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Sir Henry Taylor

ISAAC COMNENUS.

A PLAY.

SECOND EDITION.

TO THE

LORD MONTEAGLE OF BRANDON.

DEAR LORD MONTEAGLE,

When this work was first published, in the confidence of youth, I sent it into the world naked, to shift for itself, without name, preface, or dedication. It is in a different mood that I republish it now; and wishing to indicate my sense of its faults and deficiencies, I know not that I can do so in any better way than by dedicating it to one whose judgment in art is invariably tempered by a spirit of genial indulgence to all mankind, and whose indulgence is even more than proportionately kind in the case of those who have a domestic claim to his regard. Allow me therefore to commit this work to your protection, and thus to have the pleasure of linking a part of my life when I was unknown to you, with that happier portion of it which has elapsed since I have been allied with your family.

Believe me,

Sincerely and affectionately yours,

LADON HOUSE, MORTLAKE,

8th February, 1845.

HENRY TAYLOR.

Dramatis Personæ.

NICEPHORUS BOTONIATES, Emperor of the East.

THE PATRIARCH OF THE GREEK CHURCH.

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EUDOCIA COMNENA, Sister of the COMNENI.

ANNA COMNENA, Cousin of the COMNENI.

THEODORA, Daughter of the EMPEROR.

Monks, Acolytes, Citizens, Soldiers, Eunuchs, Eparchs,
Exorcist, &c. &c. &c.

SCENE-Constantinople and its environs.

TIME-The year of our Lord 1088.

ISAAC COMNENUS.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-The Palace of the Comneni.
ISAAC COMNENUS and MACRINUS.

Comnenus. It will not keep, Macrinus; in such things
There is a rotten ripeness supervenes
On the first moment of maturity.

Macrinus. I well believe, my lord, that more such schemes

Have failed from over-wariness than rashness,

Comnenus. Then be our last convention held to-night;

And see that all be summon'd.

Macrinus.

I'll look to it.

Comnenus. And I must to the palace.

Macrinus.

The worse errand.

Comnenus. It is unseasonable, but not dangerous.

I know Nicephorus well.

He'd rather that an accident befell me

In any place than there.

Macrinus.

I hope, my lord,

You put not too much trust in Theodora.

Comnenus. In her? No-little enough. I could

secure her,

But having not a stomach to the means,

I fain would fancy that I do not want her.

Here comes a lordling of her train. Good day.

H

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