Within a bow-shot-where the Cæsars dwelt, While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan hall3, As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries: 'Twas such a night! 'Tis strange that I recall it at this time; But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight Even at the moment when they should array Themselves in pensive order. Enter the ABBOT. I do remember me, that in my youth, ABBOT. Thou dost not mean to menace me? MANFRED. I simply tell thee peril is at hand, And would preserve thee. What dost thou see? Not I; ABBOT. What dost mean? MANFRED. Look there ABBOT. Nothing. ABBOT. And I reply Never-till I have battled with this fiend What doth he here? MANFRED. Why-ay-what doth he here? I did not send for him, he is unbidden. ABBOT. Alas! lost mortal! what with guests like these MANFRED. Pronounce-what is thy mission? SPIRIT. ABBOT. Come! What art thou, unknown being? answer!-speak! SPIRIT. The genius of this mortal.-Come! 't is time. MANFRED. am prepared for all things, but deny MANFRED. Thou false fiend, thou liest' What are they to such as thee? The power which summons me. Who sent thee here? The mind which is immortal makes itself Requital for its good or evil thoughts Is its own origin of ill and end— And its own place and time-its innate sense, Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt me; He's gone-his soul hath ta'en its earthless flight- NOTES. Note 1. Page 232, lines 114 and 115. The torrent with the many hues of heaven. lower part of the Alpine torrents: it is exactly like a wards perished for an attempt to betray the Lacederainbow, come down to pay a visit, and so close that monians), and Cleonice, is told in Plutarch's life of you may walk into it:-this effect lasts till noon. Cimon; and in the Laconics of Pausanias the Sophist, in his description of Greece. Note 2. Page 233, lines 100 and 101. He who from out their fountain dwellings raised The philosopher Iamblicus. The story of the raising of Eros and Anteros may be found in his life, by Eunapius. It is well told. Note 3. Page 234, lines 91 and 92. Note 4. Page 239, lines 39 and 40. Of the embrace of angels. "That the Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair," etc. "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the Sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."-Genesis, ch. vi. verses 2 and 4. Marino Faliero, Boge of Venice; A HISTORICAL TRAGEDY. PREFACE. |Sanuto, Vettor Sandi, Andrea Navagero, and the account of the siege of Zara, first published by the indefatigable Abbate Morelli, in his "Monumenti Veneziani di varia THE Conspiracy of the Doge Marino Faliero is one of letteratura," printed in 1796, all of which I have looked the most remarkable events in the annals of the most over in the original language. The moderns, Daru, singular government, city, and people of modern his- Sismondi, and Laugier, nearly agree with the ancient tory. It occurred in the year 1355. Every thing about chroniclers. Sismondi attributes the conspiracy to his Venice is, or was, extraordinary-her aspect is like a dream, and her history is like 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. 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 Marino Faliero appears to have been a man of talents and of courage. I find him commander-in-chief la innata abituale ambizion sua, per cui anelava a farsi of the land forces at the siege of Zara, where he beat principe independente." The first motive appears to the King of Hungary and his army of eighty thousand have been excited by the gross affront of the words men, killing eight thousand men, and keeping the be- written by Michel Steno on the ducal chair, and by sieged at the same time in check, an exploit to which the light and inadequate sentence of the Forty on the I know none similar in history, except that of Cæsar offender, who was one of their "tre capi." The at at Elesia, and of Prince Eugene at Belgrade. He was tentions of Steno himself appear to have been directed afterwards commander of the fleet in the same war. towards one of her damsels, and not to the "Doga He took Capo d'Istria. He was ambassador at Genoa ressa" herself, against whose fame not the slightest and Rome, at which last he received the news of his insinuation appears, while she is praised for her beauty, election to the dukedom; his absence being a proof and remarked for her youth. Neither do I find it that he sought it by no intrigue, since he was apprized asserted (unless the hint of Sandi be an assertion) that of his predecessor's death and his own succession at the Doge was actuated by jealousy of his wife; but the same moment. But he appears to have been of rather by respect for her, and for his own honour, an ungovernable temper. A story is told by Sanuto, warranted by his past services and present dignity. of his having, many years before, when podesta and I