The Bravo of Venice | Page 4

himself to keep probability in view; he amused himself with wild play of a fancy that delighted in the wonderful. The controversy over The Monk caused the young author to be known as Monk Lewis, and the word Monk has to this day taken the place of the words Matthew Gregory so generally, that many catalogue-makers must innocently suppose him to have been so named at the font. The author of The Monk came back from the Hague to be received as a young lion in London society. When he came of age he entered Parliament for Hindon, in Wiltshire, but seldom went to the House, never spoke in it, and retired after a few sessions. His delight was in the use of the pen; his father, although disappointed by his failure as a statesman, allowed him a thousand a year, and he took a cottage at Barnes, that he might there escape from the world to his ink-bottle. He was a frequent visitor at Inverary Castle, and was fascinated by his host's daughter, Lady Charlotte Campbell. Still he wrote on. The musical drama of The Castle Spectre was produced in the year after The Monk, and it ran sixty nights. He translated next Schiller's Kabale und Liebe as The Minister, but it was not acted till it appeared, with little success, some years afterwards at Covent Garden as The Harper's Daughter. He translated from Kotzebue, under the name of Rolla, the drama superseded by Sheridan's version of the same work as Pizarro. Then came the acting, in 1799, of his comedy written in boyhood, The East Indian. Then came, in the same year, his first opera, Adelmorn the Outlaw; then a tragedy, Alfonso, King of Castile. Of the origin of this tragedy Lewis gave a characteristic account. "Hearing one day," he said, "my introduction of negroes into a feudal baron's castle" (in The Castle Spectre) "exclaimed against with as much vehemence as if a dramatic anachronism had been an offence undeserving of benefit of clergy, I said in a moment of petulance, that to prove of how little consequence I esteemed such errors, I would make a play upon the Gunpowder Plot, and make Guy Faux in love with the Emperor Charlemagne's daughter. By some chance or other, this idea fastened itself upon me, and by dint of turning it in my mind, I at length formed the plot of Alfonso."
To that time in Lewis's life belongs this book, The Bravo of Venice; which was published in 1804, when the writer's age was twenty-nine. It was written at Inverary Castle, dedicated to the Earl of Moira, and received as one of the most perfect little romances of its kind, "highly characteristic of the exquisite contrivance, bold colouring, and profound mystery of the German school." In 1805 Lewis recast it into a melodrama, which he called Rugantino.
H.M.

THE BRAVO OF VENICE.

BOOK THE FIRST.


CHAPTER I
: VENICE.

It was evening. Multitudes of light clouds, partially illumined by the moonbeams, overspread the horizon, and through them floated the full moon in tranquil majesty, while her splendour was reflected by every wave of the Adriatic Sea. All was hushed around; gently was the water rippled by the night wind; gently did the night wind sigh through the Colonnades of Venice.
It was midnight; and still sat a stranger, solitary and sad, on the border of the great canal. Now with a glance he measured the battlements and proud towers of the city; and now he fixed his melancholy eyes upon the waters with a vacant stare. At length he spoke -
"Wretch that I am, whither shall I go? Here sit I in Venice, and what would it avail to wander further? What will become of me? All now slumber, save myself! the Doge rests on his couch of down; the beggar's head presses his straw pillow; but for ME there is no bed except the cold, damp earth! There is no gondolier so wretched but he knows where to find work by day and shelter by night--while _I_-- while _I_--Oh! dreadful is the destiny of which I am made the sport!"
He began to examine for the twentieth time the pockets of his tattered garments.
"No! not one paolo, by heavens!--and I hunger almost to death."
He unsheathed his sword; he waved it in the moonshine, and sighed, as he marked the glittering of the steel.
"No, no, my old true companion, thou and I must never part. Mine thou shalt remain, though I starve for it. Oh, was not that a golden time when Valeria gave thee to me, and when she threw the belt over my shoulder, I kissed thee and Valeria? She has deserted us for another world, but thou and I will never part in this."
He wiped away a drop which hung upon his eyelid.
"Pshaw! 'twas not