University of Virginia Library

SCENE V.

—Another street in Venice.
Julian.
Jul.
—Life is a fearful struggle—right to wrong—
When all the odds are in a bad man's favour!
And yet 'tis more dishonorably base
To die, and give our names to ignominy,
Than to persist in battling with ill-luck
And conquering the agony of want.
Enter Senator.
So! I will ask this senator of Venice
To find me labour, in his way of duty.
Good morrow! Are you not a senator?

Sen.
—A senator, to whom you are unknown.

Jul.
—I'm of the multitude the titled know not.
But of that multitude whence, daily springs
Some one who makes his name familiar with
The latest record of his country's language.

Sen.
—What does this lead to?

Jul.
I entreat you not
Utterly to despise me as our custom
Warrants, because I am a nameless stranger!
I am a scholar; and, to th' eternal shame
Of my dishonorable land, I swear
I crave the food denied me here in Venice!

Sen.
—Impossible!

Jul.
There's nought impossible!
Genius and beggary—wealth and despair—
Virtue disgraced, and vice exalted!—oh!
There is no crying sin so foul and hideous—
No passion so deformed, unnatural,
And monstrous to belief, that is not cherished,
Fostered, and worshipped in your halls of grandeur!—
And will you tell a starving man it is
Impossible to hunger? Would you felt
Want's awful and hyæna-like desire
To leap upon the heart's blood of such monsters
As scorn and riches make us! By the heavens!—
Even senators would dread the indignant poor!

Sen.
—What mean you, rebel?

Jul.
Rebel!—you are right!
Nature rebels against all art's refinements
To starve the spirit tamely from the body!

Sen.
—Molest me, and I will alarm the guard.

Jul.
—Molest you? Senator! you are at liberty
To pass along in the enjoyment of
The enviable consciousness of good
Witheld, with the ability to give.

Sen.
—There's money!

Jul.
Curse and ruin seize your money!
The ruin its accursed acquisition,
Time out of mind, hath wrought the noble heart!

Sen.
—What would you? Money you refuse—

Jul.
Hath nature
Prompted you to no other sympathy
With suffering, than ostentatious charity?
What would I?—Physic for my bleeding heart!
Balm for my wounded honor! Something that
Would heal this lacerated, groaning spirit,
Stabbed by the dagger of unkindness! Something
Approaching to humanity—if such
A virtue now exist among mankind!

Sen.
—I am a stranger—are there none whose aid
You should demand?

Jul.
None! If there were ten thousand,
Linked to me by the bonds of flesh and blood,
I would not sue my brother for a gift,
Because my brother. 'Tis the heart I seek,
That glories in its goodness, and would beat
As warmly for a stranger and a slave,
As for its own and nearest, dearest blood!

Sen.
—You speak well—but such imposition's practised—

Jul.
—I know it! But hath nature written honesty
On no man's forehead? Look upon this face
And tell me if you think I am a villain!

Sen.
—I must repeat—

Jul.
You hesitate?—O God!
'Tis hopeless!—Virtue never hesitates
Between the wish to do, and doing good!
I'll word your benediction—“Rascal, hence!
I feel your clutches on my purse, away!”—
May the God of heav'n commiserate your sins!
I would not curse aught so ignobly vile!
Exit Senator, and enter Gondolier.
Another of my kind!—Your occupation?

Gond.
—A rudish one—a gondolier of Venice.
Much labour, more abuse, some pence, my bread,
And shelter in my sea-rock'd bark by night,
Are all I know of life and life's enjoyments.

Jul.
—'Tis but a shabby picture, yet I lack
So good a bed or board—I'll serve you, friend.

Gond.
—You're jesting—it were likelier I served you.

Jul.
—No, I am little like a jesting man.
My means are run ashore—I ask but work,
However rude, to gain a livelihood.

Gond.
—Still you but jest. Some noble, I presume,
Returned from revels—

Jul.
Every word is true!

Gond.
—Then, friend, you're sailing from your course. Hard work
Would master you—Seek something better, man!—
Try beggary—you have not strength for me.

Jul.
—Dastard! I have enough to chastise yet
Your incivility!
Driving him off.
So! even these,
The refuse in the siftings of ill-luck,
Have learned no sympathy from hardships, that
Should make misfortune seem their common friend.
What use are all thy lessons, earth, that teach
The heart to grow no better, age by age?
Enter Giacomo.
Here is a most aristrocratic varlet!
He who hath fed on other's bounty should
Be generous—I ask your charity!

Gia.
—My master begging! gracious heav'n, he's mad!

Jul.
—Ah, Signor Giacomo! once my good servant—
You see, now, what a curious world this is,
Where fortunes shift, as cards change hands, and those
Who served become the servers—pray relieve me!

Gia.
—O, Master Julian! O, my dear young master!

