Enter the Abbot of St. Maurice. Abbot. Peace be with Count Manfred! Abbot. Would it were so, Count! Abbot. Thus, without prelude: - Age and zeal, my And good intent, must plead my privilege; And busy with thy name; a noble name Man. Proceed, I listen. Abbot. I answer with the Roman It never can be so, To reconcile thyself with thy own soul, To which frail twig they cling, like drowning men. Abbot. "T is said thou holdest converse with the And noble aspirations in my youth, things Which are forbidden to the search of man; Man. And what are they who do avouch these Abbot. My pious brethren - the scared peasantry- Abbot. I come to save, and not destroy- To make my own the mind of other men, Abbot. And wherefore so? Man. I could not tame my nature down; for he Must serve who fain would sway-and soothe-and sue And watch all time and pry into all place- A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such With the true church, and through the church to The lion is alone, and so am I. heaven. Man. I hear thee. This is my reply: whate'er Abbot. My son! I did not speak of punishment, Have given me power to smooth the path from sin I leave to heaven," Vengeance is mine alone!" Man. Old man! there is no power in holy men, Would make a hell of heaven- can exorcise Can deal that justice on the self-condemn'd Abbot. And all our church can teach thee shall be taught; Abbot. And why not live and act with other men? The red-hot breath of the most lone simoom, Alas! Of mortals on the earth, who do become Without the violence of warlike death; Some perishing of pleasure-some of study- And some of wither'd, or of broken hearts; Or having been, that I am still on earth. 1 Otho, being defeated in a general engagement near Brixellum, stabbed himself. Plutarch says, that, though he lived full as badly as Nero, his last moments were those of a philosopher. Martial says:- "Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Cesare major. Dum moritur, numquid major Othone fait ? "-E Thine order, and revere thy years; I deem His studies tend to. To be sure, there is Old man! I do respect One chamber where none enter: I would give [Exit Manfred. And mind and dust -- and passions and pure thoughts SCENE II. Another Chamber. Manfred and Herman. [Exit Abbot. [Manfred advances to the Window of the Hall. Of early nature, and the vigorous race More beautiful than they, which did draw down Which gladden'd, on their mountain tops, the hearts Who chose thee for his shadow! Thou chief star! And hearts of all who walk within thy rays! Even as our outward aspects; thou dost rise, SCENE III. [Exit Manfred. The Mountains-The Castle of Manfred at some distance-A Terrace before a Tower.-Time, Twilight. Herman, Manuel, and cther Dependants of Manfred. Her. 'Tis strange enough; night after night, for years, He hath pursued long vigils in this tower, Without a witness. I have been within it,So have we all been oft times; but from it, Or its contents, it were impossible To draw conclusions absolute, of aught 1" And it came to pass, that the Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair," &c.-"There Manuel. Ere Count Manfred's birth, I served his father, whom he nought resembles. Her. There be more sons in like predicament. But wherein do they differ? Manuel. I speak not Of features or of form, but mind and habits; Merrier than day; he did not walk the rocks Her. Beshrew the hour, But those were jocund times! I would that such Would visit the old walls again; they look As if they had forgotten them. Manuel. These walls Must change their chieftain first. Oh! I have seen Some strange things in them, Herman! Her. Come, be friendly; Relate me some to while away our watch: I've heard thee darkly speak of an event Which happen'd hereabouts, by this same tower. Manuel. That was a night indeed! I do remember 'T was twilight, as it may be now, and such Another evening;-yon red cloud, which rests On Eigher's pinnacle, so rested then,So like that it might be the same; the wind Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows Began to glitter with the climbing moon; Count Manfred was, as now, within his tower,How occupied, we knew not, but with him The sole companion of his wanderings And watchings-her, whom of all earthly things That lived, the only thing he seem'd to love,As he, indeed, by blood was bound to do, The lady Astarte, his Hush! who comes here? Abbot. I must speak with him. were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, The stars are forth, the moon above the tops vi. verses 2 and 4. Than that of man; and in her starry shade I learn'd the language of another world. upon such a night A grove which springs through levell'd battlements, While Cæsar's chambers and the Augustan halls, And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries; 'T was such a night! Abbot. Enter the Abbot. My good lord! Man. Thou know'st me not; I simply tell thee peril is at hand, And would preserve thee. Abbot. Spirit. Thou 'It know anon-Come! come! Spirit. Then I must summon up my brethren.