Chapter XI: Part 11

Fenderson heard a good joke the other day about a man who had two cork legs, the key of the same being that he was born in Cork. Fenderson determined to spring it at the supper table. And this is how he did it: “I heard a funny thing to-day. It was about a man who had two cork legs, and he got along just as well as anybody else, and he suffered with cold feet, too. They were cork legs, you know, because he was born in Dublin. Good joke, eh? No? It doesn’t seem to be much of a joke, that’s a fact; but you’d ought to hear the fellows laugh when they heard it last night. I laughed myself, but there doesn’t seem to be much in it, after all. I guess the fun was in the way that chap told it.”

EVEN HOMER SOMETIMES NODS

Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.—HORACE.

_Jugurtha_

The effect of Mr. Longfellow’s fine poem, “Jugurtha,” is impaired by a curious mistake. The first of the two stanzas composing it are as follows:

“‘How cold are thy baths, Apollo!’
Cried the African monarch, the splendid,
As down to his death in the hollow,
Dark dungeons of death he descended,
Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended,
‘How cold are thy baths, Apollo!’”

As a matter of fact, Jugurtha’s exclamation when thrust into the cold, dark prison was “Heracles, how cold your [plural, _humon_] bath is!” (see Plutarch, _Marius_, c. 12). “Heracles” (the Greek form of Hercules) is the ordinary Greek interjection, not an address to a god. The most natural explanation of this odd mistake seems to be the following: Mr. Longfellow substituted the name of one god for another by a slip of the memory. When Apollo thus replaced Heracles, it was natural to make the further supposition that he was directly addressed, and that the ambiguous “your” was singular.

_Completing a Sentence_

Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, knew his Bible very well, from cover to cover, and drew upon it for philosophy and illustration with great facility. Only once in a great while was he caught tripping in this field. One such occasion was while the Senate was discussing the Chinese treaty of 1881. He quoted against the exclusion policy St. Paul’s declaration, “For God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth.”

Senator Miller, of California, exclaimed,—“Go on—quote the remainder of the sentence.”

“There is no more of it,” said Mr. Hoar.

“Oh yes there is,” rejoined Miller, “for the Apostle added to the words which the Senator had just quoted, ‘and hath determined the bounds of their habitation.’”

_Racine_ vs. _Voltaire_

When Louis Napoleon was in temporary exile in New York, he complied with the request of a young lady for his autograph in her album as follows:

“Le premier qui fut roi, fut un soldat heureux;
Qui sert bien son pays n’a pas besoin d’aïeux.
“LOUIS NAPOLÉON BONAPARTE.

“(_Racine._)
“NEW YORK, 10 June, 1837.”

The Prince and future Emperor thus attributed to Racine a couplet which should have been credited to Voltaire.

_A Chinese Cycle_

A Chinese scholar has pointed out that when Tennyson wrote “Locksley Hall” he could not have been aware of the exact nature of a Chinese cycle. “Better,” he exclaimed, “fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.” It being granted that Cathay is poetical English for China, it was stated, with the complete concurrence of an eminent mandarin who was present, that a Chinese cycle consists, and has for some centuries consisted, of sixty years. By these cycles the lapse of time has been computed in China during the whole of the present dynasty. The poet, therefore, was less complimentary to Europe than he probably intended to be when he said that fifty years of Europe was only equal to sixty years of China.

_Watts_ vs. _Cowper_

Few hymns are better known than Cowper’s “Light Shining Out of Darkness,” commencing

“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.”

In the “Student’s English Literature,” published by Murray in 1901, this is part of what is said of Isaac Watts:

“His hymns are well known to all Englishmen—few hymns can surpass ‘God moves in a mysterious way’ for a certain majesty of simple sound.”

This ascription to Watts of Cowper’s stately and sonorous hymn is very strange, to say the least.

_Bret Harte’s Astronomy_

There is a little discrepancy in the poem by Mr. Bret Harte, entitled “Her Letter,” beginning with the lines:

“I’m sitting alone by the fire,
Dressed just as I came from the dance.”

A girl in New York writes to her lover, who is supposed to be a miner in the far West. Yet, in the concluding stanza, she bids him good night, as follows:

“Good-night, here’s the end of my paper,
Good-night, if the longitude please:
For, perhaps, while I’m wasting my taper,
Your sun’s climbing over the trees.”

It is a little difficult to imagine how it could be sunrise in California at the conclusion of an evening party in New York, even though the dancers had prolonged their amusement until compelled to “chase the glowing hours with flying feet.” And, furthermore, this is improbable because the writer is represented as writing by artificial light. Evidently “Old Folinsbee’s Daughter” had had more training in sentiment than in astronomy.

_Wolseley’s Mistake_

Lord Wolseley ends his “Decline and Fall of Napoleon” with the following words:

“So wrote the finger on the wall about the proud King of Babylon. It might with equal truth have been written of him whose overthrow at Waterloo is thus described in verse:

“‘Since he miscalled the morning star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.’”

Wolseley’s assumption that Byron referred to the defeat at Waterloo is incorrect. The “Ode to Napoleon” was written in 1814, and the date of Waterloo is June, 1815. The reference is to Napoleon’s abdication in April, 1814, and the “sullen isle” in stanza xiv, is Elba, not St. Helena.

_Johnson’s Error_

The great lexicographer in dealing with the word Confection has the following:

“Of best things then what world shall yield confection,
To liken her?”—SHAKESPEARE.

If we may trust the concordances, there is nothing of the sort in the works of Shakespeare. In Latham’s edition of the Dictionary it is omitted. Johnson can hardly be charged with inventing quotations; but he often trusted his memory in a very haphazard fashion.

