THE WARNING. BEWARE! The Israelite of old, who tore The lion in his path-when, poor and blind, He saw the blessed light of heaven no more, Shorn of his noble strength, and forced to grind In prison, and at last fled forth to be A pander to Philistine revelry—, Upon the pillars of the temple laid His desperate hands, and in its overthrow Destroyed himself, and with him those who made A cruel mockery of his sightless woe; The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of all, There is a poor, blind Sampson in this land, Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel, Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies. THE SPANISH STUDENT. A PLAY IN THREE ACTS. What's done we partly may compute, BURNS. [The subject of the following Play is taken in part from the beautiful tale of Cervantes, La Gitanilla. To this source, however, I am indebted for the main incident only, the love of a Spanish student for a Gipsy girl, and the name of the heroine, Preciosa. I have not followed the story in any of its details. In Spain this subject has been twice handled dramatically; first by Juan Perez de Montalvan, in La Gitanilla, and afterwards by Antonio de Solis y Rivadeneira, in La Gitanilla de Madrid. The same subject has also been made use of by Thomas Middleton, an English gentleman of the seventeenth century. His play is called The Spanish Gipsy. The main plot is the same as in the Spanish pieces; but there runs through it a tragic underplot of the loves of Rodrigo and Dona Clara, which is taken from another tale of Cervantes, La Fuerza de la Sangre. The reader who is acquainted with La Gitanilla of Cervantes, and the plays of Montalvan, Solis, and Middleton, will perceive that my treatment of the subject differs entirely from theirs.] THE SPANISH STUDENT. ACT I. SCENE I.-The COUNT OF LARA's chambers. Night. The COUNT in his dressing-gown, smoking, and conversing with DON CARLOS. LARA. You were not at the play to-night, Don Carlos; How happened it? DON CARLOS. I had engagements elsewhere. Pray who was there? LARA. Why, all the town and court. And Dona Serafina, and her cousins. It was a dull affair; There were three duels fought in the first act, "O, I am dead!" a lover in a closet, An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan, Followed at twilight by an unknown lover, Who looks intently where he knows she is not! DON CARLOS.-Of course the Preciosa danced tonight? LARA. And never better. Every footstep fell I think the girl extremely beautiful. DON CARLOS. Almost beyond the privilege of woman! I saw her in the Prado yesterday. Her step was royal,-queen-like,-and her faco LARA.-May not a saint fall from her Paradise, DON CARLOS. Why do you ask? LARA. Because I have heard it said this angel fell, And, though she is a virgin outwardly, Within she is a sinner; like those panels Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary On the outside, and on the inside Venus! DON CARLOS.-You do her wrong; indeed you do her wrong! She is as virtuous as she is fair. LARA. How credulous you are! Why, look you, friend, There's not a virtuous woman in Madrid, me That a mere dancing-girl, who shows herself A model for her virtue? DON CARLOS. She is a Gipsy girl. LARA. The easier. You forget And therefore won |