The Bride of Abydos
) "with a matter in which I had been interested" (
Life of Byron
, p. 180, ed. 1830). Byron, imagining himself charged with plagiarism, wrote a somewhat angry reply, to which Gait answered by stating that the coincidence was not one of ideas, sentiment, or story, but of real fact. He received the above answer (
Life of Byron
, pp. 181, 182).
On this poem Byron seems to have been particularly sensitive. He is accused of borrowing the opening lines from Mignon's song in Goethe's
Wilhelm Meister
:
"Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen blühn?"