A bit of latin, greek, french, and olde englishe need spellchecked. this whole etext NEEDS spellchecked too!! Index needs checked! There is a on “pages” 110-111 that have LOTS of non-ascii characters. Many have the correct encode, but layout needs work!!! Scanned by Charles Keller withOmniPage Professional OCR softwaredonated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226. Contact Mike Lough LITERARY BLUNDERS A CHAPTER IN THE “HISTORY OF HUMAN ERROR” BYHENRY B. WHEATLEY, F.S.A. PREFACE.—- EVERY reader of The Caxtons_will remember the description,in that charming novel,of the gradual growth of AugustineCaxton’s great work “The Historyof Human Error,” and how, in fact, the existence of that work forms thepivot round which the incidents turn. It was modestly expected to extend tofive quarto volumes, but only the first seven sheets were printed by UncleJack’s Anti-Publishers’ Society, “with sundry unfinished plates depicting thevarious developments of the humanskull (that temple of Human Error),” and the remainder has not been heard of since. In introducing to the reader a smallbranch of this inexhaustible subject, I have ventured to make use of AugustineCaxton’s title; but I trust thatno one will allow himself to imagine that I intend, in the future, to produce the thousand or so volumes which willbe required to complete the work. A satirical friend who has seen theproofs of this little volume says it should be entitled “Jokes Old and New”; but I find that he seldom acknowledgesthat a joke is new, and I hope, therefore, my readers will transpose theadjectives, and accept the old jokes for the sake of the new ones. I may claim,at least, that the series of answers to examination questions, which Prof.Oliver Lodge has so kindly supplied me with, comes within the later class.

I trust that if some parts of thebook are thought to be frivolous, the chapters on lists of errata and misprints may be found to contain someuseful literary information. I have availed myself of the published communications of my friendsProfessors Hales and Skeat and Dr.Murray on Literary Blunders, andmy best thanks are also due to several friends who have helped me with somecurious instances, and I would specially mention Sir George Birdwood,K.C.I.E., C.SI.., Mr. Edward Clodd, Mr. R. B. Prosser, and Sir HenryTrueman Wood_.

CONTENTS.—-CHAPTER BLUNDERS IN GENERAL. PAGE Distinction between a blunder and a mistake– Long life of a literary blunder–Professor Skeat’s “ghost words”– Dr. Murray’s “ghost words”–MarriageService–Absurd etymology–Imaginary persons–Family pride–Fortunate blunders–Misquotations– Bulls from Ireland and elsewhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 CHAPTER II. BLUNDERS OF AUTHORS. Goldsmith–French memoir writers–Historians–Napier’s bones–Mr. Gladstone– Lord Macaulay–Newspaperwriters–Critics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

CHAPTER III. BLUNDERS OF TRANSLATORS. PAGE “Translators are traitors”–Amusing translations–Translations of names–Cinderella–“Oh that mine adversary had written a book”–Perversions of thetrue meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 CHAPTER IV. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL BLUNDERS. Watt’s Bibliotheca Britannica–Imaginary authors–Faulty classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 CHAPTER V. LISTS OF ERRATA. Early use of errata–Intentional blunders– Authors correct their books–Ineffectual attempts to be immaculate–Misprintsnever corrected. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 CHAPTER VI. MISPRINTS. Misprints not always amusing–ADictionary of Misprints–Blades’s_Shakspere and Typography_–Upper and lower cases–Stops–Byron–WickedBible–Malherbe–Coquilles–Hood’s lines–Chaucer–Misplacement of type . . . . . . . . . . . . .100

                     PAGECHAPTER VII.

SCHOOLBOYS’ BLUNDERS. Cleverness of these blunders–Etymological guesses–English as she is Taught–Scriptural confusions–Musical blunders–History and geography– How to question–ProfessorOliver Lodge’s specimens of answers to examination papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157 CHAPTER VIII. FOREIGNERS ENGLISH. Exhibition English–French Work on the Societies of the World–Hotel keepers’English–Barcelona Exhibition–Paris Exhibition of 1889–How to learn English– Foreign Guides in so called English–Addition to God save the King–Shenstone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .188 INDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215 LITERARY BLUNDERS. CHAPTER I. BLUNDERS IN GENERAL. THE words “blunder” and “mistake” are often treated assynonyms; thus we usuallycall our own blunders mistakes, and our friends style our mistakes blunders. In truth the class of blunders is a sub- division of the genus mistakes. Manymistakes are very serious in theirconsequences, but there is almost always some sense of fun connected with a blunder,which is a mistake usually caused by some mental confusion. Lexicographers statethat it is an error due to stupidity and carelessness, but blunders are often caused

by a too great sharpness and quickness. Sometimes a blunder is no mistake at all, as when a man blunders on the rightexplanation; thus he arrives at the right goal, but by an unorthodox road. Sir RogerL’Estrange says that “it is one thing to forget a matter of fact, and another to_blunder_ upon the reason of it.” Some years ago there was an article in the Saturday Review on “the knowledge necessary to make a blunder,” and thistitle gives the clue to what a blunder really is. It is caused by a confusion of twoor more things, and unless something is known of these things a blunder cannotbe made. A perfectly ignorant man has not sufficient knowledge to make a blunder. An ordinary blunder may die, and dono great harm, but a literary blunder often has an extraordinary life. Of literaryblunders probably the philological are the most persistent and the most difficult to kill. In this class may be mentioned (1) Ghost words, as they are called by Professor Skeat–words, that is, which have beenregistered, but which never really existed; (2) Real words that exist through a mis take;and (3) Absurd etymologies, a large division crammed with delicious blunders.

