already existed in tradition, as matters of popular belief and interest, before Shakspeare and Sophocles made them familiar to the sympathy of all succeeding generations of mankind.

This story of the Cenci is indeed eminently fearful and monstrous: any thing like a dry exhibition of it on the stage would be insupportable. The person who would treat such a subject must increase the ideal, and diminish the actual horror of the events, so that the pleasure which arises from the poetry which exists in these tempestuous sufferings and crimes may mitigate the pain of the contemplation of the moral deformity from which they spring. There must also be nothing attempted to make the exhibition subservient to what is vulgarly termed a moral purpose. The highest moral purpose aimed at in the highest species of the drama, is the teaching the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, the knowledge of itself; in proportion to the possession of which knowledge, every

that whoever killed the Count Cenci deprived his treasury of a certain and copious source of revenue. Such a story, if told so as to present to the reader all the feelings of those who once acted it, their hopes and fears, their confidences and misgivings, their various interests, passions, and opinions, acting upon and with each other, yet all conspiring to one tremendous end, would be as a light to make apparent some of the most dark and secret caverns of the human heart. On my arrival at Rome I found that the story of the Cenci was a subject not to be mentioned in Italian society without awakening a deep and breathless interest; and that the feelings of the company never failed to incline to a romantic pity for the wrongs, and a passionate exculpation of the horrible deed to which they urged her, who has been mingled two centuries with the common dust. All ranks of people knew the outlines of this history, and participated in the overwhelming interest which it seems to have the magic of exciting in the human heart.human being is wise, just, sincere, tolerant I had a copy of Guido's picture of Beatrice and kind. If dogmas can do more, it is which is preserved in the Colonna Palace, well: but a drama is no fit place for the and my servant instantly recognised it as enforcement of them. Undoubtedly, no the portrait of La Cenci, person can be truly dishonoured by the act of another; and the fit return to make to the most enormous injuries is kindness and forbearance, and a resolution to convert the injurer from his dark passions by peace and love. Revenge, retaliation, atonement, are pernicious mistakes. If Beatrice had thought in this manner she would have been wiser and better; but she would never have been a tragic character: the few whom such an exhibition would have interested, could never have been sufficiently interested for a dramatic purpose, from the want of finding sympathy in their interest among the mass who surround them. It is in the restless and anatomising casuistry with which men seek the justification of Beatrice, yet feel that she has done what needs justification; it is in the superstitious horror with which they contemplate alike her wrongs and their revenge, that the dramatic character of what she did and

This national and universal interest which the story produces and has produced for two centuries and among all ranks of people in a great City, where the imagination is kept for ever active and awake, first suggested to me the conception of its fitness for a dramatic purpose. In fact it is a tragedy which has already received, from its capacity of awakening and sustaining the sympathy of men, approbation and success. Nothing remained as I imagined, but to clothe it to the apprehensions of my countrymen in such language and action as would bring it home to their hearts. The deepest and the sublimest tragic compositions, King Lear and the two plays in which the tale of Edipus is told, were stories which 1 The Papal Government formerly took the most extraordinary precautions against the publicity of facts which offer so tragical a demon stration of its own wickedness and weakness; so that the communication of the MS. had become, until very lately, a matter of some difficulty.

suffered, consists.

before death; this being esteemed by Catholics as essential to salvation; and she only relinquishes her purpose when she perceives that her perseverance would expose Beatrice to new outrages.

I have avoided with great care in writing this play the introduction of what is commonly called mere poetry, and I imagine there will scarcely be found a detached simile or a single isolated description, unless Beatrice's description of the chasm appointed for her father's murder should be judged to be of that nature.'

