came back again. It advances. Other voices are heard, all advancing. In a short time, figures come hastily down the slope by the side of his cavern, looking over into the area before it as they descend. They enter. They are before him and about him. Some of them, in a Scandinavian habit, prostrate themselves at his feet, and address him in an unknown language. But these are sent away by another, who remains with none but two youths. Ronald has risen a little, and leans his back against the rock. One of the youths puts his arm between his neck and the rock, and half kneels beside him, turning his face away and weeping. "I am no god, nor a favourite of gods, as these people supposed me," said Ronald, looking up at the chief who was speaking to the other youth:-" if thou wilt dispatch me then, do so. I only pray thee to let the death be fit for a warrior, such as I once was." The chief appeared agitated. "Speak not ill of the gods, Ronald," said he, "although thou wert blindly brought up. A warrior like thee must be a favourite of heaven. I come to prove it to thee. Dost thou not know me? I come to give thee life for life." Ronald looked more steadfastly. It was the Scandinavian prince whom he had spared, because of his bride, in battle. He smiled, and lifted up his hand to him, which was intercepted and kissed by the youth who held his arm round his neck. "Who are these fair youths?" said Ronald, half turning his head to look in his supporter's face. "This is the bride I spoke of," answered the prince, " who insisted on sharing this voyage with me, and put on this dress to be the bolder in it." "And who is the other?" The other, with dried eyes, looked smiling into his, and intercepted the answer also.-" Who," said the sweetest voice in the world, can it be, but one?"-With a quick and almost fierce tone, Ronald cried out aloud " I know the voice;" and he would have fallen flat on the earth, if they had not all three supported him.

It was a mild return to Inistore, Ronald gathering strength all the way at the eyes and voice of Moilena, and the hands of all three. Their discovery of him was easily explained. The crews of the vessels, who had been afraid to come nearer, had repeatedly seen a figure on the island making signs. The Scandinavian priests related how they had left Ronald there, but insisted that no human being could live upon it, and that some God wished to manifest himself to his faithful worshippers. The heart of Moilena was quick to guess the truth. The prince proposed to accompany the priests. His bride and the destined bride of his saviour went with him, and returned as you heard; and from that day forth many were the songs in Inistore, upon the fortunes of the Perfect Hand and the kindness of the Perfect Voice. Nor were those forgotten, who forgot not others.

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Printed by C. H. REYNELL, No. 45, Broad-street, Golden-square, London.

THE INDICATOR.

There he arriving round about doth flie,
And takes survey with busie, curious eye:
Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly.

SPENSER.

No. XXI.-WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1st, 1820.

SCENES FROM AN UNFINISHED DRAMA.

THE following scenes are from a play which the Editor intended to write, and belonged to the more serious part of it. The rest he has retained for another purpose. The objects of the piece in general were to shew the character of an English gentleman in the time of Elizabeth; the manners at the same period of the Venetians, both rich and poor; and the generous struggle of a mother to suppress a passion she conceived for our countryman, who had saved her daughter from drowning. The accident, like the scheme of Pollexfen in Sir Charles Grandison, had been purposely contrived by a Venetian of darker character, Malipiero, as the only means of gaining the young lady's affection; but the Englishman was quicker to rescue her, and so threw him doubly aback. The incidents, or rather the dialogues, which took place immediately after this circumstance, occupy the scenes now laid before the reader. Vittoria and Fiammetta, the mother and daughter, are of a similar character for goodness and frankness; but the one is the more stately minded, the other sparkling and full of spirits. Candian, her granduncle, Sebastian, her brother, Molino, Contarini, and Malipiero, are Venetian gentlemen, the four first of different characters of sprightliness or warmth; the last an intelligent man like the rest, but of a violent and envious disposition. Vanni and Gregory are the servants of Candian and the Englishman. With Walter Herbert the Englishman, and indeed with most of the others, it is lucky perhaps that the author had nothing farther to do; for he intended him as one of those high and graceful spirits, in the best age of this country, who were admitted to the society of it's poets and other great men.

