Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY.
* * * * *
THE
BRAVO OF VENICE
A ROMANCE.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
BY
M. G. LEWIS.
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
1886.
INTRODUCTION.
MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS, who professed to have translated this romance out
of the German, very much, I believe, as Horace Walpole professed to have
taken _The Castle of Otranto_ from an old Italian manuscript, was born in
1775 of a wealthy family. His father had an estate in India and a post
in a Government office. His mother was daughter to Sir Thomas Sewell,
Master of the Rolls in the reign of George III. She was a young mother;
her son Matthew was devoted to her from the first. As a child he called
her “Fanny,” and as a man held firmly by her when she was deserted by her
husband. From Westminster School, M. G. Lewis passed to Christ Church,
Oxford. Already he was busy over tales and plays, and wrote at college a
farce, never acted, a comedy, written at the age of sixteen, _The East
Indian_, afterwards played for Mrs. Jordan’s benefit and repeated with
great success, and also a novel, never published, called _The Effusions
of Sensibility_, which was a burlesque upon the sentimental school. He
wrote also what he called “a romance in the style of _The Castle of
Otranto_,” which appeared afterwards as the play of _The Castle Spectre_.
With his mind thus interested in literature of the romantic form, young
Lewis, aged seventeen, after a summer in Paris, went to Germany, settled
for a time at Weimar, and, as he told his mother, knocked his brains
against German as hard as ever he could. “I have been introduced,” he
wrote, in July, 1792, “to M. de Goethe, the celebrated author of
_Werter_, so you must not be surprised if I should shoot myself one of
these fine mornings.” In the spring of 1793 the youth returned to
England, very full of German romantic tale and song, and with more paper
covered with wild fancies of his own. After the next Christmas he
returned to Oxford. There was a visit to Lord Douglas at Bothwell
Castle; there was not much academic work done at Oxford. His father’s
desire was to train him for the diplomatic service, and in the summer of
1794 he went to the Hague as attaché to the British Embassy. He had
begun to write his novel of _The Monk_, had flagged, but was spurred on
at the Hague by a reading of Mrs. Radcliffe’s _Mysteries of Udolpho_, a
book after his own heart, and he wrote to his mother at this time, “You
see I am horribly bit by the rage of writing.”
_The Monk_ was written in ten weeks, and published in the summer of 1795,
before its author’s age was twenty. It was praised, attacked, said by
one review to have neither originality, morals, nor probability to
recommend it, yet to have excited and to be continuing to excite the
curiosity of the public: a result set down to the “irresistible energy of
genius.” Certainly, Lewis did not trouble 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.
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 a tear; the night wind is sharp and bitter, and makes
the eyes water; but as for _tears_—Absurd! my weeping days are over.”
And as he spoke, the unfortunate (for such by his discourse and situation
he appeared to be) dashed his forehead against the earth, and his lips
were already unclosed to curse the hour which gave him being, when he
seemed suddenly to recollect himself. He rested his head on his elbow,
and sang mournfully the burthen of a song which had often delighted his
childhood in the castle of his ancestors.
“Right,” he said to himself; “were I to sink under the weight of my
destiny, I should be myself no longer.”
At that moment he heard a rustling at no great distance. He looked
around, and in an adjacent street, which the moon faintly enlightened, he
perceived a tall figure, wrapped in a cloak, pacing slowly backwards and
forwards.
“’Tis the hand of God which hath guided him hither—yes—I’ll—I’ll
_beg_—better to play the beggar in Venice than the villain in Naples; for
the beggar’s heart may beat nobly, though covered with rags.”
He then sprang from the ground, and hastened towards the adjoining
street. Just as he entered it at one end, he perceived another person
advancing through the other, of whose approach the first was no sooner
aware than he hastily retired into the shadow of a piazza, anxious to
conceal himself.
“What can this mean?” thought our mendicant. “Is yon eavesdropper one of
death’s unlicensed ministers? Has he received the retaining fee of some
impatient heir, who pants to possess the wealth of the unlucky knave who
comes strolling along yonder, so careless and unconscious? Be not so
confident, honest friend! I’m at your elbow.”
He retired further into the shade, and silently and slowly drew near the
lurker, who stirred not from his place. The stranger had already passed
them by, when the concealed villain sprang suddenly upon him, raised his
right hand in which a poniard was gleaming, and before he could give the
blow, was felled to the earth by the arm of the mendicant.
The stranger turned hastily towards them; the bravo started up and fled;
the beggar smiled.
“How now?” cried the stranger; “what does all this mean?”
“Oh, ’tis a mere jest, signor, which has only preserved your life.”
“What? my life? How so?”
“The honest gentleman who has just taken to his heels stole behind you
with true cat-like caution, and had already raised his dagger, when I saw
him. You owe your life to me, and the service is richly worth one little
piece of money! Give me some alms, signor, for on my soul I am hungry,
thirsty, cold.”
“Hence, scurvy companion! I know you and your tricks too well. This is
all a concerted scheme between you, a design upon my purse, an attempt to
procure both money and thanks, and under the lame pretence of having
saved me from an assassin. Go, fellow, go! practise these dainty devices
on the Doge’s credulity if you will; but with Buonarotti you stand no
chance, believe me.”
The wretched starving beggar stood like one petrified, and gazed on the
taunting stranger.
“No, as I have a soul to save, signor, ’tis no lie I tell you!—’tis the
plain truth; have compassion, or I die this night of hunger.”
“Begone this instant, I say, or by Heaven—”
The unfeeling man here drew out a concealed pistol, and pointed it at his
preserver.
“Merciful Heaven! and is it thus that services are acknowledged in
Venice?”
“The watch is at no great distance, I need only raise my voice and—”
“Hell and confusion! do you take me for a robber, then?”
“Make no noise, I tell you. Be quiet—you had better.”
“Hark you, signor. Buonarotti is your name, I think? I will write it
down as belonging to the second scoundrel with whom I have met in
Venice.”
He paused for a moment, then continuing in a dreadful voice, “And when,”
said he, “thou, Buonarotti, shalt hereafter hear the name of
_Abellino_—_tremble_!”
Abellino turned away, and left the hard-hearted Venetian.