_Milton’s Italian_

Mark Pattison, in his Milton (“English Men of Letters”) series, says,—

“To the poems of the Horton period belong also the two pieces ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso,’ and ‘Lycidas.’ He was probably in the early stage of acquiring the language when he superscribed the two first poems with their Italian titles. For there is no such word as ‘penseroso,’ the adjective formed from ‘pensiero’ being ‘pensieroso.’ Even had the word been written correctly, its signification is not that which Milton intended,—viz., thoughtful or contemplative, but anxious, full of cares, carking.”

_Milton as a Botanist_

Milton was in error when he wrote,—

“Thick as Autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallambrosa.”

The trees of Vallambrosa, being pines, do not fall thick in autumn, and the brooks, consequently, are not strewed with them.

_Dante as a Naturalist_

Dante says in the “Inferno” (Canto xvii),—“As at times the wherries lie on shore, that are part in water and part on land, the beaver adjusts himself to make his war,” etc.

“Lo bevero s’assetta a far sua guerra.”

_Bevero_ should be _lontra_, the otter. The latter answers to the description, seeking his prey half on land and half in water, and living on the fish he cunningly catches, whereas the subsistence of the beaver is drawn exclusively from the vegetable kingdom. The otter is carnivorous; the beaver derives his nutriment from the bark of deciduous trees, preferably, as shown by their cuttings, birch, poplar, willow, maple, and ash, together with the roots of the pond lily, and also the coarse grasses that grow on the margins of their ponds.

_Cassio or Iago?_

John Hill Burton, in the _Book-Hunter_, speaking of purloining from books leaves of whose intrinsic value the owner is ignorant, says,—

“The notions of the collector about such spoil are the converse of those which Cassio professed to hold about his good name, for the scrap furtively removed is supposed in no way to impoverish the loser, while it makes the recipient rich indeed.”

It is not Cassio, but Iago who says that good name in man and woman is the immediate jewel of their souls, the loss of which enriches not others, but makes them poor indeed. The error is worth correcting; for there is no more exquisite touch of art, no finer exhibition of subtle and profound knowledge of man than the teaching by the lips of this supreme scoundrel the wide difference between the intellectual perception of a moral sentiment and its actual possession.

_In Time of Peace Prepare for War_

When the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred by the University of Pennsylvania upon President Roosevelt, he made an address in acknowledgment of the distinction, and in honor of the date, which was Washington’s birthday anniversary, in the course of which he gave out the subjoined maxim as one of those in which Washington in his Farewell Address bequeathed to his fellow countrymen for their instruction and guidance:

“To be prepared for war is the most effective means to promote peace.”

This maxim appears neither in Washington’s Farewell Address nor in any other speech or writing of the Father of his Country. The passage which President Roosevelt probably had in mind, and which he quoted from memory without verifying either its source or its exact language, occurs in Washington’s first annual address or message to Congress, delivered on January 8, 1790, nearly seven years before the Farewell Address was written. What Washington said about preparation for war was this:

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.”

The difference between the foregoing and the incorrect version presented at Philadelphia by Mr. Roosevelt is not merely verbal. Washington declared that adequate provision for the common defence was “one of the most” effective means of preserving peace. Washington as quoted by Mr. Roosevelt is made to declare unqualifiedly that such provision is the “most” effective means of promoting peace. The significance of the misquoted superlative is obvious.

_Collins_ vs. _Prior_

When Mr. Lowell was our Minister at the Court of St. James, he made an address on Coleridge, in Westminster Abbey, in the course of which he quoted the following couplet, attributing it to Collins,—

“Abra was with him ere he spoke her name,
And if he called another, Abra came.”

The lines thus incorrectly quoted are by Prior, and will be found in his “Solomon.” The monarch is speaking of a female slave who had a real affection for him,—

“_And, when I called another, Abra came._”

_Gladstone’s Heber_

Mr. Gladstone, in his well-known article, entitled “Kin Beyond Sea,” misquoted the couplet from Heber’s “Palestine.” Instead of the lines,—

“No workman steel, no ponderous hammers rung,
Like some tall palm the stately fabric sprung”—

as incorrectly given by Mr. Gladstone, they should read,—

“No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung,
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.”

_Balboa_

Why is it that well-informed people so persistently forget the name of the man who first discovered the Pacific Ocean? Keats, “on looking into a volume of Chapman’s Homer” thought of the oceans and the stars, and sang,—

“Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken,
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He gazed at the Pacific; all his men
Gazed at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent upon a peak in Darien.”

Next came the German Emperor, crediting Sir Francis Drake with, having first seen the “great water.” For the benefit of such as fall into this error, it may be stated that the first European to see the Pacific Ocean from the American continent was Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, who beheld it from the eminence now known as Culebra, about half way across the Isthmus of Panama. Neither Cortez nor Sir Francis Drake, had any share in its achievement.

_Cenotaph_

A Boston journal quoted from a letter of the Rev. W. C. McCoy on a newly dedicated monument as follows: “The moss-grown cenotaphs of Ancient Roman valor held no dust more sacred than do the unmarked graves where sleep your honored dead to-day.” This would be very fine were it not for the erroneous and misleading use of one word. A cenotaph happens to be a monument erected at some place other than the spot where sleep the bones of him whose valor it illustrates.

_Bishop Ken’s Doxology_

A sermon of the late Rev. Dr. T. De Witt Talmage has this glowing passage:

“When Cromwell’s army went into battle, he stood at the head of them one day, and gave out the long-metre Doxology to the tune of the “Old Hundred,” and that great host, company by company, regiment by regiment, battalion by battalion, joined in the Doxology:

“‘Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.’

