1 crut obligé de rappeler, d'indemniser même 1 des femmes every woman who should sue for a dissolution of her qui surprenaient quelquefois d'importants secrets, et marriage should be compelled to await the decision of qu'on pouvait employer utilement à ruiner des hommes the judges in some convent, to be named by the court. que leur fortune aurait pu rendre dangereux. Depuis, Soon afterwards the same council summoned all causes fa licence est toujours allée croissant, et l'on a vu non of that nature before itself. This infringement on seulement des mères trafiquer de la virginité de leurs ecclesiastical jurisdiction having occasioned some refilles, mais la vendre par un contrat, dont l'authenticité était garantie par la signature d'un officier public, et l'execution mise sous la protection des lois.2 monstrance from Rome, the council retained only the right of rejecting the petition of the married persons, and consented to refer such causes to the holy office as it should not previously have rejected.3 "Les parloirs des couvents où étaient renfermées les filles nobles, les maisons des courtisanes, quoique la "There was a moment in which, doubtless, the depolice y entretint soigneusement un grand nombre de struction of private fortunes, the ruin of youth, the do. surveillans, étaient les seuls points de réunion de la so-mestic discord, occasioned by these abuses, determined ciété de Venise, et dans ces deux endroits si divers on the government to depart from its established maxims était également libre. La musique, les collations, la galanterie, n'étaient pas plus interdites dans les parloirs que dans les casins. Il y avait un grand nombre de casins destinés aux réunions publiques, où le jeu était la principale occupation de la société. C'était un singulier spectacle de voir autour d'une table des personnes des deux sexes en masque, et de graves personnages en robe de magistrature, implorant le hasard, passant des angoisses du désespoir aux illusions de l'espérance, et cela sans proférer une parole. "Les riches avaient des casins particuliers; mais ils y vivaient avec mystère; leurs femmes délaissées trouvaient un dédommagement dans la liberté dont elles jouissaient; la corruption des mœurs les avait privées de tout leur empire; on vient de parcourir toute l'histoire de Venise, et on ne les a pas vues une seule fois exercer la moindre influence.” V. concerning the freedom of manners allowed the subject. All the courtesans were banished from Venice, but their absence was not enough to reclaim and bring back good morals to a whole people brought up in the most scandalous licentiousness. Depravity reached the very bosoms of private families, and even into the cloister ; and they found themselves obliged to recall, and even to indemnify 4 women who sometimes gained possession of important secrets, and who might be usefully employed in the ruin of men whose fortunes might have rendered them dangerous. Since that time licentiousness has gone on increasing, and we have seen mothers, not only selling the innocence of their daughters, but selling it by a contract, authenticated by the signature of a public officer, and the performance of which was secured by the protection of the laws.5 to the agonies of despair, at the next to the illusions of hope, and that without uttering a single word. "The parlours of the convents of noble ladies, and the houses of the courtesans, though the police carefully kept up a number of spies about them, were the only assemblies for society in Venice; and in these two Extract from the History of the Republic of Venice, by places, so different from each other, there was equal freeP. Daru, Member of the French Academy, vol. v. dom. Music, collations, gallantry, were not more forbidb. xxxv. p. 95, etc. Paris Edit. 1819. den in the parlours than at the casinos. There were a "To these attacks, so frequently pointed by the number of casinos for the purpose of public assemblies, where gaming was the principal pursuit of the company. governrent against the clergy,--to the continual strugsex, gles between the different constituted bodies,-to these It was a strange sight to see persons of either maskenterprises, carried on by the mass of the nobles against ed, or grave personages in their magisterial robes, round the depositaries of power, to all those projects of inno- a table, invoking charce, and giving way at one instant vation, which always ended by a stroke of state policy,we must add a cause not less fitted to spread contempt for ancient doctrines; this was the excess of corruption. "That freedom of manners, which had been long boasted of as the principal charm of Venetian society, had degenerated into scandalous licentiousness; the tie of marriage was less sacred in that Catholic country, than among those nations where the laws and religion admit of its being dissolved. Because they could not break the contract, they feigned that it had not existed ; and the ground of nullity, immodestly alleged by the married pair, was admitted with equal facility by priests and magistrates, alike corrupt. These divorces, veiled under another name, became so frequent, that the most important act of civil society was