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After seizing Oliver, and putting him to the most cruel tortures, without extracting from him any thing but repeated protestations of his total ignorance of the transaction, the Council of Ten cited his master Foscari before them, and treated him in the same barbarous and unjustifiable manner. His assertions of innocence, while under the endurance of the rack, were but slightly attended to by his merciless judges. "They convinced (says Dr. Moore) the court of his firmness, but, by no means of his innocence." Still, however, they could not sentence to death the son of one of the noblest families in Venice, without something like a legal proof of his guilt. They accordingly satisfied their thirst of vengeance for the assassination of their colleague, by banishing him to Canea, in the Island of Candia.

With the Romeo of our immortal poet, banishment from his family and friends would appear to have been considered by Foscari as a punishment to which death had been preferable; although we do not learn that he left behind him any fair Juliet, whose lamentations embittered still farther a doom already sufficiently severe. We trust, however, that his Lordship will, with his usual discrimination, have supplied a feature which could not fail of conducing, in an important degree, to the interest of his tragedy, for, as he himself has sagaciously remarked of women,

"All know, without the sex, our sonnets Would seem unfinish'd, like their untrimm'd bonnets."

But, to proceed with our relation : "The unfortunate youth (says the author of Zeluco) bore his exile with more impatience than he had done the rack; he often wrote to his relations and friends, praying them to intercede in his behalf, that the term of his banishment might be abridged, and that he might be permitted to return to his family before he died. All these applications were fruitless; those to whom he addressed himself had never interfered in his favour for fear of giving offence to the obdurate council, or had interfered in vain.”

At the end of five years' exile, having given up all hope of return thro' the

intercession of his own family or countrymen, he wrote to the Duke of Milan, reminding him of services rendered to that prince by his father, and urging him to exert his powerful influence with the government of Venice, to obtain a remission of his sentence. This letter was intrusted to a merchant journeying from Canea to that capital, who, instead of forwarding it, as he had faithfully promised to the Duke on his arrival at Venice, treacherously laid it before the chiefs of the Council of Ten.

It should here be premised, that, by the laws of the Venetian Republic, its subjects were strictly enjoined, under the severest penalties, from applying secretly, or otherwise, for the protection of foreign princes, in any matters referring to the decisions of their own Court of Judicature. The consequence of the infringement of this edict in young Foscari, was, that he was immediately remanded from Candia, and incarcerated in the prison for state criminals at Venice; from whence, by an unwarrantable stretch of the prerogative of his judges, he was once more brought up to be put to the torture, in order to elicit from him the motives by which he had been actuated, in addressing the Duke of Milan.

In answer to this inquiry, he declared, that, conscious of the perfidy of his messenger, as well as of the punishment that would, in all probability, follow his offence, in endeavouring to conciliate the good offices of a foreign prince; he had, in a fit of despair, addressed the Duke of Milan, as he foresaw that it would occasion his removal

to Venice; the only opportunity that was ever likely to be afforded him of obtaining an interview with his relatives and friends; a consummation which he professed he most ardently desired, although it were only to be purchased by his death.

This act of filial piety availed him but little with his inquisitors. He was ordered back to Candia, there to remain in close confinement for the space of one year; besides which, his banishment from Venice to that place, was made perpetual, and a threat held out to him, that if he solicited again in any way, either directly or indirectly, the

aid of foreign princes, his imprisonment should only terminate with his life.

The father of Foscari had filled the office of Doge for thirty years; but, notwithstanding the influence which so exalted a situation ought to have created for him with the Senate, in a case of such flagrant injustice as the condemnation of his son, (without any proof, or even reasonable grounds for suspecting him of the offence which had been laid to his charge,) he was unable to obtain from the council any remission of the young man's punishment. He, however, visited his son in the place wherein he was confined during his stay at Venice, and deploring in the most moving terms, his inability to serve him, exhorted him to bear with fortitude the evil, however severe and undeserved, for there was no remedy. The scene of Foscari's interview with his parents, for his mother was also present at this meeting, has, we doubt not, been pathetically dwelt upon by Lord Byron. His son replied, (says Dr. Moore,) that he was incapable of attending to the advice of his father, that, however others could support the dismal loneliness of a prison, he could not; that his heart was formed for friendship and the reciprocal endearments of private life, without which his soul sank into dejection worse than death, from which alone he should look for relief, if he should again be confined to the horrors of a prison; and, melting into tears, he sunk at his father's feet, imploring him to take compassion on a son who had ever loved him with the most dutiful affection, and who was perfectly innocent of the crime of which he was accused; he conjured him by every bond of nature and religion, by the bowels of a father and the mercy of a Redeemer, to use his influence with the council to mitigate the sentence, that he might be sa ved from the most cruel of all deaths, that of expiring under the slow tortures of a broken heart, in a horrible banishment from every creature he loved.

