No More Learning

_Ang_. And with this warning couldst thou not have striven
To avert the fatal moment, and atone,
By penitence, for that which thou hadst done?

_Doge_. I own the words went to my heart, so much
That I remembered them amid the maze
Of Life, as if they formed a spectral voice,
Which shook me in a supernatural dream;
And I repented; but 'twas not for me
To pull in resolution:[467] what must be 50
I could not change, and would not fear. --Nay more,
Thou can'st not have forgot, what all remember,
That on my day of landing here as Doge,[468]
On my return from Rome, a mist of such
Unwonted density went on before
The Bucentaur, like the columnar cloud
Which ushered Israel out of Egypt, till
The pilot was misled, and disembarked us
Between the Pillars of Saint Mark's, where 'tis
The custom of the state to put to death 60
Its criminals, instead of touching at
The Riva della Paglia, as the wont is,--
So that all Venice shuddered at the omen.

_Ang_. Ah! little boots it now to recollect
Such things.

_Doge_. And yet I find a comfort in
The thought, that these things are the work of Fate;
For I would rather yield to Gods than men,
Or cling to any creed of destiny,
Rather than deem these mortals, most of whom[fr]
I know to be as worthless as the dust, 70
And weak as worthless, more than instruments
Of an o'er-ruling Power; they in themselves
Were all incapable--they could not be
Vistors of him who oft had conquered for them.

_Ang_. Employ the minutes left in aspirations
Of a more healing nature, and in peace
Even with these wretches take thy flight to Heaven.

_Doge_. I _am_ at peace: the peace of certainty
That a sure Hour will come, when their sons' sons,
And this proud city, and these azure waters, 80
And all which makes them eminent and bright,
Shall be a desolation and a curse,
A hissing and a scoff unto the nations,
A Carthage, and a Tyre, an Ocean Babel.

_Ang_. Speak not thus now: the surge of Passion still
Sweeps o'er thee to the last; thou dost deceive
Thyself, and canst not injure them--be calmer.

_Doge_. I stand within Eternity, and see
Into Eternity, and I behold--
Aye, palpable as I see thy sweet face 90
For the last time--the days which I denounce
Unto all time against these wave-girt walls,
And they who are indwellers.

_Guard_ (_coming forward_). Doge of Venice,
The Ten are in attendance on your Highness.

_Doge_. Then farewell, Angiolina! --one embrace--
Forgive the old man who hath been to thee
A fond but fatal husband--love my memory--
I would not ask so much for me still living,
But thou canst judge of me more kindly now,
Seeing my evil feelings are at rest. 100
Besides, of all the fruit of these long years,
Glory, and Wealth, and Power, and Fame, and Name,
Which generally leave some flowers to bloom
Even o'er the grave, I have nothing left, not even
A little love, or friendship, or esteem,
No, not enough to extract an epitaph
From ostentatious kinsmen; in one hour
I have uprooted all my former life,
And outlived everything, except thy heart,
The pure, the good, the gentle, which will oft 110
With unimpaired but not a clamorous grief[fs]
Still keep----Thou turn'st so pale! --Alas! she faints,
She has no breath, no pulse! --Guards! lend your aid--
I cannot leave her thus, and yet 'tis better,
Since every lifeless moment spares a pang.
When she shakes off this temporary death,
I shall be with the Eternal. --Call her women--
One look! --how cold her hand! --as cold as mine
Shall be ere she recovers. --Gently tend her,
And take my last thanks--I am ready now. 120

[_The Attendants of_ ANGIOLINA _enter, and surround
their Mistress, who has fainted. --Exeunt the_ DOGE,
_Guards, etc. , etc. _


SCENE III. --_The Court of the Ducal Palace; the outer gates
are shut against the people. --The_ DOGE _enters in his ducal
robes, in procession with the_ COUNCIL OF TEN _and other Patricians,
attended by the Guards, till they arrive at the top of the
"Giants' Staircase[469] (where the Doges took the oaths); the
the Executioner is stationed there with his sword. --On arriving, a_
CHIEF OF THE TEN _takes off the ducal cap from the Doge's head_.