discovered to be amenable to a tribunal of exceptions; and to restrain the open scandal of such proceedings became the office of the police. In 1782 the Council of Ten decreed, that 1 Le décret de rappel les désignait sous le nom de nostre benemerite meretrici. On leur assigna un fonds et des maisons appelées Case rampane, d'où vient la dénomination injurieuse de Carampar 2 Mayer, Lescription de Venise, tom. ii. et M. Archenholtz, Tableau de l'Italie, tom. i. chap. 2. "The rich had private casinos, but they lived incognito in them; and the wives whom they abandoned found compensation in the liberty they enjoyed. The corruption of morals had deprived them of their emVenice, and we have not once seen them exercise the pire. We have just reviewed the whole history of slightest influence.” 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 Adriatic, who fought his frigate with far greater gallantry than any of his French coadjutors in the me 1 Correspondence of Mr. Schlick, French chargé d'affaires. Despatch of 24th August, 1782. 2 Ibid. Despatch, 31st August. 3 Ibid. Despatch, 3d September, 1785. 4 The decree for their recall designates them as nostre bene merite meretrici. A fund and some houses called Case ram pane were assigned to them: hence the opprobrious appellation of Carampane. Picture of Italy, vol. i. chap. 2. 5 Mayer, Description of Venice, vol. ii. and M. Archenhultz morable action off Lissa. I came home in the squadron liberty will not last till 1797.' Recollect that Venice with the prizes in 1811, and recollect to have heard Sir ceased to be free in the year 1796, the fifth year of the William Hoste, and the other officers engaged in that French republic; and you will perceive that there never glorious conflict, speak in the highest terms of Pasqua- was prediction more pointed, or more exactly followed ligo's-behaviour. There is the Abbate Morelli. There by the event. You will, therefore, note as very remarkis Alvise Querini, who, after a long and honourable able the three lines of Alamanni, addressed to Venice, diplomatic career, finds some consolation for the wrongs which, however, no one has pointed out: 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,” etc. and many other estimaole productions; and, not least in an Englishman's estimation, Madame Michelli, the translator of Shakspeare. There are the young Dandolo, and the improvvisatore 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, etc., etc. 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 foreigner, at least a stranger (forestiere). VI. Extrait de l'ouvrage-Histoire littéraire d'Italie, par P. L. Ginguéné, tom. ix. chap. xxxvi. p. 144. Edition de Paris, MDCCCXIX. "IL. y a une prédiction fort singulière sur Venise: 'Si tu ne changes pas,' dit-elle à cette république altière, 'ta liberté, qui déjà s'enfuit, ne comptera pas un siècle après a millième année.” "En faisant remonter l'époque de la liberté Vénitienne jusqu'à l'établissement du gouvernement sous lequel la république a fleuri, on trouvera que l'élection du premier Doge date de 697, et si l'on y ajoute un siècle après mille, c'est-à-dire onze cents ans, on trouvera encore que le sens de la prédiction est littéralement celui-ci : ‘Ta liberté ne comptera pas jusqu'à l'an 1797.' Rappelez-vous maintenant que Venise a cessé d'être libre en l'an cinq de la République française, ou en 1799; vous verrez qu'il n'y eut jamais de prédiction plus précise et plus ponctuellement suivie de l'effet. Vous noterez donc comme très remarquables ces trois vers de l'Alamani, adressés à Venise, que personne pourtant n'a remarqués: 'Se non cangi pensier, l'un secol solo Non conterà sopra 'l millesimo anno Tua libertà, che va fuggendo a volo.' Bien des prophéties ont passé pour telles, et bien des gens ont été appelés prophètes à meilleur marché.” VII. Extract from the Literary History of Italy, by P. 'Se non cangi pensier, l'un secol solo Many prophecies have passed for such, and many me If the Doge's prophecy seem remarkable, look to the above made by Alamanni two hundred and seventy years ago. THE author of "Sketches Descriptive of Italy," etc. one of the hundred tours lately published, is extremely anxious to disclaim a possible charge of plagiarism from "Childe Harold" and "Beppo." He adds, that still less could this presumed coincidence arise from "my conversation," as he had repeatedly declined an introduction to me while in Italy. Who this person may be, I know not; but he must have been deceived by all or any of those who "repeatedly offered to introduce" him, as I have invariably refused to receive any English with whom I was not previously acquainted, even when they had letters from England. If the whole assertion is not an invention, I request this person not to sit down with the notion that he COULD have been introduced, since there has been nothing I have so carefully avoided as any kind of intercourse with his countrymen,-excepting the very few who were a considerable time resident in Venice, or had been of my previous acquaintance. Whoever made him any such offer was possessed of impudence equal to that of making such an assertion without having had it. The fact is, that I hold in utter abhorrence any contact with the travelling English, as my friend the Consul-General Hoppner, and the Countess Benzoni (in whose house the Conversazione mostly frequented by them is held), could amply testify, were it worth while. I was persecuted by these tourists even to my riding-ground at Lido, and reduced to the most disagreeable circuits to avoid them. At Madame Benzoni's I repeatedly refused to be introduced to them;-of a thousand such presentations pressed upon me, I accepted two, and both were to Irish women. I should hardly have descended to speak of such trifles publicly, if the impudence of this "sketcher" had not forced me to a refutation of a disingenuous and gratuitously impertinent assertion;-so meant to be, for what could it import to the reader to be told that the author "had repeatedly declined an introducL. tion," even had it been true, which, for the reasons I have above given, is scarcely possible. Except Lords Lansdowne, Jersey, and Lauderdale; Messrs. Scott, Hammond, Sir Humphry Davy, the late M. Lewis, W. Bankes, Mr. Hoppner, Thomas Moore, Lord Kinnaird, his brother, Mr. Joy, and Mr. Hobhouse, I do not re"If we carry back the epocha of Venetian freedom to collect to have exchanged a word with another English the establishment of the government under which the re- man since I left their country; and almost all these I public flourished, we shall find that the date of the elec- had known before. The others and God knows there tion of the first Doge is 697; and if we add one century were some hundreds-who bored me with letters or visto a thousand, that is, eleven hundred years, we shall | its, I refused to have any communication with, and shas And the sense of the prediction to be literally this: "Thy be proud and happy when that wish becomes mutua.. Sardanapalus; A HISTORICAL TRAGEDY. PREFACE. IN publishing the Tragedies of Sardanapalus, and of The Two Foscari, I have only to repeat that they were not composed with the most remote view to the stage. On the attempt made by the managers in a former instance, the public opinion has been already expressed. With regard to my own private feelings, as it seems that they are to stand for nothing, I shall say nothing. For the historical foundation of the compositions in question, the reader is referred to the Notes. pre The author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the other to approach the “unities;" conceiving that, with any very distant departure from them, there may be poetry, but can be no drama. He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion, in sent English literature; but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion which, not very long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilized parts of it. But "Nous avons changé tout cela," and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far from conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach his regular, or even irregular predecessors: he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formation of a structure, however feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules whatsoever. Where he has failed, the failure is in the architect, and not in the art. SARDANAPALUS. ACT I. SCENE I. A Hall in the Palace. SALEMENES (solus). years He hath wrong'd his queen, but still he is her lord; [Sound of soft music heard from within. By the first manly hand which dares to snatch it. Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that The negligence-the apathy-the evils Of sensual sloth-produce ten thousand tyrants, Distract within, both will alike prove fatal: SARDANAPALUS. Who built up this vast empire, and wert made Why, what makes thee the mouth-piece of the people? A god, or at the least shinest like a god Through the long centuries of thy renown, SARDANAPALUS. I understand thee-thou wouldst have me go Yet speak it, And lead them forth to glory. SALEMENES. Wherefore not? Semiramis-a woman only-led These our Assyrians to the solar shores SARDANAPALUS. 'Tis most true. And how return'd? SALEMENES. Why, like a man-a hero; baffled, but SARDANAPALUS. And how many Even from the winds, if thou couldst listen Left she behind in India to the vultures? Into the echoes of the nation's voice. SALEMENES. Our annals say not. SARDANAPALUS. Then I will say for them- SALEMENES. All warlike spirits have not the same fate. A hundred kings, although she fail'd in India, SARDANAPALUS. A king. SARDANAPALUS. And what She but subdued them. SALEMENES. SALEMENES. I sway them In their eyes a nothing; but In mine a man who might be something still. SARDANAPALUS. The railing drunkards! why, what would they have? SALEMENES. Of the first, More than is glorious; of the last, far less SARDANAPALUS. Whose then is the crime, But the false satraps, who provide no better? SALEMENES. And somewhat in the monarch who ne'er looks It may be ere long That they will need her sword more than your sceptre SARDANAPALUS. There was a certain Bacchus, was there not? An idol foreign to Assyria's worship, SALEMENES. I have heard of such a man; and thou perceivest SARDANAPALUS. And in his godship I will honour him- What, ho! my cupbearer ! SALEMENES. What means the king? |