dans son palais, ce malheureux vieillard s'évanouit, épuisé par la violence qu'il s'était faite. Jacob devait encore passer une année en prison à la Canée, avant qu'on lui rendit la même liberté limitée à laquelle il | était réduit avant cette événement; mais à peine fut-il débarqué sur cette terre d'exil, qu'il y mourut de douleur. Dès lors, et pendant quinze mois, le vieux doge accablé d'années et de chagrins, ne recouvra plus la force de son corps ou celle de son ame; il n'assistait plus à aucun des conseils, et il ne pouvait plus remplir aucune des fonctions de sa dignité. Il était entré dans sa quatre-vingt-sixième année, et si le conseil des dix avait été susceptible de quelque pitié, il aurait attendu en silence la fin, sans doute prochaine, d'une carrière marquée par tant de gloire et tant de malheurs. Mais le chef du conseil des dix était alors Jacques Loredano, fils de Marc, et neveu de Pierre, le grand amiral, qui toute leur vie avaient été les ennemis acharnés du vieux doge. Ils avaient transmis leur haine à leurs enfants, et cette vieille rancune n'était pas encore satisfaite. A l'instigation de Loredano, Jérôme Barbarigo, inquisiteur d'état, proposa au conseil des dix, au mois d'octobre 1457, de soumettre Foscari à une nouvelle humiliation. Dès que ce magistrat ne pouvait plus remplir ses fonctions Barbarigo demanda qu'on nommât un autre doge. Le conseil, qui avait réfusé par deux fois l'abdication de Foscari, parceque la constitution ne pouvait la permettre, hésita avant de se mettre en contradiction avec ses propres décrets. Les discussions dans le conseil et la junte se prolongèrent pendant huit jours, jusque fort avant dans la nuit. Cependant on fit entrer dans l'assemblée Marco Foscari, procurateur de Saint-Marc, et frère du doge, pour qu'il fût lié par le redoutable serment du secret, et qu'il ne pût arrèter les mesures de ses ennemis. Enfin, le conseil se rendit auprès du doge, et lui demanda d'abdiquer volontairement un emploi qu'il ne pouvait plus exercer. << J'ai juré, » répondit le vieillard, «de remplir jusqu'à ma mort, selon mon honneur et ma conscience, les fonctions auxquelles ma patrie m'a appelé. Je ne puis me délier moi-même de mon serment; qu'un ordre des conseils dispose de moi, je m'y soumettrai, mais je ne le devancerai pas.»> Alors une nouvelle délibération du conseil délia François Foscari de son serment ducal, lui assura une pension de deux mille ducats pour le reste de sa vie, et lui ordonna d'évacuer en trois jours le palais, et de déposer les ornemens de sa dignité. Le doge ayant remarqué parmi les conseillers qui lui portèrent cette ordre, un chef de la quarantie qu'il ne connaissait pas, demanda son nom: « Je suis le fils de Marco Memmo,» lui dit le conseiller.-« Ah! ton père était mon ami,» lui dit le vieux doge en soupirant. Il donna aussitôt des ordres pour qu'on transportàt ses effets dans une maison à lui; et le lendemain, 23 octobre, on le vit, se soutenant à peine, et appuyé sur son vieux frère, redescendre ces mêmes escaliers sur lesquels, trente-quatre ans auparavant, on l'avait vu installer avec tant de pompe, et traverser ces mêmes salles où la république avait reçu ses sermens. Le peuple entier parut indigné de tant de dureté exercée contre un vieillard qu'il respectait et qu'il aimait; mais le conseil des dix fit publier une défense de parler de cette révolution, mourut « Le doge, blessé de trouver constamment un contradicteur et un censeur si amer dans son frère, lui dit un jour en plein conseil: « Messire Augustin, vous faites tez de me succéder; mais si les autres vous connaissent tout votre possible pour hàter ma mort; vous vous flataussi bien que je vous connais, ils n'auront garde de vous élire.» Là dessus il se leva, ému de colère, rentra dans son appartement, et mourut quelques jours après. Ce frère contre lequel il s'était emporté fut précisément le successeur qu'on lui donna. C'était un mérite dont on aimait à tenir compte, surtout à un parent, de s'être mis en opposition avec le chef de la république.1» Daru, Histoire de Venise, vol. ii. sec. xi. p. 533. " IN Lady Morgan's fearless and excellent work upon Italy,» I perceive the expression of «Rome of the the «Two Foscari.» My publisher can vouch for me Ocean» applied to Venise. The same phrase occurs in that the tragedy was written and sent to England some only received on the 16th of August. I hasten, however, time before I had seen Lady Morgan's work, which I to notice the coincidence, and to yield the originality of the phrase to her who first placed it before the public. I have seen but few of the specimens, and