_Doge_. So now the Doge is nothing, and at last
I am again Marino Faliero:
'Tis well to be so, though but for a moment,[ft]
Here was I crowned, and here, bear witness, Heaven!
With how much more contentment I resign
That shining mockery, the ducal bauble,
Than I received the fatal ornament.

_One of the Ten_. Thou tremblest, Faliero!

_Doge_. 'Tis with age, then. [470]

_Ben_. Faliero! hast thou aught further to commend,
Compatible with justice, to the Senate? 10

_Doge_. I would commend my nephew to their mercy,
My consort to their justice; for methinks
My death, and such a death, might settle all
Between the State and me.

_Ben_. They shall be cared for;
Even notwithstanding thine unheard-of crime.

_Doge_. Unheard of! aye, there's not a history
But shows a thousand crowned conspirators
_Against_ the people; but to set them free,
One Sovereign only died, and one is dying.

_Ben_. And who were they who fell in such a cause? 20

_Doge_. The King of Sparta, and the Doge of Venice--
Agis and Faliero!

_Ben_. Hast thou more
To utter or to do?

_Doge_. May I speak?

_Ben_. Thou may'st;
But recollect the people are without,
Beyond the compass of the human voice.

_Doge_. I speak to Time and to Eternity,
Of which I grow a portion, not to man.
Ye Elements! in which to be resolved
I hasten, let my voice be as a Spirit
Upon you! Ye blue waves! which bore my banner. 30
Ye winds! which fluttered o'er as if you loved it,
And filled my swelling sails as they were wafted
To many a triumph! Thou, my native earth,
Which I have bled for! and thou, foreign earth,
Which drank this willing blood from many a wound!
Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but
Reek up to Heaven! Ye skies, which will receive it!
Thou Sun! which shinest on these things, and Thou!
Who kindlest and who quenchest suns! --Attest! [fu]
I am not innocent--but are these guiltless? 40
I perish, but not unavenged; far ages
Float up from the abyss of Time to be,
And show these eyes, before they close, the doom
Of this proud City, and I leave my curse
On her and hers for ever! ----Yes, the hours
Are silently engendering of the day,
When she, who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark,
Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield,
Unto a bastard Attila,[471] without
Shedding so much blood in her last defence, 50
As these old veins, oft drained in shielding her,
Shall pour in sacrifice. --She shall be bought
And sold, and be an appanage to those
Who shall despise her! [472]--She shall stoop to be
A province for an Empire, petty town
In lieu of Capital, with slaves for senates,
Beggars for nobles, panders for a people! [fv]
Then when the Hebrew's in thy palaces,[473]
The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his; 60
When thy patricians beg their bitter bread
In narrow streets, and in their shameful need
Make their nobility a plea for pity;
Then, when the few who still retain a wreck
Of their great fathers' heritage shall fawn
Round a barbarian Vice of Kings' Vice-gerent,[474]
Even in the Palace where they swayed as Sovereigns,
Even in the Palace where they slew their Sovereign,
Proud of some name they have disgraced, or sprung
From an adulteress boastful of her guilt 70
With some large gondolier or foreign soldier,
Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph
To the third spurious generation;--when
Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being,
Slaves turned o'er to the vanquished by the victors,
Despised by cowards for greater cowardice,
And scorned even by the vicious for such vices
As in the monstrous grasp of their conception
Defy all codes to image or to name them;
Then, when of Cyprus, now thy subject kingdom, 80
All thine inheritance shall be her shame
Entailed on thy less virtuous daughters, grown
A wider proverb for worse prostitution;--
When all the ills of conquered states shall cling thee,
Vice without splendour, Sin without relief[fw][475]
Even from the gloss of Love to smooth it o'er,
But in its stead, coarse lusts of habitude,[476]
Prurient yet passionless, cold studied lewdness,
Depraving Nature's frailty to an art;--
When these and more are heavy on thee, when 90
Smiles without mirth, and pastimes without Pleasure,
Youth without Honour, Age without respect,
Meanness and Weakness, and a sense of woe
'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not murmur,[477]
Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts,
Then, in the last gasp of thine agony,
Amidst thy many murders, think of _mine! _
Thou den of drunkards with the blood of Princes! [478]
Gehenna of the waters! thou Sea-Sodom! [fx][479]
Thus I devote thee to the Infernal Gods! 100
Thee and thy serpent seed!
[_Here the_ DOGE _turns and addresses the Executioner. _
Slave, do thine office!
Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would
Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my curse!
Strike--and but once!

