DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

MEN.

FRANCIS FOSCARI, Doge of Venice.

JACOPO FOSCARI, Son of the Doge.

JAMES LOREDANO, a Patrician.

MARCO MEMMO, a Chief of the Forty.

BARBARIGO, a Senator.

Other Senators, The Council of Ten, Guards, At

tendants, etc. etc.

WOMAN.

MARINA, Wife of young FOSCARI.

Scene-the Ducal Palace, Venice.

(1) The Treo Foscari was composed at Ravenna,* between the 11th of June and the 10th of July, 1821, and published with Sardanapalus in the following December. "The Veartan story," writes Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, "is strictly historical. I am much mortified that Gifford don't take to my new dramas. To be sure, they are as opposite to the English drama as one thing can be to another; but I have 4 notion that, if understood, they will, in time, find favour though not on the stage) with the reader. The simplicity of plot is intentional, and the avoidance of rant also, as also the compression of the speeches in the more severe situations. What I seek to show in the Foscaris' is the uppressed passions, rather than the rant of the present day. For that matter

Nay, if thou'lt mouth,

I'll rant as well as thou-'

would not be difficult, as I think I have shown in my younger productions-not dramatic ones, to be sure."

"The disadvantage, and, in truth, absurdity, of sacriBeing higher objects to a formal adherence to the unities see ante, p. 430) is strikingly displayed in this drama. The whole interest here turns upon the Younger Foscari having returned from banishment, in defiance of the law and its consequences, from an unconquerable longing after his own country. Now, the only way to have made this sentiment palatable, the practicable foundation of stupendous suffer. ings, would have been, to have presented him to the audience, wearing out his heart in exile, and forming his resolution to return, at a distance from his country, or hoverng, in excruciating suspense, within sight of its borders. We might then have caught some glimpse of the nature of his motives, and of so extraordinary a character. But as this would have been contrary to one of the unities, we first meet with him led from the Question, and afterwards taken back to it in the Ducal Palace, or clinging to the dungeonwalls of his native city, and expiring from his dread of leaving them; and therefore feel more wonder than sympathy, when we are told, that these agonising consequences bave resulted, not from guilt or disaster, but merely from the intensity of his love for his country."-Jeffrey.

"The character of Loredano is well conceived and truly tragic. The deep and settled principle of hatred which animates him, and which impels him to the commission of the most atrocious cruelties, may seem, at first, unnatural and overstrained. But not only is it historically true; but,

* MS.- Begun June the 12th, completed July the 9th, Ravenna, 1821 Byron."-L. E. "That it was imagined in Venice is probable." Galt.-P. E.

when the cause of that hatred (the supposed murder of his father and uncles), and when the atrocious maxims of Italian revenge, and that habitual contempt of all the milder feelings are taken into consideration which constituted the glory of a Venetian patriot, we may conceive how such a principle might be not only avowed, but exulted in, by a Venetian who regarded the house of Foscari as, at once, the enemies of his family and his country."-Heber.

The best English account of the incidents on which this play is founded, is in the second volume of the Reverend Mr. Smedley's Sketches of Venetian History:

"The reign of Francesco Foscari had now been prolonged to the unusual period of thirty-four years, and these years were marked by almost continual warfare; during which, however, the courage, the firmness, and the sagacity of the illustrious Doge had won four rich provinces for his country, and increased her glory not less than her dominion. Ardent, enterprising, and ambitious of the glory of conquest, it was not without much opposition that Foscari had obtained the dogeship; and he soon discovered that the throne which he had coveted with so great earnestness was far from being a seat of repose. Accordingly, at the peace of Ferrara, which in 1433 succeeded a calamitous war, foreseeing the approach of fresh and still greater troubles, and wearied by the factions which ascribed all disasters to the Prince, he tendered his abdication to the senate, and was refused. A like offer was renewed by him, when nine years' further experience of sovereignty had confirmed his former estimate of its cares; and the Council, on this second occasion, much more from adherence to existing institutions than from any attachment to the person of the Doge, accompanied their negative with the exaction of an oath that he would retain his burdensome dignity for life. Too early, alas! was he to be taught that life, on such conditions, was the heaviest of curses! Three out of his four sons were already dead : to Giacopo, the survivor, he looked for the continuation of his name and the support of his declining age; and, from that youth's intermarriage with the illustrious house of Contarini, and the popular joy with which his nuptials were celebrated, the Doge drew favourable auspices for future happiness. Four years, however, had scarcely elapsed from the conclusion of that well-omened marriage, when a series of calamities began, from which death alone was to relieve either the son or his yet more wretched father. In 1445, Giacopo Foscari was denounced to the Ten, as hav ing received presents from foreign potentates, and especially from Filippo-Maria Visconti. The offence, according to the law, was one of the most heinous which a noble could commit. Even if Giacopo were guiltless of infringing that