  1. Professor Skeat, in his presidential address to the members of the Philological Society in 1886, gave a most interesting account of some hundred ghost words, orwords which have no real existence. Those who wish to follow out this subject must refer to the Philological Transactions, but four specially curious instances may bementioned here. These four words are “abacot,” “knise,” “morse,” and “polien.” Abacot is defined by Webster as “the cap of state formerly used by English kings, wrought into the figure of two crowns”; but Dr. Murray, when he was preparingthe New English Dictionary, discovered that this was an interloper, and unworthy of a place in the language. It was found to be a mistake for by-cocket, which is the correct word. In spite of this exposureof the impostor, the word was allowed to stand, with a woodcut of an abacot,in an important dictionary published subsequently, although Dr. Murray’sremarks were quoted. This shows how difficult it is to kill a word which has once found shelter in our dictionaries. Knise is a charming word which firstappeared in a number of the Edinburgh Review in 1808. Fortunately for the fun of the thing, the word occurred in anarticle on Indian Missions, by Sydney Smith. We read, “The Hindoos havesome very strange customs, which it would be desirable to abolish. Some swing onhooks, some run knises through their hands, and widows burn themselves todeath.” The reviewer was attacked for his statement by Mr. John Styles, and he replied in an article on Methodism printed in the Edinburgh in the following year. Sydney Smith wrote: “Mr. Styles ispeculiarly severe upon us for not being more shocked at their piercing their limbs with knises . . . it is for us to explain the plan and nature of this terrible and unknownpiece of mechanism. A knise, then, is neither more nor less than a false print in the Edinburgh Review for a knife; andfrom this blunder of the printer has Mr. Styles manufactured this Ddalean instrumentof torture called a knise.” A similar instance occurs in a misprint of a passage of one of Scott’s novels, but here there is the further amusing circumstance that the etymology of the false word was settled to the satisfaction of some of the readers. In the majority of editions of The Monastery, chapter x., we read: “Hardened wretch(said Father Eustace), art thou but this instant delivered from death, and dost thou so soon morse thoughts of slaughter?” This word is nothing but a misprint of nurse; but in Notes and Queries twoindependent correspondents accounted for the word morse etymologically. One explained it as “to prime,” as when one primes a musket, from O. Fr. amorce, powder for the touchhole (Cotgrave), and the other by “to bite” (Lat. mordere), hence “to indulge in biting, stinging or gnawing thoughts of slaughter.” The latter writes: “That the word as a misprint should have beenprinted and read by millions for fifty years without being challenged and altered exceeds the bounds of probability.” Yet when the original MS. of Sir Walter Scott was consulted, it was found that the word was there plainly written nurse. The Saxon letter for th () has long been a sore puzzle to the uninitiated, and it came to be represented by the letter y. Most of those who think they are writing in a specially archaic manner when theyspell “ye” for “the” are ignorant of this, and pronounce the article as if it were the pronoun. Dr. Skeat quotes a curious instance of the misreading of the thorn ()as p, by which a strange ghost word is evolved. Whitaker, in his edition of Piers Plowman, reads that Christ “polede for man,” which should be tholede, from_tholien_, to suffer, as there is no such verb as polien. Dr. J. A. H. Murray, the learned editor of the Philological Society’s New English Dictionary, quotes two amusing instances of ghost words in a communication to_Notes and Queries_ (7th S., vii. 305). He says: “Possessors of Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary will do well to strike out the fictitious entry cietezour, cited from Bellenden’s Chronicle in the plural cietezouris, which is merely a misreading of cietezanis (i.e. with Scottish z = = y), cieteyanis orciteyanis, Bellenden’s regular word for citizens. One regrets to see this absurd mistake copied from Jamieson (unfortunately without acknowledgment) by thecompilers of Cassell’s Encyclopdic Dictionary.” “Some editions of Drayton’s BaronsWars, Bk. VI., st. xxxvii., read– “ `And ciffy Cynthus with a thousand birds,’ which nonsense is solemnly reproduced in Campbell’s Specimens of the British Poets, iii. 16. It may save some readers a needless reference to the dictionary to rememberthat it is a misprint for cliffy, a favourite word of Drayton’s.”
  2. In contrast to supposed words that never did exist, are real words that exist through a mistake, such as apron and adder, where the n, which really belongs to the word itself, has been supposed, mistakenly, to belong to the article; thus apron should be napron (Fr. naperon), and adder should be nadder (A.-S. nddre). An amusingconfusion has arisen in respect to the Ridings of Yorkshire, of which there are three. The word should be triding, but the t has got lost in the adjective, as West Triding became West Riding. The origin of the word has thus been quite lost sight of, and at the first organisation of the Province of Upper Canada, in 1798, the county ofLincoln was divided into four ridings and the county of York into two. York wasafterwards supplied with four. Sir Henry Bennet, in the reign ofCharles II., took his title of Earl of Arlington owing to a blunder. The proper name of the village in Middlesex isHarlington. A curious misunderstanding in theMarriage Service has given us two words instead of one. We now vow to remainunited till death us do part, but the original declaration, as given in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., was: “I, N., take thee N., to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, forbetter, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and tocherish, till death us depart [or separate].” It is not worth while here to register the many words which have taken their present spelling through a mistaken view of their etymology. They are too numerous, andthe consideration of them would open up a question quite distinct from the one now under consideration.
  3. Absurd etymology was once the rule, because guessing without any knowledgeof the historical forms of words was general; and still, in spite of the modern school of philology, which has shown usthe right way, much wild guessing continues to be prevalent. It is not, however,often that we can point to such a brilliant instance of blundering etymology as that to be found in Barlow’s English Dictionary (1772). The word porcelain is theresaid to be “derived from pour cent annes, French for a hundred years, it having been imagined that the materials were matured underground for that term of years.” Richardson, the novelist, suggests an etymology almost equal to this. Hewrites, “What does correspondence mean? It is a word of Latin origin: a compound word; and the two elements here broughttogether are respondeo, I answer, and cor, the heart: i.e., I answer feelingly, I reply not so much to the head as to the heart.” Dr. Ash’s English Dictionary, published in 1775, is an exceedingly useful work, as containing many words and forms of words nowhere else registered, but it contains some curious mistakes. The chief andbest-known one is the explanation of the word curmudgeon–“from the Frenchcur, unknown, and mechant, a correspondent.” The only explanation of thisabsurdly confused etymology is that an ignorant man was employed to copy fromJohnson’s Dictionary, where the authority was given as “an unknown correspondent,” and he, supposing these words to be atranslation of the French, set them down as such. The two words esoteric and_exoteric_ were not so frequently used in the last century as they are now; so perhaps there may be some excuse for the following entry: “Esoteric (adj. an incorrectspelling) exoteric.” Dr. Ash could not have been well read in Arthurian literature, or he would not have turned the nobleknight Sir Gawaine into a woman, “the sister of King Arthur.” There is a story of a blunder in Littleton’s Latin Dictionary, which further research has proved to beno mistake at all. It is said that when the Doctor was compiling his work, and announced the word concurro to his amanuensis, the scribe, imagining from the sound that the six first letters would give the translation of the verb, said “Concur, sir, I suppose?” to which the Doctorpeevishly replied, “Concur–condog!” and in the edition of 1678 “condog” is printed as one interpretation of concurro. Now, an answer to