came
A wondrous noise he had not heard of late—
A rushing sound of wind, and stream, and flame;
In short, a roar of things extremely great,
Which would have made aught save a Saint exclaim;
But he, with first a start and then a wink,
Said, "There's another star gone out, I think!"[gm]

XVII.

But ere he could return to his repose,
A Cherub flapped his right wing o'er his eyes—
At which Saint Peter yawned, and rubbed his nose:
"Saint porter," said the angel, "prithee rise!"
Waving a goodly wing, which glowed, as glows
An earthly peacock's tail, with heavenly dyes:
To which the saint replied, "Well, what's the matter?
"Is Lucifer come back with all this clatter?"

XVIII.

"No," quoth the Cherub: "George the Third is dead."
"And who is George the Third?" replied the apostle:
"What George? what Third?" "The King of England," said
The angel. "Well! he won't find kings to jostle
Him on his way; but does he wear his head?
Because the last we saw here had a tustle,
And ne'er would have got into Heaven's good graces,
Had he not flung his head in all our faces.

XIX.

"He was—if I remember—King of France;[510]
That head of his, which could not keep a crown
On earth, yet ventured in my face to advance
A claim to those of martyrs—like my own:
If I had had my sword, as I had once
When I cut ears off, I had cut him down;
But having but my keys, and not my brand,
I only knocked his head from out his hand.

XX.

"And then he set up such a headless howl,
That all the Saints came out and took him in;
And there he sits by Saint Paul, cheek by jowl;[gn]
That fellow Paul—the parvenù! The skin[511]
Of Saint Bartholomew, which makes his cowl
In heaven, and upon earth redeemed his sin,
So as to make a martyr, never sped
Better than did this weak and wooden head.

XXI.

"But had it come up here upon its shoulders,
There would have been a different tale to tell:
The fellow-feeling in the Saint's beholders
Seems to have acted on them like a spell;
And so this very foolish head Heaven solders
Back on its trunk: it may be very well,
And seems the custom here to overthrow
Whatever has been wisely done below."

XXII.

The Angel answered, "Peter! do not pout:
The King who comes has head and all entire,
And never knew much what it was about—
He did as doth the puppet—by its wire,
And will be judged like all the rest, no doubt:
My business and your own is not to inquire
Into such matters, but to mind our cue—
Which is to act as we are bid to do."

XXIII.

While thus they spake, the angelic caravan,
Arriving like a rush of mighty wind,
Cleaving the fields of space, as doth the swan
Some silver stream (say Ganges, Nile, or Inde,
Or Thames, or Tweed), and midst them an old man
With an old soul, and both extremely blind,
Halted before the gate, and, in his shroud,
Seated their fellow-traveller on a cloud.[512]

XXIV.

But bringing up the rear of this bright host
A Spirit of a different aspect waved
His wings, like thunder-clouds above some coast
Whose barren beach with frequent wrecks is paved;
His brow was like the deep when tempest-tossed;
Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved
Eternal wrath on his immortal face,
And where he gazed a gloom pervaded space.

XXV.

As he drew near, he gazed upon the gate
Ne'er to be entered more by him or Sin,
With such a glance of supernatural hate,
As made Saint Peter wish himself within;
He pottered[513] with his keys at a great rate,
And sweated through his Apostolic skin:[go]
Of course his perspiration was but ichor,
Or some such other spiritual liquor.[gp]

XXVI.

The very Cherubs huddled all together,
Like birds when soars the falcon; and they felt
A tingling to the tip of every feather,
And formed a circle like Orion's belt
Around their poor old charge; who scarce knew whither
His guards had led him, though they gently dealt
With royal Manes (for by many stories,
And true, we learn the Angels all are Tories).

XXVII.

As things were in this posture, the gate flew
Asunder, and the flashing of its hinges
Flung over space an universal hue
Of many-coloured flame, until its tinges
Reached even our speck of earth, and made a new
Aurora borealis spread its fringes
O'er the North Pole; the same seen, when ice-bound,
By Captain Parry's crew, in "Melville's Sound."[gq][514]

XXVIII.

And from the gate thrown open issued beaming
A beautiful and mighty Thing of Light,[515]
Radiant with glory, like a banner streaming
Victorious from some world-o'erthrowing fight:
My poor comparisons must needs be teeming
With earthly likenesses, for here the night
Of clay obscures our best conceptions, saving
Johanna Southcote,[516] or Bob Southey raving.[517]

XXIX.

'Twas the Archangel Michael: all men know
The make of Angels and Archangels, since
There's scarce a scribbler has not one to show,
From the fiends' leader to the Angels' Prince.
There also are some altar-pieces, though
I really can't say that they much evince
One's inner notions of immortal spirits;
But let the connoisseurs explain their merits.

XXX.

Michael flew forth in glory and in good;
A goodly work of him from whom all Glory
And Good arise; the portal past—he stood;
Before him the young Cherubs and Saints hoary—
(I say young, begging to be understood
By looks, not years; and should be very sorry
To state, they were not older than St. Peter,
But merely that they seemed a little sweeter).

XXXI.

The Cherubs and the Saints bowed down before
That arch-angelic Hierarch, the first
Of Essences angelical who wore
The aspect of a god; but this ne'er nursed
Pride in his heavenly bosom, in whose core
No thought, save for his Maker's service, durst
Intrude, however glorified and high;
He knew him but the Viceroy of the sky.

XXXII.

He and the sombre, silent Spirit met—
They knew each other both for good and ill;
Such was their power, that neither could forget
His former friend and future foe; but still
There was a high, immortal, proud regret
In either's eye, as if 'twere less their will
Than destiny to make the eternal years
Their date of war, and their "Champ Clos" the spheres.

XXXIII.

But here they were in neutral space: we know
From Job, that Satan hath the power to pay
A heavenly visit thrice a-year or so;
And that the "Sons of God," like those of clay,
Must keep him company; and we might show
From the same book, in how polite a way
The dialogue is held between the Powers
Of Good and Evil—but 'twould take up hours.

XXXIV.

And this is not a theologic tract,[518]
To prove with Hebrew and with Arabic,
If Job be allegory or a fact,
But a true narrative; and thus I pick
From out the whole but such and such an act
As sets aside the slightest thought of trick.
'Tis every tittle true, beyond suspicion,
And accurate as any other vision.

XXXV.

The spirits were in neutral space, before
The gate of Heaven; like eastern thresholds is[519]
The place where Death's grand cause is argued o'er,
And souls despatched to that world or to this;
And therefore Michael and the other wore
A civil aspect: though they did not kiss,
Yet still between his Darkness and his Brightness
There passed a mutual glance of great politeness.

XXXVI.

The Archangel bowed, not like a modern beau,
But with a graceful oriental bend,
Pressing one radiant arm just where below[gr]
The heart in good men is supposed to tend;
He turned as to an equal, not too low,
But kindly; Satan met his ancient friend[gs]
With more hauteur, as might an old Castilian
Poor Noble meet a mushroom rich civilian.

XXXVII.

He merely bent his diabolic brow
An instant; and then raising it, he stood
In act to assert his right or wrong, and show
Cause why King George by no means could or should
Make out a case to be exempt from woe
Eternal, more than other kings, endued
With better sense and hearts, whom History mentions,
Who long have "paved Hell with their good intentions."[520]

XXXVIII.

Michael began: "What wouldst thou with this man,
Now dead, and brought before the Lord? What ill
Hath he wrought since his mortal race began,
That thou canst claim him? Speak! and do thy will,
If it be just: if in this earthly span
He hath been greatly failing to fulfil
His duties as a king and mortal, say,
And he is thine; if not—let him have way."

XXXIX.

"Michael!" replied the Prince of Air, "even here
Before the gate of Him thou servest, must
I claim my subject: and will make appear
That as he was my worshipper in dust,
So shall he be in spirit, although dear
To thee and thine, because nor wine nor lust
Were of his weaknesses; yet on the throne
He reigned o'er millions to serve me alone.

XL.

"Look to our earth, or rather mine; it was,
Once, more thy master's: but I triumph not
In this poor planet's conquest; nor, alas!
Need he thou servest envy me my lot:
With all the myriads of bright worlds which pass
In worship round him, he may have forgot
Yon weak creation of such paltry things:
I think few worth damnation save their kings,

XLI.

