morable action off Lissa. I came home in the squadron with the prizes in 1811, and recollect to have heard Sir William Hoste, and the other officers engaged in that glorious conflict, speak in the highest terms of Pasqualigo's behaviour. There is the Abbate Morelli. There is Alvise Querini, who, after a long and honourable diplomatic career, finds some consolation for the wrongs of his country in the pursuits of literature, with his nephew, Vittor Benzon, the son of the celebrated beauty, the heroine of « La Biondina in Gondoletta.» There are

the patrician poet Morosini, and the poet Lamberti, the author of the « Biondina,» etc. and many other estimable productions; and, not least in an Englishman's estimation, Madam Michelli, the translator of Shakspeare. There are the young Dandolo, and the improvvisatore Carrer, and Giuseppe Albrizzi, the accomplished son of an accomplished mother. There is Aglietti, and, were there nothing else, there is the immortality of Canova. Cicognara, Mustoxithi, Bucati, etc., etc. I do not reckon, because the one is a Greek, and the others were born at least a hundred miles off, which, throughout Italy, constitutes, if not a foreigner, at least a stranger (forestiere).

VI.

Extrait de l'ouvrage-Histoire littéraire d'Italie, par P. L. Ginguéné. tom. ix, chap. xxxvi, p. 144. Edition de Paris, MDCCCXIX.

« Il y a une prédiction fort singulière sur Venise: 'Si tu ne changes pas,' dit-elle à cette république aitière, 'ta liberté, qui déjà s'enfuit, ne comptera pas un siècle après la millième anuée.'

<< En faisant remonter l'époque de la liberté Vénitienne jusqu'à l'établissement du gouvernement sous le quel la république a fleuri, on trouvera que l'élection du premier Doge date de 697, et si l'ou y ajoute un siècle après mille, c'est-à-dire onze cents ans, on trouvera encore que le sens de la prédiction est littéralement celui-ci : 'Ta liberté ne comptera pas jusqu'à l'an 1797. Rappelez-vous maintenant que Venise a cessé d'être libre en l'an cinq de la République française, ou en 1796; vous verrez qu'il n'y eut jamais de prédiction plus précise et plus ponctuellement suivie de l'effet. Vous noterez donc comme très remarquables ces trois vers de l'Alamanni, adressés à Venise, que personne pourtant n'a remarqués:

Se non cangi pensier, l'un secol solo Non conterà sopra 'l millesimo anno Tua libertà, che va fuggendo a volo." Bien des prophéties ont passé pour telles, et bien des gens ont été appelés prophètes a meilleur marché.>>

VII.

Thy liberty will not last till 1797. Recollect that Venice ceased to be free in the year 1796, the fifth year of the French republic; and you will perceive that there never was prediction more pointed, or more exactly followed by the event. You will rerefore, note às very temark. able the three lines of Alamanni, addressed to Venice, which, however, no one has pointed out:

Se non cangi pensier, l'un secol solo
Non conterà sopra 'I millesimo anno
Tua liberta, che va fuggendo a volo.'

Many prophecies have passed for such, and many men have been called prophets for much less. >>

by Alamanni two hundred and seventy years ago. If the Doge's prophecy seem remarkable, look to the above, made

THE author of «Sketches Descriptive of Italy,» etc. one of the hundred tours lately published, is extremely anxious to disclaim a possible charge of plagiarism from «Childe Harold » and «< Beppo. He adds, that still less could this presumed coincidence arise from « my conversation,» as he had repeatedly declined an introduction to me while in Italy.

Who this person may be I know not, but he must have been deceived by all or any of those who «<repeatedly offered to introduce» him, as I have invariably refused to receive any English with whom I was not previously acquainted, even when they had letters from England. If the whole assertion is not an invention, 1 request this person not to sit down with the notion that be COULD have been introduced, since there has been nothing I have so carefully avoided as any kind of intercourse with his countrymen, excepting the very few who were a considerable time resident in Venice, or had been of my previous acquaintance. Whoever made him any such offer was possessed of impudence equal to that of making such an assertion without having had it. The fact is, that I hold in utter abhorrence any contact with the travelling English, as my friend the Consul General Hoppner, and the Countess Benzoni (in whose house the Conversazione mostly frequented by them is held), could amply testify, were it worth while. I was persecuted by these tourists even to my ridingground at Lido, and reduced to the most disagreeable circuits to avoid them. At Madame Benzoni's I repeatedly refused to be introduced to them;-of a thousand such presentations pressed upon me, I accepted two, and both were to Irish women.

