Be multiplied in mine, but would not have
A single life of others lost for that
Which nothing human can impugn—the sense
Of virtue, looking not to what is called
A good name for reward, but to itself.
To me the scorner's words were as the wind
Unto the rock: but as there are, alas!
Spirits more sensitive, on which such things
Light as the whirlwind on the waters; souls
To whom dishonour's shadow is a substance
More terrible than death here and hereafter;
Men whose vice is to start at vice's scoffing,
And who, though proof against all blandishments
Of pleasure, and all pangs of pain, are feeble
When the proud name on which they pinnacled
Their hopes is breathed on, jealous as the eagle
Of her high aiery; let what we now

Behold, and feel, and suffer, be a lesson

To wretches how they tamper in their spleen
With beings of a higher order.

Let the poor wretch, like to the courtesan
Who fired Persepolis, be proud of this,
If it so please him-'twere a pride fit for him!
But let him not insult the last hours of
Him, who, whate'er he now is, was a hero,
By the intrusion of his very prayers;

Nothing of good can come from such a source,
Nor would we ought with him, nor now, nor ever:
We leave him to himself, that lowest depth
Of human baseness. Pardon is for men,
And not for reptiles-we have none for Steno,
And no resentment; things like him must sting,
And higher beings suffer: 'tis the charter
Of life. The man who dies by the adder's fang
May have the crawler crushed, but feels no anger :
'Twas the worm's nature; and some men are worms
In soul, more than the living things of tombs.

Sentence of death is then passed upon the Doge, and the scene

closes. The parting between Angiolina and her husband in the dungeon is intended to be affecting, but it falls far short of that true pathos which Lord Byron could command. The Doge is then led to the place of execution. After he has been deprived of his crown he makes a long speech prophetic of the misery and degradation to which the vices of Venice shall sink her. Notwithstanding that this is somewhat strained, and even ranting, it is eloquent, and sometimes terrible. After he has asked permission to speak, and obtained it, though with the intimation, at the same time, that the people are out of hearing, he proceeds thus:

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;
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!

I am not innocent-but are these guiltless?

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, without

Shedding so much blood in her last defence
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!-She shall stoop to be
A province for an empire, petty town

Published by J. Robins and Co. London, December 24, 1824.

In lieu of capital, with slaves for senates,
Beggars for nobles, panders for a people!
Then when the Hebrew 's in thy palaces,
The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for bis!
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,
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
With some large gondolier or foreign soldier,
Shall bear about their bastardy in triumpl

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,
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
Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er,
But in its stead coarse lusts of habitude,

Prurient yet passionless, cold studied lewdness,
Depraving nature's frailty to an art ;-

When these and more are heavy on thee, when
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,

Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts,