It was from the murder of this commandant that the poet sketched the scene of the assassination in the fifth canto of Don Juan.
The other evening (’twas on Friday last),
This is a fact, and no poetic fable—
Just as my great coat was about me cast,
My hat and gloves still lying on the table,
I heard a shot—’twas eight o’clock scarce past,
And running out as fast as I was able,
I found the military commandant
Stretch’d in the street, and able scarce to pant.
Poor fellow! for some reason, surely bad,
They had him slain with five slugs, and left him there
To perish on the pavement: so I had
Him borne into the house, and up the stair;
The man was gone: in some Italian quarrel
Kill’d by five bullets from an old gun-barrel.
The scars of his old wounds were near his new,
Those honourable scars which bought him fame,
And horrid was the contrast to the view—
But let me quit the theme, as such things claim
Perhaps ev’n more attention than is due
From me: I gazed (as oft I’ve gazed the same)
To try if I could wrench aught out of death
Which should confirm, or shake, or make a faith.
Whether Marino Faliero was written at Ravenna or completed there, I have not ascertained, but it was planned at Venice, and as far back as 1817. I believe this is considered about the most ordinary performance of all Lord Byron’s works; but if it is considered with reference to the time in which it was written, it will probably be found to contain many great and impressive passages. Has not the latter part of the second scene in the first act reference to the condition of Venice when his Lordship was there? And is not the description which Israel Bertuccio gives of the conspirators applicable to, as it was probably derived from, the Carbonari, with whom there is reason to say Byron was himself disposed to take a part?
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 for those within her walls.
They are not numerous, nor yet too few
For their great purpose; they have arms, and means,
And hearts, and hopes, and faith, and patient courage.
This drama, to be properly appreciated, both in its taste and feeling should be considered as addressed to the Italians of the epoch at which it was written. Had it been written in the Italian instead of the English language, and could have come out in any city of Italy, the effect would have been prodigious. It is, indeed, a work not to be estimated by the delineations of character nor the force of passion expressed in it, but altogether by the apt and searching sarcasm of the political allusions. Viewed with reference to the time and place in which it was composed, it would probably deserve to be ranked as a high and bold effort: simply as a drama, it may not be entitled to rank above tragedies of the second or third class. But I mean not to set my opinion of this work against that of the public, the English public; all I contend for is, that it possesses many passages of uncommon beauty, and that its chief tragic merit consists in its political indignation; but above all, that is another and a strong proof too, of what I have been endeavouring to show, that the power of the poet consisted in giving vent to his own feelings, and not, like his great brethren, or even his less, in the invention of situations or of appropriate sentiments. It is, perhaps, as it stands, not fit to succeed in representation; but it is so rich in matter that it would not be a difficult task to make out of little more than the third part a tragedy which would not dishonour the English stage.
I have never been able to understand why it has been so often supposed that Lord Byron was actuated in the composition of his different works by any other motive than enjoyment: perhaps no poet had ever less of an ulterior purpose in his mind during the fits of inspiration (for the epithet may be applied correctly to him and to the moods in which he was accustomed to write) than this singular and impassioned man. Those who imagine that he had any intention to impair the reverence due to religion, or to weaken the hinges of moral action, give him credit for far more design and prospective purpose than he possessed. They could have known nothing of the man, the main defect of whose character, in relation to everything, was in having too little of the element or principle of purpose. He was a thing of impulses, and to judge of what he either said or did, as the results of predetermination, was not only to do the harshest injustice, but to show a total ignorance of his character. His whole fault, the darkest course of those flights and deviations from propriety which have drawn upon him the severest animadversion, lay in the unbridled state of his impulses. He felt, but never reasoned. I am led to make these observations by noticing the ungracious, or, more justly, the illiberal spirit in which The Prophecy of Dante, which was published with the Marino Faliero, has been treated by the anonymous author of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Byron.
Of The Prophecy of Dante I am no particular admirer. It contains, unquestionably, stanzas of resounding energy, but the general verse of the poem is as harsh and abrupt as the clink and clang of the cymbal; moreover, even for a prophecy, it is too obscure, and though it possesses abstractedly too many fine thoughts, and too much of the combustion of heroic passion to be regarded as a failure, yet it will never be popular. It is a quarry, however, of very precious poetical expression.
It was written at Ravenna, and at the suggestion of the Guiccioli, to whom it is dedicated in a sonnet, prettily but inharmoniously turned. Like all his other best performances, this rugged but masterly composition draws its highest interest from himself and his own feelings, and can only be rightly appreciated by observing how fitly many of the bitter breathings of Dante apply to his own exiled and outcast condition. For, however much he was himself the author of his own banishment, he felt when he wrote these haughty verses that he had been sometimes shunned.