"And these but as a kind of quit-rent, to
Assert my right as Lord: and even had
I such an inclination,'twere (as you
Well know) superfluous; they are grown so bad,
That Hell has nothing better left to do
Than leave them to themselves: so much more mad
And evil by their own internal curse,
Heaven cannot make them better, nor I worse.

XLII.

"Look to the earth, I said, and say again:
When this old, blind, mad, helpless, weak, poor worm
Began in youth's first bloom and flush to reign,
The world and he both wore a different form,
And much of earth and all the watery plain
Of Ocean called him king: through many a storm
His isles had floated on the abyss of Time;
For the rough virtues chose them for their clime.[521]

XLIII.

"He came to his sceptre young; he leaves it old:
Look to the state in which he found his realm,
And left it; and his annals too behold,
How to a minion first he gave the helm;[522]
How grew upon his heart a thirst for gold,
The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm
The meanest hearts; and for the rest, but glance
Thine eye along America and France.

XLIV.

"'Tis true, he was a tool from first to last
(I have the workmen safe); but as a tool
So let him be consumed. From out the past
Of ages, since mankind have known the rule
Of monarchs—from the bloody rolls amassed
Of Sin and Slaughter—from the Cæsars' school,
Take the worst pupil; and produce a reign
More drenched with gore, more cumbered with the slain.

XLV.

"He ever warred with freedom and the free:
Nations as men, home subjects, foreign foes,
So that they uttered the word 'Liberty!'
Found George the Third their first opponent. Whose
History was ever stained as his will be
With national and individual woes?[gt]
I grant his household abstinence; I grant
His neutral virtues, which most monarchs want;

XLVI.

"I know he was a constant consort; own
He was a decent sire, and middling lord.
All this is much, and most upon a throne;
As temperance, if at Apicius' board,
Is more than at an anchorite's supper shown.
I grant him all the kindest can accord;
And this was well for him, but not for those
Millions who found him what Oppression chose.

XLVII.

"The New World shook him off; the Old yet groans
Beneath what he and his prepared, if not
Completed: he leaves heirs on many thrones
To all his vices, without what begot
Compassion for him—his tame virtues; drones
Who sleep, or despots who have now forgot
A lesson which shall be re-taught them, wake
Upon the thrones of earth; but let them quake!

XLVIII.

"Five millions of the primitive, who hold
The faith which makes ye great on earth, implored
A part of that vast all they held of old,—[gu]
Freedom to worship—not alone your Lord,
Michael, but you, and you, Saint Peter! Cold
Must be your souls, if you have not abhorred
The foe to Catholic participation[523]
In all the license of a Christian nation.

XLIX.

"True! he allowed them to pray God; but as
A consequence of prayer, refused the law
Which would have placed them upon the same base
With those who did not hold the Saints in awe."
But here Saint Peter started from his place
And cried, "You may the prisoner withdraw:
Ere Heaven shall ope her portals to this Guelph,
While I am guard, may I be damned myself!

L.

"Sooner will I with Cerberus exchange
My office (and his is no sinecure)
Than see this royal Bedlam-bigot range[gv]
The azure fields of Heaven, of that be sure!"
"Saint!" replied Satan, "you do well to avenge
The wrongs he made your satellites endure;
And if to this exchange you should be given,
I'll try to coax our Cerberus up to Heaven!"

LI.

Here Michael interposed: "Good Saint! and Devil!
Pray, not so fast; you both outrun discretion.
Saint Peter! you were wont to be more civil:
Satan! excuse this warmth of his expression,
And condescension to the vulgar's level:[gw]
Even Saints sometimes forget themselves in session.
Have you got more to say?"—"No."—"If you please,
I'll trouble you to call your witnesses."

LII.

Then Satan turned and waved his swarthy hand,
Which stirred with its electric qualities
Clouds farther off than we can understand,
Although we find him sometimes in our skies;
Infernal thunder shook both sea and land
In all the planets—and Hell's batteries
Let off the artillery, which Milton mentions
As one of Satan's most sublime inventions.[524]

LIII.

This was a signal unto such damned souls
As have the privilege of their damnation
Extended far beyond the mere controls
Of worlds past, present, or to come; no station
Is theirs particularly in the rolls
Of Hell assigned; but where their inclination
Or business carries them in search of game,
They may range freely—being damned the same.

LIV.

They are proud of this—as very well they may,
It being a sort of knighthood, or gilt key
Stuck in their loins;[525] or like to an "entré"[gx]
Up the back stairs, or such free-masonry.
I borrow my comparisons from clay,
Being clay myself. Let not those spirits be
Offended with such base low likenesses;
We know their posts are nobler far than these.[gy]

LV.

When the great signal ran from Heaven to Hell—
About ten million times the distance reckoned
From our sun to its earth, as we can tell
How much time it takes up, even to a second,
For every ray that travels to dispel
The fogs of London, through which, dimly beaconed,
The weathercocks are gilt some thrice a year,
If that the summer is not too severe:[526]

LVI.

I say that I can tell—'twas half a minute;
I know the solar beams take up more time
Ere, packed up for their journey, they begin it;[gz]
But then their Telegraph is less sublime,[527]
And if they ran a race, they would not win it
'Gainst Satan's couriers bound for their own clime.
The sun takes up some years for every ray
To reach its goal—the Devil not half a day.

LVII.

Upon the verge of space, about the size
Of half-a-crown, a little speck appeared
(I've seen a something like it in the skies
In the Ægean, ere a squall); it neared,
And, growing bigger, took another guise;
Like an aërial ship it tacked, and steered,[528]
Or was steered (I am doubtful of the grammar
Of the last phrase, which makes the stanza stammer;

LVIII.

But take your choice): and then it grew a cloud;
And so it was—a cloud of witnesses.
But such a cloud! No land ere saw a crowd
Of locusts numerous as the heavens saw these;[ha]
They shadowed with their myriads Space; their loud
And varied cries were like those of wild geese,[hb]
(If nations may be likened to a goose),
And realised the phrase of "Hell broke loose."[529]

LIX.

Here crashed a sturdy oath of stout John Bull,
Who damned away his eyes as heretofore:
There Paddy brogued "By Jasus!"—"What's your wull?"
The temperate Scot exclaimed: the French ghost swore
In certain terms I shan't translate in full,
As the first coachman will; and 'midst the war,[hc]
The voice of Jonathan was heard to express,
"Our President is going to war, I guess."

LX.

Besides there were the Spaniard, Dutch, and Dane;
In short, an universal shoal of shades
From Otaheite's isle to Salisbury Plain,
Of all climes and professions, years and trades,
Ready to swear against the good king's reign,[hd]
Bitter as clubs in cards are against spades:[530]
All summoned by this grand "subpoena," to
Try if kings mayn't be damned like me or you.

LXI.

When Michael saw this host, he first grew pale,
As Angels can; next, like Italian twilight,
He turned all colours—as a peacock's tail,
Or sunset streaming through a Gothic skylight
In some old abbey, or a trout not stale,
Or distant lightning on the horizon by night,
Or a fresh rainbow, or a grand review
Of thirty regiments in red, green, and blue.

LXII.

Then he addressed himself to Satan: "Why—
My good old friend, for such I deem you, though
Our different parties make us fight so shy,
I ne'er mistake you for a personal foe;
Our difference political, and I
Trust that, whatever may occur below,
You know my great respect for you: and this
Makes me regret whate'er you do amiss—

LXIII.

"Why, my dear Lucifer, would you abuse
My call for witnesses? I did not mean
That you should half of Earth and Hell produce;
'Tis even superfluous, since two honest, clean,
True testimonies are enough: we lose
Our Time, nay, our Eternity, between
The accusation and defence: if we
Hear both, 'twill stretch our immortality."

LXIV.

Satan replied, "To me the matter is
Indifferent, in a personal point of view:
I can have fifty better souls than this
With far less trouble than we have gone through
Already; and I merely argued his
Late Majesty of Britain's case with you
Upon a point of form: you may dispose
Of him; I've kings enough below, God knows!"

LXV.