law, it was not easy to establish innocence before a Venetian tribunal. Under the eyes of his own father, compelled to preside at the unnatural examination, a confession was extorted from the prisoner, on the rack; and, from the lips of that father, he received the sentence which banished him for life to Napoli di Romania. On his passage, severe illness delayed him at Trieste; and, at the especial prayer of the Doge, a less remote district was assigned for his punishment; he was permitted to reside at Treviso, and his wife was allowed to participate his exile.

"It was in the commencement of the winter of 1450, while Giacopo Foscari rested, în comparative tranquillity, within the bounds to which he was restricted, that an assassination occurred in the streets of Venice, Hermolao Donato, a Chief of the Ten, was murdered on his return from a sitting of that council, at his own door, by unknown hands. The magnitude of the offence and the violation of the high dignity of the Ten demanded a victim; and the coadjutors of the slain magistrate caught with eager grasp at the slightest clew which suspicion could af ford. A domestic in the service of Giacopo Foscari had been seen in Venice on the evening of the murder, and on the following morning, when met in a boat off Mestre by a Chief of the Ten, and asked, 'What news?' he had answered by reporting the assassination, several hours before it was generally known. It might seem that such frankness of itself disproved all participation in the crime; for the author of it was not likely thus unseasonably and prematurely to disclose its committal. But the Ten thought differently, and matters which to others bore conviction of innocence, to them savoured strongly of guilt. The servant was arrested, examined, and barbarously tortured; but even the eightieth application of the strappado failed to elicit one syllable which might justify condemnation. That Giacopo Foscari had experienced the severity of the Council's judgment, and that its jealous watchfulness was daily impos. ing some new restraint upon his father's authority, power. fully operated to convince the Ten that they must themselves in return be objects of his deadly enmity. Who else, they said, could be more likely to arm the hand of an assassin against a Chief of the Ten, than one whom the Ten have visited with punishment? On this unjust and unsupported surmise, the young Foscari was recalled from Treviso, placed on the rack which his servant had just vacated, tortured again in his father's presence, and not absolved even after he resolutely persisted in denial unto the end.

"The wrongs, however, which Giacopo Foscari endured had by no means chilled the passionate love with which he continued to regard his ungrateful country. He was now excluded from all communication with his family, torn from the wife of his affections, debarred from the society of his children, hopeless of again embracing those parents who had already far outstripped the natural term of human existence; and to his imagination, for ever centering itself upon the single desire of return, life presented no other object deserving pursuit; till, for the attainment of this wish,

life itself at length appeared to be scarcely more than an adequate sacrifice. Preyed upon by this fever of the heart, after six years' unavailing suit for a remission of punishment, in the summer of 1456 he addressed a letter to the Duke of Milan, imploring his good offices with the state. That letter, purposely left open in a place obvious to the spies by whom, even in his exile, he was surrounded, and afterwards intrusted to an equally treacherous hand for delivery to Sforza, was conveyed, as the writer intended, to the Council of Ten; and the result, which equally fulfilled his expectation, was a hasty summons to Venice to answer for the heavy crime of soliciting foreign intercession with his native government.

"For a third time, Francesco Foscari listened to the ae cusation of his son; for the first time he heard him openly avow the charge of his accusers, and calmly state that his offence, such as it was, had been committed designedly and aforethought, with the sole object of detection, in ordet that he might be brought back, even as a malefactor, to Venice. This prompt and voluntary declaration, however, was not sufficient to decide the nice hesitation of his judges. Guilt, they said, might be too easily admitted as well as too pertinaciously denied; and the same process therefore by which, at other times, confession was wrested from the hardened criminal might now compel a too facile self-c cuser to retract his acknowledgment. The father agala looked on while his son was raised on the accursed cord De less than thirty times, in order that, under his agony, he might be induced to utter a lying declaration of innocence. But this cruelty was exercised in vain; and, when natur gave way, the sufferer was carried to the apartments of the Doge, torn, bleeding, senseless, and dislocated, but firm in his original purpose, Nor had his persecutors related in theirs; they renewed his sentence of exile, and added that its first year should be passed in prison. Before le embarked, one interview was permitted with his family. The Doge, as Sanuto, perhaps unconscious of the pathos of his simplicity, has narrated, was an aged and decrepit man. who walked with the support of a crutch, and when he came into the chamber, he spake with great firmness, Ro that it might seem it was not his son whom he was ad dressing, but it was his son-his only son. "Go, Giacope, was his reply, when prayed for the last time to solet mercy; Go, Giacopo, submit to the will of your country, and seek nothing farther.' This effort of self-restraint was beyond the powers, not of the old man's enduring spirit. but of his exhausted frame; and when he retired, he swoord in the arms of his attendants. Giacopo reached his Candian prison, and was shortly afterwards released by death.