Jul.
—I am a beggar—and our poverty
Is a sharp medicine, that purges out
The delicacy of our former pride.

Gia.
—You trifle with me—all I have is yours.

Jul.
—Thou liest! Ay, to gain excuse and time,
Thou dost prevaricate—get hence, thou worm!
I cannot injure what I once have loved!—
Another, and I would have smote him down,
To teach the purse-proud savage in his pride,
That want is still more terrible than wealth!

Exit.
Gia.
—O heaven! my poor, poor master's brain is turned!
I've seen men wear their evil fortunes like
A rusty garment—but, alas! this change
Will murder him! My kind, good Master Julian!
Enter Maria.
Alas! Maria! my poor unhappy master!

Mar.
—Is?—

Gia.
Mad with his griefs!

Mar.
And my unhappy lady—

Gia.
—Good heavens! not?—

Mar.
Mad? Not in the common meaning
And acceptation of that frightful word.
Hers is a suffering too deep for passion
To give tempestuous utterance to—'tis silent
As the disease that eats into the heart,
And steals the blossoms from her cheek away!—
Mysterious as the approach of death! She never,
Never will smile again, my poor, poor mistress!
Ah, me! this sad, sad life, that, ere we die,
Makes us lament that ever we were born!

Gia.
—God speed my lady! Such a heart as hers
Was over righteous for this wicked world:
And the compassionate angels will remove
The treasure to its home in some far heaven.

Mar.
—Surely the all just skies have not afflicted
Our sense with these calamities in vain!
If stubbornness melt not with such reproof,
The chastisement and will of God are nothing!

Gia.
—I would now Julian's father could foresee
The consequence of his unnatural pride,
Ere some unthought of, horrible disaster
Place reparation past his reach for ever!

Enter Lorenzo's Wife.
Wife.
—What news of Julian?

Gia.
Such as should destroy
A parent's sense of other news for ever.
Madness and poverty are his companions,
To smooth the pillow of disease and ruin.

Wife.
—Spare me, old man! have mercy on a mother!
Madness and poverty? One is enough
To render life a curse most horrible!
The two might warrant some such desperation
As blots our claim out to be counted human.

Gia.
—I parted with him even now, but previously
Had gathered from the whisperings of report,
That, on the Isle of Ledo, he conceals
His wretchedness.—

Wife.
I'll seek him instantly—
A mother's blessing may ameliorate
Somewhat the cruel pangs of injury!

Enter Lorenzo.
Lor.
—Still weeping for this disobedient boy?

Wife.
—'Tis not an easy task to pluck up all
Our old affections by the roots, and fling
Our hopes away, like common things of earth.

Lor.
—Hang him! The disobedient reprobate!

Wife.
—He is indeed most disobedient now!
Would he obeyed his mother's wild commands!—
And I would bid him stay—but death hath called
My gentle boy away for ever!

Lor.
Death?

Wife.
—Giacomo, lead me forth unto his grave!
If tears availed me, I'd bedew the ground
Till flowers of sweet remembrance, in the perfume
Of immortality, sprung up to blossom
Over my boy, more beautiful than they!
Shame on them now triumphantly to bloom
O'er his pale corpse, that living shamed them all!

Lor.
—Speak, I implore you! Giacomo, what's this?
Julian and death? my son!—my boy!—my Julian!
Dead? Dead? Forgive me, God! for I am dying!

Falls on the Earth.
Wife.
—Woes me! my grief outstrips my judgment, and
Mourning too much one loss, I make another.
Look up, look up! make me not in one breath
Widow and childless—one is agony
Enough for one unhappy breast to suffer!

Lor.
—Where have they buried him?

Wife.
He is not dead!

Lor.
—I'll not believe it!

Wife.
There is hope, I swear it!

Lor.
—Hope for a wretch like me?—I'll not believe it!

Wife.
—Put not away in this unmanly fashion,
The assurance reason gives us.—Julian lives—
And injuries redressed are swiftly cured.

Lor.
—I do reject the phantasy of hope
As a most worthless dream, and to my heart
Will hug remorse, as with a lover's eagerness!

Wife.
—For shame! are these extremes of passion fit
To find their utterance from a man like you?

Lor.
—Lost, lost, and shipwreck'd in the tempests of
My own conceits!—the deadliest fate of all!
The victim of my own most monstrous follies!—
Burnt in a self created hell! Ah, Julian!
My poor unhappy boy! Pardon me! pardon!

Exit.
Wife.
—What are we made of, to be shattered thus,
By the least turn of fortune's tide and wind?
I thought to melt him, by a stratagem,
From th' frozen sternness of his anger, back
Into the current of parental love;
And, like a long-pent stream, the sluices broken,
Over all intermediate things he dashes
Frightfully to his ruin. Where's the use
Of age and life's experience, if they teach
No moderation in our natural passions?