Thus spoke the Demon (late called "multifaced"[531]
By multo-scribbling Southey). "Then we'll call
One or two persons of the myriads placed
Around our congress, and dispense with all
The rest," quoth Michael: "Who may be so graced
As to speak first? there's choice enough—who shall
It be?" Then Satan answered, "There are many;
But you may choose Jack Wilkes as well as any."

LXVI.

A merry, cock-eyed, curious-looking Sprite[532]
Upon the instant started from the throng,
Dressed in a fashion now forgotten quite;
For all the fashions of the flesh stick long
By people in the next world; where unite
All the costumes since Adam's, right or wrong,
From Eve's fig-leaf down to the petticoat,
Almost as scanty, of days less remote.[533]

LXVII.

The Spirit looked around upon the crowds
Assembled, and exclaimed, "My friends of all
The spheres, we shall catch cold amongst these clouds;
So let's to business: why this general call?
If those are freeholders I see in shrouds,
And 'tis for an election that they bawl,
Behold a candidate with unturned coat![he]
Saint Peter, may I count upon your vote?"

LXVIII.

"Sir," replied Michael, "you mistake; these things
Are of a former life, and what we do
Above is more august; to judge of kings
Is the tribunal met: so now you know."
"Then I presume those gentlemen with wings,"[hf]
Said Wilkes, "are Cherubs; and that soul below
Looks much like George the Third, but to my mind
A good deal older—bless me! is he blind?"

LXIX.

"He is what you behold him, and his doom
Depends upon his deeds," the Angel said;
"If you have aught to arraign in him, the tomb
Gives license to the humblest beggar's head
To lift itself against the loftiest."—"Some,"
Said Wilkes, "don't wait to see them laid in lead,
For such a liberty—and I, for one,
Have told them what I thought beneath the sun."

LXX.

"Above the sun repeat, then, what thou hast
To urge against him," said the Archangel. "Why,"
Replied the spirit, "since old scores are past,
Must I turn evidence? In faith, not I.
Besides, I beat him hollow at the last[534],
With all his Lords and Commons: in the sky
I don't like ripping up old stories, since
His conduct was but natural in a prince.

LXXI.

"Foolish, no doubt, and wicked, to oppress
A poor unlucky devil without a shilling;
But then I blame the man himself much less
Than Bute and Grafton[535], and shall be unwilling
To see him punished here for their excess,
Since they were both damned long ago, and still in
Their place below: for me, I have forgiven,
And vote his habeas corpus into Heaven."

LXXII.

"Wilkes," said the Devil, "I understand all this;
You turned to half a courtier[536] ere you died,
And seem to think it would not be amiss
To grow a whole one on the other side
Of Charon's ferry; you forget that his
Reign is concluded; whatsoe'er betide,
He won't be sovereign more: you've lost your labour,
For at the best he will but be your neighbour.

LXXIII.

"However, I knew what to think of it,
When I beheld you in your jesting way,
Flitting and whispering round about the spit
Where Belial, upon duty for the day[hg],
With Fox's lard was basting William Pitt,
His pupil; I knew what to think, I say:
That fellow even in Hell breeds farther ills;
I'll have him gagged—'twas one of his own Bills[537].

LXXIV.

"Call Junius!" From the crowd a shadow stalked[538].
And at the name there was a general squeeze,
So that the very ghosts no longer walked
In comfort, at their own aërial ease,
But were all rammed, and jammed (but to be balked,
As we shall see), and jostled hands and knees,
Like wind compressed and pent within a bladder,
Or like a human colic, which is sadder.[hh]

LXXV.

The shadow came—a tall, thin, grey-haired figure,
That looked as it had been a shade on earth[hi];
Quick in its motions, with an air of vigour,
But nought to mark its breeding or its birth;
Now it waxed little, then again grew bigger[hj],
With now an air of gloom, or savage mirth:
But as you gazed upon its features, they
Changed every instant—to what, none could say.

LXXVI.

The more intently the ghosts gazed, the less
Could they distinguish whose the features were;
The Devil himself seemed puzzled even to guess;
They varied like a dream—now here, now there;
And several people swore from out the press,
They knew him perfectly; and one could swear
He was his father; upon which another
Was sure he was his mother's cousin's brother:

LXXVII.

Another, that he was a duke, or knight,
An orator, a lawyer, or a priest,
A nabob, a man-midwife;[539] but the wight[hk]
Mysterious changed his countenance at least
As oft as they their minds: though in full sight
He stood, the puzzle only was increased;
The man was a phantasmagoria in
Himself—he was so volatile and thin.

LXXVIII.

The moment that you had pronounced him one,
Presto! his face changed, and he was another;
And when that change was hardly well put on,
It varied, till I don't think his own mother
(If that he had a mother) would her son
Have known, he shifted so from one to t'other;
Till guessing from a pleasure grew a task,[hl]
At this epistolary "Iron Mask."[540]

LXXIX.

For sometimes he like Cerberus would seem—
"Three gentlemen at once"[541] (as sagely says
Good Mrs. Malaprop); then you might deem
That he was not even one; now many rays
Were flashing round him; and now a thick steam
Hid him from sight—like fogs on London days:
Now Burke, now Tooke, he grew to people's fancies
And certes often like Sir Philip Francis.

LXXX.

I've an hypothesis—'tis quite my own;
I never let it out till now, for fear
Of doing people harm about the throne,
And injuring some minister or peer,
On whom the stigma might perhaps be blown;
It is—my gentle public, lend thine ear!
'Tis, that what Junius we are wont to call,[hm]
Was really—truly—nobody at all.

LXXXI.

I don't see wherefore letters should not be
Written without hands, since we daily view
Them written without heads; and books, we see,
Are filled as well without the latter too:
And really till we fix on somebody
For certain sure to claim them as his due,
Their author, like the Niger's mouth,[542] will bother
The world to say if there be mouth or author.

LXXXII.

"And who and what art thou?" the Archangel said.
"For that you may consult my title-page,"[543]
Replied this mighty shadow of a shade:
"If I have kept my secret half an age,
I scarce shall tell it now."—"Canst thou upbraid,"
Continued Michael, "George Rex, or allege
Aught further?" Junius answered, "You had better
First ask him for his answer to my letter:

LXXXIII.

"My charges upon record will outlast[hn]
The brass of both his epitaph and tomb."
"Repent'st thou not," said Michael, "of some past
Exaggeration? something which may doom
Thyself if false, as him if true? Thou wast
Too bitter—is it not so?—in thy gloom
Of passion?"—"Passion!" cried the phantom dim,
"I loved my country, and I hated him.

LXXXIV.

"What I have written, I have written: let
The rest be on his head or mine!" So spoke
Old "Nominis Umbra;" and while speaking yet,
Away he melted in celestial smoke.
Then Satan said to Michael, "Don't forget
To call George Washington, and John Horne Tooke,
And Franklin;"[544]—but at this time there was heard
A cry for room, though not a phantom stirred.

LXXXV.

At length with jostling, elbowing, and the aid
Of Cherubim appointed to that post,
The devil Asmodeus[545] to the circle made
His way, and looked as if his journey cost
Some trouble. When his burden down he laid,
"What's this?" cried Michael; "why, 'tis not a ghost?"
"I know it," quoth the Incubus; "but he
Shall be one, if you leave the affair to me.

LXXXVI.

"Confound the renegado![546] I have sprained
My left wing, he's so heavy;[547] one would think
Some of his works about his neck were chained.
But to the point; while hovering o'er the brink
Of Skiddaw (where as usual it still rained),
I saw a taper, far below me, wink,
And stooping, caught this fellow at a libel—[ho]
No less on History—than the Holy Bible.

LXXXVII.

"The former is the Devil's scripture, and
The latter yours, good Michael: so the affair
Belongs to all of us, you understand.
I snatched him up just as you see him there,
And brought him off for sentence out of hand:
I've scarcely been ten minutes in the air—
At least a quarter it can hardly be:
I dare say that his wife is still at tea."[548]

LXXXVIII.

Here Satan said, "I know this man of old,
And have expected him for some time here;
A sillier fellow you will scarce behold,
Or more conceited in his petty sphere:
But surely it was not worth while to fold
Such trash below your wing, Asmodeus dear:
We had the poor wretch safe (without being bored
With carriage) coming of his own accord.

