water in the pale sunbeam of human reason, as it was one which brought me in contact with a but they are very few; and their opinions, with-near connexion of his own, did no dishonor to that out enthusiasm or appeal to the passions, can connexion nor to me.

never gain proselytes-unless, indeed, they are I am not ignorant of Mr. Southey's calumnies on persecuted that, to be sure, will increase any- a different occasion, knowing them to be such, thing. which he scattered abroad on his return from

Mr. S. with a cowardly ferocity, exults over the Switzerland against me and others: they have done anticipated "death-bed repentance" of the objects him no good in this world, and, if his creed be the of his dislike; and indulges himself in a pleasant right one, they will do less in the next. What his "Vision of Judgment," in prose as well as verse, "death-bed" may be, it is not my province to full of impious impudence. What Mr. S.'s sensa- predicate: let him settle it with his Maker, as I tions or ours may be in the awful moment of leaving must do with mine. There is something at once this state of existence neither he nor we can pre- ludicrous and blasphemous in this arrogant scribbler tend to decide. In common, I presume, with most of all work sitting down to deal damnation and men of any reflection, I have not waited for a destruction upon his fellow-creatures, with Wat "death-bed" to repent of many of my actions, Tyler, the Apotheosis of George the Third, and the notwithstanding the "diabolical pride" which this Elegy on Martin the regicide, all shuffled together pitiful renegado in his rancour would impute to in his writing-desk. One of his consolations apthose who scorn him. Whether upon the whole pears to be a Latin note from the work of a Mr. the good or evil of my deeds may preponderate is Landor, the author of ". Gebir," whose friendship not for me to ascertain; but, as my means and for Robert Southey will, it seems, "be an honor to opportunities have been greater, I shall limit my him when the ephemeral disputes and ephemeral present defence to an assertion (easily proved, if reputations of the day are forgotten." I for one necessary), that I, "in my degree," have done neither envy him "the friendship," nor the glory in more real good in any one given year, since I was reversion which is to accrue from it, like Mr. Thelustwenty, than Mr. Southey in the whole course of his son's fortune in the third and fourth generation. shifting and turn-coat existence. There are several This friendship will probably be as memorable as actions to which I can look back with an honest his own epics, which (as I quotod to him ten of pride, not to be damped by the calumnies of a hire- twelve years ago in "English Bards") Porson said ling. There are others to which I recur with sorrow "would be remembered when Homer and Virgil are and repentance; but the only act of my life of forgotten, and not till then." For the present, I which Mr. Southey can have any real knowledge, leave him.

SARDANAPALUS;

A TRAGEDY.

ΤΟ

THE ILLUSTRIOUS GOETHE

A STRANGER PRESUMES TO OFFER THE HOMAGE

OF A LITERARY VASSAL TO HIS LIEGE LORD, THE FIRST OF EXISTING WRITERS
WHO HAS CREATED THE LITERATURE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY,

AND ILLUSTRATED THAT OF EUROPE.

THE UNWORTHY PRODUCTION WHICH THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO INSCRIBE TO HIM

IS ENTITLED
SARDANAPALUS.

PREFACE.

In this tragedy it has been my intention to follow the account of Diodorus Siculus: reducing it, how

IN publishing the tragedies of Sardanapalus and ever, to such dramatic regularity as I best could, the Two Foscari, I have only to repeat that they were and trying to approach the unities. I therefore not composed with the most remote view to the stage. suppose the rebellion to explode and succeed in one On the attempt made by the Managers in a for- day by a sudden conspiracy instead of the long war mer instance, the public opinion has been already of the history.

expressed.

With regard to my own private feelings, as it seems that they are to stand for nothing, I shall say nothing.

For the historical foundation of the compositions in question, the reader is referred to the Notes.

The Author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the other to approach the "unities;" conceiving that with any very distant departure from them, there may be poetry, but can be no drama. He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English literature; but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion, which, not very long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilized parts of it. But "Nous avons change tout cela," and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far from conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach his regular, or even irregular predecessors; he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formation of a structure however feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules whatsoever. Where he has failed the failure is in the architect, and not in the art

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

Men.-SARDANAPALUS, King of Nineveh, and
Assyria, &c.

ARBACES, the Mede, who aspired to the
Throne.

BELESES, a Chaldean and Soothsayer.
SALEMEMES, the King's Brother-in-law.
ALTADA, an Assyrian Officer of the
Palace.

PANIA.

ZAMES.

SFERO.

BALEA.

Women.-ZARINA, the Queen.

MYRRHA, an Ionian female Slave, and the Favorite of SARDANAPALUS. Women composing the Harem of SARDANAPALUS, Guards, Attendants, Chaldean Priests, Medes, &c., &c.

Scene-a Hall in the Royal Palace of Nineveh.