this story is that, however odd a word “condog” may appear,it will be found in Henry Cockeram’s English Dictionarie, first published in 1623. The entry is as follows: “to agree, concurre, cohere, condog, condiscend.” Mistakes are frequently made in respect of foreign words which retain their original form, especially those which retain their Latin plurals, the feminine singular being often confused with the neuter plural. For instance, there is the word animalcule (plural animalcules), also written animalculum (plural animalcula). Now, theplural animalcula is often supposed to be the feminine singular, and a new plural is at once made–animalcul. This blunderis one constantly being made, while it is only occasionally we see a supposed plural strat in geology from a supposed singular strata, and the supposed singular formulum from a supposed plural formula will probably turn up some day. In connection with popular etymology, it seems proper to make a passing mention of the sailors’ perversion of the Bellerophon into the Billy Ruffian, the Hirondelleinto the Iron Devil, and La BonneCorvette into the Bonny Cravat. Some of the supposed changes in public-housesigns, such as Bull and Mouth from“Boulogne mouth,” and Goat and Compasses from “God encompasseth us,” aremore than doubtful; but the Bacchanals has certainly changed into the Bag o’ nails, and the George Canning into the Georgeand Cannon. The words in the language that have been formed from a false analogy are so numerous and have so often beennoted that we must not allow them to detain us here longer. Imaginary persons have been broughtinto being owing to blundering misreading. For instance, there are many saintsin the Roman calendar whose individuality it would not be easy to prove. All know how St. Veronica came into being, and equally well known is the origin ofSt. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins. In this case, through the misreading ofher name, the unfortunate virgin martyr Undecimilla has dropped out of thecalendar. Less known is the origin of Saint Xynoris, the martyr of Antioch, who is noticed in the Martyrologie Romaine of Baronius. Her name was obtained by a misreadingof Chrysostom, who, referring to two martyrs, uses the word s> (couple orpair). In the City of London there is a church dedicated to St. Vedast, which is situated in Foster Lane, and is often described as St. Vedast, alias Foster. This has puzzled many, and James Paterson, in his Pietas Londinensis (1714), hazarded the opinion that the church was dedicated to “twoconjunct saints.” He writes: “At the first it was called St. Foster’s in memory of some founder or ancient benefactor,but afterwards it was dedicated to St. Vedast, Bishop of Arras.” Newcourtmakes a similar mistake in his_Reper torium, but Thomas Fuller knew the truth, and in his Church History refers to “St. Vedastus, anglice St. Fosters.” This is the fact, and the name St. Fauster or Foster is nothing more than a corruption of St. Vedast, all the steps of which we now know. My friend Mr. Danby P. Fryworked this out some years ago, but his difficulty rested with the second syllable of the name Foster; but the links in the chain of evidence have been completedby reference to Mr. H. C. Maxwell Lyte’s valuable Report on the Manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s. Thefirst stage in the corruption took place in France, and the name must have beenintroduced into this country as Vast. This loss of the middle consonant is inaccordance with the constant practice in early French of dropping out the consonant preceding an accented vowel, as_reine from regina. The change of Augustine to Austin is an analogousinstance. Vast would here be pronounced Vaust, in the same way as the word vase is still sometimes pronounced vause. The interchange of v and f, as in the cases of Vane and Fane and fox and vixen, is too common to need more than a passingnotice. We have now arrived at the form St. Faust, and the evidence of the olddeeds of St. Paul’s explains the rest, showing us that the second syllable has grown out of the possessive case. In one of8 Edward III. we read of the “King’s highway, called Seint Fastes lane.” Ofcourse this was pronounced St. Fausts,and we at once have the two syllables. The next form is in a deed of May 1360,where it stands as “Seyn Fastreslane.” We have here, not a final r as in the latest form, but merely an intrusive trill. This follows the rule by which thesaurus became treasure, Hebudas, Hebrides, and culpatus, culprit. After the great Fire of London, the church was re-named St. Vedast (alias Foster)–a form of the name which ithad never borne before, except in Latin deeds as Vedastus.[1] More might be said of the corruptions of names in the cases of other saints, but these corruptions are more the cause of blunders in others than blunders in themselves. It is not oftenthat a new saint is evolved with such an English name as Foster. [1] See an article by the Author in The Athenum,January 3rd, 1885, p. 15; and a paper by the Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson in the Jourral of the British Archological Association (vol. xliii.,p. 56). The existence of the famous St. Vitus has been doubted, and his dance (Chorea Sancti Vit) is supposed to have beenoriginally chorea invita. But the strangest of saints was S. Viar, who is thus accounted for by D’Israeli in his Curiosities ofLiterature:– “Mabillon has preserved a curiousliterary blunder of some pious Spaniards who applied to the Pope for consecrating a day in honour of Saint Viar. His Holiness in the voluminous catalogue of his saints was ignorant of this one. The only proof brought forward for his existence was this inscription:– S. VIAR. An antiquary, however, hindered one more festival in the Catholic calendar byconvincing them that these letters were only the remains of an inscription erected for an ancient surveyor of the roads; and he read their saintship thus:– [PREFECTV]S VIAR[VM].” Foreign travellers in England haveusually made sad havoc of the names of places. Hentzner spelt Gray’s Inn andLincoln’s Inn phonetically as Grezin and Linconsin, and so puzzled his editor that he supposed these to be the names of twogiants. A similar mistake to this was that of the man who boasted that “not all the British House of Commons, not the wholebench of Bishops, not even Leviticus himself, should prevent him from marrying hisdeceased wife’s sister.” One of the jokes in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn(ch. xxiii.) turns on the use of this same expression “Leviticus himself.” The picturesque writer who draws awell-filled-in picture from insufficient data is peculiarly liable to fall into blunders, and when he does fall it is not surprising that less imaginative writers shouldchuckle over his fall. A few years ago an American editor is said to have received the telegram “Oxford Music Hall burned to the ground.” There was not much information here, and he was ignorant of the fact that this building was inLondon and in Oxford Street, but he was equal to the occasion. He elaborated aremarkable account of the destruction by fire of the principal music hall ofacademic Oxford. He told how it was situated in the midst of historic colleges which had miraculously escaped destruction by the flames. These flames, fannedinto a fury by a favourable wind, lit up the academic spires and groves as theyran along the rich cornices, lapped the gorgeous pillars, shrivelled up the roof and grasped the mighty walls of theancient building in their destructive embraces. In 1882 an announcement was madein a weekly paper that some prehistoric remains had been found near the Churchof San Francisco, Florence. The note was reproduced in an evening paper andin an antiquarian monthly with words in both cases implying that the locality of the find was San Francisco, California. It is a common mistake of those who have heard of Grolier bindings to suppose that the eminent book collector was abinder; but this is nothing to that of the workman who told the writer of this that he had found out the secret of makingthe famous Henri II. or Oiron ware. “In fact,” he added, “I could make it as well as Henry Deux himself.” The idea of the king of France working in the potteriesis exceedingly fine. Family pride is sometimes the causeof exceedingly foolish blunders. The following amusing passage in Anderson’s_Genealogical History of the House of Yvery_ (1742) illustrates a form of pride ridiculed by Lord Chesterfield when he set up onhis walls the portraits of Adam de Stanhope and Eve de Stanhope. The having astutterer in the family will appear to most readers to be a strange cause of pride. The author writes: “It was usual in ancient times with the greatest families, and is by all genealogists allowed to be a mightyevidence of dignity, to use certain nicknames which the French call sobriquets . . .such as the Lame’ or the Black.’