[_The_ DOGE _throws himself upon his knees, and as
the Executioner raises his sword the scene closes. _


SCENE IV. --_The Piazza and Piazzetta of St. Mark's. --
The people in crowds gathered round the grated gates
of the Ducal Palace, which are shut. _

_First Citizen_. I have gained the Gate, and can discern the Ten,
Robed in their gowns of state, ranged round the Doge.

_Second Cit_. I cannot reach thee with mine utmost effort.
How is it? let us hear at least, since sight
Is thus prohibited unto the people,
Except the occupiers of those bars.

_First Cit_. One has approached the Doge, and now they strip
The ducal bonnet from his head--and now
He raises his keen eyes to Heaven; I see
Them glitter, and his lips move--Hush! hush! --no, 10
'Twas but a murmur--Curse upon the distance!
His words are inarticulate, but the voice
Swells up like muttered thunder; would we could
But gather a sole sentence!

_Second Cit_. Hush! we perhaps may catch the sound.

_First Cit_. 'Tis vain.
I cannot hear him. --How his hoary hair
Streams on the wind like foam upon the wave!
Now--now--he kneels--and now they form a circle
Round him, and all is hidden--but I see
The lifted sword in air----Ah! hark! it falls! 20

[_The people murmur. _

_Third Cit_. Then they have murdered him who would have freed us.

_Fourth Cit_. He was a kind man to the commons ever.

_Fifth Cit_. Wisely they did to keep their portals barred.
Would we had known the work they were preparing
Ere we were summoned here--we would have brought
Weapons, and forced them!

_Sixth Cit_. Are you sure he's dead?

_First Cit_. I saw the sword fall--Lo! what have we here?

_Enter on the Balcony of the Palace which fronts St. Mark's
Place a_ CHIEF OF THE TEN,[480] _with a bloody sword.
He waves it thrice before the People, and exclaims,_

"Justice hath dealt upon the mighty Traitor! "

[_The gates are opened; the populace rush in towards the
The foremost of them exclaims to those behind,_

"The gory head rolls down the Giants' Steps! "[fy][481]
[_The curtain falls_. [482]


FOOTNOTES:

[359] {331}[Marin Faliero was not in command of the land forces at the
siege of Zara in 1346. According to contemporary documents, he held a
naval command under Civran, who was in charge of the fleet. Byron was
misled by an error in Morelli's Italian version of the _Chronica
iadratina seu historia obsidionis Jaderae_, p. xi. (See _Marino faliero
avanti il Dogado_, by Vittorio Lazzarino, published in _Nuovo Archivio
Veneto_, 1893, vol. v. pt. i. p. 132, note 4. )]

[360] [For the siege of Alesia (Alise in Cote d'Or), which resulted in
the defeat of the Gauls and the surrender of Vercingetorix, see _De
Bella Gallico_, vii. 68-90. Belgrade fell to Prince Eugene, August 18,
1717. ]

[361] {332}[If this event ever took place, it must have been in 1346,
when the future Doge was between sixty and seventy years of age. The
story appears for the first time in the chronicle of Bartolomeo Zuccato,
notajo e cancelliere of the Comune di Treviso, which belongs to the
first half of the sixteenth century. The Venetian chroniclers who were
Faliero's contemporaries, and Anonimo Torriano, a Trevisan, who wrote
before Zuccato, are silent. See _Marino Faliero, La Congiura_, by
Vittorio Lazzarino. --_Nuovo Archivio Veneto_, 1897, vol. xiii. pt. i. p.
29. ]

[362] ["Square talked in a very different strain. . . . In pronouncing
these [sentences from the _Tusculan Questions, etc_. ] he was one day so
eager that he unfortunately bit his tongue . . . this accident gave
Thwackum, who was present, and who held all such doctrines to be
heathenish and atheistical, an opportunity to clap a judgment on his
back. "--_The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling_, Bk. V. chap. ii. 1768,
i. 234. See, too, Letter to Murray, November 23, 1822, _Letters_, 1901,
vi. 142; _Life_, p. 570. ]

