Guard.

Open-How feel you? Jac. Fos.

There, sir, 't is

Like a boy-Oh Venice! Guard. And your limbs ?

Jac. Fos. Limbs! how often have they borne me Bounding o'er yon blue tide, as I have skimm'd

The gondola along in childish race,

And masqued as a young gondolier, amidst

My gay competitors, noble as I,

Raced for our pleasure, in the pride of strength;
While the fair populace of crowding beauties,
Plebeian as patrician, cheer'd us on
With dazzling smiles, and wishes audible,
And waving kerchiefs, and applauding hands,
Even to the goal!-How many a time have I
Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring,
The wave all roughen'd; with a swimmer's stroke
Flinging the billows back from my drench'd hair,
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine,
Which kiss'd it like a wine-cup, rising o'er
The waves as they arose, and prouder still
The loftier they uplifted me; and oft,
In wantonness or spirit, plunging down
Into their green and glassy gulfs, and making
My way to shells and sea-weed, all unseen
By those above, till they wax'd fearful; then
Returning with my grasp full of such tokens
As show'd that I had search'd the deep: exulting,
With a far-dashing stroke, and drawing deep
The long-suspended breath, again I spurn'd
The foam which broke around me, and pursued
My track like a sea-bird.-I was a boy then. (1)
Guard. Be a man now: there never was more need
Of manhood's strength.
[tiful. my own,
Jac. Fos. (looking from the lattice.) My beau-
My only Venice-this is breath! Thy breeze,
Thine Adrian sea-breeze, how it fans my face!
Thy very winds feel native to my veins,
And cool them into calmness! How unlike
The hot gales of the horrid Cyclades,

(1) "This speech of Jacopo from the window, while describing the amusements of his youth, is written with a full feeling of the objects which it paints." Heber.

"The exulting sadness with which Jacopo Foscari looks from the window on the Adriatic, is Byron himself recalling his enjoyment of the sea." Gall.

(2) "And the hero himself, what is he? If there ever existed in nature a case so extraordinary as that of a man who gravely preferred tortures and a dungeon at home, to a temporary residence in a beautiful island and a fine climate, at the distance of three days' sail, it is what few can be made to believe, and still fewer to sympathise with; and which is, therefore, no very promising subject for dramatic representation. For ourselves, we have little doubt that Foscari wrote the fatal letter with the view, which was imputed to him by his accusers, of obtaining an honourable recall from banishment, through foreign influence;

I confess'd

[no,

Jac. Fos.
Once-twice before: both times they exiled me.
Guard. And the third time will slay you.
Jac. Fos.
Let them do so.

So I be buried in my birth-place: better
Be ashes here than aught that lives elsewhere.
Guard. And can you so much love the soil which
hates you?

Jac. Fos. The soil!-Oh no, it is the seed of the
Which persecutes me; but my native earth
Will take me as a mother to her arms.

I ask no more than a Venetian grave,

A dungeon, what they will, so it be here. (2)

Enter un Officer.

Offi. Bring in the prisoner!

Guard.

[soil

Signor, you hear the order. Jac. Fos. Ay, I am used to such a summons; it is The third time they have tortured me:-then lend me Thine arm. [To the Guard. Take mine, sir; 't is my duty to

offi.

Be nearest to your person.

and that the colour which, when detected, he endeavoured to give to the transaction, was the evasion of a drowning man, who is reduced to catch at straws and shadows. But, if Lord Byron chose to assume this alleged motive of his conduct as the real one, it behoved him, at least, to set before our eyes the intolerable separation from a beloved country, the lingering homesickness, the gradual alienation of intellect, and the fruitless hope that his enemies had at length relented, which were necessary to produce a conduct so contrary to all usual principles of action as that which again consigned him to the racks and dungeons of his own country. He should have shown him to us, first, taking leave of Venice, a condemned and banished man; next pining in Candia; next tampering with the agents of government; by which time, and not till then, we should have been prepared to listen with patience to his complaints, and to witness his sufferings with interest as well as horror." Heber.

The brightness of our city, and her domes,
The mirth of her Piazza; even now

Its merry hum of nations pierces here,

Even here, into these chambers of the unknown

Mem.

Where I now am!-It was

Not even a Foscari.—Sir, I attend you.

The Duke's palace. Mar. And his son's prison;-true, I have not forgot it;

And, if there were no other nearer bitterer

Enter MEMMO and another Senator.

Mar. (looking up towards heaven.) I am; but oh, thou eternal God!

