DON APOSTOLO.

Madam, you had Don Francisco Gazella put to death upon the scaffold. Don Francisco Gazella was maternal uncle to Don Alphonso of Aragon, your third husband, killed by your order on the stairs of St. Peter. I am Don Apostolo Gazella, cousin of the one and son of the other.

And now that we have told you our names, do you wish that we should tell you yours?

DONA LUCRECE.

No-no, my lords-not before him!

MAFFIO (taking off her mask).

Take off your mask, madam, so that one may see whether you can blush.

DON APOSTOLO.

That woman, Gennaro, to whom you were whispering love, is a murderess and an adultress.

JEPPO.

Incestuous in every degree-incestuous with her two brothers, one of whom slew the other for her love

DONA LUCRECE.

Pity!

ASCANIO.

Incestuous with her father, who is pope.

OLOFERNO.

A monster who would be incestuous with her children, if children she had; but Heaven refuses issue to such monsters.

DONA LUCRECE

Pity-pity, my lords!

MAFFIO.

Gennaro, would'st thou know her name?

LUCRECE (dragging herself to the knees of Gennaro). Listen not, my Gennaro!

MAFFIO (stretching out his arm).

It's Lucrèce Borgia!

Oh!

GENNARO (pushing her back).

(She falls, having fainted at his feet.)

Soon after this, Maffio, Jeppo, Ascanio, Oloferno, Don Apostolo, are sent by Venice on a special embassy to Ferrara, where Lucrèce Borgia holds her court, and Gennaro accompanies them, being the sworn brother in arms of Maffio d'Orsini.

The passions in action are the affection of Lucrèce for Gennaro--the jealous indignation of the Duc de Ferrara against Gennaro, whom he supposes, from what he saw at the mask of Venice, to be a loverand the vengeance of Lucrèce, who has determined to punish the young Venetian nobles who had insulted her.

Gennaro lays himself open to the duc's plans by the historical outrage of erasing the B from the front of the ducal palace, which left "orgia" engraved upon that part which Lucrèce inhabited.

The first act ends with a meeting between the two emissaries of the duc and the duchesse; the one seeking, as he supposes, a lover for Lucrèce, the other a victim for the duc. In the difficulty of reconciling the two missions, the bravoes decide by tossing up, whether Gennaro shall be adored or murdered. The duke's bravo gains.

The second act contains a most spirited scene between Lucrèce Borgia and her husband. Lucrèce having first passionately demanded vengeance on the person who had outraged her palace, as passionately

demands the offender's pardon on discovering the insult to have been offered by the young Gennaro. The duc, however, more and more confirmed in his jealousy, persists in his determination that death should be inflicted on the culprit, and only allows his wife to choose whether her supposed paramour should be stabbed or poisoned; on Lucrèce preferring the latter, the famous Borgia poison is served to Gennaro, who, however, believes himself pardoned—and the duc then, quitting the room, tells his wife that he gives her her lover's last quarter of an hour. Lucrèce, on finding herself alone with Gennaro, offers him an antidote for the poison he has taken-and there is a fine moment where he doubts whether the Duc de Ferrara has really poisoned him, or whether it is Lucrèce herself who wishes to do so. Finally, however, he swallows the antidote, and is warned by Lucrèce to quit Ferrara without delay. But I pass by the second act, which, however, is fully worthy of the reader's attention, in order to arrive at the third act, which closes the play, that opened with the insult given to Dona Lucrèce, at the masked ball at Venice, by a vengeance she takes for that insult at a supper at Ferrara. The five young Venetian nobleman have been invited by Lucrèce's order to an entertainment at the Negroni Palace, and Gennaro, whom he supposes distant from Ferrara, accompanies them thither.

ACT III.

OLOFERNO (his glass in his hand).

What wine like that of Xerès ?-Xerès of Frontera is a city of Paradise!

MAFFIO (his glass in his hand).

The wine that we drink, Jeppo, is better than any of your stories.

ASCANIO.

Jeppo has the misfortune to be a great teller of tales when he has drunk a little.

DON APOSTOLO.

The other day it was at Venice at his serene highness's the Doge Barbarigo's: to-day it is at Ferrara, at the divine Princess Negroni's.

JEPPO.

The other day it was a mournful tale; to-day it's a merry one.

MAFFIO.

A merry tale, Jeppo!-How happened it that Don Siliceo, a fine cavalier not more than thirty, after having gambled away his patrimony, married that rich Marquesa Calpurnia, who has counted forty-eight springs, to say the least of it? By the body of Bacchus, do you call that a gay story?

GUBETTA.

It's sad and trite-a man ruined who marries a woman in ruins; one sees it every day.

(He turns to the table. Some get up and come to the front of the scene during the continuance of the orgie.) THE PRINCESS NEGRONI (to Maffio, pointing to Gennaro.) You seem, D'Orsini, to have but a melancholy friend there.

MAFFIO.

He is always so, madam. You must pardon me for having brought him without an invitation; he is my brother in arms-he saved my life in an assault at Rimini; I received a thrust intended for him in the attack of the bridge of Vicenza: we never quit one another. A gipsy predicted we should die the same day.

THE NEGRONI (smiling).

Did the gipsy say that it was to be in the night or the morning?

MAFFIO.

He said that it should be in the morning.

THE NEGRONI.

Your Bohemian did not know what he was saying; and you are friends with that young man?

MAFFIO.

As much as one man can be with another.

THE NEGRONI.

Well, and you suffice one to the other: you are happy.

MAFFIO.

Friendship does not fill all the heart, madam.

THE NEGRONI.

My God! what does fill all the heart?

Love.

MAFFIO.

THE NEGRONI.

You have love always on your lips.

MAFFIO.

And you, madam, have love in your eyes.

THE NEGRONI.

You are very singular.

MAFFIO.

You are very beautiful!

(He puts his arm round her waist.) THE NEGRONI.

Monsieur Orsini!*

MAFFIO.

Give me, then, one kiss upon your hand.

No.

THE NEGRONI.

(She escapes.)

GUBETTA (approaching Maffio.)

Your business goes on well with the princess.

But in a woman's mouth "No" is the eldest brother to "Yes."

JEPPO (coming up to Maffio).

What do you think of the Princess Negroni ?

* The reader will observe that it is not my fault if the Count Orsını and the Princess Negroni behave a little too much like a young cantab and a Dover chambermaid.