"bathe in. I can keep myself up for hours in the sea: I 66 delight in it, and come out with a buoyancy of spirits I never feel on any other occasion. "If I believed in the transmigration of your Hindoos, "I should think I had been a Merman in some former state " of existence, or was going to be turned into one in the next." 66 "When I published ‘Marino Faliero' I had not the most "distant view to the stage. My object in choosing that 66 66 historical subject was to record one of the most remarkable incidents in the annals of the Venetian Republic, embodying it in what I considered the most interesting form-dialogue, and giving my work the accompaniments "of scenery and manners studied on the spot. 66 66 66 66 66 66 That Faliero should, for a slight to a woman, become a traitor to his country, and conspire to massacre all his fellow nobles, and that the young Foscari should have a sickly affection for his native city, were no inventions of mine. I painted the men as I found them, as they were,-not as "the critics would have them. I took the stories as they "were handed down; and if human nature is not the same "in one country as it is in others, am I to blame?-can I help it? But no painting, however highly coloured, can give an idea of the intensity of a Venetian's affection for his native city. Shelley, I remember, draws a very beautiful picture of the tranquil pleasures of Venice in a. poem* * which he has not published, and in which he does not make me cut a good figure. It describes an evening we passed together. "There was one mistake I committed: I should have "called 'Marino Faliero' and 'The Two Foscari' dramas, * The lines to which Lord Byron referred are these: "If I had been an unconnected man, "I from this moment should have form'd the plan It was delight to ride by the lone sea; "And then the town is silent-one may write "Or read in gondolas by day or night, "Which were twin-born with poetry,—and all "We seek in towns, with little to recall 66 Regrets for the green country. I might sit "In Maddalo's great palace," &c. Julian and Maddalo. "historic poems, or any thing, in short, but tragedies or plays. In the first place, I was ill-used in the extreme by the Doge being brought on the stage at all, after my Preface. Then it consists of 3500 lines:* a good acting 66 66. play should not exceed 1500 or 1800; and, conformably "with my plan, the materials could not have been compressed into so confined a space. 66 "I remember Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd telling me, many years ago, that I should never be able to condense my powers of writing sufficiently for the stage, and "that the fault of all my plays would be their being 66 too long for acting. The remark occurred to me when I "was about Marino Faliero;' but I thought it unnecessary "to try and contradict his prediction, as I did not study 66 stage-effect, and meant it solely for the closet. So much 66 was I averse from its being acted, that, the moment I "heard of the intention of the Managers, I applied for an injunction; but the Chancellor refused to interfere, or “issue an order for suspending the representation. It was 66 * He gave me the copy, with the number of lines marked with his own pencil. I have left it in England. 486 66 a question of great importance in the literary world of property. He would neither protect me nor Murray. "But the manner in which it was got up was shameful! "All the declamatory parts were left, all the dramatic ones struck out; and Cooper, the new actor, was the "murderer of the whole. Lioni's soliloquy, which 1 " wrote one moonlight night after coming from the Benyon's, ought to have been omitted altogether, or at all events much curtailed. What audience will listen "with any patience to a mere tirade of poetry, which stops "the march of the actor? No wonder, then, that the unhappy Doge should have been damned! But it was no very pleasant news for me; and the letter containing it .66 66 was accompanied by another, to inform me that an old lady, from whom I had great expectations, was likely to "live to an hundred. There is an autumnal shoot in some 66 66 66 66 old people, as in trees; and I fancy her constitution has got some of the new sap. Well, on these two pleasant pieces of intelligence I wrote the following epigram, or elegy it may be termed, from the melancholy nature of "the subject: 66 * Acted at Drury Lane, April 25, 1821. 66 "I understand that Louis Dix-huit, or huitres, as Moore spells it, has made a traduction of poor Faliero;' but I "should hope it will not be attempted on the Théatre François. It is quite enough for a man to be damned 66 once. I was satisfied with Jeffrey's critique 66 on the play, for it abounded in extracts. He was welcome to his "own opinion,--which was fairly stated. His summing up "in favour of my friend Sir Walter amused me it re"minded me of a schoolmaster, who, after flogging a bad 'boy, calls out the head of the class, and, patting him on "the head, gives him all the sugar-plums. 66 "The common trick of Reviewers is, when they want to "However, I forgive him; and I trust Don Juan, Canto X. Stanzas 11 and 12, |