LXXXIX.

"But since he's here, let's see what he has done."
"Done!" cried Asmodeus, "he anticipates
The very business you are now upon,
And scribbles as if head clerk to the Fates.[hp]
Who knows to what his ribaldry may run,
When such an ass[549] as this, like Balaam's, prates?"
"Let's hear," quoth Michael, "what he has to say:
You know we're bound to that in every way."

XC.

Now the bard, glad to get an audience, which
By no means often was his case below,
Began to cough, and hawk, and hem, and pitch
His voice into that awful note of woe
To all unhappy hearers within reach
Of poets when the tide of rhyme's in flow;[550]
But stuck fast with his first hexameter,
Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir.

XCI.

But ere the spavined dactyls could be spurred
Into recitative, in great dismay
Both Cherubim and Seraphim were heard
To murmur loudly through their long array;
And Michael rose ere he could get a word
Of all his foundered verses under way,
And cried, "For God's sake stop, my friend! 'twere best—[551]
'Non Di, non homines'—you know the rest."[552]

XCII.

A general bustle spread throughout the throng,
Which seemed to hold all verse in detestation;
The Angels had of course enough of song
When upon service; and the generation
Of ghosts had heard too much in life, not long
Before, to profit by a new occasion:
The Monarch, mute till then, exclaimed, "What! what![553]
Pye[554] come again? No more—no more of that!"

XCIII.

The tumult grew; an universal cough
Convulsed the skies, as during a debate,
When Castlereagh has been up long enough
(Before he was first minister of state,
I mean—the slaves hear now); some cried "Off, off!"
As at a farce; till, grown quite desperate,
The Bard Saint Peter prayed to interpose
(Himself an author) only for his prose.

XCIV.

The varlet was not an ill-favoured knave;[hq][555]
A good deal like a vulture in the face,
With a hook nose and a hawk's eye, which gave
A smart and sharper-looking sort of grace
To his whole aspect, which, though rather grave,
Was by no means so ugly as his case;
But that, indeed, was hopeless as can be,
Quite a poetic felony "de se."

XCV.

Then Michael blew his trump, and stilled the noise
With one still greater, as is yet the mode
On earth besides; except some grumbling voice,
Which now and then will make a slight inroad
Upon decorous silence, few will twice
Lift up their lungs when fairly overcrowed;
And now the Bard could plead his own bad cause,
With all the attitudes of self-applause.

XCVI.

He said—(I only give the heads)—he said,
He meant no harm in scribbling; 'twas his way
Upon all topics; 'twas, besides, his bread,
Of which he buttered both sides; 'twould delay
Too long the assembly (he was pleased to dread),
And take up rather more time than a day,
To name his works—he would but cite a few—[hr]
"Wat Tyler"—"Rhymes on Blenheim"—"Waterloo."[556]

XCVII.

He had written praises of a Regicide;[557]
He had written praises of all kings whatever;
He had written for republics far and wide,
And then against them bitterer than ever;
For pantisocracy he once had cried[558]
Aloud, a scheme less moral than 'twas clever;
Then grew a hearty anti-jacobin—
Had turned his coat—and would have turned his skin.

XCVIII.

He had sung against all battles, and again
In their high praise and glory; he had called
Reviewing "the ungentle craft," and then[559]
Became as base a critic as e'er crawled—
Fed, paid, and pampered by the very men
By whom his muse and morals had been mauled:
He had written much blank verse, and blanker prose,
And more of both than any body knows.

XCIX.

He had written Wesley's[560] life:—here turning round
To Satan, "Sir, I'm ready to write yours,
In two octavo volumes, nicely bound,
With notes and preface, all that most allures
The pious purchaser; and there's no ground
For fear, for I can choose my own reviewers:
So let me have the proper documents,
That I may add you to my other saints."

C.

Satan bowed, and was silent. "Well, if you,
With amiable modesty, decline
My offer, what says Michael? There are few
Whose memoirs could be rendered more divine.
Mine is a pen of all work;[561] not so new
As it was once, but I would make you shine
Like your own trumpet. By the way, my own
Has more of brass in it, and is as well blown.[hs]

CI.

"But talking about trumpets, here's my 'Vision!'
Now you shall judge, all people—yes—you shall
Judge with my judgment! and by my decision
Be guided who shall enter heaven or fall.
I settle all these things by intuition,
Times present, past, to come—Heaven—Hell—and all,
Like King Alfonso[562]. When I thus see double,
I save the Deity some worlds of trouble."

CII.

He ceased, and drew forth an MS.; and no
Persuasion on the part of Devils, Saints,
Or Angels, now could stop the torrent; so
He read the first three lines of the contents:
But at the fourth, the whole spiritual show
Had vanished, with variety of scents,
Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they sprang,
Like lightning, off from his "melodious twang."[563]

CIII.

Those grand heroics acted as a spell;
The Angels stopped their ears and plied their pinions;
The Devils ran howling, deafened, down to Hell;
The ghosts fled, gibbering, for their own dominions—
(For 'tis not yet decided where they dwell,
And I leave every man to his opinions);
Michael took refuge in his trump—but, lo!
His teeth were set on edge, he could not blow!

CIV.

Saint Peter, who has hitherto been known
For an impetuous saint, upraised his keys,
And at the fifth line knocked the poet down;[564]
Who fell like Phaeton, but more at ease,
Into his lake, for there he did not drown;
A different web being by the Destinies
Woven for the Laureate's final wreath, whene'er
Reform shall happen either here or there.

CV.

He first sank to the bottom—like his works,
But soon rose to the surface—like himself;
For all corrupted things are buoyed like corks,[565]
By their own rottenness, light as an elf,
Or wisp that flits o'er a morass: he lurks,
It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf,
In his own den, to scrawl some "Life" or "Vision,"[ht]
As Welborn says—"the Devil turned precisian."[566]

CVI.

As for the rest, to come to the conclusion
Of this true dream, the telescope is gone[hu]
Which kept my optics free from all delusion,
And showed me what I in my turn have shown;
All I saw farther, in the last confusion,
Was, that King George slipped into Heaven for one;
And when the tumult dwindled to a calm,
I left him practising the hundredth psalm.[567]

Ra Oct. 4, 1821.

FOOTNOTES:

[ [492] {481} ["Aye, he and the count's footman were jabbering French like two intriguing ducks in a mill-pond; and I believe they talked of me, for they laughed consumedly."—Farquhar, The Beaux' Stratagem, act iii. sc. 2.]

[ [493] {482}[These were not the expressions employed by Lord Eldon. The Chancellor laid down the principle that "damages cannot be recovered for a work which is in its nature calculated to do an injury to the public," and assuming Wat Tyler to be of this description, he refused the injunction until Southey should have established his right to the property by an action. Wat Tyler was written at the age of nineteen, when Southey was a republican, and was entrusted to two booksellers, Messrs. Ridgeway and Symonds, who agreed to publish it, but never put it to press. The MS. was not returned to the author, and in February, 1817, at the interval of twenty-two years, when his sentiments were widely different, it was printed, to his great annoyance, by W. Benbow (see his Scourge for the Laureate (1825), p. 14), Sherwood, Neely and Jones, John Fairburn, and others. It was reported that 60,000 copies were sold (see Life and Correspondence of R. Southey, 1850, iv. 237, 241, 249, 252).]

[ [494] [William Smith, M.P. for Norwich, attacked Southey in the House of Commons on the 14th of March, 1817, and the Laureate replied by a letter in the Courier, dated March 17, 1817, and by a letter "To William Smith, Esq., M.P." (see Essays Moral and Political, by R. Southey, 1832, ii. 7-31). The exact words used were, "the determined malignity of a renegade" (see Hansard's Parl. Debates, xxxv. 1088).]

[ [495] [One of Southey's juvenile poems is an "Inscription for the Apartment in Chepstow Castle, where Henry Martin, the Regicide, was imprisoned thirty years" (see Southey's Poems, 1797, p. 59). Canning parodied it in the Anti-jacobin (see his well-known "Inscription for the Door of the Cell in Newgate, where Mrs. Brownrigg, the 'Prentice-cide, was confined, previous to her Execution," Poetry of the Anti-jacobin, 1828, p. 6).]

