University of Virginia Library

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

—Hall in Lodoro's palace.
Peter, Beppo, and other Servants' arranging the Room.
Peter.

—By the holy keys of St. Peter! but this is
the most cruel catastrophe to such a day that ever was
degendered on a house!

Beppo.

—Marry! Master Peter, but you're too
learned for a servant—you talk finer than your master.
What now may be the meaning of these corkscrew
words?

Peter.

—Demonstrate the word.

Beppo.

—Ay, rumonstrate—you're a rum un to get
out such expressions—you remind me of a beef-eater
at a show.

Peter.

—Beppo, thy vulgarity will for ever keep
thee and good luck on the wrong side of the hedge.

Look you, let me see your man that talks big, and all
the world shall look up to his great words—but let me
see your fool that speaks low, and all the world shall
walk over his imbecility: I tell you, Beppo, your
modest man is but the rug on which every gentleman
wipes his shoes.

Beppo.

—Well, Master Peter, you won't suffer under
the defects of modesty. I never saw a servant who
carried his head more fearlessly in the face of his master.

Peter.

—Why, friend Beppo, an' we will be civil to
the insolent world, we must take the consequence,
which is—the world's contempt. But an' a man carry
his head with becoming hauteur, he at least keeps his
nose above all unpleasant odours.

Beppo.

—Hortur—what a word for a Christian to swallow!

Peter.

—It is an elegant extract from our neighbours
the French. And, let me tell you, Beppo, to season
your conversation with a spice of French, now-a-days,
is the criterion whereby a person of breeding is judged.

Beppo.

—But you cannot speak French.

Peter.

—N'importe, violà donc.

Beppo.

—Holy mother!

Peter.

—There again, Beppo, in that indigenous oath
you manifest the coarseness of your extraction. Now
a lady's lips may pout out Sa'cristi, which, being interpreted,
is much worse than yours—but as the one is
foreign, it comes within the pale of fashion, whereas the
other is totally excommunicated from ears polite.

Beppo.

—Well, it must be a grand thing to travel!

Peter.

—Truly, Beppo, it is the sign whereby, in
these times, you shall know the gentleman from the
boor. Look you! not to be able to speak of the
Pyramids and Les Modes de Paris, Parnassus and
Le Palais Royal, Timbuctoo and the Holy Land,
argueth an insignificance, not only very lamentable in
itself, but militating much against the advancement of
our great toe into the drawing-room of the recherché.

Beppo.

—By Saint Peter!—

Peter.

—Ah! swear not by such a vulgar oath! unfortunately
I am called Peter, but my parents were
very religious, and consequently very silly old people.

Beppo.

—Master Peter, mayhap I'm somewhat older,
though less learned than you—but let me tell you, I
am too old ever to learn that true religion makes a
fool of a man.

Peter.

—Upon my honor! The boor is insolent!

Beppo.

—I'm honest, Master Peter.

Peter.

—Ruffian! would you insult a gentleman? Villain, and knave!

Beppo.

—Hard words for an honest man to stomach!

Peter.

—Dirty and detestable varlet!

Beppo.

—Varlet to yourself!

Peter.

—Zounds! are you saucy! sir, I wear a steel!

Beppo.

—And I, Master Peter, carry about with me
the only defence that an honest man needs—a bold
heart and a willing arm! Come! an' we try a tussel in
the good old fashion, I will acquaint that mountebank

jacket with the nature of the canal. I don't know,
and I don't much respect your modes abroad—but, an'
you wish to be friend or foe after the good old custom
of my country, and my fathers, I'm your man, and
am ready for what you will!

Peter.

—Gracious Lady! what a Russian bear!

Enter Maria.
Mar.

—How! quarrelling in the hall among yourselves,
instead of holding together to study your master's
wants? It seems those who are paid for their service
are ever the last to render it.

Beppo.

—Indeed, Mistress Maria—

Maria.

—Beppo, this disturbance was not yours.

Peter.

—Ineffably divine creature!

Maria.

—Sir, if there be one thing more than another,
that turns me sick, it is the intrusion of a fool!

Peter.

—Ah! my adorable and perfectly exquisite angel!

Maria.

—How long must silenced patience bear such
insults! Shame upon ye all, rioting now in such absurdities,
when you should mourn behind our buried
pastimes! Augustus will be dispatched to Cyprus, to
cut his way back to his father's favours through the
ranks of war. My poor lady is dying of grief! Julian
may be hung for taking justice out of the hands of the
law—and my lord and lady will break their hearts for
spite, that all the world won't go at the bidding of their
wish—and here are you knaves quarrelling over a straw

while the house is tumbling to pieces about your
ears! Get away, with you, each man to his work! and,
Beppo, you shall go with me to inquire the news of
Julian's fortunes.

