[Footnote 106:  “Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bluehn,” &c.]

[Footnote 107:  Among the imputed plagiarisms so industriously hunted out in his writings, this line has been, with somewhat more plausibility than is frequent in such charges, included,—­the lyric poet Lovelace having, it seems, written,

    “The melody and music of her face.”

Sir Thomas Brown, too, in his Religio Medici, says—­“There is music even in beauty,” &c.  The coincidence, no doubt, is worth observing, and the task of “tracking” thus a favourite writer “in the snow (as Dryden expresses it) of others” is sometimes not unamusing; but to those who found upon such resemblances a general charge of plagiarism, we may apply what Sir Walter Scott says, in that most agreeable work, his Lives of the Novelists:—­“It is a favourite theme of laborious dulness to trace such coincidences, because they appear to reduce genius of the higher order to the usual standard of humanity, and of course to bring the author nearer to a level with his critics.”]

[Footnote 108:  It will be seen, however, from a subsequent letter to Mr. Murray, that he himself was at first unaware of the peculiar felicity of this epithet; and it is therefore, probable, that, after all, the merit of the choice may have belonged to Mr. Gifford.]

* * * * *

Immediately after succeeded another note:—­

“Did you look out?  Is it Medina or Mecca that contains the Holy Sepulchre?  Don’t make me blaspheme by your negligence.  I have no book of reference, or I would save you the trouble.  I blush, as a good Mussulman, to have confused the point.

     “Yours, B.”

* * * * *

Notwithstanding all these various changes, the couplet in question stands at present thus:—­

    “Blest as the Muezzin’s strain from Mecca’s wall
    To pilgrims pure and prostrate at his call.”

In addition to his own watchfulness over the birth of his new poem, he also, as will be seen from the following letter, invoked the veteran taste of Mr. Gifford on the occasion:—­

LETTER 144.  TO MR. GIFFORD.

     “November 12. 1813.

     “My dear Sir,

“I hope you will consider, when I venture on any request, that it is the reverse of a certain Dedication, and is addressed, not to ‘The Editor of the Quarterly Review,’ but to Mr. Gifford.  You will understand this, and on that point I need trouble you no farther.

“You have been good enough to look at a thing of mine in MS.—­a Turkish story, and I should feel gratified if you would do it the same favour in its probationary state of printing.  It was written, I cannot say for amusement, nor ’obliged by hunger and request of friends,’ but in a state of mind from