know not that the historical facts are alluded to cantain at Treviso, boxed the ears of the bishop, who in English, unless by Dr. Moore in his view of Italy. was somewhat tardy in bringing the Host. For this His account is false and flippant, full of stale jests honest Sanuto "saddles him with a judgment," as about old men and young wives, and wondering at so Thwackum did Square; but he does not tell us whether great an effect from so slight a cause. How so acute he was punished or rebuked by the senate for this and severe an observer of mankind as the author of outrage at the time of its commission. He seems, in- Zeluco could wonder at this is inconceivable. He knew need, to have been afterwards at peace with the church, that a basin of water spilt on Mrs. Masham's gown defor we find him ambassador at Kome, and invested prived the Duke of Malborough of his command, and with the tief of Val di Marino, in the March of Tre-led to the inglorious peace of Utrecht-that Louis XIV. so, and with the title of Count, by Lorenzo Count-was plunged into the most desolating wars because Bishop of Ceneda. For these facts my authorities are, his minister was nettled at his finding fault with a window, and wished to give him another occupation- and the Giant's Staircase, where he was crowned, and that Heler lost Troy-that Lucretia expelled the Tar-discrowned, and decapitated, struck forcibly upon my quins from Rome-and that Cava brought the Moors to imagination, as did his fiery character and strange story. Spain-that an insulted husband led the Gauls to Clu- I went in 1819, in search of his tomb, more than once, sium, and thence to Rome-that a single verse of Fred-to the church of San Giovanni e San Paolo; and, as I eric II. of Prussia, on the Abbé de Bernis, and a jest was standing before the monument of another family, on Madame de Pompadour, led to the battle of Ros- a priest came up to me and said, "I can show you bach-that the elopement of Dearbhorgil with Mac finer monuments than that." I told him that I was in Murchad, conducted the English to the slavery of Ire-search of that of the Faliero family, and particularly of land-that a personal pique between Marie Antoinette the Doge Marino's. "Oh," said he, "I will show it and the Duke of Orleans precipitated the first expulsion of the Bourbons-and, not to multiply instances, 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 Durpose, unless to favour it. "The young man's wrath is like straw on fire, Laugier's reflections are more philosophical:-"Tale fu 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 capacita sperimentata ne' governi e nelle ambasciate, gli avevano acquistato la stima e la fiducia de' cittadini, ed avevano uniti i suffragi per collocarlo alla testa della republica. Innalzato ad un grado che terminava gloriosamenta la sua vita, il risentimento di un' ingiuria leggiera insinuò nel suo cuore tal veleno che bastò a corrompere le antiche sue qualita, e a condulo al ternuine dei scellerati; serio esempio, che prova non esservi età, in cui la prudenza umana sia sicura e che nell' womo restano sempre passioni capaci a disonorarlo, quando non invigili sopra se stesso."-LAUGIER, Italian translation, vol. iv. pp. 30, 31. a you;" and, conducting me to the outside, pointed out a sarcophagus in the wall, with an illegible inscription. 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, 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 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, wno 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 a 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 on that point, in talking with him of my intention, at Venice, in 1817. "If you make him jealous,” said he, "recollect that you have to contend with established writers, to say nothing of Shakspeare, and an exhausted subject;-stick to the old fiery Doge's natuWhere did Dr. Moore find that Marino Faliero begged ral character, which will bear you out, if properly his life? I have searched the chroniclers, and find drawn; and make your plot as regular as you can.”— nothing of the kind; it is true that he avowed all. Sir William Drummond gave me nearly the same He was conducted to the place of torture, but there is counsel. How far I have followed these instructions, no mention made of any application for mercy on his or whether they have availed me, is not for me to depart; and the very circumstance of their having taken cide. I have had no view to the stage; in its present lum to the rack, seems to argue any thing but his hav-state it is, perhaps, not a very exalted object of ambimg shown a want of firmness, which would doubtless tion; besides, I have been too much behind the scenes have been also mentioned by those minute historians to have thought it so at any time. And I cannot conwho by no means favour him: such, indeed, would be ceive any man of irritable feeling