“And while they sang they marched, and while they marched they fought, and while they fought they got the victory.”

It seems a pity to destroy a good story, but chronology is very despotic. Oliver Cromwell died in 1658. Bishop Ken, who has always been credited with this grand doxology, was born in 1637, and was then, therefore, only about twenty-one years old. Hymnologists give 1697 as the year in which Bishop Ken wrote the Doxology as the last verse of his morning and evening hymns. This would place the composition about half a century after Cromwell’s last battle in the civil war, and some forty years after his death.

_St. Paul to the Ephesians_

In the first edition of Dombey and Son (ch. xii.), Dr. Blimber, the master of a select school at Brighton, is made to say to one of his offending pupils, “Johnson will repeat to me to-morrow morning, before breakfast, without book, and from the Greek Testament, the first chapter of the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians.” In imposing this penalty, the pompous pedagogue overlooked the fact that there is but one Epistle to the Ephesians in the New Testament. Mr. Dickens’s attention must have been awakened to his error, as it was corrected in subsequent editions.

_Byron’s Greek_

In Prof. Albert H. Smyth’s “Life of Bayard Taylor” occurs this sentence: “At the Piræus Taylor saw Mrs. Black, ‘The Maid of Athens,’ to whom Byron sang in impossible and ungrammatical Greek.”

The allusion is evidently to the concluding line of the stanzas,

Ζωή μου σᾶς ἀγαπῶ,

which means simply, “My life, I love thee.”

Ought not Professor Smyth to have stayed his pen from this unnecessary impeachment of Byron’s knowledge of Greek, when he remembered that the poet had lived on familiar terms with Greeks long before he went to fight and die for the independence of their famous land? The line given above is colloquial modern Greek, exactly suited to the character of the poem, and was not intended for ancient classic Greek.

_Triple Error_

In the “Heart of Midlothian” (ch. 1.) is the following passage respecting Effie Deans:

“She amused herself with visiting the dairy, in which she had so long been assistant, and was near discovering herself to May Hettly, by betraying her acquaintance with the celebrated receipt for Dunlop cheese, that she compared herself to Bedreddin Hassan, whom the vizier, his father-in-law, discovered by his superlative skill in composing cream-tarts with pepper in them.”

Brewer, in his “Reader’s Hand Book,” points out several errors in these few lines: (1) “cream-tarts” should be _cheese-cakes_; (2) the charge was that he made cheese-cakes _without_ putting pepper in them, and not that he made “cream-tarts _with_ pepper;” (3) it was not the vizier, his father-in-law, but his mother, the widow of Noureddin, who made the discovery, and why? For the best of all reasons—because she herself had taught her son the receipt of Damascus. See “Arabian Nights” Noureddin Ali.

Brewer also shows that Thackeray, in “Vanity Fair” (ch. 3) repeated at second-hand Scott’s allusion to Bedreddin, instead of quoting directly from the original. He makes Rebecca Sharp say, “I ought to have remembered the pepper which the Princess of Persia puts in the cream-tarts in the ‘Arabian Nights.’” Aside from this repetition of Scott’s blunders, it was not a princess, but Bedreddin Hassan who was the confectioner. Nor could it have been a princess of Persia, for Bedreddin’s mother was the widow of the vizier of Balsora, at that time quite independent of Persia.

_Mistakes of Our Best Writers_

Besides the rhetorical blunders and inaccuracies of our best writers, their pages are sprinkled with violations of the plainest grammatical rules. Take, by way of illustration, a few specimens from some of the masters of the English language:

Blair, the rhetorician, says, “The boldness, freedom, and variety of our blank verse _is_ infinitely more favorable than rhyme to all kinds of sublime poetry.”

Latham, the philologist, says, “The following facts _may_ or have been _adduced_ as reasons on the other side.”

Addison says, “I do not mean that I think _any one_ to blame for taking due care of _their_ health.”

Junius says, “_Both_ minister and magistrate _is_ compelled to choose between _his_ duty and _his_ reputation.”

Dryden says, “The reason is perspicuous why no French plays when translated _have_ or ever can _succeed_ on the English stage.”

Gibbon says, “The _use_ of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and injustice _were_ often subservient to the propagation of the faith.” And again, “The _richness_ of her arms and apparel _were_ conspicuous in the foremost ranks.”

Macaulay says, “The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age _was_ assiduously studied in Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries.”

THE STRETCHES OF POETIC LICENSE

In descriptive poems which are written to embalm the story of actual occurrences, our poets sometimes draw upon their fertile fancies for the materials they employ, accepting flying rumors of incidents or experiences, the verification or contradiction of which is within easy reach. Take, for instance, such as relate to our recent sectional conflict. Whittier says, in “Barbara Frietchie,” in speaking of the flag,—

“In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.”

And farther on he says,—

“She leaned far out on the window sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.”

That there is no semblance of truth in these statements is proved by numerous witnesses. One of them, a near relative of Dame Barbara, testifies thus: “As to the waving of the Federal flag in the face of the rebels by Dame Barbara on the occasion of Stonewall Jackson’s march through Frederick, truth requires me to say that Stonewall Jackson, with his troops, did not pass Barbara Frietchie’s residence at all, but passed up what is popularly called ‘the Mill Alley,’ about three hundred yards above her residence, then passed due west toward Antietam, and thus out of the city.” “Again,” continues the witness, “the poem by Whittier represents the venerable lady (then ninety-six years of age) as nimbly ascending to her attic window and waving her small Federal flag defiantly in the face of Stonewall Jackson’s troops. Now what is the fact? At the period referred to, Dame Barbara was bedridden and helpless, and had lost the power of locomotion. She could only move as she was moved, by the help of her attendants.”