[ [496] {484}[See "The Vision, etc., made English by Sir R. Lestrange, and burlesqued by a Person of Quality:" Visions, being a Satire on the corruptions and vices of all degrees of Mankind. Translated from the original Spanish by Mr. Nunez, London, 1745, etc.

The Sueños or Visions of Francisco Gomez de Quevedo of Villegas are six in number. They were published separately in 1635. For an account of the "Visita de los Chistes," "A Visit in Jest to the Empire of Death," and for a translation of part of the "Dream of Skulls," or "Dream of the Judgment," see History of Spanish Literature, by George Ticknor, 1888, ii. 339-344.]

[ [497]

["Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound,
Now Serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground,
In Quibbles, Angel and Archangel join,
And God the Father turns a School-divine."

Pope's Imitations of Horace, Book ii. Ep. i. lines 99-102.]

[ [498] [Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) had recently published a volume of Latin poems (Idyllia Heroica Decem. Librum Phaleuciorum Unum. Partim jam primum Partim iterum atque tertio edit Savagius Landor. Accedit Quæstiuncula cur Poetæ Latini Recentiores minus leguntur, Pisis, 1820, 410). In his Preface to the Vision of Judgement, Southey illustrates his denunciation of "Men of diseased hearts," etc. (vide ante, [p. 476]), by a quotation from the Latin essay: "Summi poetæ in omni poetarum sæculo viri fuerunt probi: in nostris id vidimus et videmus; neque alius est error a veritate longiùs quàm magna ingenia magnis necessario corrumpi vitiis," etc. (Idyllia, p. 197). It was a cardinal maxim of the Lake School "that there can be no great poet who is not a good man.... His heart must be pure" (see Table Talk, by S. T. Coleridge, August 20, 1833); and Landor's testimony was welcome and consolatory. "Of its author," he adds, "I will only say in this place, that, to have obtained his approbation as a poet, and possessed his friendship as a man, will be remembered among the honours of my life." Now, apart from the essay and its evident application, Byron had probably observed that among the Phaleucia, or Hendecasyllables, were included some exquisite lines Ad Sutheium (on the death of Herbert Southey), followed by some extremely unpleasant ones on Taunto and his tongue, and would naturally conclude that "Savagius" was ready to do battle for the Laureate if occasion arose. Hence the side issue. With regard to the "Ithyphallics," there are portions of the Latin poems (afterwards expunged, see Poemata et Inscriptiones, Moxon, 1847) included in the Pisa volume which might warrant the description; but from a note to The Island (Canto II. stanza xvii. line 10) it may be inferred that some earlier collection of Latin verses had come under Byron's notice. For Landor's various estimates of Byron's works and genius, see Works, 1876, iv. 44-46, 88, 89, etc.]

[ [499] {485}[The words enclosed in brackets were expunged in later editions.]

[ [500] {487}[Ra[venna] May 7th, 1821.]

[ [fz] Or break a runaway—[MS., alternative reading.]

[ [ga] Finding their patients past all care and cure.—[MS. erased.]

[ [gb] {488}

To turn him here and there for some resource
{And found no better counsel from his peers,
And claimed the help of his celestial peers.—[MS. erased.]

[ [gc] By the immense extent of his remarks.—[MS. erased.]

[ [gd] The page was so splashed o'er——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [ge] Though he himself had helped the Conqueror's sword.—[MS. erased.]

[ [gf] {489} 'Tis that he has that Conqueror in reversion.—[MS. erased.]

[ [501] [Napoleon died May 5, 1821, two days before Byron began his Vision of Judgment, but, of course, the news did not reach Europe till long afterwards.]

[ [gg] They will be crushed yet——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [gh] Not so gigantic in the head as horn.—[MS. erased.]

[ [502] [George III. died the 29th of January, 1820. "The year 1820 was an era signalized ... by the many efforts of the revolutionary spirit which at that time broke forth, like ill-suppressed fire, throughout the greater part of the South of Europe. In Italy Naples had already raised the constitutional standard.... Throughout Romagna, secret societies, under the name of Carbonari, had been organized."—Life. p. 467.]

[ [gi] Who fought for tyranny until withdrawn.—[MS. erased.]

[ [503]

["Thus as I stood, the bell, which awhile from its warning had rested,
Sent forth its note again, Toll! Toll! through the silence of evening....
Thou art released! I cried: thy soul is delivered from bondage!
Thou who hast lain so long in mental and visual darkness,
Thou art in yonder Heaven! thy place is in light and glory."

A Vision of Judgement, by R. Southey, i.]

[ [gj] A better country squire——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [gk] {490}

He died and left his kingdom still behind
Not much less mad—and certainly as blind.—[MS. erased.]

[ [504] [At the time of the king's death Byron expressed himself somewhat differently. "I see," he says (Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820), "the good old King is gone to his place; one can't help being sorry, though blindness, and age, and insanity are supposed to be drawbacks on human felicity.">[

[ [505] ["The display was most magnificent; the powerful light which threw all below into strong relief, reached but high enough to touch the pendent helmets and banners into faint colouring, and the roof was a vision of tarnished gleams and tissues among the Gothic tracery. The vault was still open, and the Royal coffin lay below, with the crowns of England and Hanover on cushions of purple and the broken wand crossing it. At the altar four Royal banners covered with golden emblems were strewed upon the ground, as if their office was completed; the altar was piled with consecrated gold plate, and the whole aspect of the Chapel was the deepest and most magnificent display of melancholy grandeur."-From a description of the funeral of George the Third (signed J. T.), in the European Magazine, February, 1820, vol. 77, p. 123.]

[ [506]

["So by the unseen comforted, raised I my head in obedience,
And in a vault I found myself placed, arched over on all sides
Narrow and low was that house of the dead. Around it were coffins,
Each in its niche, and pails, and urns, and funeral hatchments,
Velvets of Tyrian dye, retaining their hues unfaded;
Blazonry vivid still, as if fresh from the touch of the limner;
Nor was the golden fringe, nor the golden broidery, tarnished."

A Vision, etc., ii.

"On Thursday night, the 3rd inst. [February, 1820], the body being wrapped in an exterior fold of white satin, was placed in the inside coffin, which was composed of mahogany, pillowed and ornamented in the customary manner with white satin.... This was enclosed in a leaden coffin, again enclosed in another mahogany coffin, and the whole finally placed in the state coffin of Spanish mahogany, covered with the richest Genoa velvet of royal purple, a few shades deeper in tint than Garter blue. The lid was divided into three compartments by double rows of silver-gilt nails, and in the compartment at the head, over a rich star of the Order of the Garter was placed the Royal Arms of England, beautifully executed in dead Gold.... In the lower compartment at the feet was the British Lion Rampant, regardant, supporting a shield with the letters G. R. surrounded with the garter and motto of the same order in dead gold.... The handles were of silver, richly gilt of a massive modern pattern, and the most exquisite workmanship."—Ibid., p. 126.]

[ [507] {491}["The body of his Majesty was not embalmed in the usual manner, but has been wrapped in cere-clothes, to preserve it as long as possible.... The corpse, indeed, exhibited a painful spectacle of the rapid decay which had recently taken place in his Majesty's constitution, ... and hence, possibly, the surgeons deemed it impossible to perform the process of embalming in the usual way."—Ibid., p. 126.]

[ [508] [The fact that George II. pocketed, and never afterwards produced or attempted to carry out his father's will, may have suggested to the scandalous the possibility of a similar act on the part of his great-grandson.]

[ [gl] {492}

In whom his { vices virtues } all are reigning still.—[MS. erased.]

[ [509] [Lady Byron's account of her husband's theological opinions is at variance with this statement. (See Diary of H. C. Robinson, 1869, iii. 436.)]

[ [gm] {493}

But he with first a start and then a nod.—[MS.]
Snored, "There is some new star gone out by G—d!"--[MS. erased.]

[ [510] [Louis the Sixteenth was guillotined January 21, 1793.]

[ [gn] {494} That fellow Paul the damndest Saint.—[MS. erased.]

[ [511] ["The blessed apostle Bartholomew preached first in Lycaonia, and, at the last, in Athens ... and there he was first flayed, and afterwards his head was smitten off."—Golden Legend, edited by F. S. Ellis, 1900, v. 41.]