This affecting appeal rendered the

grief of the unhappy father still more acute, who was well aware how fruitless would be his endeavours in his son's behalf. Unable to support the anguish of a separation under such distressing circumstances, the old man sunk into a state of insensibility, from which he did not recover until the vessel, that was to bear his son once more into exile, had spread its sails for Candia. The grief of his aged consort has been movingly described by those who have taken upon themselves the record of this melancholy history. The overwhelming misery of these unfortunate parents, interested, at length, one or two of the most powerful senators; who applied with so much earnestness for the pardon of the young Foscari, that they were on the point of accomplishing their object, when information arrived from Candia,that the noble-hearted youth had expired in prison, a few months after his return.

It was not until some time had elapsed that the real murderer was discovered. Nicholas Erizzo, a Venetian of high rank, being a few years afterwards upon his death-bed, confessed that in revenge for a supposed affront.put upon him by the senator Donato, he had committed the assassination for which Foscari had, in a great measure, undergone the penalty.

Before this disclosure took place, the sorrows of the aged Doge were at an end. He died a few months after his son. Although he is said to have relied confidently upon the innocence of his child, it is much to be deplored that he did not live until the odious stigma, which had been attached to his name and memory, was thus effectually removed.

Such is the story which Lord Byron is said to have employed in the construction of one of his forthcoming tragedies. It is a subject which, however deficient it may be as it respects variety of incident, is nevertheless much more worthy of poetical illustration than the tiresome fretfulness of the superannuated Doge, Faliero.

Lit. Gaz.

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LORD BYRON, IN A NOTE TO THE TWO FOSCARI, SAYS :"In Lady Morgan's fearless and excellent work upon "Italy," I perceive the expression of "Rome of the Ocean" applied to Venice. The same phrase occurs in the "Two Foscari." My publisher can vouch for me that the tragedy was written and sent to England some time before I had seen Lady Morgan's work,which I only received on the 16th of August. I hasten, however, to notice the coincidence, and to yield the originality of the phrase to her who first placed it before the public. I am the more anxious to do this as I am informed (for I have seen but few of the specimens,and those accidentally) that there have been lately brought against me charges of plagiarism. I have also had an anonymous sort of threatening intimation of the same kind, apparently with the intent of extorting money. To such charges I have no answer to make. One of them is ludicrous enough. I am reproached for having formed the description of a shipwreck in verse from the narratives of many actual shipwrecks in prose, selecting such materials as were most striking. Gibbon makes it a merit in Tasso "to have copied the minutest details of the Siege of Jerusalem from the Chronicles." In me it may be a demerit, I presume; let it remain so. Whilst I have been occupied in defending Pope's character,the lower orders of Grub-street appear to have been assailing mine: this is as it should be, both in them and in me. One of the accusations in the nameless epistle alluded to is still more laughable: it states seriously that I received five hundred pounds for writing "advertisements for Day and Martin's pa"tent blacking!" This is the highest compliment to my literary powers which I ever received. It states also "that a person has "been trying to make acquaintance with Mr. Townsend, a gentleman of the law, who was with me on business in Venice "three years ago, for the purpose of ob*taining any defamatory particulars of my "life from this occasional visitor." Mr. Townsend is welcome to say what he knows. I mention these particulars merely to show the world in general what the literary lower world contains, and their way of setting to work. Another charge made, I am told, in the "Literary Gazette" is, that I wrote the notes to "Queen Mab;" a work which I never saw till some time after its publication, and which I recollect showing to Mr.Sotheby as a poem of great power and imagination. I never wrote a line of the notes, nor ever saw them except in their published form. No one knows better than their real author, that his opinions and mine differ materially upon the metaphysical portion of that work; though in common with all who are not blinded by baseness and bigotry, I highly admire the poetry of that and his other publications.

equally absurd with that sincere production, calls upon the "legislature to look to it," as the toleration of such writings led to the French Revolution not such writings as Wat Tyler, but as those of the "Satanic School." This is not true, and Mr.Southey knows it to be not true. Every French writer of any freedom was persecuted; Voltaire and Rousseau were exiles, Marmontel and Diderot were sent to the Bastille, and a perpetual war was waged with the whole class by the existing despotism. In the next place, the French Revolution was not occasioned by any writings whatsoever, but must have occurred had no such writers ever existed. It is the fashion to attribute every thing to the French revolution, and the French revolution to every thing but its real cause. That cause is obvious-the gov ernment exacted too much, and the people could neither give nor bear more. Without this, the Encylopedists might have written their fingers off without the occurrence of a single alteration. And the English revolu tion-(the first, I mean)-what was it occasioned by? The puritans were surely as pious and moral as Wesley or his biographer? Acts-acts on the part of government, not writings against them, have caused the past convulsions, and are tending to the future.