. . . The house of Yvery, not deficient in any mark or proof of greatness and antiquity, abounds at different periods in instances of this nature. Roger, a younger son ofWilliam Youel de Perceval, was surnamed Balbus or the Stutterer.” Sometimes a blunder has turned outfortunate in its consequences; and a striking instance of this is recorded in the history of Prussia. Frederic I. chargedhis ambassador Bartholdi with the mission of procuring from the Emperor of Germany an acknowledgment of the regaldignity which he had just assumed. It is said that instructions written in cypher were sent to him, with particular directions that he should not apply on this subject to Father Wolff, the Emperor’s confessor. The person who copied these instructions, however, happened to omit the word not in the copy in cypher. Bartholdi wassurprised at the order, but obeyed it and made the matter known to Wolff; who,in the greatest astonishment, declared that although he had always been hostile tothe measure, he could not resist this proof of the Elector’s confidence, which had made a deep impression upon him. It was thought that the mediation of the confessor had much to do with theaccomplishment of the Elector’s wishes. Misquotations form a branch of literary blunders which may be mentioned here. The text “He may run that readethit” (Hab. ii. 2) is almost invariably quoted as “He who runs may read”;and the Divine condemnation “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread’(Gen. iii. 19) is usually quoted as “sweat of thy brow.” The manner in which Dr. Johnsonselected the quotations for his Dictionary is well known, and as a general rulethese are tolerably accurate; but under the thirteenth heading of the verb tosit will be found a curious perversion of a text of Scripture. There we read,“Asses are ye that sit in judgement– Judges,” but of course there is no such passage in the Bible. The correct reading of the tenth verse of the fifth chapter is: “Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by theway.” From misquotations it is an easy step to pass to mispronunciations. These are mostly too common to be amusing, butsometimes the blunderers manage to hit upon something which is rather comic. Thus an ignorant reader coming upon a reference to an angle of forty-five degrees was puzzled, and astonished his hearersby giving it out as angel of forty-five degrees. This blunderer, however, wasoutdone by the speaker who described a distinguished personage “as a veryindefatgable young man,” adding, “but even he must succmb” (suck ‘um) at last. As has already been said, blunders are often made by those who are what weusually call “too clever by half.” Surely it was a blunder to change the time-honoured name of King’s Bench toQueen’s Bench. A queen is a femaleking, and she reigns as a king; the absurdity of the change of sex in thedescription is more clearly seen when we find in a Prayer-book published soonafter the Queen’s accession Her Majesty described as “our Queen and Governess.” Editors of classical authors are often laughed at for their emendations, but sometimes unjustly. When we consider the crop of blunders that have gatheredabout the texts of celebrated books, we shall be grateful for the labours of brilliant scholars who have cleared these awayand made obscure passages intelligible. One of the most remarkable emendations ever made by an editor is that ofTheobald in Mrs. Quickly’s description of Falstaff’s deathbed (King Henry V., act ii., sc. 4). The original is unintelligible:“his nose was as sharp as a pen and a table of greene fields.” A friend suggested that it should read “ ‘a talked,” andTheobald then suggested “ ‘a babbled,” a reading which has found its way into all texts,and is never likely to be ousted from its place. Collier’s MS. corrector turned the sentence into “as a pen on a table ofgreen frieze.” Very few who quote this passage from Shakespeare have any notion of how much they owe to Theobald. Sometimes blunders are intentionallymade–malapropisms which are understood by the speaker’s intimates, but oftenastonish strangers–such as the expressions “the sinecure of every eye,” “as white as the drivelling snow.”[2] Of intentional mistakes, the best known are those which have been called cross readings, in which the reader is supposed to read across the page instead of down the column of anewspaper, with such results as the following:– [2] See Spectator, December 24th, 1887, for specimens of family lingo. “A new Bank was lately opened atNorthampton– no money returned.” “The Speaker’s public dinners willcommence next week–admittance, 3/- to see the animals fed.” As blunders are a class of mistakes, so “bulls” are a sub-class of blunders. No satisfactory explanation of the word has been given, although it appears to beintimately connected with the wordblunder. Equally the thing itself has not been very accurately defined. The author of A New Booke of Mistakes, 1637, which treats of “Quips,Taunts, Retorts, Flowts, Frumps, Mockes, Gibes, Jestes, etc.,” says in his address to the Reader, “There are moreover othersimple mistakes in speech which pass under the name of Bulls, but if any man shall demand of mee why they be socalled, I must put them off with this woman’s reason, they are so because they bee so.” All the author can affirm isthat they have no connection with the inns and playhouses of his time styledthe Black Bulls and the Red Bulls. Coleridge’s definition is the best: “Abull consists in a mental juxtaposition of incongruous ideas with the sensation but without the sense of connection.”[3] [3] Southey’s Omniana, vol. i., p. 220. Bulls are usually associated with the Irish, but most other nations are quitecapable of making them, and Swift is said to have intended to write an essay onEnglish bulls and blunders. Sir Thomas Trevor, a Baron of the Exchequer 1625-49, when presiding at the Bury Assizes, had a cause about wintering of cattle before him. He thought the charge immoderate, andsaid, “Why, friend, this is most unreasonable; I wonder thou art not ashamed, forI myself have known a beast wintered one whole summer for a noble.” The man at once, with ready wit, cried, “That was a bull, my lord.” Whereat the companywas highly amused.[4] [4] Thoms, Anecdotes and Traditions, 1839, p 79 One of the best-known bulls is thatinscribed on the obelisk near Fort William in the Highlands of Scotland. In thisinscription a very clumsy attempt is made to distinguish between natural tracks and made roads:– “Had you seen these roads before they were made, You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.” The bulletins of Pope Clement XIV.’slast illness, which were announced at the Vatican, culminated in a very fair bull. The notices commenced with “His Holiness is very ill,” and ended with “HisInfallibility is delirious.” Negro bulls have frequently beenreported, but the health once proposed by a worthy black is perhaps as good aninstance as could be cited. He pledged “De Gobernor ob our State! He come in wid much opposition; he go out wid none at all.” Still, in spite of the fact that all nations fall into these blunders, and that, as it has been said of some, Hibernicis ipsis Hibernior, it is to Ireland that we look for the finest examples of bulls, and we do not usually look in vain. It is in a Belfast paper that may beread the account of a murder, the result of which is described thus: “They fired two shots at him; the first shot killedhim, but the second was not fatal.” Connoisseurs in bulls will probably say that this is only a blunder. Perhaps thefollowing will please them better: “A man was run down by a passenger train andkilled; he was injured in a similar way a year ago.” Here are three good bulls, which fulfil all the conditions we expect in this branch of wit. We know what the writer means,although he does not exactly say it. This passage is from the report of an IrishBenevolent Society: “Notwithstanding the large amount paid for medicine andmedical attendance, very few deaths occurred during the year.” A country editor’s correspondent wrote: “Will you please to insert this obituary notice? I make bold to ask it, because I know thedeceased had a great many friends who would be glad to hear of his death.” The third is quoted in the Greville Memoirs: “He abjured the errors of the RomishChurch, and embraced those of theProtestant.” It is said that the Irish Statute Book opens characteristically with, “An Actthat the King’s officers may travel by sea from one place to another within the land of Ireland”; but one of the main objects of the Essay