Note 1178 — Chapter XIV

In every language, says Mr. Southey, probably, in the Quarterly Review, xxvii. 38, there is a magic of words as untranslatable as the Sesame in the Arabian tale,—you may retain the meaning, but if the words be changed the spell is lost. The magic has its effect only upon those to whom the language is as familiar as their mother tongue, hardly indeed upon any but those to whom it is really such. Camoens possesses it in perfection, it is his peculiar excellence.]