Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/365

CANTO THE FOURTH.^[1]

I.

I stood in Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs;^[2]N1
⁠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:^[3]

1.  

   [Venice and La Mira on the Brenta.
   Copied, August, 1817.
   Begun, June 26. Finished, July 29th. MS. M.]

2. [Byron sent the first stanza to Murray, July 1, 1817, "the shaft of the column as a specimen." Gifford, Frere, and many more to whom Murray "ventured to show it," expressed their approval (Memoir of John Murray, i. 385).

   "'The Bridge of Sighs,'" he explains (i.e. Ponte de' Sospiri), "is that which divides, or rather joins, the palace of the Doge to the prison of the state." Compare The Two Foscari, act iv. sc. 1—

   ⁠"In Venice 'but's' a traitor.
   But me no 'buts,' unless you would pass o'er
   The Bridge which few repass."

   This, however, is an anachronism. The Bridge of Sighs was built by Antonio da Ponte, in 1597, more than a century after the death of Francesco Foscari. "It is," says Mr. Ruskin, "a work of no merit and of a late period, owing the interest it possesses chiefly to its pretty name, and to the ignorant sentimentalism of Byron" (Stones of Venice, 1853, ii. 304; iii. 359).]

3. [Compare Mysteries of Udolpho, by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, 1794, ii. 35, 36—

   "Its terraces crowned with airy yet majestic fabrics ...