Notes and Queries, Number 19, March 9, 1850 by Various
page 40 of 95 (42%)
page 40 of 95 (42%)
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Permit me to add two further plagiarisms or parallel passages on the subject of _Childe Harold_ to those already contributed by your valuable correspondent "Melanion." Mrs. Radcliffe (who I am informed was never out of England) is describing in her _Mysteries of Udolpho_, Chap. xvi. the appearance of Venice. "Its terraces, crowded with airy, yet majestic fabrics touched as they now were with the splendour of the setting sun, appeared as if they had been _called up from the Ocean by the wand of an enchanter_." In the 1st stanza of the 4th canto of _Childe Harold_ we have the well known lines-- "I stood in Venice on the bridge of sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand: I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand." In one of his letters Lord Byron tells us of his fondness for the above novel. Again in Kirke White's _Christiad_-- "The lyre which I in early days have strung, And now my spirits faint, and I have hung The shell that solaced me in saddest hour On the dark cypress--" May be compared with the last stanza but one of the 4th canto. |
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