As Doge, but simply as a senator.

Mar. I have heard of murderers, who have interred
Their victims; but ne'er heard, until this hour,
Of so much splendour in hypocrisy

O'er those they slew.1 I've heard of widows' tears-
Alas! I have shed some-always thanks to you!
I've heard of heirs in sables-you have left none
To the deceased, so you would act the part

Of such. Well, sirs, your will be done! as one day,
I trust, Heaven's will be done too!1
Chief of the Ten.

360

Know you, Lady,

To whom ye speak, and perils of such speech?
Mar. I know the former better than yourselves;
The latter-like yourselves; and can face both.
Wish you more funerals?

Bar.

Heed not her rash words;

Her circumstances must excuse her bearing.
Chief of the Ten. We will not note them down.
Bar. (turning to Lor., who is writing upon his tablets).

What art thou writing,

With such an earnest brow, upon thy tablets? Lor. (pointing to the Doge's body). That he has paid me! 2

i. I trust Heaven's will be done also.-[MS.]

I. The Venetians appear to have had a particular turn for breaking the hearts of their Doges. The following is another instance of the kind in the Doge Marco Barbarigo: he was succeeded by his brother Agostino Barbarigo, whose chief merit is here mentioned.-"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 tout votre possible pour hâter ma mort; vous vous flattez de me succéder; mais, si les autres vous connaissent aussi 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."-DARU, Hist. de Venise, 1821, iii. 29.

2. "L'ha pagata." An historical fact. See Hist. de Vénise, par P. DARU, 1821, ii. 528, 529.

[Daru quotes Palazzi's Fasti Ducales as his authority for this story. According to Pietro Giustiniani (Storia, lib. viii.), Jacopo Loredano was at pains to announce the decree of the Ten to the Doge in courteous and considerate terms, and begged him to pardon him for what it was his duty to do. Romanin points out that this version of the interview is inconsistent with the famous "l'ha pagata."-Storia, etc., iv. 290, note 1.]

Chief of the Ten. What debt did he owe you? 370 Lor. A long and just one; Nature's debt and mine.1 [Curtain falls.?

1. [Here the original MS. ends. The two lines which follow, were added by Gifford. In the margin of the MS. Byron has written, "If the last line should appear obscure to those who do not recollect the historical fact mentioned in the first act of Loredano's inscription in his book, of 'Doge Foscari, debtor for the deaths of my father and uncle,' you may add the following lines to the conclusion of the last

act:

Lor.

Chief of the Ten. For what has he repaid thee? For my father's And father's brother's death-by his son's and own! Ask Gifford about this."]

2. [The Appendix to the First Edition of The Two Foscari consisted of (i.) an extract from P. Daru's Histoire de la République Française, 1821, ii. 520-537; (ii.) an extract from J. C. L. Simonde de Sismondi's Histoire des Républiques Italiennes du Moyen Age, 1815, x. 36-46; and (iii.) a note in response to certain charges of plagiarism brought against the author in the Literary Gazette and elsewhere; and to Southey's indictment of the "Satanic School," which had recently appeared in the Preface to the Laureate's Vision of Judgement (Poetical Works of Robert Southey, 1838, x. 202-207). See, too, the "Introduction to The Vision of Judgment, Poetical Works, 1891, iv. pp. 475-480.]

CAIN:

A MYSTERY.

Now the Serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made."

Genesis, Chapter 3rd, verse 1.

INTRODUCTION TO CAIN.

CAIN was begun at Ravenna, July 16, and finished September 9, 1821 (vide MS. M.). Six months before, when he was at work on the first act of Sardanapalus, Byron had "pondered" Cain, but it was not till Sardanapalus and a second historical play, The Two Foscari, had been written, copied out, and sent to England, that he indulged his genius with a third drama-on "a metaphysical subject, something in the style of Manfred" (Letters, 1901, v. 189).

Goethe's comment on reading and reviewing Cain was that he should be surprised if Byron did not pursue the treatment of such “biblical subjects,” as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Conversations, etc., 1879, p. 62); and, many years after, he told Crabb Robinson (Diary, 1869, ii. 435) that Byron should have lived "to execute his vocation ... to dramatize the Old Testament." He was better equipped for such a task than might have been imagined. A Scottish schoolboy, "from a child he had known the Scriptures," and, as his Hebrew Melodies testify, he was not unwilling to turn to the Bible as a source of poetic inspiration. Moreover, he was born with the religious tempera- | ment. Questions "of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate," exercised his curiosity because they appealed to his imagination and moved his spirit. He was eager to plunge into controversy with friends and advisers who challenged or rebuked him, Hodgson, for instance, or Dallas; and he responded with remarkable amenity to the strictures and exhortations of such orthodox professors as Mr. Sheppard and Dr. Kennedy. He was, no doubt, from first to last a heretic, impatient, not to say contemptuous, of authority, but he was by no means indifferent to religion altogether. To "argue about it and about" was a necessity, if not an agreeable relief, to his intellectual energies. It would appear from the Ravenna diary (January 28, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 190, 191), that the conception of Lucifer was working in his brain