-- Spirit. Old man! We know ourselves, our mission, and thine order; It were in vain: this man is forfeited." Man. I do defy ye,- though I feel my soul Is ebbing from nie, yet I do defy ye; Spirit. Man. Look there! What dost thou mean? Nothing. Look there I say, now tell me what thou seest? Abbot. That which should shake me,- but I fear it not Have made thee Man. But thy many crimes What are they to such as thee? Pray albeit but in thought,- but die not thus. Abbot. flight- MARINO FALIERO, DOGE OF VENICE: AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY, IN FIVE ACTS.1 "Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae."-- HORACE. 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, 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, 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 apprized of his predecessor's death and his own succession at the same moment. But he appears to have been of an ungovernable temper. A story is told by Sanuto, of his having, many years before, when podesta and cap. tain at Treviso, boxed the ears of the bishop, who was somewhat tardy in bringing the Host. For this, honest Sanuto "saddles him with a judgment," as Thwackum did Square; but he does not tell us whether he was punished or rebuked by the Senate for this outrage at the time of its commission. He seems, indeed, to have been afterwards at peace with the church, for we find him ambassador at Rome, and invested with the fief of Val di Marino, in the march of Treviso, and with the title of count, by Lorenzo Count-bishop of Ceneda. For these fac's my authorities are Sanuto, Vettor Sandi, Andrea Navagero, 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, all of which I have looked over in the original language. The moderns, Daru, 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," &c. &c. ; but this appears to have been by no means the general opinion, nor is it alluded to by Sanuto or by Navagero: and Sandi himself adds, a moment after, that "per altre Veneziane memorie traspiri, che non il solo desiderio di vendetta lo dispose alla congiura ma anche la innata abituale ambizion sua, per cui anelava a farsi principe independente." The first motive appears to have been excited by the gross affront of the words written by Michel Steno on the ducal chair, and by the light and inadequate sentence of the Forty on the offender, who was one of their "tre Capi." The attentions of Steno himself appear to have been directed towards one of her damsels, and not to the "Dogaressa" herself, against whose fame not the slightest insinuation appears, while she is praised for her beauty, and remarked for her youth. Neither do I find it asserted (unless the hint of Sandi be an assertion), that the Doge was actuated by jealousy of his wife; but rather by respect for her and for his own honour, warranted by his past services and present dignity. I know not that the historical facts are alluded to in English, unless by Dr. Moore in his View of Italy. His account is false and flippant, full of stale jests about old men and young wives, and wondering at so great an effect from so slight a cause. How so acute and severe an observer of mankind as the author of Zeluco could wonder at this is inconceivable. He knew that a basin of water spilt on Mrs. Masham's gown deprived the Duke of Marlborough of his com mand, and led to the inglorious peace of Utrechtthat 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 10n the original MS. sent from Ravenna, Lord Byron single verse of Frederick II. of Prussia on the Abbe de led the Gauls to Clusium, and thence to Rome that a has written :-- Begun April 4th, 1820 -- completed July Beruis, and a jest on Madame de Pompadour, led to 16th, 1820-finished copying August 16th-17th, 1-20; the con copying makes ten times the toil of composing the battle of Rosbach-that the elopement of Dearconsidering the weather-thermometer 90 in the shade. bhorgil with Mac Murchad conducted the English to towards the close of 1820.--E. and my domestic duties."