[363] [[_Principj di storia civile della Repubblica di Venezia_. Scritti
da Vettor Sandi, 1755, Part II. tom. i. pp. 127, 128. ]

[364] [_Storia della Republica Veneziana_. Scritta da Andrea Navagiero,
_apud_ Muratori, _Italic. Rerum, Scriptores_, 1733, xxiii. p. 924,
_sq_. ]

[365] [_Istoria dell' assedio e della Ricupera di Zara, Fatta da'
Veneziani nell' anno_ 1346. Scritta da auctore contemporaneo, pp.
i. -xxxviii.
]

[366] {333}[Michele Steno was not, as Sanudo and others state, one of
the Capi of the Quarantia in 1355, but twenty years later, in 1375. When
Faliero was elected to the Dogeship, Steno was a youth of twenty, and a
man under thirty years of age was not eligible for the Quarantia. --_La
Congiura,_ etc. , p. 64. ]

[367] [History does not bear out the tradition of her youth. Aluica
Gradenigo was born in the first decade of the fourteenth century, and
became Dogaressa when she was more than forty-five years of age. --_La
Congiura,_ p. 69. ]

[368] [See _A View of the Society and Manners in Italy,_ by John Moore,
M. D. , 1781, i. 144-152. The "stale jest" is thus worded: "This lady
imagined she had been affronted by a young Venetian nobleman at a public
ball, and she complained bitterly . . . to her husband. The old Doge, who
had all the desire imaginable to please his wife, determined, in this
matter, at least, to give her ample satisfaction. "]

[369] {334}[For Frederick's verse, "Evitez de Bernis la sterile
abondance," see _La Bibliographie Universelle_, art. "Bernis"; and for
his jest, "Je ne la connais pas," see _History of Frederick the Great_,
by Thomas Carlyle, 1898, vi. 14. ]

[370] [For the story of the abduction of Dervorgilla, wife of Tiernan
O'Ruarc, by Dermot Mac-Murchad, King of Leinster, in 1153, see Moore's
_History of Ireland_, 1837, ii. 200. ]

[371] {335}[_Istoria della Repubblica di Venezia_, del Sig. Abate
Laugier, Tradotta del Francese. Venice, 1778, iv. 30. ]

[372] {336}[The marble staircase on which Faliero took the ducal oath,
and on which he was afterwards beheaded, led into the courtyard of the
palace. It was erected by a decree of the Senate in 1340, and was pulled
down to make room for Rizzo's facade, which was erected in 1484. The
"Scala dei Giganti" (built by Antonio Rizzo, circ. 1483) does not occupy
the site of the older staircase. ]

[373] [On the north side of the Campo, in front of the Church of Santi
Giovanni e Paolo (better known as San Zanipolo), stands the Scuola di
San Marco. Attached to the lower hall of the Scuola is the Chapel of
Santa Maria della Pace, in which the sarcophagus containing the bones of
Marino Faliero was discovered in 1815. ]

[374] [In the Campo in front of the church is the equestrian statue of
Bartolomeo Colleoni, designed by Andrea Veroccio, and cast in 1496 by
Alessandro Leopardi. --_Handbook: Northern Italy_, p. 374. ]

[375] {337}[See _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 317, note 1. ]

[376] [See _Letters_, 1898, ii. 79, note 3. ]

[ct] _It is like being at the whole process of a woman's toilet--it
disenchants. _--[MS. M. ]

[cu] _Any man of common independence. _--[MS. M. erased. ]