2nd Edition.

"For valour, is not Love a Hercules?"

CONTARINI. The Englishmen indeed, Sir, have graced us,
Not we the Englishmen. How instantly

Sebastian's friend laid himself out o' the boat,
Before our thoughts had time to find themselves,
And gave us back our pale one.

MOLINO.

Like a god

In his own element. 'Twas a strange thing,-
That sudden shock. I never knew the like
Happen before in Venice, though our gondolas
Serve us for every purpose of the road,

And pierce about like fish.

CONT.

It marred so too

The stately self-possession of the day,
Especially before our naval emulators.
How Malipiero's vexed!

MOL.

He seized directly

Piero, the gondolier, who is supposed

To have meant this mischief out of some revenge
Towards his good master; and conveyed him off
With his fierce fist against the scoundrel's throat.
CONT. That's settled then. Some singular punishment
Will mark this singular disgrace of Venice.

Yet though she had no drowning, takes on still,
Kissing my sister's hand, and cheek, and pressing her,

And then again turning to plenteous tears,

As if she wept for all that might have happened.
MOL. I have observed it so: the heart, as 'twere,
Takes pity on itself, and so turns fond

On it's own gentle nature.

Yes, when tears

SEB.
Come, as these do, seldom, and out of sweetness.
My dearest mother is of a true clay,

Much like her daughter; only former trouble-
The loss of a loved partner,-made her quit
The dance, and sit her down in a still patience,
Happy to see us nevertheless enjoy it.

She seldom weeps: but now that this rude shock
Has shaken up the long-collceting fountains,
She bathes her heart's great thirst.

I think his natural emulation chides him

For not being quicker than the Englishman.

CONT. He'll make it up to him with double praise.
This jealousy in noble spirits runs forth

For it's own self, only to turn again
With a new shape of ardour, and perform
Another's messages to fame more quickly.

SEB. It does so. I have heard my noble friend
Our visitor say, that spirits which have wings
Of muscular root enough to winnow up,
As they go on, the petty from the great,
Find something more successful than success
Itself, or rather than the name of it,—
Succeeding most where they most realize
Their own calm world of beauty, and inspire
A self-divested sense of it in others:

Like odour-wafting airs in summer-time,

In which the odour's praised, though not the air.

CAND. 'Tis wondered at by some, that Piero escaped;

And certainly 'tis strange, especially

As his own tribe are jealous of their fame,

And fall, like clamorous birds, upon foul play.
Yet as to what concerns our anxious friend,
Who is to wonder, that a spirit like his,
Unused to keep constrained it's very thoughts,
Should let his generous hand forget it's hold,
And find it a bad jail.

CONT.

Who, Sir, indeed?

But we'll detain you, gentlemen, no longer

From our fair friends; pray tell them of our joy,

And willing envy of the Englishman.

CAND. Nay we will praise, and thank him, but not envy. We can afford, I hope, to let a foreigner

Plunge in our waters for a lady's sake,

Without making the windows stare the wider,
And lift their stony brows up in astonishment.
But he's a gallant fellow, and we'll tell him so.

SCENE.-The front of the Candian Palace.

Enter GREGORY.

GREGORY. This comes of travelling. It seems all a dream. I'm not sure that I sha'n't wake and find myself in the arms of the dear old chair at the Bull. My master, whom it is impossible to resist, offers me to go with him; I consent; and so he ties me in a manner to his coat like a witch, and off I go; first scouring over the road to the sea-side; then rocking up and down, up and down, till I'm sick; then scouring away again; then dragged up mountains into the clouds, till my teeth chatter for fear and cold; then whew! down again like a flourish on paper; then jolted along, all unbuttoned for heat; then bitten till I could have got the sign of the comb to scratch me; or scraped acquaintance with a brick wall; or taken to the cunning custom of flogging myself for penance; or winced, and tumbled, and beaten myself and the very air about me, like a shirt hung out to dry in a high wind:-then comes some more sea-rocking, and then says my master, "Now, Gregory, we land for good:"-thinks I, looking about me, and seeing nothing but canals for streets, and houses standing out of them like so many cows in a pond, I hope we don't land for evil and I had scarcely thought the word, when we took to boating it again, and hey! presto! down goes that Will-o'-the-wisp, my master, souse over head and ears after a fish in petticoats.