Mr. Southey, too, in his pious preface to a poem whose blasphemy is as harmless as the sedition of Wat Tyler, because it is

I look upon such as inevitable, though ne revolutionist: I wish to see the English constitution restored and not destroyed. Born an aristocrat, and naturally one by temper, with the greater part of my present property in the funds, what have I to gain by a revolution? Perhaps I have more to lose in every way than Mr. Southey, with all his places and presents for panegyrics and abuse into the bargain. But that a revolution is inevitable, I repeat. The government may exult over the repression of petty tumults; these are but the receding waves repulsed and broken for a moment on the shore,while the great tide is still rolling on and gaining ground with every breaker. Mr. Southey accuses us of attacking the religion of the country; and is he abetting it by writing lives of Wesley? One mode of worship is merely destroyed by another. There never was, nor ever will be, a country without a religion. We shall be told of France again but it was only Paris and a frantic party, which for a moment upheld their dogmatic nonsense of theophilanthropy. The church of England, if overthrown, will be swept away by the sectarians and not by the sceptics. People are too wise, too well informed, too certain of their own immense importance in the realms of space, ever to submit to the impiety of doubt.-There may be a few such diffident speculators, like water in the pale sunbeam of human reason, but they are very few; and their opinions,without enthusiasm or appeal to the passions, can never gain proselvies-unless, indeed, they are persecuted-that, to be sure, will increase any thing.

Mr. S. with a cowardly ferocity, exults over the anticipated "death-bed repentance" of the objects of his dislike; and indulges himself in a pleasant "Vision of Judgment," in prose as well as verse, full of impious impudence. What Mr. S.'s sensations or ours may be in the awful moment of leaving this state of existence neither he nor we can pretend to decide. In common, I presume, with most men of any reflection, I have not waited for a "death-bed" to repent of many of my actions, notwithstanding the "diabolical pride" which this pitiful renegado in his rancour would impute to those who scorn him. Whether upon the whole the good or evil of my deeds may preponderate is not for me to ascertain; but, as my means and opportunities have been greater, I shall limit my present defence to an assertion (easily proved, if necessary,) that I, "in my degree," have done more real good in any one given year,since I was twenty, than Mr. Southey in the whole course of his shifting and turncoat existence. There are several actions to which I can look back with an honest pride, not to be damped by the calumnies of a hireling. There are others to which I recur with sorrow and repentance; but the only act of my life of which Mr. Southey can have any real knowledge, as it was one which brought me in contact with a near connexion of his own, did no dishonour to that connexion nor to me.

I am not ignorant of Mr.Southey's calumnies on a different occasion, knowing them to be such, which he scattered abroad on his return from Switzerland against me and others: they have done him no good in this world; and, if his creed be the right one, they will do him less in the next. What his "death-bed" may be, it is not my province to predicate: let him settle it with his Maker, as I must do with mine. There is something at once ludicrous and blasphemous in this arrogant scribbler of all works sitting down to deal damnation and destruction upon his fellow creatures, with Wat Tyler, the Apotheosis of George the Third, and the Elegy on Martin the regicide, all shuffled together in his writing desk. One of his consolations appears to be aLatin note from a work of a Mr.Landor, the author of “ Gebir," whose friendship for Robert Southey will, it seems, "be an honour to him when the ephemeral disputes and ephemeral reputations of the day are forgotten." I for one neither envy him "the friendship," nor the glory in reversion which is to accrue from it, like Mr. Thelusson's fortune in the third and fourth generation. This friendship will probably be as memorable as his own epics, which (as I quoted to him ten or twelve years ago in "English Bards") Porson said "would be remembered when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, and not till then." For the present I leave him.”

SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF. M. ARAGO.

Literary Gazette.

D URING the last war, the two French Mathematicians, Biot and Arago, travelled, with the permission of England and Spain, to make experiments for the purpose of measuring an arc of the Meridian. Biot happily returned to France; but Arago, before he succeeded, encountered some singular adventures.