"Francesco Foscari, far less happy in his survival, continued to live on, but it was in sorrow and feebleness. which prevented attention to the duties of his high office. he remained secluded in his chamber, never went abroad. and absented himself even from the sittings of the councils No practical inconvenience could result from this want of activity in the chief magistrate; for the constitution sufă

Bar. I have read their epitaph, which says they died By poison. (1) Lor.

When the Doge declared that he

Should never deem himself a sovereign till

The death of Peter Loredano, both

The brothers sicken'd shortly:-he is sovereign.

Bar. A wretched one.

Lor.

Orphans?

Bar. But did the Doge make you so?

dently provided against any accidental suspension of his personal functions, and his place in council, and on state ccasions, was supplied by an authorised deputy. Some indulgence, moreover, might be thought due to the extreme age and domestic griefs of Foscari; since they appeared to promise that any favour which might be granted would be daimed but for a short period. But yet farther trials were in store. Giacopo Loredano, who in 1467 was appointed of the Chiefs of the Ten, belonged to a family between which and that of Foscari an hereditary feud had long existed. His uncle Pietro, after gaining high distinction in tetive service, as Admiral of Venice, on his return to the tapital, headed the political faction which opposed the warte projects of the Doge; divided applause with him by his eloquence in the councils; and so far extended his infacace as frequently to obtain majorities in their divi. ns. In an evil moment of impatience, Foscari once publicly avowed in the senate, that so long as Pietro Loredano lived he should never feel himself really to be Doge. Not long afterwards, the Admiral, engaged as Provveditore with one of the armies opposed to Filippo-Maria, died suddenly at a military banquet given during a short suspension of arms; and the evil-omened words of Foscari were connected with his decease. It was remarked, also, that his brother Marco Loredano, one of the Avvogadori, died, in a somewhat similar manner, while engaged in instituting a legal process against a son-in-law of the Doge, for pecula. fion upon the state. The foul rumours partially excited by these untoward coincidences, for they appear in truth to have been no more, met with little acceptation, and were rejected or forgotten except by a single bosom. Giacopo, the son of one, the nephew of the other, deceased Loredano, gave full credit to the accusation, inscribed on his father's lomb at Santa Elena that he died by poison, bound himself by a solemn vow to the most deadly and unrelenting pursuit of revenge, and fulfilled that vow to the uttermost,

The

During the lifetime of Pietro Loredano, Foscari, willing to terminate the feud by a domestic alliance, had tendered the hand of his daughter to one of his rival's sons, youth saw his proffered bride, openly expressed dislike of her person, and rejected her with marked discourtesy ; 80 that, in the quarrel thus heightened, Foscari might now conceive himself to be the most injured party. Not such was the impression of Giacopo Loredano: year after year he grimly awaited the season most fitted for his unbending purpose; and it arrived at length when he found himself in authority among the Ten. Relying upon the ascendency belonging to that high station, he hazarded a proposal for the deposition of the aged Doge, which was at first, however, received with coldness; for those who had twice before refused a voluntary abdication shrank from the strange contradiction of now demanding one on compulsion. Junta was required to assist in their deliberations, and among the assessors elected by the Great Council, in complete ignorance of the purpose for which they were needed, was Marco Foscari, a Procuratore of St. Mark, and brother of the Doge himself. The Ten perceived that to reject his assistance might excite suspicion, while to procure his apparent approbation would give a show of impartiality to their process: his nomination, therefore, was accepted, but he was removed to a separate apartment, excluded

A

My sire and uncle?"

