When I was in my youth, and served the senate
And signory as podesta and captain

Of the town of Treviso, on a day
Of festival, the sluggish bishop who
Convey'd the Host aroused my rash young anger
By strange delay, and arrogant reply

To my reproof: I raised my hand and smote him,
Until he reel'd beneath his holy burthen;
And as he rose from earth again, he raised
His tremulous hands in pious wrath towards Heaven.
Thence pointing to the Host, which had fallen from
him.

He turn'd to me, and said, 'The hour will come
When He thou hast o'erthrown shall overthrow thee:
The glory shall depart from out thy house,
The wisdom shall be shaken from thy soul,
And in thy best maturity of mind

A madness of the heart shall seize upon thee,
Passion shall tear thee when all passions cease
In other men, or mellow into virtues;
And majesty, which decks all other heads,
Shall crown to leave thee headless; honours shall
But prove to thee the heralds of destruction,
And hoary hairs of shame, and both of death,
But not such death as fits an aged man.'
Thus saying, he pass'd on.-That hour is come.
Ang. And with this warning couldst thou not
have striven

To avert the fatal moment, and atone,
By penitence, for that which thou hadst dene?
Doge. I own the words went to my heart, so much
That I remember'd them amid the maze
Of life, as if they form'd a spectral voice,
Which shook me in a supernatural dream;
And I repented; but 'twas not for me
To pull in resolution: what must be

I could not change, and would not fear.-Nay more,
Thou canst not have forgot, what all remember,
That on my day of landing here as Doge,
On my return from Rome, a mist of such
Unwonted density went on before
The Bucentaur, like the columnar cloud
Which usher'd Israel out of Egypt, till
The pilot was misled, and disembark'd us
Between the pillars of Saint Mark's, where 'tis
The custom of the state to put to death
Its criminals, instead of touching at
The Riva della Paglia, as the wont is,→
So that all Venice shudder'd at the omen.
Ang. Ah! little boots it now to recollect
Such things.

Doge.

And yet I find a comfort in

The thought, that these things are the work of fate:
For I would rather yield to gods than men,
Or cling to any creed of destiny,

Rather than deem these mortals, most of whom
I know to be as worthless as the dust,
And weak as worthless, more than instruments
Of an o'erruling power; they in themselves
Were all incapable-they could not be
Victors of him who oft had conquer'd for them.
Ang. Employ the minutes left in aspirations
Of a more healing nature, and in peace

Even with these wretches take thy flight to heaven.

Doge. I am at peace: the peace of certainty
That a sure hour will come, when their sons' sons,
And this proud city, and these azure waters,
And all which makes them eminent and bright;
Shall be a desolation and a curse,

A hissing and a scoff unto the nations,
A Carthage, and a Tyre, an Ocean Babel.

Ang. Speak not thus now: the surge of passion still

Sweeps o'er thee to the last; thou dost deceive
Thyself, and canst not injure them-be calmer.
Doge. I stand within eternity, and see
Into eternity, and I behold-

Ay, palpable as I see thy sweet face
For the last time-the days which I denounce
Unto all time against these wave-girt walls,
And they who are indwellers.

Guard (coming forward). Doge of Venice,
The Ten are in attendance on your highness.
Doge. Then farewell, Angiolina!-one embrace-
Forgive the old man who hath been to thee
A fond but fatal husband-love my memory→→
I would not ask so much for me still living,
But thou canst judge of me more kindly now,
Seeing my evil feelings are at rest.

Besides, of all the fruit of these long years,
Glory, and wealth, and power, and fame, and name,
Which generally leave some flowers to bloom
Even o'er the grave, I have nothing left, not even
A little love, or friendship, or esteem,
No, not enough to extract an epitaph
From ostentatious kinsmen; in one hour
I have uprooted all my former life,

And outlived everything, except thy heart,
The pure, the good, the gentle, which will oft
With unimpair'd but not a clamorous grief,

Still keep Thou turn'st so pale! - Alas! she faints,

She has no breath, no pulse !-Guards! lend your aid

I cannot leave her thus, and yet 'tis better,
Since every lifeless moment spares a pang.
When she shakes off this temporary death,

I shall be with the Eternal.-Call her women-
One look!-how cold her hand!-as cold as mine
Shall be ere she recovers.-Gently tend her,
And take my last thanks I am ready now.
[The Attendants of Angiolina enter, and sur-
round their Mistress, who has fainted.
Exennt the Doge, Guards, &c. &c

SCENE III.-The Court of the Ducal Palace; the outer gates are shut against the people.-The Doge enters in his ducal robes, in procession with the Council of Ten and other Patricians, attended by the Guards, till they arrive at the top of the Giants' Staircase' (where the Doges took the oaths); the Executioner is stationed there with his sword.-On arriving, a Chief of the Ten takes off the ducal cap from the Doge's head.

Doge. So now the Doge is nothing, and at last I am again Marino Faliero :

'Tis well to be so, though but for a moment.
Here was I crown'd, and here, bear witness,
Heaven!

With how much more contentment I resign
That shining mockery, the ducal bauble,
Than I received the fatal ornament.

One of the Ten. Thou tremblest, Faliero !
Doge.

'Tis with age, then.* Ben. Faliero! hast thou aught further to commend,

Compatible with justice, to the senate?

Doge. I would commend my nephew to their

mercy,

My consort to their justice; for methinks
My death, and such a death, might settle ail
Between the state and me.

Ben.
They shall be cared for;
Even notwithstanding thine unheard-of crime.
Doge. Unheard of! ay, there's not a history
But shows a thousand crown'd conspirators
Against the people, but to set them free,
One sovereign only died, and one is dying.

Ben. And who were they who fell in such a cause?

Doge. The King of Sparta and the Doge of Venice

But recollect the people are without,
Beyond the compass of the human voice.
Doge. I speak to Time and to Eternity,
Of which I grow a portion, not to man.
Ye elements! in which to be resolved
I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit

Upon you! Ye blue waves! which bore my banner,
Ye winds! which flutter'd o'er as if you loved it,
And fill'd my swelling sails as they were wafted
To many a triumph! Thou, my native earth,
Which I have bled for! and thou, foreign earth,
Which drank this willing blood from many a
wound!

Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but
Reek up to heaven! Ye skies, which will receive it!
Thou sun! which shinest on these things, and Thou!
Who kindlest and who quenchest suns !-Attest!
I am not innocent-but are these guiltless?
I perish, but not unavenged: far ages
Float up from the abyss of time to be,

And show these eyes, before they close, the doom
Of this proud city, and I leave my curse
On her and hers for ever!-Yes, the hours

Are silently engendering of the day,
When she, who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark,
Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield,
Unto a bastard Attila, without

Shedding so much blood in her last defence,
As these old veins, oft drain'd in shielding hier,
Shall pour in sacrifice.-She shall be bought
And sold, and be an appanage to those
Who shall despise her !-She shall stoop to be
A province for an empire, petty town
In lieu of capital, with slaves for senates,
Beggars for nobles, panders for a people!*
Then when the Hebrew's in thy palaces,
The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his :†
When thy patricians beg their bitter bread
In narrow streets, and in their shameful need
Make their nobility a plea for pity;
Then, when the few who still retain a wreck
Of their great fathers' heritage shall fawn
Round a barbarian Vice of Kings' Vice-gerent,
Even in the palace where they sway'd as sovereigns,
Even in the palace where they slew their sovereign,
Proud of some name they have disgraced, or sprung
From an adultress boastful of her guilt

With some large gondolier or foreign soldier,
Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph
To the third spurious generation;-when
Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being,
Slaves turn'd o'er to the vanquish'd by the victors,
Despised by cowards for greater cowardice,
And scorn'd even by the vicious for such vices
As in the monstrous grasp of their conception
Defy all codes to image or to name them;
Then, when of Cyprus, now thy subject kingdom,
All thine inheritance shall be her shame
Entail'd on thy less virtuous daughters, grown
A wider proverb for worse prostitution ;-
When all the ills of conquer'd states shall cling

thee,

Vice without splendour, sin without relief
Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er,
But in its stead, coarse lusts of habitude,
Prurient yet passionless, cold studied lewdness,
Depraving nature's frailty to an art :-

When these and more are heavy on thee, when
Smiles without mirth, and pastimes without pleasure,
Youth without honour, age without respect,

Should the dramatic picture seem harsh, let the reader look to the historical of the period prophesied, or rather of the few years preceding that period. Voltaire calculated their nostre bene merite meretrici at 12,000 of regulars, without including volunteers and local militla, on what authority I know not; but it is perhaps the only part of the population not decreased. Venice once contained 200,000 in

Venice Preserved, a similar reply on a different occa

Meanness and weakness, and a sense of woe

'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not. murmur,

Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts, Then in the last gasp of thine agony,

Amidst thy many murders, think of mine!

How is it? let us hear at least, since sight Is thus prohibited unto the people, Except the occupiers of those bars.

First Cit. One has approach'd the Doge, and now they strip

The ducal bonnet from his head-and now

Gehenna of the waters! thou sea Sodom !
Thus I devote thee to the infernal gods!

Thee and thy serpent seed!

[Here the Doge turns and addresses the Executioner.
Slave, do thine office!
Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would
Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my

curse!

Strike-and but once!

[The Doge throws himself upon his knees, and as the Executioner raises his sword the scene closes.

SCENE IV.-The Piazza and Piazetta of St. Mark's. The people in crowds gathered round the grated gates of the Ducal Palace, which are shut.

First Citizen. I have gain'd the gate, and can discern the Ten,

Robed in their gowns of state, ranged round the Doge.

Second Cut. I cannot reach thee with mine utmost effort.