So much for one of the best of poets as a chronicler. Mr. T. B. Read, in describing Sheridan’s ride from Winchester to Cedar Creek, on the gigantic black horse whose neck, in the language of Job, was clothed with thunder, and the glory of whose nostrils was terrible, says,—

“——Striking his spurs with a terrible oath,
He dashed down the line ’mid a storm of huzzas;
And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because
The sight of the master compelled it to pause.”

It is a matter of acceptation among military men that the retreat had been checked, the lines re-formed, and the tide of battle turned by General Wright before Sheridan’s arrival on the scene of action. All he had to do was to encourage with cheering words, and to infuse into the shattered ranks his own sanguine spirit.

Bret Harte undertook to make a hero of John Burns of Gettysburg, who “stood there heedless of jeer and scoff, calmly picking the rebels off.” Gettysburg people, who know whereof they speak, say that so far from Burns playing the hero in the manner indicated, he was driving his cows, and unwittingly got within the Confederate lines. Realizing his unpleasant position, he scampered homeward in such haste that he scratched his face and tore his clothes in the brambles—the nearest approach to bullet marks of which he could boast.

Even when our poets turn back to earlier periods for inspiration, their little discrepancies are not beyond danger of exposure. In Mr. Longfellow’s beautiful “Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem, at the Consecration of Pulaski’s Banner,” he says,—

“When the dying flame of day
Through the chancel shot its ray,
Far the glimmering tapers shed
Faint light on the cowled head;
And the censer burning swung
Where, before the altar, hung
The blood-red banner, that with prayer
Had been consecrated there.
And the nuns’ sweet hymn was heard the while,
Sung low in the dim, mysterious aisle.”

After this introduction follows the hymn:

“Take thy banner! May it wave,” etc.,

and after the hymn, the couplet:

“The warrior took that banner proud,
And it was his martial cloak and shroud!”

There was no sisterhood, properly speaking, at Bethlehem during the Revolution. The inmates of the Sisters’ House were under the care of a Mother Superior, but they were bound by no vows, and were free to leave if they wished. They abounded in good works, were full of the spirit of devotion, and had morning and evening prayers in the chapel. But there was no cowled head in that little chapel, no swinging censer, no altar; these were not in accord with the Moravian mode of worship. Famous needlewomen were those good sisters, and they excelled in embroidery. Pulaski, during a visit to Bethlehem, admired their work, and ordered for his legion a cavalry guidon of crimson silk. When finished, he paid for it; it was a commonplace business transaction, with no thought, on either side, of presentation or consecration. The noble Pole was mortally wounded at the siege of Savannah and was buried in the Savannah River. Whether the guidon, miscalled a banner, was used as his shroud, those who have seen it in the rooms of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, can testify.

Even the novelists claim indulgence in this sort of license. In that fanciful story of Bulwer-Lytton, “The Last Days of Pompeii,” for example, he says (Book v. ch. vi.),—

“The air was now still for a few minutes; the lamp from the gate streamed out far and clear; the fugitives hurried on—they gained the gate—they passed by the Roman sentry; the lightning hashed over his livid face and polished helmet, but his stern features were composed even in their awe! He remained erect and motionless at his post. That hour itself had not animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of Rome into the reasoning and self-acting man. There he stood amid the crashing elements; he had not received the permission to desert his station and escape.”

In a foot-note the novelist adds,—

“The skeletons of more than one sentry were found at their posts.”

Very pretty. As Mrs. Browning says, “Beautiful indeed, and worthy of acceptation.” What a pity that we have to fall back upon the mistrustful “Se non è vero è ben trovato.” Not that we question the likelihood of such stern and unflinching obedience of orders in any age of the world, but we want trustworthy evidence. In the case of the boy “who stood on the burning deck,” commemorated by Mrs. Hemans, we have such evidence. It is a feature of British naval history that Casabianca, the young son of the admiral of the Orient, at the battle of the Nile, stood at his post, and perished when the flames of the burning ship reached the magazine.

Moore says in his “Irish Melodies”:

“The sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turned when he rose.”

Very pretty as a poetic fancy, but as a matter of fact the sunflower does not turn either to the rising or the setting sun. It receives its name solely because it resembles a picture sun. It is not a heliotrope or turnsun.

Female birds in general do not sing, but as poets are not naturalists, they fall into a common error, as the following quotations show:

“And in the violet-embroidered vale
Where the love-lorn Nightingale
Nightly to thee _her_ sad song mourneth well.”
—MILTON, “Comus.”

“And Philomel _her_ song with tears doth steep.”
—SPENCER, “Shepherd’s Calendar.”

“But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet loud music out of _her_ instrumental throat, that it might make mankind think miracles had not ceased.”—WALTON, “Angler.”

“Abandoned to despair _she_ sings
_Her_ sorrows through the night; and on the bough
Sole sitting, still at every dying fall,
Takes up again _her_ lamentable strain.”
—THOMSON, “Seasons.”

MISQUOTATION

The inscription on the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral, closes with the notice to the reader, “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.” In Murray’s “Hand Book of London” is a blunder of too frequent recurrence elsewhere, the substitution of _quæris_ for _requiris_.

Bishop Berkeley wrote, “Westward the course of empire takes its way.” In the epigraph to Bancroft’s “History of the United States” it is “the star of empire,” a change that is frequently repeated.