[377] {338}While I was in the sub-committee of Drury Lane Theatre, I can
vouch for my colleagues, and I hope for myself, that we did our best to
bring back the legitimate drama. I tried what I could to get _De
Montford_ revived, but in vain, and equally in vain in favour of
Sotheby's _Ivan_, which was thought an acting play; and I endeavoured
also to wake Mr. Coleridge to write us a tragedy[A]. Those who are not
in the secret will hardly believe that the _School for Scandal_ is the
play which has brought the _least money_, averaging the number of times
it has been acted since its production; so Manager Dibdin assured me. Of
what has occurred since Maturin's _Bertram_ I am not aware[B]; so that I
may be traducing, through ignorance, some excellent new writers; if so,
I beg their pardon. I have been absent from England nearly five years,
and, till last year, I never read an English newspaper since my
departure, and am now only aware of theatrical matters through the
medium of the _Parisian Gazette_ of Galignani, and only for the last
twelve months. Let me, then, deprecate all offence to tragic or comic
writers, to whom I wish well, and of whom I know nothing. The long
complaints of the actual state of the drama arise, however, from no
fault of the performers. I can conceive nothing better than Kemble,
Cooke, and Kean, in their very different manners, or than Elliston in
_Gentleman's_ comedy, and in some parts of tragedy. Miss O'Neill[C] I
never saw, having made and kept a determination to see nothing which
should divide or disturb my recollection of Siddons. Siddons and Kemble
were the _ideal_ of tragic action; I never saw anything at all
resembling them, even in _person_; for this reason, we shall never see
again Coriolanus or Macbeth. When Kean is blamed for want of dignity, we
should remember that it is a grace, not an art, and not to be attained
by study. In all, _not_ super-natural parts, he is perfect; even his
very defects belong, or seem to belong, to the parts themselves, and
appear truer to nature. But of Kemble we may say, with reference to his
acting, what the Cardinal de Retz said of the Marquis of Montrose, "that
he was the only man he ever saw who reminded him of the heroes of
Plutarch. "[D]

[A] [See letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, March 31, 1815, _Letters_,
1899, iii. 190; letter to Moore, October 28, 1815, and note 1 (with
quotation from unpublished letter of Coleridge), and passages from
Byron's _Detached Thoughts_ (1821) . . . _ibid_. , pp. 230, 233-238. ]

[B] [Maturin's _Bertram_ was played for the first time at Drury Lane,
May 9, 1816. (See _Detached Thoughts_ (1821), _Letters_, 1899, iii. 233,
and letter to Murray, October 12, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 171. )]

[C] [Elizabeth O'Neill (1791-1872), afterwards Lady Becher, made her
_debut_ in 1814, and retired from the stage in 1819. Sarah Siddons
(1755-1831) made her final appearance on the stage June 9, 1818, and her
brother John Philip Kemble (1757-1823) appeared for the last time in
_Coriolanus_, June 23, 1817. Of the other actors mentioned in this note,
George Frederick Cooke (1756-1812) had long been dead; Edmund Kean
(1787-1833) had just returned from a successful tour in the United
States; and Robert William Elliston (1774-1831) (_vide ante_, p. 328)
had, not long before (1819), become lessee of Drury Lane Theatre. ]

[D]["Le comte de Montross, Ecossais et chef de la maison de Graham, le
seul homme du monde qui m'ait jamais rappele l'idee de certains heros
que l'on ne voit plus que dans les vies de Plutarque, avail soutenu le
parti du roi d'Angleterre dans son pays, avec une grandeur d'ame qui
rien avait point de pareille en ce siecle. "--_Memoires du Cardinal de
Retz_, 1820, ii. 88. ]

[378] {339}[This appreciation of the _Mysterious Mother_, which he seems
to have read in Lord Dover's preface to Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace
Mann, provoked Coleridge to an angry remonstrance. "I venture to remark,
first, that I do not believe that Lord Byron spoke sincerely; for I
suspect that he made a tacit exception of himself at least. . . . Thirdly,
that the _Mysterious Mother_ is the most disgusting, vile, detestable
composition that ever came from the hand of man. No one with a spark of
true manliness, of which Horace Walpole had none, could have written
it. "--_Table Talk_, March 20, 1834. Croker took a very different view,
and maintained "that the good old English blank verse, the force of
character expressed in the wretched mother . . . argue a strength of
conception, and vigour of expression capable of great things," etc. Over
and above the reasonable hope and expectation that this provocative
eulogy of Walpole's play would annoy the "Cockneys" and the "Lakers,"
Byron was no doubt influenced in its favour by the audacity of the plot,
which not only put _septentrional_ prejudices at defiance, but was an
instance in point that love ought not "to make a tragic subject unless
it is love furious, criminal, and hopeless" (Letter to Murray, January
4, 1821). He would, too, be deeply and genuinely moved by such verse as
this--