Canst thou continue so, with such a world?
Mem. Thy husband yet may be absolved.
Mar.

He is,

Justice is judge in Venice.

There now would be no Venice. But let it
Live on, so the good die not, till the hour
Of nature's summons; but "the Ten's" is quicker,
And we must wait on't. Ah! a voice of wail!
[A faint cry within.

Sen. Hark! Mem. Mar. Not Foscari's.

'Twas a cry of

No, no; not my husband's

On the occasion of her marriage with the younger Foscari, the Bucentaur came out in its splendour; and a bridge of boats was thrown across the Cana! Grande for the bridegroom, and bis retinue of three hundred horse. According to Sanuto, the tour

Again?

Mar. His voice! it seem'd so: I will not Believe it. Should he shrink, I cannot cease To love; but no-no-no-it must have been A fearful pang which wrung a groan from him. Sen. And, feeling for thy husband's wrongs, wouldst thou

Have him bear more than mortal pain, in silence?
Mar. We all must bear our tortures. I have not
Left barren the great house of Foscari,

Though they sweep both the Doge and son from life;
I have endured as much in giving life
To those who will succeed them, as they can
In leaving it: but mine were joyful pangs :
And yet they wrung me till I could have shriek'd,
But did not; for my hope was to bring forth
Heroes, and would not welcome them with tears. (1)
Mem. All's silent now.

To trample on all human feelings, all
Ties which bind man to man; to emulate
The fiends, who will one day requite them in
Variety of torturing! Yet I'll pass.
Mem. It is impossible.

Sen. Poor lady
Mem.
'T is mere desperation : she
Will not be admitted o'er the threshold.
Sen.

Even if she be so, cannot save her husband.
But, see, the officer returns.

And,

[The Officer passes over the stage with another person.

Mem.

I hardly Thought that "the Ten" had even this touch of pity, Or would permit assistance to the sufferer. Sen. Pity! Is't pity to recall to feeling The wretch, too happy to escape to death By the compassionate trance, poor nature's last Resource against the tyranny of pain?

Mem. I marvel they condemn him not at once. Sen. That's not their policy: they'd have him live, Because he fears not death; and banish him, Because all earth, except his native land, To him is one wide prison, and each breath Of foreign air he draws seems a slow poison, Consuming but not killing.

Mem.

Circumstance

Confirms his crimes, but he avows them not.

Sen. None, save the letter, (2) which he says was written,

Address'd to Milan's duke, in the full knowledge That it would fall into the senate's hands,

Had perish'd, blotted out at once and rased,
But for the rugged limb of an old oak,*)
Soliciting his influence with the state,
And drops it to be found." Rogers.

"Francesco Sforza. His father, when at work in the fields, was • Let me accosted by some soldiers, and asked if he would enlist. throw my mattock on that oak,' he replied, and if it remains there I will. It remained there; and the peasant, regarding it as a sign, enlisted. He became soldier, general, prince; and his grandson, in the palace at Milan, said to Paulus Jovins, You behold these guards and this grandeur. lowe every thing to the branch of an oak, the branch that held my grandfather's mattock.'"-Rogers.

Our foes their former injuries, and lose
The hold of vengeance I oredano plans
For him and me; but mine would be content
With lesser retribution than he thirsts for,
And I would mitigate his deeper hatred

To milder thoughts: but, for the present, Foscari
Has a short hourly respite, granted at

The instance of the elders of the Council,
Moved doubtless by his wife's appearance in

The hall, and his own sufferings.-Lo! they come :
How feeble and forlorn! I cannot bea
To look on them again in this extremity:
I'll hence, and try to soften Loredano.

Obey. I had in charge, too, from the Council
That you would fix an hour for their re-union.
Doge. Say, when they will-now, even at this
moment,

If it so please them: I am the state's servant.
Sen. They would accord some time for your repose.
Doge. I have no repose, that is, none which shall

cause

The loss of an hour's time unto the state.
Let them meet when they will, I shall be found
Where I should be, and what I have been ever.
[Exit SENATOR.

Requests an audience.

Doge. Marina!

Bid her enter. Poor [Exit Attendant.

[The DOGE remains in silence as before.

Enter MARINA.

Mar. i have ventured, father, on Your privacy.

Doge. I have none from you, my child.
Command my time, when not commanded by
The state.

Mar. I wish'd to speak to you of him.
Doge. Your husband?
Mar.

And your son.
Doge. Proceed, my daughter!
Mar. I had obtain❜d permission from "the Ten"

(2) In the MS.-

"Mistress of Lombardy-it is some comfort."-E.