[ [512] {495}

"Then I beheld the King. From a cloud which covered the pavement
His reverend form uprose: heavenward his face was directed.
Heavenward his eyes were raised, and heavenward his arms were directed."

The Vision, etc., iii.

[ [513] [The reading of the MS. and of the Liberal is "pottered." The editions of 1831, 1832, 1837, etc., read "pattered.">[

[ [go]——his whole celestial skin.—[MS. erased.]

[ [gp] Or some such other superhuman ichor.—[MS. erased.]

[ [gq] {496} By Captain Parry's crews——.—[The Liberal, 1822, i. 12.]

[ [514] ["The luminous arch had broken into irregular masses, streaming with much rapidity in different directions, varying continually, in shape and interest, and extending themselves from north, by the east, to north. The usual pale light of the aurora strongly resembled that produced by the combustion of phosphorus; a very slight tinge of red was noticed when the aurora was most vivid, but no other colours were visible."—Sir E. Parry's Voyage in 1819-20, p. 135.]

[ [515] [Compare "Methought I saw a fair youth borne with prodigious speed through the heavens, who gave a blast to his trumpet so violent, that the radiant beauty of his countenance was in part disfigured by it."—Translation of Quevedo's "Dream of Skulls," by G. Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, 1888, ii. 340.]

[ [516] {497} [Joanna Southcott, born 1750, published her Book of Wonders, 1813-14, died December 27, 1814.]

[ [517]

["Eminent on a hill, there stood the Celestial City;
Beaming afar it shone; its towers and cupolas rising
High in the air serene, with the brightness of gold in the furnace,
Where on their breadth the splendour lay intense and quiescent.
Part with a fierier glow, and a short thick tremulous motion
Like the burning pyropus; and turrets and pinnacles sparkled,
Playing in jets of light, with a diamond-like glory coruscant."

The Vision, etc., iv.]

[ [518] {498} [See The Book of Job literally translated from the original Hebrew, by John Mason Good, F.R.S. (1764-1827), London, 1812. In the "Introductory Dissertation," the author upholds the biographical and historical character of the Book of Job against the contentions of Professor Michaelis (Johann David, 1717-1791). The notes abound in citations from the Hebrew and from the Arabic version.]

[ [519] {499}["The gates or gateways of Eastern cities" were used as "places for public deliberation, administration of justice, or audience for kings and nations, or ambassadors." See Deut. xvi. 18. "Judges and officers shall thou make thee in all thy gates ... and they shall judge the people with just judgment." Hence came the use of the word "Porte" in speaking of the Government of Constantinople.—Smith's Diet, of the Bible, art. "Gate.">[

[ [gr] Crossing his radiant arms——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [gs] But kindly; Sathan met——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [520] ["No saint in the course of his religious warfare was more sensible of the unhappy failure of pious resolves than Dr. Johnson; he said one day, talking to an acquaintance on this subject, 'Sir, hell is paved with good intentions.'" Compare "Hell is full of good meanings and wishes." Jacula Prudentum, by George Herbert, ed. 1651, p. 11; Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1876, p. 450, note 5.]

[ [521] {501} [Compare—

"Not once or twice in our rough Island's story
The path of duty has become the path of glory."

Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.]

[ [522] [John Stuart, Earl of Bute (1713-1792), was Secretary of State March 25, 1761, and Prime Minister May 29, 1762-April, 1763. For the general estimate of the influence which Bute exercised on the young king, see a caricature entitled "The Royal Dupe" (Wright, p. 285), Dict. of Nat. Biog., art. "George III.">[

[ [gt] {502} With blood and debt——.—[MS.]

[ [gu] A part of that which they held all of old.—[MS. erased]

[ [523] {503}[George III. resisted Catholic Emancipation in 1795. "The more I reflect on the subject, the more I feel the danger of the proposal."—Letter to Pitt, February 6, 1795. Again, February 1, 1801, "This principle of duty must therefore prevent me from discussing any proposition [to admit 'Catholics and Dissenters to offices, and Catholics to Parliament'] tending to destroy the groundwork [that all who held employments in the State must be members of the Church of England] of our happy constitution." Finally, in 1807, he demanded of ministers "a positive assurance that they would never again propose to him any concession to the Catholics."—See Life of Pitt, by Earl Stanhope, 1879, ii. 434, 461; Dict. of Nat. Biog., art. "George III.">[

[ [gv] Than see this blind old——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [gw] {504} And interruption of your speech.—[MS. erased.]

[ [524]

["Which into hollow engines long and round,
Thick-rammed at th' other bore with touch of fire
Dilated and infuriate," etc.

Paradise Lost, vi. 484, sq.]

[ [525] [A gold key is part of the insignia of office of the Lord Chamberlain and other court officials. In Plate 17 of Francis Sandford's History of the Coronation of James the Second, 1687, Henry Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborow, who carries the sceptre of King Edward, is represented with a key hanging from his belt. He was First Groom of the Stole and Gentleman of Bedchamber. The Queen's Vice-chamberlain, who appears in another part of the procession, also carries a key.]

[ [gx] Stuck in their buttocks——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [gy] {505} For theirs are honours nobler far than these.—[MS. erased.]

[ [526] [It is possible that Byron was thinking of Horace Walpole's famous quip, "The summer has set in with its usual severity." But, of course, the meaning is that, owing to excessive and abnormal fogs, the summer gilding might have to be pretermitted.]

[ [gz] Before they make their journey, ere begin it.—[MS. erased.]

[ [527] [For the invention of the electric telegraph before the date of this poem, see Sir Francis Ronalds, F. R. S., and his Works in connection with Electric Telegraphy in 1816, by J. Sime, 1893. But the "Telegraph" to which Byron refers was, probably, the semaphore (from London to Portsmouth), which, according to [Sir] John Barrow, the Secretary of the Admiralty, rendered "telegraphs of any kind now wholly unnecessary" (vide ibid., p. 10).]

[ [528] {506}[Compare, for similarity of sound—

"It plunged and tacked and veered."

Ancient Mariner, pt. iii. line 156.]

[ [ha]

——No land was ever overflowed
By locusts as the Heaven appeared by these.—[MS. erased.]

[ [hb] And many-languaged cries were like wild geese.—[Erased.]

[ [529] [Compare—

"Wherefore with thee
Came not all Hell broke loose?"

Paradise Lost, iv. 917, 918.]

[ [hc] Though the first Hackney will——.—[MS.]

[ [hd] {507} Ready to swear the cause of all their pain.—[Erased.]

[ [530] [In the game of ombre the ace of spades, spadille, ranks as the best trump card, and basto, the ace of clubs, ranks as the third best trump card. (For a description of ombre, see Pope's Rape of the Lock, in. 47-64.)]

[ [531] {508}["'Caitiffs, are ye dumb?' cried the multifaced Demon in anger."

Vision of Judgement, v.]

[ [532]

["Beholding the foremost,
Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand
Whom the unthinking populace held for their idol and hero,
Lord of Misrule in his day."

Ibid., v.

In Hogarth's caricature (the original pen-and-ink sketch is in the "Rowfant Library:" see Cruikshank's frontispiece to Catalogue, 1886) Wilkes squints more than "a gentleman should squint." The costume—long coat, waistcoat buttoned to the neck, knee-breeches, and stockings—is not unpleasing, but the expression of the face is something between a leer and a sneer. Walpole (Letters, 1858, vii. 274) describes another portrait (by Zoffani) as "a delightful piece of Wilkes looking—no, squinting tenderly at his daughter. It is a caricature of the Devil acknowledging Miss Sin in Milton.">[

[ [533] {509}[For the "Coan" skirts of the First Empire, see the fashion plates and Gillray's and Rowlandson's caricatures passim.]

[ [he] It shall be me they'll find the trustiest patriot.—[MS. erased.]

[ [hf] Said Wilkes I've done as much before.—[MS. erased.]

[ [534] {510}[On his third return to Parliament for Middlesex, October 8, 1774, Wilkes took his seat (December 2) without opposition. In the following February, and on subsequent occasions, he endeavoured to induce the House to rescind the resolutions passed January 19, 1764, under which he had been expelled from Parliament, and named as blasphemous, obscene, etc. Finally, May, 1782, he obtained a substantial majority on a division, and the obnoxious resolutions were ordered to be expunged from the journals of the House.]

