ance 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 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.... Still, however, the developement 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 retaining to the last the fidelity of his most trusted servants, his nearest kindred, and no small proportion of his hardiest subjects. We see him providing for the safety of his wife, his children, and his 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, ener. getic, 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. BISHOP HEBER.

I remember Lord Byron's mentioning, that the story of Sardanapalus had been working in his brain for seven years before he commenced it.— [RELAWNEY.]

THE TWO FOSCARI.

AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY. (1)

The father softens, but the governor's resolved. - CRITIC.

(1) [MS." Begun June the 12th, completed July the 9th, Ravenna 1821. Byron."]

["THE TWO Foscari" was composed at Ravenna, between the 11th 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 thoul't 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." 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:

"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

how

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 celebrated, the Doge drew favourable auspices for future happiness. Four years, ever, 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 of fence, 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 life 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 council, at his own door, by unknown hands. The magnitude of the offence and the violation of the high dignity of the Ten demanded a victim; and the coadjutors of the slain magistrate caught with eager grasp at the slightest clue 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 assassination, several hours before it was generally known. It might 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 his father's authority, powerfully operated to convince the Ten that they must themselves 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