putting himself at contrary to his character as a soldier, to the age in the mercies of an audience:—the sneering reader, and which he lived, and at which he died, as it is to the the loud critic, and the tart review, are scattered and truth of history. I know no justification at any distance distant calamities; but the trampling of an intelligent of time for calumniating a historical character; surely or of an ignorant audience, on a production which, be truth belongs to the dead and to the unfortunate, and it good or bad, has been a mental labour to the writer, they who have died upon a scaffold have generally had is a palpable and immediate grievance, heightened by faults enough of their own, without attributing to them a man's doubt of their competency to judge, and his that which the very incurring of the perils which con- certainty of his own imprudence in electing them his ducted them to their violent death renders, of all others, judges. Were I capable of writing a play which could the most improbable. The black veil which is painted be deemed stage-worthy, success would give me no uve the place of Marino Faliero amongst the doges, pleasure, and failure great pain. It is for this reasor DRAMATIS PERSONE. MEN. that, even during the time of being one of the committee of one of the theatres, I never made the attempt, and never will. But surely there is dramatic power somewhere, where Joanna Baillie, and Milman, and John Wilson exist. The "City of the Plague" and MARINO FALIERO, Doge of Venice. the "Fall of Jerusalem," are full of the best matériel BERTUCCIO FALIERO, Nephew of the Doge. for tragedy that has been seen since Horace Walpole, LIONI, a Patrician and Senator. except passages of "Ethwald" and "De Montfort."BENINTENDE, Chief of the Council of Ten. It is the fashion to underrate Horace Walpole, firstly, MICHEL STENO, one of the three Capi of the Forty. because he was a nobleman, and secondly, because he ISRAEL BERTUCCIO, Chief of the Arsenal. was a gentleman; but, to say nothing of the composi- PHILIP CALENDaro, tion of his incomparable "Letters," and of the "Castle DAGOLINO, of Otranto," he is the "Ultimus Romanorum," the BERTRAND, author of the "Mysterious Mother," a tragedy of the highest order, and not a puling love-play. He is the father of the first romance, and of the last tragedy in our language, and surely worthy of a higher place than any living writer, be he who he may. Signor of the Night, First Citizen. BATTISTA, Conspirators. "Signore di Notte," one of the Officers belonging to the Re public. Officers belonging to the Ducal Palace. In speaking of the drama of Marino Faliero, I forgot Third Citizen. to mention that the desire of preserving, though still too VINCENZO, remote, a nearer approach to unity than the irregulari- PIETRO, ty, which is the reproach of the English theatrical compositions, permits, has induced me to represent the Secretary of the Council of Ten. conspiracy as already formed, and the Doge acceding Guards, Conspirators, Citizens, the Council of Ten, the to it, whereas, in fact, it was of his own preparation Giunta, etc., etc. and that of Israel Bertuccio. The other characters (except that of the duchess), incidents, and almost the time, which was wonderfully short for such a design in real life, are strictly historical, except that all the consultations took place in the palace. Had I followed this, the unity would have been better preserved; but I wished to produce the Doge in the full assembly of the conspirators, instead of monotonously placing him always in dialogue with the same individuals. For the real facts, I refer to the extracts given in the Appendix in the Italian, with a translation. WOMEN. Scene, VENICE-in the year 1355. MARINO FALIERO. ACT I. SCENE I. An Antechamber in the Ducal Palace. PIETRO speaks, in entering, to BATTISTA. PIETRO. 1 "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 Moutfort" revived, but in vain, and equally in vain in favour of Sotheby's "Ivan," which was thought an acting play; and 1 endeavoured also to wake Mr. Coleridge to write a tragedy. Those who are not in the secret, will hardly believe that the "School for Scandal" is the play which has brought least money, averaging the num- Is not the messenger return'd? ber of times it has been acted since its production: so Manager Dibdin assured me. Of what has occurred since Maturin's "Bertram," I am not aware; so that I may be traducing. through ignorance, some excellent new writers; if so, I beg their pardon. I have been absent from England nearly five years, and, till last year, I never read an English newspaper since my departure, and am now only aware of theatrical matters through the medium of the Parisian English Gazette BATTISTA. Not yet; I have sent frequently, as you commanded, of Galignani, and only for the last twelve months. Let me How bears he With struggling patience. |