In _Measure for Measure_ the Duke Yincentio says,—

“My business in this state
Made me a looker-on here in Vienna.”

Many people in quoting this, say Venice in place of Vienna.

Gray says in the “Elegy,” “They kept the noiseless tenor of their way,” usually quoted “the even tenor.”

Pope says, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” Often misquoted “knowledge.”

In his “Satires,” Pope says, “Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.” But Pope himself, in his translation of the Odyssey, says, “Speed the parting guest,” so that we are left to take our choice.

In connection with this dual reading may be recalled a quotation which is a misquotation in one way, but not in another. In Habakkuk it is written, “Write the vision and make it plain, that he may run that readeth it.” This is commonly turned into the phrase “that he who runs may read.” But Cooper says in his “Tirocinium,”—

“Shine by the side of every path we tread
With such a lustre, he that runs may read.”

Butler says in “Hudibras,” “He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.” Many continue to say, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still,” regardless of the difference in sense as well as in words.

_Lorenzo_ says, in the “Merchant of Venice,” “The man that hath no music in himself,” etc. Commonly changed to “music in his soul.”

The line in Milton’s “Lycidas,” “fresh woods and pastures new,” is usually misquoted, “fresh fields,” etc.

Prior’s “fine by degrees and beautifully less” is usually rendered “small by degrees,” etc.

Francis Quarles wrote:

“Our God and soldier we alike adore,
E’en at the brink of ruin, not before;
After deliverance both alike requited,
Our God’s forgotten and our soldier’s slighted.”

Usually quoted:

“God and the doctor we alike adore.”

The latest editor of Burns does a good service by correcting an absurdity in the most familiar song in the language which has puzzled every generation since Burns’s death, namely:

“We’ll tak’ a right gude willie-waught
For Auld Lang Syne.”

He says “willie-waught” is neither Scotch nor sense; that the hyphen is simply misplaced, and the line should read:

“We’ll tak’ a right gude-willie waught—”

_i.e._, good-will draught. This is obvious when pointed out, for “gude-willie” and “ill-willie” are familiar compounds. But it is odd that every other editor should have servilely followed the misprint.

In the “Heart of Midlothian” (ch. 47), Scott says, “thus our simple and unpretending heroine had the merit of those peacemakers, to whom it is pronounced as a benediction, that they shall inherit the earth.” The Master said (Matt. v, 9), “Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.” It is “the meek” who shall inherit the earth.

Sir Walter Scott says in “The Antiquary” (ch. x), “The philosopher who appealed from Philip inflamed with wine to Philip in his hours of sobriety, did not choose a judge so different as if he had appealed from Philip in his youth to Philip in his old age.” This “philosopher” was a poor old woman.

FALSITIES AND FALLACIES

_False Ascription_

Büchmann in his “Geflügelte Worte” (“Winged Words”), Berlin, 1882, says, “Universally, yet without the least warrant, the following lines are ascribed to Martin Luther:

“Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib, und Gesang,
Der bleibt ein Narr sein Lebenlang.”

“Who loves not wine, wife, and song,
Remains a fool his whole life long.”

Weib, wife, was originally written weiber, women. It was changed by Th. Weyler in his “Thinkers’ and Poets’ Words.”

Even the Luther Room in the Wartburg, says Büchmann, has the couplet on the wall. Its first appearance in literature was in 1775, in _Der Wandsbecker Bote_ of Matthias Claudius, a popular German writer, who incorporated it in a humorous toast or “health.” Roeseler (Berlin, 1873) credits Claudius with the authorship of the couplet, but according to Redlich (Hamburg, 1871), the author was John Henry Voss, who cited it in the _Muses’ Almanac_ (Hamburg, 1777), and repeated it in a published collection of his poems. When it appeared in the _Almanac_ the Hamburg pastors were so incensed at Voss’s slur upon Luther that they defeated his election as a teacher in the Johanneum.

_The Lentulus Letter_

The letter alleged to have been sent to the Senate of Rome by Publius Lentulus, “President of Judea in the reign of Tiberius Cæsar,” describing the person of Jesus Christ, is now generally admitted to have been written by a monk in the fourteenth century. In the works of the Greek historian, Nicephorus, who lived in that century, and whom Weismann considers a credulous, uncritical writer, is a description of the personal appearance of Jesus Christ, for which no authority is given, and which is said to be derived from the ancients. This passage bears a strong resemblance to the apocryphal letter of Lentulus, and possibly served as a basis for it. It is most likely that the letter was a Latin translation or adaptation of the description given by Nicephorus. Dr. Edward Robinson, after a thorough examination of the evidence, sums up the case very pointedly as follows: “In favor of the authenticity of the letter (Epistola Lentuli) we have only the purport of the inscription. There is no external evidence whatever. Against its authenticity we have the great discrepancies and contradictions of the inscription; the fact that no such person as Lentulus existed at the time and place specified, nor for many years before and after; the utter silence of history in respect to the existence of such a letter; the foreign and later idioms of its style; the contradiction in which the contents of the epistle stand with established historical facts, and the probability of its having been produced at some time not earlier than the eleventh century.”

The earliest appearance of the clumsy forgery was in the MS. writings of St. Anselm, who lived in the eleventh century. No Publius Lentulus can be identified as “President of Judea” in the reign of Tiberius. Judea had but two procurators in his reign, Valerius Gratus, from 16 to 27 A. D., and Pontius Pilate, from 27 to 37 A. D. Not only is there no contemporary witness in profane history to the appearance of Jesus, but there is none to his existence, except, perhaps, Josephus (“Antiquities,” xviii. 3). But even this has certainly been interpolated, and is regarded as spurious _in toto_ by some of the most careful scholars. In fact, it is generally acknowledged that there is no contemporary allusion to Christ in secular history—although some defend the genuineness of the passage relating to Him in Josephus. The earliest authentic allusion to the founder of Christianity is in Pliny’s famous letter to Trajan, and in the “Annals” of Tacitus—both written in the first quarter of the second century.

