'Decapitated for his crimes!'-What crimes?
Were it not better to record the facts,
So that the contemplator might approve,
Or at the least learn whence the crimes arose?
When the beholder knows a Doge conspired,
Let him be told the cause-it is your history.
Ben. Time must reply to that; our sons will
judge
Their fathers' judgment, which I now pronounce.
As Doge, clad in the ducal robes and cap,
Thou shalt be led hence to the Giants' Staircase,
Where thou and all our princes are invested;
And there, the ducal crown being first resumed
Upon the spot where it was first assumed,
Thy head shall be struck off; and Heaven have
Upon thy soul !
[mercy
Doge.
Ben. It is.
Doge. I can endure it.-And the time?
Ben. Must be immediate.-Make thy peace
with God:

Is this the Giunta's sentence?

Within an hour thou must be in His presence.
Doge. am already; and my blood will rise
To Heaven before the souls of those who shed
Are all my lands confiscated?
[it.-
Ben.
They are;
And goods, and jewels, and all kinds of treasure,
Except two thousand ducats-these dispose of.
Doge. That's harsh.-I would have fain re-
served the lands

Near to Treviso, which I hold by investment
From Laurence the Count-bishop of Ceneda,
In fief perpetual to myself and heirs,
To portion them (leaving my city spoil,
My palace and my treasures, to your forfeit)
Between my consort and my kinsmen.

Ben.

These

The hour may be a hard one, but 'twill end.
Have I aught else to undergo save death?
Ben. You have nought to do, except confess
and die.

The priest is robed, the scimitar is bare,
And both await without.-But, above all,
Think not to speak unto the people; they
Are now by thousands swarming at the gates,
But these are closed: the Ten, the Avogadori,
The Giunta, and the chief men of the Forty,
Alone will be beholders of thy doom,
And they are ready to attend the Doge.
Doge. The Doge!

Ben. Yes, Doge, thou hast lived and thou shalt die

A sovereign; till the moment which precedes

The separation of that head and trunk,
That ducal crown and head shall be united.
Thou hast forgot thy dignity in deigning
To plot with petty traitors; not so we,
Who in the very punishment acknowledge
The prince. Thy vile accomplices have died
The dog's death, and the wolf's; but thou shalt
As falls the lion by the hunters, girt [fall
By those who feel a proud compassion for thee,
And mourn even the inevitable death
Provoked by thy wild wrath and regal fierceness.
Now we remit thee to thy preparation :
Let it be brief, and we ourselves will be
Thy guides unto the place where first we were
United to thee as thy subjects, and
Thy senate; and must now be parted from thee
As such for ever, on the self-same spot.-
Guards! form the Doge's escort to his chamber.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The Doge's Apartment.

The DOGE as Prisoner, and the DUCHESS
attending him.

Doge. Now, that the priest is gone, 'twere useless all

To linger out the miserable minutes; [thee,
But one pang more, the pang of parting from
And I will leave the few last grains of sand,
Which yet remain of the accorded hour,
Still falling-I have done with Time.
Ang.

Alas!

And I have been the cause, the unconscious

cause:

And for this funeral marriage, this black union, Which thou, compliant with my father's wish, Didst promise at his death, thou hast seal'd thine own.

Doge. Not so; there was that in my spirit ever
Which shaped out for itself some great reverse;
The marvel is, it came not until now-
And yet it was foretold me.

Ang.
How foretold you?
Doge. Long years ago-so long, they are a
doubt

In memory, and yet they live in annals:
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 [him.
To my reproof: I raised my hand and smote
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.
[from him,
Thence pointing to the Host, which had fallen
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,

Compatible with justice, to the senate?

Then when the Hebrew's in thy palaces, The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek

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 Agis and Faliero !

Ben.

To utter or to do?

Doge. Ben.

Hast thou more

May I speak?

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.
re elements! in which to be resolved
I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit [banner,
Upon you! Ye blue waves! which bore my
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!

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,
[sovereign,

Even in the palace where they slew their 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,

Should the dramatic picture seem harsh, let the reader

ceive it!
[Thou!
Thou sun! which shinest on these things, and
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 her,
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,

execution, in the earliest part of their revolution. I find in readingover (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'œuvre.

the few years preceding that period. Voltaire calculated their including volunteers and local militia, on what authority I know not; but it is perhaps the only part of the population not de creased. 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. From the present decay and degeneracy of Venice under the Barbarians, there are some honourable individual exceptions. There is Pasqualigo, the last, and, alas! posthumous son of the marriage of the Doges with the Adnatic, who fought his frigate with far greater gallantry than any of his French coadjutors in the memorable action off Lissa. 1 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,' &c. and many other estimable productions; and, not least in an Englishman's estimation, Madame Michelli, the translator of Shakspeare. There are the young Dandolo and the improv visatore 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, &c. &c., 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 ereigner, at least a stranger (forestière).

nostre bene merite meretrici at 12,000 of regulars, without

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 form the garrison.

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,t

Have made thee last and worst of peopled
Then in the last gasp of thine agony, [deserts,
Amidst thy many murders, think of mine!
Thou den of drunkards with the blood of
princes! +

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

Thee and thy serpent seed!

-no,

Executioner.

Slave, do thine office! Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my Strike-and but once! [curse! [The DOGE throws himself upon his knees, and as the Executioner raises his sword the scene

closes.

His words are inarticulate, but the voice
Swells up like mutter'd thunder; would we
But gather a sole sentence !

[could Second Cit. Hush! we perhaps may catch the sound. First Cit.

'Tis vain,

See Appendix, Note C.

+ If the Doge's prophecy seem remarkable, look to the following, made by Alamanni, two hundred and seventy years ago:-There is one very singular prophecy concerning Venice: "If thou dost not change," it says to that proud republic, "thy liberty, which is already on the wing, will not reckon a century more than the thousandth year." 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: 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, therefore, note as very remarkable the three lines of Alamanni addressed to Venice; which, however, no one has pointed out:

"Se non cangi pensier, un secol solo Non conterà sopra 'l millesimo anno Tua libertà, che va fuggendo a volo." Many prophecies have passed for such, and many men have been called prophets, for much less.'-GINGUENÉ, Hist. Lit. de Italie, t. ix. p. 144.

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. 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!'

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 commons ever.

[tals barr'd. Fifth Cit. Wisely they did to keep their porWould we had known the work they were preparing

Ere we were summon'd here-we would have Weapons, and forced them! [brought

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.

• Un Capo de' Diect are the words of Sanuto's Chronicle,