[PW] Mont Blanc quotation

[swguardian-wombat at yahoo.com]

The quote is a small portion (slightly altered) of a larger work written in 1763. The entire piece can be found in Bell's Classical Arrangement of Fugitive Poetry: 
 John Bell, 1790, Ethic Epistles, page 140 http://tinyurl.com/5nwmqg

Epistle XVII 

To The Worthy, Humane, Generous, Reverend, and Noble, 
Frederick Cornwallis
[Late Archbishop of Canterbury] 

By Sneyd Davies, D.D.
Written in the year M DCC LXIII

Allure to follow. What though steep the track ; 
Her mountain top will overpay, when climb'd
The scaler's toil ; her temple there was fine,,,,

Ted Nesbitt <tedjnesbitt at verizon.net> wrote: Hudson & Kennedy climbed Mont Blanc by a new route in 1855.  When asked if their view from the summit repaid their labour, they replied with the following quote:

"Though steep the track,
The mountain top will overpay, when climb'd
The scaler's toil."

The three lines are indented and placed in single quotation marks.  However, no attribution is given for the lines.

The same three lines appear in an earlier book about the same subject:  "Narrative of an Ascent to the Summit of Mont Blanc, on the Eight and Ninth of August, 1827," by John Auldjo, Esq. of Trinity College, Cambridge.  I have the second edition of this book, published in London, in 1830.

Auldjo's quotation differs from the other one only slightly: "mountain-top" is hyphenated.

He gives no credit to the original author, but he also puts the three lines in double quotation marks.

I have been trying to find the author, and it does NOT appear in "The Yale Bok of Quotations."

One internet reference "suggested" Sir Walter Scott, but my searching of Scott's works was futile.

Does anyone know the source of these lines?

Thanks.

Ted




Ted Nesbitt
Paul N. Elbin Library
West Liberty State College
West Liberty, WV - 26074

Office: (304) 336-8185
Fax:    (304) 336-8186

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