_Scott’s Fabrications_

Lockhart, in his “Life of Sir Walter Scott,” thus refers to the source of a large number of the mottoes in the Waverly Novels:

It was in correcting his proof-sheets of the “Antiquary” that Scott first took to equipping his chapters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On one occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him, to hunt for a particular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did as he was bid, but did not succeed in discovering the lines. “Hang it, Johnnie,” cried Scott, “I believe I can make a motto sooner than you will find one.” He did so accordingly; and from that hour, whenever memory failed to suggest an appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the inexhaustible mines of “Old Play” or “Old Ballad,” to which we owe some of the most exquisite verses that ever flowed from his pen.

_William Tell_

Baring-Gould long ago demolished what was left of the Tell myth. Nevertheless, at the Schiller centennial, in Berlin, it was proposed to commemorate the occasion by giving to one of the principal streets of the suburb of Rixdorf the name of that William Tell whom Schiller contributed so much to glorify by his drama. Whereupon several of the town councillors arose and called attention to the fact that the Tell of Schiller and of patriotic Helvetian tradition had been shown to be a myth, not only by trustworthy investigators outside of Switzerland, but so acknowledged by Swiss antiquarians themselves.

_The Finding of Moses_

Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, the distinguished Anglo-Dutch painter and Royal Academician in London, has put an end to our illusion that Moses as a child was found in the bulrushes. Sir Lawrence painted a picture of “The Finding of Moses,” which proved to be one of the features of the Royal Academy exhibition, and on attention having been drawn to the fact that there are no bulrushes in the painting, Sir Lawrence immediately proved that there were no such things as bulrushes in Egypt, and especially not on the Nile. Sir Lawrence explains that he had assured himself of this fact while in Egypt, which he had visited in order to get the local color before painting the picture, which had already been purchased by Sir John Arid, the constructor of the great Nile dam. The picture possesses special interest for Sir John Arid in view of the fact that it is his own daughter who sat for the figure of Pharaoh’s daughter. Our illusion about the bulrushes seems to have originated in a faulty translation of the passage in Exodus xi. 3. The bulrush of Egypt is the papyrus (_cyperus papyrus_).

_A Historic Phrase Disputed_

At a memorable anniversary banquet of the Veterans of the Mexican war, L. B. Mizner, of Solano, in the course of an eloquent address, took occasion to correct a fabrication which had passed into history, attributing to General Taylor, the hero of Buena Vista, the slang admonition, “A little more grape, Captain Bragg.” Such language was unworthy of the man and the historic moment when the result of the most desperate and memorable battle of the war was wavering in the balance, and nothing, said Mr. Mizner, would have been more foreign to the character of General Taylor in his manner in trying emergencies than such an exclamation. “Holding the position of an interpreter on the staff of General Taylor,” said the speaker, “I was seated on my horse immediately near him, when Captain Bragg dashed hurriedly up, saluted the General and reported, ‘General, I shall have to fall back with my battery or lose it.’ Several of his guns had already been dismounted, a large part of his horses killed, and about thirty of his men were prostrate on the heath. On receiving the report General Taylor turned on his horse and surveyed the situation for a few seconds—he required no field-glass, for the scene of conflict was not far removed—and the reply was, ‘Captain Bragg, it is better to lose a battery than a battle.’ This was the interview on which was based the famous slang phrase that was never uttered by the General to whom it was imputed. Captain Bragg returned to his battery with renewed determination, and by the efforts of that gallant officer and his brave command the tide of battle was turned, and the greatest victory of the war was won.”

_The Maelstrom_

When the elders of the generation now passing away read Schiller’s tragic story of “The Diver,” they recall the teachings in their childhood’s geographies of the Maelstrom off the northwestern coast of Norway. A late report on the fisheries of the Lofoten Archipelago says that the Maelstrom is only one of many whirlpools between the islands, and that it is so lightly regarded by the sailors that they pass and repass it in their little vessels at all stages of the tide, only avoiding it in fogs or storms. So far from drawing whales into its vortex, it is a favorite resort of the fish, and the fishermen reap a rich piscatorial harvest from its bosom. Even in stormy weather the rate of the tide does not exceed six miles an hour.

_Don’t Give Up the Ship_

Among famous battle sayings is the well-known phrase attributed to the dying Lawrence. Some years ago a daughter of the late Major Benjamin Russell, for many years editor of the _Boston Centinel_, a bright, interesting woman and a brilliant raconteur, told numerous anecdotes of her father, who was a strongly individualized and notable character for a long period. Among them was the following:

“The battle between the _Chesapeake_ and the _Shannon_ took place just off the Massachusetts coast, and a sailor in some way got ashore and hurried to Boston with the news. It was in the night and he went straight to the _Centinel_ office, where he found Major Russell, to whom he told the story, including the death of Lawrence. ‘What were his last words?’ said the major. ‘Don’t know,’ said the man. ‘Didn’t he say, “Don’t give up the ship?”’ ‘Don’t know,’ said the man. ‘Oh, he did,’ said the major, ‘I’ll make him say it’—and he did—so much for history.”

At the time of the battle of Allatoona Pass, General Sherman sent a dispatch to General Corse, saying, “Hold Allatoona, and I will assist you.” But the genius of history, with his facile pen, made Sherman say, “Hold the fort, for I am coming.”