those accidentI am the more anxious to do this, as I am informed (for charges of plagiarism. I have also had an anonymous ally) that there have been lately brought against me sort of threatening intimation of the same kind, apparently with the intent of extorting money. To such dicrous enough. I am reproached for having formed charges I have no answer to make. One of them is lutives of many actual shipwrecks in prose, selecting such the description of a shipwreck in verse from the narramaterials as were most striking. Gibbon makes it a merit in Tasso «< to have copied the minutest details of the siege of Jerusalem from the Chronicles.» In me it may be a demerit, I presume; let it remain so. Whilst I have been occupied in defending Pope's character, the lower this is as it should be, both in them and in me. orders of Grub-street appear to have been assailing mine: One of the accusations in the nameless epistle alluded to is still more laughable: it states seriously that I « received five and Martin's patent blacking!» This is the highest hundred pounds for writing advertisements for Day compliment to my literary powers which I ever received. It states also «< that a person has been trying to make Eugubinum, T. XXI, p. 992. -Christoforo da Soldo Istoria Bresciana, M. A. Sabellico. Deca III, L. VIII, f. 201. * The Venetians appear to have had a particular turn for breaking the hearts of their Doges; the above is another instance of the kind in the Doge Marco Barbarigo: he was succeeded by his brother Agostino Barbarigo, whose chief merit is above-mentioned. People are too wise, too well-informed, too certain of their own immense importance in the realms of space, ever to submit to the impiety of doubt. There may be a few such diffident speculators, like water in the pale sunbeam of human reason, but they are very few; and their opinions, without enthusiasm or appeal to the passions, can never gain proselytes-unless, indeed, they are persecuted: that, to be sure, will increase any thing. acquaintance with Mr Townsend, a gentleman of the a moment upheld their dogmatic nonsense of theo-philaw, who was with me on business in Venice three lanthropy. The church of England, if overthrown, will years ago, for the purpose of obtaining any defama-be swept away by the sectarians, and not by the sceptics. tory particulars of my life from this occasional visitor.» Mr Townsend is welcome to say what he knows. I mention these particulars merely to show the world in general what the literary lower world contains, and their way of setting to work. Another charge made, I am told, in the << Literary Gazette» is, that I wrote the notes to «Queen Mab;» a work which I never saw till some time after its publication, and which I recollect showing to Mr Sotheby as a poem of great power and imagination. I never wrote a line of the notes, nor ever saw them except in their published form. No one knows better than their real author, that his opinions and mine differ materially upon the metaphysical portion of that work; though, in common with all who are not blinded by baseness and bigotry, I highly admire the poetry of that and his other publications. I Mr S. with a cowardly ferocity, exults over the anticipated « death-bed repentance» of the objects of his dislike; and indulges himself in a pleasant « Vision of Judgment,» in prose as well as verse, full of impious impudence. What Mr S.'s sensations or ours may be in the awful moment of leaving this state of existence, neither he nor we can pretend to decide. In common, presume, with most men of any reflection, I have not waited for a « death-bed» to repent of many of my actions, notwithstanding the «< diabolical pride» which this pitiful renegado in his rancour would impute to those who scorn him. Whether, upon the whole, the good or evil of my deeds may preponderate, is not for me to ascertain; but, as my means and opportunities have been greater, I shall limit my present defence to an assertion (easily proved, if necessary) that I, «in my degree,» have done more real good in any one given year, since I was twenty, than Mr Southey in the whole course of his shifting and turncoat existence. There are several Mr Southey, too, in his pious preface to a poem whose blasphemy is as harmless as the sedition of Wat Tyler, because it is equally absurd with that sincere production, calls upon the << legislature to look to it,» as the toleration of such writings led to the French Revolution: not such writings as Wat Tyler, but as those of the «Satanic School.