[ [535] [Bute, as leader of the king's party, was an open enemy; Grafton, a half-hearted friend. The duke (1736-1811) would have visited him in the Tower (1763), "to hear from himself his own story and his defence;" but rejected an appeal which Wilkes addressed to him (May 3) to become surety for bail. He feared that such a step might "come under the denomination of an insult on the Crown." A writ of Habeas Corpus (see line 8) was applied for by Lord Temple and others, and, May 6, Wilkes was discharged by Lord Chief Justice Pratt, on the ground of privilege. Three years later (November 1, 1766), on his return from Italy, Wilkes sought to obtain Grafton's protection and interest; but the duke, though he consulted Chatham, and laid Wilkes's letter before the King, decided to "take no notice" of this second appeal. In his Autobiography Grafton is careful to define "the extent of his knowledge" of Mr. Wilkes, and to explain that he was not "one of his intimates"—a caveat which warrants the statement of Junius that "as for Mr. Wilkes, it is, perhaps, the greatest misfortune of his life, that you should have so many compensations to make in the closet for your former friendship with him. Your gracious Master understands your character; and makes you a persecutor because you have been a friend" ("Letter (xii.) to the Duke of Grafton," May 30, 1769).—Memoirs of Augustus Henry, Third Duke of Grafton, by Sir W. Anson, Bart., D.C.L., 1898, pp. 190-197.]

[ [536] {511}[In 1774 Wilkes was elected Lord Mayor, and in the following spring it fell to his lot to present to the King a remonstrance from the Livery against the continuance of the war with America. Walpole (April 17, 1775, Letters, 1803, vi. 257) says that "he used his triumph with moderation—in modern language with good breeding." The King is said to have been agreeably surprised at his demeanour. In his old age (1790) he voted against the Whigs. A pasquinade, written by Sheridan, Tickell, and Lord John Townshend, anticipated the devil's insinuations—

"Johnny Wilkes, Johnny Wilkes,
Thou greatest of bilks,
How changed are the notes you now sing!
Your famed 'Forty-five'
Is prerogative,
And your blasphemy 'God save the King'!
Johnny Wilkes,
And your blasphemy, 'God save the King '!"

Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox, by W. F. Rae, 1874, pp. 132, 133.]

[ [hg] Where Beelzebub upon duty——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [537] ["In consequence of Kyd Wake's attack upon the King, two Acts were introduced [the "Treason" and "Sedition Bills," November 6, November 10, 1795], called the Pitt and Grenville Acts, for better securing the King's person "(Diary of H. C. Robinson, 1869, i. 32). "'The first of these bills [The Plot Discovered, etc., by S. T. Coleridge, November 28, 1795, Essays on his own Times, 1850, i. 56] is an attempt to assassinate the liberty of the press; the second to smother the liberty of speech." The "Devil" feared that Wilkes had been "gagged" for good and all.

[ [538] {512}

["Who might the other be, his comrade in guilt and in suffering,
Brought to the proof like him, and shrinking like him from the trial?
Nameless the Libeller lived, and shot his arrows in darkness;
Undetected he passed to the grave, and leaving behind him
Noxious works on earth, and the pest of an evil example,
Went to the world beyond, where no offences are hidden.
Masked had he been in his life, and now a visor of iron,
Rivetted round his head, had abolished his features for ever.
Speechless the slanderer stood, and turned his face from the Monarch,
Iron-bound as it was ... so insupportably dreadful
Soon or late to conscious guilt is the eye of the injured."

Vision of Judgement, v. i]

[ [hh] Or in the human cholic——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [hi] Which looked as 'twere a phantom even on earth.—[MS. erased.]

[ [hj] Now it seemed little, now a little bigger.—[MS. erased.]

[ [539] {513}[The Letters of Junius have been attributed to more than fifty authors. Among the more famous are the Duke of Portland, Lord George Sackville, Sir Philip Francis, Edmund Burke, John Dunning, Lord Ashburton, John Home Tooke, Hugh Boyd, George Chalmers, etc. Of Junius, Byron wrote, in his Journal of November 23, 1813, "I don't know what to think. Why should Junius be yet dead?.... the man must be alive, and will never die without the disclosure" (Letters, 1893, ii. 334); but an article (by Brougham) in the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxix. p. 94, on The Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Character established (see Letters, 1900, iv. 210), seems to have almost persuaded him that "Francis is Junius." (For a résumé of the arguments in favour of the identity of Junius with Francis, see Mr. Leslie Stephen's article in the Dict. of Nat. Biography, art. "Francis." See, too, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, by W. E. H. Lecky, 1887, iii. 233-255. For a series of articles (by W. Fraser Rae) against this theory, see Athenæum, 1888, ii. 192, 258, 319. The question is still being debated. See The Francis Letters, with a note on the Junius Controversy, by C. F. Keary, 1901.)]

[ [hk] A doctor, a man-midwife——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [hl] {514} Till curiosity became a task.—[MS. erased.]

[ [540] [The "Man in the Iron Mask," or, more correctly, the "Man in the Black Velvet Mask," has been identified with Count Ercole Antonio Mattioli, Secretary of State at the Court of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. Mattioli was convicted of high treason, and at the instance of Louis XIV. was seized by the Maréchal Catinat, May 2, 1679, and confined at Pinerolo. He was deported to the Iles Sainte-Marguerite, March 19, 1694, and afterwards transferred to the Bastille, September 18, 1698. He died November 19, 1703. Baron Heiss was the first to solve the mystery. Chambrier, Roux-Fazillac, Delort, G. A. Ellis (see a notice in the Quart. Rev., June, 1826, vol. xxxiv. p. 19), and others take the same view. (See, for confirmation of this theory, an article L'Homme au Masque de Velours Noir, in the Revue Historique, by M. Frantz Funck-Brentano, November, December, 1894, tom. 56, pp. 253-303.)]

[ [541] [See The Rivals, act iv. sc. II]

[ [hm] It is that he——.—[MS. erased.]

[ [542] {515}[The Delta of the Niger is a vast alluvial morass, covered with dense forests of mangrove. "Along the whole coast ... there opens into the Atlantic its successive estuaries, which navigators have scarcely been able to number.">[

[ [543] [The title-page runs thus: "Letters of Junius, Stat Nominis Umbra." That, and nothing more! On the title-page of his copy, across the motto, S. T. Coleridge wrote this sentence, "As he never dropped the mask, so he too often used the poisoned dagger of the assassin."—Miscellanies, etc., by S. T. Coleridge, ed. T. Asle, 1885, p. 341.]

[ [hn]

My charge is upon record and will last
Longer than will his lamentation.—[MS. erased.]

[ [544] {516}[John Horne Tooke (1736-1812), as an opponent of the American War, and as a promoter of the Corresponding Society, etc.; and Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), as the champion of American Independence, would have been cited as witnesses against George III.]

[ [545] [In the Diable Boiteux (1707) of Le Sage, Don Cleofas, clinging to the cloak of Asmodeus, is carried through the air to the summit of San Salvador. Compare—

"Oh! could Le Sage's demon's gift
Be realiz'd at my desire,
This night my trembling form he'd lift,
To place it on St. Mary's spire."

Granta, a Medley, stanza 1.,
Poetical Works, 1898, i. 56, note 2.]

[ [546] ["But what he most detested, what most filled him with disgust, was the settled, determined malignity of a renegado."—Speech of William Smith, M.P., in the House of Commons, March 14, 1817. (See, too, for the use of the word "renegado," Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 488, note i.)]

[ [547] [For the "weight" of Southey's quartos, compare Byron's note (1) to Hints from Horace, line 657, and a variant of lines 753-756. "Thus let thy ponderous quarto steep and stink" (Poetical Works, 1898, i. 435, 443).]

[ [ho] {517} And drawing nigh I caught him at a libel.—[MS. erased.]

[ [548] [Compare—

"But for the children of the 'Mighty Mother's,'
The would-be wits, and can't-be gentlemen,
I leave them to their daily 'tea is ready,'
Smug coterie, and literary lady."