from the debate, sworn to keep that exclusion secret, and yet compelled to assent to the final decree in the discussion of which he had not been allowed to participate. The council sat during eight days and nearly as many nights; and, at the close of their protracted meetings, a committee was deputed to request the abdication of the Doge. The old man received them with surprise, but with composure, and replied that he had sworn not to abdicate, and therefore must maintain his faith. It was not possible that he could resign; but if it appeared fit to their wisdom that he should cease to be Doge, they had it in their power to make a proposal to that effect to the Great Council. It was far, however, from the intention of the Ten to subject themselves to the chances of debate in that larger body; and, assuming to their own magistracy a prerogative not attributed to it by the constitution, they discharged Foscari from his oath, declared his office vacant, assigned to him a pension of two thousand ducats, and enjoined him to quit the palace within three days, on pain of confiscation of all his property. Loredano, to whom the right belonged, according to the weekly routine of office, enjoyed the barbarous satisfaction of presenting this decree with his own hand. Who are you, Signor?' inquired the Doge of another Chief of the Ten who accompanied him, and whose person he did not immediately recognise. I am a son of Marco Memmo.' 'Ah! your father,' replied Foscari, 'is my friend.' Then declaring that he yielded willing obedience to the most excellent Council of Ten, and laying aside the ducal bonnet and robes, he surrendered his ring of office, which was broken in his presence. On the morrow, when he prepared to leave the palace, it was suggested to him that he should retire by a private staircase, and thus avoid the concourse assembled in the court-yard below. With calm dignity be refused the proposition: he would descend, he said, by no other than the self-same steps by which he had mounted thirty years before. Accordingly, supported by his brother, he slowly traversed the Giant's Stairs, and, at their foot, leaning on his staff and turning round to the palace, he accompanied his last look to it with these parting words, My services established me within your walls; it is the malice of my enemies which tears me from them I'

"It was to the oligarchy alone that Foscari was obnoxious; by the populace he had always been beloved, and strange indeed would it have been had he now failed to excite their sympathy. But even the regrets of the people of Venice were fettered by their tyrants; and whatever pity they might secretly continue to cherish for their wronged and humiliated prince, all expression of it was silenced by a peremptory decree of the Council, forbidding any mention of his name, and annexing death as a penalty to disobe. dience. On the fifth day after Foscari's deposition, Pascale Malipieri was elected Doge. The dethroned prince beard the announcement of his successor by the bell of the cam

panile, suppressed his agitation, but ruptured a blood-vessel in the exertion, and died in a few hours."-Vol. ii. p. 93.-L. E.

(1) "Veneno sublatus." The tomb is in the church of Santa Elena.-L. E.

(2) "Loredano is accompanied, upon all emergencies, by a senator called Barbarigo-a sort of confidant or chorus

Thy path of desolation, as the wave Sweeps after that before it, alike whelming

Bounding o'er yon blue tide, as I have skimm'd The gondola along in childish race,

Bar. (advancing to the Guard.) There is one who Yet fear not; I will neither be thy judge [does: Nor thy accuser; though the hour is past, Wait their last summons-I am of "the Ten," And, waiting for that summons, sanction you Even by my presence: when the last call sounds, We'll in together.-Look well to the prisoner! Jac. Fos. What voice is that?—'Tis Barbarigo's! Our house's foe, and one of my few judges. [Ah! Bar. To balance such a foe, if such there be, Thy father sits amongst thy judges.

Jac. Fos.

He judges.

Bar.

True,

Then deem not the laws too harsh
Which yield so much indulgence to a sire
As to allow his voice in such high matter
As the state's safety-
Jac. Fos.

And his son's. I'm faint;
Let me approach, I pray you, for a breath
Of air, yon window which o'erlooks the waters.

Enter an Officer, who whispers BARBARIGO. Bar. (to the Guard.) Let him approach. 1 must not speak with him

Further than thus: I have transgress'd my duty
In this brief parley, and must now redeem it
Within the Council Chamber. [Exit BARBARIGO.
[Guard conducting JACOPO FOSCARI to the window.
Guard.

Open-How feel you? Jac. Fos.

There, sir, 'tis

Like a boy-Oh Venice!

Guard. And your limbs?

Jac. Fos. Limbs! how often have they borne me

who comes for no end that we can discover, but to twit him with conscientious cavils and objections, and then to second him by his personal countenance and authority." Jeffrey. -L. E.

(1) "Loredano is the only personage above mediocrity. The remaining characters are all unnatural or feeble. Barbarigo is as tame and insignificant a confidant as ever swept after the train of his principal over the Parisian stage." Heber.-L. E.

(2) "This speech of Jacopo from the window, while describing the amusements of his youth, is written with a full feeling of the objects which it paints." Heber.-L. E.