I should hardly have descended to speak of such trifles publicly, if the impudence of this «sketcher» had not forced me to a refutation of a disingenuous and gratuitously impertinent assertion;-so meant to be, for what could it import to the reader to be told that the author <had repeatedly declined an introduction,» even

« If we carry back the epocha of Venetian freedom to the establishment of the government under which the republic flourished, we shall find that the date of the election of the first Doge is 697; and if we add one century to a thousand, that is, eleven hundred years, we shall find the sense of the prediction to be literally this:

given, is scarcely possible? Except Lords Lansdown, Jersey, and Lauderdale; Messrs Scott, Hammond, Sir Humphry Davy, the late M. Lewis, W. Bankes, Mr Hoppner, Thomas Moore, Lord Kinnaird, his brother, Mr Joy, and Mr Hobhouse, I do not recollect to have exchanged a word with another Englishman since I left their country; and almost all these I had known before. The others and God knows there were some hundreds -who bored me with letters or visits, I refused to have any communication with, and shall be proud and happy when that wish becomes mutual.

See Medain, 11.130, 148-9.

PREFACE.

IN publishing the Tragedies of Sardanapalus, and of The Two Foscari, I have only to repeat that they were not composed with the most remote view to the stage.

On the attempt made by the managers in a former instance, the public opinion has been already expressed. With regard to my own private feelings, as it seems that they are to stand for nothing, I shall say nothing. For the historical foundation of the compositions in question, the reader is referred to the Notes.

The author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the other to approach the «unities;» conceiving that, with any very distant departure from them, there may be poetry, but can be no drama. He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English literature; but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion which, not very long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilised parts of it. But « Nous avons changé tout cela,» and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far from conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach his regular, or even irregular predecessors: he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formation of a structure, however feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules what soever. Where he has failed, the failure is in the architect, and not in the art.

ADVERTISEMENT.

In this tragedy it has been my intention to follow the account of Diodorus Siculus; reducing it, however, to such dramatic regularity as I best could, and trying to approach the unities. I therefore suppose the rebellion to explode and succeed in one day by a sudden conspiracy, instead of the long war of the history.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

MEN.

SARDANAPALUS, King of Nineveh and Assyria, etc. ARBACES, the Mede who aspired to the Throne. BELESES, a Chaldean and Soothsayer.

SALEMENES, the King's Brother-in-law.

ALTADA, an Assyrian Officer of the Palace.

PANIA.

ZAMES.

SFERO.

BALEA.

ZARINA, the Queen.

WOMEN.

SARDANAPALUS.

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 sovereign,
And I must be his friend as well as subject:
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,
Represt 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 redeem
His sloth and shame, by ouly 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 earthi
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,
Who are his comrades and his council, flash
Along the gallery, and amidst the damsels,

SARDANAPALUS.

Women composing the Harem of SARDANAPALUS, Guards, Attendants, Chaldeun Priests, Medes, etc., etc.

Scene-a Hall in the Royal Palace of Nineveh.

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.

SARDANAPALUS (speaking to some of his attendants). Let the pavilion over the Euphrates

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

Of midnight we will sup there; see nought wanting,
And bid the galley be prepared. There is

A cooling breeze which crisps the broad clear river:
We will embark anon. Fair nymphs, who deign
To share the soft hours of Sardanapalus,
We'll meet again in that the sweetest hour,
When we shall gather like the stars above us,
And you will form a heaven as bright as theirs.
Till then, let each be mistress of her time;
And thou, my own Ionian, Myrrha, chuse,
Wilt thou along with them or me?

MYRRHA.

My lord-

SARDANAPALUS.

My lord! my life, why answerest thou so coldly!

It is the curse of kings to be so answered.

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

SALEMENES.

Let them flow on; she weeps for more than one, And is herself the cause of bitterer tears.

