Literary Blunders.

LITERARY BLUNDERS .

( Continued from page 283 . ) RICHARD CUMBERLAND , great grandson of the illustrious ' Bishop of Peterborough , introduces in bis " Memoirs" the following whimsical erratum , which , he says , was printed by his friend George Fiulkncr , iu au issue of tha Dublin Journal . Faulkner was editor of this publication towards the close of the

last centory . "Erratum in onr last . —For His Grace the Duohesj of Dorset , read Her Grace the Duke of Dorset . " An Irishism once occurred in connection with that well-known essay ou " Irish Bulls , " by the Edgowoiths , for the title was included in a catalogue compiled by a French writer of works on Natural

History . A still greater blunder , however , was perpetrated by the astute directors of an Agricultural Society in the North of England , for they actually ordered several copies of the work , and were naturally disgusted to find that the title referred to creatures of the brain , and was not a dissertation on the bovine species . A very ridiculous erratum occurs in " Alison's lives of Lord

Castlereagh and Sir Charles Stewart . " In describing the great public funeral of tbo Duke of Wellington , the historian is made to say that "the pall was borne by the Marquis of Anglesea , the Marquis of Londonderry , Lord Gough , Lord Chambermere , and Sir Peregrine Pickle , " thus substituting tbe immortal Peregrine of Smollett ' s celebrated novel for Sir Peregrine Maitland , whioh was

the name intended . Bishop Thirlwell ( 1866 ) speaking of VictDr Hugo ' s last work says , " he there calls the Scotch national instrument the bug pipe . " Dr . Johnson , while compiling bis dictionary , sent a note to the Gentlemen's Magazine to inquire the etymology of the word Curmudgeon . Having obtained tbe desired information , he explained

ic in his work as follows : — " CURMUDGEON , S . vicious way of pronouncing Coeur Meohanr , " at the same time recording his obligation to an anonymous writer thus : — " An unknown correspondent . " Ash copied the word into his dictionary in the following manner : — " Curmudgeon , from the French cceur , ' unknown , ' and m & chant , ? correspondent . '"

Goldsmith , in his History of England , omits to mention the great plague and tbe great fire of London , two very serious blunders indeed . A curious error appears in the Dictionary of English Literature by W . D . Adams . Under the heading "Newspapers , " we learn that " the first English Provincial newspaper waa published at Birkenhead

in 1642 , " whereas it appears to have been really published at Oxford by Sir (?) John Berk s enhead . One day Thackeray , the novelist , was driving along an Irish road , at due intervals along the sides of whioh posts were set , with figures of distances and the initials G . P . 0 . Overtaking a peasant in a jaunting car , he inquired the significance of these initials . Tbe man

gravely informed him that they stood for " God Preserve 0 Connell !" Ont came the tourist ' s note-book , in which a memorandum was at once jotted down of the curious fact . In the first edition of the Sketches the fact was duly mentioned , but it was suppressed in all subsequent issnes , owing to the discovery that the initials stood for " General Post Office , " indicating that the highway was a

post-road . Thackeray ' s dislike to the trouble of revision causes him to have committed many trivial mistakes . In one instance he mortally wounded an old lady with a candle instead of a candlestick , and afterwards attributes her death to a stone staircase . Nowcome senior is colonel and major at one aud tho same time ; Jack Belsize

is Jack on one page , and Charles on another ; Mrs . Raymond Gray , introduced as Emily , is suddenly re-christened Fanny , and Philip Fermor on one occasion becomes transformed into tho author's old hero Clive . A correspondent in the Notes and Queries says : " I have seen no reference to the mistake in the illustration of Charles Dickens '

edition of Dombey and Son . As the captain ' s saying is found every week on the cover of this paper , it seems the proper place to point out the cuiious error into which the artist fell in depicting him . Pacing o 209 we see that the captain has lost his left arm ; on turn , ing to p 428 the illustration shows the captain witb his right arm

amputated . It is stated that after the publication of Tennyson ' s poem " A Vision of Sin , " the Laureate received the following communication from Mr . Babbage , the arithmetician : — " Dear Sir , —I find in a recently published pcam from yonr pen , entitled ' A Vision of Sin , ' the following unwarrantable statement : —

