PRESUMES TO OFFER THE HOMAGE
OF A LITERARY VASSAL TO HIS LIEGE LORD,
THE FIRST OF EXISTING WRITERS,
WHO HAS CREATED
THE LITERATURE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY,
AND ILLUSTRATED THAT OF EUROPE.
THE UNWORTHY PRODUCTION
WHICH THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO INSCRIBE TO HIM
IS ENTITLED

SARDANAPALUS.[2]

PREFACE

In publishing the following Tragedies[3] I have only to repeat, that
they were not composed with the most remote view to the stage. On the
attempt made by the managers in a former instance, the public opinion
has been already expressed. With regard to my own private feelings, as
it seems that they are to stand for nothing, I shall say nothing.

For the historical foundation of the following compositions the reader
is referred to the Notes.

The Author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the other
to approach, the "unities;" conceiving that with any very distant
departure from them, there may be poetry, but can be no drama. He is
aware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English literature;
but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion, which, not
very long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and is
still so in the more civilised parts of it. But "nous avons change tout
cela," and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far
from conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal precept or
example can at all approach his regular, or even irregular predecessors:
he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formation
of a structure, however feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules
whatsoever. Where he has failed, the failure is in the architect,--and
not in the art.

In this tragedy it has been my intention to follow the account of
Diodorus Siculus;[4] reducing it, however, to such dramatic regularity
as I best could, and trying to approach the unities. I therefore suppose
the rebellion to explode and succeed in one day by a sudden conspiracy,
instead of the long war of the history.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

MEN.

SARDANAPALUS, _king of Nineveh and Assyria, etc._

ARBACES, _the Mede who aspired