Exeunt.

SCENE II.

—A street in Venice.
Enter Giacomo, meeting Maria.
Gia.
—Heigho! Maria! what terrible times these be!

Mar.
—The times are good enough—we blame the age
For errors that we should amend ourselves.
The world is never over old for us
T' improve our manners in it. Tell me, doth
Not Julian stand acquitted?

Gia.
By the law.
But by the lawless passion of his father,
Condemned to any misery that ill-luck
Can lead him to, and she is seldom slow
To help us down the precipice of ruin.
How did my lady bear the tidings?

Mar.
As
The tender sapling bears the light'ning's flash—
She fell a shivered victim to the earth!
And now you might as well expect fresh leaves
To blossom on the blasted tree, as hope
To see her ever smile again!

Gia.
Alas!
And yet they dare to question woman's love!
God bless her! life indeed were but a desert,
Unless the flower of woman's loveliness
Bloomed o'er the waste and beautified the scene!

Mar.
—Thank heav'n, time hath not hardened all our natures!
Some still are living who deserve to live,
And thou art one of these, good Giacomo?
How can you find the Signor Julian?

Gia.
Ah!
I know no more than you, Maria. Report
Rumours his having fled to hide his sorrow
And broken fortunes in the solitudes
Of the Euganean hills—he cannot brook
The heartless gaze of public scrutiny.
The Barbarigo, too, hath bought his freedom,
And Julian's boiling wrath would prompt his arm
To blot the memory of his injury out
With blood, if he remained in Venice.

Mar.
Ah!
They will compel my lady to espouse
The Barbarigo: for, in Venice, titles,
Wealth, and a palace, laugh to scorn the poor
Pretensions of an honorable heart,
Like Julian's, that is rich in honor only,
And his too fatal passion for my mistress!

Gia.
—Would Julian knew her constancy!

Mar.
He could not—
Dared not doubt it for a single instant!

Gia.
—Maria! I, an old man, may be pardon'd
To say the best of us forget each other,
As fortune gives or takes away her favours.

Mar.
—Oh! not Bianca! while her sense remains
Unwarped by these disasters, she will cling,
Like ivy, to her faith—by heaven she will!

Enter Lorenzo's Wife.
Wife.
—Giacomo! where, O! where is my poor boy?
What bosom must that be to tear asunder
The fibres of its old affections thus,
And thrust its offspring on the cruel world!
The infant that clung sleeping to his heart!
The child that from his knee looked up and smiled
Hope, peace, and joy into a father's face!
The boy that grew beside him in his sports,
Free as the breeze and graceful as the fawn!
The man that proudly honored him, and stood
The ornament of his declining years!
And then to hurl this jewel from his heart
Like an infectious and abhorr'd disease,
And trample him i' the dust of beggary—
He hath much need to ask of heaven forgiveness!

Mar.
—My lady, if good Giacomo would seek
The Signor Julian with some present aid,
Time may assist our exigencies.

Wife.
True!
If his indignant bosom hath not burst
Already, and let forth the groaning life.
Such souls as his are crushed, but never bowed.
Go, Giacomo! search every where. This purse
Will speed his fortunes for a period. Come,
Maria! come with me, and tell me how
Your poor unhappy lady bears this news.

Exeunt.

SCENE III.

—A Forest among the euganean hills.
Julian.
Jul.
—How wearily time lingers with the wretch!
The hours that pass so swiftly o'er our joys,
Yet eke their moments out to mock our woes.
Where now are all those gorgeous images
With which our youthful fancy peopled life?
The thoughts, the dreams, the hopes, the aspirations,
That in our minds were as the stars in heaven—
The flowers on earth—the blossoms of the tree!
How years and disappointment's hand restore
Them to their pristine elements, and leave
The empty heart a miserable ruin!
A ruin round whose early walls there clung
How many—oh! how many lovely things—
All faded, withered, fallen, past away!
O God! that all our smiles must turn to tears!
That all our happiness must change to sorrow!
And the great soul, that spurns adversity,
Must bend in slavery to the body's yoke!
Lo! I am grown right lean and hungry on
Philosophy! All things in nature feed
One on another, or they die and perish,
Even as these sinless leaves and flowers! Ay, hunger
Still links us to the most detested shifts!
Hunger! the body hungers—and the soul
Is hungry too—all things in nature hunger
One for another! Autumn hungers after
The dying glories of the spectral boughs—
Beast prowls for beast—man laps the blood of man—
While, death, triumphantly, with hideous jaws,
Hungers to swallow all into the tomb!
Accursed life! and thrice accursed death!