>> This is not true, and Mr Southey knows it to be not true. Every French writer of any freedom was persecuted; Voltaire and Rousseau were exiles, Marmontel and Diderot were sent to the Bastille, and a perpetual war was waged with the whole class by the existing despotism. In the next place, the French Revolution was not occa-actions to which I can look back with an honest pride, sioned by any writings whatsoever, but must have occurred had no such writers ever existed. It is the fashion to attribute every thing to the French Revolution, and the French Revolution to every thing but its real cause. That cause is obvious-the government exacted too much, and the people could neither give nor bear more. Without this, the Encyclopedists might have written their fingers off without the occurence of a single alter-ferent occasion, knowing them to be such, which he ation. And the English Revolution—(the first, I mean) what was it occasioned by? The puritans were surely as pious and moral as Wesley or his biographer? Actsacts on the part of government, and not writings against them, have caused the past convulsions, and are tending to the future. not to be damped by the calumnies of a hireling. There are others to which I recur with sorrow and repentance; but the only act of my life of which Mr Southey can have any real knowledge, as it was one which brought me in contact with a near connexion of his own, did no dishonour to that connexion nor to me. I am not ignorant of Mr Southey's calumnies on a dif scattered abroad, on his return from Switzerland, against me and others: they have done him no good in this world and, if his creed be the right one, they will do him less in the next. What his « death-bed» may be, it is not my province to predicate: let him settle it with his Maker, as I must do with mine. There is something at once ludicrous and blasphemous in this arrogant scribbler of all works sitting down to deal damnation and destruction upon his fellow-creatures, with Wat Tyler, the Apotheosis of George the Third, and the Elegy on Martin the regicide, all shuffled together in his writing-desk. One of his consolations appears to be a Latin note from a work of a Mr Landor, the author of «Gebir," whose I look upon such as inevitable, though no revolutionist: I wish to see the English constitution restored and not destroyed. Born an aristocrat, and naturally one by temper, with the greater part of my present property in the funds, what have I to gain by a revolution? Perhaps I have more to lose in every way than Mr Southey, with all his places and presents for panegyrics and abuse into the bargain. But that a revolution is inevit-friendship for Robert Southey will, it seems, « be an able, I repeat. The government may exult over the repression of petty tumults; these are but the receding waves repulsed and broken for a moment on the shore, while the great tide is still rolling on and gaining ground with every breaker. Mr Southey accuses us of attacking the religion of the country; and is he abetting it by writ-This friendship will probably be as memorable as his ing lives of Wesley? One mode of worship is merely destroyed by another. There never was, nor ever will be, a country without a religion. We shall be told of France again: but it was only Paris and a frantic party, which for honour to him when the ephemeral disputes and ephemeral reputations of the day are forgotten.» I for one neither envy him the friendship,» nor the glory in reversion which is to accrue from it, like Mr Thelusson's fortune, in the third and fourth generation. own epics, which (as I quoted to him ten or twelve years ago in English Bards) Porson said « would be remembered wheu Homer and Virgil are forgotten, and not till then.»> For the present, I leave him. Cain; A MYSTERY. Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. -GEN. iii, I. TO SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. This "Mystery of Eain" is Inscribed, BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND, AND FAITHFUL SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. upon THE following scenes are entitled « a Mystery,» in conformity with the ancient title annexed to dramas similar subjects, which were styled « Mysteries,» or « Moralities.» The author has by no means taken the same liberties with his subject which were common formerly, as may be seen by any reader curious enough to refer to those very profane productions, whether in English, French, Italian, or Spanish. The author has endeavoured to preserve the language adapted to his characters; and where it is (and this is but rarely) taken from actual Scripture, he has made as little alteration, even of words, as the rhythm would permit. The reader will recollect that the book of Genesis does not state that Eve was tempted by a demon, but by « the Serpent; and that only because he was « the most subtil of all the beasts of the field.» Whatever interpretation the Rabbins and the Fathers may have put upon this, I must take the words as I find them, and reply with Bishop Watson upon similar occasions, when the Fathers were quoted to him, as Moderator in the Schools of Cambridge, « Behold the Book!»