on Irish Bulls, by MariaEdgeworth and her father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, was to show that the title of their work was incorrect. They find theoriginal of Paddy Blake’s echo in Bacon’s works: “I remember well that when Iwent to the echo at Port Charenton, there was an old Parisian that took it to be the work of spirits, and of good spirits; for,’ said he, call Satan, and the echo will not deliver back the devil’s name, but willsay, “Va-t’en.” ‘ ” Mr. Hill Burton found the original of Sir Boyle Roche’s bull of the bird which was in two places at once in a letter of a Scotsman–Robertson ofRowan. Steele said that all was the effect of climate, and that, if an Englishman were born in Ireland, he would make as manybulls. Mistakes of an equally absurd character may be found in English Actsof Parliament, such as this: “The new gaol to be built from the materials ofthe old one, and the prisoners to remain in the latter till the former is ready”; or the disposition of the prisoner’s punishment of transportation for seven years–“half to go to the king, and the other half to the informer.” Peter Harrison, anannotator on the Pentateuch, observed of Moses’ two tables of stone that they were made of shittim wood. This is not unlike the title said to have been used for a useful little work–“Every man his own Washer- woman.” Horace Walpole said that thebest of all bulls was that of the man who, complaining of his nurse, said, “I hate that woman, for she changed me atnurse.” But surely this one quoted by Mr. Hill Burton is far superior to Horace Walpole’s; in fact, one of the best ever conceived. Result of a duel–“The oneparty received a slight wound in the breast; the other fired in the air–andso the matter terminated.” After this the description of the wrongs of Ireland has a somewhat artificial look: “Her cup of misery has been overflowing, and is not yet full.” CHAPTER II. BLUNDERS OF AUTHORS. MACAULAY, in his life ofGoldsmith in the EncyclopdiaBritannica, relates that thatauthor, in the History of England, tells us that Naseby is in Yorkshire, and that the mistake was not corrected when thebook was reprinted. He further affirms that Goldsmith was nearly hoaxed intoputting into the History of Greece an account of a battle between Alexander the Great and Montezuma. This, however,is scarcely a fair charge, for the backs of most of us need to be broad enough tobear the actual blunders we have made throughout life without having to bearthose which we almost made. Goldsmith was a very remarkableinstance of a man who undertook to write books on subjects of which he knew nothing. Thus, Johnson said that if he could tell a horse from a cow that wasthe extent of his knowledge of zoology; and yet the History of Animated Nature can still be read with pleasure from the charm of the author’s style. Some authors are so careless in theconstruction of their works as to contradict in one part what they have already stated in another. In the year 1828 an amusingwork was published on the clubs ofLondon, which contained a chapter on Fighting Fitzgerald, of whom the authorwrites: “That Mr. Fitzgerald (unlike his countrymen generally) was totally devoid of generosity, no one who ever knew himwill doubt.” In another chapter on the same person the author flatly contradicts his own judgment: “In summing up thecatalogue of his vices, however, we ought not to shut our eyes upon his virtues; of the latter, he certainly possessed that one for which his countrymen have alwaysbeen so famous, generosity.” The scissors- and-paste compilers are peculiarly liable to such errors as these; and a writer in the Quarterly Review proved the Mmoires de Louis XVIII. (published in 1832) to be a mendacious compilation from the_Mmoires de Bachaumont_ by giving examples of the compiler’s blundering. Oneof these muddles is well worth quoting, and it occurs in the following passage: “Seven bishops–of Puy, Gallard deTerraube; of Langres, La Luzerne; of Rhodez, Seignelay-Colbert; of Gast, Le Tria; of Blois, Laussiere Themines; of Nancy, Fontanges; of Alais, Beausset; of Nevers, Seguiran.” Had the compiler taken the trouble to count his own list, he would have seen that he had giveneight names instead of seven, and so have suspected that something was wrong; buthe was not paid to think. The fact is that there is no such place as Gast, and there was no such person as Le Tria. The Bishop of Rhodez was Seignelay-Colbertde Castle Hill, a descendant of the Scotch family of Cuthbert of Castle Hill, inInverness-shire; and Bachaumont misled his successor by writing Gast Le Hill for Castle Hill. The introduction of a stopand a little more misspelling resulted in the blunder as we now find it.

Authors and editors are very apt to take things for granted, and they thus fall into errors which might have been escaped ifthey had made inquiries. Pope, in a note on Measure for Measure, informs us that the story was taken from Cinthio’s novel Dec. 8 Nov. 5, thus contracting the words decade and novel. Warburton, in his edition ofShakespeare, was misled by these contractions, and fills them up as December 8and November 5. Many blunders aremerely clerical errors of the authors, who are led into them by a curious association of ideas; thus, in the Lives of theLondonderrys, Sir Archibald Alison, when describing the funeral of the Duke ofWellington in St. Paul’s, speaks of one of the pall-bearers as Sir Peregrine Pickle, instead of Sir Peregrine Maitland. Dickens, in Bleak House, calls Harold SkimpoleLeonard throughout an entire number, but returns to the old name in a subsequent one. Few authors require to be more on their guard against mistakes than historians,especially as they are peculiarly liable to fall into them. What shall we think of the authority of a school book when we find the statement that Louis Napoleonwas Consul in 1853 before he became Emperor of the French? We must now pass from a book of small value to an important work on the history of England; but it will be necessary first to make a few explanatory remarks. Ourreaders know that English kings for several centuries claimed the power of curingscrofula, or king’s evil; but they may not be so well acquainted with the fact that the French sovereigns were believed to enjoy the same miraculous power. Such, however, was the case; and tradition reportedthat a phial filled with holy oil was sent down from heaven to be used for theanointing of the kings at their coronation. We can illustrate this by an anecdote of Napoleon. Lafayette and the first Consul had a conversation one day on the government of the United States. Bonapartedid not agree with Lafayette’s views, and the latter told him that “he was desirous of having the little phial broke over his head.” This sainte ampulle, or holyvessel, was an important object in the ceremony, and the virtue of the oil was to confer the power of cure upon the anointed king. This the historian could not haveknown, or he would not have written: “The French were confident in themselves, in their fortunes; in the specialgifts by which they held the stars.” If this were all the information that wasgiven us, we should be left in a perfect state of bewilderment while trying tounderstand how the French could hold the stars, or, if they were able to hold them, what good it would do them; butthe historian adds a note which, although it contains some new blunders, gives the clue to an explanation of an otherwiseinexplicable passage. It is as follows: “The Cardinal of Lorraine showed SirWilliam Pickering the precious ointment of St. Ampull, wherewith the King ofFrance was sacred, which he said was sent from heaven above a thousand years ago,and since by miracle preserved, through whose virtue also the king held lesestroilles.” From this we might imagine that the holy Ampulla was a person; butthe clue to the whole confusion is to be found in the last word of the sentence. As the French language does not containany such word as estroilles, there can be no doubt that it stands for old French_escroilles_, or the king’s evil. The change of a few letters has here made the mighty difference between the power of curingscrofula and the gift of holding the stars. In some copies of John Britton’s_Descriptive Sketches of Tunbridge Wells_ (1832) the following extraordinary passage will be found: “Judge Jefferies, a manwho has rendered his name infamous in the annals of history by the cruelty and injustice he manifested in presiding at the trial of King Charles I.” The book wasno sooner issued than the author became aware of his astonishing chronologicalblunder, and he did all in his power to set the matter right; but a mistake in print can never be entirely obliterated. However much trouble may be taken to