Age of Bronze, line 45—
"The new Sesostris, whose unharnessed kings."
Werner, act iii. sc. 3, lines 10, 11—
". . . while the knoll
Of long-lived parents."
Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza xcvi. lines 5, 6—
". . . is the knoll
Of what in me is sleepless."
(Byron is the authority for the use of "knoll" as a substantive.)
Or, compare the statement (see act i. sc. 1, line 213, sq.) that "A great personage . . . is drowned below the ford, with five post-horses, A monkey and a mastiff—and a valet," with the corresponding passage in Kruitzner and in Byron's unfinished fragment; and note that "the monkey, the mastiff, and the valet," which formed part of Byron's retinue in 1821, are conspicuous by their absence from Miss Lee's story and the fragment.
Space precludes the quotation of further parallels, and for specimens of a score of passages which proclaim their author the following lines must suffice:—
Act i. sc. 1, lines 163-165—
". . . although then
My passions were all living serpents, and
Twined like the Gorgon's round me."
Act iii. sc. 1, lines 264-268—
". . . sound him with the gem;
'Twill sink into his venal soul like lead
Into the deep, and bring up slime and mud.
And ooze, too, from the bottom, as the lead doth
With its greased understratum."
Did Byron write Werner, or was it the Duchess of Devonshire?
(For a correspondence on the subject, see Literature, August 12, 19, 26, September 9, 1899.)
