[33] End of Act fifth.--B. Ravenne. May 27^th^ 1821. Mem.--I began the drama on the 13th of January, 1821, and continued the two first acts very slowly and at long intervals. The three last acts were written since the 13th of May, 1821 (this present month, that is to say in a fortnight). THE TWO FOSCARI:[34] AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY.[35] "The _father_ softens, but the _governor's_ resolved."--_Critic_.[36] [_The Two Foscari_ was produced at Drury Lane Theatre April 7, and again on April 18 and April 25, 1838. Macready played "Frances Foscari," Mr. Anderson "Jacopo Foscari," and Miss Helen Faucit "Marina." According to the _Times_, April 9, 1838, "Miss Faucit's Marina, the most energetic part of the whole, was clever, and showed a careful attention to the points which might be made." Macready notes in his diary, April 7, 1838 (_Reminiscences_, 1875, ii. 106): "Acted Foscari very well. Was very warmly received ... was called for at the end of the tragedy, and received by the whole house standing up and waving handkerchiefs with great enthusiasm. Dickens, Forster, Procter, Browning, Talfourd, all came into my room."] INTRODUCTION TO _THE TWO FOSCARI_ The _Two Foscari_ was begun on June 12, and finished, within the month, on July 9, 1821. Byron was still in the vein of the historic drama, though less concerned with "ancient chroniclers" and original "authorities" (_vide ante_, Preface to _Marino Faliero_, vol. iv. p. 332) than heretofore. "The Venetian play," he tells Murray, July 14, 1821, is "rigidly historical;" but he seems to have depended for his facts, not on Sanudo or Navagero, but on Daru's _Histoire de la République de Vénise_ (1821, ii. 520-537), and on Sismondi's _Histoire des Républiques ... du Moyen Age_ (1815, x. 36-46). The story of the Two Doges, so far as it concerns the characters and action of Byron's play, may be briefly re-told. It will be found to differ in some important particulars from the extracts from Daru and Sismondi which Byron printed in his "Appendix to the _Two Foscari_" (_Sardanapalus, etc._, 1821, pp. 305-324), and no less from a passage in Smedley's _Sketches from Venetian History_ (1832, ii. 93-105), which was substituted for the French "Pièces justificatives," in the collected edition of 1832-1835, xiii. 198-202, and the octavo edition of 1837, etc., pp. 790, 791.