SARDANAPALUS.
A TRAGEDY.
A STRANGER PRESUMES TO OFFER THE HOMAGE OF ALITERARY 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,
SAKDANAPALTJS.
PREFACE.
In publishing tlie following Tragedies,* I have only to repeat, that they were not composed withthe most remote view to the stage. On the attempt made by the managers in a former instance,the public opinion has been already expressed. With regard to my own private feelings, a 't seemsthat they are to stand for nothing, I shall say nothing.
For the historical foundation of the following compositions the reader is referred to the Notes.
The Author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the other to approach, “theunities conceiving that with any very distant departure from them, there may be poetry, but canbe no drama. He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English literature; but itis not a system of his own, being merely an opinion which, not very long ago, was the law of litera-ture throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilized parts of it. But “nous avons changetout cela ’’ and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far from conceiving thatanything’he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach his regular, or evenirregular, predecessors: he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formationof a structure, however feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules whatsoever. Where he hasfailed, the failure is in the architect—and not in the art.
First published in 1821.
[“ Sardanapalus ” and “ The Two Foscari.’H