He was in Majorca, on the Mountain de Gallazzo, concluding his labours after which he intended to return to Paris, when suddenly there arose a disturbance among the people of the island. They fancied that Arago's instruments, and particularly the fire signals which he gave to other observers employed at Ivica, were intended to invite their enemy the French to the Island, and to show them the way. Arago suddenly heard the dreadful cry all round "Treason! Death !" Theassault upon Mount Galazzo instantly commenced, but its cause fortunately perceived the imminent danger. He quickly chang

Ei

ed his dress for that of a peasant of the island, and escaped to Palma. Here he found the ship which had brought him to the island, and concealed himself in it. He at the same time succeeded, through some brave men of the crew, in regaining his mathematical instruments, which he had been obliged to leave on the mountain. But new terrors awaited him in this disguise. ther through fear or treachery, the Spanish Captain of the ship quite unexpectedly refused to protect Arago any farther, though he had always shown himself his friend; he also refused to take him back to France; entreaties, promises, reproaches-nothing would avail. In this great immergency, the chief commander of the island fortunately took the part of Arago, but could not save him at that time, but by confining him as a prisoner in the fortress. While Arago was obliged to remain here several months his life was sometimes in the greatest danger. The

fanatical Monks attempted several unfortunate piece of news awaited times to bribe the guards and murder poor Arago. The former Dey of Althe prisoner. The Spanish mathematician, Rodriguez, his fellow labourer and faithful friend, who never quited his side, was his deliverer. This worthy man would not rest, till he had obtained, by his representations against the injustice of the unacountable maltreatment of an innocent person, the liberty of his friend, and at the same time permission for him to go over to Algiers in a small vessel of his own.

In Algiers, Du Bois Tainville, at that time French Consul, kindly received him, and took means to put him on board an Algerine merchantman, that he might return to France. At first every thing went according to his wishes. The ship approached Marseilles, and Arago, with the fairest hopes, already found himself in the harbour. But, at the same moment, a Spanish privateer attacked the ship, took it, and brought it to Rosas on the Spanish coast. Arago might still have been liberated, as he was entered in the ship's books as a German merchant; but, unfortunately, he was recognized to be a Frenchman by one of the sailors, who had previously been in the French service, and was, with his companions, thrown into the most dreadful imprisonment. But when the Dey of Algiers heard of the insult to his flag, he immediately demanded the ship, its cargo and crew, to be instantly returned, and in case of refusal, he threatened to declare war against the king of Spain. This had the desired effect. The ship and the crew were liberated, and Arago sailed for the second time to Marseilles, without in the least doubting his safe arrival; he already saw the town, the ship once more steered towards the harbour, when suddenly a furious north-west storm arose, and drove it with irresistible violence towards Sardinia. How hard a fate! The Sardinians were at war with the Algerines. A new imprisonment awaited them. The commander therefore resolved to seek refuge on the coast of Africa. Though they were so distant, he succeeded. He run in to the harbour of Bougie, three days' voyage from Algiers. But here another very

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giers, his friend, had been killed in a commotion and another ruler chosen. For this reason the party of the new Dey examined the ship with suspicious rigour, and the heavy trunks of Arago, which contained his mathematical instruments, were immediately seized: for what else could they contain but gold? Why else should they have been so carefully secured, if they were not filled with sequins? He was obliged to leave his instruments in the hands of the Algerines. A new misfortune was added to this. How could he make a three days' journey to Algiers by land among a savage and highly irritated people? Courage and presence of mind, however, saved him. He disguised himself in the Turkish costume, and went under the protection of a greatly esteemed priest of those parts, who conducted him, with some others, through inhospitable mountains and dreary deserts, and after overcoming many threatening dangers, arrived at last in safety at Algiers. How was Du Bois Tainville astonished to see his countryman suddenly again, in a Turkish dress, whom he had long fancied to be at Marseilles. He took up his cause with the greatest zeal, found means to have the chests returned, which no longer interested the Algerines of Bougie, as they had found brass instead of gold, and kept the " Adventurer against his will," as the opportunities of sailing to France were, at that time, as rare as dangerous. Thus another six months pased. At last Du Bois was recalled by Buonaparte, to France. He began his voyage, accompanied by Arago, for the third time to France. But they scarcely saw Marseilles, when an English fleet appeared, which ordered them to return to Minorca, as all the French harbours were at that time in a state of blockade. The ships accompanying Du Bois obeyed; only the one on board of which Arago was embraced a favourable fresh breeze, and ran into the harbour with all sail spread. The services of Arago were duly appreciat ed in his country; and he was honorably rewarded by a situation in the Astronomical department.

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