Of the first fifty Doges, five abdicated, five were banished with their eyes put out, five were massacred. and nine deposed; so that nineteen out of fifty lost the throne by violence, besides two who fell in battle-this occurred long previous to the reign of Marino Faliero. One of his more immediate predecessors. Andrea Dandolo, died of vexation; Marino Faliero himself perished as related. Amongst his successors. Foscari, after seeing his son repeatedly tortured and banished, was deposed, and died of breaking a blood-vessel, on hearing the bell of Saint Mark's toll for the election of his successor. Moro. sini was impeached for the loss of Candia; but this was previous to his dukedom, during which he conquered the Morea, and was styled the Peloponnesian. Faliero might truly say,

'Thou den of drunkards with the blood of Princes!'

Them glitter, and his lips move-Hush! hush !--no,
'Twas but a murmur-Curse upon the distance!
His words are inarticulate, but the voice
Swells up like mutter'd thunder; would we could
But gather a sole sentence !

Second Cit. Hush! we perhaps may catch the sound.

Sixth Cit.

Are you sure he's dead? First Cit. I saw the sword fall-Lo! what have we here?

Enter on the Balcony of the Palace which fronts St. Mark's Place a Chief of the Ten, with a bloedy sword. He waves it thrice before the People, and exclaims,

'Justice hath dealt upon the mighty Traitor!'

[The gates are opened; the populace rush in towards the Giants Staircase, where the execution has taken place. The foremost of them exclaims to those behind,

The gory head rolls down the Giants' Steps!'

[The curtain falls.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-A Hall in the Palace.

Salemenes [solus]. He hath wrong'd his queen, but still he is her lord;

He hath wrong'd my sister, still he is my brother;
He hath wrong'd his people, still he is their sove-
And I must be his friend as well as subject: [reign,
He must not perish thus. I will not see
The blood of Nimrod and Semiramis
Sink in the earth, and thirteen hundred years
Of empire ending like a shepherd's tale;
He must be roused. In his effeminate heart
There is a careless courage which corruption
Has not all quench'd, and latent energies,
Repress'd by circumstance, but not destroy'd-
Steep'd, but not drown'd, in deep voluptuousness.
If born a peasant, he had been a man

To have reach'd an empire: to an empire born,
He will bequeath none; nothing but a name,
Which his sons will not prize in heritage :
Yet, not all lost, even yet he may redeemn
His sloth and shame, by only being that
Which he should be, as easily as the thing
He should not be and is. Were it less toil
To sway his nations than consume his life?
To head an army than to rule a harem?
He sweats in palling pleasures, dulls his soul,
And saps his goodly strength, in toils which yield

not

Health like the chase, nor glory like the war-
He must be roused. Alas! there is no sound

[Sound of soft music heard from within.
To rouse him short of thunder. Hark! the lute,
The lyre, the timbrel; the lascivious tinklings
Of lulling instruments, the softening voices
Of women, and of beings less than women,
Must chime in to the echo of his revel,
While the great king of all we know of earth,
Lolls crown'd with roses, and his diadem
Lies negligently by to be caught up
By the first manly hand which dares to snatch it.
Lo, where they come ! already I perceive
The reeking odours of the perfumed trains,
And see the bright gems of the glittering girls,
At once his chorus and his council, flash
Along the gallery, and amidst the damsels,
As femininely garb'd, and scarce less female,
The grandson of Semiramis, the man-queen.→→
He comes! Shall I await him? yes, and front him,
And tell him what all good men tell each other,
Speaking of him and his. They come, the slaves
Led by the monarch subject to his slaves.

SCENE II.

Enter Sardanapalus, effeminately dressed, his Head crowned with Flowers, and his Robe negligently flowing, attended by a Train of Women and young Slaves.

Sar. Let the pavilion over the Euphrates

[Speaking to some of his attendants.

Be garlanded, and lit, and furnish'd forth
For an especial banquet; at the hour

Thy own sweet will shall be the only barrier
Which ever rises betwixt thee and me.
Myr. I think the present is the wonted hour
Of council; it were better I retire.

Sal. [comes forward and says] The Ionian slave says well: let her retire.

Sar. Who answers? How now, brother? Sal. The queen's brother, And your most faithful vassal, royal lord. Sar. [addressing his train.] As I have said, let all dispose their hours Till midnight, when again we

[To Myrrha, who is going]. thou wouldst remain. Myr.

Thou didst not say so.

Sar.

pray your presence. [The court retiring. Myrrha! I thought

Great king,

But thou lookedst it:

I know each glance of those Ionic eyes,
Which said thou wouldst not leave me.

Myr.
Sire! your brother-
Sal. His consort's brother, minion of Ionia ?
How darest thou name me and not blush?

Not blush!

Sar. Thou hast no more eyes than heart to make her crimson

Like to the dying day on Caucasus,

Where sunset tints the snow with rosy shadows, And then reproach her with thine own cold blind

ness,

Which will not see it. What I in tears, my Myrrha?