_Byron._
In the _Jealous Lovers_ of Thomas Randolph, the following passage occurs,
which may possibly have suggested to Lord Byron the fearful curse he has
put into the mouth of Eve, in "the grand and tremendous drama of
_Cain_."[1]
"May perpetual jealousie
Wait on their beds, and poison their embraces
With just suspitions; may their children be
Deform'd, and fright the mother at the birth:
May they live long and wretched; all men's hate,
And yet have misery enough for pity:
May they be long a-dying--of diseases
Painful and loathsome," &c.
That exquisite stanza in the Third Canto of _Childe Harold_, "Even as a
broken mirror," &c., has been often admired. In Carew's poem, _The Spark_,
I find the following lines, which contain similar image:
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"And as a looking-glass, from the aspect,
Whilst it is whole, doth but one face reflect,
But being crack'd, or broken, there are shown
Many half faces, which at first were one;
So Love," &c.
To the coincidences which have been already pointed out regarding that
exquisite line in the _Bride of Abydos_:
"The mind, the music breathing from her face,"
the following from Carew may perhaps be added:
"The harmony of colours, features, grace,
Resulting airs (the magic of a face)
Of musical sweet tunes, all which combin'd,
To crown one sovereign beauty, lie confined
To this dark vault."--_Epitaph on the Lady S._
All will recollect the wonderful description of the shipwreck in _Don
Juan_; and more particularly the incidents so graphically related in
stanzas 52 and 53 of the Second Canto: to a part of which, the following
passage fro Lee's _Oedipus_ bears some resemblance:
"Methought I heard a voice,
Now roaring like the ocean, when the winds
Fight with the waves; now in a still small tone
Your dying accents fell, as wrecking ships,
After the dreadful yell, sink murm'ring down,
And bubble up a noise."
I have now before me a print of John, the first Lord Byron, engraved from a
painting in the collection of Lord Delaware; in which he is pourtrayed in
armour, with a truncheon in the left hand, and the _right arm bare_ to
above the elbow. Can this have suggested to Lord Byron the idea of
describing "Alp the renegade" as fighting with "the white arm bare," in the
_Siege of Corinth_?
Byron refers to Smollett as an authority for "blatant beast," apparently
forgetting that the figure originated with Spenser. Again, in a note to
_Don Juan_ respecting his use of the phrase "reformadoes," he remarks:
"The Baron Bradwardine, in _Waverley_, is authority for the word."
It occurs, however, in Ben Jonson, and may be found in Blount's
_Glossographia_; Phillips's _World of Words_, and other old dictionaries of
the same period.