_Specific Gravity_

Considering the vigorous condition of the myth of the Connecticut Blue Laws, in spite of the repeated exposure of its falsity, this gem from “A General History of Connecticut,” written by the original Blue Law manufacturer, the Rev. Samuel Peters, is valuable. It is quoted in Goodspeed’s catalogue, and is part of the veracious author’s description of the Connecticut River:

“Two hundred miles from the Sound is a narrow of five yards only, formed by two shelving mountains of solid rock, whose tops intercept the clouds. Through this chasm are compelled to pass all the waters which in the time of floods bury the northern country. Here water is consolidated without frost, by pressure, by swiftness, between the pinching sturdy rocks to such a degree of induration that an iron crow floats smoothly down its current—here iron, lead, and cork have one common weight; here steady as time and harder than marble, the stream passes, irresistible if not swift as lightning.”

_Pocahontas_

The rescue of Captain Smith by Pocahontas, according to his assertion, took place in 1607, when she was a child not quite ten years of age. No mention was made of it until eight years afterwards, and the first circumstantial account of it was not published until seventeen years later, when it appeared in Smith’s “General Historie of Virginia.” According to the 1624 folio, Smith’s narrative of the tableau in which he was a central figure runs thus:

“A long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powhatan; then as many as could, layd hands on him [Smith], dragged him to them, and thereon layd his head, and being ready with their clubs to beate out his braines, Pocahontas, the King’s dearest daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death; whereat the Emperor was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her, bells, beads, & copper; for they thought him as well of all occupations as themselves. For the King himselfe will make his owne robes, shoes, bowes, arrowes, pots; plant, hunt, or doe anything so well as the reste.”

Captain Smith’s “True Relation” was published in England in 1608, and his “Map of Virginia,” with memoranda of his observations, in 1612. In neither of them, nor in contemporary writings, such as the narrative of Wingfield, the first President of the Colony, is there any reference to his deliverance from savage clubbing. Smith’s first reference to it was in 1816 in a letter addressed to the Queen in behalf of “the Lady Rebecca,” or Pocahontas. The outward and visible motive of the invention was commendable enough. In the earnest expression of his regard for her, and of his acknowledgment of her touching friendship for him, he found the surest medium for the promotion of her welfare in attracting to her the special sympathy and attention of the English Court. Whether or not he was too gallant to seek prestige for himself, it is certain that he had little need of it, for his whole life was crowded with strange adventure.

_The Penn Treaty_

Our great painters sometimes usurp the functions of the historian, but with their anachronisms and audacities they do more to perpetuate the memory of scenes which never occurred than tradition-mongers and story-tellers are capable of doing. The apocryphal character of some of the scenes in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington has often been noted. West’s familiar painting of Penn’s treaty with the Indians under the elm at Shackamaxon is a notable example of this class. As a mere work of art it has been subjected to scornful criticism, because of its improbable groupings, and, as Mr. Bancroft says, “the artist, faithful neither to the Indians nor to Penn, should have no influence on history.” As to the conference, it has been utterly demolished by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. No treaty of amity was made in 1682. The earliest formal agreement to live in friendship and peace, on record, was in 1701, and that was made, not with the Delawares, but with the interior tribes,—the Susquehannas, Minnequas, and Conestogas. Penn was a methodical man, and careful to preserve the evidences of his purchases of lands from the Indians. They are to be found in the minutes of the Provincial Council and in the books of the Recorders of Deeds in the various counties of the Province. But the treaty of 1682, if there had been such an agreement, was of immeasurably more value than any of them. It was a covenant for quiet possession of those lands which might thereafter be acquired under covenant of title. Conceding the great importance of the treaty, it can scarcely be conceived that all proof connected with it should be allowed to perish. There is nothing to be found in the Archives of Pennsylvania, in the writings of William Penn himself, or of his friends and contemporaries, to show that such an event ever took place. The only plea under which it can be sheltered is a letter preserved in the State records at Harrisburg, under date of April 21, 1682, which Penn gave to Lieutenant-Governor Markham previous to the first voyage, and was addressed to the Indians, offering them peace, friendship, and protection. There is an endorsement upon this letter, stating that Thomas Holme, his Surveyor-General, “did read this letter to the Indians,” and as he lived in the house near the elm which stood where the monument has since been erected, this circumstance may have given early currency to the Penn treaty story, which has since been strengthened by West’s picture. Holme probably did call the Indians together beneath the great elm, as it was a spot likely to be selected for the purpose, and there read them the letter from Penn, month of August following, but this is all there ever was of a treaty.