suppressa book, some copies will be sure to escape, and, becoming valuable by theattempted suppression, attract all the more attention. Scott makes David Ramsay, in the Fortunes of Nigel (chapter ii.), swear “by the bones of the immortal Napier.” Itwould perhaps be rank heresy to suppose that Sir Walter did not know that“Napier’s bones” were an apparatus for purposes of calculation, but he certainly puts the expression in such an ambiguous form that many of his readers are likely to suppose that the actual bones ofNapier’s body were intended. Some of the most curious of blundersare those made by learned men who without thought set down something which atanother time they would recognise as a mistake. The following passage fromMr. Gladstone’s Gleanings of Past Years (vol. i., p. 26), in which the author confuses Daniel with Shadrach, Meshech, andAbednego, has been pointed out: “The fierce light that beats upon a throne is sometimes like the heat of that furnace in which only Daniel could walk unscathed,too fierce for those whose place it is to stand in its vicinity.” Who would expect to find Macaulay blundering on a subject he knew so well as the story of the_Faerie Queene_! and yet this is what he wrote in a review of Southey’s edition of the Pilgrim’s Progress: “Nay, even Spenser himself, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting. . . . One unpardonablefault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen. We become sick of Cardinal Virtues and DeadlySins, and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the persons who readthe first Canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the first book, and not one in ahundred perseveres to the end of the poem. Very few and very weary arethose who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast.”[5] Macaulay knew wellenough that the Blatant Beast did not die in the poem as Spenser left it. [5] Edinburgh Review, vol. liv. (1831), p. 452. The newspaper writers are great sinners, and what with the frequent ignorance and haste of the authors and the carelessness of the printers a complete farrago ofnonsense is sometimes concocted between them. A proper name is seldom givencorrectly in a daily paper, and it is a frequently heard remark that no notice of an event is published in which an error in the names or qualifications of the actors in it “is not detected by those acquainted with the circumstances.” The contributor of the following bit of information to the Week’s News (Nov. 18th, 1871) musthave had a very vague notion of what a monosyllable is, or he would not havewritten, “The author of Dorothy, De Cressy, etc., has another novel nearlyready for the press, which, with the writer’s partiality for monosyllabic titles, is named Thomasina.” He is perhaps the sameperson who remarked on the late Mr. Robertson’s fondness for monosyllablesas titles for his plays, and after instancing Caste, Ours, and School, ended his list with Society. We can, however, fly at higher game than this, for some twenty years ago a writer in the Times fell into the mistake of describing the entrance of one of the German states into the Zollverein in terms that proved him to be labouring underthe misconception that the great Customs- Union was a new organisation. Anothersource of error in the papers is the hurry with which bits of news are printed before they have been authenticated. Each editor wishes to get the start of hisneighbour, and the consequence is that they are frequently deceived. In a number ofthe Literary Gazette for 1837 there is a paragraph headed “Sir Michael Faraday,” in which the great philosopher iscongratulated upon the title which had been conferred upon him. Another source ofblundering is the attempt to answer an opponent before his argument is thoroughly understood. A few years ago agentleman made d note in the Notes and Queries to the effect that a certain custom was at least 1400 years old, and was probably introduced into England in the fifthcentury. Soon afterwards another gentleman wrote to the same journal, “Assuredlythis custom was general before A.D. 1400”; but how he obtained that date out of the previous communication no one can tell. The Times made a strange blunder in describing a gallery of pictures: “Mr.Robertson’s group of `Susannah and the Elders,’ with the name of Pordenone,contains some passages of glowing colour which must be set off against a good deal of clumsy drawing in the central figure of the chaste maiden.” As bad as this was the confusion in the mind of the critic of the New Gallery, who spoke of Mr Hall‘s_Paolo and Francesca_ as that masterly study and production of the old Adamphase of human nature which Miltonhit off so sublimely in the Inferno. A writer in the Notes and Queries_confused Beersheba with Bathsheba, and conferred on the woman the name of theplace. It has often been remarked that athorough knowledge of the English Bible is an education of itself, and acorrespondence in the Times in August 1888 shows the value of a knowledge of theLiturgy of the Church of England. In a leading article occurred the passage, “We have no doubt whatever that Scotchjudges and juries will administer indifferent justice.” A correspondent in Glasgow,who supposed indifferent to mean inferior, wrote to complain at the insinuationthat a Scotch jury would not do its duty. The editor of the Times had little difficulty in answering this by referring to the prayer for the Church militant, where are the words, “Grant unto her [theQueen’s] whole Council and to all that are put in authority under her, that they may truly and indifferently minister justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of Thy truereligion, and virtue.” The compiler of an Anthology madethe following remarks in his preface: “In making a selection of this kind one sails between Scylla and Charybdis–the hackneyed and the strange. I have done mybest to steer clear of both these rocks.” A leader-writer in a morning paper afew months ago made the same blunder when he wrote: “As a matter of fact, Mr. Gladstone was bound to bump againsteither Scylla or Charybdis.” It has generally been supposed that Scylla only was a rock. A most extraordinary blunder was made in Scientific American eight or ten years ago. An engraving of a handsome Chelseachina vase was presented with thefollowing description: “In England no regular hard porcelain is made, but a soft porcelain of great beauty is produced from kaolin, phosphate of lime,and calcined silica. The principal works are situated at Chelsea. The export ofthese English porcelains is considerable, and it is a curious fact that they arelargely imported into China, where they are highly esteemed. Our engravingshows a richly ornamented vase in soft porcelain from the works at Chelsea.” It could scarcely have been premised that any one would be so ignorant asto suppose that Chelsea china was still manufactured, and this paragraph is agood illustration of the evils of journalists writing on subjects about which they know nothing. Critics who are supposed to be immaculate often blunder when sitting in judgmenton the sins of authors. They arefrequently puzzled by reprints, and led into error by the disinclination of publishers to give particulars in the preface asto a book which was written manyyears before its republication. A few years ago was issued a reprint of the translation of the Arabian Nights, by Jonathan Scott, LL.D., which was firstpublished in 1811. A reviewer having the book before him overlooked thisimportant fact, and straightway proceeded to “slate” Dr. Scott for his supposedwork of supererogation in making a new translation when Lane’s held the field, the fact really being that Scott’s translation preceded Lane’s by nearly thirty years. Another critic, having to review areprint of Galt’s Lives of Players, complained that Mr. Galt had not brought his bookdown to the date of publication, being ignorant of the fact that John Galt died as long ago as 1839. The reviewer ofLamb’s Tales from Shakespeare committed the worst blunder of all when he wrotethat those persons who did not know their Shakespeare might read Mr.Lamb’s paraphrase if they liked, but for his part he did not see the use of suchworks. The man who had never heardof Charles Lamb and his Tales must have very much mistaken his vocation when heset up as a literary critic. These are all genuine cases, but the story of Lord Campbell and his criticism of Romeo and Juliet is almost too good to be true. It is said that when the future Lord Chancellor first came to Londonhe went to the editor of the Morning Chronicle for some work. The editorsent him to the theatre. “Plain John” Campbell had no idea he was witnessinga play of Shakespeare, and he therefore set to