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 surround their Mistress, who has fainted. -Exeunt 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 Execu

tioner 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 all 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

Thou may'st:

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

On her and hers for ever!-Yes, the hours
Of this proud city, and I leave my curse
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 her,
Shall pour in sacrifice.—She shall be bought

same reproach on his way to execution, in the earliest part of their revolution. I find in reading over (since the completion of this tragedy), for the first time these six years, Venice Preserved, a similar reply on a different occasion by Renault, and other coincidences arising from the subject. I need hardly remind the gentlest reader that such coincidences must be accidental from the very facility of their detection by reference to so popular a play on the stage, and in the closet, as Otway's chef d'auvre.

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 king-
dom,

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,
Meanness and weakness, and a sense of woe
'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st

not murmur,

* 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 militia, on what authority I know not; but it is perhaps the only part of the population not decreased. Venice once contained 200,000 inhabitants; there are now about 90,000, and these! Few individuals can conceive, and none could describe, the actual state into which the more than infernal tyranny of Austria has plunged this unhappy city.

The chief palaces on the Brenta now belong to the Jews, who, in the earlier times of the Republic, were only allowed to inhabit Mestri, and not to enter the city of Venice. The whole commerce is in the hands of the Jews and Greeks, and the Huns from the garrison.

241

*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 succes sor. Morosini 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!"

Q

circle

Round him, and all is hidden-but I see The lifted sword in air- -Ah! hark! it falls! [The people murmur. Third Cit. Then they have murder'd him who would have freed us. Fourth Cit. He was a kind man to the com

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 bloody 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.