-holding up the Scripture. It is to be recollected that my present subject has nothing to do with the New Testament, to which no reference can be here made without ana chronism. With the poems upon similar topics I have not been recently familiar. Since I was twenty, I have never read Milton; but I had read him so frequently before, that this may make little difference. Gesner's « Death of Abel» I have never read since I was eight years of age, at Aberdeen. The general impression of my recollection is delight; but of the contents, I remem ber only that Cain's wife was called Mahala, and Abel's Thirza. In the following pages I have called them « Adah» and « Zillah,» the earliest female names which occur in Genesis; they were those of Lamech's wives : those of Cain and Abel are not called by their names. Whether, then, a coincidence of subject may have caused the same in expression, I know nothing, and care as little. The reader will please to bear in mind (what few chuse to recollect) that there is no allusion to a future state in any of the books of Moses, nor indeed in the Old Testament. For a reason for this extraordinary omission he may consult « Warburton's Divine Legation; whether satisfactory or not, no better has yet been assigned. I have therefore supposed it new to Cain, without, I hope, any perversion of Holy Writ. With regard to the language of Lucifer, it was difficult for me to make him talk like a clergyman upon the same subjects; but I have done what I could to restrain him within the bounds of spiritual politeness. If he disclaims having tempted Eve in the shape of the Serpent, it is only because the book of Genesis has not the most distant allusion to any thing of the kind, but merely to the Serpent in his serpentine capacity. Note. The reader will perceive that the author has partly adopted in this poem the notion of Cuvier, that the world had been destroyed several times before the creation of man. This speculation, derived from the different strata and the bones of enormous and un known animais found in them, is not contrary to the Mosaic account, but rather confirms it; as no human bones have yet been discovered in those strata, although those of many known animals are found near the remains of the unknown. The assertion of Lucifer, that the pre-adamite world was also peopled by rational beings much more intelligent than man, and proportionably powerful to the mammoth, etc., etc. is, of course, a poetical fiction, to help him to make out his God! who didst call the elements into And love both them and thee-all hail! all hail! God, the Eternal! Parent of all things' Oh, God! who loving, making, blessing all, ADAM. Son Cain, my first-born, wherefore art thou silent? CAIN. Why should I speak? ADAM. To pray. CAIN. Have ye not pray'd? ADAM. We have, most fervently. EVE. Alas! The fruit of our forbidden tree begins To fall. ADAM. And we must gather it again. Oh, God! why didst thou plant the tree of knowledge? CAIN. And wherefore pluck'd ye not the tree of life? Ye might have then defied him. Blaspheme not: these are serpents' words. ADAM. Oh! my son, CAIN. And loudly: 1 Have heard you. My beloved Cain, Wilt thou frown even on me? CAIN (Solus). And this is Life!-Toil! and wherefore should I toil?-because To which that birth has brought me. Why did he Why should I fear him more than other spirits, Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords Before the gates round which I linger oft, We are mighty. Are ye happy? LUCIFER. In twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those The cherubim-defended battlements? If I shrink not from these, the fire-arm'd angels, As he hath been, and might be: sorrow seems So? and can aught grieve save humanity? LUCIFER. I know the thoughts CAIN. LUCIFER. Thy sire's Maker, and the earth's. CAIN. And all that in them is. So I have heard His seraphs sing; and so my father saith. LUCIFER. And heaven's, They say what they must sing and say, on pain CAIN. And what is that? LUCIFER. Souls who dare use their immortality- As he saith-which I know not, nor believe- |