Note 246 — CANTO THE FOURTH.
Reading edition
{200}[The view of the Venus of Medici instantly suggests the lines in the "Seasons" [the description of "Musidora bathing" in Summer]—
" ... With wild surprise, As if to marble struck, devoid of sense, A stupid moment motionless she stood: So stands the statue that enchants the world."
Hobhouse.
A still closer parallel to this stanza, and to Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanzas xlix., cxl., cxli., clx., clxi., is to be found in Thomson's Liberty, pt. iv. lines 131-206, where the "Farnese Hercules," the "Dying Gladiator," the "Venus of Medici," and the "Laocoon" group, are commemorated as typical works of art.]