Sidebilder
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

(1) In the MS.

The better:

"And what is there

An Indian widow dares for custom which
A Greek girl dare not do for love?"-E.

(2) "These lines are in bad taste enough, from the jingle between kings and kine, down to the absurdity of believing that Sardanapalus at such a moment would be likely to discuss a point of antiquarian curoisity. But they involve also an anachronism, inasmuch as, whatever date be assigned to the erection of the earlier pyraids, there can be no reason for apprehending that, at the fall of Nineveh, and while the kingdom and hierarchy of Egypt subsisted in their full splendour, the destination of those immense fabrics could have been a matter of doubt to any who might inquire concerning them. Herodotus, three hundred years later, may have been misinformed of these points; but, when Sardanapalus lived, the erection of pyramids must, in all probability, have not been still of unfrequent occurrence, and the nature of their contents no subject of mistake or mystery." Heber.

(3) Here an anonymous critic suspects Lord Byron of having read old Fuller, who says, in his quaint way, "the pyramids, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders." -E.

(4) “In Sardanapalus Lord Byron has been far more fortunate than in the Doge of Venice, inasmuch as his subject is one eminently adapted not only to tragedy in general, but to that peculiar kind of tragedy which Lord Byron is anxious to recommend. The history of the last of the Assyrian kings is at once sufficiently well known to awaken that previous interest w ich belongs to

Is yours.

[thee!

[The trumpet of PANIA sounds without.

Hark!

Now!
Adieu, Assyria!

I loved thee well, my own, my fathers' land,
And better as my country than my kingdom.
I sated thee with peace and joys; and this
Is mv reward! and now I owe thee nothing,
Not even a grave.
[He mounts the pile.

Now Myrrha !

Myr.
Sar. As the torch in thy grasp.

Myr.

Art thou ready?

[MYRRHA fires the pile. 'Tis fired! I come.

[48 MYRRHA Springs forward to throw herself into the flames, the Curtain falls.(4)

illustrious names and early associations; and sufficiently remote and obscure to admit of any modification of incident or character which a poet may find convenient. All that we know of Nineveh and its sovereigns is majestic, indistinct, and mysterious. We read of an extensive and civilized monarchy erected in the ages immediately succeeding the deluge, and existing in full might and majesty while the shores of Greece and Italy were unoccupied, except by roving savages. We read of an empire whose influence extended from Samarcand to Troy, and from the mountains of Judah to those of Caucasus, subverted, after a continuance of thirteen hundred years, and a dynasty of thirty generations, in an almost incredibly short space of time, less by the revolt of two provinces than by the anger of Heaven and the predicted fury of natural and inanimate agents. And the influence which both the conquests and the misfortunes of Assyria appear to have exerted over the fates of the people for whom, of all others in ancient history, our strongest feelings are (from religious motives) interested, throws a sort of sacred pomp over the greatness and the crimes of the descendants of Nimrod, and a reverence- which no other equally remote portion of profane history is likely to obtain with us. At the same time, all which we know is so brief, so general, and so disjointed, that we have few of those preconceived notions of the persons and facts represented, which in classical dramas, if servilely followed, destroy the interest, and, if rashly departed from, offend the prejudices, of the reader or the auditor. An outline is given, of the most majestic kind; but it is an outline only, which the poet may fill up at pleasure; and in ascribing, as Lord Byron has done for the sake of his favourite unities, the

[blocks in formation]

danapalus had been working in his brain for seven years before he commenced it." Trelawney.

(1) The Two Foscari was composed at Ravenna, between the 14th of June and the 10th of July, 1821, and published with Sardanapalus in the following December. "The Venetian 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 a 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 suppressed 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."

destruction of the Assyrian empire to the treason of one night,, instead of the war of several years, he has neither shocked our better knowledge, nor incurred any conspicuous improbability... S, however, the development of Sardanapalus's character is incidental only to the plot of Lord Byron's drama, and though the unities have confined his picture within far narrower limits than he might otherwise have thought advisable, the character is admirably sketched; nor is there any one of the portraits of this great master which gives us a more favourable opinion of his talents, his force of conception, his delicacy and vigour of touch, or the richness and harmony of his colouring. He had, indeed, no unfavourable groundwork, even in the few hints supplied by the ancient historians, as to the conduct and history of the last and most unfortunate of the line of Belus. Though accused (whether truly or falsely), by his triumphant enemies, of the most revolting vices, and an effeminacy even beyond what might be expected from the last dregs of Asiatic despotism, we find Sardanapalus, when roused by the approach of danger, conducting his armies with a courage, a skill, and, for some time at least, with a success not inferior to those of his most warlike ancestors. We find him Jeffrey observes that "the disadvantage, and, in truth, absurretaining to the last the fidelity of his most trusted servants, his dity, of sacrificing higher objects to a formal adherence to the nearest kindred, and no small proportion of his hardiest subjects.unities is strikingly displayed in this drama. The whole interest We see him providing for the safety of his wife, his children, and bis capital city, with all the calmness and prudence of an experienced captain. We see him at length subdued, not by man, but by Heaven and the elements, and seeking his death with a mixture of heroism and ferocity which little accords with our notions of a weak or utterly degraded character. And even the strange story, variously told, and without further explanation scarcely intelligible, which represents him as building (or fortifying) two cities in a single day, and then deforming his exploits with an indecent image and inscription, would seem to imply a mixture of energy with his folly not impossible, perhaps, to the madness of absolute power, and which may lead us to impute his fall less to weakness than to an injudicious and ostentatious contempt of the opinions and prejudices of mankind. Such a character,-luxurious, energetic, misanthropical,-affords, beyond a doubt, no common advantages to the work of poetic delineation; and it is precisely the character which Lord Byron most delights to draw, and which he has succeeded best in drawing." Heber. "I remember Lord Byron's mentioning, that the story of Sar