' Every moment dies a man , Every moment ona is born . ' I need hardly point out to you that this calculation , if roirect , would tend to keep the sum total of the world's population in a state of perpetual equipoise , whereas it is a well-known farit that t ! ie said sum total is constantly on the increase . I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in the next edition of your excellent poem , the erroneous calculation to which I refer should be as follows : —

' Every moment dies a man , And one and a sixteenth is born . ' I may add that the exact figures are 1 ' 167 ; bnt something must of course be conceded to the laws of metre . I have the honour to be sir , yours sincerely , 0 . Babbage . " Here is another specimen of the matter-of-fact commentator . Nearly every reader of Shakespaare will be familiar with the lines in Hamlet : —

" Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well , When our deep plots do pall ; and that should teach us There ' s a divinity doth shape onr ends , Rough-hew them how we will . " This is how the critical Steevena comments upon the above pro-

Literary Blunders.

found and brilliant passage : — " Dr . Farmer informs me that these words are merely technical . A wool man , butcher , and dealer in skewers , lately observed to bim that his nephew ( an idle lad ) could only assist him in making them ; ' he conld rough hew them , bnt I was obliged to shape their ends . ' To shape the ends of wood skewers , that is , to point them , requires a degree of skill ; any ona

can rough hew them . Whoever recollects the profession of Shakes ' peare ' s father will admit that his son might be no stranger to such terms . I have frequently seen packages of wool pinn'd np with skewers . " A most singular blander was produced by the ingenious " Hermippus Redivivns , or the Sage ' s Triumph over Old Age and the

Grave . " The work was by Dr . Campbell , from the German of Johan Heinrich Cobausen , M . D ., and was a curious banter on the hermetic philosophy , and the universal medicine ; bnt the peculiar irony is so closely kept up throughout the admirable treatise , that it deceived for a long time the wise pandits of the day . According to Macrae , " his notion of the art of prolonging life by inhailing the breath of

young women was eagerly credited . A physician , who bad himself composed a treatise on health , was so influenced by it tbat he actually took lodgings at a female boarding school , tbat he might never be without a constant supply of the breath of young ladies . " The Rev . S . Baring Gould describes the Hermippus Radivivna as " a curious physics—medical examination of the extraordinary

manner in whioh he extended his life 115 years . " He further says : — " The whole of this strange work is built on a Roman inscription , said to have been fonnd in the seventeenth century , and figured by Thomas Reinsius . In English it is thus : —ToiEsoulapiaa and to health . Lucius Clodius Hermippus dedicates this who lived 115 years , 5 days on the breath of little girls , whicb , even after his

death , not a little astonishes physicians . Ye who follow protract yonr life in like manner . ' " " About twenty years ago , " said one of a number who were relating professional anecdotes , "I was employed with the Lippincotts . Thomas Hughes , Q . C , the author of Tom Brown ' s Schooldays , was at that time being lionized very extensively , and

when he reached Philadelphia , went of course to see the great publishing honse , and was shown all over the place . After he had inspected the whole establishment , and expressed his surprise and gratification , the head of the honse took him by the arm , and said : — ' Now Mr . Hughes , I want to show you one of the greatest publications—Allibone ' s Dictionary of English Literature . It contains the name of and some information about every anthor of

any account in England and America . Now let us see , for examp le * what it says about Thomas Hughes ? So he turned to H , and lo ! the name of the author of Tom Brown ' s Schooldays was not to be found . It ia one of the oddest coincidences I know of that the only serious omission in this great work should have been discovered in this accidental way . " " Bcok of Rarities , " by Bro . EDWARD ROBERTS P . M .

Owing to Mr . Edward Terry ' s visit to Australia , Mr . H . J . Brickwell has accepted the position of business manager at tbe Comedy Theatre . For some time past this gentleman has been devoting his leisure hours to the compiling of a theatrical code whioh he hopes to issue during the present year . Mr . Briokwell is also completing his arrangements for a syndicate whioh is being formed to exploit

Mr . E . J . Lonnen , the popular comedian , late of the Gaiety , on his return from Australia in the autumn . Mr . Lonnen will be supported by a powerful company of experienced artistes in a class of entertainment in whioh ha has made himself particularly popular , and in whioh it is believed ho will have opportunities of making still greater success than heretofore .

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