"Consult a holy man! inquire of him!
--Good father, wherefore? what should I inquire?
Must I be taught of him that guilt is woe?
That innocence alone is happiness--
That martyrdom itself shall leave the villain
The villain that it found him? Must I learn
That minutes stamped with crime are past recall?
That joys are momentary; and remorse
Eternal? . . .
Nor could one risen from the dead proclaim
This truth in deeper sounds to my conviction;
We want no preacher to distinguish vice
From virtue. At our birth the God revealed
All conscience needs to know. No codicil
To duty's rubric here and there was placed
In some Saint's casual custody. "

Act i. sc. 3, _s. f. _ _Works of the Earl of Orford_, 1798, i. 55. ]

[379] {340}[Byron received a copy of Goethe's review of _Manfred_, which
appeared in _Kunst und Alterthum_ (ii. 2. 191) in May, 1820. In a letter
to Murray, dated October 17, 1820 (_Letters_, 1901, v. 100), he enclosed
a letter to Goethe, headed "For _Marino Faliero_. Dedication to Baron
Goethe, etc. , etc. , etc. " It is possible that Murray did not take the
"Dedication" seriously, but regarded it as a _jeu d'esprit_, designed
for the amusement of himself and his "synod. " At any rate, the
"Dedication" did not reach Goethe's hand till 1831, when it was
presented to him at Weimar by John Murray the Third. "It is written,"
says Moore, who printed a mutilated version in his _Letters and
Journals, etc. _, 1830, ii. 356-358, "in the poet's most whimsical and
mocking mood; and the unmeasured severity poured out in it upon the two
favourite objects of his wrath and ridicule, compels me to deprive the
reader of its most amusing passages. " The present text, which follows
the MS. , is reprinted from _Letters_, 1901, v. 100-104--

"Dedication to Baron Goethe, etc. , etc. , etc.

"Sir--In the Appendix to an English work lately translated into
German and published at Leipsic, a judgment of yours upon English
poetry is quoted as follows: 'That in English poetry, great genius,
universal power, a feeling of profundity, with sufficient
tenderness and force, are to be found; but that _altogether these
do not constitute poets_,' etc. , etc.

"I regret to see a great man falling into a great mistake. This
opinion of yours only proves that the '_Dictionary of Ten Thousand
living English Authors_'[A] has not been translated into German.
You will have read, in your friend Schlegel's version, the dialogue
in _Macbeth_--

"'There are _ten thousand! _
_Macbeth_. _Geese_, villain?
_Answer_. _Authors_, sir. '[B]

Now, of these 'ten thousand authors,' there are actually nineteen
hundred and eighty-seven poets, all alive at this moment, whatever
their works may be, as their booksellers well know: and amongst
these there are several who possess a far greater reputation than
mine, though considerably less than yours. It is owing to this
neglect on the part of your German translators that you are not
aware of the works of William Wordsworth, who has a baronet in
London[C] who draws him frontispieces and leads him about to
dinners and to the play; and a Lord in the country,[D] who gave him
a place in the Excise--and a cover at his table. You do not know
perhaps that this Gentleman is the greatest of all poets
past--present and to come--besides which he has written an '_Opus
Magnum_' in prose--during the late election for Westmoreland. [E]
His principal publication is entitled '_Peter Bell_' which he had
withheld from the public for '_one and twenty years_'--to the
irreparable loss of all those who died in the interim, and will
have no opportunity of reading it before the resurrection. There is
also another named Southey, who is more than a poet, being actually
poet Laureate,--a post which corresponds with what we call in Italy
Poeta Cesareo, and which you call in German--I know not what; but
as you have a '_Caesar_'--probably you have a name for it. In
England there is no _Caesar_--only the Poet.

"I mention these poets by way of sample to enlighten you. They form
but two bricks of our Babel, (Windsor bricks, by the way) but may
serve for a specimen of the building.