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 foun dation of stupendous sufferings, 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 hovering, 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 dungeon walls 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 have resulted, not from guilt or disaster, but merely from the intensity of his love for his country."

"The character of Loredano," says Heber, "is well conceived and truly tragic. The deep and settled principle of hatred which

[blocks in formation]

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, 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 consi-sassination, several hours before it was generally known. It deration 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."

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:

eager grasp at the slightest clew which suspicion could afford. 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 asmight 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 imposing some new restraint upon bis father's authority, powerfully operated to convince the Ten that they must themseives 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, im

"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 cele-ploring his good offices with the senate. That letter, purposely brated, 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 having 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 I fe 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, in 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 counci', at his own door, by unknown hands. The magnitude of the of fence and the violation of the high dignity of the Ten demanded a victim; and the coadjutors of the slain magistrate caught with

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 accusation 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 order 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-accuser to retract his acknowledgment. The father again looked on while his son was raised on the accursed cord no 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 nature 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 relaxed in theirs; they renewed his sentence of exile, and added

[blocks in formation]

that its first year should be passed in prison. Before he em-posal for the deposition of the aged Doge, which was at first, barked, 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, so that it might seem it was not his son whom he was addressing, but it was his son-his only son. Go, Giacopo,' was his reply, when, prayed for the last time to solicit 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 swooned in the arms of his attendants. Giacopo reached his Candian prison, and was shortly afterwards released by death.

[ocr errors]

"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 sufficiently provided against any accidental suspension of his personal functions, and his place in council, and on state occasions, 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 claimed but for a short period. But yet farther trials were in store. Giacopo Loredano, who in 1467 was appointed one 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 active service, as Admiral of Venice, on his return to the capital, headed the political faction which opposed the warlike projects of the Doge; divided applause with him by bis eloquence in the councils; and so far extended his influence as frequently to obtain majorities in their divisions. 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 bis 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 peculation 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 fathers's tomb 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.

"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. The youth saw his proffered bride, openly expressed dislike of her person, and rejected her with marked discourtesy; so 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 pro

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. A 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 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 rights; 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 he 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 Giants' 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!'

"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 disobedience. On the fifth day after Foscari's deposition, Pascale Malipieri was elected Doge. The dethroned prince heard the announcement of his successor by the bell of the campanile, suppressed his agitation, but ruptured a blood-vessel in the exertion, and died in a few hours."—Vol. ii. p. 93.-E.

Complete yet; two are wanting ere we can
Proceed.

Lor. And the chief judge, the Doge?
Bar.

With more than Roman fortitude, is ever
First at the board in this unhappy process
Against his last and only son.

Lor.

His last.

True-true

Bar. Will nothing move you?
Lor.

Bar. He shows it not.
Lor.

No-he,

Lor.

Follow me.

You see the number is complete.

[Exit LOREDANO.

Bar. (solus.) Follow thee! I have follow'd long (2); Thy path of desolation, as the wave

Sweeps after that before it, alike whelming

The wreck that creaks to the wild winds, and wretch
Who'shrieks within its riven ribs, as gush

The waters through them; but this son and sire
Might move the elements to pause, and yet
Must I on hardily like them-Oh! would

Feels he, think you? I could as blindly and remorselessly!—
Lo, where he comes!-Be still, my heart! they are
Thy foes, must be thy victims: wilt thou beat
For those who almost broke thee ?

I have mark'd that-the wretch!
Bar. But yesterday, I hear, on his return
To the ducal chambers, as he pass'd the threshold,
The old man fainted.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Who rule behold us.

Bar. (advancing to the Guard.) There is one

who does:

Yet fear not; I will neither be thy judge
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 ?-'T is 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.

True,

Bar. 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. I must
not speak with him
Further than thus: I have transgress'd my duty

(1) "Veneno sublatus." The tomb is in the church of Santa comes for no end that we can discover, but to twit him with Elena.-E. conscientious cavils and objections, and then to seccnd him by his personal countenance and authority." Jeffrey.

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

« ForrigeFortsett »