work to sketch the plot of Romeo and Juliet, and to give the author a little wholesome advice. He recommended acurtailment in parts so as to render it more suitable to the taste of a cultivated audience. We can quite understand thatif a story like this was once set into circulation it was not likely to be allowed to die by the many who were glad to have alaugh at the rising barrister. CHAPTER III. BLUNDERS OF TRANSLATORS. THE blunders of translators are socommon that they have beenmade to point a moral in popularproverbs. According to an Italian saying translators are traitors (“I traduttori sono traditori”); and books are said to be done into English, traduced in French, and overset in Dutch. Colton, the author of Lacon, mentions a half-starved German at Cambridge named Render, who had been longenough in England to forget German, but not long enough to learn English. Thisworthy, in spite of his deficiencies, was a voluminous translator of his nativeliterature, and it became a proverbial saying among his intimates respecting a badtranslation that it was Rendered into English. The Comte de Tressan translated the words “capo basso” (low headland) in a passage from Ariosto by “Cap de CapoBasso,” on account of which translation the wits insisted upon calling him “Comte de Capo Basso.” Robert Hall mentions a comical stumble made by one of the translators of Plato, who construed through the Latin and notdirect from the Greek. In the Latin version hirundo stood as hirdo, and thetranslator, overlooking the mark of contraction, declared to the astonished world on the authority of Plato that the horse- lecch instead of the swallow was the harbinger of spring. Hoole, the translator ofTasso and Ariosto, was as confused in his natural history when he rendered “Icolubri Viscontei” or Viscontian snakes, the crest of the Visconti family, as “the Calabrian Viscounts.” As strange as this is the Frenchman’s notion of the presence of guns in thecanons’ seats: “L’Archevque de Cantorberyavait fait placer des canons dans les stalles de la cathdrale.” He quiteoverlooked the word chanoines, which he should have used. This use of a word similarly spelt is a constant source of trouble to the translator: for instance, a French translator of Scott’s Bride of Lammermuir left the first word of thetitle untranslated, with the result that he made it the Bridle of Lammermuir, “LaBride de Lammermuir.” Thevenot in his travels refers to the fables of Damn et Calilve, meaning the_Hitopodesa, or Pilpay’s Fables. His translator calls them the fables of the damned Calilve. This is on a par with DeQuincey’s specimen of a French Abb‘sGreek. Having to paraphrase the Greek words “” (Herodotuseven while Ionicizing), the Frenchman rendered them “Herodote et aussi Jazon,” thus creating a new author, one Jazon. In the Present State of Peru, a compilation from the Mercurio Peruano, P. Geronymo Roman de la Higuera is transformed into“Father Geronymo, a Romance of LaHiguera.” In Robertson’s History of Scotland the following passage is quoted from Melville’s Account of John Knox: “He was so active and vigorous a preacher that he was like to ding the pulpit into blads and fly out of it.” M. Campenon, the translator ofRobertson into French, turns this into the startling statement that he broke his pulpit and leaped into the midst of his auditors. A good companion to this curious “fact” may be found in the extraordinary tropeused by a translator of Busbequius, who says “his misfortunes had reduced him to the top of all miseries.” We all know how Victor Hugo transformed the Frith of Forth into the First ofthe Fourth, and then insisted that he was right; but this great novelist was in the habit of soaring far above the realm offact, and in a work he brought out as an offering to the memory of Shakespeare he showed that his imagination carried himfar away from historical facts. The author complains in this book that the muse ofhistory cares more for the rulers than for the ruled, and, telling only what is pleasant, ignores the truth when it is unpalatable to kings. After an outburst of bombasthe says that no history of England tells us that Charles II. murdered his brother the Duke of Gloucester. We should be sur prisedif any did do so, as that young man died of small-pox. Hugo, being totallyignorant of English history, seems to have confused the son of Charles I. with anearlier Duke of Gloucester (Richard III.), and turned the assassin into the victim. After these blunders Dr. Baly’s mentionof the cannibals of Nova Scotia instead of New Caledonia in his translation of Mller’s Elements of Physiology seems tame. One snare that translators are constantly falling into is the use of English words which are like the foreign ones, butnevertheless are not equivalent terms, and translations that have taken their place in literature often suffer from this cause; thus Cicero’s Offices should have been translated Duties, and Marmontel never intended to write what we understand by_Moral Tales_, but rather tales of manners or of fashionable life. The translators of Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible render the French ancien, ancient, and write of “Mr. Huet, the ancient Bishop of Avranch.” Theodore Parker, in translating a work by De Wette, makes the blunder of con vertingthe German word Wlsch, aforeigner (in the book an equivalent for Italian), into Welsh. Some men translate works in order tolearn a language during the process, and they necessarily make blunders. It musthave been one of these ignoramuses who translated tellurische magnetismus(terrestrial magnetism) as the magnetical qualities of Tellurium, and by his blunder causedan eminent chemist to test tellurium in order to find these magnetical qualities. There was more excuse for the Frenchtranslator of one of Sir Walter Scott’s novels who rendered a welsh rabbit (orrarebit, as it is sometimes spelt) into un lapin du pays de Galles. Walpole states that the Duchess of Bolton used to divert George I. by affecting to make blunders, and once when she had been to see Cibber’s play of Love’s Last Shift she called it La dernire chemise de l’amour. A liketranslation of Congreve’s Mourning Bride is given in good faith in the first edition of Peignot’s Manuel du Bibliophile, 1800, where it is described as L’pouse deMatin; and the translation which Walpole attributes to the Duchess of Bolton the French say was made by a Frenchmannamed La Place. The title of the old farce Hit or Miss was turned into Frapp ou Mademoiselle,and the Independent Whig into La Perruque Indpendanfe. In a late number of the LiteraryWorld the editor, after alluding to the French translator of Sir Walter Scottwho turned “a sticket minister” into “le ministre assassin,” gives from the_Bibliothque Universelle_ the extraordinarytranslation of the title of Mr. Barrie’s comedy, Walker, London, as Londres qui se promne. Old translators have played such tricks with proper names as to make them oftenunintelligible; thus we find La Rochefoucauld figuring as Ruchfucove; and in anold treatise on the mystery of Freemasonry by John Leland, Pythagoras is describedas Peter Gower the Grecian. This of course is an Anglicisation of the French Pythagore (pronounced like Peter Gore). Our versions of Eastern names are sodifferent from the originals that when the two are placed together there appears to be no likeness between them, and thedifferent positions which they take up in the alphabet cause the bibliographer aninfinity of trouble. Thus the original of Xerxes is Khshayarsha (the revered king), and Averrhoes is Ibn Roshd (son ofRoshd). The latter’s full name is Abul Walid Mohammed ben Ahmed ben Mohammed. Artaxerxes is in old PersianArtakhshatra, or the Fire Protector, and Darius means the Possessor. Althoughall these names–Xerxes, Artaxerxes, and Darius–have a royal significance, theywere personal names, and not titles like Pharaoh. It is often difficult to believe that translators can have taken the trouble to read their own work, or they surely would not let pass some of the blunders we meetwith. In a translation of Lamartine’s Girondins some courtly people aredescribed as figuring “under the vaults” of the Tuileries instead of beneath the arched galleries (sous ses voutes). This, however, is nothing to a blunder to be foundin the Secret Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV. and of the Regency (1824). The following passage from the originalwork, “Deux en sont morts et on dit publiquement qu’ils ont t empoisonns,” isrendered in the English translation to the confusion of common sense as “Two ofthem died with her, and said publicly that they had been poisoned.” This is not unlike the bull of the young soldier who, writing home in praise of the Indian climate, said, “But