University of Virginia Library

ADVERTISEMENT.

TILL the following Tragedy had gone through the press to page 192, it did not occur to the Author to contrive that the Duke D'Ormond and the Marchioness de Mielcour should be married. The former arrangement was painful to the Author for reasons that need not be mentioned, but it was not till such a progress as he has already stated had been made in the printing of the Tragedy, that any feasible plan of altering the plot occurred to him. To make the Duke D'Ormond propose marriage after such a recent attachment as he is represented to have had, and with such positive engagements, to another, would give an air of deliberate treachery to his character, which is inconsistent with the view which the Author wishes the reader to take of it; to make Courtenaye propose such a step would be in the highest degree unnatural, and inconsistent with the

furtherance of all his schemes; nothing therefore remained but a spurious marriage, which Courtenaye hypocritically recommends. It is natural to suppose that the first idea of this suggested itself to Courtenaye about the time that the soliloquy takes place in the third act, page 169, and the Author requests that the reader will be kind enough, after the perusal of the first line of the above-mentioned page, to insert the following addition:—

To-night,—Duke D'Ormond's feelings, as I know,
Are ripe for this,—to-night, yes, yes, this night,—
Shall they be joined in ties irrevocable.
The appearance of this lady, first to me
This scheme suggested. Yes, he shall not see her,
Till he have placed between himself and her
A barrier insurmountable. I meant
But by a snare of gallantry t'entrap him.
From this he may escape. But if they be
Married,—ah married! Then such sanctity
The law, his conscience, and the prejudice
Of all conditions to this tie attach,
Ah then, in vain will this his earliest mistress,
So opportunely at this instant found,
E'en though she be a kneeling suppliant, plead
For a renewal of his love. I see
It all. I'll to a priest, now I have done
With Despard. To the yielding Marchioness
Then will I hasten with the holy man:
And since I know they're ripe for any scheme
That gives a pledge of permanence to their passion,
E'en while the iron's hot,—I'll strike the blow!—
And, ere the day be passed, I'll so frame things
They shall be bound in everlasting ties.

In act the third, page 158, the scene between Despard and Courtenaye should be supposed to take place at the House of the former, and not at the Hotel of the Marchioness de Mielcour. The mistake of the present arrangement originated in the omission of a scene between that in which the Marchioness and Courtenaye, and that in which the latter and Despard meet, and the forgetting to adjust the minor mechanism of the piece to that omission. Courtenaye should go to the house of Despard, and not Despard come to that of the Marchioness, and the reader is requested to make this imaginary transfer in the perusal of the Tragedy.