Lor. I never yet knew that a noble's life In Venice had to dread a Doge's frown, That is, by open means.

Doge.

But I, good signor,
Am, or at least was, more than a mere duke,
In blood, in mind, in means; and that they know
Who dreaded to elect me, and have since
Striven all they dare to weigh me down : be sure,
Before or since that period, had I held you
At so much price as to require your absence,
A word of mine had set such spirits to work
As would have made you nothing. But in all
things

I have observed the strictest reverence;
Not for the laws alone, for those you have
(I do not speak of you but as a single strain'd
Voice of the many) somewhat beyond what
I could enforce, or my authority,
Were I disposed to brawl; but, as I said,
I have observed with veneration, like
A priest's for the high altar, even unto
The sacrifice of my own blood and quiet,
Safety, and all save honour, the decrees,
The health, the pride, and welfare of the state.
And now, sir, do your business.
Lor.

'Tis decreed,
That, without further repetition of
The Question, or continuance of the trial,
Which only tends to show how stubborn guilt is
('The Ten,' dispensing with the stricter law
Which still prescribes the Question till a full
Confession, and the prisoner partly having
Avow'd his crime in not denying that
The letter to the Duke of Milan's his),
James Foscari return to banishment,

And sail in the same galley which convey'd him. Mar. Thank God! At least they will not drag him more

Before that horrible tribunal. Would he
But think so, to my mind the happiest doom,
Not he alone, but all who dwell here, could
Desire, were to escape from such a land.
Doge. That is not a Venetian thought, my
daughter.
[exile?
Mar. No, 'twas too human. May I share his
Lor. Of this the 'Ten' said nothing.
Mar.

So I thought! That were too human, also. But it was not Inhibited?

Lor. It was not named. Mar. [To the DOGE). Then, father, Surely you can obtain or grant me thus much: [To LOREDANO.

It galls you :-well, you are his equal, as
You think; but that you are not, nor would be
Were he a peasant :-well, then, you're a prince
A princely noble; and what then am I?
Lor. The offspring of a noble house.
Mar.

And wedded To one as noble. What, or whose, then, is The presence that should silence my free thoughts?

Lor. The presence of your husband's judges Doge.

The deference due even to the lightest word That falls from those who rule in Venice. Mar.

Keep Those maxims for your mass of scared me

chanics,

Your merchants, your Dalmatian and Greek
Your tributaries, your dumb citizens,
And mask'd nobility, your sbirri, and
Your spies, your galley and your other slaves
To whom your midnight carryings off and
drownings,

Your dungeons next the palace roofs, or wee The water's level; your mysterious mee.3g And unknown dooms, and sudden executios Your Bridge of Sighs,' your strangling charber, and

Your torturing instruments, have made ye sees
The beings of another and worse world!
Keep such for them; I fear ye not. I know
Have known and proved your worst, in the
fernal

Process of my poor husband! Treat me as
Ye treated him :--you did so, in so dealing
With him. Then what have I to fear freya
Even if I were of fearful nature, which
I trust I am not?
Doge.
You hear, she speaks w/4-
Mar. Not wisely, yet not wildly.

Lor.

Lady Utter'd within these walls I bear no further Than to the threshold, saving such as pass Between the Duke and me on the state's serv Doge! have you aught in answer? Doge. Something is a The Doge; it may be also from a parent. Lor. My mission here is to the Dot. Doge.

Then si The Doge will choose his own ambasado”, Or state in person what is meet; and for

[brain,

Save He who made? or, if they can, the few And gifted spirits, who have studied long That loathsome volume-man, and pored upon Those black and bloody leaves, his heart and But learn a magic, which recoils upon The adept who pursues it: all the sins We find in others, nature made our own; All our advantages are those of fortune; Birth, wealth, health, beauty, are her accidents, And when we cry out against Fate, 'twere well We should remember Fortune can take nought Save what she gave-the rest was nakedness, And lusts, and appetites, and vanities, The universal heritage, to battle With as we may, and least in humblest stations, Where hunger swallows all in one low want, And the original ordinance, that man [sions Must sweat for his poor pittance, keeps all pasAloof, save fear of famine! All is low, And false, and hollow-clay from first to last, The prince's urn no less than potter's vessel. Our fame is in men's breath, our lives upon Less than their breath; our durance upon days, Our days on seasons; our whole being on Something which is not us -So, we are slaves, The greatest as the meanest-nothing rests Upon our will; the will itself no less Depends upon a straw than on a storm; And when we think we lead, we are most led, And still towards death, a thing which comes as much

Without our act or choice as birth, so that Methinks we must have sinn'd in some old world, And this is hell: the best is, that it is not Eternal.