1

I have endeavoured as nearly as possible to represent the characters as they probably were, and have sought to avoid the error of making them actuated by my own conceptions of right or wrong, false or true: thus under a thin veil converting names and actions of the sixteenth century into cold impersonations of my own mind. They are represented as Catholics, and as Catholics deeply tinged with religion. To a Protestant apprehension there will appear something unnatural in the earnest and perpetual sentiment of the relations between God and men which pervade the tragedy of the Cenci. It will especially In a dramatic composition the imagery be startled at the combination of an un- and the passion should interpenetrate one doubting persuasion of the truth of the another, the former being reserved simply popular religion with a cool and deter- for the full development and illustration mined perseverance in enormous guilt. of the latter. Imagination is as the But religion in Italy is not, as in Protes-immortal God which should assume flesh tant countries, a cloak to be worn on particular days; or a passport which those who do not wish to be railed at carry with them to exhibit; or a gloomy passion for penetrating the impenetrable mysteries of our being, which terrifies its possessor at the darkness of the abyss to the brink of which it has conducted him. Religion coexists, as it were, in the mind of an Italian Catholic, with a faith in that of which all men have the most certain knowledge. It is interwoven with the whole fabric of life. It is adoration, faith, submission, penitence, blind admiration; not a rule for moral conduct. It has no necessary connection with any one virtue. The most atrocious villain may be rigidly devout, and without any shock to established faith, confess himself to be So. Religion pervades intensely the whole frame of society, and is according to the temper of the mind which it in habits, a passion, a persuasion, an excuse, a refuge; never a check. Cenci himself built a chapel in the court of his Palace, and dedicated it to St. Thomas the Apostle, and established masses for the peace of his soul. Thus in the first scene of the fourth act Lucretia's design in exposing herself to the consequences of an expostulation with Cenci after having administered the opiate, was to induce him by a feigned tale to confess himself

In

for the redemption of mortal passion. It
is thus that the most remote and the most
familiar imagery may alike be fit for
dramatic purposes when employed in the
illustration of strong feeling, which raises
what is low, and levels to the apprehen-
sion that which is lofty, casting over all
the shadow of its own greatness.
other respects, I have written more care-
lessly; that is, without an over-fastidious
and learned choice of words. In this
respect I entirely agree with those modern
critics who assert that in order to move
men to true sympathy we must use the
familiar language of men, and that our
great ancestors the ancient English poets
are the writers, a study of whom might
incite us to do that for our own age which
they have done for theirs. But it must be
the real language of men in general and
not that of any particular class to whose
society the writer happens to belong.
So much for what I have attempted; I
need not be assured that success is a very
different matter; particularly for one
whose attention has but newly been awak-
ened to the study of dramatic literature.

I endeavoured whilst at Rome to observe

1 An idea in this speech was suggested by a most sublime passage in "El Purgatorio de San which I have intentionally committed in the Patricio" of Calderon; the only plagiarism whole piece.

such monuments of this story as might be accessible to a stranger. The portrait of Beatrice at the Colonna Palace is admirable as a work of art it was taken by Guido during her confinement in prison. But it is most interesting as a just representation of one of the loveliest specimens of the workmanship of Nature. There is a fixed and pale composure upon the features she seems sad and stricken down in spirit, yet the despair thus expressed is lightened by the patience of gentleness. Her head is bound with folds of white drapery from which the yellow strings of her golden hair escape, and fall about her neck. The moulding of her face is exquisitely delicate; the eyebrows are distinct and arched: the lips have that permanent meaning of imagination and sensibility which suffering has not repressed and which it seems as if death scarcely could extinguish. Her forehead Is large and clear; her eyes which we are told were remarkable for their vivacity, are swollen with weeping and lustreless, but beautifully tender and serene. In the whole mien there is a simplicity and dignity which united with her exquisite loveliness and deep sorrow are inexpressibly pathetic. Beatrice Cenci appears to have been one of those rare persons in whom energy and gentleness dwell together without destroying one another: her nature was simple and profound. The crimes and miseries in which she was an actor and a sufferer are as the mask and the mantle in which circumstances clothed her for her impersonation on the scene of the world.

SCENE I.-AN APARTMENT IN
THE CENCI PALACE.

Enter COUNT CENCI, and CARDINAL
CAMILLO.

Camillo.

