Venice Preserved Part 1

Venice Preserved.

by Thomas Otway.

REMARKS.

This interesting tragedy owes its plot and plan to the Abbe de St.

Real's "_Histoire de la Conjuration de Marquis de Bedamar_," or account of the Spanish conspiracy at Venice, of which the Marquis de Bedamar, the amba.s.sador from Spain, was a promoter. Nature and the pa.s.sions are finely touched in this play; and it continues a favorite, deprived, as it now is in representation, of that mixture of vile comedy which originally diversified the tragic action. It has been remarked, that Belvidera is the only truly valuable character; and indeed the princ.i.p.al fault of this drama seems a want of sufficient and probable motive.

DRAMATIS PERSONae.

Drury Lane, 1814. Covent Garden, 1817.

Duke of Venice Mr. Carr. Mr. Creswell.

Priuli Mr. Powell. Mr. Egerton.

Bedamar Mr. J. Wallack. Mr. Connor.

Jaffier Mr. Rae. Mr. C. Kemble.

Pierre Mr. Elliston. Mr. Young.

Renault Mr. R. Phillips. Mr. Chapman.

Elliott Mr. Waldegrave. Mr. Hamerton.

Spinosa Mr. Elrington. Mr. Claremont.

Theodore Mr. J. West. Mr. King.

Durand Mr. Wallack. Mr. Grant.

Mezzana Mr. Buxton. Mr. Norris.

Officers { Messrs. Ray and Messrs. Jeffrey and { Cooke. Tooley.

Belvidera Miss Smith. Miss O'Neill.

Officers, Guards, Senators, Executioner, &c.

VENICE PRESERVED.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I. A STREET IN VENICE.

_Enter Priuli and Jaffier._

_Pri._ No more! I'll hear no more! Be gone and leave me.

_Jaf._ Not hear me! By my suffering, but you shall!

My lord, my lord! I'm not that abject wretch You think me. Patience! where's the distance throws Me back so far, but I may boldly speak In right, though proud oppression will not hear me?

_Pri._ Have you not wrong'd me?

_Jaf._ Could my nature e'er Have brook'd injustice, or the doing wrongs, I need not now thus low have bent myself To gain a hearing from a cruel father.

Wrong'd you?

_Pri._ Yes, wrong'd me! In the nicest point, The honour of my house, you've done me wrong.

You may remember (for I now will speak, And urge its baseness) when you first came home From travel, with such hopes as made you look'd on, By all men's eyes, a youth of expectation, Pleas'd with your growing virtue, I receiv'd you; Courted, and sought to raise you to your merits: My house, my table, nay, my fortune too, My very self, was yours; you might have us'd me To your best service; like an open friend I treated, trusted you, and thought you mine: When, in requital of my best endeavours, You treacherously practis'd to undo me.

_Jaf._ Yes, all, and then adieu for ever.

There's not a wretch, that lives on common charity, But's happier than me: for I have known The luscious sweets of plenty; every night Have slept with soft content about my head, And never wak'd, but to a joyful morning; Yet now must fall, like a full ear of corn, Whose blossom 'scap'd, yet's wither'd in the ripening.

_Pri._ Home, and be humble; study to retrench; Discharge the lazy vermin of thy hall, Those pageants of thy folly: Reduce the glitt'ring trappings of thy wife To humble weeds, fit for thy little state: Then, to some suburb cottage both retire; Drudge to feed loathsome life; get brats and starve-- Home, home, I say. [_exit._

_Jaf._ Yes, if my heart would let me-- This proud, this swelling heart: home I would go, But that my doors are baleful to my eyes, Fill'd and dam'd up with gaping creditors, Watchful as fowlers when their game will spring.

I've now not fifty ducats in the world, Yet still I am in love, and pleas'd with ruin.

Oh! Belvidera! Oh! she is my wife-- And we will bear our wayward fate together, But ne'er know comfort more.

_Enter Pierre._

_Pier._ My friend, good morrow; How fares the honest partner of my heart?

What, melancholy! not a word to spare me?

_Jaf._ I'm thinking, Pierre, how that d.a.m.n'd starving quality, Call'd honesty, got footing in the world.

_Pier._ Why, powerful villany first set it up, For its own ease and safety. Honest men Are the soft easy cushions on which knaves Repose and fatten. Were all mankind villains, They'd starve each other; lawyers would want practice, Cut-throats rewards: each man would kill his brother Himself; none would be paid or hang'd for murder.

Honesty! 'twas a cheat invented first To bind the hands of bold deserving rogues, That fools and cowards might sit safe in power, And lord it uncontrol'd above their betters.

_Jaf._ Then honesty is but a notion?

_Pier._ Nothing else; Like wit, much talk'd of, not to be defin'd: He that pretends to most, too, has least share in't.

'Tis a ragged virtue: Honesty! no more on't.

_Jaf._ Sure thou art honest!

_Pier._ So, indeed, men think me; But they're mistaken, Jaffier: I'm a rogue As well as they; A fine, gay, bold-fac'd villain as thou seest me.

'Tis true, I pay my debts, when they're contracted; I steal from no man; would not cut a throat To gain admission to a great man's purse, Or a wh.o.r.e's bed; I'd not betray my friend To get his place or fortune; I scorn to flatter A blown-up fool above me, or crush the wretch beneath me; Yet, Jaffier, for all this I'm a villain.

_Jaf._ A villain!

_Pier._ Yes, a most notorious villain; To see the sufferings of my fellow creatures, And own myself a man: to see our senators Cheat the deluded people with a show Of liberty, which yet they ne'er must taste of.

They say, by them our hands are free from fetters; Yet whom they please they lay in basest bonds; Bring whom they please to infamy and sorrow; Drive us, like wrecks, down the rough tide of power, Whilst no hold's left to save us from destruction.

All that bear this are villains, and I one, Not to rouse up at the great call of nature, And check the growth of these domestic spoilers, That make us slaves, and tell us, 'tis our charter.

_Jaf._ I think no safety can be here for virtue, And grieve, my friend, as much as thou, to live In such a wretched state as this of Venice, Where all agree to spoil the public good; And villains fatten with the brave man's labours.

_Pier._ We've neither safety, unity, nor peace, For the foundation's lost of common good; Justice is lame, as well as blind, amongst us; The laws (corrupted to their ends that make 'em) Serve but for instruments of some new tyranny, That every day starts up, t' enslave us deeper.