— 17—

order to be revenged on the Forty who refused to inflict condign punishment on the noble rake. The Doge enters into communication with Bertuccio, the head of a conspiracy against the nobles. One of the conspirators, Bertram, from motives of personal gratitude, wishing to save a certain senator from the impending fate, is weak enough to betray the plot. The Doge is executed as well as the plebean conspirators.

Thus the story. What has Byron made of it? In the first instance, we notice a technical incongruity in the two last scenes of the play(Act V, 3, 4) being contemporaneous. How are we to imagine that, after having listened to the long and declamatory speech which Faliero addresses„to Time and Eternity“, after having seen the executioner raise his sword for the fatal stroke, we in the following scene hear the people, gathered in the Piazza and the Piazetta, talk of those preparations for the execution which they can see through the grate, describing the very scene of which we were eye-witnesses a moment before?— Aunother technical defect is the twice appearing of the Dogaressa(II, 1 and V, 1, 2) without carrying the action forward, without influencing or explaining anything. But let that pass. ¹)

The weakness of the play lies chiefly in the absence of an adequate and sufficient motive for the Doge's criminal attempt, and in the want of psychological development of the characters. „Byron analysed them, he made them analyse themselves; but he did not make them show themselves“.(Macaulay, M. L. of L. B.). Neither can we discover a truly tragical confliet, or feel any deep and overwhelming effect of the catastrophe on the mind.

A drama, however, ought not to be read at school for the sake of the raw material only of which it is made up. In foreign as well as in national literature we give the preference to those masterpieces which, as real works of art, cultivate, ennoble and purify the mind. ¹⁶) We must therefore concur in the judgment of the English publie, who pronounced„Marino Faliero“ aà decided failure, when, much against Byron'’s intention and will, it is true, the tragedy was exhibited on the stage. We cannot afford time for works of doubtful or little value, when so many dramatic masterpieces solicit our care and attention. I, for my part, could not make up my mind to devote to Marino Faliero those precious hours which might be employed in reading and explaining Coriolanus or Macbeth. ¹⁷)

Of Byron's songs many are genuine pearls of lyric poetry, and their musical qualities have been well appreciated by our best composers. The general gloom of the poet's genius is.

¹⁵) V. Elze. Lord Byron, p. 413:„Das wunderbare Geheimnis des organischen Baues, in welchem aus dem Aufeinanderwirken der sämtlichen Charaktere— und nur dieser Charaktere!— mit innerer Notwendigkeit die Handlung, der Konftikt und die Katastrophe hervorgehen, ist Byron verschlossen geblieben.“

¹6) V. Des Friedrichs-Gymnasiums Lehrplan für den deutschen Unterricht. Cassel 1887. p. 20. The principles there laid down will apply to foreign as well as to national literature.

¹7) V. Münch, Bemerkungen über die franzüsische und englische Lectüre in den oberen Realclassen, p. 17.