--The tragedy was published the slavery of Ireland that a personal pique between Maria Antoinette and the Duke of Orleans precipitated the first expulsion of the Bourbens--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 purpose, unless to favour it "The young man's wrath is like straw on fire, But like red-hot steel is the old man's ire." "Young men soon give and soon forget affronts, Ol age is slow at both." Laugier's reflections are more philosophical: "Tale fu il fine ignominioso di un' uomo, che la sua nascita, la sua eta, 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 suffragj per collocarlo alla testa della republica. Innalzato ad un grado che terminava gloriosamente la sua vita, il risentimento di un' ingiuria leggiera insinuo nel suo cuore tal valeno che basto a corrompere le antiche sue qualita, e a condurlo al termine dei scellerati; serio esempio, che prova non esservi eta, in cui la prudenza umana sia sicura, e che nell' uomo restano sempre passioni capaci a disonorarlo, quando non invigili sopra se stesso."1 delafo, who fell in battle at Zara in 1117 (where his But 2" It is like being at the whole process of a woman's toilet it disenchants."-- MS.-E. Where did Dr. Moore find that Marino Faliero beg ged 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: 3 While I was in the sub-committee of Drury Lane surely truth belongs to the dead, and to the unfortu- Theatre, I can vouch for my colleagues, and I hope for mynate and they who have died upon a scaffold have self, that we did our best to bring back the legitimate generally had faults enough of their own, without attri- drama. I tried what I could to get "De Montfort" rebuting to them that which the very incurring of the vived, but in vain, and equally in vain in favour of Sotheby's "Ivan," which was thought an acting play; perils which conducted them to their violent death and I endeavoured also to wake Mr. Coleridge to write a renders, of all others, the most improbable. The black tragedy. Those who are not in the secret will hardly be veil which is painted over the place of Marino Faliero lieve that the "School for Scandal" is the play which has amongst the Doges, and the Giants' Staircase where he brought least money, averaging the number of times it was crowned, and discrowned, and decapitated, struck has been acted since its production; so Manager Dibdin forcibly upon my imagination; as did his fiery charac-assured me. Of what has occurred since Maturia's "Bertram" I am not aware; so that I may be traducing. ter and strange story. I went, in 1819, in search of his through ignorance, scme excellent new writers: if so, I tomb more than once to the church San Giovanni e beg their pardon. I have been absent from England San Paolo; and, as I was standing before the monu- nearly five years, and, till last year, I never read an Engment of another family, a priest came up to me and lish newspaper since my departure, and am now only said, "I can show you finer monumen's than that." I aware of theatrical matters through the medium of the told him that I was in search of that of the Faliero Parisian Gazette of Galignani, and only for the last twelve family, and particularly of the Doge Marino's. "Oh," months. Let me then deprecate all offence to tragic or said he, "I will show it you;" and conducting me to comic writers, to whom I wish well, and of whom I know the outside, pointed out a sarcophagus in the wall with nothing. The long complaints of the actual state of the drama arise, however, from no fault of the performers. 1 an illegible inscription. He said that it had been in a can conceive nothing better than Kemble, Cooke, and convent adjoining, but was removed after the French Kean in their very different manners, or than Elliston in came, and placed in its present situation; that he had gentleman's comedy, and in some parts of tragedy. Miss seen the tomb opened at its removal; there were still O'Neil I never saw, having made and kept a determisome bones remaining, but no positive vestige of the nation to see nothing which should divide or disturb my decapitation. The equestrian statue of which I have recollection of Siddons. Siddons and Kemble were the made mention in the third act as before that church is ideal of tragic action; I never saw any thing at all renot, however, of a Faliero, but of some other now obsembling them even in person: for this reason, we shall never see again Coriolanus or Macbeth. When Kean is solete warrior, although of a later date. There were two other Doges of this family prior to Marino; Or- in 1824. His first production, the "House of Montorio," The Rev. Charles Maturin (a curate in Dublin) died 1 Langier, Hist. de la Repub. de Venise. a romance, is the only one of his works that has survived him.-E. |