[383] [Pierre is the hero of Otway's _Venice Preserved_. Shylock and the Moor stand where they did, but what of Pierre? If the name of Otway--"master of the tragic art"--and the title of his masterpiece--_Venice Preserved, or The Plot Discovered_ (first played 1682)--are not wholly forgotten, Pierre and Monimia and Belvidera have "decayed," and are memorable chiefly as favourite characters of great actors and actresses. Genest notes twenty revivals of the _Venice Preserved_, which was played as late as October 27, 1837, when Macready played "Pierre," and Phelps "Jaffier." "No play that I know," says Hartley Coleridge (Essays, 1851, ii. 56), "gains so much by acting as _Venice Preserved_.... Miss O'Neill, I well remember, made me weep with Belvidera; but she would have done the same had she spoken in an unknown tongue." Byron, who professed to be a "great admirer of Otway," in a letter to Hodgson, August 22, 1811 (_Letters_, 1898, i. 339, note 1), alludes to some lines from _Venice Preserved_ (act ii. sc. 3), which seem to have taken his fancy. Two lines spoken by Belvidera (act ii.), if less humorous, are more poetical-- "Oh, the day Too soon will break, and wake us to our sorrow; Come, come to bed, and bid thy cares Good night!"] [384] {332} [Compare _The Dream_, i.-- "The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh." The ideal personages of the poet's creations have the promise of immortality. The ideal forms which people his imagination transfigure and supplant the dull and grievous realities of his mortal being and circumstance; but there are "things" more radiant, more enchanting still, the "strong realities" of the heart and soul--hope, love, joy. But they pass! We wake, and lo! it was a dream.] [lf] _Denies to the dull trick of life_----.--[MS. erased.] [385] ["In youth I wrote because my mind was full, And now because I feel it growing dull." _Don Juan_, Canto XIV. stanza x. In youth the poet takes refuge, in the ideal world, from the crowd and pressure of blissful possibilities; and in age, when hope is beyond hope, he peoples the solitude with beings of the mind.] [lg] {333} _And this worn feeling_----.--[Editions 1816-1891.] [lh] / _springs_ \ _And, may be, that which_ { } ----.--[MS. M.] \ _spreads_ / [li] _Outshines our Fairies--things in shape and hue_.--[MS. M.] [lj] {334} ----_and though I leave behind_.--[MS. M.] [lk] _And make myself a home beside a softer sea_.--[MS. erased.] [ll] ----_to pine_ _Albeit is not my nature, and I twine_.--[MS. M. erased]