My gay competitors, noble as I,

Raced for our pleasure, in the pride of strength;
While the fair populace of crowding beauties,
Plebeian as patrician, cheer'd us on
With dazzling smiles, and wishes audible,
And waving kerchiefs, and applauding hands,
Esen to the goal!-How many a time have I
Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring,
The wave all roughen'd; with a swimmer's stroke
Flinging the billows back from my drench'd hair,
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine,
Which kiss'd it like a wine-cup, rising o'er
The waves as they arose, and prouder still
The loftier they uplifted me; and oft,
In wantonness of spirit, plunging down
Into their green and glassy gulfs, and making
My way to shells and sea-weed, all unseen
By those above, till they wax'd fearful; then
Returning with my grasp full of such tokens
As show'd that I had search'd the deep: exulting,
With a far-dashing stroke, and drawing deep
The long-suspended breath, again I spurn'd
The foam which broke around me, and pursued
My track like a sea-bird.-I was a boy then. (2)
Guard. Be a man now: there never was more need
Of manhood's strength.

[my own,
Jac. Fos. (looking from the lattice.) My beautiful,
My only Venice-this is breath! Thy breeze,
Thine Adrian sea-breeze, how it fans my face!
Thy very winds feel native to my veins,
And cool them into calmness! How unlike
The hot gales of the horrid Cyclades,
Which howl'd about my Candiote dungeon, and
Made my heart sick.

Guard.

I see the colour comes Back to your cheek: Heaven send you strength to bear What more may be imposed!-I dread to think on't Let them wring on; I am strong yet. Jac. Fos. They will not banish me again ?—No-19,

Guard.

And the rack will be spared you. Jac. Fos.

Confess,

I confess'd
Once-twice before: both times they exiled me.
Guard. And the third time will slay you.
Jac. Fos.
Let them do so,

So I be buried in my birth-place: better
Be ashes here than aught that lives elsewhere.
Guard. And can you so much love the soil which

"The exulting sadness with which Jacopo Foscari looks from the window on the Adriatic, is Byron himself recalling his enjoyment of the sea." Galt.-P. E.

I

(3) "And the hero himself, what is he? If there ever existed in nature a case so extraordinary as that of a mar who gravely preferred tortures and a dungeon at home, t a temporary residence in a beautiful island and a fine ch mate, at the distance of three days' sail, it is what few can be made to believe, and stil! fewer to sympathise with; and which is, therefore, no very promising subject for dramatic representation. For ourselves, we have little doubt that Foscari wrote the fatal letter with the view, which was

I look upon thy hands my curdling limbs
Quiver with the anticipated wrenching,

And the cold drops strain through my brow, as if-
Bat onward-I have borne it-I can bear it.—
How looks my father?
Off.

With his wonted aspect.

J. Fos. So does the earth, and sky, the blue of ocean, The brightness of our city, and her domes,

The mirth of her Piazza; even now

Its merry hum of nations pierces here, Even here, into these chambers of the unknown Who govern, and the unknown and the unnumber'd Judged and destroy'd in silence,--all things wear The self-same aspect, to my very sire! Nothing can sympathise with Foscari, Not even a Foscari.-Sir, I attend you.

[Exeunt JACOPO FOSCARI, Officer, etc. Enter MEMMO and another Senator.

Mem. He's gone-we are too late:-think you "the Ten"

Will sit for any length of time to-day?.

Sen. They say the prisoner is most obdurate,
Persisting in his first avowal; but
More I know not.

Mem.
And that is much; the secrets
Of yon terrific chamber are as hidden
From us, the premier nobles of the state,
As from the people.
Sen.
Save the wonted rumours,
Which-like the tales of spectres, that are rife
Near ruin'd buildings-never have been proved,
Nor wholly disbelieved: men know as little

imputed to him by his accusers, of obtaining an honourable recall from banishment, through foreign influence; and that the colour which, when detected, he endeavoured to give to the transaction, was the evasion of a drowning man, who ❘ reduced to catch at straws and shadows. But, if Lord Byron chose to assume this alleged motive of his conduct as the real one, it behoved him, at least, to set before our eyes the intolerable separation from a beloved country, the lingering home-sickness, the gradual alienation of intellect, and the fruitless hope that his enemies had at length relent. ed, which were necessary to produce a conduct so contrary to all asual principles of action as that which again consigned him to the racks and dungeons of his own country. He should have shown him to us, first, taking leave of Venice, a condemned and banished man; next pining in Candia; next tampering with the agents of government;