"It is, moreover, asserted that 'the predominant character of the
whole body of the present English poetry is a _disgust_ and
_contempt_ for life. ' But I rather suspect that by one single work
of _prose_, _you_ yourself have excited a greater contempt for life
than all the English volumes of poesy that ever were written.
Madame de Stael says, that 'Werther has occasioned more suicides
than the most beautiful woman;' and I really believe that he has
put more individuals out of this world than Napoleon
himself,--except in the way of his profession. Perhaps, Illustrious
Sir, the acrimonious judgment passed by a celebrated northern
journal[F] upon you in particular, and the Germans in general, has
rather indisposed you towards English poetry as well as criticism.
But you must not regard our critics, who are at bottom good-natured
fellows, considering their two professions,--taking up the law in
court, and laying it down out of it. No one can more lament their
hasty and unfair judgment, in your particular, than I do; and I so
expressed myself to your friend Schlegel, in 1816, at Coppet.

"In behalf of my 'ten thousand' living brethren, and of myself, I
have thus far taken notice of an opinion expressed with regard to
'English poetry' in general, and which merited notice, because it
was yours.

"My principal object in addressing you was to testify my sincere
respect and admiration of a man, who, for half a century, has led
the literature of a great nation, and will go down to posterity as
the first literary Character of his Age.

"You have been fortunate, Sir, not only in the writings which have
illustrated your name, but in the name itself, as being
sufficiently musical for the articulation of posterity. In this you
have the advantage of some of your countrymen, whose names would
perhaps be immortal also--if anybody could pronounce them.

"It may, perhaps, be supposed, by this apparent tone of levity,
that I am wanting in intentional respect towards you; but this will
be a mistake: I am always flippant in prose. Considering you, as I
really and warmly do, in common with all your own, and with most
other nations, to be by far the first literary Character which has
existed in Europe since the death of Voltaire, I felt, and feel,
desirous to inscribe to you the following work,--_not_ as being
either a tragedy or a _poem_, (for I cannot pronounce upon its
pretensions to be either one or the other, or both, or neither,)
but as a mark of esteem and admiration from a foreigner to the man
who has been hailed in Germany 'the great Goethe. '

"I have the honour to be,

With the truest respect,

Your most obedient and

Very humble servant,

Byron,

"Ravenna, 8^bre^ 14? , 1820.

"P. S. --I perceive that in Germany, as well as in Italy, there is a
great struggle about what they call '_Classical_' and
'_Romantic_,'--terms which were not subjects of classification in
England, at least when I left it four or five years ago. Some of
the English Scribblers, it is true, abused Pope and Swift, but the
reason was that they themselves did not know how to write either
prose or verse; but nobody thought them worth making a sect of.
Perhaps there may be something of the kind sprung up lately, but I
have not heard much about it, and it would be such bad taste that I
shall be very sorry to believe it. "

Another Dedication, to be prefixed to a Second Edition of the play was
found amongst Byron's papers. It remained in MS. till 1832, when it was
included in a prefatory note to _Marino Faliero, Works of Lord Byron_,
1832, xii. 50.

"Dedication of _Marino Faliero_.

"To the Honourable Douglas Kinnaird.

"My dear Douglas,--I dedicate to you the following tragedy, rather
on account of your good opinion of it, than from any notion of my
own that it may be worthy of your acceptance. But if its merits
were ten times greater than they possibly can be, this offering
would still be a very inadequate acknowledgment of the active and
steady friendship with which, for a series of years, you have
honoured your obliged and affectionate friend,

"BYRON.
"Ravenna, Sept. 1st, 1821. "

[A][_A Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors of Great Britain and
Ireland, etc_. , London, 1816, 8vo. ]

[B] [_Macbeth_. Where got'st thou that goose look?
_Servant_. There is ten thousand--
_Macbeth_. Geese, villain?
_Servant_. Soldiers, sir. "
_Macbeth_, act v. sc. 3, lines 12, 13. ]

[C][Sir George Beaumont. See Professor W. Knight, _Life of Wordsworth_,
ii. (_Works_, vol. x. ) 56. ]

[D][Lord Lonsdale (_ibid_. , p. 209). ]

[E][_Two Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmoreland_, 1818. ]

[F][See an article on Goethe's _Aus Meinem Leben_, etc. , in the
_Edinburgh Review_ for June, 1816, vol. xxvi.