Pure as thine own! Cos.

We have no father now,

And we should love each other. Stay with me.
I am no tyrant-brother: I'll not force
Thy blooming beauty to some old man's bed
For high alliance; I'll not plunge thy youth
Into that living tomb where the cold nun
Chants daily requiems, that thy dower may swell
My coffers; I but ask of thee to stay
With me in thy dear Venice, thy dear home,
Thy mistress, mine. I'll be to thee, Camilla,
A father, brother, lover. Stay with me.
I will be very kind to thee.

Cam.

Her tears are daggers. Speak.

And thou wilt listen?

Cos. Patient as infancy. Cam.

He goes to-night;

I'd save thee from a crime, a damning crime-
Did he say that? From such a parricide,
Such unimagined sin-I tell thee, girl,
The Roman harlot, she the infamous
That crush'd her father with her chariot-wheels,
She'll be forgotten in thy monstrous guilt,
Whitened by thy black shame.

Ha!

She raves.

Cam.

Cos.

Look how she trembles; she is overwatched; This is a frenzy.

Stay with me.

No.

Then go,

Cos. Why let her go, foul stain upon our house! She was his daughter still, and yesterday An angel! And he loved her and she him

I should have told thee so;

But when I would have said, Go! go! my tongue Clave to my mouth.

Fos.

Already! Write to me
Often. Is that forbidden? Yet the Doge
May ask my Candiote jailer if his prisoner
Be strictly kept. Then I shall sometimes see,
For surely he will show it me, thy name,
Thy writing, something thou hast touched. "Twill be
A comfort.

Doge. I will write to thee.
Fos.

And think
Of me when the pale moon lets fall her cold
And patient light upon the Adrian wave
That sighs and trembles. Think of me then.
Doge.

By sun, or moon, or star; in the bright day,

Always

Fear me not-I'll be a true prisoner.

I am a Foscari still, bound by one chain,

Honour. Send them away.

A word on such a reptile! I'd a world

Of sad and loving things to say to thee,

But there's a weight just here-Oh father! father!
I thought to have been a comfort to thy age,
But I was born to spread a desolation
On all I love.

Doge. I would not change my son, Banish'd although he be, with the proudest sire In Christendom. But we must part. These men Are merciless.

Fos.
And yet to leave this brave and tender heart
To wither in its princely solitude,
Friendless, companionless.

Implore no grace of them.

Doge.

One sure friend-Death.

Fos.

Age hath one friend,

Oh I shall not be by To close thine eyes or kneel beside thy couch, Or gather from thy lips the last fond sound

Will dwell in my old heart-My banished son. Cam. Alas! Francesco, why wilt thou prolong This useless agony?

But I must pray the Doge to come with me
Straight to the Senate. "T is an earnest business,
I do beseech your Highness. Leave him, Foscari!
Cling not together as your very souls
Were interlaced. The Senate, Doge, demands thee.
Fos. The Senate! What! hath he another son
To try, to torture, to condemn? Hath he
Another heart to break? Yet go. For once
Their cruelty is mercy. Go.

Doge.
Whilst still
These eyes may gaze on thee! Ere yonder cloud
Shall pass across the sun, a darker cloud

Will wrap me in its blackness; then the throne,
The judgment seat, the grave-no matter where
The old man rests his bones!--One dim eclipse
Will shadow all-but now-say to the senate
That at their bidding I am sending forth
My son to exile.

Cos.

heard

And cold contempt, and bitter pardon-dared
To hurl on me fierce pardon! Ha! he shivers!
His stout limbs writhe! The insect that is born
And dies within an hour would not change lives
With Foscari. I am content. For thee

I have a tenfold curse. Long be thy reign,
Great Doge of Venice!

Doge.

Mine own!

Enter Zeno and Guards.

Cos.

Ay, I am the Doge;

My son!

"T is I

What spectacle is this?-Know ye not, Sirs, That Foscari is guiltless, that the murderer Is found?

Eriz. Ay! Do ye know me? Not a man of ye But is my tool or victim. I'm your master. This was my aim when old Donato died, And but that Celso dared not cope with Foscari, And sought to catch him in a subtler springe, I had been now your Doge. And I am more. I am your master, Sirs. Look where he lies The towering Foscari, who yesterday Stood statelier than the marble gods of Rome In their proud beauty. Hearken! It is mute, The tongue which darted words of fiery scorn,

Live!
I pardon thee. He pardons thee. Live, Cosmo;
It is thy Prince's last behest. I've been
O'erlong a crowned slave. Go! dross to dross.

[Flinging off the Ducal bonnet. And bruise the stones of Venice! Tell the senate There lies their diadem. Now I am free!

Now I may grieve and pity like a man!
May weep, and groan, and die! My heart may burst
Now! Start not, Zeno-Didst thou never hear

Of a broken heart? Look there.

ΤΟ

WILLIAM CHARLES MACREDY, Esq.

WITH HIGH ESTEEM FOR THOSE ENDOWMENTS WHICH HAVE CAST NEW LUSTRE ON

HIS ART;

WITH WARM ADMIRATION FOR THOSE POWERS

WHICH HAVE INSPIRED,

AND THAT TASTE WHICH HAS FOSTERED, THE TRAGIC

DRAMATISTS OF HIS AGE;

WITH HEARTFELT GRATITUDE FOR THE ZEAL

BERTONE, Servant to Count D'Alba. RENZI, an old Huntsman.

An ARCHBISHOP.

ANNABEL, Julian's Wife.

Nobles, Prelates, Officers, Guards, Murderers, &c.

The Scene is in and near Messina; the time of action two days.

PROLOGUE.

WRITTEN BY A FRIEND.

THEY Who in Prologues for your favours ask,
Find every season more perplex their task;
Though doubts and hopes and tremblings do not fail,
The points fall flatly and the rhymes grow stale;
Why should the Author hint their fitting parts,
In all the pomp of Verse, to " British hearts?"
Why to such minds as yours with ardour pray,
For more than justice to a first essay?
What need to show how absolute your power?
What stake awaits the issue of the hour-
How hangs the scale 'twixt agony and joy,
What bliss you nourish, or what hopes destroy?—
All these you feel;-and yet we scarce can bring
A Prologue to "the posey of a ring."

To what may we allude?-Our plot untold
Is no great chapter from the times of old;
On no august association rests,
But seeks its earliest home in kindly breasts,-
Its scene, as inauspicious to our strain,
Is neither mournful Greece, nor kindling Spain,
But Sicily-where no defiance hurled
At freedom's foes may awe the attending world.
But since old forms forbid us to submit
A Play without a Prologue to the Pit;
Lest this be missed by some true friend of plays,
Like the dull colleague of his earlier days;
Thus let me own how fearlessly we trust
That you will yet be mercifully just.