SARDANAPALUS.

Cursed be he who caused those tears to flow! SALEMENES.

Curse not thyself-millions do that already.

SARDANAPALUS.

Thou dost forget thee: make me not remember I am a monarch.

SALEMENES. Would thou couldst!

MYRRHA.

My sovereign,

MYRRHA.

SARDANAPALUS.

Since it must be so, and this churl has check'd Thy gentle spirit, go; but recollect

That we must forthwith meet: I had rather lose An empire than thy presence.

SALEMENES.

It may be, Thou wilt lose both, and both for ever. SARDANAPALUS.

[Exit MYRRHA.

In the same moment all thy pageant power,
And those who should sustain it; so that whether
A foreigu foe invade, or civil broil

Distract within, both will alike prove fatal:
The first thy subjects have no heart to conquer;
The last they rather would assist than vanquish.

SALEMENES.

SARDANAPALUS.

Then I will say for themThat she had better woven within her palace Some twenty garments, than with twenty guards Have fled to Bactria, leaving to the ravens, And wolves, and men-the fiercest of the threeHer myriads of fond subjects. Is this glory? Then let me live in ignominy ever.

SALEMENES.

All warlike spirits have not the same fate.
Semiramis, the glorious parent of

A hundred kings, although she fail'd in India,
Brought Persia, Media, Bactria, to the realm
Which she once sway'd-and thou mightst sway.

SARDANAPALUS.

A king.

SARDANAPALUS.

And what

She but subdued them.

I sway them

Not so:-of all his conquests a few columns,
Which may be his, and might be mine, if I
Thought them worth purchase and conveyance, are
The landmarks of the seas of gore he shed,
The realms he wasted, and the hearts he broke.
But here, here in this goblet is his title
To immortality-the immortal grape
From which he first express'd the soul, and gave
To gladden that of man, as some atonement
For the victorious mischiefs he had done.
Had it not been for this, he would have been
A mortal still in name as in his grave;
And, like my ancestor Semiramis,
A sort of semi-glorious human monster.
Here's that which deified him-let it now
Humanize thee: my surly, chiding brother,
Pledge me to the Greek god!

SALEMENES.

For all thy realms I would not so blaspheme our country's creed.

SARDANAPALUS.

That is to say, thou thinkest him a hero,
That he shed blood by oceans; and no god,
Because he turn'd a fruit to an enchantment,
Which cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires
The young, makes Weariness forget his toil,
And Fear her danger; opens a new world

Patience, prince, and hear me. She has all power and splendour of her station, Respect, the tutelage of Assyria's heirs, The homage and the appanage of sovereignty.

I married her, as monarchs wed-for state,

And loved her as most husbands love their wives;
If she or thou supposedst I could link me
Like a Chaldean peasant to his mate,

Ye knew nor me, nor monarchs, nor mankind.
SALEMENES.

I pray thee, change the theme; my blood disdains
Complaint, and Salemenes' sister seeks not
Reluctant love even from Assyria's lord!
Nor would she deign to accept divided passion
With foreign strumpets and Ionian slaves.
The queen is silent.

SARDANAPALUS.

And why not her brother?

SALEMENES.

I only echo thee the voice of empires,
Which he who long neglects not long will govern.

SARDANAPALUS.

The ungrateful and ungracious slaves! they murmur
Because I have not shed their blood, nor led them
To dry into the desert's dust by myriads,
Or whiten with their bones the banks of Ganges;
Nor decimated them with savage laws,
Nor sweated them to build up pyramids,
Or Babylonian walls.

SALEMENES.

Yet these are trophies

More worthy of a people and their prince

Than songs, and lutes, and feasts, and concubines, And lavish'd treasures, and contemned virtues.

SARDANAPALUS.

Or for iny trophies I have founded cities:

And him as a true man, who did his utmost

In good or evil to surprise mankind.

SALEMENES.

Wilt thou resume a revel at this hour?

SARDANAPALUS.

SALEMENES.

'Tis most true;

I own thy merit in those founded cities,
Built for a whim, recorded with a verse
Which shames both them and thee to coming ages.

SARDANAPALUS.

I would but have recall'd thee from thy dream: Better by me awaken'd than rebellion.