THAT matter of the murder is hushed up

The Cenci Palace is of great extent; and though in part modernised, there yet remains a vast and gloomy pile of feudal architecture in the same state as during the dreadful scenes which are the subject of this tragedy. The Palace is situated in an obscure corner of Rome, near the quarter of the Jews, and from the upper windows you see the immense ruins of Mount Palatine half hidden under their It needed all my interest in the conclave profuse overgrowth of trees. There is a To bend him to this point: he said

court in one part of the Palace (perhaps

If you consent to yield his Holiness Your fief that lies beyond the Pincian gate.

that you

that in which Cenci built the Chapel to Bought perilous impunity with your Thomas), supported by granite

St.

gold;

heart

That crimes like yours if once or twice | And reconcile thyself with thine own compounded Enriched the Church, and respited from | And with thy God, and with the offended world.

hell

An erring soul which might repent and How hideously look deeds of lust and

live:

But that the glory and the interest

Of the high throne he fills, little consist
With making it a daily mart of guilt
As manifold and hideous as the deeds
Which you scarce hide from men's re-

blood

Thro' those snow white and venerable hairs!

Your children should be sitting round

you now,

But that you fear to read upon their looks

Cenci. The third of my possessions The shame and misery you have written

volted eyes.

-let it go!

there.

Ay, I once heard the nephew of the Where is your wife? Where is your

Pope

Had sent his architect to view the ground,
Meaning to build a villa on my vines
The next time I compounded with his
uncle:

I little thought he should outwit me so!
Henceforth no witness-not the lamp

shall see

gentle daughter?

Methinks her sweet looks, which make all things else

Beauteous and glad, might kill the fiend
within you.

Why is she barred from all society
But her own strange and uncomplaining
wrongs?

That which the vassal threatened to Talk with me, Count,-you know I

divulge

mean you well.

Whose throat is choked with dust for I stood beside your dark and fiery youth Watching its bold and bad career, as

his reward.

The deed he saw could not have rated higher

Than his most worthless life:-it angers
me!

Respited me from Hell!-So may the
Devil

Respite their souls from Heaven.

doubt Pope Clement,

men

Watch meteors, but it vanished not-
I marked

Your desperate and remorseless man-
hood; now

Do I behold you in dishonoured age No Charged with a thousand unrepented crimes.

And his most charitable nephews, pray
That the Apostle Peter and the saints
Will grant for their sake that I long
enjoy

Strength, wealth, and pride, and lust,
and length of days

Yet I have ever hoped you would amend, And in that hope have saved your life three times.

Cenci. For which Aldobrandino owes you now

My fief beyond the Pincian-Cardinal,

Wherein to act the deeds which are the One thing, I pray you, recollect hence

So the next day his wife and daughter

Cenci.

Why, miserable?— No. I am what your theologians call And asked if I had seen him; and I Hardened; which they must be in

came

And vindicate that right with force or And but that there yet remains a deed

For you give out that you have half re- When I was young I thought of nothing formed me, else

Therefore strong vanity will keep you But pleasure; and I fed on honey sweets: Men, by St. Thomas! cannot live like

silent

If fear should not; both will, I do not

doubt.

All men delight in sensual luxury,

bees,

And I grew tired:-yet, till I killed a foe,

All men enjoy revenge; and most exult And heard his groans, and heard his

Over the tortures they can never feel-
Flattering their secret peace with others'

pain.

But I delight in nothing else. I love The sight of agony, and the sense of joy,

When this shall be another's, and that
mine.

And I have no remorse and little fear,
Which are, I think, the checks of other

men.

This mood has grown upon me, until

now

Any design my captious fancy makes
The picture of its wish, and it forms

none

But such as men like you would start to know,

children's groans,

Knew I not what delight was else on

earth,

Which now delights me little. I the rather

Look on such pangs as terror ill conceals,

The dry fixed eyeball; the pale quivering lip,

Which tell me that the spirit weeps
within

Tears bitterer than the bloody sweat of
Christ.

I rarely kill the body, which preserves,
Like a strong prison, the soul within
my power,

Wherein I feed it with the breath of fear

Is as my natural food and rest debarred For hourly pain.
Until it be accomplished.