Mar. These are things we cannot judge On earth.

[other,
Doge. And how then shall we judge each
Who are all earth, and I, who am call'd upon
To judge my son? I have administer'd
My country faithfully-victoriously-

I dare them to the proof, the chart of what
She was and is: my reign has doubled realms;
And, in reward, the gratitude of Venice
Has left, or is about to leave, me single.
Mar. And Foscari? I do not think of such
So I be left with him.
[things,
Doge.

You shall be so;
Thus much they cannot well deny.
Mar.

And if

That can ne'er be.

They should, I will fly with him.
Doge.

And whither would you fly?
Mar.

I know not, reck notfo Syria, Egypt, to the Ottoman-

Anywhere, where we might respire unfetter'd,
And live nor girt by spies, nor liable
To edicts of inquisitors of state.

He is none !

Doge. What, wouldst thou have a renegade And turn him into traitor? [for husband, Mar. The country is the traitress, which thrusts forth Her best and bravest from her. Tyranny Is far the worst of treasons. Dost thou deem None rebels except subjects? The prince who Neglects or violates his trust is more A brigand than the robber-chief. Doge. I cannot Charge me with such a breach of faith. Mar. No; thou Observ'st, obey'st such laws as make old Draco's A code of mercy by comparison.

Dege. I found the law; I did not make it.
Were I

A subject, still I might find parts and portions
Fit for amendment; but as prince, I never
Would change, for the sake of my house, the
Left by our fathers.
[charter

Mar.
Did they make it for
The ruin of their children?
Doge.

Under such laws, Venice
Has risen to what she is a state to rival
In deeds, and days, and sway, and, let me add,
In glory (for we have had Roman spirits
Amongst us), all that history has bequeath'd
Of Rome and Carthage in their best times, when
The people sway'd by senates.
Rather say,

Mar.
Groan'd under the stern oligarchs.
Doge.
Perhaps so;
But yet subdued the world: in such a state
An individual, be he richest of

Such rank as is permitted, or the meanest,
Without a name, is alike nothing, when
The policy, irrevocably tending

To one great end, must be maintain'd in vigour.
Mar. This means that you are more a Doge

The marble down, had worn away the hate
Of men's hearts; but I knew them not, and here
Must I consume my own, which never beat
For Venice but with such a yearning as
The dove has for her distant nest, when wheeling
High in the air on her return to greet
Her callow brood. What letters are these which
[Approaching the wall.
Are scrawl'd along the inexorable wall?
Will the gleam let me trace them? Ah! the
Of my sad predecessors in this place, [names
The dates of their despair, the brief words of
A grief too great for many. This stone page
Holds like an epitaph their history;
And the poor captive's tale is graven on
His dungeon barrier, like the lover's record
Upon the bark of some tall tree, which bears
His own and his beloved's name. Alas!
I recognize some names familiar to me,
And blighted like to mine, which I will add,
Fittest for such a chronicle as this,

Which only can be read, as writ, by wretches.
[He engraves his name.

Enter a Familiar of 'the Ten.'

Fam. I bring you food.
Jac. Fos.

I pray you set it down; I am past hunger: but my lips are parch'dThe water!

[better.

Mar. As I had been without it. Couldst ti Jac. Fos. Nothing at first; but use and had taught me

Familiarity with what was darkness:
And the grey twilight of such glimmerings 2-
Glide through the crevices made by the w
Was kinder to mine eyes than the full sun,
When gorgeously o'ergilding any towers
Save those of Venice: but a moment ere
Thou camest hither I was busy writing.
Mar. What?

Jac. Fos. My name: look, 'tis there rec
The name of him who here preceded me,
If dungeon dates say true.

Mar.

And what of h are silent of s

Jac. Fos. These walls ends; they only Seem to hint shrewdly of them. Such stern W Were never piled on high save o'er the dead. Or those who soon must be so.—What of k Thou askest.-What of me? may soon be 25k With the like answer-doubt and dreadful Unless thou tell'st my tale.