a lot of young fellows come out here, and they drinkand they eat, and they eat and they drink, and they die; and then they write hometo their friends saying it was the climate that did it.” Some authors have found that there is peril in too free a translation, thus Dotet was condemned on Feb. 14th, 1543, fortranslating a passage in Plato’s Dialogues as “After death you will be nothing at all.” Surely he who translated Dieu dfendl’adultre as God defends adultery morejustly deserved punishment! Guthrie, the geographical writer, who translateda French book of travels, unfortunately mistook neuvime (ninth) for neuvelle or neuve, and therefore made an allusion to the twenty-sixth day of the new moon. Moore quotes in his Diary (Dec.30th, 1818) a most amusing blunder of a translator who knew nothing of thetechnical name for a breakwater. He translated the line in Goldsmith’s Deserted Village, “As ocean sweeps the labour’d mole away, into “Comme la mer dtruit les travaux de la taupe.” D’Israeli records two comical translations from English into French. “Ainsidouleur, va-t’en “for woe begone is almost too good; and the man who mistook theexpression “the officer was broke” as meaning broke on a wheel and translatedit by rou made a very serious matter ofwhat was possibly but a small fault. In the translation of The Conscript by Erckmann-Chatrian, the old botcher isturned into the old butcher. Sometimes in attempting to correct asupposed blunder of another we fall into a very real one of our own. Thus a few years ago, before we knew so much aboutfolk-lore as we do now, we should very probably have pointed out that Cinderella’s glass slipper owed its existence to amisprint. Fur was formerly so rare and so highly prized that its use was restricted by sumptuary laws to kings, princes, and persons holding honourable offices. Inthese laws sable is called vair, and it has been asserted that Perrault marked thedignity conferred upon Cinderella by the fairy’s gift of a slipper of vair, a privilege confined to the highest rank of princesses. It is further stated that by an error of the printer vair was changed into verre. Now, however, we find in the various versions which have been collected of this favourite tale that, however much the incidents may differ, the slipper is almost invariably made of some rigid material, and in the earliest forms the unkind sisters cut their feet to make them fit the slipper. This unpleasant incident was omitted by Perrault, but he kept the rigid material and made the glass slipper famous. The Revisers of the Old Testament translation have shown us that the famous verse in Job, “Oh that mine adversaryhad written a book,” is wrong; but it will never drop out of our languageand literature. The Revised Version is certainly much more in accordance withour ideas of the time when the book was written, a period when authors could not have been very common:– “Oh that I had one to hear me! (Lo, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me;) And that I had the indictment which mine adversary hath written! Surely I would carry it upon my shoulder; I would bind it unto me as a crown.” Silk Buckingham drew attention to the fact that some translations of the Bible had been undertaken by persons ignorantof the idioms of the language into which they were translating, and he gave aninstance from an Arabic translation where the text “Judge not, that ye be notjudged” was rendered “Be not just to others, lest others should be just toyou.” The French have tried ingeniously to explain the difficulty contained in St. Matthew xix. 24, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle thanfor a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,” by affirming that the translators mistook the supposed word milos>, a rope,for mhlos>, a camel. The humours of translation are numerous, but perhaps the most eccentricexample is to be found in Stanyhurst’s rendering of Virgil, published in 1583. It is full of cant words, and reads like the work of a madman. This is a fairspecimen of the work:– “Theese thre were upbotching, not shapte, but partlye wel onward, A clapping fierbolt (such as oft, with rownce robel-hobble, Jove to the ground clattreth) but yeet not finished holye.” M. Guyot, translating some Latin epigrams under the title of Fleurs, Morales, etpigrammatiques, uses the singular forms Monsieur Zole and Mademoiselle Lycoris. The same author, when translating the letters of Cicero (1666), turns Pomponius into M. de Pomponne.

Pitt’s friend, Pepper Arden, Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice of theCommon Pleas and Lord Alvanley, was rather hot-tempered, and his name wasconsidered somewhat appropriate, but to make it still more so his friends translated it into “Mons. Poivre Ardent.” This reminds one of the Frenchman who toasted Dr. Johnson, not as Mr. Rambler, but as Mr. Vagabond. Tom Moore notices some amusing mis-translations in his Diary. MajorCartwright, who was called the Father of Reform (although a wit suggested thatMother of Reform would have been amore appropriate title), supposed that the Brevia Parliamentaria of Prynnestood for “short parliaments.” Lord Lansdowne told Moore that he was withLord Holland when the letter containing this precious bit of erudition arrived. Another story of Lord Lansdowne’s isequally good. His French servantannounced Dr. Mansell, the Master of Trinity, when he called, as “Matre desCrmonies de la Trinit.” Moore also relates that an account having appeared in the London papers of a row at the Stock Exchange, wheresome strangers were hustled, it appeared in the Paris papers in this form: “Mons. Stock Exchange tait chauff,” etc. There is something to be said in favour of the humorous translation of Magna est veritas et prevalabit–“Great is truth, it will prevail a bit,” for it is probably truer than the original. He who construed Csar’s mode of passing into Gaul_summa diligentia_, “on the top of the diligence,” must have been of an imaginative turn of mind. Probably the time willsoon come when this will need explanation, for a public will arise which knowsnot the dilatory “diligence.” The translator of Inter Calicemsupremaque labra as Betwixt Dover and Calais gave as his reason that Dover was Angli suprema labra. Although not a blunder nor apparently a joke, we may conclude this chapter with a reference to Shakespeare’s remarkabletranslation of Finis Coronat opus. Helena remarks in All’s well that Ends well (act iv., sc. 4):– “All’s well that ends well: still the fine’s the crown.” In the Second Part of King Henry VI. (act v., sc. 2) old Lord Clifford, just before he dies, is made to use the French translation of the proverb:– “La fin couronne les uvres.” In the first Folio we read:– “La fin corrone les eumenes.” CHAPTER IV. BIBLIOGRAPEIICAL BLUNDERS. THERE is no class that requiresto be dealt with more lenientlythan do bibliographers, for pitfalls are before and behind them. It isimpossible for any one man to see all the books he describes in a general bibliography; and, in consequence of the necessityof trusting to second-hand information, he is often led imperceptibly into gross error. Watt’s Bibliotheca Britannica is a most useful and valuable work, but, asmay be expected from so comprehensive a compilation, many mistakes have creptinto it: for instance, under the head of Philip Beroaldus, we find the followingtitle of a work: “A short view of the Persian Monarchy, published at the endof Daniel’s Works.” The mystery of the last part of the title is cleared up when we find that it should properly be read, “and of Daniel’s Weekes,” it being a work on prophecy. The librarian of the oldMarylebone Institution, knowing as little of Latin as the monk did of Hebrew whenhe described a book as having the beginning where the end should be, cataloguedan edition of sop’s Fables as “sopiarum’sPhdri Fabulorum.” Two blunders that a bibliographer isvery apt to fall into are the rolling of different authors of the same name intoone, and the creation of an author who never existed. The first kind we mayillustrate by mentioning the dismay of the worthy Bishop Jebb, when he found himself identified in Watt’s Bibliotheca withhis uncle, the Unitarian writer. Of the second kind we might point out thenames of men whose lives have beenwritten and yet who never existed. In the Zoological Biography of Agassiz,published by the Ray Society, there is an imaginary author, by name J. K. Broch,whose work, Entomologische Briefe, was published in 1823. This pamphlet isreally anonymous, and was written by one who signed himself J. K. Broch, is merely an explanation in the cataloguefrom which the entry was taken that it was a brochure. Moreri created an author, whom he styled Dorus Basilicus, out of