Enter VANNI.

VANNI. Well, Gregory, this is a strange unaccountable circumstance, isn't it!

GREG. What, a fall in the water! not half so strange to me, Vanni, as that you Venetians will have so much water to fall in.

VAN. If we hadn't so much water to fall in, we shouldn't have so much love to fall in. Our shews and our shews-off by day, our gondolas, and our serenades, what should we do without them? And the water causes or sweetens them all. You'll hear guitars to-night twinkling about like stars. I won my mistress's heart by a plunge higher than was known before into the River of Song!

GREG. How these Venetians do talk! Guitars twinkling about like stars! and a plunge into the River of Song! there's a name for a canal! It's fine talking, and sometimes puts me in mind of my master's friends, Master Shakspeare and the others at the Mermaid; but what name comes home to me like the manly and natural one of Fleet Ditch!

VAN. You seem sad, Gregory. We shall cheer you up before long. We have every thing here to make a man merry,-rowing, laughing, sunshine, music, women, every thing.

GREG. No, Sir,-no, Sir,-you haven't my wife and Bunhill-fields.

VAN. There's plenty of fields over the water, and as to your wife, my dear Gregory, I never heard you talk much about her before. Besides, she told should be quite happy, you know; and she looked so.

you she GREG. Ah, Sir, and then you pretend that the English women are not so chearful as your's. Oh, I never loved my wife more than now I am in the thick of 'em. Oh, how I loved her during the squall at sea! and how prodigiously I did love her, when I thought I should have broken my neck on the top of the Alps! I hope, Sir, you found your intended as well as could be expected after your absence.

VAN. Better than ever: as hearty as you'll find your wife, Gregory:-but how formal and ceremonious you seem to think it necessary to be in your pathetics. Come, man, I'll shew you the lions, as you used to say, and keep my word better too, as far as stone lions can go; and then I'll introduce you to Momola. She'll rouse your spirits for you. We'll cross the way to St. Mark's. Bartolo, there! Hallo! Mind the canal, Gregory, you'll run over the parapet.

GREG. Lord! the very dangers in this place have nothing Christian about them! We can't even be run over by a horse, but must be warned how a parapet is run over by a man.

VAN. We'll go round by the bridge if you prefer it, Gregory.

GREG. Ah, do.

VAN. Never mind, then, Bartolo, this time.

GREG. Perhaps I shall have the pleasure of meeting with some dust. [Exeunt.

SCENE. An apartment in the Palace Candian. VITTORIA and FIAMMETTA sitting together, with books, music, and flowers about them; the former with her face towards a looking-glass, adjusting something about her head.

FIAM. My dear, dear mother, let me make you merry again.

I'm merry.

VIT.

Be so, child, be so, dear child.

FIAM. You see how stout I am; I'm drest before you.

'Twas but a kind of unexpected bath..

'Twas frightful to be sure; the sudden missing

Of one's dry senses, the deaf plunge and bubbling,

And wrapping up in heavy wateriness:

But now that it is past, somehow or other,
One feels the grander for it, and, poor soul!
Fancies one's accident a grand achievement!+
You're absent, mother! You're in the boat still!

VIT. No more of that, my love, I have you fast;
Your brother is come home, our noble bird,
Nobler than ever! What can I want more
To make me happy? I believe I want
Some pain to pinch away these foolish tears,
And make me, as before, give smile for smile.