_The Good Old Times_

What fallacies and sophistries are comprehended in that oft-repeated phrase, “The good old times.” There are still people who sigh for the grand old days of Good Queen Bess! Glorious days, truly, when the common people lived like swine and starving wretches were hung for stealing a loaf; when the filthy rushes on palace floors bred pestilence; when gluttony and drunkenness and brutality were masked under courtly manners; when conversation among the highest class was spiced with profanity and vulgarity; when the coin was clipped and debased; when the whole kingdom was overrun with thieves and highwaymen; when royal usurpations and proclamations assumed the force of law; and when the Crown compelled plunder of church property, iniquitous taxation, coercion of juries, and arbitrary imprisonment. In our daily life we are in the enjoyment of material comforts and conveniences, at home, in business, in travel, in distant communication, in the market, in commerce, in government, the cheapest of which the royal revenues of Queen Bess could not have purchased. Edmund Burke lamented that the age of chivalry passed away with Marie Antoinette. He forgot that her Court was itself grossly immoral, and the passionate admirers of chivalry seem to forget that the knights were not all Sidneys or Bayards. St. Palaye says in his “Memoirs of Chivalry” that never was there greater corruption of manners than in the times of knight-errantry,—never was the empire of debauchery more universal. St. Louis discovered a sink of iniquity close to his own tent in the most holy of the crusades. The intelligent reader of “Ivanhoe” knows full well that the thrilling scene between the Templar Bois-Guilbert and Rebecca, as she stood upon the verge of the parapet ready for the fatal plunge, is not a mere fancy sketch. How few ever stop to consider why the most honorable order of British knighthood is called the Order of the Bath. Dean Stanley says “it is because the knights who enlisted in the defense of right against wrong, truth against falsehood, honor against dishonor, were laid in a bath on the evening before they were admitted to the Order, and thoroughly washed, in order to show how bright and pure ought to be the lives of those who engage in a noble enterprise.” What gave the symbol special significance was the fact that it was the one wash of a lifetime. Dr. Playfair, in speaking of the causes of epidemics, says, “Think of 33 generations, who, like Oppian, never washed at all!”

_Shakespeare’s Defiance of Historical Fact_

The audacity of Shakespeare in constructing the plots of certain of his plays, in “defiance of the possibilities of history and the capacities of human nature,” has been sharply commented upon by Dr. Van Buren Denslow and other recent writers. Attention has been drawn to the fact that at no period in the administration of the civil law in Italy during the Middle Ages could the validity of the bond given to Shylock by Antonio, in the “Merchant of Venice,” have been made the subject of grave judicial investigation. Dr. Denslow thinks that the “literary audacity” shown in the “Merchant of Venice” pales before the “crude and barbarous vigor” with which all the legal ideas of the Danes and of every other race are defied in “Hamlet,” and all the possibilities of Scotch history, habits, and character are trampled under foot in “Macbeth.” Concerning “Hamlet” he says,—

It is contrary to the principles of human nature everywhere that the affection of parents for their brothers and sisters should exceed that for their children, and especially for their sons. This being true, the law of inheritance of thrones and rank, which is always fashioned after the law of descent of lands and goods, would necessarily require that when Claudius Hamlet, King of Denmark, the father of young Hamlet, died, leaving a son of full age, the crown should descend directly to the son, and if young Hamlet were a minor the late queen consort would be regent merely.

But the play of “Hamlet” opens one month after Claudius’s death, with his brother enthroned instead of his son, and the former queen consort to Claudius Hamlet is now consort to his surviving brother.

Furthermore, this impossible mis-descent is assumed by all the persons of the drama to be a mere matter of course, and the younger Hamlet’s entire calamity is pictured as being his loss of his father, with no allusion whatever to his loss of a throne.

It is not indicated whether the queen had been a queen jointly regnant with the elder Hamlet or a queen consort to him; but the assumption of the text is that her entire dignity had been derived through her husband, not that she was queen regnant in her own right nor that these successive husbands were mere kings consort, deriving their positions through her. The new king assumes all the attributes of a monarch, as if his brother’s death were absolutely all that was needed to make him king. He sends commissioners to Norway, and, according to the words of Rosencrantz, this king was assumed to have power to assure the crown to Hamlet at his death, and had done so before discovering whether his own incestuous marriage to his brother’s widow would have issue.

It was impossible that the Ghost should have assumed that his demise would have devolved the crown on his brother, impossible that young Hamlet should assume it, impossible that any portion of the people of Denmark or of any other kingdom on earth should have assumed it, and therefore impossible that the murder should be assumed to be commissible with the motive assigned, viz., of succeeding to the throne or the queen. She would have been only dowager queen and young Hamlet would have been king.

In “Macbeth” we have the like assumption on the part of a Scottish captain who has just won in a recent skirmish the title of “Thane,” that if he can assassinate his king, Duncan, though Duncan’s two athletic sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, survive and are in full health, yet Macbeth will then become king. No election or proclamation by the army, no renunciation by the heirs-apparent, no concurrence of the nobles is called for. To Lady Macbeth the succession appears assured as soon as she learns that Duncan is about to sleep under their roof. Nothing but murder is required to win a crown for a person between whom and the throne there stand two male heirs, both on the ground, one General Banquo, as distinguished as himself, and many earls and notables. Succession by assassination was at all times as foreign to the Scotch character and history as cannibalism. Hospitality to guests, and especially at night, is an inborn and deeply felt religion among the Scotch people. In a country where hospitality is thus sacred and assassination is a thing unknown, the hideousness of murdering a king by night to get his throne is a foreign travesty on its face. Such crimes might occur in Northern Africa or Southern Asia, and even in Italy. During the invasion of Italy by the Lombards events occurred from which the criminal atrocity and ferocity of Macbeth might have been drawn. But to locate them in Scotland at any period is simply to transfer to the atmosphere of the Highlands a kind and form of depravity which, while it never existed in its fulness anywhere, never found any type or suggestion among the Scots.

The tremendous energy of Shakespeare’s tragedies lifts them above dramatic criticism, and makes them the standard. Their heroes are not men, their heroines are not women. Both are survivals over into the modern stage-life of the artist-made gods of the mythological pantheon. Richard III. is a better Satan than Milton drew. Macbeth is a better Belial. It is a proof of the moral advance of this age that the good taste of society revolts from the notion that Shakespeare’s men were human. It does not greatly care for monstrosities of any kind in fiction, any more than for tortures in a theory of destiny. It prefers a drama whose characters are not revolting and do not rape for the graceful form of History.