SCENE IV.

—A street in Venice.
Angelo and Antonio.
Ant.
—Welcome, my friend! What news of Julian?

Ang.
Bad!
True to her custom, Fortune seems to heap
Calamities upon th' unfortunate.
Julian's mishaps have so divorced his actions
From all allegiance to his better reason,
That even now he's counted for a madman.

Ant.
—Thanks to our stars! we know that, once mistaken,
The world's swift censure overtakes our steps
And hunts us through each persecuted change.
Where shelters Julian his condemned head?

Ang.
—Under the weeping skies! God turn their anger,
And o'er the houseless lull their storms to sleep!
Shall we go seek him? I have not a heart
So cased by artifice as to reflect
Good fortune's smiles and sicken at her frowns.
Those I write in the tablets of my love,
The hand of death alone shall wipe away!

Ant.
—I serve you in a cause so righteous.

Ang.
Come!

Exeunt.

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?

SCENE VI.

—A room in Lodoro's house.
Bianca discovered musing beside a harp—Enter Maria.
Mar.
—Ah, me! the misery of a hopeless sorrow!
O youth! what is thy strength? O beauty! where
Is all thy glory, when an angry breath
Of fortune withers up both power and pride?
Go to! you are but fancies of the brain!
This eye, that yesterday so brilliant was!—
This cheek, that in a flower-like beauty blossomed!—
How meaningless, how faded, how decayed!
This heart, that bounded with a million hopes,
Countless and gay, as waves on summer seas,
Young as the morning, lovely as the spring—
To day is old and withered up with care!
Go to, I say! all things below deceive us!
And there is nothing under the vast skies,
Robed in whatever colours it may be,
But is a gross deception and a fraud!—
But ah! how is my poor unhappy lady?

Bianca, coming forward.
Bia.
—Julian, why regret our wicked union?
It is no crime, on earth to wed those hearts
That, from the earliest ages of creation,
Nature had married in the halls of heaven.
Nay, do not frown so! It is worse than hell,
When they who once adored, turn round with hate
Upon the idol of their former love!

Mar.
—Alas! my lady!

Bia.
Is it tender hearted
T' upbraid the lovely weakness that was once
The diadem of all your happiness?
O fy! for shame! out on ungrateful man!
To pluck the spring-flower of our beauty thus,
And fling it on the winter blasts, to perish!

Mar.
—My lady!

Bia.
Monstrous! monstrous wickedness!
There's no depravity so boundless, but
Within man's breast, capacious for all evil,
Hath lodgment!—Oh! the very beasts have more
Than he, of nature's bounteous gratitude!
Who shares your sorrows, doubles all your joys?—
Woman! whose sole reward is your contempt!—
I tell you, hell holds nought so vile as man!

Mar.
—Oh! have you no religion?

Bia.
Yes, religion
Once, with a rainbow sympathy, could bind
My aspirations to eternity.
Then I was innocent—I had not loved!
Since I have dared the crime of loving—Julian!
The Eden of thy eyes is all the heaven,
The hope, the happiness left with this heart!
Thou art my girl Maria?

Mar.
Ay, my lady.

Bia.
—I bade you once bring flowers—you told me then,
There grew a pansie, called heart's-ease—Go, now,
I do beseech you! cull me some of these!

Mar.
—How feels my lady? Better now?

Bia.-
Ay, faith!
The flowers—and I shall soon be well again!
We'll hold a merry marriage feast to night!
Are my lord's wedding garments all arranged?
Go, bid him hasten—or I sadly fear
His rival, Death, will kiss the bride to night.
How strange that a presentiment of death
At times should haunt us in the midst of life!

Enter Mother.
Mar.
—Here comes your lady mother.

Mo.
Girl! how feel you?

Bia.
—At midnight, in the marble vault, we meet!

Mo.
—Bianca, have you then forgot your mother?

Bia.
—Do we forget the cold amidst the snow?
The heat i' the tropics, or the tempest in
The storm and whirlwind? Do we ever, ever,
Ever forget those who have injured us?

Mo!
—Maria, I observe she still upbraids
Her father and myself, yet constantly
Is kind and amiable to you who serve her.
This speaks more of deception than insanity.

Mar.
—Indeed, my lady, I must boldly say
You do her feelings such a violence,
By thrusting in her ear your arguments
In favour of the Barbarigo's suit—
I marvel not, her anger still pursues you.

