I've heard of _heirs_ in sables--you have left none
To the deceased, so you would act the part 360
Of such. Well, sirs, your will be done! as one day,
I trust, Heaven's will be done too![bx]

_Chief of the Ten_. Know you, Lady,
To whom ye speak, and perils of such speech?

_Mar._ I know the former better than yourselves;
The latter--like yourselves; and can face both.
Wish you more funerals?

_Bar._ Heed not her rash words;
Her circumstances must excuse her bearing.

_Chief of the Ten_. We will not note them down.

_Bar._ (_turning to Lor., who is writing upon his tablets_).
What art thou writing,
With such an earnest brow, upon thy tablets?

_Lor._ (_pointing to the Doge's body_). That _he_ has paid me![83]

_Chief of the Ten_. What debt did he owe you? 370

_Lor._ A long and just one; Nature's debt and _mine_.[84]
[_Curtain falls_[85]

FOOTNOTES:

[34] {113}[The MS. of _The Two Foscari_ is now in the possession of
H.R.H. the Princess of Wales.]

[35] [Begun June the 12th, completed July the 9th, Ravenna,
1821.--_Byron MS_.]

[36] [_Gov._ "_The father softens--but the governor is fixed_."
_Dingle_. "Aye that antithesis of persons is a most established
figure."--_Critic_, act ii. sc. 2.

Byron may have guessed that this passage would be quoted against him,
and, by taking it as a motto, hoped to anticipate or disarm ridicule; or
he may have selected it out of bravado, as though, forsooth, the public
were too stupid to find him out.]

[at] ----_too soon repeated_.--[MS. erased.]

[37] {121}[It is a moot point whether Jacopo Foscari was placed on the
rack on the occasion of his third trial. The original document of the X.
(July 23, 1456) runs thus: "Si videtur vobis per ea quae dicta et lecta
sunt, quod _procedatur_ contra Ser Jacobum Foscari;" and it is argued
(see F. Berlan, _I due Foscari, etc._, 1852, p. 57), (1) that the word
_procedatur_ is not a euphemism for "tortured," but should be rendered
"judgment be given against;" (2) that if the X had decreed torture,
torture would have been expressly enjoined; and (3) that as the decrees
of the Council were not divulged, there was no motive for ambiguity. S.
Romanin (_Storia Documentata, etc._, 1853, iv. 284