Beppo, stanza lxxvi. lines 5-8, vide ante, [p. 183].]

[ [hp] {518}

And scrawls as though he were head clerk to the "Fates,"
And this I think is quite enough for one.—[Erased.]

[ [549][Compare—

"One leaf from Southey's laurels may explode
All his combustibles,
'An ass, by God!'"

A Satire on Satirists, etc., by W. S. Landor, 1836, p. 22.]

[ [550] ["There is a chaunt in the recitation both of Coleridge and Wordsworth, which acts as a spell upon the hearers."—Hazlitt's My First Acquaintance with Poets; The Liberal, 1823, ii. 23, 46.]

[ [551] [Compare the attitude of Minos to the "poet" in Fielding's Journey from This World to the Next: "The poet answered, he believed if Minos had read his works he would set a higher value on them. [The poet had begged for admittance to Elysium on the score of his 'dramatic works.' Minos dismissed the plea, but relented on being informed that he had once lent the whole profits of a benefit-night to a friend.] He was then beginning to repeat, but Minos pushed him forward, and turning his back to him, applied himself to the next passengers."—Novelist's Magazine, 1783, vol. xii. cap. vii. p. 17.]

[ [552]

[" ... Mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non dî, non concessere columnæ."

Horace, Ars Poetica, lines 372, 373.]

[ [553] {519}[For the King's habit of duplicating his phrases, compare—

"Whitbread, is't true? I hear, I hear
You're of an ancient family renowned.
What? what? I'm told that you're a limb
Of Pym, the famous fellow Pym:
What, Whitbread, is it true what people say?
Son of a Roundhead are you? hæ? hæ? hæ?

---

Instructions to a Celebrated Laureat, Peter Pindar's Works, 1812, i. 493.]

[ [554] [For Henry James Pye (1745-1813), see English Bards, etc., line 102, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 305, note 1.]

[ [hq] {520}——an ill-looking knave.—[MS. erased.]

[ [555] ["Yesterday, at Holland House, I was introduced to Southey—the best-looking bard I have seen for some time. To have that poet's head and shoulders, I would almost have written his Sapphics. He is certainly a prepossessing person to look on, and a man of talent, and all that, and—there is his eulogy."—Letter to Moore, September 27, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 266.

"I have not seen the Liberal," wrote Southey to Wynn, October 26, 1822, "but a Leeds paper has been sent me ... including among its extracts the description and behaviour of a certain 'varlet.' He has not offended me in the way that the pious painter exasperated the Devil" (i.e. by painting him "more ugly than ever:" see Southey's Ballad of the Pious Painter, Works, 1838, vi. 64).]

[ [hr] {521} He therefore was content to cite a few.—[MS. erased.]

[ [556] [Southey's "Battle of Blenheim" was published in the Annual Anthology of 1800, pp. 34-37. It is quoted at length, as a republican and seditious poem, in the Preface to an edition of Wat Tyler, published by W. Hone in 1817; and it is also included in an "Appendix" entitled The Stripling Bard, or the Apostate Laureate, affixed to another edition issued in the same year by John Fairburn. The purport and motif of these excellent rhymes is non-patriotic if not Jacobinical, but, for some reason, the poem has been considered improving for the young, and is included in many "Poetry Books" for schools. The Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo was published in 1816, not long before the resuscitation of Wat Tyler.]

[ [557] [Vide ante, [p. 482].]

[ [558] ["He has written Wat Tyler, and taken the office of poet laureate—he has, in the Life of Henry Kirke White (see Byron's note infra), denominated reviewing 'the ungentle craft,' and has become a reviewer—he was one of the projectors of a scheme called 'pantisocracy,' for having all things, including women, in common (query common women?)."—Some Observations upon an Article in Blackwood's Magazine (No. xxix., August, 1819), Letters, 1900 [Appendix IX.], iv. 483. The invention or, possibly, disinterment of this calumny was no doubt a counterblast on Byron's part to the supposed charge of a "league of incest" (at Diodati, in 1816), which he maintained had been disseminated by Coleridge on the authority of Southey (vide ante, [p. 475]). It is, perhaps, unnecessary to state that before Pantisocracy was imagined or devised, one of the future pantisocrats, Robert Lovell, was married to Mary Fricker; that Robert Southey was engaged to be married to her sister Edith; and that, as a result of the birth and evolution of the scheme, Coleridge became engaged to be married to a third sister, Sarah, hitherto loverless, in order that "every Jack should have his Jill," and the world begin anew in a second Eden across the seas. All things were to be held in common, in order that each man might hold his wife in particular.]

[ [559] {522} Remains of Henry Kirke White [1808, i. 23]

[ [560] [Southey's Life of Wesley, and Rise and Progress of Methodism, in two volumes octavo, was published in 1820. In a "Memento" written in a blank leaf of the first volume, Coleridge expressed his desire that his copy should be given to Southey as a bequest. "One or other volume," he writes, "was more often in my hands than any other in my ragged book-regiment ... How many an hour of self-oblivion do I owe to this Life of Wesley!"—Third ed. 1846, i. xv.]

[ [561] [In his reply to the Preface to Southey's Vision of Judgement, Byron attacked the Laureate as "this arrogant scribbler of all works.">[

[ [hs] Is not unlike it, and is——.—[MS.]

[ [562] {523} King Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolomean system, said, that "had he been consulted at the creation of the world, he would have spared the Maker some absurdities. [Alphonso X., King of Castile (1221-1284), surnamed the Wise and the Astronomer, "gave no small encouragement to the Jewish rabbis." Under his patronage Judah de Toledo translated the works of Avicenna, and improved them by a new division of the stars. Moreover, "he sent for about 50 learned men from Gascony, Paris, and other places, to translate the tables of Ptolemy, and to compile a more correct set of them (i.e. the famous Tabulæ Alphonsinæ) ... The king himself presided over the assembly."—Mod. Univ. Hist., xiii. 304, 305, note(U).

Alfonso has left behind him the reputation of a Castilian Hamlet—"infinite in faculty," but "unpregnant of his cause." "He was more fit," says Mariana (Hist., lib. xiii. c. 20), "for letters than for the government of his subjects; he studied the heavens and watched the stars, but forgot the earth and lost his kingdom." Nevertheless his works do follow him. "He is to be remembered for his poetry ('Cántigas', chants in honour of the Virgin, and 'Tesoro' a treatise on the philosopher's stone), for his astronomical tables, which all the progress of science have not deprived of their value, and for his great work on legislation, which is at this moment an authority in both hemispheres."—Hist. of Spanish Literature, by G. Ticknor, 1888, i. 7.

Byron got the quip about Alfonso and "the absurdities of creation" from Bayle (Dict., 1735, art. "Castile"), who devotes a long note (H) to a somewhat mischievous apology for the king's apparent profanity. Bayle's immediate authority is Le Bovier de Fontenelle, in his Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes, 1686, p. 38, "L'embaras de tous ces cercles estoit si grand, que dans un temps où l'on ne connoissoit encore rien de meilleur, un roy d'Aragon (sic) grand mathematicien mais apparemment peu devot, disoit que si Dieu l'eust appellé à son conseil quand il fit le Monde, il luy eust donné de bons avis.">[

[ [563] {524}[See Aubrey's account (Miscellanies upon Various Subjects, by John Aubrey, F.R.S., 1857, p. 81) of the apparition which disappeared "with a curious perfume, and most melodious twang;" or see Scott's Antiquary, The Novels, etc., 1851, i. 375.]

[ [564]

["When I beheld them meet, the desire of my soul o'ercame me,
——I, too, pressed forward to enter—
But the weight of the body withheld me.—I stooped to the fountain.

---

Vision of Judgement, xii.]

[ [565] {525} A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten; it then floats, as most people know. [Byron may, possibly, have heard of the "Floating Island" on Derwentwater.]

[ [ht] In his own little nook——.—[MS.]

[ [566]

["Verily, you brache!
The devil turned precisian."

Massinger's A New Way to Pay Old Debts, act i. sc. 1]

[ [hu]——the light is now withdrawn.—[MS.]

[ [567] ["Mem. This poem was begun on May 7, 1821, but left off the same day—resumed about the 20th of September of the same year, and concluded as dated.">[

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POEMS 1816-1823.

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