Mo.
—I am rebuked! We must be temperate,
And not o'erstrain the duty of our children,
Or we may snap affection's strongest chords.
I have withstood her love for Julian, who,
Is but, in circumstance, a very beggar.
Yet, if we lose our darling child, how more—
How ten times more than beggars we should be!
Come, and consult with me of this, Maria.
Where lodges Julian?

Mar.
On the Isle of Ledo,
And half as mad as my poor lady.

Mo.
Come!

Exeunt Mother and Maria.
Bia.
—Upon the Isle of Ledo—half as mad!
Ye stars, that rule, or seem to rule our destinies!
I grow so mad of hopeless grief, that any
Uunnatural thing I did would show more wisdom
Than perishing so miserably slow!
I've loved, and lived, and suffered—and what more
Hath life, that I should not exchange for death?—
Except that the worst evil of our life
May mend—with death the evil is eternal!
What kind of woman have I grown, to argue
These awful mysteries in such cold blood?
I, who once gloried in the noonday sunshine
Of every joy, now plunge i'the darkest night
Of misery and despair!—Such is the lesson,
Bitter and cruel, that we learn of life!
Julian! If I must die, it shall be where
This heart may perish worthily—within
Thy arms!—Ye adverse fortunes! now I dare ye,
And laugh your most malignant powers to scorn!

Exit.

SCENE VII.

—A room in Barbarigo's Palace.
Barbarigo, Galeno.
Bar.
—Thou art acquainted, being a physician,
With many subtle remedies—Is there
No poison that can rid us of our foes?
The haunting phantom of detection scares you?

Gal.
—I know a chemical so deadly strong,
That 'ministered unto the doge, he'd fall,
Amidst th' assembled senate, dead to earth.

Bar.
—(Aside.
We never want our tools, however bad,
But we may hunt them out among mankind!)
You're poor?

Gal.
Our poverty bespeaks itself,
And, not like merit, needs be pointed out.

Bar.
—(Offering a purse.)
You understand this argument? 'tis heavy.

Gal.
—So is a murderer's conscience!

Bar.
Conscience? pooh!
When fortune so unconscionably leaves us,
Methinks, without great conscientious scruple,
We might shake hands with any accident
To mend our means. Come, I presume we have
Each others cue—except, like all the world,
You make a virtue of your villainy—
While mine is but my virtue—to the matter!
Why do you hesitate? Detection? Speak!
Or, by San Marco! if you dare my anger,
I'll bray your shaking bones in your own mortars,
And roast them in your own crucibles!

Gal.
My lord!
Remember you have placed your reputation
Somewhat incautiously within my power!

Bar.
—Dastard!

Gal.
Another word, and I alarm
The night guard!

Bar.
You escape me not, you villain!

Gal.
—Peace, or I give the alarm!

Bar.
Ha, ha! Galeno!
I did but test the metal of thy courage,
And find thee trusty—but, suppose I mention
To th' Inquisition somewhat of the chemical
That in th' assembled senate, would, without
Suspicion, slay the doge? Ha! have I caught you?
Come, sirrah! there was never yet a scoundrel
But might be mated in his villainy.
What? speak!

Gal.
My lord, I was not serious—

Bar.
—I am! and bent on Julian's life or yours.
Which do you estimate the dearest?

Gal.
How
Has he deserved this treachery?

Bar.
By vilely
Stealing upon the slumber of my fortunes,
In his too happy favour with a lady;
And rousing me to the dread consciousness,
That one, or both of us must surely die!

Gal.
—In such a way?

Bar.
Who yields his foe one inch
Of vantage, that he wisely might maintain—
May live with honor, but would die a fool.
We grow too wordy on this business.—See!
Your best reward (showing the purse)
and let it be enough,
Besides, that 'tis my pleasure Julian dies—
And, like each pleasure, I must pay for it.
Ha! you assent? That is, your poverty
Rebels against pride's nice considerations,
And thus we fall the victims of ourselves!
Go instantly—go in this very tune!
Speak to him from his father—feel his pulse—
Pronounce him feverish—prescribe a draught—
An anodyne—a strong potation, doctor!
One that requires no second dose—come, come!
When Julian sleeps, you slumber on a pillow,
So gilded that e'en conscience will not wake you.

Gal.
—You bind me by a double chain—and both
The links are strong ones—poverty and fear.

Bar.
—Ay, ay, and hope is stronger far than both!
Away then! and, remember, sir, the chemical!
The doge, the Inquisition! (Exit Galeno)
Fear is still
Our heaviest power upon the human mind,
From Rome to Iceland, over land and sea!

Exit.