Aloof from desolation! My last prayer Was for thee, my last thoughts, save one, were of thee! Sar. And that? I loved thee well, my own, my fathers' land, [He mounts the pile. [As MYRRHA springs forward to throw herself into the flames, the Curtain falls. THE TWO FOSCARI: AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY.* "The father softens, but the governor's resolved."-CRITIC. [* Begun June the 12th, completed July the 9th, Ravenna, 1821. Byron MS.] INTRODUCTION TO THE TWO FOSCARI. THE "Two Foscari" was composed at Ravenna, between the 11th of June and the 10th of July, 1821, and was published with "Sardanapalus" and "Cain" in the following December. Lord Byron was paid 1000 guineas for the three. "I am much mortified," he wrote to Mr. Murray, "that Gifford don't take to my new dramas. To be sure, they are as opposite to the English drama as one thing can be to another; but I have a notion that, if understood, they will in time find favour (though not on the stage) with the reader. The simplicity of plot is intentional, and the avoidance of rant also, as also the compression of the speeches in the most severe situations. What I seek to show in "The Foscari," is the suppressed passions, rather than the rant of the present day. For that matter 'Nay, if thou❜lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou-' would not be difficult, as I think I have shown in my younger productions—not dramatic ones, to be sure." The "Two Foscari" was thought inferior to "Sardanapalus" in interest, and below "Cain" in the elevation of the thoughts. There can be no question of the correctness of both these judgments, but still the merits of "The Foscari" were scantily allowed by cotemporary critics. The beauty of Marina's character, which is admirably conceived and no less forcibly developed, was quite overlooked. Her alternate self-control, indignation, and tenderness, changing with her audience and the casualties of the moment, are extremely touching, and find vent in words of suitable energy. In the interview, indeed, with Loredano her energy passes the bounds of female propriety, and becomes undignified abuse. Lord Byron's determination to exhibit the "suppressed passions," has cramped his portrait of the Doge, who keeps his sorrow for his son so much to himself that it is insufficient to awaken the imagination of the reader. In the elder Venetian play, where Marino Faliero puts his heart-burnings into words, what a different, what a vivid, impression is created by the full swing which is given to his quick and impetuous sense of insult. The artist who enveloped the face of his figure in a veil, from despair of adequately expressing her grief, did after all but decline the office of a sculptor to execute the work of a mechanic. The younger Foscari is a mere monomaniac, who provokes us more by the perversity of his patriotism, than he wins our sympathy by the bitterness of his wrongs. We execrate his enemies without pitying himself. In the reflections of Jacopo Foscari on his banishment, Lord Byron, who, whatever mask he wore, spoke incessantly from behind it in his own character, has embodied fragments of the feeling which grew out of what he always affirmed was his forcible exile by the voice of public opinion. And again, in Jacopo's reminiscences of his swimming feats at Venice a passage which breathes the freshness of the waters-we have the noble poet recording the personal exultation with which he was wont to luxuriate in the waves of the Adriatic. Some of the dialogue would have been excellent, except for the halting metre, which is an ever-recurring defect in these dramas. To keep the promise of verse to the eye and to break it to the ear, adds the irritation of disappointment to the evils of stiff and inharmonious prose. |