Mar.

I speak of thee! Jac. Fos. And wherefore not? All then sha speak of me:

The tyranny of silence is not lasting.
And, though events be hidden, just men's gru
Will burst all cerement, even a living grave s

I do not doubt my memory, but my life;

Jac. Fos. And liberty?

Mar.

The mind should make its own. Jac. Fos. That has a noble sound; but 'tis a sound,

A music most impressive, but too transient :
The mind is much, but is not all. The mind
Hath nerved me to endure the risk of death,
And torture positive, far worse than death
(If death be a deep sleep), without a groan,
Or with a cry which rather shamed my judges
Than me; but 'tis not all, for there are things
More woful-such as this small dungeon, where
I may breathe many years.
Alas! and this

Mar.
Small dungeon is all that belongs to thee
Of this wide realm, of which thy sire is prince.
Jac. Fos. That_thought would scarcely aid
me to endure it.

My doom is common; many are in dungeons, But none like mine, so near their father's palace; But then my heart is sometimes high, and hope Will stream along those moted rays of light Peopled with dusty atoms, which afford

:

Our only day for, save the gaoler's torch,
And a strange firefly, which was quickly caught
Last night in yon enormous spider's net,
I ne'er saw aught here like a ray. Alas!
I know if mind may bear us up, or no,
For I have such, and shown it before men ;
It sinks in solitude: my soul is social.
Mar. I will be with thee.
Jac. Fos.
Ah! if it were so!
But that they never granted-nor will grant,
And I shall be alone: no men-no books-
Those lying likenesses of lying men.

I ask'd for even those outlines of their kind,
Which they term annals, history, what you will,
Which men bequeath as portraits, and they were
Refused me,--so these walls have been my study,
More faithful pictures of Venetian story,
With all their blank, or dismal stains, than is
The Hall not far from hence, which bears on
high

Hundreds of doges, and their deeds and dates.
Mar. I come to tell thee the result of their
Last council on thy doom.
Jac. Fos.

I know it-look!
[He points to his limbs, as referring to the
Question which he had undergone.
Mar. No-no-no more of that: even they
From that atrocity.
[relent
Fac. Fos.
Mar.
Return to Candia.
Fac. Fos.

What then?

That you

Then my last hope's gone. I could endure my dungeon, for 'twas Venice; I could support the torture, there was something In my native air that buoy'd my spirits up Like a ship on the ocean toss'd by storms,

at proudly still bestriding the high waves, And holding on its course; but there, afar, in that accursed isle of slaves and captives,

'

[ment

Well I know how wretched! Mar. And yet you see how, from their banishBefore the Tartar into these salt isles, Their antique energy of mind, all that Remain'd of Rome for their inheritance, Created by degrees an ocean Rome; And shall an evil, which so often leads To good, depress thee thus?

Jac. Fos.

Had I gone forth From my own land, like the old patriarchs, seeking

Another region, with their flocks and herds;
Had I been cast out like the Jews from Zion,
Or like our fathers, driven by Attila
From fertile Italy, to barren islets,

I would have given some tears to my late country,
And many thoughts; but afterwards address'd
Myself, with those about me, to create

A new home and fresh state: perhaps I could
Have borne this-though I know not.
Mar.

Wherefore not?

It was the lot of millions, and must be
The fate of myriads more.
Jac. Fos.

Ay-we but hear
Of the survivors' toil in their new lands,
Their numbers and success; but who can
number

[ing, The hearts which broke in silence at that partOr after their departure; of that malady + Which calls up green and native fields to view From the rough deep, with such identity To the poor exile's fever'd eye, that he Can scarcely be restrain'd from treading them? That melody, which out of tones and tunes Collects such pasture for the longing sorrow Of the sad mountaineer, when far away From the snow canopy of cliffs and clouds,

In Lady Morgan's fearless and excellent work upon Italy, I perceive the expression of 'Rome of the Ocean' applied to Venice. The same phrase occurs in the Two Foscari.' My

publisher can vouch for me, that the tragedy was written and

sent to England some time before I had seen Lady Morgan's work, which I only received on the 16th of August. I nasten, however, to notice the coincidence, and to yield the originality of the phrase to her who first placed it before the public.

The Calenture, a mental disease peculiar to sailors in hot climates.

Alluding to the Swiss air, Ranz des Vaches, and its effects.